#can handle the angst of this au

[fallentale4]

casually listening to music and then my angst-riddled brain comes up with a ninjago au that will absolutely destroy this fucking fandom.

[starry-bi-sky]

my body's aching like a knock-down drag-out

and my poor heart is an open wound A Childhood Friends Au snippet that very briefly delves into Danny's life post-accident. CW: Mild Mentions of Blood, Violence, VERY mild gore ig. Danny briefly recalls getting impaled during a fight.

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What they don't tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it can hurt. That it can hurt more than when you were alive. That when you die, the emotions you die with stick with you like a leech that just won't let go. That emotions are ugly little thorns that stick their barbs into you and grow beneath your skin; or, at least, whatever’s left of it. 

Danny is familiar with anger. It kept him warm in Gotham, when his parents weren't home from work and he and Jason were crowding Crime Alley with their presence. It kept him warm in Amity, when the fresh sting of moving was still needling into his heart and he wanted nothing more than to rip and tear into the closest person next to him.

He's familiar with violence. With fights. With death. He's seen people die in Crime Alley probably every day. From overdose, from gunshots, from stab wounds; anything that can kill, rest assured he's seen it. He's familiar with getting his own knuckles rough and bloody when other kids turn and bare their teeth at him and Jason; they're all just starving dogs stuck in a fighting pit, primed and ready to rip out each other's throats. 

Black eyes, stomped hands, bloody noses. You name it; he’s had it. Gotham is paved with the blood of her children, and Danny likes to imagine that when he was born, the doctors handed his mother a file and told her; “Take it. He’s going to need it for his teeth.” 

Danny’s mom (and dad, for that matter) was too busy trying to keep him and Jazz fed, so Danny stole the file from her drawer with Jazz’s help, and did it himself.  

He’s familiar with anger, he thought he was getting better at it these days. It doesn’t come to him as easily as it did before. Of course, that was before Jason died. 

Danny is less familiar with grief. Caring kills and Gotham kills the caring, so Danny cares very little about other people. Or he tries to. But grief hurts. His grief hurts. It hurts too much. It hurts like a bug trying to crawl out of his chest; like a rat chewing a hole through his heart. Some days he wants to dig his hands into his hair and split himself down the middle. Some days he just wants to scream. 

He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. 

He wants the whole city to hear him wailing, some days. It sticks itself in the back of his throat like bile, and Danny is one wrong retch away from letting it loose. It sticks in his lungs like all the tar he’s smoked in since he was nine. It pushes and aches at his temples, in his head, like his brain is trying to swell out of his skull. His thoughts becoming so loud they threaten to commandeer his tongue.  

He has no mouth, but he must scream. 

Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it hurts more than when you were alive. Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it’s violent. That it’s bloody. Or as bloody as it can be when everyone has no blood. 

Another thing they don’t tell you about being dead, is that it’s a lot like Gotham that way.

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies forget death itself. Blood comes easy, like water, and teeth are encouraged. Bring your own fangs to the fight. Dying is something you can just walk off. 

Danny’s been dead for three months. He can’t say he’s been walking it off easy. He’s perfected the art of turning his nails into claws since his heart was still beating, but he can’t say he’s perfected fighting other ghosts. 

Scrappy is just not enough. 

He feels like he’s back in Gotham again. Back in her death-shroud alleyways, fighting someone bigger than him. But there’s no Jason to watch his back, and Danny has to get himself out of there alone. Or he might just not get up at all. 

Black eyes, busted lips. It’s familiar to him like an old scent, Danny isn’t quite sure that he’s missed it. It’s more familiar than his fights with Dash. 

But there’s no one else who can do it but him. Not Sam, not Tucker. He can’t lose them too. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. His heart can’t take another break, he already feels like he’s going insane. 

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies fight like death themself. He learns why when Technus puts a street sign through his stomach one day. It pins him to the asphalt like a moth pinned by its wings. 

Danny claws at the metal like how an animal caught in a trap chews off its leg, and every move is blinding pain. He thinks he was howling, but it’s hard to tell. He couldn’t recognize the sound of his voice. 

He bleeds green. It mixes in black with the pitch blackhole in his heart, which throbs and twists and cries in time with his reckless panic. The finger-choking terror of dying again strangles out the air he doesn’t need. His blood evaporates, only to reabsorb into him. It just bleeds out again, cycling like a snake eating its own tail. 

Danny breaks his nails clawing at the metal, and eventually gets it in his mind to pull it out. So he does, and the end drips ectoplasm green as he gets to his feet. In red-vision, Danny sends the sign back with snarling, vicious fervor. The pain is irrelevant in his rage.

Only after the fight does the hole the pole left start to close. Danny doesn’t shift human until it’s gone. Unlike other injuries, a scar stays behind. Ugly; mottled, it aches for a week with every twist and stretch his body makes. He hates it. 

Being dead is agony. 

Every part of him is in pain. Every step, every word he speaks, everything he does, it is prerequisite with pain. The body is temporary, but the soul is forever, and death has carved into it with its freezing green hands and left him with never-ending heartache. It has torn from him and stolen what of him it could, and in return it’s left him with sorrow. 

His pain is his grief, and he’s sobbed in the safety of his room more times than he can count. It’s still as fresh as the day he heard the news of Jason’s death. He knows, instinctively, that it will stay fresh forever. 

In his room, Danny shoves his hands over his mouth and shrieks in whatever, muffled way he can into his pillow. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. He needs to be louder. He needs to be heard. He refuses to be. 

Being dead hurts. 

[keirientez]

translations for the second panel!

"Never knew what's going around in his head..."

"Don't lose hope on me so soon."

[lovesickeros]

☆ what a kind god, what a cruel god

{☆} characters zhongli {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings blood, light angst {☆} word count 0.5k

You are a kind God - with hands that heal instead of hurt. Words that forgive, instead of rightfully insult. The stories do little justice to the breadth of your gentleness, extending your love to the slimes that coalesce at your feet, eager to know the touch of the Divine. The birds that sing with the wind your praises from upon your shoulder.

But to him, your kindness is so very cruel.

They do not deserve it. He does not deserve it.

Your forgiveness should be a blessing after all they have done, but it feels like swallowing acid instead. It makes him feel sick and lightheaded, throat constricting until he struggles to breath against the weight of his sins, heavy upon his chest.

He wonders if your hatred would be easier. Even apathy, he thinks, would be preferable to the way your screams intermingle with the softness in your voice as you cradle his face between his hands within his dreams. Even in the waking world, your every word is shadowed by broken pleas, drowned in golden ichor as it rises up your throat, silencing your screams - it haunts him, and he cannot handle seeing the way you look at him in concern. He does not deserve it.

Try as he might, he cannot forgive himself. He does not think he ever can - not when he wakes to the feeling of blood on his hands, his tongue, filling his lungs until all he tastes and smells is blood.

If you had been a little less kind, he thinks he would find comfort in your cruelty.

Your anger would be a mercy.

But you are not. You are..kind. Gentle. So many things he once praised on bruised knees at an altar that towered far above him, drowned in gold and silks, every word he speaks a prayer to the most Divine. And he cannot bear the weight of knowing that he could have destroyed that part of you - he cannot bear knowing that he didn't, and you look upon the man who wore your blood like a second skin with a kindness that burns him like a hot iron.

He did not deserve such a loving God.

"..Zhongli?"

He pauses in his internal struggle, hands shaking on his lap. He clenches them into fists, blunt nails digging into his palms until they stop - yet you look at him with furrowed brows, concern gleaming in your eyes, and he feels sick all over again. But for you, he would do anything. Even if it meant pretending he did not feel like a monster in a mortals skin when you smiled at him like he was worth anything.

"Yes, Divine One?"

He chokes down the phantom taste of iron upon his tongue, forcing himself to smile to soothe the worries that crease your brow.

"You said you'd take me to the Chasm today."

He feels..relieved as the worry melts away from your features. It is the very least he can offer - he shall take upon your burdens, your worries, so that you may look upon Teyvat with love, and not fear. He will carry the sins of the many, so that you may look upon the nations with pride, and not horror.

It is all he can do, to ease the way his chest aches when you smile at him, hand tugging at his sleeve and forcing himself unsteadily to his feet.

He does not deserve you - but for today, he can pretend. Just a little while longer.

[nellandvoid]

and if i said i was working on my version of the better world au,,,,,,,,, with a main plot thread in 2012,,,,,,,, what then

[doodle17]

Guys guys GUYS

Modern Zelda AU where they're all in high-school, the hero and princess has pretty much become a legend in these modern times, yeah yeah, basic modern au stuff

But then! Suddenly! All hell breaks loose and these literal teenagers are thrown into a "destiny" that they believed was just a bedtime story for their whole lives, and suddenly the fate of their town, the WHOLE WORLD, all depends on them. And through this, they find out about their ancestors, and how THEY are going to be the ones that the next Era of Hyrule depends on.

They see their school, bits of their town and home absolutely destroyed and in complete ruin. Zelda is a stressed out girl who can't even get through a test without breaking down, and now she has to awaken an ancestral power to save her family? And Link, who used to be just a regular kid, has to take a legendary sword that's been locked in a museum for the past hundred years, and go fight an actual demon to protect his friends?

Would that be fucked up or what

[morporkian-cryptid]

I'm getting overwhelmed again with wanting to rewrite the entirety of Lupin III - Goodbye Partner as a fic my own way, because I am still salty about how Jigen's betrayal was handled and I am pretty sure I could do a better job than TMS did (hell, they handled that same premise better in Seven Days Rhapsody, and it was a B plot!!)

Except I can't do that because 1) I have to finish writing Hanafuda and 2) I have like. zero plot for it right now (but I know if I put my mind to it I could)

In the meantime please have this song that makes me think about what that movie could have been, while I daydream about magic tricks and lighters and proceed to chew at my walls 👍

[anxiousotters]

Your WIP sheet is a banquet!!! ☆:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:☆ I don't want to be a prompts hog but I am SO curious, so I will try and behave and ask you about only 3 of them:

1. pretty please tell me of your Paxe agenda in Child of Divorce u__u

2. Fox and the burr basics!!! *redacted yelling*

3. SUPER torn between the Hockey AU and the Helix/Tranq Gun ship tag. Your choose!!! I am cheating at my own self imposed rule. I am very sorry.

And thank you!!! ∑d(°∀°d) They all sound awesome!!!!

AHHHHHH thank you so much for the ask!! <3

1. My Paxe agenda is short and sweet:

Slowly influence my mutuals into shipping paxe

Finish and post the first two fics in the series I’m writing to really hook them in

Finish and post Child of Divorce, enemies/rivals to lovers paxe fic with forced proximity due to their messy split custody of one Ragnar Vizsla-Woves

???

Profit

2. I AM SCREAMING WITH YOU I’VE BEEN HOLDING ONTO THIS ONE FOR SO LONG

Basically, Fox is a lawyer caught up in a really nasty case where a crooked politician (*cough cough* Palpatine) is trying to cover up the abuse happening at a foster home, and Fox’s only option to save the kids is to adopt. All of them.

Anyways he’s now got four deeply traumatized boys to care for (Thorn, Thire, Stone, and Hound) and a busy career as a criminal prosecutor. He’s a working mom. He’s so tired. (He might get some help from a certain social worker assigned to the case 👀👀)

3. I’m gonna go with Helix/ Tranq gun because it’s my favourite crack ship. Helix loves this gun. He’s married to this gun. He likes to shoot his idiot, medbay-evading COs with this gun. He might even like using the tranq gun to take down larger, more dangerous prey like… hm… I don’t know…

Sith?

[bent-penny]

Thinking about Cupchal as young adults that can't admit they're in love.

Well more like Cuphead can't admit he's in love with Chalice. I've always seen Cuphead being very distant from the thought of being in love and very awkward about his feelings, especially when it comes to Ms. Chalice. He'd always stop himself whenever he got to close to Ms. Chalice, he'd always bite his tongue whenever he wanted to say something to her that would come across as weird or creepy to others.

I think this would disappoint Ms. Chalice the more it happened. Like, she'd be waiting for him to hug or kiss her and Cuphead would just scoot away from her! Like what? She would try and get him to repeat things or say something that he held back from saying, but Cuphead would refuse each time.

When they all got older and Ms. Chalice got into a relationship in highschool, Cuphead couldn't be more jealous. He couldn't be worse at hiding it. Cuphead would always give Chalice's boyfriend dirty looks whenever he'd touch her infront of him, or give him a hard time when he wasn't with Ms. Chalice.

Chalice has been trying for years to get Cuphead to admit his feelings for her, but was never successful. However, this time was going to be different. She knew that Cuphead seeing his placeholder next to her filled by some square would get him to tell her how he's felt for years and maybe put a stop to this painfully fake affection. (Chalice, you smart girl, you. You know Cuphead so well)

The night Cuphead finally confessed was at thier junior year prom, when he decided he had enough of Ms. Chalice's boyfriend getting too close to her. He went on the dance floor and separated Ms. Chalice from her boyfriend and took her outside. Chalice was angry, she was having a good time and Cuphead decided to embarrass her. For good reason though, outside she was reprimanded for teasing him all this time, but the argument became an apology from him about not showing her his feelings.

[cringelordofchaos]

Not long ago I saw some fanart of Mari in a wheelchair (assumedly in an au where instead of dying she falls down the stairs and then becomes a wheelchair user?)... honestly I love it

[featherglum]

Trucius or something. I don't like him and neither should you.

[lokissweater]

i know your name ✭

{gojo satoru x f!reader}

summary: gojo satoru was practically everyone’s god as his shiny charming reputation has followed him ever since high school and through college— his band he had with his best friend suguru packing the local college pub every night just to see him sing and play the bass. unbeknownst to you, satoru has been keeping an eye on you, and when you officially meet him right before one of his shows, satoru just about falls to his knees over you.

warnings: MDNI. college au, CAR SMUT be patient!!, fingering, squirting, a bit of oral hehe, cursing, angst, FLUFFF, FILTHY DIRTY TALK, a sprinkle of degradation, tinyyy mentions of alcohol and drinking, gojo is obsessed with reader, afab!reader, jealousy.

word count: 8.8k

authors note: oh my goodness this one took me a FAT MINUTE but it’s SO SO CUTE and i hope you all think so too!! thank you thank you for all of your notes on my works!! MWAHH.

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“please come with me to the alley, i don’t think i can handle one moron and an even bigger moron by myself.”

shoko shimmied her jacket onto her shoulders, a disgruntled and pleading look on her face as she turned to face you. “they’re only playing a few songs, and you don’t have to drink!”

you laughed softly. “who’s they?”

“suguru and satoru, they’re playing at the alley.”

“gojo satoru?”

the cogs in your brain spun as you gnawed at the inside of your cheek, a bit apprehensive. the alley was the place everyone went to at your college to get drunk and laid, and it also happened to be the place where the two boys played their band almost every night— satoru mainly having connections with the owner of the bar to even allow a bunch of college kids to trash the place to begin with.

you didn’t necessarily know satoru, but in your years of observing him back in high school, you knew he was viewed by anyone and everyone as a god, his reputation shiny and impressive as he had the greatest charisma and charm you had ever seen.

you remember back to when basically every other day he was getting confessed to in the halls or in class— or after school… or literally anywhere now that you thought about it.

but satoru has never been prideful or rude, even though it was something that was supposed to be written for him being the most popular guy— but he just simply didn’t follow it.

satoru was kind. really kind. and even though he got millions of confessions per year, he treated each rejection with gentleness and respect, never turning a cold eye to anyone as he apologized profusely and tried to help them feel better.

he always volunteered to do your class banners and plan your school’s activities, festivals, and field trips so nobody else had the burden of missing out on the fun. he always helped out the gardener after school and watered the plants with them (soon after practically taking over the entire shift for free and telling them to relax on a bench), tutored his friends and peers when they asked him for help, and made anyone that felt left out feel included.

that’s why he was so popular. gojo satoru was a ray of sunshine with bright blue eyes and white ruffly hair, with a gorgeous face that you never saw without a smile— loud and obnoxious and a little clumsy, but kind.

“i still don’t know why they started a band.. but they get pretty big tips every night so i guess that’s why,” shoko muttered, sipping the last of her iced tea as she got up from her seat— the cafe you were both sitting in quiet and warm as you copied her actions and stood. “or could be because satoru likes the attention.”

you weren’t close with suguru or satoru like shoko was, and you’ve never even properly met them either, but you always listened to her whenever she’d complain and understood her completely nonetheless.

you laughed at her last comment and smiled. “i’ll go… but i can only stay for two songs! i have class at seven am tomorrow.”

she smiled wide and threw her arms around you, “thank you thank you thank you!”

you’ve never actually been to the alley before, only having heard about it through the grapevine and from your other classmates that went, parties and concerts and drinking never really on the schedule for you. you honestly loved parties and concerts, and you loved the idea of hanging out with people and doing whatever your hearts desired until the sun came up.

but ever since you started college, your high school group kind of disappeared, and now you only really have one true best friend that you preferred over anything else, that being shoko. your nights are usually always calm and filled with studying or self care, your little life quiet and independent as you navigated through the days on your own.

and although you were a bit lonely at times, yearning for another soul to share your nights with, you learned to enjoy your own company.

the alley was a couple of blocks down from the cafe you and shoko were originally at, your ears already picking up on the vibrations of guitars and drums from outside as she approached the bouncer at the front, not even being able to get a word in before the big man was already telling her no.

“no?!” shoko dug into her purse and pulled out her phone. “i was literally here last week, i’m friends with the band that’s playing.”

“sorry we’re at max capacity—”

“it’s okay, they both can come in. they’re on stage with us.”

your eyes snapped to the door and you recognized geto suguru, his long jet black hair cascading down to his shoulders as he sported an all black outfit— politely smiling at the bouncer.

the man moved to the side and ushered us in, shoko’s shoulders dropping in relief as you both walked in and over to a table by the stage. “thank you suguru.”

he nodded. “if i don’t, satoru will throw another fit again and say you don’t love him if you don’t show up.”

shoko rolled her eyes and looked at you, her lips pressed into a thin line. “you see what i mean?”

“shoko!” a loud, booming and enthusiastic voice rang through the pub as you turned, spotting none other than satoru with his long arms open, more or less throwing himself on her. “you came!”

“you threatened me—”

“i did no such thing!” he sprung back. “are you not here out of the goodness of your heart? to support your two best boys living their dreams?”

“no.”

“shokooo!” he whined and you giggled, which caused him to snap his head in your direction, finally noticing your presence.

her.

“oh! hello,” he smiled kindly to you and extended his hand. “i’m satoru, and you are?”

“y/n!” you grinned sweetly and politely to him, taking his cold hand in yours and shaking it.

“are you a friend of shoko’s?”

you nodded.

he cocked his head to the side, “how come i’ve never seen you around?”

“oh i don’t go out too often, that’s probably why,” you laughed lightly, a little embarrassed by your answer.

he beamed anyways, his smile so big and brilliant that you were starting to see for yourself exactly why everyone loved him so much, not that you didn’t already know the reason behind it in the first place.

“me neither!”

satoru was still holding your hand.

“yes you do!” shoko scoffed. “you’re barely ever at your apartment and i always have to be your designated driver—”

he gawked, glaring at her. “that’s not true! i was home yesterday!”

“because you were hungover.” suguru mumbled.

you laughed again, and satoru turned back to face you, a grin on his face.

just then, a rather large group of guys started making their way towards your area, all beckoning and calling for satoru while holding up several shot glasses, his head snapping towards their direction and flashing a dazzling smile.

“satoru come!”

“satoru take some with us!”

he gently let go of your hand and raised his, waving high as he readjusted his black round sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, “give me a second! i’ll be over!”

satoru turned back to you, resuming the conversation.

“sorry, she lies. she likes to lie. i’m glad i didn’t go to high school with her.”

“yes we did— i’m going over to your followers and stealing a shot, goodbye.” shoko grumbled, throwing her purse on the table and walking away, dragging suguru along with her.

“we actually um..” you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. “we went to high school together.”

“oh i know.”

your eyebrows pinched together.

he knows?

“you used to water the garden on days i couldn’t afterschool, right?”

your eyes widened a little.

“oh! and you used to fix the class banners whenever i didn’t notice my fuck up, which was always.” he patted the top of your head and laughed, “thank you for that by the way.”

“you knew?” you murmured, a rosy tint to your cheeks.

“duh,” his eyes softened. “i’m sorry i never thanked you properly then.”

you shook your head dumbly, a little spaced out as you took in what he said. “no it’s okay.”

your eyes then fell to the instruments and band set up behind him, suddenly remembering that he was performing tonight.

“so what do you guys play?” you spoke up gently, hands wringing behind your back. “do you play original songs? or covers?”

“covers! 80’s covers.” he explained excitedly. “suguru and i switch off singing. i play the bass and he plays the guitar, and we have a couple of extra friends in the back playing the drums and keyboard.”

your eyes sparkled as you watched the stage set up process, black chords scattered everywhere on the ground in disarray as several individuals on the platform tuned their instruments or plucked out a few notes.

“80’s?” you perked up. “what kind of 80’s?”

“what kind?”

“yeah! morissey? the cure? new order—”

satoru was awestruck, mouth slightly parted. “you know who they are?”

you quickly nodded, a cute smile on your face.

“you like the cure?” he asked quietly.

“i love the cure.”

satoru practically had hearts in his eyes as he beamed down at you with a stupid face, his heart a little frazzled with a familiar feeling sparkling in his chest.

“satoru!”

he snapped out of his trance and spun around, suguru on stage beckoning him over. “sorry, we have to start.”

“okay!” he walked backwards as he quickly faced you again and smiled, a little frantic. “i’ll talk to you after we play! i’m gonna quiz you on it so pay attention!”

you laughed, your hand covering your mouth a bit as you nodded. “is it counting towards my grade? or is it extra credit?”

“extra credit if you go on a date with me after the show!”

you stopped.

“she can’t! moron,” shoko suddenly appeared beside you and threw an arm around your shoulder. “she’s only staying for two songs!”

gojo’s jaw dropped slack, his shoulders slumping as he got up on stage, arms out. “two?!”

you grimaced, an apologetic look on your face and kind of feeling like a lame grandma as you nodded, “i have class at seven am tomorrow!”

before he could even respond, satoru got pulled by tech crew to test out his microphone, and you and shoko gradually settled yourselves on the high bar stool chairs at your table.

“odd,” she muttered with a funny look on her face.

“hm? what is?” your eyes switched to hers.

“satoru’s never asked a girl out before.”

your eyes bulged open. “never?”

“never.” shoko sipped a little at her beer and gave you a comforting smile. “i’ve always seen girls try it with him and ask him out or simply just follow him around like a lost dog, but he’s never gone after anyone.”

you watched a little smirk spread across her face, and your hands grew a tiny bit sweaty as you swallowed thickly.

“if you’re interested in him, there’s a line. but i think you have a head start.”

the music started— suguru introducing himself, satoru, and the band calm and pleasantly before they began playing their first song. it was loud and rhythmic, vibrations murmuring through the floor as your glass of water shook on the table with every note.

they weren’t bad at all— they were actually pretty good, really good, and you found yourself not really wanting to admit it since it seemed like satoru was good at a million different things regardless of category or genre.

“do they have a name for their band?!” you yelled over the music, leaning your frame a little closer to her without taking your eyes off of the stage.

shoko snorted, “the strongest monkeys.”

you threw your head back and laughed loudly, looking at her incredulously. “really?!”

as he performed on stage, satoru noticed you laugh and he smiled against the microphone, a vision he connected back to high school, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, he was internally a little unsteady as your pretty eyes watched him play and sing— feeling embarrassed whenever he would trip over a chord clumsily like he seemed to do at every freaking show, but feeling better seeing as it made you giggle.

by the end of their second song, you showed shoko the time on your phone and tried to stand as discretely as possible in attempts at not disturbing anyone around you, grabbing your purse from the arm of your chair and swinging it over your shoulder.

but when you looked up, satoru was already looking at you as suguru spoke through the microphone, his eyes wide and pleading as he held up his index finger.

“one more song!” he mouthed. “please.”

you gnawed at your bottom lip anxiously, your eyes darting around the pub and back to the time on your phone before they landed again on satoru.

“stay.” he mouthed again.

and for reasons you couldn’t explain, your body pulled you back down on the stool and you sat— shoko quirking an eyebrow at you in confusion.

satoru’s face broke out into the brightest smile, a smile equivalent to the blinding rays of the sun as he pushed up his round sunglasses and gave you a cute thumbs up.

“thank you.”

and your heart stuttered.

you eventually decided to stay for the rest of the show, seeing as it was already late as fuck anyways— and they played few more songs then, a mix of well known 80’s songs as well as a few underrated ones, your head nodding gently to the beat and swaying your little shoulders. in the midst of it, satoru had been watching and glancing in your direction so many times throughout the show, that he subconsciously started mimicking your little shoulder sway on stage as he performed.

college girls screamed practically every five minutes when the boys did anything, some even going as far as running up the platform and reaching up for satoru’s hands or ankles as he played, him smiling bright at each and every one of them with shoko shaking her head in disappointment— her forehead falling to the palm of her hand as you laughed.

ironically by the end of it, the band closed with the cure, and as the crowd dispersed and several took their leave from the alley— some shouting words of praise at the boys, you and shoko stood and walked over to the stage. satoru in a heartbeat noticed you coming over and hooked his mic quickly back on the mic stand, tossing the strap of his bass over his shoulders and setting it down before hopping off stage.

“did you like it?” he panted hopefully, trying to catch his breath as his forehead glistened with sweat, his hands on his hips.

you smiled gently. “i did! good job, you both played really great songs.”

suguru gave you a small smile in gratitude from the platform as he unplugged and untangled a few chords— and satoru beamed, nodding. “i’m glad! okay, here comes your quiz!”

“oh god.”

“we played the cure at the end…” satoru dragged out.

“mhm…”

“what song?” he tilted his head to the side, and your cheeks went pink as you grinned.

“pictures of you,” you replied softly. “it’s my favorite one.”

satoru’s forehead fell to rest against your shoulder, and your eyes widened in surprise.

“i would expect nothing less from you, y/n.”

you hummed out a laugh, and his heart did a tiny somersault at the sound before he picked his head back up and looked at you softly.

“thank you for staying.”

shoko bounded over to you then and looped her arm through yours. “ready to go?”

you nodded quickly before smiling sweetly at satoru. “i’ll see you around! thank you for—”

“wait!” he shot his arms out frantically with wide eyes. “what about our date?”

you froze. “our date?”

“unless you want the quiz to count towards your grade…” he mumbled lowly, eyes darting on everything and everywhere except you with pinky cheeks.

“i didn’t think you were being serious about that..” you spoke gently.

his eyebrows furrowed. “why not?”

“because you’re gojo satoru,” shoko butt in.

you quickly flicked her forehead— your lips pressed into a thin line, earning a little laugh from satoru as you turned your head to look at him again.

“i have an early class tomorrow… ill see you around though, okay?”

without thinking, satoru reached over and placed a hand on your shoulder, gently turning you to face him.

“let me take you to class.”

shoko and suguru exchanged a look and your lips parted, eyebrows pinching together.

“what?”

“i’ll take you to class in the morning,” he looked desperate. “and i won’t count the quiz towards your grade.”

you were skeptical, very skeptical, unsure of what satoru wanted from you in this situation. you had just met him, properly at least, and though you knew he was a good person, you weren’t sure if that was still relevant in the field of picking up girls.

you looked to shoko, who shrugged, and your eyes landed back to satoru’s pleading one’s, your entire body and soul hesitating.

“i—” you gnawed at your bottom lip, a nervous habit as you took in the way he looked like a sad little puppy the longer you took to respond, your heart not having the ability to ever say no to anyone, ever. not even him.

“okay.”

his shoulders relaxed, and he let out a puff of relieved air as he gave you the biggest smile, nodding hopefully.

“okay! h—here-” he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. “if i could— if i could have your number? and i’ll text you when im on my way and stuff…”

you shakily took satoru’s phone, the screen already opened up to the ‘add contact’ feature as you typed in your number before passing it back to him.

“thank you!” he beamed. “i’ll see you tomorrow then?”

he was so excited, and you really didn’t know why, but you couldn’t help but give him a sweet smile of yours in return, nodding.

“see you.”

when you finally arrived home that night, it didn’t take satoru even ten minutes after that to text you.

(unknown): i have good news for you miss y/n

you stared at your phone, your heart jumping a bit as you typed back a response.

(you): and i have bad news for you satoru

(satoru): WHAT

(satoru): ok wait me first

(satoru): congrats you passed my class!! that quiz bumped up your grade from 0% to 100% ur so smart

(satoru): but if your bad news is you rejecting me i’m FAILING you

(you): HAHAHAHA

(you): silly silly

(you): my bad news was that i always have banana milk on my way to school in the mornings and unfortunately i don’t have any extra for you :(

(you): i ran out ;(

within the two minutes that it took for you to respond with your declared bad news, satoru was absolutely shitting it, wholeheartedly believing you were going to reject him and leave him to dramatically rot away all alone.

he replied quickly, a goofy smile on his face.

(satoru): that’s literally the only reason why i asked you out :(

(you): and how do you know i have banana milk in the mornings before school?

(satoru): OH

(satoru): SO ABOUT TOMORROW

you giggled, wiping the last of your makeup off and turning off your vanity light before jumping into bed, snuggling into your covers as the cool air softly touched your face from your open window.

(you): *address*

(you): pick me up at 6:30 please, if that’s okay :)

(satoru): i’ll pick you up at six miss y/n

(you): SIX WHY

(satoru): for a breakfast date silly!! okay goodnight xoxo

you hadn’t even realized the huge stupid smile on your face until your rosy cheeks started to ache.

(you): HAHAHA

(you): goodnight <3

a heart?!

satoru stuffed his face into his pillow, feeling like little love birdies were flying around his head and pecking at his hair.

the following morning, you ran your fingers through your hair and probably fixed your outfit a million trillion times before you were satisfied, a huge lump in your throat as you gnawed so much at your bottom lip that it drew blood.

you were nervous, but why? you didn’t know why. maybe because it was gojo satoru picking you up. maybe it was the fact that you hadn’t had a guy try to hit on you in what felt like a decade, the last time really being the last day of high school when you randomly found a note in your locker, the words literally illegible.

maybe it was the fact that satoru was the most handsome man you have ever seen.

but so was he to everybody else.

(satoru): i’m outside! :]

you wiped your clammy hands on your legs and stood, hiking your school bag further up your shoulder before walking down the stairs and out the door, seeing satoru seated in his car in your driveway.

you timidly opened the door to the passenger side and stepped in.

“hi!” he greeted cheerfully and proceeded to place his hand on the back of your headrest as he backed out, looking through his rear view mirror.

“hi!” you said gently. “you’re not tired?”

“nuh uh,” he smiled at you. “i had three energy drinks before i got you.”

your head instantly whipped in his direction. “satoru— three?!”

he giggled at your reaction, the sides of his blue eyes crinkling as he patted your head. “don’t worry silly, i’ve had maybe five at a time before—”

“five?!”

you slumped against the passenger seat and closed your eyes. “satoru, you’re gonna develop heart problems if you keep this up.”

“nah,” he reached into the backseat, his eyes still on the road. “i’m the strongest.”

and you snorted then, watching him retrieve two small bottles of juice from the back without taking his eyes off of the road.

“i got us orange juice— wait do you like orange juice? oh fuck maybe—”

you giggled and waved him off, taking both bottles from his hands. “it’s okay! i do like orange juice, thank you.” you settled them on your lap neatly. “i’ll hold them while you drive.”

“aww thanks sweets,” he murmured affectionately, and your face instantly went warm to the touch.

“i also got us breakfast bagels so we can sit and people watch before your class—” his eyes snapped to yours. “if— if that’s okay.”

your heart skipped a beat at his planning, nodding as you reached into your school bag and pulled out a little yellow carton, holding it out for him as he drove.

satoru tore his gaze away from the road momentarily and looked, his eyebrows furrowing.

“your daily morning banana milk?”

you smiled softly, nudging it towards him. “for you.”

he physically melted as he looked at your sweet sweet face and back towards the road.

“you’re giving up your banana milk— for me?”

you tore off the straw from the back of the milk box, sticking it through the little opening and offering it to him again.

“yup yup.”

he bit his lower lip as he gratefully took the milk box from you, giddy and flustered on the inside as he took tiny sips.

“an absolute delicacy, thank you miss y/n.”

before you even realized it, satoru was already pulling in to the campus parking lot, shifting his gear into park and turning off the ignition before opening his door.

“don’t move!” he sputtered suddenly. “don’t touch that door hold on—”

he slammed his door shut and you watched quizzically as he ran across the front of the car and opened the door for you, flashing an award winning smile that could shatter the earth if he wanted to.

you still couldn’t piece together why he was doing so much for you or why he was interested in the first place, but as you watched him set up the breakfast bagels cutely as you both sat on the bench, him carefully handing you yours along with your orange juice, you didn’t really have the heart to ask him why.

maybe it was the more selfish side of you, the one that always longed to share little moments like this with another being, the one that always spent her days alone watching movies or doing little crafts in her room to keep the time going, a bittersweet feeling in your chest every time you saw your classmates or casual friends post about their parties or outings.

you hadn’t realized that you didn’t respond to whatever satoru had said, and you snapped out of it.

“fuck— i’m sorry satoru, i spaced out.” you laughed softly. “what were you saying?”

he stared at you, his eyes examining your face. “what’s wrong?”

“huh?”

“what were you thinking about?”

“it was— it was nothing,” you took a sip of your orange juice. “i forgot.”

satoru shoved his face close to yours, your breath hitching and your cheeks growing pink as you watched his eyes scan every part of you, his expression concerned.

“something’s bothering you,” he hummed. “am i being too forward? i’m— i’m sorry sometimes i don’t even realize—“

“no!” you shot your arms out frantically and placed them on his shoulders, “no, it’s not that, you’re okay satoru. everything you’ve done has been really nice, so thank you.”

your voice was so sweet as you spoke to him, and even though it made him feel better to some degree, he still couldn’t shake the empty and sad look he saw on your face when you were spaced out.

he slowly retreated back and hesitantly nodded as you placed your hands back on your lap, your fingers then tearing a piece from your breakfast bagel and plopping it into your mouth.

“did you ever find…” he spoke in between bites. “a note in your locker the last day of high school?”

your eyebrows furrowed, taken aback. “how do you know about that?”

he swallowed, a sheepish look on his face. “that was me. i put that note in.”

your eyes widened as your body completely froze over, putting your bagel down— the wrapper crinkling underneath as you did so.

“really?”

satoru nodded, his flushed cheeks prominent on his pale skin as he suddenly found his bagel super interesting to look at.

“what did it say?”

he looked at you baffled. “what did it say? what do you mean?”

you giggled then, your hand covering your mouth as you leaned forward a little bit. “i could— i could barely read it. the handwriting-“

“oh my fucking god!” satoru threw his arms up in despair. “that explains so much. i was so sad i straight up thought you hated me.”

you stopped. “what do you mean?”

“i wrote my name and how i thought you were really pretty, and then i wrote my number at the bottom.” he dropped his shaking head in his hands, laughing. “but i wrote it really fast because i saw you coming so i just stuffed it in there.”

he slumped over his legs on the bench, his elbows on his knees as he moaned.

“you think i’m pretty?” you asked softly.

he turned his head to the side as he was hunched over, sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as he smiled gently. “very.”

gojo satoru thought you were pretty.

you smiled cutely at him, reaching out and pushing his sunglasses back up his eyes, yours warm and endearing. “silly.”

you leaned back on the bench and giggled. “to be fair satoru, even if i was able to read your note, i probably would’ve thought it was a prank.”

“a prank? why?” his shoulders deflated, an unamused look on his face. “because i’m ‘gojo satoru’ like shoko said—”

“no,” you pushed. “because you’re a good person. you always go above and beyond for others and i’ve seen that as long as i’ve known you.”

you crossed a leg over the other and smiled softly. “and because of that i’m really not sure why you like me satoru, i haven’t really done anything special but—”

“what you just said is a crime. the way you think about me is the way i think about you.” he cut in, eyes serious. “you think you don’t do anything special? i literally watched you all through high school bend over backwards for people, for me, like i did,“ he sighed through his nose. “but your intentions were genuine and pure, mine were not.”

he finished the last of his bagel and crumpled up the wrapper into a ball, tossing it in the trash can next to him as he leaned back.

satoru swallowed. “i feel like if i don’t do the things that i do for people, ill end up disappointing everyone i know. i feel like everyone’s built this image of me that i don’t even know where the fuck it came from—” he shook his head. “but i don’t want to tarnish that. i don’t want to let people down. so i just let them ask me for stuff. i don’t even like going out that much either, believe it or not. i just go when they call.”

he crossed his arms. “whenever people do do something in return for me, it’s like i’m forever in their debt and they’re always expecting something from me back.”

your sad eyes softened, the confession in front of you a reaction from him you realized must’ve been buried deep deep down his chest— without any prior chance of resurfacing until this very moment.

you never thought about his situation this way. you would’ve never thought that satoru could’ve felt like this about his own reputation, something you guiltily believed was a thing he was absolutely floored over.

“you never expected anything back from me though,” he murmured. “you fixed my fucked up banners and switched around reservations when i absentmindedly chose the wrong thing for our school field trips, and you never said a word about it to me or anyone, and you didn’t expect anything back.”

he finally turned his bright blue eyes in your direction, and looked at you so deeply, so sincerely, that your mind went completely blank.

“that’s why i like you,” satoru bashfully scratched his cheek. “you do special things everyday and— and i was moved.”

there was a moment of silence, satoru staring at the ground as you stared at him, a delicate and insecure side of him unfolding before you that you don’t think anyone has ever seen, and you intended to keep it that way— wanting this special moment selfishly just for you.

you slowly leaned forward then as you made him look at you.

“its natural for you to be upset and think indifferently about people walking all over you, toru. it doesn’t mean you’re not genuine or pure.”

raising your arm, you poked his pink cheek gently and gave him a little comforting smile. “it actually only further solidifies to me how much of a good person you are. because even though people take advantage of your kindness, you help them with what they need regardless, and do way more.”

his eyes softened.

“at the end of the day, even though it makes you a little mad, you want to help people, because if you didn’t, you simply wouldn’t do it.”

you nudged his shoulder playfully with yours, “but not anymore, okay? from now on when people are blatantly taking advantage of how nice you are, you have to draw a line they can’t cross.”

he smiled wide.

“i’d let you cross it.”

“no not even me,” you shook your head. “not that’d i’d ever anyways.”

he looked at you, and then unexpectedly, satoru slowly leaned in and pressed a delicate, soft kiss to your cheek— his lips lingering there greedily for a few seconds more before pulling away, your shocked bright pink cheeks making him burst out laughing.

you missed class without even realizing, but you didn’t have an ounce of care in your body, seeing as satoru was worth more than anything from that point on.

since then you both hung out a lot more, and you still had your little quiet nights of self care, arts and crafts, and movies— except now, satoru was present in every activity.

satoru longed for your lifestyle, and you longed for his— so the act of watching movies together until two in the morning, making horrific origami bird shapes that never looked like the pictures in the instruction manual and laughing, sorting through his 80’s cd collection in his apartment while he sampled a few for you on his bass, and singing the cure so loud through his car sunroof while he drove you aimlessly at night with a strong grip on your thigh, were all a perfect blend of exactly what you both needed most.

it was several months of spending every waking moment together that you soon eventually became a little thing with satoru. there wasn’t an official label, and you guys hadn’t even kissed, but the longer than normal embraces, kisses on each others cheeks, and intertwined fingers everywhere you went was an obvious sign that something was there.

you picked up on how people looked at you more often rather quickly ever since satoru started bringing you around his circle, wondering how you came out of nowhere and captured his attention when thousands had tried for years.

and though most welcomed you with open arms and kind smiles, the majority of his girl fan base was bitter.

shoko often told you to just shake it off and not pay any mind to it, saying that it was a bunch of mean girls with nothing better to do, but it got a little harder once a pretty black haired girl named lina started grabbing satoru for conversations almost every night at the alley.

and today was no different.

“hi sweets!” satoru greeted you enthusiastically, pressing a wet kiss to your cheek as you arrived early to the pub to help him and suguru set up for tonight’s show. “you look very pretty today.”

“thank you!” you smiled wide and leaned up on your tippy toes, your body automatically pulling your lips to his until you quickly steered them to the corner of his mouth, pecking lightly before settling back down on the soles of your feet.

that wasn’t the first time you had almost accidentally kissed him, but it wasn’t just you, as satoru slipped up almost every second of every day when you both were together— the thought making you laugh internally as you followed him to the stage.

“don’t help out this time—” he pleaded gently with you as he took a high barstool chair for you and dragged it closer to the stage. “i want you to just sit and be pretty.”

you tilted your head to the side. “why toru? i don’t mind helping out i like it—”

“no i know!” he smiled sweetly at you. “but i want you to just sit there and relax and not lift a finger tonight. you’ll hurt yourself if you do.”

you giggled softly and nodded, hopping up on the stool and wringing your fingers together on your lap as you watched satoru set up his amp and readjust his mic stand, gnawing on your bottom lip as you watched the way his biceps and chest looked in his black compression tee.

“are you thirsty sweets?” he asked, his eyes trained to the ground as he untangled a bunch of chords and threw them behind him. “i can get you something from the bar?”

“oh no!” you shook your head quickly. “it’s okay toru you’re busy—”

satoru hopped off the stage and jogged over to the bar, him exchanging a few words with the bartender that you couldn’t quite make out until he jogged back over with a cold glass of sugary iced tea, placing it on your table under a coaster.

“for you.”

you smiled sheepishly, “thank you.”

“if you need—”

“satoru! hey!”

you snapped your head over to the entrance and saw lina, her wave a little flirty as she bounced over to the both of you.

lina only spared you a glance before her sparkling suggestive eyes landed back on satoru.

“oh hey?” he looked over at the clock on the wall. “im sorry, the alley doesn’t open for another two hours—”

“oh i know!” she twirled a strand of hair with her fingers. “i just wanted to stop by and see if you needed any help? you know, setting up?”

what.

your eyebrows pinched together and you looked at satoru, waiting for his answer.

“oh! um— sure! thanks!” he smiled at her, and you felt a pang of annoyance through your chest as you watched him lead her on stage and give her directions, much like how he did for you when you helped out.

you crossed a leg over the other and looked away.

satoru wasn’t your boyfriend, so it wasn’t like you could say anything or feel the way that you did… but then again, isn’t he kind of? you didn’t know, and the more you wracked your brain to try and figure out what exactly the both of you were, the angrier you got at the situation in front of you.

satoru flashed lina his world famous dazzling smile, cracked joke after joke and made her laugh, helped her when she went “confused” and helpless, and even showed her basic chords on his bass when she asked.

you pursed your lips, eyes narrowed. satoru was smiling at her the way he smiled at you and cracking jokes the way he joked with you, and your jealousy only grew as you let your mind wander if the way satoru treated you was actually anything significant if he was willing to do it for some random girl.

you sat there for what had felt like forever, people starting to pile in for the show as the alley opened, and you hopped off the stool bitterly to cool off in the restroom, not bothering to let satoru know.

just as you got in line, you felt a hand tug at your wrist.

“y/n!”

you turned around and spotted shoko, smiling until she took in your annoyed expression.

“what’s wrong?”

“lina,” you muttered.

“oh god,” shoko leaned her weight on one side of her hip. “what the fuck is she doing now?”

“satoru help me, satoru how many chords does a bass have? satoru you’re so good at singing! satoru you owe me after this!” you mimicked, your heart heavy as you let shoko lead you back to your table.

“she’s getting braver,” she muttered. “say the word y/n and i’ll fake trip and spill my drink on her it’s easy—”

you snorted, “no no, it’s okay shoko. if satoru wants to let himself be drooled over and do nothing about it in respects to me, he can be my guest.”

the show started, girls already screaming and running up the stage with, of course, lina front and center by satoru, jumping and wiggling her sick fingers up at him.

satoru was like he normally was at his shows— attentive to everyone and being just who he is, but what ticked you off more than usual was how much attention he was paying to lina, way more than the rest, and you couldn’t even watch the stage anymore when satoru reached down and held her hand for a moment, not once glancing up at you.

you were done.

“i think i’m gonna go!” you shouted to shoko over the music.

“what?!” shoko grabbed your arm. “don’t go! it’s almost over! i wanna see you chew him out!”

you laughed and shook your head. “i can’t stand being here, and he clearly doesn’t care whether i’m here or not right now so—”

more screams.

both of your heads snapped to the source.

lina was on stage with him.

you scoffed and grabbed your purse, ignoring shoko’s protests as you pushed your way through the crowd and away from the stage.

when satoru finally decided to scan for you through the pub, his eyebrows furrowed as he saw your seat empty and shoko glaring straight murderous daggers at him.

“where is she going?” he mouthed to shoko.

“home!” she spat loudly, getting up herself and disappearing through the crowd.

satoru’s eyes immediately widened, his fingers clammy and numb as he started to pluck the wrong notes, suguru giving him a weird look.

“carry the show without me,” satoru quickly told him, frantic. “please, i have to go.”

suguru nodded and waved him off, seeming like he knew why satoru’s skin was sickishly pale as he carried on calmly.

it wasn’t like you to just leave without him or not tell him anything, so as he threw the strap of his bass over his shoulders and handed it to a tech member, he hopped off stage and ran through the crowd, ignoring their pleas of protest or the tugging he felt at his clothes.

you were halfway down the parking lot when you heard the pub door slam open and footsteps running towards you.

“sweets!—” satoru yelled. “hey- where are you going?!”

“home!” you yelled over your shoulder, arms crossed as you kept walking.

satoru’s stomach dropped.

“y/n!” he caught up to you and grabbed your shoulders, spinning you around as he tried to catch his breath. “why? are you okay?”

“just fine!” you spat. “why don’t you go back on stage and drool all over lina—”

“lina?” he gawked. “drool? what are you talking—”

you shrugged his hands off of your shoulders. “do you not see how she’s been all over you for what seems like fucking months?! and you just let her! i’ve been ignoring it but today you really pissed me off—”

you turned away again and he immediately grabbed your waist with his hands, pulling you back.

“hey- no. tell me what i did okay just tell me—”

you scoffed. “you really don’t see it? first of all she came to the alley two fucking hours early today, and then she’s all over you and you’re all over her and you’re smiling at her and making her laugh like you do with me, and then she’s playing the little damsel in distress helping you set up while i just sat there and watched—”

“all over her?” his eyes narrowed. “i couldn’t give less of a shit about lina—”

“apparently you do!” you moved away from him, his hands falling from your hips. “because she’s giving you the ‘i wanna fuck you eyes’ every two seconds, and you’re holding her hand while you’re on stage, and then you literally pulled her on?! what the fuck am i supposed to think with that?!”

“i didn’t pull her on she jumped on!” satoru exclaimed, his arms out. “i’m sorry sweets that i didn’t notice okay i really am, but have you stopped to think that maybe i didn’t notice because i don’t care about her? i—”

“satoru you’ve been completely ignoring me the minute she got here—”

“toru.” he cut you off, voice firm. “it’s toru not satoru.”

you stopped, frustrated and hurt tears slowing brimming your eyes as you looked at him. “maybe you being a little flirt for everyone was okay before, but the minute you decided to butter me up and kiss my cheeks and call me sweets, that should’ve been over.”

“it is!” he exclaimed. “it’s been over! it never even started in the first place!”

“yes it did! you think i haven’t been watching how you are with people since high school?— you know what i’m done. i’m leaving.”

you sniffled and spun around again, but satoru only grabbed your wrist tightly and wrung you back.

“you think i haven’t been watching you?! i’ve loved you since fucking high school god dammit! i’m obsessed with you! when we officially met at the alley and i introduced myself i already knew your name and you know that! i don’t give a single living fuck about lina or anyone else but you! it’s always been you!”

you wiped your tears roughly with your sleeve.

gojo satoru loved you.

“so no. you’re not done. please don’t cry. all i’ve ever wanted was you and i let you slip through my hands in high school because i was a coward, and id rather die than let you slip through my fucking hands again and lose you over a stupid fight when i just got you!—”

“you’re not losing me i’m not going anywhere toru where the hell are you getting that from?!” you exclaimed.

“thank fuck then, so what are we still doing?! i’d cut everyone in my life off if you asked me to!—”

“no don’t do that! i was just jealous okay and i’m— and i’m angry—”

“okay but do you love me?!” he pushed angrily.

“yes! of course i do you know that!”

“okay so do i baby so what the fuck are we still fighting for?!”

“i don’t know!”

“stop giving me your little attitude then and come kiss me!”

your lips instantly collided with his as you threw your arms around his neck, fast hurried kisses that knocked the wind out of you as you both hungrily and fiercely tried to swallow each other’s lips, satoru tapping the back of your thighs and signaling you to jump on him.

you immediately sprung up and wrapped your legs around his waist, him holding you tight as he carried you over to his car and leaned you against the backseat door, his lips messily licking and swiping over yours as he seemed drunk on the taste of your sweet spit alone.

satoru dug through his pockets without breaking from your lips and found his keys, unlocking his car with a tap of a button and gently lowering you inside, him scrambling in after you and slamming the door shut, locking it.

he towered over you as he latched his lips back on yours, you laying flat on your back with your legs spread, satoru’s big cold hands on the sides of your thighs as he slowly slid your tiny little denim skirt further up— right up until he felt your silky panties under his fingertips.

“i gotta—” he said in between kisses. “take them off—”

you nodded quickly. “please take them off—”

satoru didn’t even let you finish before he practically tore your panties down your legs and stuffed them in his back pocket, his breathing erratic.

“oh my goodness,” he spread your legs gently, eyes completely wide and glazed over as he looked at your slick and shiny pussy. “you’re so pretty baby, just like how i pictured you.”

he ran a finger down your slit and your hips jumped, your teeth biting down on your lower lip as you let out a symphony of whines that satoru wanted to record on his phone and play morning, noon, and night for himself and his dick.

he stared mesmerized at your fuzzy pink cheeks and swollen wet lips as he slowly rubbed over your clit, you immediately grabbing his unoccupied hand and sticking his middle finger in your mouth to suck in response.

“oh my god—” he threw his head back, his delicious adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. “you’re gonna make me cum in my fucking pants.”

he felt you bob your head up and down slowly on his finger and his head snapped down, eyes widening as he watched you act like a little slut for him, his hands with a mind of their own as he inserted his unoccupied middle finger in your slurping hole.

you let out a muffled gasp through the digit in your mouth and you spread your legs wider, his long and mouthwatering finger pumping in and out of you slowly, satoru’s body literally shivering at the sounds of your warm squelching pussy.

“listen to her baby…” he hummed. “she’s so fucking loud for me… how embarrassing.”

“toruuu,” you whined at his teasing, clamping your legs shut as you felt the tip of his finger hit that sweet spot in your walls that made your toes curl.

“open your legs.” he demanded. “who said you could close them, hm? i sure fucking didn’t.”

satoru picked up the pace and slipped in his ring finger without warning, your walls stretching and filling up as he abused your little cunt rapidly.

“you ever squirted before baby?” he huffed out, lips eating up your neck as you shuddered, your body jolting up and down at how fast he was fingering you.

you shook your head dumbly. “n—no, i don’t think i can—”

satoru laughed and bit your neck meanly. “yes you can sweets, your little pussy was just waiting for me to do it.”

he went even faster, a series of slap slap slap’s filling the car as his palm and digits hit your cunt repeatedly, sticky and soppy as he moaned over and over in your ear, absolutely intoxicated with the sloshing noises of your pussy and the way it was speaking to him, satoru utterly and incandescently obsessed with everything that was you.

“m—my god—” he panted, his pace brutal and animalistic as his long fingers rapidly plunged into your gummy hot hole, his tongue licking and slopping all over the side of your neck, your moans straight up filthy as the windows of his car fogged up.

“fuck fuck fuck fuck—” he dragged his mushy kisses from your neck up to your chin and back to your lips. “be my girlfriend—” slap slap slap— “p-please be my girlfriend be my girlfriend i need you so bad i c-can’t live without you anymore—”

you eagerly nodded, your thighs shaking as you gripped his shoulders and tried to keep up with his kisses that swallowed your lips up hole. “y-yes— mph! i will toru i will—”

his car shook violently as he fucked your cunt with his fingers without mercy, an unfamiliar intense feeling bubbling up at the pit of your stomach as he did so, your entire pussy pulsing and swollen as you squealed, massive droplets of liquid spraying all over satoru and the leather seats of his car.

“fuck yes baby, give me what i want that’s it—”

satoru groaned so loudly as you squirted, him jerking his nasty fingers to selfishly get more out of you.

“thaaaats it sweets—” he panted, slowing down. “that’s it.”

you evidently blacked out at this point, your brain misty and distorted as you tried to come down from your delirious high, a high you’ve never ever felt before with your own digits.

satoru licked his fingers raunchily and lowered his face to your pussy, cleaning up any remnants and left over drops on your thighs and pussy with his perverted tongue, your body jerking and you whining again as you shut your thighs closed in overstimulation.

he came back up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before flashing you the biggest most innocent smile, as if he didn’t just absolutely destroy your cunt minutes ago without grace.

slowly, you regained a sense of direction and finally looked at him properly as he sat down and pulled you gently up by his arms, your body practically limp as he settled you on his lap and hugged you affectionately, his cheek squished up against your forehead.

“so can you squirt or what.” he teased softly, a smile still on his face.

you giggled shyly and buried your face in his neck. “i made a mess.”

“that’s literally what i wanted don’t even start.” he mumbled, and you laughed again, louder this time.

“were you serious about me being your girlfriend?” you asked suddenly, your voice smaller and timid. satoru pulled back and tilted his head, catching your eyes with his.

“of course i was,” he said quietly. “i literally begged you while my fingers were knuckle deep in—”

you covered your face with your hands and laughed with a whine. “stop! okay okay! i get it.”

you took your face away from his neck and looked at him properly, tilting your head cutely as your eyes shined and sparkled with affection, him giving you the same look back as you leaned up and pecked his lips lovingly.

“you know…” you began. “when we first properly met and you asked me out that night, shoko told me there was a line i had to stand in if i was interested in you.”

satoru snorted, his eyebrows raised. “a line?”

you nodded. “mhm. you literally can’t pretend there isn’t one toru… and lina is in it too,” you finished off, snickering.

he rolled his eyes and huffed, feigning annoyance, but when he looked at you again, he only smiled and stared at you like you hung the moon and stars yourself, a blush to his pale cheeks that never seemed to go away as long as you were around.

“line or not—” he sincerely spoke.

“you’ve always been the first one.”

[asahicore]

stupid in love - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. best friend!sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. One night early on in your summer vacation, your best friend Sunghoon admits that his biggest anxiety about starting college is going there as a virgin - one thing leads to another, and you end up learning a few things from each other. The more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that your feelings for each other surpass friendship, but with the end of summer looming over your heads, it's hard to tell where these newfound emotions will lead you.

genre. best friends/childhood friends 2 lovers, summer au, lots of fluff and smut but also some angst to spice things up, when i say smut i mean LOTS of smut. like mostly smut lol (mutual first time, ice play, crazy stuff)

word count. 22.1k

a/n. bringing this one back from the pits of my google docs guys.. its been so long since i've posted anything and im not sure when the new hoon fic will be ready so i thought i'd repost an og asahicore fic!!! the title was originally 'hot like ice' but i changed it bc this is my blog and i do what i want <3 i'd also like to say that in terms of plot this is probably not something i would write nowadays, it's very smut-heavy and thats not what im about now idk i was crazy back then... but i rmb being happy w this fic and its reception when i first posted it so i'm happy to have it back on my blog and hope u guys will like it too <3 as always lmk what u think!!

It all started with a lollipop. Well, two, to be exact. One strawberry-flavored, one apple-flavored. 

You stand in front of your friend, lollipops in hand. “Which one do you want, Hoon?” 

“I don’t mind, just pick whichever one you like best,” he replies absent-mindedly, eyes on the TV as he tries to find a suitable movie for this late summer afternoon.

You plop down on the couch next to him and look at the two lollipops in your hands, unable to decide which flavor you like better. “I don’t know what I feel like right now,” you announce to an uninterested Sunghoon. “I’ll just try both.”

That seems to catch your best friend’s attention. He watches as you unwrap both candies, tasting each once, twice, then as you decide you want the apple-flavored lollipop and hand him the strawberry-flavored one. He doesn’t take his eyes off of your lips as you wrap them and swirl your tongue around the candy, letting its sweetness wash over your taste buds. You raise your eyebrows when you notice his staring and he blinks a couple times, trying to snap himself out of it. “Did you want the other one?” you ask, confused by his behavior.

“N-no, I like strawberry,” he stammers, turning his gaze back to the screen in front of you and settling for ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ a movie you’ve both seen a thousand times but never get bored of.

You’re used to Sunghoon getting lost in his thoughts, so you don’t question it much. You sit back on the couch, your knee touching his. You two are no strangers to a little skinship - after being friends for almost eight years, physical contact comes naturally. You have to admit that recently, it’s started to feel different; but the idea of your friendship changing tugs at your heartstrings so much that you ignore the prickles on your skin when he hugs you or the way your stomach flips when he smiles at you, dimples and sharp canines on display. You tell yourself it’s all stupid and that you can handle so much as your knees touching.

Sunghoon, on the other hand, can't. The lollipop in his mouth right now was in yours mere moments ago and you’d given it to him like sharing saliva was no big deal. He feels like a thirteen year-old for thinking like this, but this was pretty much an indirect kiss.

He stares at the TV screen, but all he can see are your perfect lips sucking that lollipop, and his mind is desperately not trying to go there, but he just cannot help himself. Blood rushes to his dick as he pictures your mouth around him, sucking him off with as much enthusiasm as you are the lollipop. Would you like his taste? Would you look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, smiling even with his dick stuffed in your mouth?

His own thoughts catch him off guard, and before they can get any wilder, he runs off to the bathroom, knowing he’d never live it down if you caught a glimpse of his erection. Thankfully, you don’t, and you call after him, asking if he wants you to pause the movie, to which he shouts back a strangled ‘no.’

He comes back ten minutes later, face flushed and breath heavy. “Goddamn, Hoon, I know we’re best friends, but if you’re going to dump a massive load, I wished you did it in your own bathroom and not mine,” you tease him, laughing as his face gets even redder and he opens his mouth to protest.

“I was just on my phone!” he replies, mildly offended.

“Whatever,” you say, still laughing, and turn your attention back to the movie.

Well. Sunghoon would rather have you think he just took a huge shit than have you know he came to the idea of you sucking him off and swallowing every last drop of his cum. 

--

A few days later, you and Sunghoon are lying on his bed, the both of you on your backs, talking about this and that as you often do. It’s almost 3 a.m., and it feels almost rebellious, being up this late after months of waking up at 6, but your high school graduation was a week ago and you feel like you can do anything. The dim fairy lights you forced him to put up and the bright moon outside are the only sources of light in the room, and when you turn to look at him, you can just make out the outline of his face, the curve of his nose, the sharpness of his jaw. You've looked at him a thousand times before, so your memory makes up for what the light takes away from your eyes. You shift to lying on your stomach, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can take a better look at your friend. Something about the moonlight makes him look ethereal, and his beauty makes your heart skip a beat, but you’d never admit that to him. Out of habit, you reach out to touch his moles, gently placing your middle finger on his nose and your pointer finger on his cheek. Sunghoon closes his eyes at your touch, used to the warm feeling that settles in his stomach whenever you do that.

“Y/N?” he calls out, just as you pull your fingers away from his moles.

“Yeah?”

He opens his eyes again, meeting yours. “Is there anything you’re scared of for next year? You know, heading off to college and all that?” You shift again and lie on your back, the sides of your two bodies touching. You stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking about his question, and Sunghoon patiently waits for your answer.

“I’m scared about not making friends. I’m not the least outgoing person ever, but it’s so intimidating, not knowing anyone. And it’ll be weird not having you around. Shut up,” you warn before he can make an egotistical remark, so he just chuckles. “I’m also worried about the amount of work I’ll have. I’ve heard so many times that it’s a huge step-up from high school, the workload and the type of work and all that. What if I don’t even like the degree that I chose? I know I can change it, but it still stresses me out. Turning 18 doesn’t feel like a huge deal, but going to college does. It’s when all the responsibility hits. My mom told me to make my own doctor’s appointment the other day, and I almost cried when I had to call them. I’m not gonna have anyone to do my groceries for me. I’m scared I might get an awful roommate. I hate the idea of communal showers. I don’t even know what I want to do after college, and I know I have four years to make up my mind, but I’m scared those four years are gonna flash by and I’ll be indebted and unemployed by the end of it.” You pause to take a breath, and you can feel Sunghoon’s eyes on the sides of your face, but he doesn’t say anything. “Also, I heard that you put on a lot of weight during your freshman year.”

You turn to look at him to find him smiling at you. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

The two of you giggle, eyes not leaving the other’s. After a moment, you turn your gaze back to the ceiling and sigh. “Yeah, I know. But I’m more excited than I am scared. What about you?”

Sunghoon follows your gaze and looks up above him. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and when he finally speaks up, he says it so quietly, you almost don’t hear it. “I’m scared of going to college a virgin.”

You try to stay serious for a few seconds, but you can’t keep your laughter in and snort loudly at your friend’s words, laughing so hard your stomach starts to hurt.

“Don’t make fun of me!” he whines, hands coming up to cover his face.

It takes you a while to calm down; not only was Sunghoon’s statement ridiculous, it was so unexpected that you couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you apologize, catching your breath. “I just can’t believe that that’s what you’re scared of, of all things.”

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable concern,” he defends himself.

“Nobody’s gonna care if you’re a virgin, Hoon,” you try to reason with him, but if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn.

“I’m gonna care! What if I like a girl but I can’t bring myself to make a move on her ‘cause I have no experience?”

“But Hoon, chances are she doesn’t have a lot more experience than you do! She’ll be the same age we are, dummy. We’re not sixteen year-olds jumping into a world of twenty year-olds. Sure, some people have their first time in high school, but a lot do it at university. You’ll be fine,” you reassure. His furrowed eyebrows and pout tell you he’s not fully convinced, though.

“Oh, c’mon! If you really want to lose your virginity before leaving, we can get you laid during the summer. I’m sure we can find a girl nice enough,” you tease, jokingly patting his bicep, trying not to make a note of how firm the skin feels under your hand.

Sunghoon sighs, and you can tell he’s actually taking this seriously. “I’m not that desperate that I’d have sex with the first girl that agrees, you know. I’d still rather do it with someone…” He glances at you for just a second. “Someone I trust.”

You feel your face heat up at the possible meaning behind his words, so you look away, not wanting him to see the effect they had on you. He changes his position on the bed, and now it’s his turn to prop himself up on his elbows and look down at you.

“What about you, Y/N? Don’t you think it’d be good to get a bit of experience before going off to college? It’ll be one less thing to stress about,” he says, a small smirk playing on his lips, and his shy demeanor from moments prior is completely gone. Out of fear that his ego would get even bigger, you'd never tell him, but you love it when he gets like that - when he thinks he’s the shit and teases you mercilessly. You know he does it lightheartedly, and it never fails to bring a smile to your face.

Except right now it does. You’re not smiling, far from it; you’re looking up at your best friend, mouth slightly agape and wide eyes searching for a sign that he may be just joking. He raises an eyebrow expectantly, and your reaction is to scoff at him. 

“Do I need to remind you that you’re the reason I have no experience to begin with, Park Sunghoon?” you ask, sitting up on the bed to peer down at him. He shifts again and lays on his back, his hands coming up behind his head as he beams at you.

“Am I really?”

You wish you could slap that shit-eating grin off of his face. This is not the first time you're having this conversation. “Yes, Hoon. Every time a guy was even remotely interested in me, you chased them away. I’m still not over you telling Kang Taehyun I have smelly feet! I had a huge crush on that guy!”

Sunghoon loudly laughs at the memory, and you curse yourself for cracking a smile when you see his face scrunched in laughter. “That was in Year 5, Y/N! It’s been years!”

You grab a pillow and throw it at his head, unable to not laugh along with him. “What about Bang Yedam, then? That was only last year, and you totally ruined my chances with him!”

“Listen, if you having a creepy doll collection is enough to make him not ask you out, then he must not have liked you that much.”

“But I don’t have a creepy doll collection! That’s the whole point!” you say, on the brink of desperation. You sigh at your friend who’s still catching his breath from laughing so much. “You’re just lucky they didn’t repeat your bullshit to anyone. I would’ve had such a weird reputation otherwise.”

“Of course they didn’t. I told them I’d kill them if they did,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if that was a normal and appropriate thing to do.

“Couldn’t you have threatened them that way so they wouldn’t ask me out instead of lying to them about me?”

Sunghoon stares at you for a few seconds, eyes seemingly empty of thought. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I could’ve done that.”

“Ugh,” you groan, and plop down on the bed next to him. Neither of you says anything for some time, until you break the silence again. “You know you even stole my first kiss, Hoon,” you speak softly.

“I know,” he says, voice just as quiet as yours. “You never shut up about it.”

“Why would I? I was about to kiss Lee Heeseung, of all people, the boy everybody, including me, had a crush on, but no, someone had to get between us and kiss me in his stead,” you grumble, giving your friend a harsh side-eye.

Sunghoon sighs and shakes his head as if you’re being irrational. “I don’t get why you’re so hung-up on that. Why would you want your first kiss to be because of a middle-school party dare rather than have it with your best friend, whom you know and trust?”

“It was Lee Heeseung, for God’s sake!”

“And I’m Park Sunghoon!”

Still both laying on your backs, you turn your heads to look at each other. There’s something in his eyes you’ve never seen before that you can’t quite put your finger on. The person in front of you is one you’ve known for years now and yet the look in his eyes is of such unfamiliar intensity that it makes your stomach flip. You inhale sharply when his eyes drift down to your lips, and you can’t help but mirror his actions. The atmosphere has flipped like a light switch; it was playful just mere seconds ago, the sound of your usual banter filling up the room. All of a sudden, there’s something heavy dancing in the air around you, and it makes your heart skip a bit faster and your breath a bit shallower.

Your voice is barely above a whisper when you say his name.

“Yeah?” His eyes snap back up to yours, but you're still stuck on his lips. Have they always looked so kissable?

“Why did you do that? Why did you push those boys away from me?” you ask, even though you’ve asked this question a thousand times before. You want to hear his answer again.

“I’ve already told you. You deserved better than them.” Whenever you ask him about it, Sunghoon always stops here, and you never push. But there are unspoken words left hanging that you’re dying to hear.

“Who, then? Who’d be better than them?”

He's quiet for a second. “It’s a secret,” he whispers finally, a small smirk teasing his lips, and you roll your eyes at him. But then your eyes meet again and your breath hitches. You shift to your side so you can face him more fully, and he mirrors your actions. 

It’s his turn to say your name. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you kissed anyone since?” he asks, coming off shyer than he’d intended to.

You giggle and smack his shoulder lightly. “Why do you wanna know?”

He snickers too and, to your surprise, stops your fist from hitting him a second time, enveloping his larger hand around yours and laying it between the two of you on the bed. “Cause I should know that sorta thing. Also, if you did kiss someone since then, and I didn’t know about it, I'd be upset.”

“Why would you be mad?” you say, still giggling, trying to ignore the way your heartbeat quickens when he threads your fingers with his.

“Because you wouldn’t have told me!”

“Well…”

“No way, Y/N,” he practically shouts, already feeling betrayed, his free hand coming up to grip his heart in fake shock.

“Let me at least finish first,” you protest. He obliges, although he doesn't look very happy about it. “You know that summer 2 years ago I went away to camp?”

“Yeah, worst summer ever.”

“Well, I did sort of… get with someone, that summer,” you say, avoiding Sunghoon’s wide eyes as he gasps loudly.

“What? Who with? How come you didn't tell me?” he exclaims, letting go of your hand. He sits up on the bed and crosses his arms over his chest like an annoyed child. 

“Because of this exactly.”

“What’s this?”

“Your reaction right now!” you say, sitting up as well, both of your knees grazing his. The simple touch sends a shiver down your spine that you can only hope he takes no notice of.

“Wouldn’t you be a bit upset if I told you I ‘got with’,” he air-quotes, “a random girl two years ago?”

“No? Especially not if it was two years ago?”

You both look just as confused as the other, obviously not on the same wavelength. He furrows his eyebrows and glares at you. “Well, I am.”

You throw your head back in laughter and place your hands on his knees, but when you come forward again, you overestimate the distance between the both of you and find yourself mere inches from his face. The laughter immediately dies in your throat, and you feel it go dry when your stunned reaction elicits a smirk from him. You don’t know how long you stare into his eyes, all you know is you snap out of it when his gaze drifts down to your lips once more. You’re closer now than you were before, and having him so close makes your mind spin with all the possible outcomes of such proximity. You lean back on the bed, pulling away your hands from his knees to hold yourself up on them.

“There’s no reason to,” you say, hoping that breaking the silence will dissipate some of the tension in the air. You keep going back and forth between familiar and dangerous and you don’t know how long you’ll be able to handle that atmosphere. “It’s not like anything grand happened. We made out a bit and held hands. We never spoke after that summer, otherwise you’d have known about it.” 

Sunghoon lets out a low hum. His eyes are still trained on yours, and you wished he’d look away because you can’t seem to do it yourself. He still doesn’t say anything, so you speak up again. “You say that like you’ve never had girlfriends, by the way. Surely you’ve done more than just kissing.” Silence again, and you can’t decipher the look he’s giving you. “So, I don’t know what you’re so scared about, because it’s not like you have zero experience. I’m sure the girls at uni will love you, Hoon.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from yours, and you’re not sure if you’re seeing things because of how dark and late it is or if there’s an actual blush creeping on his cheeks. “Sure, I’ve had a couple girlfriends, but you know they’ve never lasted long,” he says, looking down at his lap. “We made out… I guess I-” he gives you a quick glance, “I’ve touched their boobs and they’ve touched my… you know…”

You can’t help but giggle at how shy your friend is suddenly being. “Can’t even say the word ‘penis’, Hoon?,” you tease, and his eyes snap back up at yours.

“Of course I can. Penis! There.” You look at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, Sunghoon hushing you so you don’t wake up his parents, but his hushes are louder than your laugh. After a couple minutes, you calm down and wipe your tears away, grateful for the break in the tension between you and Sunghoon.

“Anyway, yeah, I guess I don’t have that much experience. Which is why I brought it up in the first place.” And just as quickly as it’d left, the tension is back again.

You look around the room because the weight of Sunghoon’s gaze on your face is unbearable. You release a shaky breath when you feel his gentle hand on your knee, and your eyes drift to it, but you can’t get yourself to look him straight in the eyes. 

“Don’t you think it’d be good to get experience before leaving for college, Y/N?” he asks, and you can tell he’s trying to sound confident, but his voice comes out breathier and shakier than he must intend it to.

“I don’t know… I don’t think it’s necessary,” you say, eyes still trained on his hand resting on your knee. He squeezes it a bit, making you finally look up at him. Is it just you, or did the room get hotter all of a sudden?

“Not everything you do has to be out of necessity, you know.”

The both of you stare at each other for a few moments. This shift in your relationship was bound to happen; you’d been feeling it more and more recently. You didn’t use to think twice about Sunghoon taking your hand in his, nor did you feel those stupid butterflies eating away at your stomach every time his gaze lingered for a second too long. You’d tried to reason with yourself that it was just teenage hormones doing their stupid job, and that you were doomed to feel some kind of attraction for your extremely handsome best friend at some point in your life, but that if you ignored it hard and long enough it would go away.

Well, now that Sunghoon’s lips are barely inches away from yours and your skin is on fire under his hand, it definitely isn’t going away.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Sunghoon asks, eyes fluttering down to your lips. You think he’s looked at your lips more than the rest of your face in the past hour.

“I’d slap you,” you lie, gaze mirroring his.

“Would you really?” he says, and your hesitation makes him smirk slightly.

“No,” you breathe out, and it’s the answer he’s been waiting for, the answer he needs to finally press his soft lips against yours. 

You don’t even have the time to savor the moment, though, because the warmth of his lips is gone as quickly as it came. He pulls back, a surprised look in his eyes, as if he can’t believe what he just did. The tension above you breaks and rains down on you like small pieces of confetti that settle comfortably on your head and shoulders. There’s a knot in your stomach but instead of twisting your insides in nervousness, it feels warm and makes you giddy for what’s to come next. Sunghoon’s surprised expression transforms into a grin at the sound of your laughter, and he can’t help but chuckle along with you.

You scooch closer to him, and his other hand comes to rest on your second knee. You can tell he’s not going to do much more, so you lean in bit by bit, and peck him softly on the lips. You both giggle again and you blame the fact that you want to feel his lips on yours again on the late hour of the night. You peck his lips once, twice more, giggling inbetween, but when you peck them a third time, he doesn’t let you pull away and keeps his lips on yours. The sudden added strength takes you aback, but it doesn’t take you long to yield to his touch and kiss him back. 

Sunghoon moves his lips slowly against yours and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into his rhythm. You don’t have the most experience with kissing, but something about doing it with your best friend reassures you and your whole body relaxes as you focus on the feeling of his lips moving in cadence with yours. The knot in your stomach stays there and tightens when his hands ride up your thighs and settle on your hips, holding you snugly there. You’re only wearing shorts and his palms against your bare skin make you release a shaky breath in Sunghoon’s mouth. You pull back for a bit, surprised at your own reaction, but nothing has prepared you for the way your best friend looks at you.

His pupils are dilated, dark; his glossed-over eyes bore right into yours. Your breath was already shallow from the kiss, but it’s his gaze that renders you completely breathless. Sunghoon tightens his grip on your hips and leans in for more, but you put a hand on his chest to stop him, making his eyes snap back into focus.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Y/N. I don’t know what took over me. Are you okay?” he asks, as short of breath as you are, but worry laced in his voice.

“No- Yes- I mean, yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine, I just-” you shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts. “I’m just…”

“Tell me. You can tell me,” he says, rubbing gentle circles into your hips with his thumb, and the unfamiliar yet intimate gesture makes it even harder to concentrate. 

“We- we’re best friends, right?” you ask, voice trembling, You ask, even though you know the answer, just because you’re afraid the line the two of you have just crossed is already miles behind you, and you won’t be able to retrace your steps.

“Yeah, of course we are,” Sunghoon reassures, head tilting to the side in confusion. 

“And best friends… Do they… Well, it’s normal for best friends to kiss, right?” you say, trying to calm the overpowering urge to kiss him again.

Sunghoon chuckles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I don’t know about that, Y/N.”

“Oh,” you breathe.

Sunghoon quickly catches on to your hesitation. “But who cares about what best friends usually do and don’t do?” he says, holding your face between his hands to make you look up at him. “I liked kissing you, just now. I really, really liked it,” he admits, red dusting his cheeks. “Did you?”

You nod, too shy to put just how much you enjoyed kissing Sunghoon into words. “Do you want to do it again?” he asks and chuckles when you nod again, eyes already on his lips. This time, you don’t stop him when he leans in and let him press his lips to yours again. His words have reassured you and you sigh into his mouth, making him smile into the kiss. 

His hands ride up a bit and settle on your waist, bringing you a bit closer to him, and you circle your arms around his neck. The shyness of the first kiss is completely gone, and you’re both gaining more and more confidence, letting everything go and focusing solely on where your bodies meet. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and you push your body onto his, a sudden need to feel him against you, to feel his strong arms encaging you. 

You pull away at the same time to catch your breaths, smiling at each other when you see how lustful the other’s expression is. Sunghoon’s eyes have glossed over once more, and you’re sure yours have too. “C’mere,” he whispers, beckoning you to him. You climb onto his lap, one knee on each side of his hips. “Is this okay?” he asks, but you don’t answer, you just lean in and kiss him again, holding his face in your hand as his hands roam your back over the thin fabric of your t-shirt. Your kisses are curious, the both of you trying to figure out what feels best as you tilt your heads from one side to the other and let your inquisitive hands travel each other’s bodies. Yours find purchase in his hair, and you revel in the sighs that escape his lips whenever you pull and tug at the strands. 

As the kiss gets hungrier and needier, his hands fall down to your lower back, and then to your ass. He just cups it for a while, but after a few moments, grabs it harder and brings you close to him, making your core rub against  the hardness that had been building in his sweatpants for a while now. The friction is unexpected and you can’t help the loud moan leaving your lips at the feeling. It’s a feeling you know from your own hand in the privacy of your dark room, but Sunghoon making you feel that way is so foreign that it snaps you out of the daze you’re in. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, was that too much?” Sunghoon scrambles for words, but you’re already pulling away, and he doesn’t know what to do to keep you close.

You sit back on the bed, holding your knees close to your chest. You look at your best friend in front of you who’s looking at you with a worried expression. Something in you craves to reach a hand out to him, to feel his cheeks and jawline under your palms again, to find out if he’d shiver at your touch and if goosebumps would form on his skin. He’s been your best friend for eight years, and you’ve always thought you knew everything about him, the same way he’s supposed to know everything about you. But you realize in this moment that there are things you don’t yet know, melodies to be discovered, treasures to be unearthed. Your fingertips are burning to find them all. 

The sound of your name resonates inside your mind and it takes you everything not to fall back on him again. You furrow your eyebrows, confused by all those things you’re feeling. What was it that just took over you, that lit your insides up so?

You straighten your back suddenly and take in your surroundings. Sunghoon’s room is still the same old room you’ve always known, the same blue walls, the same posters he only ever changes when he finds a new interest and lets go of an old one. The same pictures from when you were 10, 12, 15, recent ones now that you’re 18; the same figure skating trophies and medals on his shelves. You turn to look at your best friend. The same soft, round cheeks contrasted by a sharp jaw; the same almond eyes, round with worry at your sudden movement away from him; the same two moles you’ve always found so comforting, for some reason. You almost reach out to touch them, to give you some sense of balance, to reassure you that things aren’t changing as much as it feels like they are. But you’re scared electricity might fry your fingers if you touch him right now. You’re scared you won’t be able to take your fingers off of him, no matter how much it stings. His face is the same as always before, but there’s something else to it, something you could probably figure out if you spent more than three seconds thinking about it, but you’re not sure you want to figure it out.

“Is everything okay? Did- Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice laced with concern. 

Before he can put a reassuring hand on your knee, you get off of the bed, and hurriedly say, “No. I just- I think I should go home.” You look everywhere but at him.

He sits up at your words, concern turned into confusion. “It’s 3 a.m., Y/N, why do you want to go home all of a sudden? You’ve stayed over plenty of times before.”

“I know, I just…” you trail off, trying to come up with an excuse. “I’ve got cramps. I think my period’s coming,” you lie. It’s better than whatever truth is threatening to bubble up.

“Oh. Right.” He scooches a bit, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Is there anything- like- can I do anything?” He sighs, steadies himself. “You don’t have to go, is what I’m trying to say.”

A few months ago, when you had finally wrapped your head around the fact that your best friend was an attractive man and that he made you feel things friends weren’t supposed to make you feel, you’d told yourself it was all just a phase that would pass soon. But feelings this strong surely cannot go away that easily.

You take a deep breath in and tear your eyes away from him. “I think I should go home,” you repeat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hoon.”

You turn around and start walking away, but Sunghoon is quick on his feet and stops you from going out the door. “Do you actually have cramps? Or are you just scared that our friendship might change?” He sounds out of breath, like asking this question is taking him all of his energy.

You avert his gaze and try to push past him, but he’s much stronger than you. Puberty sure played its trick on him. You sigh and look down at your feet. “I’m tired, Hoon, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

But if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn. “I don’t wanna talk about it tomorrow. I wanna talk about it now. Did it feel nice?” he asks, and his resolute tone of voice makes you look up at him.

“I- I mean-”

“Y/N,” he starts, wrapping his arms around you and leaning in a bit, his familiar scent filling your nostrils. You have to close your eyes. “Answer me. Did it feel good?”

“Yes,” you answer without thinking. 

“Is that why you’re scared?”

“Yes.” Your eyes flutter open when you feel his fingers graze your cheek. He leans in again and traps your kiss in a much softer and intimate kiss that makes your head spin and your thoughts cloud. Before you can get carried away, you pull away again, and ignore how beautiful he looks when his eyes stay closed for a couple of seconds longer. He only opens them once you tell him once again you should go home, that you need some time to think.

“Let me at least walk you there. It’s dark,” he pleads, his grip on your waist still tight.

“Hoon, I live right next door, I’ll be fine.” You let him kiss you once more and he makes you promise to call or text him tomorrow.

When you leave, Sunghoon plops back down on his bed, arm resting on his forehead as he plays back the events of the night. Had he done something wrong? Something that made you want to get as far away from him as quickly as possible? He’d tried to be gentle and to make sure you were okay with everything, but he couldn’t help but get carried away when he heard those sweet sighs of yours. He thought he was going to combust when he heard you moan, and he wanted to hear it over and over again, but you’d jumped from him like he’d told you he had killed someone.

He hopes you were telling the truth when you said you were just scared about your friendship changing. He hadn’t wanted to push and get you to stay; he knew it was weird, seeing each other in a different light all at once. He wasn’t completely oblivious; he’d felt that same shift in your relationship those past few months, just like you had, although you’d never spoken about it to each other. He knew he could never go back to seeing you as just a friend when he’d jerked off one day and you were all he could think of. He kept imagining the sounds you’d make and the way your hands would feel on him, and he’d gotten so close to getting that today, but he must’ve fucked something up and now his chances were ruined. He curses himself for letting you slip through his fingers just when he thought he finally had you.

You don’t get a wink of sleep that night. Your mind is reeling with everything that happened in Sunghoon’s room. Your fingers unconsciously keep coming up to touch your lips and feel the ghost of his touch there. Your skin turns hot at the simple thought of how perfect his lips had felt against yours, and you toss and turn in your bed as you consider what might’ve been, had you stayed with Sunghoon. 

But it’s all happening too quickly, and even though you’ve been curious in more ways than one about your best friend for the past few months, you hadn’t expected to kiss him and to enjoy it so much on a random summer night. Your thoughts only seem to calm down and your eyes finally close just as the sun starts to rise.

--

The next day, Sunghoon wakes up in the early hours of the afternoon and checks his phone right away. A couple of notifications, but nothing from you. A text from Jake in their group chat with Jay asking to hang out at Sunghoon’s pool, to which he replies that they can come whenever. He taps a quick one out in the shower, memories of your scent and your lips on his getting him to finish quicker than he’d like to admit. He’s in the middle of a late breakfast when Jake and Jay spawn at his door, swimming trunks already on. Still nothing from you.

It doesn’t take Jay and Jake long to figure out that something is up with their best friend. It’s not like he does much usually, but today especially, he makes no effort to entertain them. He laughs at their jokes, but it feels like he laughs because he hears other people laughing rather than because he genuinely finds them funny. He barely even reacts when the inflatable pool ball hits him right in the face.

His friends don’t say anything until they’re all seated at a table by the pool, sipping on some ice-cold Coke. The air is still warm but the sun is low in the sky, hidden behind the house. Sunghoon is still lost in his thoughts, unblinking eyes fixed on a random point in the distance. Jay and Jake exchange a look before the former breaks the silence.

“Is everything alright, Hoon? You look out of it today.”

Jay’s voice brings him back to the here and now, and his eyes jump back and forth between his two friends who are looking at him expectantly. “Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he says, leaving some of the truth out, but his friends know him better than he gives them credit for.

“Are you sure? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling us. You usually act like a little bitch when you’re tired, you don’t get all…,” Jake shakes his hand in front of his face, “distant like that.”

Sunghoon bites his lip, debating whether he should tell his friends about you or not. No matter how stupid they may be, they also know both of you quite well, so they might prove not completely useless, he thinks.

“Y/N and I kissed last night.”

It’s almost comical, how Jay and Jake bring their head forward in astonishment, how wide their mouth gets, how their eyes look like they might pop out of their sockets, and how they say “You what?!” at the same time. On a normal day, Sunghoon would've laughed.

“We kissed,” Sunghoon repeats, eyes drifting down to the ground in front of him as he rubs his neck in embarrassment.

“Fucking finally!” Jay exclaims.

“Told you it was gonna happen. No way you two were going to stay just besties forever,” Jake teases, punching Sunghoon in the arm. “How was it?”

Sunghoon sighs and leans back in his chair, letting his head hang back. “Really fucking amazing,” he chuckles. His friends holler for him, snickering like 12-year old boys who just saw a hot girl walk past. 

“God, I saw this coming from miles away. I don’t know why you kept on insisting nothing was gonna happen between you two,” Jake says, beaming.

“I really didn’t think anything would… I just… Started seeing her differently recently, I guess.” Sunghoon shrugs, sheepishly smiling to himself.

“So, what happened? Did you guys just kiss or…?” Jay asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Jake giggles at the insinuation of sex but has a curious glint in his eyes when he waits for Sunghoon’s answer.

“Yeah, um, we just kissed cause she- she sort of ran away?” Sunghoon admits, wincing at the recollection.

“You what?!” Chaeyong’s voice rings out in the food court of the mall where you’re currently sitting, halfway through your strawberry milkshake.

“Keep it down, would you?!” you scold her, smiling apologetically to the people staring at you and your friend.

“If it was so good, why the hell did you run away, Y/N?”

“I just- I don’t know… Freaked out, I guess…” you mumble, cowering under the harsh look she gives you.

“Well, have you talked since?” You don’t reply, just guiltily avoid her gaze. “Y/N!”

“I know, I know! I just… don’t know what to do. ‘Hey, nice making out with you last night, bit weird since we’ve been best friends since we were 11, but that’s fine, right?’ Ugh! That’s so stupid,” you complain, flopping back in your chair.

“That’s exactly what you should say. Going MIA on him will just make things weirder. Plus you’ve never gone more than 24 hours without speaking so one of you will eventually cave in. It should be you,” she says, looking at you with a raised eyebrow as she takes a sip from her milkshake. 

You scoff when she gives you a ‘you know I’m right’ look. “I’ll think about it on the way home and text him. There.”

And you do think about it on the way home; but you don’t get the opportunity to send the text, because as soon as you get off the bus at the stop right across from your house, you see Sunghoon sitting on the bench of your porch, looking around nervously and rubbing his hands on his denim shorts. You chuckle to yourself; who knew he got so distressed from not speaking to you for a day?

He stands up when he sees you approaching and raises his hand in a quick wave. “Hi, Hoon,” you greet, and you can feel his whole body relax when you hug him. So, you don’t hate him, he thinks. You sit down on the bench together. “Sorry I didn’t text you. I didn’t know what to say after… last night,” you admit, hugging your knees to your chest as you sit facing him.

“Yeah, I figured,” he chuckles, smiling shyly at you. “I was scared you’d never want to see me again.”

You look at him with wide eyes, mildly offended, and punch his arm. “How could you think that?!”

“Well, you did sort of run away from me last night,” he says, lightly punching your arm in return.

You tut in defeat. “I did, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah. I’m just glad you didn’t walk past me straight into your house just now.”

You chuckle and rest your head on top of your knees. “That would’ve been a bit much, even for me.”

Sunghoon lets out a puff of air through his nose in response, and then the two of you sit in silence. You’re contemplating what to do next when your friend pulls you from your thoughts. “Should we, um…” He shuts his eyes tightly in reflection for a second before opening them again and looking straight at you. “Should we just pretend like last night didn’t happen? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

His words take you aback and your eyes widen a bit; you hadn’t even thought pretending nothing happened last night was an option, because you didn’t think you’d ever be able to actually get it out of your head. Even now, if you stare at Sunghoon for too long, your gaze will naturally drift downwards or you’ll get a flashback of his large hands around your waist. But apparently, if he can offer to pretend like the previous night wasn’t a thing, then it must not have been such a huge deal to him. You quickly try to hide your disappointment and nod at your friend. “Right. Yeah. Sure.”

Silence makes its way between you two again. It makes the late afternoon breeze a bit chillier and the physical distance between you and Sunghoon feel much bigger than it actually is. Wanting it to go away quickly, you ask, “Do you wanna watch a movie, then?”

Sunghoon’s never looked so relieved about watching a movie, and he immediately accepts your offer. You get some popcorn ready while he searches for a movie to watch. He clicks on a horror movie that looks like it’s got a cliché storyline and awful acting, but you’re happy for any sort of distraction when Sunghoon is sitting so close to you.

You and Sunghoon always sit close-by when you watch something together, knees and shoulders brushing against each other. Tonight isn’t any different, except that your skin burns everywhere it touches his. You can smell the faint scent of chlorine in his hair, and it’s so intoxicating you want to bury your face there and breathe it in.

You’re thirty minutes into the movie and still nothing’s happened when Sunghoon puts his arm around you, letting his hand hang over your shoulder. The sudden warm contact makes you take a sharp intake of breath as memories of the previous night come flooding once again. You don’t know what you were expecting, but Sunghoon simply rests his hand there and doesn’t do anything more for another thirty minutes, except for squeezing your shoulder when there’s a small jumpscare, making you chuckle at him. This isn’t much more than what you’re used to with him, but knowing your friend, he must be thinking the ball is in your court. So you scooch a bit closer into his side and rest your head on his shoulder, the scent of his skin even stronger now that your nose is so close to his neck. You feel his chest raise and relax as he sighs deeply and tightens his hold around your shoulders. His small reactions to you spur you on and you decide to wrap an arm around his waist and you feel him flinch oh-so-slightly at your touch in such a sensitive spot. He starts to rub circles into your shoulder and rests his head on top of yours, and your whole body relaxes into his. This is so much more than what you’re used to with him; and yet, you so readily melt under his touch.

You can barely focus on the movie because of how close Sunghoon is. When a particularly scary ghost jumps on the screen, you flinch and hide your face in his neck, and he giggles at your reaction, hand coming up to stroke your hair comfortingly. It only takes you a few seconds to realize what position you’re in, and you release a shaky breath as you slowly lift your head towards Sunghoon, only to find him already looking at you, seemingly having had that same realization. When his eyes drift down to your lips, you know you’re done for.

You call out his name, and he’s already answered ‘Yes?’ before you’ve had time to finish uttering the second syllable. “I don’t think I want to pretend last night never happened,” you admit, holding his waist a bit tighter.

“Good. Me neither,” he breathes out before leaning down and trapping your lips in his, the kiss releasing all your pent-up frustration of the day. The world seems to melt away with his lips on yours, the movie already long forgotten. Sunghoon pulls you into his lap and you slide your palms up from his waist, against his chest and to his shoulders before wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing your body closer to his. His hands are sitting on your hips, fingers lightly pressing into them and your lower back. Now that you both seem to know what you want, it’s so easy, just falling into this kiss.

His tongue darts out to lick your bottom lip and you gladly open your mouth for him, letting his tongue explore it. You haven’t kissed someone like this in ages, maybe ever, but Sunghoon takes the lead and effortlessly gets you to follow his rhythm. When a flick of his tongue against yours feels particularly nice, you arch your back and press your chest into his, making him smirk into the kiss. This time, when he brings your hips down onto his, letting you feel his erection against your clothed core, the feeling doesn’t make you want to run away; instead, you want to feel it again and again.

You fall into a nice pace of rubbing yourself against him, eliciting hushed moans and loud breaths from the both of you. You can’t concentrate on kissing him and grinding down on him at the same time, so you drop your head down to bury your face in his neck, leaving a few pecks there but mostly moaning against his skin, enjoying how your hot breaths make him shiver.

You can’t keep a whine from escaping your lips when he bucks his hip into yours and his tip brushes directly against your covered clit, instantly bringing a hand up to your mouth. “Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes. “I know we gotta keep quiet ‘cause of your parents but the sounds you’re making are so fucking pretty. I wanna hear them over and over again.” His words make you whimper against his neck and you feel your slick starting to pool in your panties.

“H-hoon. This feels so good,” you moan, breathing warmly against the shell of his ear.

“I know, right? Feels so good,” he chuckles, hands grabbing at your ass to bring you harder down onto him. His actions are about to elicit another moan from you when, all of a sudden, a loud jumpscare in the movie makes you jump away from the boy underneath you and yelp in fear, which in turn makes him scream in surprise. You look at each other, panting and eyes open wide, hands clutching at your hearts, until you burst into laughter. The fun moment is short-lived, however, as your mom rushes down the stairs not ten seconds later, frantically asking if everything is alright. 

You sit up straight at the sight of your mother and clear your throat. You’re thankful for the dark of the room which hides your and Sunghoon’s swollen lips and flushed faces from her view. “Sorry, mom, we were just watching a scary movie. We’re fine.” She sleepily nods and walks back up the stairs, and when she’s back in her room, Sunghoon and you exchange a look and erupt into another fit of smaller, quieter giggles. 

That night, after Sunghoon’s gone home, the both of you get yourselves off in your own beds, the strong memory of each other’s lips and hands bringing you both to your releases. Without even realizing it, you moan out Sunghoon’s name as your orgasm hits. The window from your room doesn’t face his; but still, your heart is beating so loudly that you’re afraid the sound might carry from your open window to his. You get up and close it.

--

Now that you and Sunghoon both know you want to kiss each other, you do it everywhere: in his pool, his back pressed against the wall; on the sunchairs when you were supposed to be drying off; on your beds in the middle of the night, none of your parents or siblings suspicious of anything; in front of your house, because even though he was supposed to just walk you home, he couldn’t keep himself from tasting you one last time; in the backseat of his car after an evening with your friends and he drove you two home.

You spend a good two weeks of just kissing before your body starts to crave something more. At some point, Sunghoon’s hands resting nicely on your waist or sometimes, if he’s feeling bold, grabbing at your ass, start to not be enough anymore. You knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with just kisses and sweet touches when one day, his hands slowly but surely slid up your naked belly before grabbing onto your bikini-clad breast, lighting your whole body up on fire. He’d slipped his hand underneath your swimming top and rolled your nipple between two fingers and you had felt his dick twitch under your core when you let out a loud moan at the new yet so pleasurable feeling.

You know what it is that you want, but it makes you feel dirty. Your fingers have made you finish a hundred times before, but wanting Sunghoon to make you feel that way is a whole other story. Is that even what he wants? Would he be weirded out if you asked him about it? Is there even the sliver of a chance that maybe, just maybe, he has those same thoughts about you, and wants you to make him feel good as much as he wants to make you feel good?

If his grunts and the way he ruts into you when your make-out sessions get particularly steamy are any indication, then the answer to those questions would respectively be yes, no, and yes. 

You’re lying on a sunbed one afternoon, letting the sun dry off your wet skin from the pool, when you finally muster the courage to tell Sunghoon about your wishes. After all, he is your best friend, and you know you can talk to him about anything. Even when that ‘anything’ involves his fingers inside of you and his dick in your mouth.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head to look at your best friend. He’s bathing in the sunlight without a care in the world. His skin has tanned a bit since summer started three weeks ago and his muscles are even more defined after all that swimming and working out he’s been doing. You want to reach out a hand, to feel the taut skin of his abs and chest under your palms, and to maybe then slide your hand down until you feel his hard-on underneath his swimming trunks. Your chairs aren’t far apart and you could do it from where you are, but you’d rather ask him first.

“Yeah?” he answers without turning towards you.

You take a deep breath in before you start talking again. “You know how you said it could be good for us to get… experience before going to college… And how we’ve been kissing these past couple weeks…”

“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles.

“Well… people do more than just kissing, right?” you ask, voice slightly shaky. This seems to pique his interest as he turns to look at you.

“Yeah?” 

You hope you’re not just imagining the enthusiastic tone in his voice. “I think… I think we should try that too, don’t you think?” you ask, eyes not leaving his as he sits up on his chair and turns his knees towards you, fully facing you now.

“Yeah, I agree. I completely agree.” He stares at you for a few moments as if in disbelief. “Do you want to- Should we- Let’s go up to my room, yeah?” he offers, standing up and reaching his hand out to you. You gladly take it.

You and Sunghoon are a giggling mess as you practically run up the stairs, unable to get to his room quick enough. As soon as the door is closed behind you, you wrap your arms around each other, your lips finding his immediately as he walks you back to his bed. When you feel the back of your knees hit it, you detach yourself from him and lay on it, elbows holding you up as you look up at him expectantly.

“Fuck,” he whispers, leaning in to hover over you. He traps your lips in a short but sweet kiss before pulling back and murmuring against your lips, “Have I ever told you how pretty you are, Y/N?”

You beam at his words but decide to tease anyway. “You always go on and on about how pretty you are, but never about me.”

He giggles and pecks your lips again. “Well, I’m telling you now. You’re gorgeous.” You kiss him to hide your flustered face, pulling him so close to you he’s practically laying on top of you. Your hands are a bit more curious than usual, your kisses hungrier, the both of you anticipating what’s to come. 

You grind against each other, the feeling of his erection against your barely covered core enough to send your mind into a frenzy. You forget everything around you when you feel Sunghoon pull back in the slightest, far enough so that he can look at your face and gauge your reactions but not too much that you still feel his hot breath on your lips. One of his hands is holding the back of your head as the other travels downwards, stopping for a second on your breast to massage it lightly before continuing its journey. It ever-so-slightly brushes against your core, making you buck your hips up into his touch, but his hand is already gone leaving you whining and pouting and him chuckling at your cute reaction. “You want it that bad, huh?” he teases.

You scoff, not wanting to let your friend know the effect he has on you. You press your palm against his clothed erection and he hisses at the unexpected contact. “So do you, Hoon.”

When he presses his lips to yours again, you both smile into the kiss. You cup his jaw and tangle your fingers through his hair, and his hand slips from under your head and joins his other hand on your thigh, grabbing at both of them, fingers slightly digging in your skin. He’s so, so close to where you want him most, and he seems to have noticed your growing impatience by the way you squirm underneath him. Seeing you so needy for him only makes him needier for you; he has more experience than you, so you probably expect him to take the lead, but the truth is, he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

“Y/N?” he murmurs, face buried in your neck as he leaves a trail of wet kisses there.

“Yeah?”

“What do you want me to do?”

The question takes you a bit by surprise. You pull away to look at your friend. His eyes are completely glossed-over, and yours are probably the same. “Oh. I don’t know. I just… want you to touch me, I guess,” you say, voice a bit quiet.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits sheepishly. He kisses your neck and cheeks before pecking your lips. “Could you- could you show me? How you do it? And I can show you how I do it?”

You take a second to take his words in. Was he suggesting that you touch yourself in front of him, and that he do the same?

This was like a dream come true.

“Yeah, sure.”

Sunghoon giggles in response, and you can’t help but crack a smile too, even though the idea of getting yourself off in front of your friend, no matter how appealing, is still a bit nerve-wracking. “You first,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you roll your eyes at him.

You sit back against the headboard of the bed and slip a hand underneath your swim bottom, the other hand coming up to cover your eyes in an attempt to escape Sunghoon’s heavy, lustful gaze. “None of that. I wanna see you,” he says, pulling your hand away from your eyes and resting it on a pillow next to you. “And if you keep these on, I won’t be able to see anything,” he says, looking down at your bikini top.

Before you can protest, he comes to sit on his knees in front of you, kissing your neck and letting his hands roam your back. “I wanna see all of you.” It’s so easy, untying your string bikini, he almost thinks you wore it on purpose for him to take it off. You avoid his gaze as he takes your top off of you, leaving you half-naked in front of him. “So pretty,” he whispers, and you can’t help but look at him, slick pooling between your legs from the fascination he’s looking at your breasts with. He trails kisses down your neck until he reaches them, taking a nipple in his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, then looks up to see your reaction. You never knew your nipples were this sensitive, and you can’t help but arch your back at his touch and moan loudly, hand flying up to tug at his soft hair. He releases your nipple with a pop and moves sideways to pay the same attention to the other one, but Sunghoon is impatient and doesn’t waste too much time on it; he knows he can come back to your boobs later anyway. Right now, you’ve got a hand between your legs, and that’s what he’s dying to see.

“Can I take this off, too?” he asks, looking up at you as his fingers hook on the sides of your swimming bottoms, waiting for you to nod. His eyes don’t leave your glistening core as he pulls the thin fabric down your legs, discarding it somewhere on the floor of his room. He lays on his belly and kisses the inside of your knee as he holds your thighs in his large hands, still transfixed by your pussy when he says, “Show me how you do it, please.”

You both take a sharp breath in when you start moving two fingers in gentle circles over your clit, already wet from making out with Sunghoon. Your fingers are nimble and know exactly what to do after years of doing this, but the pulse in your core is even stronger now that your best friend is watching your movements this intently. He looks like he’s scared to blink in case he might miss something. You can’t take your eyes off of his face; you’ve never seen him so fascinated by something, so eager to learn. It makes you want to put on a show for him.

A surge of confidence hits you out of nowhere as you slide your digits down your folds, gathering some slick before sliding them back up to your clit and rubbing it a bit faster, a bit harder, your moans growing louder and higher in pitch. With your free hand, you tug at the base of Sunghoon’s hair and make him look up at you. You release his hair and bring your pointer finger up to your mouth, sucking on it and swirling your tongue around it, and Sunghoon’s mind is taken back to that day a couple weeks ago when you had sucked on those lollipops. Oh, how things have changed since then. Not that he’s complaining. “Fuck, that’s hot,” he breathes out, eyes zeroed in on your lips and mouth slightly agape.

You smirk at his reaction, stomach on fire with the feeling of having this kind of power on him. When you’ve wet your finger enough, you bring it down to your slit, circling around your hole before entering it, releasing a loud moan for good measure. Sunghoon is mesmerized by the quickening with which your finger slips in and out of you, the fingers on your clit never relenting. He doesn’t even realize he’s released one of your thighs to palm himself over his shorts until you notice it yourself and tut in disapproval.

“Come and help me, Hoon,” you say, and the boy snaps out of his daze at the sound of his nickname. He nods slowly, changing his position so that he’s laying between your legs, head dangerously close to your core. You slip your other finger out of your hole and he takes that as a sign to replace it with his own. One hand still gripping your thigh, he imitates your previous actions as he gets his pointer finger wet with his saliva before pressing it between your folds, right underneath your clit where your fingers are still rubbing circles, sliding it down towards your slit, and finally pushing it in. 

“So warm… So wet, too,” he whispers in wonder, making you cover your eyes with your forearm out of shyness.

“Oh my God,” you moan, arching your back and letting your head drop to the side on the pillow. Sunghoon’s finger is much thicker and longer than your own, and it stretches you out and hits a deep spot inside you you never could, no matter how much you tried.

“Like this?” he asks, eyes curious as they bounce back and forth between your face and your entrance sucking his finger in.

“Yes, yes, just like that, you can also- oh- you can also curve it upwards a bit- fuck, yeah, just like that, Hoon, you’re doing so well,” you say, the praises just flying out of your mouth. 

This seems to instill some confidence in him, as he cocks an eyebrow at you and speeds up his actions. “Yeah? My finger making you feel good, Y/N?”

“Oh, shut up,” you bite back, but immediately let out a long whine when he easily inserts a second finger in your soaking pussy. He curves them inside you just like you told him to, and the feeling of his fingers filling you up and your own quick ones on your clit are creating a familiar knot in your stomach that is so close to breaking. That is, until Sunghoon pulls your wrist away from your clit.

“Y/N… Can I?” he asks, and you’re not sure what he’s planning, but nod anyway. He wastes no time before pressing his tongue flat down on the sensitive bud, and you actually feel like your soul might leave your body. Fingers knuckle-deep inside you, he licks and sucks at your clit, and the warmth of his tongue against your folds is what makes you tumble over the edge, tightly gripping his hair and bucking your hips into his mouth.

“Oh my God… Oh my God, Hoon, please, don’t stop, please,” you beg, voice getting higher and whinier as you cum all over his tongue. He continues eating you out until it gets too much and you have to tell him to stop. He hikes his body up yours, pecking you sweetly on the lips when he reaches them.

“Your turn,” you announce and hook your legs over his hips to straddle him. You’re about to lean in for a kiss when you notice how lovingly he’s looking at you: his eyes are soft and a small smile is playing on his lips. It takes you aback, but you’d be lying if you said butterflies didn’t spread in your stomach. “W-why are you looking at me like that?”

His grin gets a bit wider. “Did I make you feel good?”

“Y-yeah…,” you admit, averting your gaze from him.

“I’m glad. You taste good, by the way. Sweet.” You want to kiss the devilish smirk off of his face.

You scoff at your friend, glaring a bit. “Whatever. Sit up,” you order, but it just makes him smirk more.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You look up at him to check for confirmation, and when he nods, you hook your fingers under his swimming trunks, taking them off of him along with his boxers underneath. His already fully-hard cock springs free and slaps against his stomach, and you curse yourself for your reaction that will surely just inflate his ego, as if it wasn’t already massive. Your mouth hangs open, eyes zeroing in on his length, flushed red from lack of attention and what you can only guess is precum leaking at the tip. It's straight from a porno.

“Like what you see?” Sunghoon teases, making you look up at him, and you can only stupidly nod. You take the position he was in earlier, laying your head on his thigh and caressing the other, letting it ride up to rub his inner thigh and the tiniest bit over his cock, making his smirk vanish as he takes a shaky breath in.

“Show me how you do it,” you say, echoing his words from earlier. He gulps, finally realizing that he was going to have to masturbate in front of your curious eyes just as you had. He spits on his open palm and spreads the precum over his length with his thumb, lubing himself up before gripping the base and starting to move his hand up and down. You watch as his head falls back against the pillow when his palm grazes over his tip and his movements pick up some speed.

You rub his palms over his thighs, itching to get closer to his cock and make him feel as good as he had done to you earlier. Tentatively, you reach out to grab his balls in your hands, massaging them softly, feeling satisfied when a loud moan leaves his throat. “Oh, f-fuck, that feels good, Y/N,” he breathes out, voice much higher than you’re used to. If he thought that felt good, then nothing could’ve prepared him for the feeling of your soft and warm tongue kitty-licking his balls, then taking turns sucking each one into your mouth and releasing them with a pop. “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” he asks, involuntarily bucking his hips into your face.

You can’t help but giggle, and Sunghoon thinks he might come from the sweet sound contrasted with your lewd actions alone. “I read a lot of fanfiction,” you explain, and he doesn’t question it. If Wattpad taught you how to suck dick, then so be it.

You wrap your hand around his and tell him to keep going so you can get an idea of what pace and movements he likes, and you graze your fingernails over his abs and chest with your other hand, chuckling at how sensitive he is when you lightly pinch his nipples. Sunghoon takes his hand off of himself, laying both of his hands palms up next to him on the bed, so you decide to literally take things into your own hands. Trying to recreate what he did before, you spit into your palm and wrap your fingers around his tip, bringing your hand down in a swirly motion to the base of his shaft. You do that a few times, asking, “Like that?” to get confirmation from Sunghoon.

“Just like that, baby,” he says, not even taking notice of the pet name; but you do, and your face immediately flushes, surprised at how much you like it.

“Baby?” you repeat, but he’s too lost in his pleasure and just hums in response. His reaction eggs you on, and you lick a long stripe from his base to his tip, swirling your tongue around it and humming at the bitter but not unpleasant taste of precum there. When another moan escapes his throat, you take his tip in your mouth, at first just shallowly thrusting your head, but then trying to take more and more of him. 

You’re so focused on what you’re doing that you don’t even realize how quickly he’s panting and how his grunts start to get whinier until he’s moaning out your name. “A-ah, Y/N, feels so good, ‘m gonna cum, fuck-”

He goes silent as he shoots his release down your throat, eyebrows deeply furrowed and mouth open wide in pleasure. There’s so much of it and you can’t swallow it all, so you pull your head back, catching your breath, and a hot string of cum hits your chin and your throat. Sunghoon takes a look at you and the sight of you with some of his cum makes his dick twitch before he plops back down on the bed. You giggle as you take tissues from the bedside table (cause of course he’s got tissues next to his bed) and wipe away his seed, then lie down next to him, brushing away the hair that’s sticking to his forehead with sweat and peppering his face with soft kisses.

He opens his eyes and smiles, turning his head to look at you before engulfing you in a bear hug, sweaty bodies sticking together but neither of you minding it. “That was so good, Y/N. What the fuck,” he sighs, pecking your forehead.

You hum, nuzzling your nose into his neck. “I know, right? Who knew you could use your mouth for other things than saying stupid shit,” you tease.

He pulls back and gives you a look that tries to be stern, but you know he’s joking. “Do I need to remind you again, young lady?”

You giggle and peck his lips, forcing him out of character as his dimples appear on his cheeks. “Later, definitely.”

And after that day, he makes sure to remind you time and time again of how good his mouth feels on you. You should’ve seen it coming with how amazing of a kisser he was; but truly, there was nothing like cumming on your friend’s tongue.

--

You’re relieved to find that not much has changed, after all; you and Sunghoon still play around in the pool, watch stupid movies and hang out with your friends like always. Sure, there are stray hands here and there, or looks that last a little too long and mean a little too much, but if anything, it just makes your friendship more playful and exciting. 

You’re both open with what you like and don’t like, so it doesn’t take either of you to figure out exactly how to make the other come undone embarrassingly quickly. (The shortest amount of time it took him was 2:38 seconds - yes, he timed it - and he hasn’t let you live it down since.) You like it when he presses his large hand down onto your lower tummy while he eats you out, or when he sits you between his legs and whispers all sorts of things as his fingers work their magic inside you and on your clit. He likes it when you get down on your knees in front of him and look up at him as you suck him dry, or when you sit in his lap and kiss his neck and play with his hair while he plays video games. And don’t even get him started on when you palmed him over his sweatpants while you watched a movie with Chaeyong, Jay and Jake, making sure that the movements under the blanket went unnoticed by them. He wanted to punish you after they left, he really did, but you took him in your mouth right there in the living room and gave him an orgasm that had his thighs shaking for five minutes afterwards. You were pretty proud of yourself for that one. 

You also find out that he hates it when you tease and edge him, which only makes you do it more; the only problem is that, if you do that, he’ll make you ride his thigh and won’t help you at all. His proud smirk and snide praises combined with the feeling of his thick thigh underneath your core were more than enough to get you to your end, though.

And truly, nothing has changed, especially not Sunghoon’s special talent in pushing boys away from you.

“What do you mean, Lee Heeseung is coming back?” he heatedly asks, slamming his glass of lemonade down on the outdoor table so hard you’re scared it might break.

“It’s the summer, of course he’s coming back. He just stayed behind for a bit to enjoy a few weeks of the city without college, and now he’s coming back here,” Jake explains, shrugging.

“Do you know when he’ll be here?” you ask, far too much excitement in your voice to Sunghoon’s taste.

“Just in a couple days.”

Sunghoon has smoke coming out of his ears when he sees how much you perk up at the news of your old crush being back in town for summer. He likes the boy, but he hates that you like him. And since Heeseung is friends with Jay, Jake, and by association Sunghoon, begrudgingly so, he’ll definitely see lots of him in the upcoming months. And if Sunghoon sees Heeseung, then you’ll see Heeseung, too. And that, Sunghoon doesn’t like.

You notice something is off with him that afternoon because of how uncharacteristically quiet he is. Sunghoon, ever the loud introvert, is always arguing for no reason and laughing louder than everybody around him. So when he merely chuckles at his friends’ numerous displays of stupidity in the pool and doesn’t even say anything in protest to you getting on Jake’s shoulders to play against Chaeyoung and Jay, you know something is definitely up. You also have a good idea of what that something might be, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it endearing.

You stay behind when your friends leave in the early evening. Without a word, you and Sunghoon pack away the inflatable toys in the pool cabin and clean up the table, putting the dirty glasses in the sink. You do the dishes while he prepares sandwiches for the two of you, which he insisted on doing after he heard your stomach grumbling. You watch the latest Kurtis Conner video as you eat and can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even chuckle at any of the jokes or skits when he’d usually be clutching his stomach in laughter. 

When you’re done eating, you take a resolute breath and pause the video, but Sunghoon doesn’t even notice, only snapping out of his daze when you call out his name.

“Huh?” When his eyes find you, he almost looks surprised to see you, as if he’d forgotten you were there.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” you ask, slightly frowning. “You look so out of it today.”

“Huh? I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,” he says dismissively and presses play, but you quickly pause the video again.

“I’m your best friend, Sunghoon, I know when something’s the matter and I know when you’re lying. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but don’t pretend everything’s fine when we both know that’s not true.”

He peers at you for a moment, cursing you for knowing him so well. He crosses his arm and averts his gaze, pouting like an angry child. “I hate it when you’re right.”

You giggle and make your way around the counter to him, standing inbetween his legs and wrapping your arms around his neck to make him look up at you. His hands come naturally up to your waist. “I just…” he starts, then immediately stops himself with a sigh., “You’ve always had a crush on Heeseung. But these are our last couple months together, and I don’t want somebody else taking up your attention…”

He buries his face between your breasts to hide his blush, and you can’t help but giggle again. “Stop laughing at me!” he protests, but the muffled sound of his voice just makes you laugh more. You stroke his hair and press a gentle kiss at the top of his head.

“Sure, I’m happy Heeseung’s coming back. But there’s no one I’d rather spend my summer with than you, Sunghoon, you should know that.” He leans back to look up at you with puppy eyes and a small pout. You cup his face, admiring how cute he looks like this, and smile softly down at him.

“Really?”

“Really,” you answer, and he leans in for a kiss.

It’s a soft one. It’s a patient kiss, neither of you urging to get somewhere else, to do something more. It reminds you of that kiss in his room a few weeks ago, when you were still curious and discovering each other. From then on, your kisses had become more feverish, more eager, more playful. But now, you’re taking your time. For now at least, neither of you is going anywhere. So your lips melt together slowly, and when you take breaks to breathe, you look each other in the eyes and smile before leaning back in.

It’s when you sigh against his lips, eyes still closed as you pull away, that it hits him. I could do this forever, he thinks.

I could sit here with my arms around her waist and her lips against mine and the smell of chlorine and the sound of her laugh forever and I’d never get tired of it, he thinks, but immediately afterwards, he realizes he won’t get to do this forever. Summer will end, you’ll both head off to college, and you’ll only get to see each other every few months until another summer comes. And who knows what might happen until then?

You might meet someone and realize Sunghoon isn’t all that; hell, he might meet someone, but he highly doubts anyone could even come close to the way you make him feel.

“Hello? Earth to Sunghoon?” you quietly joke, looking down at him with an affectionate look in your eyes. You press the pads of your fingers to his two moles before replacing your fingers with your lips, giving each one a quick peck. “You were up on the moon for a minute there.”

Sunghoon hums softly, smiling as he lets himself melt under your touch. “Sorry. It’s just really hot, isn’t it?” he says, a stupid excuse he uses as a blanket to cover his feelings. There is some sweat beading at his hairline, which helps make his lie more believable, but you don’t need to know it’s not just because of the summer heat.

Slowly, your smile turns mischievous, and Sunghoon can tell you have an idea in mind. “It is pretty hot… Wait here.”

He watches as you fill a tall glass with ice from the dispenser in the fridge and pop an ice cube in your mouth, a devilish smile on your face, and laughs when that smile is replaced with a frown as the coldness hits you and you spit it back into the glass, laughing along with him. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks between giggles.

“I got the idea a few days ago when we were having popsicles…,” you say looking down at the glass between your hands, slightly embarrassed. “You kissed me and your mouth was really cold but it felt nice.” Sunghoon hums, egging you to go on. You lift the glass up to his cheeks, applying just a bit of pressure to the soft skin. “I thought this could be refreshing.” 

You take the ice cube back in your mouth, sucking on it but not letting it melt completely before pressing your lips against Sunghoon’s and opening your mouth just a bit so he could feel the cold of the ice cube. You feel his smile into the kiss as the ice cube swirls between your tongues, sending shivers down your spine. 

“Very refreshing indeed,” he murmurs when the ice has completely melted. He gets up and takes the glass in one of his hands, leaning down to your level and says “C’mon” with the same mischievous smile as you on his face.

You two hurry up the stairs, and when you get to his room, he hands you the glass before throwing himself on his back, laying on his back with his hands behind his head. “Show me what you had in mind.”

You straddle his hips and take an ice cube from the glass, rubbing it over his lips before pushing it inside his mouth, the cold making him hiss. You quickly counteract that by pressing your lips to his, the contrast of your warm tongue and the freezing ice turning him on more than he would’ve thought.

When the ice has melted, you take another piece and brush it along his jaw, down his Adam’s apple and around his nipples. The cold temperature makes him squirm but he doesn’t shy away from it, even closing his eyes to focus solely on the feeling. While you play with the ice cube, you also leave warm kisses all over his skin, reveling in its slightly salty taste from the thin layer of sweat. You let the ice cube melt between his abs and watch him wriggle as he sucks in a sharp breath, then grab another one, starting off where the previous one stopped. You circle his navel while your fingers play with the hem of his swimming trunks. He pulls them down himself and you chuckle at his eagerness. “I should’ve known you liked the cold, with all those years of ice skating you did,” you tease.  

He’s almost fully hard, and it only takes a few kisses and trailing the ice cube down his inner thighs to have his dick fully erect. He’d only been letting out small sighs and hisses until now, but when you grab another ice cube and circle it around his sensitive tip, he throws his head back into the pillows and moans loudly. You push your luck and drag the ice cube down his shaft, his thighs snapping together when it reaches his balls. You put it in your mouth and let it melt so that your tongue is still cold when you swirl it around his tip, already tasting precum there. But before you can take him further in your mouth, he calls out your name.

“Wait. I don’t wanna cum just yet. My turn.”

He shakes his shoulders in excitement as you switch positions, you taking your t-shirt and bikini top off and laying on your back and him sitting down with one knee on each side of your thighs, an ice cube in his hand and a giddy smile on his face.

He brushes it over your lips before pushing it just a bit into your mouth, holding onto it with two fingers while you suck on it, gazes locked in each other. Just as you did earlier, he trails it down your throat and your chest until they reach your nipples, marveling at the thin wet trail it leaves in its wake. He licks this trail as he circles one of your nipples with the ice cube, and you don’t know if you should focus on his warm tongue or on the cold ice cube. Once it’s melted, he takes another one and circles your other nipple with it, his mouth coming to wrap around the now cold one. Your hands fly up to grab at his hair, your back arching into his touch as you moan and pant loudly.

He sucks and licks at your nipples until you’re calling out his name, begging for more. As nice as his mouth or an ice cube around your nipples feel, your pussy is throbbing and desperate for attention. “Sunghoon… Please,” you whine.

“Please what?” he teases, looking up from your breasts with a smirk.

You whine again, knowing he knows full well what you want. “Please…”

He trails the ice cube down your stomach, circling your navel a few times where it melts before slipping two cold fingers underneath your bikini bottoms. “Is this what you want, baby?,” he asks as he rubs his fingers between his folds, and you whine at the feeling of having him so close to your hole and to your clit but not quite there either. He smirks when you nod frantically but whine at the loss of his fingers against you as he takes your bottoms off and reaches for another ice cube.

You release a loud moan and arch your back off the bed when the ice cube touches your clit. “Fuck, Hoon!”

He rubs the ice cube up and down your folds, your heat melting it much faster than your skin. He takes another one and brings it to your entrance this time, circling around it before pushing the ice cube in and staring with wonder as it melts quickly. He holds your hips down so you stop bucking them up, whimpering at the amazing feeling of the ice against you. He replaces the ice cube with his fingers inside of you and his tongue on your clit, sucking expertly at the sensitive bud and lapping at your juices. And while it feels good - God, does it feel good - and you let Sunghoon know just how nice it feels with your moans, whispers of his names and the way you hold onto his hair, you’re craving something more.

It’s something you’ve been wanting for the past few days, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. No matter how nice Sunghoon’s fingers and mouth felt, they didn’t make you feel close to him enough. You wanted to be so close to him you didn’t know where you ended and where he started; you wanted to feel him. 

You pull him up by the face, asking him to come here and getting lost in his lips as soon as they reach your level. God, Sunghoon’s kisses. You could drown in them. But still, that craving, that need for more. And now that his body is pressed up against yours and you can feel his erection against your thigh, so close to your core, you think you know what it is that you want. “Hmm, please…”

“You keep asking me for something, but you don’t tell me what it is.”

“You. I want you, Hoon, please,” you beg, murmuring against his lips as you wrap your legs around his hips and bring him even closer, his cock now pressing against your cunt.

“M-me?,” he asks, leaning back just a bit, but you pull him back in right away, resting his forehead against yours.

“Yes, please. I need to feel you inside me.”

Your words are enough to get a moan out of Sunghoon. “Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” he pants, planting kisses all over your face and neck. Usually, you’d giggle at the ticklish sensation, but right now, you’re so drunk on pleasure, it just makes your breath even shallower and your core wetter.

“How long?”

“God. Since the second time we kissed probably,” he replies, reaching for a condom in the drawer of his bedside table. You think back to that moment six weeks ago (how has it been six weeks already?, you think), after you and Sunghoon had made up and made out on his couch in front of a horror movie. He’d wanted you for that long? And he’d waited for you to say something since then?

“Today’s your lucky day, then,” you tease in an attempt to alleviate the need for him that takes over your bones, but his gaze when he looks back at you ruins any effort. If anything, it just makes you need him even more. You feel like you might explode if you don’t have him right now.

You watch as he clumsily wraps the condom around his member, clearly never having done this before, but you wouldn’t be of any help, so you let him figure it out on his own. You let your head fall back as he rubs his tip up and down your folds, gathering your slick on his dick before aligning himself at your entrance and giving you a long, deep kiss.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, forehead on yours.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah, I am. But I’m also scared.”

“Scared of what, Hoon?” you ask, opening your eyes to look at him. You caress his cheek and cup his face in your hands, watching softly as he lets his head rest on your palm.

“I’m scared of hurting you. I heard it hurts the first time. And I’m scared…” he closes his eyes and frowns a bit. “I’m scared it’ll feel too good. That I’ll always want it. You.”

You take a small moment to think, your thumb brushing over his cheek in what you hope is a comforting manner. “You won’t hurt me, Hoon. It only hurts if you’re not ready… And I’m plenty ready. I know you’ll take it slow.” You smile softly when he nods, turning his head to kiss your palm. But if sex is as good as you’ve heard it is, you’re also scared that it might be the best thing you’ve ever experienced and that you’ll never get enough. You and Sunghoon have been meeting up almost everyday this summer and it has more often than not ended up with one of you between the other’s legs; you could never get bored of the things he made you feel or of knowing you were making him feel those exact same things. If you couldn’t live without his fingers, how could you live without his dick?

How could you live without him?

You tried to snap out of those thoughts, reassuring yourself that even before all of this you couldn’t imagine yourself living without Sunghoon, and that there was no reason this should change anything. “And don’t be scared of that, silly,” you say, making him smile. “I’ll always be here, Sunghoon. I’ll always want you, too.” 

“Fuck, okay,” he whispers, kissing your lips once before pulling himself up on his palms, hovering over you. “Tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?” he asks and waits for you to nod before finally pushing in.

You instantly moan when you feel his tip inside you, and Sunghoon stops, frantically asking if you’re okay. It takes some convincing to get him to push himself further in. “It feels so good, Hoon. Please keep going.”

You tell him to not stop until he’s fully inside you, and he obeys, even though he wants to stop when he sees your frown and your sharp intakes of breath. When he’s buried to a hilt, he can’t help but collapse on top of you, burying his face in your neck and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. “Y/N,” he drawls out. “Feels so fucking good. So tight,” he murmurs against your neck.

“Mmh. Give me a minute, baby.” Your hands caress up and down the expanse of his back and you feel him relax on top of you. As you adjust around his length, the stretch starts to feel more and more pleasurable, until pleasure is the only thing you feel. “Hoon?”

“Yeah?” he says, kissing and nibbling softly at your neck and earlobe.

“You can move, now.”

Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice and ever-so-slowly slides out of you, leaving only the tip in before he slides back in. His thrusts are slow but deep, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more. He’s barely started but you’re both already whimpering messes, holding onto each other tightly as pleasure like neither of you has felt before takes over your entire bodies.

As you both get more comfortable, his pace picks up just a tiny bit and you tentatively raise your legs higher so that they’re hooked around the back of his knees instead of laying on the bed. The new angle only adds to the intense pleasure, but you don’t even realize you’re crying until Sunghoon stops mid-thrust, wiping your tears with his thumb and worryingly asking if you’re okay and if it hurts and if he should stop. You open your eyes and smile, instantly calming his nerves. You bring his head closer to yours and kiss him like you’d stop breathing if you didn’t. “It feels so fucking good, Hoon. So, so good.”

He sighs out of relief and resumes his actions, heart swelling with pride that he’s making you feel so good, you’re crying. He’s always hated seeing you cry or hurt in general; but knowing what kind of tears these are, he thinks you look so pretty with tears streaming down your face. His hands grip your thighs a bit tighter as he quickens his pace, already addicted to the feeling of your warm walls taking him in so well.

He slips out a few times but you’re always quick to guide him back inside you. He lifts his body up a bit to get a deeper angle, hoping it’ll get him to stop slipping out, and he’s blown away by the sight underneath him. He thinks you’ve never looked so gorgeous as you do now, legs spread wide for him, cheeks flushed, brows furrowed and mouth agape for him. He kisses your tears, the salty taste bringing a smile to his lips. “So perfect,” he whispers against your mouth. “You look so beautiful.”

Sunghoon takes your legs and wraps them higher around his hips, the new angle hitting a spot inside you that’s making you see stars and has you moaning his name like it’s the only thing you know how to say. You feel that familiar tension build up inside your stomach much faster and much stronger than it usually does.

“Fuck, Sunghoon, I’m gonna cum,” you warn, and a harsher thrust inside you is what pushes you over the edge, the sensation crashing into you and making your thighs shake. An orgasm has never hit you this hard before.

You’re clenching around him like crazy and Sunghoon gasps as you milk him dry, his own orgasm hitting him all at once. He shoots his release inside the condom and stills inside you, breath completely taken away by the sudden, overwhelming sensation.

He lays on top of you for a moment as you both catch your breaths, trying to make sense of how something can feel this good without killing you instantly. He apologizes when his pulling out makes you wince and kisses the top of your head. He rolls onto his back, pulling you with him so that you’re now almost lying on top of him, head against his chest as his arms wrap themselves around you. You leave kisses all over his chest and neck and his hands caress your back.

“That was amazing.”

“I know, right?” he responds immediately, his enthusiasm making you laugh.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say timidly, voice muffled against his skin.

“For what?”

“For making me feel this good.”

He chuckles. “No need to thank me, pretty. If anything, I should thank you for letting me make you feel good, and on top of that making me feel good.”

You hum at his words and you both stay there for a bit longer, enjoying each other’s warmth. Something blooms inside your chest, and you don’t know whether to let it grow or to squash it down. It feels nice, almost too nice, and you’re scared it might get ripped away from you and it won’t feel so nice then.

Friendship, sex, love. In those weeks spent with Sunghoon, those previously clear lines have blurred to a point they were all one big messy ball of feelings and not three distinct things you could tell apart. Has sex turned your friendship with Sunghoon into something romantic? Or is that just an illusion, and being so intimate with your best friend has messed up your once platonic vision of him? But was your vision of him ever platonic?

Haven't the two of you always been teased about liking each other for a reason? After all, you and Sunghoon didn't grow up together, and he’s never felt like a brother to you. He has always been your male friend; you’ve always been aware that he was your friend who was also a boy. When you'd moved in the house next to his, you hadn’t instantly clicked; it took a while for the ice skating prodigy to warm up to you, but his parents had warmly welcomed yours into the neighborhood and quickly became friends, so it was only a matter of time before he’d open up to the idea of you being around. Constantly.

You’d walk to and from school together, do homework together, go on family trips together, cheer each other on at your respective competitions. After his ice skating lessons, when his coach let him have the whole place to himself for a bit more practice, he’d tie your ice skates for you and drag you onto the ice rink, holding you by the waist or shoulders as he skated backwards in front of you, but also laughing at you when you inevitably fell. He’d tease you for getting second place at the science fair or for getting your arguments torn apart during Model United Nations, but the way he’d be a little nicer to you or share his food more often that week wouldn’t escape you.

Being a handsome young ice skater, Sunghoon had developed quite the loyal following of boys and girls alike who would come to see him at his competitions. He thrived off of the attention, but no matter how much he enjoyed his fans’ admiration, you were always the one he’d skate to after having won first place, hugging you tightly over the barrier separating the ice from the bleachers. Especially during your younger teen years, Sunghoon wasn’t one for skinship or PDA, so it always meant that much more to you that even after his most important wins, you were the first thing on his mind. It never failed to make your stomach flip, and all the death stares from his fans in the world couldn’t have changed a thing.

You were already close, but you became practically inseparable after Sunghoon’s injury. During the competition that would have gotten him a place at the Youth Winter Olympics had he won, his nerves got the best of him and he didn’t land his triple axel, hurting his ankle in the process. Ten years of dedication and hard work, ruined in mere seconds. To say that it destroyed him would be an understatement.

You were the one to bring him back up. You listened to him when he needed to vent, held him when he needed a shoulder to cry on, cheered him up when he needed to smile. He didn’t even need to tell you what he needed, you seemed to just know. You reminded him that he had a lot more value than his medals and trophies and that he didn’t need them to be complete. His family and friends tried their best to make him feel better, but their words never reached him quite like yours did.

Slowly but surely, his confidence came back. He’d lost his fans, but he’d gained a friend he knew would always be there for him. His dimples would appear more often, his laugh would resonate louder. His injury had made the two of you grow closer, creating a bond that would only strengthen over time.

And yet there were moments when being friends wasn’t enough. When calling him your best friend didn’t feel right. You had other friends, friends you were close to; sure, maybe not as close as to Sunghoon, but close nonetheless. And you didn’t feel that way around them.

Their laugh didn’t make your heart skip a beat. You didn’t want to bury your face in their necks and breathe in their scent when they hugged you. You didn’t want to know every single detail of their day. And you surely didn’t feel a pang of jealousy in your chest when they danced with another girl at your school ball.

You also didn’t crave their lips on yours every single day since it had happened for the first time and didn’t want to see what they sounded or looked like while getting the life sucked out of them through their dick.

Everybody told you it was obvious you were ‘more than friends.’ Why did romantic love have to be ‘more’ than platonic love? Why were there levels to it? You didn’t like the idea of taking your relationship with Sunghoon ‘one step further’; that wasn’t the way it felt to you. Rather, it felt like having to change everything you knew and create something new. Something where you could see him laugh and tell him about your day, but where you could also kiss him and graze his skin with your fingertips. Something that only you could share with him and only he could share with you. But you were afraid the friendship would fall apart if things didn't work out. So, instead of taking the risk of changing everything, you made sure things would stay the same. You’d tell the butterflies raging in your stomach to settle down and you wouldn’t let yourself fall into his touch in case it’d be like falling from the highest mountain.

That is, until he kissed you. Until this moment, right now, lying in his arms, ear right over his heart so you can hear it beat for you. You look up at him. His eyes are closed and a soft smile rests on his lips. He looks so peaceful. He always looks pleased when you’ve just been together, but right now, he seems to be in such a serene state, it almost makes you laugh.

Now that you’ve given in to your feelings, you’ve realized just how strong they were this whole time. Nothing has ever felt better than being in Sunghoon’s arms, than being able to see him at his most vulnerable state and to give all of you to him. All those things you didn’t know about him just six weeks ago, you know them by heart now. You’re sure there’s other things to find out, and you’ll make sure you will.

But summer won’t last forever.

A wave of sadness slaps you right in the face, bringing you back to reality. There’ll come a time where you and Sunghoon won’t be able to lounge around all day or lazily make-out at your will. You’ll go your own ways and not see each other for months at a time. The thought of that is unbearable, and you feel like looking at Sunghoon for a second longer might rip your heart into a million pieces.

When you sit up, tearing yourself away from his grip, he immediately opens his eyes, asking what’s wrong.

“Just need to go to the bathroom. I heard you can get STIs from not peeing after sex,” you half-lie. He nods and falls back into the bed. 

You rush to the toilet, needing to get far away from Sunghoon as quickly as possible. Even your pee smells different - guess that’s what having a dick inside you will do to you. You wash your hands and look in the mirror: your skin is darker in some spots, surely Sunghoon’s work. So not only did he mess with your thoughts, he also had to make your body all weird, too?

You splash your face with cold water, hoping it will bring you back to your senses. You and Sunghoon have been best friends for years. There’s no point in changing all of that now, is there? You’ll be leaving soon enough, anyway. Why ruin a perfectly fine friendship for a summer fling?

Those are your thoughts as you head back to Sunghoon’s bedroom, ready to tell him that this whole thing was a mistake and you should just pretend it never happened. But your resolve crumbles at your feet as soon as you step inside the room.

Sunghoon’s got a couple of snacks ready as he browses through Netflix in search of an appropriate movie. “How about Twilight?” he says when he feels the bed dip under your weight next to him. He kisses your forehead and pulls you down on the bed with him so that you’re lying back against his chest.

Screw it, you think. Whatever this is, it’s much more than a summer fling.

--

The rest of the summer goes by in a flash. No, you don’t try to make Sunghoon jealous by flirting with Heeseung; if the mention of the latter’s name was enough to get your friend mad, then purposefully twirling your hair or batting your eyelashes at the older boy just might make Sunghoon white-boy-punch a hole into a wall. And it’s not like Heeseung would try coming onto you, either, with how clingy Sunghoon gets when he’s around, always an arm around your waist and a glare that could kill Heeseung.

Sunghoon gradually opens up to Heeseung being around, even though it takes you reminding him almost daily that he’s the one whose arms you wanna end up in over anybody’s. After a couple weeks, Sunghoon stops looking like he's on the brink of starting a fight every time Heeseung so much as talks to you or hands you a glass of lemonade, and finally relaxes around him.

You spend countless sleepless nights with Sunghoon. You’ve probably memorized every single one of his moles by now, and you’ve made sure to kiss all of them. He holds you against him like he might lose you at any given moment. The only nights you don’t fall asleep in each other’s embrace are when either one of you is sleeping over at your friend’s house. On those nights, sleep always takes hours before washing over you, the lack of warmth keeping you awake.

Your friends and you spend entire days at the lake or by Sunghoon’s pool, not a care in the world. You rest your head on Sunghoon’s shoulder as you watch the fireworks Jake and Jay bought go off. Sunghoon grills your marshmallows for you, blowing on them so they cool down before handing you the stick. You try to ignore how the night air gets slightly chillier and how the sun sets slightly earlier, but by the last days of August, it becomes too noticeable. When September rolls around, you’re sure there’s a small crack in your heart.

You know Sunghoon feels the end of summer too. His kisses are deeper and his lips linger over yours a second longer. He frowns when he kisses you and hugs you, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like. His usual playful demeanor when you’re in bed together is gone, instead seemingly hellbent on making you feel good and almost begging you to say his name. As if you could say any other name. As if you could say anything else.

Neither of you mention your departure until the night before you leave. After spending the evening with your friends, you lie together in bed, the side of your face resting against his chest so you can feel his heart against your ear. He’s tracing patterns with his fingertips on your back, and it takes you a while to figure out he’s spelling his name over and over again, as if to etch it in your skin. When, once in a while, he takes his hand off of you to reach for his phone, you can still feel his fingers caressing you, ghostlike against your skin.

The air around you feels heavy, pressing the both of you down into the mattress. You wish the bed would eat you alive so you could stay there, warm against each other, as long as you like. You know you can’t leave without talking first, but the words won’t come to you. Instead, they float around the bed, weighing your heart down into your stomach.

“So,” you start. You're unsure what to say, but you know this conversation has to happen, one way or another. In the end, you settle on, “Excited to leave?”

Sunghoon scoffs lightly, his motions on your back coming to a stop. “Not really, no. It’s not like I’m leaving that far, and half of our school is going to our uni.”

“Maybe, but there’ll be tons of other people. Tons of other girls, too,” you add after a short pause.

“Don’t do this, Y/N, please.”

You sit up at his words. He covers his eyes with his forearm and takes a deep breath in, sensing an incoming argument. “Do what?”

“This. Getting mad at me when I haven’t done anything.”

“I’m not mad at you,” you protest, frowning down at him.

“No? Then what’s this?” he says, smoothing down the lines between your eyebrows and on your forehead with the pad of a finger.

“Whatever.” You nudge your head away from his touch. It burns. “It’s not like I’m wrong, anyway. You’re gonna have a bunch of girls at your feet, and you’ll know what to do with them, right? Now that you’re not a virgin?” you question, avoiding his gaze.

“Y/N…” he sighs, shutting his eyes tighter as if in pain.

“What? This was the whole reason why, right? Get experience with me so you could fuck girls better, no?”

“Y/N!” he says, raising his voice enough to let you know he’s upset but not enough to scare you. He sits up, looking at you with hurt and disbelief in his eyes. “What’s this all of a sudden? It’s not like I forced you into this! We agreed on it together!”

“So you agree? That this summer was just about getting experience and now you’ll use it on other girls and pretend like we,” you gesture between the two of you, “never happened?”

“What do you mean ‘agree’? I never said any of this! Don’t put words into my mouth!”

He watches as you get up from the bed, arms crossed and pacing his room. He calls out to you a few times, but you don’t stop to look at him until he speaks your name with a sternness you’ve never heard before from him. “What?” you snap.

“I don’t get why you’re acting like this out of nowhere! We both knew summer was gonna end at some point, and why we were doing this! Why are you blaming me now?”

“Because… because…” you sigh, scrambling for an excuse. Why were you doing this? The thought of Sunghoon doing what he did to you to another girl, making her feel as good as he had made you feel, kissing her like he had kissed you, made you sick. It made you see red, it made you want to make him wear a shirt with your face on it so everybody knew he was yours.

Sunghoon gets up and stands close in front of you, too close. You close your eyes. If you see his moles, you might reach out to touch them and let yourself fall even more. If you fall, you’ll need to get up, but his scent makes your knees weak.

His hands find your face, holding a little too gently, you think. Your small ones wrap around his wrists and grip them, a little too harshly, he thinks. 

You take a step back and finally look into his eyes. There’s hope in them; hope you’ll say what he wants, what he needs to hear. That you want him like he wants you. That you wish summer wasn’t over. That you’ll keep him in your heart until you can see him again. So, when what you say next is none of the above, he feels his heart sink down to his feet, leaving a murky puddle there.

“I can’t do this.”

You rush out of the room, practically running home. You fight your tears back until you slam your bedroom behind you, pathetically sinking to the ground as you let out a loud sob. You don't have the energy to get up, and cry into your hoodie's sleeve right there on the floor.

When you’ve calmed down a bit, you get up and lay in your bed, hiding your whole body underneath the covers. Maybe this is for the best, you think. If you end it like this, you won’t have the knowledge of whether he’ll wait to have you back or he’ll move on like nothing happened. That way, you can do whatever you want, not caring about what he’s up to. 

But even now, your hands subconsciously reach out towards a person that’s not there and your feet hang over the edge of your bed as though to get up and run to him anytime. You curl in on yourself to stop your body from aching for him. It doesn’t work very well.

Sunghoon stays where you left him for a few minutes, too stunned to move. Should he run after you? Should he let you cool off for a bit and talk to you in the morning? Would you be mad at him if he didn’t try to see you now or would the mere sight of him just make you angrier? He plops down on his bed as these questions run through his mind, butting into each other and making everything more confusing. 

He thinks back on everything that led to this, and his mind settles on that day a few days after graduation where his thoughts had dropped to the lowest pits of hell. If only you hadn’t brought those two damned lollipops.

--

The next morning, Sunghoon wakes up as if somebody had slapped him awake. He doesn’t bother to brush his teeth or eat anything before running over to your house, almost forgetting to put shoes on. He finds you in your room, packing the last of your things into an already full suitcase. He stands at your door, panting as his hands rest on his knees.

“You haven’t left yet. Thank God.”

“God, Hoon. It’s not that far between your house and mine. How are you so out of breath,” you say, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

He walks to you and kneels in front of you, taking you in his arms before you can say anything. “Talk to me, please. Don’t leave like this. I’d never forgive myself if you left and you were mad at me, Y/N.”

You thought you’d cried so much last night that there was not a single drop of water left in your body, but you thought wrong. Your eyes immediately well up at his words, and he leans back when he hears a soft sniffle escaping you. Only then does he notice how puffy your eyes from all your crying.

“No, no… Have you been crying? I’m so sorry, pretty, please don’t cry,” he pouts, pulling you back into his embrace. It hasn’t even been half a day, but you missed his warmth so much, it only makes you cry harder.

After sobbing against his chest, possibly staining his shirt in the process, you pull away and in your light-headed, dehydrated state, spill your heart out. “It’s so stupid,” you sob. “We’re not gonna see each other for months and I’m gonna miss you so much and I don’t want you to be with other girls. I want you all to myself and I don’t want to be your friend that you fucked for a summer just so you could get experience, it was a stupid idea in the first place, if you wanted to kiss me, you should’ve just kissed me. But you didn’t just kiss me and now I’m scared that this all meant nothing to you but everything to me and that I don’t want to be friends anymore but you do and I’m mad that it took me all summer to say this even though I’ve known it for years but I didn’t want to admit it to myself but also you didn’t say anything and I’m mad about that too. Because there’s no way you don’t feel like I do but maybe you actually don’t and-”

Whatever you were about to say dies out against Sunghoon’s lips as he presses his lips to yours, interrupting your rambling. He pulls away, looking at you with a huge, stupid grin. He’s so stupid, you think. I love him so much.

“Fucking hell, Y/N. I’ve been waiting for you to say this so bad, you have no idea.”

You punch his chest, frowning at him. Those stupid tears won’t stop. Everything is so stupid. “Then why didn’t you say it first?”

“Because I didn’t know how to. You know I’m bad with words. And I was scared it’d make things weird.”

“I don’t want things to be weird,” you pout.

“I don’t want things to be weird, either. I want things to be nice and happy.”

You giggle. “That’s so stupid.”

“Right? It’s so stupid,” he repeats, kissing you again.

“Your breath smells,” you complain when he pulls away.

“And you have tears on your lips. Tastes salty,” he teases.

“Yeah, thanks to who?”

“Sorry.” He smiles and kisses you again. He holds you against him for a while, enjoying this last moment together. As long as he can see a smile on your face before you leave, he’ll be fine.

“I’m gonna miss you so much too, Y/N. And forget about those non-existent girls. There’s no one I’d rather be with than you.”

“How do you know? You haven’t met any of them yet,” you say, voice muffled against his t-shirt.

“I’ve met other girls before. None of them compare to you,” he says, and you immediately gag at how cliché it sounds. “What?! It’s true,” he giggles.

“You’re not gonna go and date a random guy, are you?”

“Of course not. None of them compare to you,” you say, lowering your voice to imitate his.

He helps you finish packing, and when you’re done, you lay together on your bed, not saying much because not much needs to be said. Your parents struggle to tear you away from each other and from your bed when it’s time to leave. He helps your dad put your baggage in the trunk of his car, telling you to not lift a finger so you watch him go to and from the car, leaving a kiss on your forehead every time he walks past you. You notice with a smile that he doesn’t carry much at once, making him have to go back-and-forth quite often.

After saying goodbye to your family, your dad waits in the car as you and Sunghoon hang back awkwardly, kicking small pebbles on the pavement. He takes your hand in his, making you look up at him, then takes the other hand, then hugs you close to him.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you say, as if that wasn’t obvious. You’re trying hard to fight tears from falling again, but it’s like there’s an ocean behind your eyes, water somehow never running out. 

“I already miss you,” he says, and that’s enough to get you to sob again, which makes him start crying too. You’re crying, he’s crying, your mom is crying from the porch as she watches the two of you, it’s a mess.

You force yourself away from him, cupping his face in your hands. “We’ll see each other soon, okay? And college will be fun. You won’t even have time to miss me. But make time to think about me, yeah? And text me.”

“I will. I’ll think about you all the time, I already do,” he says.

“Okay,” you whisper and hug him one last time, very briefly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. You’re about to walk away but he doesn’t let go of your hand and pulls on your arm to bring you back to him.

Pressing his forehead against yours, he whispers, “I love you,” and you sob.

“I love you, too.”

This time, when you walk away, he lets you go. He watches as you get into the passenger’s seat and as the car drives away, as it takes you away from him. You watch him stand there in the rearview mirror, until his silhouette becomes smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until you can’t see him at all anymore.

--

Summer went and fall came as they do every year. Dead leaves are falling but it’s a new start for you. It’s a new town and you don’t know anybody, but you click instantly with your roommate and make new friends throughout your first week there. You realize everybody’s in the same boat, and they’re all eager to meet people and are curious about college life. You love your classes but complain about them nonetheless. You eat more ramen than you’d like to admit and turn up hungover at a 9 am class on a Thursday. You pull all-nighters at the library and develop a caffeine dependency. You’re a college student.

You and Sunghoon were very dramatic when you left, you soon realize. You call almost everyday. He’s not there with you and you miss him but at least you don’t have to pretend you’re not stupidly in love with him anymore. Because it’s stupid, being in love, it really is. You wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Your first semester passes by almost too quickly, and before you know it, you’re on the drive home, already one eighth of the way through university. You’re excited to go home, but Sunghoon’s finals last a week longer so you wait around for him. When you complain about it, Chaeyoung tells you to get a grip. “You haven’t seen him in three months, I’m sure you can handle another week.”

And you can, but barely. You were about to explode but then he’s back and you’re in his arms and his hair is still so soft, his scent is still so comforting and his moles are still there. You kiss them both before you finally press your lips to his, and it makes you feel so alive, you could die right then and there.

You lie on his bed and talk for hours as if you didn’t keep in touch the whole time and it’s like you never left. It’s like summer never ended and you’ve just been lying in his bed the whole time, college just one big fever dream. 

But his skin doesn’t smell like chlorine anymore, and he’s not in his swimming trunks. It’s fall, almost winter, and you’re kissing Park Sunghoon. You realize you can kiss him whatever the season and you find comfort in that. It was a big day (you cried a lot when you saw him) and you’re tired so you think you’ll kiss for a bit and that’ll be all but then he whispers “I missed you so much” against your neck and a fire lights inside your stomach. Oh, how it burns. You think it might consume you whole, but you don’t dislike that idea.

In a flash, you’re on top of him, his shirt is off, your shirt is off, but it’s not enough so you take your pants off too and Sunghoon is confused as to why you’re going so fast, but follows you anyway. “What’s going on?” he asks when you’re done with the taking off of your clothes and have moved on to kissing and biting at his neck like it’s your first meal in ages, because it is.

“I missed you too,” you simply answer, and he smirks as he nods slowly, now understanding your eagerness.

“Missed me that much, huh?” he teases, letting his head fall back against the pillow so you have better access to his neck.

“Shut up. Kiss me,” you order, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. Your kisses are ravenous and desperate, very fitting for two horny people in love who haven’t seen each other in months. But the pulse in your core makes you too impatient to stay anywhere for too long, and really, it’s not your fault if you’re grinding down onto Sunghoon’s clothed erection, it’s just that he smells too good and you missed him too much.

Sunghoon laughs at you for being so impatient to hide just how impatient he is. His giggles keep him from moaning loudly enough to wake the whole house, and you laugh as you tell him to stop laughing.

“I’m serious. I missed you so much. Need you so bad,” you say as you get rid of your underwear and quickly do the same for his. He gasps when he feels you take his dick in your hand and brush its tip between your folds, both out of pleasure and out of surprise.

“Shouldn’t I get you ready? Stretch you out a bit?” he asks, his hands roaming up and down your back as he sits up on the bed so that you’re straddling his lap, and you shake your head no. You’re probably already embarrassingly wet from your short makeout session, anyway.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” you say, lining his tip with your entrance. “Need to feel you.”

You sink down on his cock, the both of you releasing loud moans at the long-awaited feeling. He lets you adjust to his size for a minute, but as soon as you move your hips just a bit, signaling to him that you’re ready for more, it’s over for you. He wanted to be patient and take his time, he really did, but you feel so warm around him and your small whimpers are so pretty that his resolve of letting you take the lead is thrown out the window. He pounds into you at a rapid pace that has you biting his shoulder to keep yourself from screaming.

You had imagined your first time back with Sunghoon so many times before. It usually involved a nice playlist in the background, fairy lights and candles lighting the room, hours of foreplay and sensual lovemaking, with a nice bath afterwards. Sometimes, when you were particularly needy for him, you imagined something closer to what was actually happening, where you’d rip each other’s clothes as soon as you got to the bedroom and fucked like animals (a bit much, admittedly, but you really missed him).

What you definitely hadn’t expected, however, was that you’d both cum in less than five minutes. What could you do, though, when he was hitting your g-spot over and over again, his length stretching you perfectly as he whispered in your ear how much he’d missed you and how good you felt? And what could he do when you took him in so well, clinging onto him as you told him how much you’d missed him and how good he felt?

You finish at the same time, hole clenching around him and milking him dry. He doesn’t pull out for a while, letting you collapse onto him as you both catch your breaths, just like you had that first time. “That was a bit quick,” he pants, and you can’t help but laugh. 

You pull back to look at his face. It’s so pretty and stupid. What a stupid face that you love so much. Do you love it because it’s stupid or is it stupid because you love it? You think that that’s a stupid question, and you kiss the mole on his nose, then the mole on his cheek, right next to his nose.

“We have all night to go slower.”

“We have all Christmas break,” he corrects.

We have the rest of our lives, you think, and you think that might be a bit much, but you say it anyway. Sunghoon hums and says, “yes, we do,” and you think maybe it’s not all that stupid.

Maybe it’s the greatest thing that’s ever been.

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College Boy!Sukuna accidentally knocking you up

A while ago, I saw a post that asked which of our faves accidentally knocks us up, and I answered it with "CollegeBoy!Sukuna." So here is the fic about that ;)

Modern!Sukuna x Reader (female). Fluff. College AU. Light angst with a happy end. 2k words. Pregnancy, mentions of Sukuna smoking a cigarette. All characters are of age. Minors don't interact. Divider@/plutism + dollsciples

"Damn, princess, how long does that shitty thing need?"

Sukuna has dropped his usual act of aloofness. For once, there is no teasing comment coming out of his mouth, no arrogant smirk, no flirty wink, and no charming look out of those beautiful maroon eyes. Your usually so arrogant and tough bad boy is scared shitless.

For the last few minutes, he has been playing with his tongue-piercing continuously, driving you almost insane with the constant noise of the metal barbell connecting with Sukuna's teeth. But you can't blame him. You are even more nervous than Sukuna.

You lean closer to the old couch table again, looking at the pregnancy test that's lying there, and your stomach twists painfully. There's a change now. A second line has appeared on the little test strip. You feel your heart drop.

The alarm on your phone goes off right at that moment, making you jump as you grab the test with shaky fingers. Holding the sheet with the instructions in the other hand, you read them feverishly as if you haven't already learned them by heart. As if you don't already know what the two lines mean!

Sukuna leans across the table, too,

"What does it say?"

But you only hear his voice muffled as if you are underwater. You stare at the two lines on the pregnancy test, feeling your head spin. Sukuna's large hand darts out and wraps around your trembling wrist, pulling your hand and the test towards him while repeating his question more urgently this time.

But you can't say anything and just throw the test in Sukuna's lap. He grabs it and stares at it, his maroon eyes going wide as comprehension dawns on his beautiful, tattooed face.

"Fuck."

That's all he says, and then he looks at you with wide eyes, shock and fear written all over his face. He looks younger somehow, like a scared little boy. His lips open, but no words come out. He closes them again and gulps hard.

And then Sukuna gets up from the couch and practically bolts from the small living room, walking so fast that he has reached the apartment door before you even realize what he's doing.

His large hand is already on the door handle, pushing it open when your mind finally catches up with what is going on, and you feel like tumbling into darkness.

Sukuna is going to run, isn't he? Of course, he's going to leave! Of course, a guy like him is only interested in having fun but no responsibility! Of course, he will always stay the bad boy who just likes to party and fuck and do whatever the hell he wants! And a pregnant girlfriend is the last thing he needs!

Your hands ball into fists. You're about to scream at him or cry or break down.

But before you can do any of that, Sukuna stops in the doorway.

He is standing there with his back to you, so tall that his hair is almost brushing against the doorframe. You watch him fumble ungracefully with his cigarettes in a way that is completely untypical for him, nearly dropping the pack and needing several tries to light a cigarette before he brings it to his lips with a shaky hand and takes a deep drag.

You let out a slow breath, slumping back against the couch.

He didn't leave.

Sukuna turns his head slowly to look at you over his broad shoulder. Suddenly, his eyes widen, and he bangs the door shut and quickly strides back to the small living area, bending down to hastily stub his cigarette out in the ashtray on the couch table.

"Shit, I forgot that I shouldn't smoke when you are...," he stops mid-sentence, and his eyes wander to your belly, "when you are... ah fuck..."

Sukuna runs a trembling, tattooed hand through his pink hair. You both stare at each other for a long moment, both unable to say the words out loud. But your mind screams them at you:

Pregnant. You are pregnant with Sukuna's baby!

You have no idea how it even happened. Were Sukuna and you not careful enough? Maybe too horny and too drunk after one of the various parties you went to? Did a condom rip, and you didn't realize it? Maybe if it was any other month, things would have gone differently, but you had exams and were in a constant state of stress. You simply didn't have the mind to worry about anything else but studying and then fucking like bunnies for stress relief!

You feel so stupid. You were always so sure that something like this would never happen to you. An accidental pregnancy was something that only happened to those girls in those trashy reality TV shows!

Well, now look at you.

Pregnant from your college sweetheart, the bad boy with the face tattoos. The guy you are head over heels in love with but who you didn't even dare bring home to your parents yet because they took one look at a picture of the two of you, saw Sukuna's tattooed face and his pink hair, and deemed him a troublemaker who will only drag their sweet daughter into the gutter with him. And now he even managed to accidentally knock you up, and it will just be the cherry on top!

Finally, the tears spill over, and a sob escapes your trembling lips. Instinctively, you hug yourself, but your arms get pushed away just a second later, when Sukuna is pulling you to your feet and into his strong, tattooed arms, pulling you against him, holding you so tight you find it hard to breathe.

His lips press against your forehead, leaving little kisses and murmuring against your skin,

"I am sorry for almost running out that door like a fucking coward. I'm sorry, baby."

"It's ok, Kuna. You stopped and came back. That's what counts. But... I... I am so scared."

You sniffle and press yourself against Sukuna's tall, muscular body, seeking the comfort of his broad chest and his strong arms, which feel like home, letting your tears soak Sukuna's t-shirt that smells like him, like cigarette smoke and cherry blossoms and his typical sexy cologne.

Sukuna's arms tighten around you, and he makes a choked-up sound that you have never heard from him before. You feel him gulp hard, and then he speaks up in that low, velvety voice that sounds so much more serious than ever before,

"I promise I won't run. We're in this together. I got scared, too, because I am not the dad type of guy. I don't even have any idea how a dad is supposed to be because I've never had one. I mean, fuck! I am a mess! I don't even know what I want apart from living in the moment, having fun, being with you, and spending time with my brother. But you're my girl, and I'll be damned if I leave you alone with this! I won't run, princess, I promise."

You hear a strange noise, only to realize that it is coming from your own mouth, a strangled sob. You snuggle closer against Sukuna's chest, hiding your face in his t-shirt, clinging desperately to him, overwhelmed with the situation. But he is there for you. He rests his chin on top of your head and holds you, swaying you slightly from side to side.

His low voice is calm when he asks,

"Do you want to keep it?"

"I... I didn't even have the right mind to think about it yet."

Sukuna nods, and his arms tighten around you,

"It's ok. Take your time. If you want to get rid of it, then I will drive you to the hospital and take care of you afterward. And if you decide to have the baby... then I will be a dad. I never imagined myself with a kid, but this is different. This is our baby. And I know what it's like to grow up without parents. I don't want that for my child. My grandpa did a pretty good job with Yuuji and me before he became sick, but it's not the same as having a mom and a dad, I think. I won't let that happen to our kid."

You let out a shaky breath, feeling a huge weight leave your shoulders at Sukuna's reassurance. You can see things a bit clearer now. And maybe it's not as hopeless as you thought.

Technically, you are old enough to be a mom, and you could just pause your studies for a semester or two and then return to your classes. Of course, things won't be as carefree anymore, and you will have a huge responsibility. On top of that, you really have no idea what life with a baby will be like. But you know now that you won't be alone with it.

You will have the boy you love by your side. No, you correct yourself, not the boy you love, but the man you love. Because the way Sukuna reacted so maturely and responsibly showed you that he isn't a boy anymore. He is a man. Your man. And you are even beginning to be able to imagine him as a dad. He is doing a pretty decent job as Yuuji's brother, too, after all, isn't he? Sure, Yuuji is the same age as Sukuna, but Sukuna still always acts like the big brother. So protective and caring, in a grumpy way, but sweet nonetheless.

Suddenly, the thought of a miniature version of Sukuna running around doesn't seem so scary anymore. You catch yourself wondering what your baby would look like if you decide to have it. Will it have Sukuna's eyes?

You lift your head to look up at him, and Sukuna's gaze meets yours. He looks deeply into your eyes, almost making you nervous with how intense those beautiful maroon eyes look at you,

"If you want to keep it, I will make damn sure you and the kid have it good. I promise you, princess. I am not going to run like some loser. I will learn everything about taking care of a child and how to be a dad and get my shit together. I will even stop smoking. I just... I love you, and this will be our little family, and I will fucking protect it with my life! We will make this work. We can move in together. We can ask Yuuji to babysit, and I can take the little gremlin to classes with me. I had someone do that in my history class, you know? Had his ugly little brat in a baby carrier. I could do that, too. Only difference is that our baby will be super pretty, of course."

You chuckle softly despite the shock, a mix of a sob and a laugh, feeling lighter now that you know your boyfriend will be there for you.

"I love you too, Sukuna. Thank you."

"No need to thank me. We will get through this together, no matter what you decide."

You snuggle against Sukuna's tall, muscular body and smile shakily up at him, sure that your pupils must have transformed into little hearts from the way your chest feels as if it's overflowing with love for your boyfriend. Your arrogant, rude, bad boy of a boyfriend, who, deep down, is such a good guy for the people he loves.

You smile and get on your tiptoes to press a kiss to Sukuna's tattooed jaw, a tender lingering touch, before you tell him softly,

"Let's sleep over it for a night or two, and then we'll decide what to do. But either way, I want you to know that you sound like you would be an amazing dad. I guess having your baby would be quite nice."

You can see Sukuna's gaze soften, and then he smirks that attractive smirk at you and pulls you even closer against him, leaning down so his lips brush over yours when he says,

"Let's see if you will still say that when the little brat turns out to be anything like me. I wasn't an easy child."

And you laugh and reach up to ruffle Sukuna's pink hair affectionately, tangling your fingers in the soft, pink strands,

"Well, how lucky that I have you by my side to look after Sukuna Number 2 then."

You feel Sukuna grin against your lips, and then he kisses you, slow and tender, and you practically melt against him.

You are still nervous but not as scared anymore. Sukuna is right: You are going to do this together. No matter what, you have Sukuna by your side. And, even though he doesn't look like it, your bad boy is actually a good man.

And maybe your decision is already made because the mental image of Sukuna going to class with a baby carrier strapped to his broad chest just won't leave your mind anymore.

SIGHHHHHH I think I would want his baby 😭

Thank you so much for reading! I love the mess that CollegeBoy!Sukuna is. He is very dear to me 💗 I am so proud of him for being so mature about this!! A good man and a good soon-to-be daddy.

In my head, I was singing "Papa, don't preach" the whole time while writing this ;)

Comments and reblogs would be very sweet.

Update: Part 2 Option A (Reader has an abortion) Part 2 Option B (Reader decides to have the baby)

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.2

[Pt.1] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny dragged up another plastic wrapped body from the bay.

“It’s you. What are you doing?”

“Oh, holy smokes!” Danny screeched. “What-! Oh, it’s you! The litterer!”

Batman stood in front of Danny, cape draped around his shoulders and a far better sight to see than the last time Danny had seen the guy.

“… I’m Batman.” He introduced himself to Danny awkwardly.

“Uh huh. You missed a couple of things cleaning up the beach last time.” Danny dropped the body on the pebbled shore of the bay and crossed his arms. He sent Batman an unimpressed look. “You’re just like your city. There’s trash all over the water!”

Batman glanced down.

“That is a body.”

Danny scowled.

“No, that’s plastic. Plastic does not belong in the ocean.”

Batman sighed. For some reason, Danny thought he seemed less… antagonistic. Wait, did he think Danny killed the guy?!

“That is a body wrapped in plastic.”

Fuck it.

“If it was a body, then bury it. Or decompose it before you people decide to dump it into the water. Even the sharks have the decency to decompose when they’re dead. Do you know how long plastic takes to deteriorate??”

Batman glanced to the side, where the line of plastic wrapped masses had caught his eye to begin with.

“I do. Did all of these come from the bay?”

“Quite obviously, yes. I don’t have enough time to clean the waters! Ancients, it’s like they’re multiplying!” Danny knew why they were multiplying. It’s because Gothamites were getting murdered and dumped weekly. The problem is that Danny has classes and assignments to complete and he couldn’t be out here every week.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Oh, will you? And how do you plan on doing that when you couldn’t even properly clean the beach of your plane? I even stacked it up nicely for you to pick up!”

Alright, so maybe Danny had a couple of grudges. Like… a solid one that’s based on the hours of sleep he missed cleaning up after Batman and the wreck.

“We didn’t get everything?”

“No.” Danny huffed. “Whatever. Just figure out what to do with these bodies. I was not looking forward to digging graves for all of them.”

“You were going to dig graves for them?” Batman sounded off.

Danny scowled again. “I’m dead, genius.” And now Batman looked like someone ran over his dog. “Respecting the dead is important and graves are important for the dead. How else would we know we’re remembered?”

Danny threw up his hands. “Humans,” he muttered, like he wasn’t half human himself.

“Anyways, I’m leaving. Handle this properly or else I’m haunting you.”

“Wait-!” Batman said, but Danny had already disappeared.

So, while Batman had an angst crises at two thirty in the morning and thirty new unidentified corpses to contend with, Danny Fenton flew back to his apartment and passed out on his shitty couch.

——

“You need to stop.”

“Pay me to stop, then. What are your villains going to do? Kill me? I’d like to see them try.”

Danny looked Batman right in his lenses and plopped another body down at the man’s feet.

“I can tell you who they are for a fee.” Danny offered the vigilante. “Some of these still have shades of their souls attached still.”

“What.”

Danny tilted his head, moon once more lighting a halo of flickering white flames around his head. “$100 per identity.”

Batman stared.

[nereidprinc3ss]

just like heaven

in which flirty!reader finally confesses her feelings to a pining spencer reid after a night out. she's slightly buzzed. it's complicated.

fluff (some angst) warnings/tags: fem!reader, reader drinks alcohol, dirty jokes, so much flirting and banter, some arguing kinda, but spencer is such a gentleman, everyone gets flustered at least once, they really wanna kiss, happy ending a/n: gif :D I hope u like this! not bandages reader but like same vibes. like an AU for my AU

“Emily!”

You drawl the ee sound long, the same way you reach across the table and wiggle your fingers at her half-empty glass. Thin dark brows dart up beneath that glossy sweep of reddish-black hair. 

“Oh, wow. That’s unsettling. What?”

It’s been at least an hour since you had a drink of your own, but enough alcohol is still flowing through your veins so as to render her offensive comment inoffensive. You love Emily. You love the Tequila Sunrise sweating onto the sticky table in front of her which she’s not going to finish. 

“I think she wants your drink,” JJ assists, cheek balanced tipsily on a propped up fist. 

“Uh…”

Emily’s doe-sweet eyes flash uncertainly behind you. 

“I’m basically sober,” you insist, laying your head on your outstretched arm and letting your hair cascade as you bat your lashes, offering her your sweetest smile. “Please, Em?”

It does not go according to plan. She scoffs. 

“Are you flirting with me right now?”

“... Would that work?”

“Oh my god, just… cool it with the fuck-me eyes,” she laughs. “You can have the drink.”

You sit up, turning just barely over your shoulder to address Spencer. 

“See? Emily buys me drinks. Basically.”

She slides the drink toward you, with a subtle roll of her eyes that you choose to interpret as affectionate under the dim canned lighting. As you sit back, content and free drink in hand, her eyes slide to Reid in the seat next to you, brows arching. 

“Are you sure you can handle her all on your own?”

“Handle me?” You frown deeply as Emily gathers her purse and slides out of the booth, followed shortly thereafter by JJ. “I don’t need handling.”

“Then why do you have a handler?” JJ teases.

You slump against the worn vinyl, stirring what is mostly orange juice. 

“He most definitely is not my handler. He’s my science project.”

“I got it,” Spencer assures your friends, with his trademark flattened smile. You can’t help but watch him with a grin of your own, flipping the straw in the drink and nibbling on the end until it’s stained sparkly pink. Goodbyes are issued, and soon it’s just the two of you. Perhaps it’s a tipsy delusion, but you think he seems to relax slightly when you’re alone. His eyes are easy on you. “You know, you’re not actually decreasing the amount of germ transmission by using the other end of the straw.”

“Mm… pretty sure alcohol kills germs, Doctor.”

At that, you giggle. 

Doctor. 

Soon you’re covering your face and having a full-fledged laugh attack. 

“What?” Spencer asks. From between your fingers you can see that he’s smiling guardedly, brows furrowed in a way that reminds you he’s often worried about being the butt of a joke and not knowing it. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” you assure him quickly, gathering yourself. “I just… can’t believe you’re a doctor.”

“Why not? What’s so unbelievable about that?”

“You’re so young.”

And handsome. 

“I’m not that young. I’m older than you,” he defends. Only by a handful of years, but you know he’s defensive about his age after a lifetime of being told he looks young for—well, everything. 

“You’re… 32?”

That’s not right—you know as soon as you say it.

“Thirty three.” He very politely captures a hand—your hand—that had at some point ended up a little too close to his eye. You’re not sure what you planned to do once it got there—you don’t recall moving it at all. 

“Sorry.” You take your hand back, choosing to instead fiddle with a button on his coat ponderously. “33 is a good age.”

“Yeah?” Spencer laughs, angling his head as if to regard you from a new angle. It warms you all over. Burns in some places, like a shot of liquor down your throat. Makes you just as dizzy, too. “You have a lot of experience being thirty three?”

“No, I just…” your cheeks heat and you wrestle with a timid smile, averting your gaze and dropping your hand for fear his grin this close up might actually kill you. “I like 33 year old you.”

“So… you didn’t like me when I was thirty two?”

“Stop,” you beg, a self-effacing laugh into the cup of your palm. “I can’t banter. I’m not at peak performance.”

The truth of it hits you, and you sigh, folding your arms on the table and resting your cloudy head. Only then, from this new perspective, do you allow yourself to fully admire Spencer Reid. He is smiling at you, and your heart does skip a beat like you’ve got some school girl crush. These days he wears his hair falling over his face, messy on purpose, and always smells so nice. You wonder when he started caring about that stuff. You want to see what products are in his shower, and learn why he chose that cologne, or how he decides to pair his socks. He probably has some sort of algorithm. 

“Spencer,” you begin, the serious quality of your voice diminished by the smush of your cheek against your arm. Still, he tries to respect your tone, zipping the smile and answering with a playfully twitching brow. 

“Hm?”

You want to push the hair out of his face. Why is he looking down at you like that? Like he likes you?

“You’re a very good handler.”

His eyes narrow as he considers this, but the glimmer in them could still spark a forest fire. You’re probably grinning like an idiot. 

“Oh, I couldn’t handle you. You know this.”

You hum thoughtfully. 

“I bet you could. Wanna try?”

Spencer shakes his head, huffing a laugh through his nose. To his credit, your bold-face innuendos don’t always send him into a tailspin these days. 

Just sometimes. 

“You need a ride home, don’t you?”

You sit back up, stretching your arms out. 

“You don’t have to. I could get a cab.”

“I know,” he assures you, still a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his lips. Why. Is. He. Looking. At. You. Like. That?

“Will you let me drive?”

“I would. But, you know, my affairs aren’t in order.”

You roll your eyes as he gets out of the booth and offers you a hand. 

“I’m not that drunk.”

Spencer just wiggles his fingers. 

“If you can recite the alphabet in reverse you can drive my car.”

You roll your eyes again. Obviously he’s fucking with you, because 1. He’d never let you drive even the slightest bit inebriated, and 2. He knows you can’t say your ABC’s backward when you’re dead sober. 

The truth is you’re more buzzed than anything. You could get up and walk fine without any assistance, but he’s offering you his hand, so you take it. After you’re standing, you wonder how many excuses could you possibly dream up to get it back in yours. Should you pretend to fall?

No. Not quite worth your self respect. 

“You know…” you muse, reveling in the brief brush of him against your back as he holds open the door for you, “it’s a good thing you didn’t become, like… a medical doctor.”

Now walking side by side on the street, he glances over at you, a poorly veiled smile on his perfect face. Like a trap door brushed over with a few leaves. He wants you to see it.

“Why’s that?”

A breeze ruffles your hair. The brisk cold and the walk seem to be making things crisper already. You shrug, bunching your sleeves in your hands against the increasingly frigid night. The skirt and tights you’d chosen were perfect for a stuffy dive bar. Not so much for an early DC spring. 

“Nobody wants a hot doctor.”

He looks down at the sidewalk, hands pocketed, but the curve of his lips doesn’t lessen.  

“Hm. You’re drunker than I thought.”

“What? No! I’m—barely!” Again he laughs at you, and again you flush, looking down and counting the cracks in the pavement as you journey slowly under the bath of yellow street lights. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you called me hot.” He sounds almost delighted as he grins sheepishly around the final word. 

You snort. You’ve said worse things, more graphic things within the past few hours alone—but you suppose they’ve all been more like dirty jokes than compliments. 

“Yeah. You think you aren’t?”

Sandy locks fall side to side as he carefully measures a response. His cologne is warm—sort of smoky. It’s very nice. He doesn’t seem like he’d wear cologne. Have you already thought about his cologne tonight? Once was probably enough. 

“I just think sober you wouldn’t have said that.”

“But don’t you prefer it when I’m aggressively flirting with you? I mean, I know I do it sober too, but it's not as good, right?”

A silent stretch begins and shortly ends, and you don’t mind it. Right now, everything is a winding path through the woods. You’re willing to follow any fork off the trail if it means spending more time with him. 

“I guess I wasn’t aware that was what you were doing.”

“Oh, bullshit,” you laugh, and it echoes through the canyon of a nearby alley, “I’m not subtle, Reid.”

“I don’t know! You—for all I know that’s just how you are! I mean, what did Emily call them earlier, your—your fuck-me eyes?”

Like he does when he’s flustered, he gets shrill and stuttery. It’s nice to be reminded that he’s still a complete dork on the inside—and the outside, too, as pink stains his cheeks like watercolor. You smirk at him in your periphery, watching him against the darkened city backdrop. 

“You noticed those, huh?”

“No,” he denies forcefully, but his brow is pinched like he doesn’t quite believe himself, “I mean, yes, I notice when you look at other people like that, but that’s not what I would call them—I wouldn’t call them anything, I’d just call them your eyes, you know? Not that you always look like you’re soliciting… the implication isn’t there, it’s just—I notice when you flirt with other people! With Emily, and Derek, like, not even half an hour ago. You’re lucky Hotch wasn’t there. You’d probably have given him a heart attack.”

“I’m more concerned with yours, to be honest.”

“My heart is fine,” he laughs. “Worry about my dignity.”

“Hm. I was going for both. Guess I’d better try harder.”

You don’t notice you’ve come to a stop until you’re face to face in front of his vintage Volvo. Spencer is standing closer than usual, hands perpetually stuck in that nice wool coat. He’s all windswept and pretty, smiling crookedly and eyes sparkly with humor. A strand of hair sticks to your lip gloss, and you brush it away, tucking it behind your ear and squinting up at him against the chilly breeze. The flush is either from the nip in the air or your brazen flirting. 

“Or, you could go easy on me. I’m frail. Like a… sickly Victorian child.”

Again his brow knits and he smiles like he knows what he’s said is ridiculous. But his tone is gentler now. Softer. Invites you to fall in deeper and see what you might find. 

“And ruin all my fun? Toughen up, Reid.”

For a long moment, you don’t get a response—only his eyes, soft and thoughtful on you, before you’re distracted by the sweet bow of his lips. If he notices you’re staring, it doesn’t seem to bother him. 

But something evidently does, as when he next speaks, it’s troubled. Curiosity straining against a rope that says maybe it’s better if I don’t ask. 

“Do… do you actually flirt with me? When you’re sober, I mean.”

He expects to be ridiculed. In his most vulnerable moments, he’s still bracing for rejection—turning his cheek slightly so he’s ready for the stinging blow. It opens a fissure in your chest. You frown, and speak gently. 

“Yeah, Spence. More than anyone else. You really don’t notice?”

Sometimes his face is so expressive, in the pull of his brow and tightening of his eyes and the way he wets his lips. But he probably doesn’t know that. And he can’t seem to meet your eyes, instead choosing to study the leather of your heeled boots. Sounds of late-night traffic, of tires on wet asphalt buffer the pauses between sentences. 

“I notice… when you talk to Derek and Emily and JJ and Penelope the exact same way you talk to me. I didn’t think…”

Another gap in conversation, filled with the chatter of some group pouring out of a bar somewhere. You realize he’ll need some gentle prompting to bridge it. 

“You didn’t think what?”

When his eyes flash back up to meet yours, you have a feeling like he’s shutting the pipes off. 

“It’s—uh—” he clears his throat— “it’s not important, we can—we’ll talk about it a different time. We should—”

“Wait.”

He’d been turning away but snaps right back to look at you as if on command, wearing a brand new face that tells you he’d like to wipe the past minute or so completely away. 

“Yeah?”

“Spencer. I wanna know what you were going to say.”

“I told you. It’s nothing.”

“You didn’t tell me. You mumbled evasively and walked away. We were in the middle of something and I want to know what you were going to say. Please?”

“Well, you’re drunk,” he finally sighs, and it’s a bit sharp. Stinging. 

“I am not drunk,” you defend, and it feels true, with a bitter cold lashing at your cheek and blood heightened from the walk. “You know I’m not too drunk to have a coherent conversation. Why are you being weird?”

“Because I asked you to drop it! We can’t have this conversation right now, all right? I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Your stomach flips, and your breath comes a little heavier. Spencer is clearly frustrated with you. Maybe being on the wrong end of this mild vexation, and so suddenly, should make you feel guilty, or some kind of bad—but all you feel is a sort of buzz in the tips of your fingers and the thrum of your heart, something deeper than excitement pooling in your veins at having inspired this sort of passion. It means he feels something. Something for you. 

“I’m sorry,” he tries halfheartedly, unable or more likely unwilling to stay angry at you for very long, “you didn’t—”

“What conversation?”

It’s jarring how quickly this has spun on its head. The very air you’re breathing seems to have changed. The metropolitan soundscape is a rife undercurrent of tension and louder from all the words unsaid. 

Finally he swallows. 

“There’s no conversation. I’m—it was a poor choice of wording. I just meant we should get you home.”

Before he can make it to the driver’s side door, you’re calling out. 

“You think I don’t like you. And I just flirt with you ‘cause I flirt with everyone.”

Spencer stops, and turns to face you once more, sighing and head dropped to one side like you’re doing something incredibly inconsiderate. He’s never looked at you like that before, but you don’t let it shake you. 

“That’s what this is about, right?”

He says your name, but you don’t let him get further than that. 

“No, I think there is a conversation here, and saying I’m not sober enough to have it isn’t fair and you should have said something before and I think you should just say it now.”

You’re pushing his buttons with a heavy hand, though your own voice shakes. He’s feeling it too—you’ve never been so short with each other. His voice is raised. 

“What am I supposed to say?” 

It boils over. 

“That you like me!”

It rings. 

Then it’s silent. 

His face is mostly blank. A little sorrowful around his eyes. 

It’s cold, jumping into the deep end like this. 

“We can’t talk about this right now,” he finally says, glancing to the side as if to suggest a situation the size of the whole city. 

“Spencer, I—”

“It’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion until your judgement isn’t impaired, otherwise it’s—”

“I am telling you that I flirt with you because I really like you.”

“I—”

It appears you’ve truly thrown him for a loop.  For a moment his jaw works at nothing, a soliloquy of words go unspoken, and then he’s stuttering and fumbling for the right thing to say, looking everywhere but at you. 

“I can’t—that’s—regardless of whether or not it’s even true—”

“It is true.”

“Could you—stop?” He pleads. “You can’t tell me that. I mean, the power imbalance when you’ve been drinking and I haven’t—it’s—I mean, it's coercive. Because I brought it up, I asked an inappropriate question—or at least started to ask it, and you—not that it was your fault, I’m the responsible party in this instance, but if tomorrow you realize you never wanted to tell me—so I have to take that with a grain of salt. I’m just—I have to pretend I didn’t hear that, alright? And you can’t say it again.”

He’s ridiculous. You shift your weight onto one foot casually. 

“That’s not very nice. I just confessed to having a huge crush on you and you’re gonna leave me hanging?”

There is an undeniable sort of pleasure in the bright of his eyes, and you phrased it that way on purpose, just to see him preen and glow—also to see if you could make him trip all over himself some more. Right now, despite the liminal space your relationship may or may not be occupying, you’re teasing him like you always do. Like he’s a friend, because he is. Before anything else. 

He tries to glower, barely. 

“Were you listening to me at all?”

“It was hard with all the stammering. I thought you might pass out.”

“I might,” he grumbles, and the admission pleases you greatly. Your lips tug as you admire him for a moment—watch his defenses go down and his features ease into something more inviting. 

God, maybe you really had been too hard on him. Maybe he really didn’t expect that you would like him back. 

You’re struck with the need to reassure. 

A dampened clack emits from your shoe where the heel hits the ground as you step down off the curb. 

“You know… I do like you. A lot. I mean it. And I’m glad I told you, because... you like me too, right?”

He raises his brows, like don’t do anything stupid, as you approach unhurriedly. It’s good to see that you haven’t broken his spirit completely. 

Less than a foot away, you stop. Close enough to be in his space. Too far for him to have the grounds to step back. 

His eyes are careful on you, analytical as always, constantly predicting an infinite number of outcomes to any given scenario. That’s how he keeps his footing in the world. But he’s never very good at predicting you. And it helps that his razor sharp intellect is dulled, some, with affection. Attraction. 

It shows in his eyes. He’ll let you push boundaries he knows he shouldn’t. More so if you keep speaking to him this softly. Almost whispering.

“Tell me you like me, Spencer.”

Because he hasn’t yet. All the heavy lifting has been done for him, and that just won’t do. 

First, he opens his mouth, and you watch the internal debate, a million things he could say, spinning round in his eyes like pinwheels. Rules, and buts, and caveats.

In the end, he just clears his throat. Speaks in the same secretive tone. Low enough to be intimate.

“I like you.”

Such a simple thing has never made you feel so airy before in your life. You steal another glance at his lips.

“So it’s really not that complicated. We could probably just kiss.”

He tinges pink.

“We definitely can’t.”

“You also said we couldn’t talk about it, and yet…”

“Talking is different. As far as I’m concerned, nothing you say to me tonight is binding. Whatever just transpired happened completely off the record. We can… talk about it tomorrow, but right now, you and I are friends.”

You shrug.

“Friends can kiss.”

“No, they can’t,” he says definitively, though not without a healthy dose of sardonic self-awareness and a dark smile. His hand finds your waist, and it’s glancing, if anything a light push, but you’re delighted nonetheless. Almost as pleased as if he really had kissed you. “It’s cold. I’m ready to leave.”

You’ve pushed him enough for one night. And it is cold. So you shuffle around the car with quick steps to the passenger side door, hooking your fingers under the biting metal handle and waiting for him to unlock the vehicle. 

You’re shivering as your thighs press against leather upholstery, only the thinnest layer of synthetic material protecting your legs. Spencer is already starting the car, but the engine is too cold to bother turning the heat on yet. 

“I think it’s colder in here than outside. Look at my hand.” You hold it up for him, and it is discolored, waxy, as he mindlessly takes it between his own much warmer ones. “I thought alcohol was supposed to keep you warm. Didn’t that chef on the Titanic survive hours in the ocean because he was hammered?”

“That’s a myth. Not the chef—he did survive, but it was a complete anomaly. Alcohol causes vasodilation in the dermis layer of the skin, so you feel warmer, but it draws blood flow away from your internal organs and significantly raises your likelihood of developing hypothermia.”

Does he notice how he’s holding your hand? Carefully pressing his thumbs to the center of your palm and pushing up through your love and life lines, cupping the fingers, before sandwiching them between his own and generating friction the way a child furiously rolls a play-doh worm?

“I guess I’m really not that drunk, then.”

He’s not expecting it, and maybe he doesn’t know what to make of your exceptionally gentle tone at first. It was a mistake, you think, as he relinquishes his hold on your hand, and you curl it to retain the memory of his warmth. But then he tucks hair behind your ear, like he’s done once or twice before, and smiles in a way you don’t quite understand. 

“I know.”

You won’t push him. You won’t ask for anything else, and you won’t demand an explanation. Spencer is special. It can all wait, because you have something good with him already. Something important. Something like holding hands. 

It comes as a surprise when he leans across the console, and you lean in a trance to meet him, and another surprise when he gently redirects, pressing his lips to your cheek, close enough to match the corners of your mouths and nothing more. 

You’d let him do it a hundred times over, but he draws back after a fraction of a lingering second, and finds your hand to stroke the back of it, forgotten in your lap. 

“You said no kissing,” you murmur, as if in a dream. If you had the wherewithal to be embarrassed maybe you wouldn’t be ogling so much. 

“Compromise.”

If anything, you should be the cheek-kisser. But there will be time to feel slighted about that later. Time to amend. For now, you look ahead robotically. 

“Is there a rule against friendly hand-holding?”

“Probably,” he says.

But he lets you hold his hand in your lap the whole drive to your apartment, anyway.