Tumgik
#cosmic shrug
crocodilenjoyer · 8 months
Text
here’s the thing. about zolu. puts myhand on your shoulder Here’s the thing. luffy? aromantic. zero interest in romance. zoro? gay. very low interest in romance. has two braincells and they’re both devoted to thinking about swords. they are not dating. it is not romantic. it’s not sexual either because luffy, much like his views on romance, could not give less of a shit about sex. maybe if they both feel up to it at the same time, but that’s rare and when it does happen it’s more of a physicality and, to a lesser extent, affection thing than anything else. occasionally it’s a “hey wouldn’t it be weird/funny/fucked up if we [insert some david cronenberg-type shit]” thing and the other one goes “haha yeah do you wanna try.” but i digress.
however. HOWEVER. they Have A Thing. what that Thing entails is a mystery. luffy is both incredibly straightforward and frustratingly cryptic whenever he’s asked about it and zoro just kinda shrugs. they’re just luffyandzoro and zoroandluffy. the king and his lionheart. drift compatible. partners. captain and first mate. the sailor and the north star. sun and moon. they simply Are. what does that entail? well brother. they hang out
139 notes · View notes
discordiansamba · 9 months
Note
lmao ajkdjdkfkfskfk that is so something Keith would do too oh my god. i'm glad he has a friend for his desert hermit arc but, like, has Keith just never met a dog before? is he somehow unaware that earth animals are not capable of teleportation? or did he just assume kosmo is special? how did kosmo even get to earth?
Oh, I think he's perfectly aware that Kosmo is not a normal dog, or even a dog at all. He is just indifferent to this information. Look- it eats dog biscuits and likes dog toys. It sleeps on a doggy bed. As far as Keith is concerned, that means it's a dog. Is the other stuff even really relevant?
(Yes. Yes it is, Keith.)
16 notes · View notes
gothamcityneedsme · 3 months
Text
ok. i read tom king's mister miracle run and tbh? i don't think i vibed with it. but it DOES read interestingly as a proto-strange adventures though.
#shitpost#very similar themes of fatherhood and legacy?#and. you know. the choice whether or not to give up your child to end a galactic scale war.#mister miracle makes the correct choice (which is. complicated by the question of the reality of it all) vs adam strange#who makes the VERY WRONG CHOICE that makes him honestly a full villain of the piece (and he already was. as well. the war crimes)#but yeah this is the first tom king i didn't like and I DO see what people are saying about the repetitiveness of his choices as well#i think his narrative WORKS in strange adventures and in human target (esp human target as a noire)#but i do not really think it quite works here. his writing for Barda also feels a bit weak#which is odd because he is trying to ground the cosmic-scale story in by rooting it with the couple on Earth#so it just doesn't quite click as well#to me. and I'm not sure how to work with the ending and the theme of escapism seems... off? IDK.#It was interesting but I was kinda skimming by halfway through it b/c tbh it just didn't feel good to read?#like his other stuff even int he dark tone has felt GOOD to read. dramatic and interesting#(adding riddler: year one to the context of what ive read by him but i have no specific comparisons to make to that book)#the 9 panel page does get exhausting too so i think that adds to it#but the other works have that style as well so like. idk.#anyways. I also read Barda#the recent one. and THAT was great#I need to remember/recall what my dad rec'd for Mister Miracle#i was just scrolling hte app and saw the tom king run and got curious because i DO like some of tom king's work.#shrug#read Barda though it was so so so so so good
2 notes · View notes
fireboltsystem · 2 months
Text
Truly bizarre how we had a fav pairing before syscovery, then discovered headmates that are fictives of the characters involved who are not at all attracted to each other romantically, and then our interest in the pairing just fell off completely. How do I explain how this randomly became a NOTP overnight (I do not need to ofc)
0 notes
Text
Danny lives in a horror movie-DC x DP prompt
Based on my favorite book series "tales from the gas station"
Its not everyday a mission requires the league to travel to middle America in to obtain a highly cursed artifact but it certainly today.
Locating the Seal of Silent Ashes was a task usually given to Justice League Dark but Constantine was currently busy. So that meant it was left to the poster boys to get this done. They dressed in civilian attire to investigate the last location of the seal starting with the first building on the edge of town. A small dusty gas station near the wood.
The inside had an awful smell, like death and cleaning fluid. The lights gave off a greenish-blue tint. Rats could be seen out of the corner of your eyes. Most of the chip were offbrand and crappy.
Behind the counter was the teenage boy chewing gum. He looked up at the group before going back to reading his book. He had clearly seen better days but didn't show signs of caring about the state of his hair or bags under his eyes. He drank coffee.
The air felt off.
"Hey kiddo, do you mind giving us directions?" Clark started.
The kid narrowed his eyes as he popped his gum.
"You're not from here. That or you're from that cult in the woods. Listen I'm not joining. Seriously cosmic nihilism and fatalism sounds doomed. Hey wait-" the teen checked his notes " No, the cult killed themselves in that mass suicide 2 weeks ago. I forgot."
The teen didn't say anything else as he went back to his book.
The horrified look of the adults shared was almost hilarious. At least to the teen if he looked up.
"Oh, and stay out of the woods. I don't want the police to come back and ask about who saw you last. Seriously if whatever is in there tears you apart I won't feel bad. I put those signs out forever ago and if I get one more girl covered in blood running in here screaming about her dead friends I'll get a headache." The teen shrugged turning the page.
"What do you mean?! Why would-?! Who's killing people?!" Barry asked frantically as Bruce serched for more reports of missing people in the area.
"I don't know. Why would I know? If you want to go in the cursed forest go ahead. I mean that's how they all die. It isn't my job to stop you. My job is to sit here and watch this store." The teen huffed in annoyance.
Before anymore questions were asked the signal of the radio was disrupted and a demonic howl screeched through the radio.
"God damnit. That cunt is back. Stay here." The teen growled as he grabbed his bat from under the counter and walked out the back door. "String bean! Get off the fucking roof you bastard! You know that radio is all I have here!"
A chattering laugh like a death rattle was heard and the sound of 2 sets of feet was heard on the roof then they lept down.
"Come here so I can beat you to death!" The teen ran around the building towards the front of the gas station chasing-what the fuck is that!
It was like a human that was twisted to crabwalk on all fours backwards. Its face was contorted into a black stretched-out smile with no teeth. It had no eyes just black sockets. All its limbs were stretched out to an extra meter in length. It was a skinwalker of some kind with chalk-white skin. It was skittering away from the teen who was swinging his bat at its head.
"Stop running! I told you before what would happen if I found you fucking with me again!" The boy meant it as he finally landed a hit and began wacking it over and over it.
The skin walker screeched and tried to run for its life but couldn't.
After reducing the monster into a black puddle the black-stained teen came back inside to sit back down not paying anymore to the monster blood he was covered in.
"Sorry about that. Most of the freaks around here have learned to stay away from this place. That one is new and he doesn't listen. You'd think they'd learn but Sting Bean thinks he can torment me. Petty bastard." The teen sighed "anyways are going to buy anything or are you going to waste what oxygen we get in here with this shitty ventilation.
Diana couldn't help but admire the boldness of the boy. He had no hesitation or fear against the beasts of this area even if was crude.
"Does Constantine have a cousin or something? Just a more angry one" Barry whispered to Hal.
2K notes · View notes
Text
I guess I never sat down and considered how my own perception upon reality was shaping it. Doesn't really matter if I noticed
I am what I am
0 notes
linuseer · 1 year
Text
I'm tired of people defining Aang as this boring little vanilla guy. Aang helped Katara destroy a factory. He participated in Toph's scams. He shrugged off Katara's theft of the waterbending scroll and heartily laughed at her jokes about it. He was delighted by the Painted Lady ruse. He mastered airbending at twelve and the avatar state at thirteen. He snooped around the old ship after Katara said it was booby trapped and dared her to follow and stepped up to take the blame when it went badly and then surrendered himself to protect the village because he knew he could hand everyone on that ship their asses and escape. He outright lied to two communities that had been bickering for a century to get them to stop. He egged on Katara when she decided to throw hands with Pakku. He wants to ride every big animal in the world ("they don't like being ridden but that's what makes it fun" -unhinged take). He has sick burns for everyone which are doubly funny because they're almost always unintended as such. He threw a clandestine dance party in the nation that banned dancing and thought he was dead and wanted him dead. Before that he corrected and argued with teachers, beat a bully without lifting a finger and then brought his teenage friends to pose as his parents. The whole Bonzu Pippipadaleopsicopolis the Third thing. The being idiots with Sokka in Ba Sing Se thing with the bowing and the busboys disguises. He rightfully asked "what's cosmic power compared to a girl". Let's add all the badass stuff he does as a bender and as the Avatar up to and including energybending and the conversation with Koh the Face Stealer. That time in The Chase when he finished the fur trail and then decided to just sit down, sleep deprived, to wait and face whoever it was chasing them. Aang is one of the funniest and coolest characters I've ever seen and he deserves more respect. Absolutely unhinged kid with immense powers and the world is lucky he's goofy and has a good heart.
8K notes · View notes
2tcs · 3 months
Text
Naga (Part 1)
Next
“Slither slither hiss. Slither slither hiss. Slither slither hiss.”
“Danny? What are you doing?” Same asked as she walked into their apartment.
“Isn't it obvious? He has embraced his inner scaily.” Tucker said from where he sat on the couch in his own fursuit.
“Technically this is my own body so I'm not a scaily. I don't need a suit.” Danny gloated as he coiled his ghostly tail around himself and flicked out his tongue like a snake.
“But you're a ghost. Not an actual snake. There for, you are a scaily.” Tucker vary maturely said before sticking his tongue out at danny. He's so happy the suit could stick out it’s tongue. Ya it cost a little extra but it was so worth it.
“So now you are a snake?”
“Naga actually because of the human half.” Danne said with a shrug.
“Wouldn't you be a lamia because you're a boy?” Sam asked?
“Actually lamias are a female only species where as Nagas are not. Male nagas are called nagas, go figure, while female nagas are called nagis or naginis.” Tucker said while flipping one of his paws off so he could use his phone.
“Tuck's the one who brought up that I look like I have a cosmic snake tail so I've been been practicing making it more solid. Awesome right?” Danny said as he began slithering around the room again.
Just don't do that out in the open. Last thing we need is the Bats sniffing around.” Sam said with a head shake as she went to their room to get in comfies.
👻One week later in a random sewer under Gotham.👻
“Hood. Why are you in the sewers?”
“Damn it Orical! Don't just randomly turn on my co- shit! Get back here!” Hood yelled as he chased some drug smugglers who thought it would be a great idea to escape through the drains.
“They took a right up a head and then a left immediately after. Carful though. Something is causing major interference with my cameras down that way.”
“Got it. Right, left, then.” Sckdding to a stop Hood immediately ducks back through the entrance and peaked around the corner. “I don't think I need to worry about those specific smugglers any more.” Hood whispered.
“Hold on hood. Connecting to your camera now… Is that a snake?”
“It has a human half too so they're a naga. The human half is already around the bend up ahead.”
“Where are the perps?”
Stepping more fully in the room now that most of the naga's body was no longer occupying it Hood turns and spots both smugglers passed out.
“Looks like they ran in here and immediately got slammed into the wall.” Hood said as he went over to check their pulses.
“Are they still alive?” Orical tentatively asked.
“Hmm. I'll have to get rid of the bodies. Don't want my own men getting got. I'll talk to you later Barbi.” Hood said before disabiling his com and camera. “Should never have sold to kids you dumb fucks.” he said, shooting off two rounds.
___
Saw a post about merDanny and almost immediately saw one about Nagas. So the brain worms got to work. That and I'm currently sitting at the DMV waiting for my turn so I'm bored. Also on mobile so I know there are spelling errors. Have fun with this.
1K notes · View notes
maxlarens · 2 months
Note
Hi! Can i request friends for lovers with lando saying "i can't seem to take neither my eyes, nor my mind off of you, [name]." ✨🫶 thank you
usually i am so Consumed by the idea of the ✨Tension✨ of friends to lovers that i never do a confession scene but here is me making good on that finally. i hope u liked this anon!!!! sorry it took a while.
Tumblr media
In hindsight, you think you should have woken up that morning and known. Known via some cosmic force that today was going to be it— the day you’d been waiting basically a decade for, the day you don't think you'll forget as long as you live—
Instead, you wake up bolt upright at three in the morning, heart beating frantic in your chest, to five missed calls from your best friend.
"What?", you groan, angry, into the phone, then, realising he's calling you at three in the morning, a more concerned note seeps into your tone, "Lan, is that you? You alright?"
"I locked myself out," is the gravelly reply.
"You locked yourself out?"
"I— yes," he hisses down the line, "I forgot my keys okay."
You snort, say, "You're a silly billy," without thinking anything of it.
You'll attribute it to sleep deprivation later, but you'll also find that Lando thinks nothing further of it, too used to you throwing affectionate nicknames his way—
"Shuddup," he mumbles.
You think he's drunk, at least tipsy. He'd said something offhandedly on your FaceTime call yesterday about going out with a few friends you don't know. Besides, there's a slur to his words, a tiredness.
"Come up already," you tell him.
"'M right outside."
You hum in confirmation that you've heard him, put your phone back on the nightstand and slip out from under the covers. You're wearing a sweatshirt that's three sizes too big it might be Lando's and pink fuzzy socks, you feel goosebumps rise on your legs as you pad to the front door. You lean heavily against the wall, closing your eyes as you unlock the padlock and swing it open for your friend.
Lando stumbles in. You twist around to look at him. He's not as drunk as you thought he might be. Sleepy though. You can tell by the squint of his eyes, how they're red rimmed and the mess of his hair. Run through too many times with his hand.
"You want your spare key?", you question as Lando turns on his heel, finding you at the sound of your voice.
He frowns, looking at you like you've grown two heads. Crease forming between his eyebrows.
"Nuh," he shakes his head, then reaches forward to take your wrist, hauling you back through the apartment, "Let's go sleep."
You shrug, acquiescing as he leads you to your bedroom. If you hadn't just been woken up from a dead sleep you might have felt a little weird about it. Paid attention to the stirring feeling low in your gut. Instead, you slip into bed and pull the covers back for Lando without a care in the world.
It's not that weird, you think as he kicks off his shoes and rummages around on your hanging rail for a shirt big enough for him. He finds one that you're sure was originally his. You look away as he changes, shucking out of the short sleeve button up you'd helped him pick out, peeling off chinos you'd also picked out. There's a pair of his gym shorts laying around somewhere, you know it— but he doesn't bother to look for them. Just pulls the t-shirt on over his bare tan chest and climbs in next to you.
You've done this before. Many times. And the two of you make a deliberate point of not being weird about, even though it's been a point of contention in every relationship either of you have had to date. And you don't know what it is tonight this morning, but his presence next to you is making your chest tight. Something skitters up your spine as he slots into your space.
As casual as ever he slings an arm over your waist, tugs you closer to him and presses the line of his nose into the back of your neck. Briefly, he reaches to swipe your hair out of the way, mumbling something about it tickling him.
There's something set ablaze in your stomach.
"G'night, babe," he mutters, breath fanning your ear.
God. You have to suppress a shiver. The babe thing isn't even anything different, he calls you that often enough mostly when he's had something to drink, there's just something about it right now. When you're sleep-woozy and he's just undressed in front of you. Maybe you had a weird dream about him again and you can't remember it, even if your subconscious does.
You bite down on your tongue, answer, "Sleep tight, Lan."
He hums. You crack your neck to stop from letting out a noise that would be utterly indecent right now. Unaware, Lando puts his nose right back in the same spot. You lie there for a while, wired and buzzing, until you hear his breathing steady and deepen as he falls asleep. And even though you feel like every nerve ending in your body is on fire, sleep finds you too.
You wake up again, later, to the morning sun pouring in through your curtains. It lights up the empty space on the bed in front of you. Acreage of bed, pillow, not taken up by anyone.
Still, on your other side, Lando's in your personal space to a degree that you don't realise at first. You wake up disoriented, grappling to remember the events of early that morning. There’s still no cosmic thing telling you that you need to remember today. Commit every single second to memory as it happens. You try to roll over, feeling warmth at your back but not thinking anything of it until Lando gripes something unintelligible into your ear—
Okay. Memories return to you now.
You start to contextualise the skin on yours.
Lando's arm is still slung around your waist, but his hand has made it's way underneath your jumper. Fingers dig into the plush skin of your bare stomach, clutching like you'll slip out of his grasp if he's not careful. Somehow, the other arm has forced it's way under your pillow and you can feel the line of his body against your back, where he's gotten as close to you as he could manage. His legs tangle with yours, one of them spreading out into your space, strewn diagonally across the bed. His knee presses up into the meat of your thigh.
You try not to think how easily your bodies fit together.
You're still for a while. Drifting in and out of sleep. You're comfortable, above all else. You don't really want Lando to move. This certainly isn't the first time you've woken up like this, tangled up with each other, you're betting you'll be able to pass it off with a silly comment once Lando wakes up. You'll extract yourselves from each other and get on with your day like usual.
No big deal—
Lando wakes up half an hour or so later and acts like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He yawns loudly into your ear and rolls over without fanfare—
No big deal—
It's only when you're in the kitchen together— cooking bacon and eggs while Lando drinks coffee from your espresso machine— that the cracks start to show.
You glance at him sideways, watching as he gnaws at the inside of his mouth. His eyes slip off you, directing to the sizzling pan, “What’s up?”, you ask, “Something happen?”
He shakes his head, too quickly, “No. Nope— I—”
He tapers off his sentence, shaking his head. Nose scrunching momentarily. You raise an eyebrow but don’t think much of it. It’s Lando, he’ll tell you if it’s important. Plus, you’re kinda busy right now making sure the eggs don’t burn. A few minutes pass, you ask him to grab plates. He says okay and then drags out an,
“Um,” for so long that you’re a little concerned.
Something nervous flutters in your chest, you’re turning the heat on the burner down low before you know why. You’ve just been friends with Lando for so long, you know when there’s something heavy in his words, when there’s something on the tip of his tongue.
You turn to give him your full attention, your eyebrows furrowing as you look up at him.
“Plates, Lan?”
He’s staring at you. Like, staring at you. Like, slack-jawed, eyes glittering, staring. Like how the guy looks at the girl at the end of every rom-com ever. Like how Harry looks at Sally in every fucking scene of your favourite movie of all time. Like—
Shit. Do you have a massive fuck off pimple on your face? Have you turned blue? Are you being completely out of your mind delusional right now? Because there’s something suddenly wreaking havoc in your stomach. And you really do want to believe that Lando is looking at you in that way, and not just because you’ve got something embarrassing on your face—
“Lando,” you say, firmly, urgency to it, “Spit it out.”
He shakes his head.
You put a hand on his bicep, “Lando.”
It’s got to be that. It’s got to be—
God, your chest feels tight. Your skin feels like it’s on fire. He’s not even said anything yet!
It’s got to be—
He blinks. You think your sudden intensity has made him nervous because he rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck from side to side. A little groan escapes his lips.
“I just—” he sighs heavily, as if it’s too hard to force out; but he’s still looking at you, “What if, I was— ugh, no, nothing, it’s fine—”
“What if you were what?”, it’s out of your mouth before you can think. You think you know exactly what the end of his sentence is. You think perhaps you are too. A pause, then, being braver than you thought you could be, you add, “In love with me?”
He looks immediately as if you’ve sucker punched him right in the gut. Eyes wide and wet and red-rimmed, like kicked puppy, a pleading dog. There’s something scared, nervous, in the set of his shoulders as well. You watch them draw up to his chin as he tries to sink into them.
“Why would you say that?” His voice is downright panicked, “How did you know that?”
Your heart stops beating in your chest, drops into your stomach and falls right out your ass. You shake your head,
“I didn’t. I didn’t. I just guessed, Lan,” you realise your hand is still on his bicep, you squeeze, “Are you?”
“Am I?”, he looks slightly incredulous, baffled at what you’re saying like it’s supposed to be obvious that he is, “Jesus. Of course I am. I can’t– I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re there all the time. And y’know, I see you and you’re just,” he waves an arm between the two of you, gesturing up and down at your body, “You’re fucken’ gorgeous. And you don’t say a thing when we wake up together and I’m basically, on top of you—”
“You don’t say anything either,” you gripe, even though there’s something like joy clawing up your throat, “I thought it was normal.”
Lando tips his head back, groans something halfway filthy, “Normal. I didn’t let half my exes sleep over, and I turned around if they did sleep in my bed. And— fuck, y’know— my keys are actually in my pants pocket right now. I was out drinking and having fun and all I could think about was how much I missed you. How much I just wanted to like, crawl into bed with you.”
“You arsehole.”
“What?”
“You arsehole,” you repeat, “I would have let you in anyway. You didn’t have to lie.”
For a long minute, Lando gapes at you like a fish out of water. Briefly, you think maybe you’ve screwed it by being too mean. It’s never stopped you before, but you’ve also never been in this exact situation with Lando before, frighteningly enough—
One second you’re running through all the possible apologies you could give to make it better, to smooth it all over, and then the next Lando is kissing you—
Or, you feel his hand on your chin first, your mouth forming the first letter of shit, sorry Lan, and then suddenly his mouth is slanting across yours. He tastes a bit like morning breath and a lot like bitter coffee, but his mouth is wet and soft and your lips slot together so perfectly. You put a hand in his curls and find that it feels different to when you card your fingers through his hair.
God.
He’s got a hand on your waist and he’s digging his fingers into your jaw like you’re going to pull away from him without warning and never come back.
“Lan,” you say into his mouth, he pauses long enough for you to speak, lips hovering, nearly touching, “‘M not going anywhere.”
He shakes his head, slanting forward to kiss you again, “No, you’re not,” he pulls back again, pressing his forehead to yours, green-as-grass eyes boring into yours, “Please say you’re in love with me right now?”
Despite yourself, you raise an eyebrow, “Are you in love with me?”
He sighs something ragged out through his nose, kisses you again, says, “‘Course, I’m in love with you. How could I not be,” into your mouth.
You hum from the back of your throat, tongue slipping forward to press against his teeth, tangling against his, “Then of course I am, Lan,” you echo.
How could you not be?
Tumblr media
u just know all of lando's gfs/situationships HATED the fuck out of her
848 notes · View notes
nothingjustawolf · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
// Today, I looked at this muse and thought "yes, kill that other character! You can, you have so much power. Use it! Chaos!" Then I pulled it together.
0 notes
The last talon (among the many others)
Tumblr media
While Argile introduced me to many more talons they barely gave me any mind. Mouse, the ex skywing solider was the final one who seemed rather intriuged in me.
Mouse is a small and scrawny skywing. He coughed little flickers of flame every so often almost as if his body kept trying to make fire. Despite his size and lack of strong flame he is crafty. Every plan he makes works out perfectly. Im quite impressed and he seems rather nice... though he can get nosy
He says he joined the talons of epace because he saw the destruction of war and wanted it to end. The whole reason he was exiled from the skywings was due to wanting peace. I feel bad as his years as a soldier seem to weigh heavy on him
overall he is a decent dragon to hang around
LIAR
LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!
HES DOOMED ME! THAT BACKSTABBING SNAKE!
Mouse ran back to the skywing queen and ran his big chicken head mouth off about my visions and prophecy! The whole of pyrrhia knows of me! THE SKYWING QUEEN HAS A BOUNTY ON MY HEAD.
Whats worse is that none of the other talons seem to care.... Argile just shrugged and told me to stay out of sight.
I... I.. dont know what to do... I dont know where to go... I...why couldnt I have gotten a vision of this? Am I just some cosmic messenger? Some meaningless pawn?
The moons have forsaken me....
-Sunhunter
Tumblr media
"Sunhunter, Meet me on the coast along the rainwing rainforest. Please HURRY - snapping turtle"
462 notes · View notes
clubdionysus · 6 days
Text
[BAD DECISION #61] Jinxing It
Tumblr media
warnings: (1) mention of toe socks, chess talk, showers, a lil bit of titty luvin, lots of kisses, oral (f&m), fingering, ass play (m), whimpery koo <3, a lil cum swapping, the starluvrs are v cute!!! lots of lil clues and hints about upcoming chapters!!
a/n: there's an authors note over on a03 so I'll you spare you my nonsense! but hi, welcome back!! sorry for the wait on this one <33 if you're only just discovering bd, hello---this is part of an on-going story and includes an established relationship, to be read in context with the rest of the story, it's not a oneshot ^^. for kofi subs, there'll be a BD 62 teaser in a few hours!
wc: 13.7K
bd total wc: 560k (ongoing)
AO3 | MASTERLIST | MINORS DNI
Tumblr media
Life dissolves with Jeongguk. Days merge into one. 
Like a tablet in water, or stardust into the atmosphere, time melts.
So does Jeongguk, though. He sinks into the bliss with you. Crumbles. Collapses. You’d go as far to say he turns into a supernova, like stars often do when they collapse. 
He lets himself merge into a shared identity that he’s certain isn’t normal of such a fledgling relationship.
Two weeks from the auction, and days have rolled on by without much fuss. Deals have been finalised on winning bids, and Jeongguk’s had meetings with realtors, Yoongi by his side every step of the way. Everything has happened without much thought. Life has just been accepted; new plans and opportunities integrated into the trajectory you’re on. No meteors to throw you off course nor cosmic calamities to falter your future.
Your name is on the interview list for Shinwon’s position, and Jeongguk’s due to be accepting the keys for the building tomorrow. Everything is as it should be.
It’s terrifying, in a way. 
You spent so long fearing the rug being swept from beneath your feet, but with Jeongguk’s help, carpets have been laid. They’re not budging.
And nor is he as he sits across from you, legs crossed, his chessboard keeping you apart. It’s a rarity to be on his bed not wrapped up in one another—but he’s almost as serious about chess as he is about you. Almost .
“You know what to do,” he grins, adamant that his crash course in the game was easy to follow. In reality, he’d moved a few pieces, said a few words, and promised with a smile that you’d be able to beat him. 
His belief in you is sweet, but entirely misplaced. You’ve not made a single move without his gentle encouragement, most times resulting in you giving the match up on a silver platter. 
The correct terminology evades you, and so do the rules. An app sits on your phone unused, a subscription running up a small fortune from a membership never used. It was set up back in the early days of knowing Jeongguk. You swore one day you’d be able to beat him—but life got busy, and quite frankly, chess is not your chosen way to unwind.
But spending time with Jeongguk is, and so you’ll take him in any capacity you can have him.
“Which one should I move?” You pout, utterly transfixed on the chess pieces. There’s a bewildered panic to your expression, brows furrowed over your glittery eyes, hand hovering to and fro over your side of the board.
You single in on the bishop. Look his way with hopeful, wide eyes. He shakes his head.
“Diagonals only,” he reminds you of how bishops move, at which point you realise it’s blocked in by pawns. Your hand moves to one of them, and he shrugs. “I mean… you can .”
“But should I?”
“You wanna capture the king,” he says, reaching across to dictate your movements. He secures your grip on the pawn, and gently pushes it up a single square to free the bishop’s pathway. “Shift this one up, just one space. Clear the diagonal if you want to move the bishop.”
You do as he says, putting the pawn back in its original position so that you can be the one to place it. Slowly, you repeat his instructions, pushing the pawn up the board while Jeongguk nods. 
And then he grins in such a way that you just know you're about to curse him out.
He lifts his strategically placed knight. Knocks your freshly moved pawn. Claims the tile as his own.
“Rule number one,” He smirks, lip ring flipping in the corner of his pretty little mouth. “Never trust your opponent.”
“Dude, what the fuck,” you whine, looking at him with a faux sense of hurt and a very believable pout. “You’re my boyfriend . You’re supposed to help .”
“No moaning,” he dismisses your stropping, knowing he’s lost brownie points for his deception. He also knows he’ll earn your favour back soon enough, so whatever. “Now, what's your next move, baby? Go on.”
You study the board, and assess how different the opposing sides look. 
This time, he’s going easy on you. Kind of. You’ve almost exclusively been guided by him for the last half an hour, over a string of short games, all of which have ended with your very quick and immediate defeat. 
Jeongguk is too competitive for his own good. Jimin never wants to play against him, ‘cause he knows he’ll lose, too.
This is an indulgence for Jeongguk. He ought not to waste the opportunity—or worse yet, convince you never to play against him again.
He likes the idea of chess being an heirloom; the kind of skill he’ll teach his kids in the future. It’s integral to the very depths of his brain—how he works, and how his logical mind can jump and switch sometimes at the flick of a button—yet he rarely shares it with anyone else.
It’s only apt that you’d get an all-access pass.
Hovering over your now-free bishop, you narrow your eyes as you glance towards him. 
He nods. 
And so you move a pawn instead.
“I don’t trust you,” you tell him, because he told you not to. In a way, you are trusting him—just trusting that he’s a bullshitter. 
What you don’t realise is that you’ve just moved the very pawn that’s been protecting your King, and preventing Jeongguk from getting an easy win.
“B,” he sighs, looking helplessly at the move you just made. 
He couldn’t love you any more if he tried, but— fuck —he’ll never understand your brain.
“What?!”
He picks up his queen. Places it diagonally across from your exposed King. There’s nowhere for your King to go, other than in the direct line of his queen. He’s gone and fuckin’ done it again.
Check. 
Mate .
Groaning, you realise what's happening and flop down onto your back. Your brain is fried. There's no way Jeongguk actually enjoys this. 
"Not again," you whine, pretending to sob a little as you look up at Jeongguk's ceiling. It's without birds these days, but there are a few rogue strips of tape that remind you of your history within these four walls.
"B," Jeongguk laughs, clambering around the board to flop down with you. His arm rests over your tummy as his face aligns with yours. Might not have any birds above you, but the way you melt into his touch is just as deadly as it was the first time. You'll scorch a hole through his sheets with even the most innocent of encounters. His lips are a little pouty, smirk prevailing as he teases, "What did I tell you, huh? Protect your king."
"I tried!" You insist, your over-dramatic, distressed expression far too cute for him to care about playing anymore. He enjoys chess, but he enjoys you more.
"You left him wide open for me to take!"
"You could have gone easy on me!"
"I was!" He defends with a laugh, adamant that he could have taken you out in, like, two moves if he really wanted. "I swear you didn't listen to a single thing I told you—"
"I did! Listening to you is how you got that stupid pawn in the first place," you huff, putting your hand against the bottom of his throat to stop him from getting any closer. He doesn't deserve niceties in times like this.
He'd argue that the feeling of your sharp nails against his throat is incredibly nice.
He ignores your moaning. "I'll make you a deal."
"Go on."
"Strip chess."
"Pervert."
"For every move you make, I'll take an item of clothing off," he suggests with a glint in those starry eyes of his, ignoring your remark.
You assess the situation. Mentally make a checklist of his clothes. Sweats, a shirt, a (toe)sock on either foot, and underwear — that's only five moves, but then again, Jeongguk normally has your king trapped by that point.
"I think you're just trying to get me naked."
"I'm always trying to get you naked, B," he shrugs into his sheets, before tearing himself away and getting back into position on the opposite side of the board. "So are you gonna make it a challenge or not?"
"What happens if I take out one of your pieces?"
"If you do that," he hums, as if he's contemplating it. "I'll let you do that goddamn paper plane you wanna try out so bad."
Instantly, you sit up, like a puppy with a treat being teased in front of its snout. Your eyes are wide, smile incredulous. 
It's been a while since Jeongguk made those paper planes in your bedroom. Only one has ever been done, and quite frankly, you think it might have been the catalyst to your friendship's demise, because how you could ever go back to 'just friends' afterwards was beyond you. 
It's not like you didn't try to remain totally neutral about cock warming with him, but the way your heart swells whenever you do it now just goes to show how your bodies were made for one another. Like a turning of tides, or the cyclical rising and falling of the sun to make way for the moon, it's just as nature intended. He was made for you, and you him.
With a glint in your eye, you lean over to the chess board and swipe up one of his pawns at random. With a gasp, and a smile twitching at your lips, you exclaim, "Oh look! I won!"
"B," he laughs, but your expression remains entirely serious despite the light nature of it all.
"Lemme fuck your ass," You grin now, pleading ever so softly. "A deal is a deal."
"You didn't win."
"Says who?"
"Anyone who has ever played chess?"
"I've played, and I think I won. C'mon," you grin, positioning yourself on his lap. The chess piece is still in your hands as you lean down to nudge your nose up against his. "Face down, ass up for me, baby."
"You're in my way," he says.
"You could throw me across the room if you wanted to. I'm not stopping you."
"And I'm not throwing you across the room."
"Please," you pathetically beg.
"You really it want it, don't you?" He grins against your lips. "Huh?"
"Just wanna make you feel good."
"You always make me feel good," Jeongguk whispers, quietly deflecting the real reason why he hasn't let you do it yet. 
Truth be told, Jeongguk is a little scared. 
While yes, he's always been curious about pegging, he's never taken it that far before. Has never had the tools, shall we say, to explore by himself, and none of his exes or flings ever seemed too interested in it.
He wants it. Wants it with you. Just doesn't know how he'll react. Doesn't know what his body will do. Worries that things will take a turn for the worse and that you'll be so repulsed by him that you'll never want to have sex with him again, or that maybe he'll like it too much and that it'll be all he ever wants and it'd ruin just how good things are at the moment. 
His thoughts distract him as your lips press feathery kisses against the thick column of his neck. Something about you, and how delicate you can be, just makes him melt into your touch. His hands come to clutch your hair, a pretty little smile forming on his lips. 
"You don't have to do this," he quietly says, nails lightly scratching at your scalp. Your lips graze against his skin, before he gently pulls you back by the root of your hair. The sensation makes you want him even more than you already do. There's a love-drunk look of lust to your darling eyes, all glittery like they so often are as you look at him. 
Reaching to cup his jaw, you marvel at how a man who looks like him can be as tender as he is. The world would give him permission to break hearts, if he wanted it, but he doesn't. All he seems to want is to adore, and be adored in return—and how lucky you are to be on the receiving end of it.
A slight guilt settles in your stomach. You know he'd give you the world if you asked for it, but he isn't giving you this. 
"I'm only teasing," you tell him, which isn't strictly true. You do wanna do it, but your incessant begging is what you're joking about. It's not like you'll die if you can't fuck his ass (maybe). "I'll respectfully stay out of your ass unless requested otherwise."
He shakes his head. Laughs. Kisses you, 'cause he just can't help himself, then pulls you down into the sheets with him. "I give it a day until you're asking again."
Secretly, he wants you to ask again. It doesn't feel like pressure. Feels like validation; as if you want this even more than he does.
The thing is, you can't say no to a challenge. "Wanna bet?"
No. 
But he can't resist either. "You're on."
Tumblr media
Yoongi stands with his shoulders pressed to glass front door, keys looped on his fingers. The streets in this area are always quiet until the evening, minor hustle and bustle from delivery drivers dropping off stock to businesses down the alley disturbing the peace. 
A small hotteok stall sits lopsided, supported by the building's exterior wall, red tarpaulin covering it from the weather and any inquisitive eyes. An elderly man runs it during the weekends, but for the rest of the week, it sits derelict. It's an eyesore, to say the least. Not the kind of thing that screams 'hot new restaurant' to anyone walking by.
It's as Yoongi's contemplating how to solve this problem, figuring the stallhand probably had an agreement with the previous owners, when Jeongguk comes into his line of vision. He tweaks a brow in Jeongguk's direction, almost as if to ask: what time do you call this?
Jeongguk's right on time. It's not a minute past twelve, which is exactly the time Yoongi told him to arrive. 
Sale finalised, paperwork complete, Yoongi got given the keys this morning. It's a done deal. The building is his, and in turn, the restaurant is Jeongguk’s. 
Despite his nonchalance, when Yoongi sees Jeongguk grin, he can't help but smile too.
"Shut up," Yoongi tells him. "We're serious businessmen. Don't get giggly with me."
"I'm not!" Jeongguk laughs, hands up in defence, until Yoongi puts his own hand out for Jeongguk to shake. Naturally, Jeongguk uses Yoongi's hand to pull him in for a hug instead. Patting his back, Jeongguk is almost fighting the urge to cry. He's waited so long for this. Worked so hard. Doesn't think any of it would be possible without Yoongi, but Yoongi would disagree.
"You better make the best fuckin' samgyeopsal this city has ever seen," Yoongi threatens with all the love in the world, breaking from the hug. Passing over the keys, he nods towards the doors. "Do us the honours."
Yoongi is fatherly in the way he never takes the glory for himself. Will be the kind of dad to build a lego castle and let his kid put the flag in place at the end of his labour. 
Jeongguk doesn't mention it, but he's noticed the way Seoyeon has been the designated driver for the past few weeks; how she didn't drink at auction, and how Yoongi's been even more attentive than he usually is. 
Could be nothing at all. Could just be a change in the weather.
But it could mean everything, and Jeongguk knows better than to intrude before being welcomed in on the news. 
Pushing the key into the lock, Jeongguk is quietly enamoured with the fact the premises has a lock and key instead of the typical keypad locks that are usually in place. The metal grates against itself as he twists the lock open, and pushes the door open. 
There's a separate side entrance for access to the upper floors. 
The floors Jeongguk intends to be the restaurant already have a connecting staircase towards the back of the room, which will make it infinitely easier for staying out of Yoongi's hair whenever he's in the workshop.
In the light of day, the furniture from the previous owners now removed, it's so much easier for Jeongguk to envisage how everything will look; where the signage will hang, where the bar will go, and, most importantly, where the disco balls will hang.
"It's really happening," he exhales, as if he hadn't realised it at any earlier stage in the process.
Yoongi doesn't berate him. Instead, he takes a deep breath, too. Nods. "It's really happening."
Though he smiles, Jeongguk wishes he had a hand to hold as tightly as his lips press together. Wishes you were here. Knows you're busy with work, making up hours to account for the fact you'll have some time off at the end of the week for your interview at the Ryu.
Why you need an interview is beyond him. He thinks they're being ridiculous. Thinks that even entertaining the idea of hiring someone else is an insult. Got so wound up about it, ranting to Jimin while he was making dinner, that he burned his sauce a couple of nights ago. Is now on a talking while cooking ban. Jimin says Jeongguk can't be trusted to multitask. Jeongguk says Jimin is a little prick.
The day is lost to making plans; sketches drawn up on Jeongguk's ipad, discussions with Yoongi about how to go about getting liscences for the premises, and back and forth over what should be done with the top two floors.
The idea of Taehyung using the fourth floor as a studio is considered, but both of them know how much he adores his current place. 
"Think he'd live there, if he could," Yoongi muses picking up a slice of napjak mandu with his chopsticks, dipping it into the tteokbokki sauce. They'd ordered from the place near his current workshop, and it makes him lament the idea of leaving it behind. 
Perhaps he can keep them both. Use the smaller space as his own little sanctuary, and the third floor here as his public-facing premises. Might be a bit of a waste, but if he can afford the rent, then why not?
"Tell you what," Yoongi hums as he swallows down his food. "If you don't add something like this to the menu, I'm kicking you out."
"I'll put it on the secret menu," Jeongguk offers, knowing that it definitely won't be what he offers to punters. He makes a mean tteokbokki, but it doesn't fit the vision of what he wants for this place. "Well, what about Jimin? He could start up his own interior place, if he wants. He's got the money for it, and I know the office he's in at the moment has been stifling him. Lost out on, like, three big commissions in the last quarter because the boss went with some other prick's ideas. Jimin's wasted there."
Yoongi hums in agreement as he swallows down his food. "We could always get him to help out with the design of this place. I reckon he knows all the tricks for good energy."
Nodding, Jeongguk laughs. Picks up another rice cake and chows down on it as he adds, "Should have seen him when we moved into our current place. Man had a compass out to align a sofa with the right energy."
"Sounds about right," Yoongi grins, resting his chopsticks back down against the edge of the bowl. "Well, what about your missus, then? Would she want gallery space? Somewhere for curation?"
Jeongguk chokes on his rice cake, and it's not because of the spice. 
"She's not my missus—" he corrects, but then decides he doesn't want to "—at least, not yet. And she's got a big interview with The Ryu this week. I'm not sure opening her own gallery is on her agenda, but I can put the feelers out—and like… I don't know. Wouldn't it be a bit much? We spend so much time together, already. She'd get sick of me if I was working two floors below."
"Would you get sick of her?"
"Don't be stupid. No."
"Exactly," Yoongi says as if it's obvious—which, in all fairness, he thinks it is. "The pair of you are in a perpetual honeymoon phase."
Jeongguk shakes his head, as if he isn't beaming. "Shut up. Just got a good thing going—and hey, you're hardly one to talk. How's Seoyeon?"
"Good, yeah," Yoongi nods, but doesn't divulge any further. As much as Jeongguk is dying to ask, he holds back. "She wants you all round for dinner soon, so expect an invite in the group chat."
"For any reason?" Jeongguk baits Yoongi, cause he just can't help himself.
Unlucky for him, Yoongi is as stoic as can be. "You know Seo. She loves any excuse for a dinner party. Has started making her own pasta and I think she wants tasters."
"B makes a mean pasta," Jeongguk says, because his thoughts so often wind back to you, and he just can't help himself. "I'm sure she'll be buzzing to try Seoyeons."
A sense of pride washes over Yoongi's features. "Gah, when did you grow up, Jeongguk? Practically married, aren't you?"
Dismissive in how he shakes his head, Jeongguk can't help but let a bashful smile grow on his face. The soft lights overhead glimmer down him, putting those stars Jeongguk adores so much right back in his eyes. He'll never get rid of you. Will eternally carry the evidence of how utterly smitten he is.
Should you ever leave him, Jeongguk thinks he'd simply die of a broken heart. Wouldn't know how to walk if it weren't in the direction of you. Would stumble and fall until he inevitably wound up back at your door like a wounded puppy.
So perahps Yoongi is right. Maybe it would make sense to offer you the space—but you've got your own agenda. Your own dreams. Jeongguk can't just entrap you in his.
The thing is, once your shift is up, and you're heading to the restaurant premises to see Jeongguk, you can't help but feel like this is a dream come true for you. 
His ambition and drive have rubbed off on you; encouraged you up a career path you once thought was overgrown with thorns and rubble. Has shown you that all you need is a little bit of elbow grease and a pair of secateurs to go after what you want. 
It's dark by the time you arrive. Lights from the other establishments flood the streets, but the blinds are closed on the restaurant for a little privacy. A handwritten 'under new management' sign is taped to the front door in Jeongguk's signature penstroke. A little smiley face accents it; a show of how he feels, you presume. 
Pulling your phone from your back pocket, you dial through to him, 'cause you've no idea how to get in, nor if he's even actually there. The building is just on the way home from the art cafe, and you'd left Jeongguk's place that morning to a very smiley boyfriend instead of his usual 'don't go' pout, so you figure he's spent all day busy with exciting plans.
"Sorry, not interested," Jeongguk's voice purrs through the speaker, as if you're some kind of cold-calling saleswoman with nothing half-decent to offer him. 
"What if I told you I'm outside the restaurant and that I'm naked under my clothes?"
"Aren't we all naked under our clothes?"
"Just open the door," you grin down the phone as he comes into view through the glass doors. 
He's got the kind of look on his face that you'd expect: pouty lips with heavy-lidded eyes. Softening ever so slightly when he notices the bunch of wildflowers poking out from the tote bag you've got hooked over your shoulder, his eyes are incapable of ever hiding his true feelings. 
Mild confusion ( did someone get you flowers?) dismissed with easy understanding—they're from the stall he always buys you flowers from, so he knows you got them yourself.
It's very conflicting to adore you and to also want to fuck you into next Tuesday, but it garners you a gaze nobody else is ever lucky enough to receive from him. You cherish it. Think about it near-constantly whenever he's not by your side.
"You're a terrible saleswoman," he scolds so softly it feels like praise.
"And yet here you are, answering the door for me," you shrug with a knowing smile, sure that'd he take whatever you sold him. Would buy sand, water, air from you. Would let you swindle him. 
"And yet here I am."
Hanging up, you mouth 'open it' through the door, and he does as he's told—kind of.
Blocking the now half-open door, he childishly asks, "What's the password?"
"I love you?"
"Ew. Gross. Get a room. No."
"Fuck you.”
"Not the password either, but I'm more than willing."
"Ew. Gross," you imitate him, gagging a little for an extra immaturity. "Hmm… Byeol is the best?"
"Ddaeng."
"Jimin sucks?"
"Ddaeng… but I approve. Good guess."
"Gimme a hint."
"It's the name of the restaurant."
The confidence that comes with the restaurant being his now is nothing short of a miracle. He's so certain of everything these days, in a way he never was before—but why shouldn't he? He got the girl. Got the dream. There's nothing he can't do. Statistically, he's two for two. A winner by all counts. A gold medalist in his very own Olympics.
"You've never told me what you want to name it!" You protest with a whine, thinking he's being entirely unfair.
It's not like you haven't asked a million times over. He's just been keeping it underwraps. Was scared that speaking it into existence would jinx it. Would refuse with a coy grin, and assurance that he'd reveal it soon enough.
Truth be told, Jeongguk's gone back and forth over names. It's probably changed ten times since he's known you, but then you said something at the fundraising auction, and everything sort of clicked into place. 
A name was coined and it wouldn't stop embossing itself into Jeongguk's dreams; the branding, the signage, everything. A new vision of what he wanted spawned like lava onto a mountainside. You sparked a volcano he didn't even realise existed, and it's solidified into molten rock. 
"I'll cut you a deal," you offer, knowing that you'll never get it and he'll never ease. Shrugging your shoulder to gesture towards the bag, you begin your enticement. "I've got cold beer and hot burgers from that place you like down the road. They're all yours in you let me in—if not, I'm going home and Danbi will—"
"Say no more," Jeongguk pushes the door open and grabs your hand, pulling you into the vacant restaurant with him. The door clicks close behind you, and Jeongguk spins you around so that you're stood infront of him, facing the large room. Arms wrapping around your waist, Jeongguk rests his chin on your shoulder, gently pressing a kiss to your neck. "Welcome in."
It's a lot to take in all at once. The room stands empty, save for the camping chairs and table Yoongi and Jeongguk had coversed around earlier, Jeongguk's ipad resting on the table with a low battery warning on the dimly lit screen. There's paperwork scattered on the surface—old utilities letters that they were using to sort out the new bills—and a bag of trash tied up on the floor from their lunch.
"I don't smell burgers," Jeongguk mumbles against your neck.
"I was lying."
"You've no shame."
Turning your head, you let him raise his nose to yours, a feathery kiss greeting your lips. 
Whenever your doe-eyed boy greets you like this, you always feel a bit like snow white; as if a dozen tiny creatures will flock to you and bestow their love upon you.
It'd be fruitless, mind you, for none of them could even come close to how deeply Jeongguk adores you. He'd sit in the corner, jealous and bratty as they fawned over you. Would hate not being the object of your affection. Would strop until your focus was back on him.
"I'll order some," you promise, but Jeongguk shakes his head. 
"Won't be here much longer. We can pick some up on the way home."
"Sure?"
"Yeah, baby," he tenderly whispers, punctuating himself with a slightly firmer kiss, before pulling away from you. Walking into the middle of the room, he holds out his arms. Grins. "Welcome."
"It's a pleasure," you grin, freely stepping into the space now, looking around with awestruck eyes knowing that this is his . "Holy shit, Gguk."
"Yeah," he agrees with your sentiment. "Mad, innit?"
"Just a little."
When you think back to the Jeongguk you first met—the one who spent hours upon hours studying for his exams, all the while working at the bar of an admittedly shitty club—you can't help but feel overwhelmed with pride. He worked himself to the bone for his dreams. 
The space is large enough for Jeongguk to go wild with it. There's no end to his possibilities. He's got an arsenal of weapons in his back pocket in the form of his friends—Yoongi can fit the place out, Jimin can help with the design work, Taehyung can make a central art piece, and Namjoon can get it featured in the paper. Of course, he won't take advantage of his access to them, but knowing how willing his friends always are to help out, it's kind of like a no-brainer. He's got all the tools needed for success.
"And right here," he points up, standing in the middle of a square marked out with tape on the floor. It's large and in the centre of the room—the intended space for a central bar and banchan preparation spot, flipping the conventions of traditional barbecue places on their heads. Wants the food to quite literally be at the heart of the restaurant. "Is where the disco balls will be."
For a second, you think you miss-hear him, but the way his smiles grows when confronted with your confusion only proves you heard perfectly fine.
Sitting on one of the camping chairs Yoongi and Jeongguk had set up earlier, you've been watching him talk you through his vision for the place. It sounds incredible—just like him, but in restaurant version. 
"Is that not a health and safety hazard?" You giggle, desperate to get up and stand with him, but feeling the need to maintain distance. He's having his moment. He doesn't need a shared stage—and yet here he is, announcing that the very embodiment of you will be centre stage for the foreseeable. 
Jeongguk shrugs. "Haven't thought that far ahead. There's gonna be disco balls here whether they like it or not, though."
Realistically, if the health and safety inspectors tell him no disco balls, there'll be no disco balls—but he won't be happy about it. Will be pouty. You both know he's just being facetious, and that he'll comply with whatever is asked of him. 
"It's my restaurant, baby," he reminds you, holding out his hands, cause he wants you closer. Naturally, you do ass requested, and join him in his square. His arm slips around your waist, a kiss firmly being pressed to your forehead before your chin leans on his chest. Looking up at him, it's a wonder that you're able to have conversations that last more than a single back and forth. A miracle, even. "I can do what I want."
There's something so incredibly sexy about this cocksure arrogance. He's not the same guy you met back in the confines of Dionysus, and while you adored him back then, you adore him even more now.
"You're sexy when you talk business," you hum, as his hand dip a little further south to squeeze your ass. "Home?"
He nods, a pretty smile hanging off his lips. "Mine or yours?"
"Yours is closer," you tell him, pulling away, linking your fingers with his as you do so, dragging him with you. Hooking your bag up over your shoulder, you're reminded of the flowers. "Oh—these are for you, by the way."
Passing them over, you're not surprised by his confusion.
"For me?"
The bunch of wildflowers looked pretty big in your hands, but remarkably small in his. You have to make a considered effort to not groan. 
"Mhmm," you nod with a sweet smile. "A congratulations."
Jeongguk's head pushes back a little into his neck, shoulders broadening as his smile forms. He quickly tilts his head to the side and then back again in the way he often does whenever his brain is processing something new. 
"Never had flowers before."
"Nice, isn't it?" You grin, knowing that nothing beats fresh flowers when it comes to small pockets of expressed admiration. 
With a bashful nod, Jeongguk feels like he should feel emasculated, but can't quite work out the way he actually does feel. All he knows is that he likes it. And that he wants to get home. And that he wants you in his bed. Naked, preferably. 
His thoughts dart back and forth to the last time you were in his room. Gets him hot. Blushing. 
Thankfully, you don't seem to notice—or if you do, you don't mention it. Why would you? It's cute. 
"What time is your interview tomorrow?" Jeongguk asks as he makes sure the door is locked behind you both. 
"One in the afternoon," you reply with a certain nonchalance, as if you're unphased, which Jeongguk knows is absolute bullshit. "Hobes said he'll work my shift if I buy him a month's supply of Sprite, so I've got, like, 48 cans arriving tomorrow."
He would have done it for free, but he's a tough bargainer and you're just an easy sell when it comes to making the people you care about happy.
"His blood will turn into sprite," Jeongguk laughs, linking his hand with yours once more as you head down the road to the nearest subway entrance. "How are you feeling about it? We can practise interview questions later, if you like."
Shaking your head, you smile. "It'll just make me nervous, and at the moment, I'm pretty calm about things. Thank you, though."
"Well, if you change your mind," Jeongguk reinforces the offer, before you redirect the conversation and get him babbling about the restaurant—projected timelines, contractors, suppliers. There's so much to do, and yet it doesn't feel overwhelming in the slightest. Not yet, at least.
With a pit stop at the burger place as promised, the journey home is effortless. Intrinsic by this point. 
Shoes off by the door, Jimin is out for a company dinner, so it's just the pair of you.
"Has he spoken with you about Nabi, yet?" You ask as you grab some condiments from the kitchen, while Jeongguk fills a vase with water.
"God, no," Jeongguk laughs. "He used to tease me all the time about you, but now he can't even look me in the eyes 'cause he's worried I'll ask about it. Idiot."
"He used to tease you? About me?" You hum, a little smug at this little snippet of information. 
"You know what he's like," Jeongguk reminds you, 'cause it's not like you've ever been spared from Jimin's teasing. "Doesn't know how to not be irritating. Character flaw. Think he was born that way."
Despite his annoying tendencies, Jimin is adored by pretty much everyone he meets. Jeongguk doesn't say such things to be mean, but rather because he views him like a sibling. 
"If anyone knows how to handle him, it's Nabi," you muse, thinking back to Pohang. "He'd have driven me insane organising the Jilympics."
"Don't call it that," Jeongguk smiles at how ridiculous his best friend is. Delicately arranging the flowers, Jeongguk's sense of perfectionism comes out once more. "He's a little narcissist. He'll sense his ego being inflated from miles away, and then his head won't be able to fit through doors." Tweaking a yellow flower to move it more centrally, Jeongguk shakes his head. "And to think the first time you were in this apartment—"
"Shut up," you groan, not wanting to be reminded of it. "Everybody makes mistakes."
"Alright, Hannah Montana," Jeongguk teases you. "It's just kinda wild, isn't it? How everything has just worked itself out?"
"Don't," you say with a glint in your eye. "You'll jinx it."
Perhaps it's foolish—naive, even—but he doesn't think it's possible. Thinks that this is all set in stone. That your names have been etched on a cliffside somewhere, and that's where you'll remain forever more. 
He forgets that cliffs erode. That the weather is unpredictable, and life even more so. 
He's always been cautious. Reluctant of counting eggs.
But he’s hungry. Ravenous. The first at the dinner table, and the last to leave. Bites off more than he can chew. Chokes and splutters in the wake of it all, every single damn time.
It’s a flaw he’ll admit to having, but why can’t vices be virtues? Why can’t he be optimistic? Why shouldn’t he hope for the best? He spent so long living in a perpetual state of fear, and it never did him any good. Wasn’t until he started opening himself to the idea of things working out okay that they actually started heading in that direction.
“I’ll do no such thing,” he assures you, reaching for a pan to start with his second course. Again, he’s hungry in all aspects of the word. Hasn’t even had his burgers yet, but he’s a growing boy, or so he’d have you believe. Better to just get it cooked first, and save him the hassle of getting up again later. “You want some?”
He nods towards the empty saucepan, but doesn’t need to explain what he’s making. You know it’ll be instant bibimyeon.
“A little,” you nod, knowing that this relationship is gonna be terrible for your waistline. Opening up his fridge, you pull a can of soda from the fridge. Jeongguk doesn’t really ever buy soda, unlike you and your minor peach soda addiction, but take-out places always chuck a complimentary can of something in with your orders, so he’s got quite a stockpile now.
“You want a beer or something instead?” He asks, as he begins to prepare the instant noodles in the most embellished way he possibly can. Spices, sauces, you name it, he’s always adding something—and it’s always delicious. 
Cracking the can open, you set it down and swipe the camera of your phone up to snap a picture of him; to document him in his element. “Nah, it’s okay. Want a clear head for tomorrow.”
Jeongguk smiles, hearing the synthetic shutter of your phone clicking. “Obsessed.”
“So?” You grin, immediately swiping across to open up Instagram and preserve the moment on your story. “You love it.”
Though he doesn’t reply, he does look in your direction with a smile that would only confirm your words.
Together, you fall into a casual rhythm, you perched up on a barstool while he cooks. Conversation darts from A to B, Y to Z. There’s no topic of conversation too obscure nor taboo for you to realm into the depths of, but there’s also something comforting about how you can just natter about the weather, how he should get his hair cut, what’s on at the cinema. 
By the time he’s eaten and cleaned up the kitchen, you’re already in the shower. It’ll be an early night. You’ve both been working today, and both have important things to get done the next day. 
There’s no objection from you as he taps on the door and asks to come in. You hadn’t locked it deliberately. Jimin’s out, and even if he’d have come home, he’d have heard the shower going—or Jeongguk would have told him. There’s no real worry there.
“Been looking forward to this all day,” Jeongguk admits as he grabs his shirt by the nape of his neck, pulling it over his head in that boyish way he so often does. Neither of you really care about being naked—it’s a daily occurrence at this point—but seeing him get undressed makes your heart feel all jelly-like and void of structure. The chambers melt, and so do you. 
It’s not just attraction, but affection. Acknowledgement that he doesn’t mind being vulnerable with you. That the things humans do to renew themselves — eat, shower, sleep — are things he wants to do with you. He doesn’t want to be full if you’re hungry, sleep while you’re starved of rest, nor wash away the traces of you. Renewal without you just doesn’t make sense to him. 
“Me too,” you quietly say as he joins you. The water pitter-patters down on you both, his hair wetting before laying flat against his forehead. When his deft hands push it away, it always falls back. 
Instinctively, your arms wrap around his waist, his around your shoulders, the embrace akin to coming home. 
“We should both just quit our jobs and do this forever,” Jeongguk muses, almost sleepy in how he mumbles his words against the top of your head. 
“Someone’s gotta pay the water bill,” you smile against his bare chest.
“That’s why I live with Jimin,” Jeongguk replies, tone cheeky and warm. 
The smile on your face sweetly settles into something a little more neutral as you outwardly consider your own living situation. “Lease is up soon, yanno. Mine and Dans.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you nod, wet hair tangling over itself against his skin. He holds you just as tightly. “Haven’t started looking for new places, yet.”
“I’ve still got a few months left on mine,” Jeongguk says, pulling back to reposition the shower head. Just wants to hear you a little more clearly. “My bed is basically yours anyways.”
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s insinuating—but it also doesn’t take a genius to know that it wouldn’t be the right thing for you both, yet. 
Your eyes are soft as you shake your head. “I’ve a whole apartment's worth of stuff, Gguk. I can’t just move into your room. Need my own space.”
He frowns, reaching for the shampoo. “You can. And I’ll even move my statues.”
“You mean your action figures?”
“Oh my god,” he groans, and then you’re giggling, and any negative thoughts Jeongguk could have about you saying ‘no’ dissolve into nothingness, like water running down the drain. He passes you over the shampoo once he’s gotten himself some, and adds, “People pay good money for a collection like mine.”
“You mean you spent a fuck ton of money on them?”
“We’ve all got our weaknesses,” he protests. “You’ve got so many clothes. I don’t think I’ve ever been into your room when there hasn’t been an avalanche of clothes on the chair, wardrobe and dressers bursting at seams—”
“Exactly,” You laugh. “Now imagine all of that in your room.”
He takes a second. Visualises it as he lathers up the foamy shampoo in his hair and almost hisses. “Yeah. You’re right. I take it back. Get your own place.”
Rolling your eyes, you flick a little water in his direction, as if it makes a difference. 
He grins, teeth on show, lip ring doing the thing that just makes you melt. 
“See,” you grin right back. “I’m always right.”
The rest of your shower is littered with dumb conversations and stolen kisses between shampoo rinses. In fact, it’s how the rest of the evening continues. Some dumb action film plays on the tv, and then Jeongguk finds a dumb youtube quiz, and you giggle into the early hours over some other dumb shit. Dumb, dumb, dumb and oh so totally in love. 
The apartment issue lingers in the back of Jeongguk’s mind, though, and questions dance on the tip of his tongue. He tries to brush them away, but the mint of his toothpaste isn’t enough to erase them. They taste sour, and he knows the only way to rid the sensation is to speak them into existence.
Gone midnight, the city is still alive. His curtains are open, because you’ve started to get used to the way he likes to sleep, and find it far easier to wake up early when the sun is giving you a warm welcome to the day. Funny, how things change. How willing he was to change his habits for you, and how seamlessly yours have changed to fit him. You’re better for knowing one another, or so it feels. 
The light pollution gives his bedroom a soft glow, and with every change of advertisement on the billboards across the street, the hue changes. Like his own personal mood lamp, it’s become a staple of his home. It’s blue, now, and so is he when he considers the fact that you haven’t yet reached the stage of sharing a home.
Your arm is looped over his waist, ‘cause he’d decided that the role of the little spoon would be going to him. Fingers interlocked with yours, he has no interest in ever letting go. 
“B?”
“Mhmm?”
“Is Dan definitely moving in with Tae?”
“Think so.”
Jeongguk doesn’t immediately reply, but you leave space open for him. A question like that didn’t come out of the blue. It’s something he’s been ruminating on, no doubt.
When he finally does speak, the weight of his soft, if not somewhat pouty, words crush down on your chest in a way that you can’t quite explain. Hell, in a way you don’t want to explain, because it would mean admitting that a man has such power over you (even if said man is Jeon Jeongguk).
“They’ve always been one step ahead of us,” he laments.
And then he leaves silence for you. Knows that you always have a response of some kind that will settle his woes. Feels guilty that you’re always cleaning up the messes of his loose lips, but would be a liar if he said he didn’t crave the sweet nothings you soothe him with.
“They’re on an entirely different path, baby,” you gently press a kiss into his shoulder. He’s so warm and powder-fresh from his shower that you can’t help but want to cling to him like a koala bear. Most importantly, though, you don’t want him to move away. Space to talk is fine, but physical space? God, no. “There's no use comparing.”
But Jeongguk is a glutton for punishment. Will continue making himself feel small for the sake of his perceived flaws.
“Loved you before Taehyung even knew who Danbi was,” Jeongguk pouts, ‘cause he’s in his head again, going round in circles when he really needn’t be. You know he does this, though. It doesn’t surprise nor concern you. If anything, it reassures you, because his willingness to share these thoughts just signposts how far you’ve both come. He used to stew and sour over things like this. Now, he shares his burdens “But they’re doing all these big milestones first. They were a couple, went on vacation, and now moving in together. All before us.”
“It’s not a competition,” you sweetly laugh. “Their relationship couldn’t be more different to ours. Plus I hardly consider a weekend in Jeju a big vacation—we can literally do that this weekend, if you want.”
You’re not sure why you’ve never been away together. Busan is always lovely, but it’s a short drive, and is somewhere Jeongguk still considers to be home. It’s not a holiday. Perhaps you should rectify that. It's better spoken about during the daylight hours, but always a little nicer to dream at night. Make silly, fantastical plans that you could always turn into reality, if you really wanted. 
“Gguk,” you softly continue. “As much as I love them both, we’re literally so different from them. Our relationship was never gonna be like theirs.”
“You think?”
“Mhmm,” you nod, lips brushing against the bare skin of his shoulder. “Well, I mean, he lets her peg him for starters—”
Jeongguk turns so quickly it’s a miracle he doesn’t fall out of bed. Even in the darkness of his room at night, the open curtains mean his shock is easy to make out. “Does he actually?!”
Giggling, you roll onto your back, thoroughly enjoying his reaction. Truth is, you’ve no idea. Just said it to be a dick. 
“Probably,” you say, admitting that you don’t know. You just knew it would cause a reaction. Ease the tension, somewhat. “He’s like, obsessed with her. Would let her do anything she wants.”
Sinking back down into the sheets with you, Jeongguk wraps his arm over your body now. Pulls you close. Presses a kiss to your neck, and says, “You lost the bet, y’know? Can’t even go 24 hours without thinking about fucking my ass, can you?”
It sounds like a complaint, but the way his lips seem unable to stop pressing wet kisses against your throat would prove otherwise. Your hand tangles in his hair, scratching his scalp in approval. 
“Cute that you think I haven’t been thinking about it all day,” you tease, biting back the small murmur of a moan that’s just begging to escape from his touch. 
You often have thoughts about him throughout the day, both pure and impure. It’s not like you mean to—it’s just that there’s something about Jeongguk that is impossible to forget. Like a class-A drug, you linger from high to high, using thoughts about him to sustain your comedown until you can see him again. 
He is your boyfriend, though. Would be weirder if you weren’t a little obsessed.
“Liar,” he scolds. “I picked your clothes up after our shower. Your underwear were dry.”
“You were inspecting my underwear? Freak,” you tease, because quite honestly the idea of him studying your underwear in the hopes of finding arousal is kinda hot, even if a little perverted. “And maybe it’s because you don’t get me excited.”
Rolling his eyes, Jeongguk ignores your insult. Instead, his hand creeps down the mound of your pussy, pausing before he sinks his fingers between your thighs. “So you’ll be dry right now, then?”
“I’ll be just like the Gobi,” you assure him with that tone of defiance he's grown to adore. “Try me.”
You don’t know why you’re offering yourself up like this, ‘cause you know it’s only gonna end up one way.
“You’re such a fuckin’ liar,” he smirks—and then is proven correct as his fingers slide between your slick folds with ease. A gasp escapes from your lips as he casually brushes past your clit, paying it no attention whatsoever. “And even if you weren’t, there’s like, five bigger deserts than the Gobi. Sounds like it’s a pretty easy drought to rectify—but fuckin’ hell, B. My pretty girl and her filthy mouth. Full of lies, isn’t it? You’re fuckin’ soaked.”
“No,” you purr, hips languidly rolling to intensify the sensation he’s facilitating. After all, he’s right. There’s nothing dry about the situation between your legs. “Never told a lie in my life.”
His teeth nip at your neck as his body presses up against your side, the thick ridge of his cock letting you know that you most certainly get him excited. 
“You’re so full of shit, B,” he quietly says, lips from a pretty little kiss against the edge of your jaw. “Told so many lies, haven’t you, hm? Like when you used to tell people we were just friends?”
The desperate sigh that escapes your mouth only fuels him on even more.
“You remember the first time I touched you like this, huh?” He husks against your ear. “Those pretty eyes of yours watching us in the mirror. You can see us now, can’t you?”
Nudging his head against yours, he encourages you to look in the direction of his mirror. You always sleep on the side of the bed closest to it, but you rarely pay it any attention these days. The pair of you are obscured—bed sheets and shadows hiding what he’s doing to you—but the eroticism is just as potent as it always was.
“Gguk,” you rasp, back arching when he strokes against your clit just right.
Restraint is something that you wish you had been gifted with, but alas—you are just a girl, and he is just the sexiest man you’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a bed with. Of course you melt with every little thing he does.
“What is it, baby?” His index finger pushes into the seeping entrance of your cunt, just once, twice, to really get you moaning. “You like it when your boyfriend touches you?”
Something about Jeongguk referring to himself like that always gets you hot, but it’s partially because of the way he almost growls when he does it. You know it’s a turn-on for him. Know that his cock is throbbing. Know he loves calling himself yours.
Tugging on his arm, you encourage him to move on top of you. It’s late, and you should both be getting a good night's rest, but whatever. In half an hour, you’ll both be away with the fairies. If anything, this will help you fall asleep quicker.
“Thought you wanted an early night?” he husks against your lips, finishing his question with a kiss that lasts far longer than any words spoken. His firm lips part yours as your legs wrap around his hips as they grind up against yours.
“And I thought you said whoever speaks about fucking your ass next loses?” You smile against his lips, knowing that he definitely must have a twisted idea of what punishment is. “How is this losing?”
“We never set out terms,” he reminds you, unable to stop himself from kissing you between sentences. “But maybe it's not about losing. Maybe it’s about winning.”
“Okay?” You entertain his flirt, giggling between those kisses he just can’t seem to stop giving you. “So what are you winning?”
He pretends to give it thoughtful consideration. Squints his eyes and looks away as if contemplating one of life's great questions. Why are we here? What is the point of life? How do I want my girlfriend to make me cum tonight?
Jeongguk presses a kiss to your neck, nose nudging against your skin. He’s feline-like. Purry. Pathetic. Just how you like him.
“You haven’t sucked me off in a while,” he whispers, teeth nipping at your earlobe. Your hand laces in his hair, a soft moan humming from your lips. There’s a softness to the slow movements of your bodies. A comfort. A desperation. Unadulterated devotion. “So maybe that?”
You laugh at his shamelessness. Press a kiss to his temple, still scratching at his scalp. “I gave you a blowjob, like, two days ago, baby.”
“I know,” he whines like a wounded puppy, all docile and dejected. “It’s been so long I might die.”
“Hmm?” You hum in response, pushing on his waist ever so slightly until he gets the message to roll onto his back. He does as he's told, because he really is just a puppy dog beneath it all. Well-trained and desperate for a treat.
Following the movements of his body, you naturally ease into position on top of him. Legs straddled either side of his waist, you raise yourself up into a seated position, earning you a grunt of approval from Jeongguk. 
The way his hands immediately reach up to play with your chest is curious, considering he still plays himself off as an ass guy. Strong with his movements, he grips the softness of your tits, his hips gently pulsing up against you.
“These might help prolong my life expectancy,” he says. “Best stress balls known to man.”
He seems quite content like this. Eyes closed, a smile hangs off his lips like he’s in a serene state of bliss. You cock your brow, unable to fight a smile, too. 
“Did you just call my tits… balls?”
One of his eyes cracks open. “No?”
“You definitely did.”
“Didn’t.”
“Did—”
“Byeol,” he reprimands your diversion of the topic. “C’mon. Business, baby.”
“Is that all I am to you, huh?” You say, reaching for his wrist so that you can pull your hairband from it. He lets you do so and looks on with salacious curiosity as you begin to tie your hair up in a ponytail. “Just a transaction?”
“Mhmm,” he nods, his own hair tangling against his pillow as he does so. “A bird for a bird, remember?”
“Are we not past the point of the birds?”
“Well, yeah,” he says as if it’s totally obvious. “Thought we were gonna do a plane?”
Jeongguk’s reference back to the paper planes that he crafted in your bedroom makes your heart seize. You know what he means by that. Knows that it’s permission, in a way. That he wants what you want, even if he doesn’t outwardly say it.
“Are we?”
“Well we’re not gonna do anything if you keep up with the small talk,” he fondly teases you, pulling you back down so your chest is against his. One of his hands wraps itself in your ponytail and tugs ever so gently. A soft moan escapes your lips, much to his enjoyment. “I like your hair like this.”
In all honesty, he just likes being able to pull on it. Loves your hair no matter how it’s done. 
“You’ll like it even more in a few minutes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you say, pressing a kiss to the corner of his jaw before you embark on your journey south. 
It’s intrinsic, how you work his body. A routine so well learned it’s not even given a second thought anymore. You know how to make him tick. The way he groans when you press pretty kisses down his collarbones and the way his hips roll when you drag the pink of your tongue over his pebbled nipples.
His hand clutches in your hair, keeping you in that position, encouraging you to pay a little extra attention to his nipples for a change. It’s not often that he wants too much focus on his chest, but he’s so turned on that even the slightest touch is making him go feral. 
“Shit,” he hisses when your teeth gently press down around his nipple before you suck it ever so gently. “You’re so fuckin’ good at that.”
He’s never cared for it before. In all honestly, he actively didn’t like it when previous partners did it. There’s something about you that subverts all his desires. You’ve changed him. Altered his understanding of his body. Opened him up to so much more than he’d ever considered before.
Still, you’ve got an agenda, and unfortunately for him, it doesn’t involve his chest. He lets you move down, one hand lazily hanging by your head, the other resting over his chest. His thumb strokes over his pebbled nipple, still wet from your tongue, the pleasure of your touch sending him into a state of ecstasy.
Your body shuffles down, and you both reposition yourselves. No longer are you straddling, but rather you’re between his legs. His thighs are dappled in kisses from you, before your palms rest flat to his inner thighs, spreading him just right.
Alternating between slow kisses and languid drags of your tongue, you teeter ever so close to his thick, solid cock, but never quite touch it. Every time you get close, he whines, cock twitching.
There’s a satisfaction to be found in the way his body responds to your touch. His desperation is painful. Visceral. All he wants is you. 
And because you can’t bear to see him in pain (whether or not because he’s so turned on he might just die), you concede. Give him what he wants. 
Hands on his thighs, you let a little spit pool on your tongue before slowly dragging the tip of your tongue up his shaft.
“Fucking hell,” he curses, writhing from the contact.
You smile, and the lightness of your breath against the wet streak of your tongue makes him shiver. 
The tip of his cock is already leaky with precum, his eagerness to be inside you so pathetically obvious. You avoid it, instead opting to repeat your previous moves. Slowly, you lick up his fat length, tongue flat as can be. You want him to feel as much of you as he can. Want him whining— begging —for your pussy.
If the precum seeping from his tip is a sign of desperation, then heaven only knows what the fuckin’ mess between your legs is. Every stroke of your tongue against him only serves to make you want him just as badly as he wants you.
Your hand reaches to wrap around his shaft, gently stroking his foreskin. Your tongue flicks against the base of his tip, right where you know he’s the most sensitive. 
It’s no surprise when his grip on your ponytail tightens. 
But it is a surprise when he lets go. 
“Hm?” You chirp, looking up, just to make sure he’s all good.
He is—he just isn’t looking at you to confirm it. Instead, his upper body twists ever so slightly as he reaches for his bedside drawer. 
You know it’s got a host of indecent artifacts—his sex toys, condoms, polaroids of you that are for his eyes only—but don’t give it much thought. Figure maybe he’s after a condom to make himself last longer, until you feel him tapping at your shoulder with the side of a small plastic bottle. 
He doesn’t say anything. 
Not immediately, at least. 
What he wants is something he can’t really bring himself to ask for. Hopes that you’ll work it out for yourself. 
As you take the bottle from him, a small chirp echoes from your throat, as if you’re asking for clarification. Again, Jeongguk hopes you’ll work it out. That he won’t have to shamelessly tell you what he desperately wants, cock twitching and leaking precum on his stomach.
The way you pause as you study the bottle, trying to read the text in the dim light of Jeongguk’s room, only adds to his apprehension—until he hears a soft smile exhaling from your lips when you realise exactly what it is: lube .
Never usually required, thanks to the fact Jeongguk makes you resemble a waterfall from just a look in your direction, you know the lube isn’t for you. It’s for him. 
And given the state of conversations around sex over the past week or so, you know what he’s asking for.
After all, he’s the one who wrote that damn airplane in the first place. Told you straight up that he liked ass play way back in the days of the sticky notes (some of which remain on his wall, yet to be conquered).
His drawer only really has his things in it, though. You’ve not got any of your toys at his place. This is a preliminary. A follow-up, almost, to the night spent in the Min’s garden, doing things that probably scared a few dozen nocturnal animals.
“Yeah?” You encourage, lips pressing to his upper thigh. His body adjusts ever so slightly, as if he’s shy. Your hand wraps around his shaft, slowly rolling his foreskin up and down his length in just the right way to get his hands gripping his sheets. 
“Don’t wanna talk about it,” he rasps through the pleasure of having you touch him. “Just want you to do it.”
“Talk about what?” You tease, ‘cause there’s no way he’ll actually enjoy what he’s asking for if he keeps being this uptight about it all. Relaxation is key.
“B,” he groans, this time out of frustration—and so you know you need to be the one to take the lead.
It just doesn’t feel right to take the lead, knowing he’s a little bit tense. You’ve always been so clear and consistent with each other when it comes to consent, and while you know what he wants, you wanna hear him say it first. 
So you leave the bottle of lube next to his thigh and clamber up his body. Legs straddling his waist, you’re pleased that his hands come to stroke your thighs without a second thought. Conversely, your hands softly hold his cheeks, bringing him in for half a dozen pretty little kisses.
“Words are important. I’m not gonna be crude about it,” you tell him, ‘cause it makes a change to the way you joke around with one another. “I just love you, and I want to make you feel good.”
Jeongguks nose nudges back up against yours, as if to plead for more kisses (of which you give him, willingly).
“I love you more,” he argues into your lips, earning a giggle from you that somehow melts all of his worries away. 
“Chess is always an option,” you remind him, but he shakes his head.
“Just… Fucking hell,” he groans as if it’s some sort of laborious task he really can’t be bothered to see through, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s just embarrassed. It’s all rather cute. Or at least it is until he continues. “Just finger my ass.” 
He bashfully half whimpers, half laughs, and then adds a pouty, “Please.”
A smile sinks into your lips, and the way he seems almost shy makes your tummy feel all funny. He’s disastrously cute like this. 
“I’ll make you feel so good,” you promise, lips brushing against his ear.
He nods. Knows you will. Lets his hands stroke up and down your back, bringing them around to cup your boobs. Squeezes. Smiles. Can’t resist himself when he questions, “Yeah?”
“Mhmm,” You nod, pulling back to sit upright just for his viewing pleasure. His hands are still holding your tits, gently caressing. He’ll never not love the sight of this. Of you. Of the way you respond to his touch. 
“C’mere,” he grunts, pulling you back down, ‘cause he can’t let you go just yet. Your hands grip onto his bedframe as his lips eagerly latch onto one of your nipples. One of your hands drops to tangle in his smooth hair, a pretty little moan escaping your lips.
He takes it as a sign he’s doing something right. Switches up his sucking motion to flick his tongue against your hardened bud. Get you moaning all over again, the position of your legs spread over his waist, letting him know just how pleased you are to have him like this.
And while Jeongguk might have been asking you for favours, all he can think about is returning them.
Tapping on your ass, he’s a little breathless as he lets go of his latch on your nipple, and husks, “Up, baby. On my face. You before me.”
“Hm?” you languidly hum—not because you don’t know what he means, but because it goes against what he was asking for just minutes earlier.
Still, Jeongguk doesn’t care to explain his thought process (mainly because he doesn’t have one (he just likes having you in his mouth in any and all capacities)). Instead, he just continues tapping your ass until you get the message.
“You’re so impatient,” you lightly scold him while you do as he requests, but barely have time to position yourself before his arms are hooking over your legs, pulling your pussy to his mouth. “Oh fuck.”
He wastes no time suctioning his lips around your clit. He doesn’t care to be quiet about it. Eats you like it’s his last fuckin’ supper. Laps up against you. 
It’s not just his tongue, though. It’s like he wants his whole fuckin’ face in your cunt. His nose rubs up against your clit, while his tongue greedily licks your entrance. There’s no such thing as perfect, but the way he’s proportioned is as close as it gets, you think. Your hips grind, a hand tangled in his hair, the way you both move entirely primal. 
Hands squeezing at your ass, he encourages your movements. Wants you all over his face. Loves nothing more than being coated in you. 
His tongue begins to focus now, though. He positions himself just right. Flicks against your clit at such a speed it’s hard to comprehend—and then he’s moaning. Vibrating against you. Delivering a sensation that could never be replicated.
“I’m close,” you rasp. Whine. Moan. “Don’t wanna cum. Not yet.”
And while he wants you to, Jeongguk knows why. Knows you wanna fuck him. Knows you wanna cum around his cock instead of on his face. Multiple orgasms have never been an issue, but it is late. You do need a somewhat early night. 
He nods, easing up his tongue, slowly sucking on your clit. The movements of his head as he sucks only serve to make you feel like you might cum regardless, so you shakily (and regretfully) pull away. 
When you reposition yourself, he pulls you against his lips for the messiest, most obscene kiss possible. It’s all tongue, and little else. The taste of your cunt. The sweetness of his whines. The filth of how much he loves sinning with you. 
There's nobody else he could be like this with. Only you. Only ever you.
Straddled over his hips, you grind gently, his thick cock perfectly snug between your lips. Wet and swollen, they feel like silk against him. Jeongguk knows, given the chance, that he’d be able to cum like this. Easy.
That’s not what he wants, though, so you retrace your steps. Sink back down. Don’t fuck around this time. Instead, you take him in your mouth without hesitation. Return the favour he’s just bestowed upon you.
Head bobbing up and down his fat length, your hand wraps around the base of his cock. Pulling back, you spit against him, using your hand to spread it, gaining momentum. Loose with your grip, you focus on the tip of his sensitive cock, jerking him until he’s whining. Whimpering.
And then, you let your tongue stroke against his balls. 
“Oh, fuck,” he whines, his hips pulsing beneath you.
It’s all the approval you need for your hand to get a little tighter, and for your lips to take one of his balls in your mouth. It’s a sensation Jeongguk fuckin’ loves, if done right—and of course, you know how to do it perfectly for him. 
You take his ecstasy as a chance to move things along. Know he’s feeling good. Know he wants more. 
Pulling back, you sit on your heels. Neither of you speak, but Jeongguk does slowly nod when he sees you reaching for the bottle of lube next to his body. Trepidation hangs in the air. This territory is uncharted, and it’s been a little while since you last ventured so far south—but you’ve got a roadmap. Know the way. Even if you didn’t, you like to think intuition would guide you, regardless.
Warming it a little bit in your hands, you’re slow. Cautious. Careful, knowing that he’s probably feeling a little more vulnerable than usual.
Hands slick with the gel, you wrap a palm around his shaft. Ease him into the feeling. It’s not like it’s a new sensation, but the pair of you rarely ever use lube. You’re always wet enough. He nods. Lets his eyes close as your other hand gently massages against his balls.
A little further south, you venture. He’s not a stranger to your tongue against his taint, but your fingers are less frequent. He's not as well acquainted with the sensation, but he likes it. Legs spreading a little further, Jeongguk makes himself available for you. 
Smiling at just how cute he looks, you’re a curious mix of enamoured and outrageously turned on. Just like nobody could ever make him feel the way you do, nobody could ever make you feel the way he does. 
“You’re so hot,” you tell him, gently wanking his cock as two of your fingers stroke up and down his taint. You apply a little more pressure. Replace his bashful smile with a wanting gasp.
Slick with lube, you let your middle finger go lower. Slowly, you press against his rim. Watch him closely as his brows furrow. There’s that look of desperation once more, and the assurance that yes, he wants this. Wants you. 
You count in your head. 1, 2, 3… make sure he doesn’t stop moving his hips. If anything, he’s edging himself down. Encouraging you to apply more pressure. 
And so you do. Slowly, eyes trained on his pretty, pathetic face, you push your middle finger against his tight hole, until the muscle eases.
“Fuck,” he whimpers, the penetration of a single finger overwhelmingly pleasurable for him. His eyes flicker open, landing on yours as your finger begins to curl ever so gently. Just a little. Just enough.
Chest heaving, Jeongguk looks beautiful in a way that’s hard to put into words—and when you slowly pull out, he looks ruined in a way that’s also hard to comprehend.
His lips hang slack, chest heaving as his eyes burn into you like the heat of a thousand stars. Face dewy with sweat, hair sticks to his forehead, the storminess of his gaze quickly triggers a whirlpool within your stomach. There’s a neediness to him as he swallows back a breath, lips coming together so that he can lick them, before his pout forms that pretty little o-shape once more.
Breathless as he speaks, Jeongguk rasps, “Again.”
The corner of your lips twitch into a smirk. “Yeah, babe?”
“Yeah,” he pathetically nods, fucked out but somehow still painfully desperate for more. Of course he is, though. It’s you. No one gets him like this. No one ever will. His brows furrow together, his tongue flicking against the silver hoops in the corner of his mouth, as his eyes drop to his pathetically weeping cock. He’s so hard. So keen. So needy—and what he needs right now is you. “Please, B. More.”
You tease against his entrance, applying just enough pressure to make him gasp. It’s like a reward, to hear him like this. As if you’ve done something truly remarkable.
Your other hand wraps around the base of his cock, adding to the electricity surging through him. He reaches down. Wraps his hand around yours. Encourages you. Wants more. Needs more. And so you give him more.
Finger pushing into his tight entrance, you’re slow. Painfully so, though you aren’t causing any actual pain. Jeongguk just wants you to hit that spot. 
“Yeah?” You check in.
Breathless, nodding his head even though his eyes are closed, he says, “Yeah.”
Your finger curls. Strokes. Searches. Finds.
And Jeongguk moans in a way you don’t think you’ve ever heard before. It’s a whimper, almost. A plea. Or rather, a confession, maybe.
Your hands work in tandem, your finger stroking right against the spot that makes him whine, while your other hand strokes him in tempo. He’s stimulated in a way he isn’t used to. In a way he never really thought was possible. 
There’s a vulnerability that comes with penetration. Far easier to fuck someone than it is to get fucked.
When he looks down towards you, it's like looking through a telescope; galaxies in his big brown eyes. Wide and wanting, he'll give you all the stars in his eyes, no questions asked, no fee charged.
It’s when your head dips to press wet kisses against his taint that his whines really begin to get desperate. Has always loved your mouth. Loves it when it does things it shouldn’t. 
A girl like you shouldn’t have your nose pressed to a ballsack or her tongue mere millimetres away from an asshole, but the way you focus on delivering him pleasure would suggest otherwise. You’re made for this. Made for him. 
It’s when you whine, though, obsessed with his body's response to you, that he really begins to get twitchy. His hips pulse ever so gently, encouraging the movements of both hands.
“Yeah?” you breathlessly whisper, smirking at how a man so strong is just absolute putty in your hands. “You fucking yourself with my hands, huh?”
Jeongguk is beyond the point of pride. Has no need for dignity. Just wants to feel good.
“Yeah,” he admits between desperate breaths. “Gonna make me cum so fuckin’ hard.” 
Everything is moving in the same chaotic rhythm: his chest, his beating heart, his pulsing hips. Jeongguk’s cock is twitching, the sensation of you massaging his prostate taking him closer and closer to the point of release. He isn’t gonna last, and you don't want him to. 
Your hand grips even tighter around the base of his cock, the stimulation impossible to fight against. There’s only so much he can take.
“B,” he whines. “Oh, fuck.”
“Cum for me,” you tell him, not even caring for your lost orgasm from earlier. He can make it up to you later. You keep the pace of your finger consistent, but wank him off faster. He whimpers and he writhes, but he doesn’t ease up. “C’mon, baby. Show me how good I make you feel, yeah?”
If there’s one thing that drives him wild, it’s when you call him sweet little names. 
“Please, baby,” you beg, because you know just the right buttons to press. His hands grip his bed sheets, eyes struggling to stay open. He’s seconds away from death, or so it feels. A little death, at least. His legs begin to twitch. The onslaught of what is about to happen is unmistakable. “That’s it, baby,” you coo. “Show me how good it feels.”
“B,” he tries to speak, but can’t. All he can do it succumb to the pleasure. Whine. Mewl. Moan.
And then it’s happening; the evidence of how fucking good you are for him painting his abdomen. His cock is pathetic as it spurts ropes of thick, hot cum onto his belly. White and wet, it’s never-ending. He cums and he cums; gasps and gasps. 
It’s not until he begins to twitch, chest heaving, cock spent, that you withdraw from him. Immediately, you gently begin to trail your tongue across his hard abs, cleaning up the evidence of how much he likes having you in his ass. You're keeping his secrets. Promising you'll never tell a soul.
“Shit,” he curses, all breathless and fucked out, one arm over his chest, while his other hand reaches down to stroke the side of your head. “Fuck.”
Giggling now, you clamber up to join him, and Jeongguk cares not for the fact your cum is still on your tongue. In fact, he deliberately stokes his against yours, swapping the evidence of his pleasure between you both. Moaning into your lips, he’s spent in a way he never has been before. 
“God, I love you,” he whines into your mouth. Gets needy all over again. “You know that, huh? You know how much I love you?”
With a bashful nod, you find yourself giggling. “You know I know.”
“Good,” he nods, pulling away to face the ceiling, eyes closed, trying to get a little breath back. You snuggle into him, all rather sweetly considering what you’ve just done. “‘Cause I do. And I mean it. You’re literally, like, the love of my life.”
“Who knew all it would take was a little ass play to get your saying such soppy shit,” you tease him, pressing a kiss against his chest. “Should have done this months ago.”
He laughs now, too. “Just cause I didn’t say it back then doesn’t mean I didn’t think it.”
The pair of you descend into a comfortable warmth, giggling and joking, until you get up to wash yourself up a little. Jeongguk protests. Says he needs to return the favour—but ultimately agrees to wait until the morning. 
“Need to sleep at some point, babe,” you tell him as you both meander to the bathroom. Jeongguk makes a mental note to get a place with an en-suite when he moves out. In a pair of boxers, he watches you fondly as you wash your hands in the bathroom sink, all love drunk and bleary-eyed.
You’re in one of his shirts, and it drapes over your body in a way that it would never drape over him. He likes it better on you. In fact, he likes most things in his life better with the addition of you.  Thinks life would be impossible, if he were ever to lose you. 
“I think I’d die, yanno,” he mindlessly says, watching you plait your hair to stop it from tangling in the night. “If we ever broke up or weren’t together, I’d think I’d just die.”
You laugh, because it’s absurd. Both the concept of dying of a broken heart, and the idea that you would ever break up. 
“Don’t speak it into existence, then,” you tease. “It’s a full moon, Gguk. Can’t be manifesting things like that on a night like this.”
“I’m not,” he assures you, because if anything, he’s trying to do the opposite. Not once does he think to tell you that the full moon has nothing to do with it, or some other belittling remark about believing in the stars, like you know most guys would. Why would he though? A star is the closest thing he knows to religion, and he’s looking at it right now.
“Well, good,” you hum, turning to face him, hair now secure. “Let's just agree to not break up, and that way you won’t die.”
“Sounds good,” he sleepily smiles, tugging on your hand, guiding you back to his bedroom. 
It’s a ridiculous conversation for a ridiculous concept. 
Or at least, in the warmth of lust-drunk night, it is.
In the cold light of day, stark and sterile, everything has the potential to change. 
After all, bad decisions are your forte, are they not?
Tumblr media
462 notes · View notes
luxaofhesperides · 9 months
Text
Soulmate AU: First Words + End of the World ; requested by @justwannabecat!
Duke has long since accepted that he doesn’t have great luck. Most things in his life tend to go wrong very quickly, or complicate situations he was already struggling in (see: being a meta and getting his powers in the middle of a fight). Having an incomprehensible soulmark is an unpleasant discovery on the morning of his nineteenth birthday, but not entirely unexpected.
He had been hoping for something simple, a common one like hi it’s nice to meet you or sorry, didn’t mean to bump into you.
What Duke gets instead isn’t even words. 
Scrawled across his left hipbone is a string of symbols glowing a faint green. They’re not in a language he recognizes, and the symbols seem to move, shifting ever so slightly so they look different every time he blinks.
“Well,” he says after a solid five minutes of staring into the mirror, unable to rip his eyes off his soulmate’s words, “I hope theirs looks nicer than mine.”
He spends his birthday in a bit of a daze, enjoying time spent with the Waynes and his friends. It’s hard to be fully present when he’s all too aware of the soreness on his hipbone flaring up each time he moves. It’s hard to keep his mind off of it, wanting nothing more than to search for answers, unravel the mystery of his soulmate’s first words.
“Something on your mind?” Jason asks, as the attention shifts off of him for a brief moment as Harper and Cullen get ready to leave and everyone rushes to give their goodbyes,
Duke shrugs, carefully keeping his hands still so they don’t drift to where his soulmark is hidden beneath his clothes. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about, though.”
Jason looks him over critically, then nods. 
Duke resigns himself to being investigated by the rest of the Bats. If he’s off enough that Jason had to comment on it, then that means everyone’s noticed and are trying to figure out what’s happened. They’re not going to ask him, because they think he needs space to work through whatever’s got him so distracted, but they’re also not going to just do nothing. 
This won’t be the first time they’ve done this. Duke expects it. Frankly, it would be stranger and much more concerning if they didn’t try to dig up all his secrets the moment they caught wind of him hiding something.
He’ll tell them about getting his soulmark soon. Soulmarks can appear on any birthday between the ages of thirteen to twenty five; they might suspect he got his, but they won’t be able to confirm.
For now, Duke can keep his soulmate’s first words (whatever that gibberish means) to himself.
He makes the decision then and there, as his birthday party winds down, to tell them in a week.
And because his luck is abysmal, a world ending threat hits five days later and suddenly there is no time for soulmarks and first words.
Duke is the last to arrive at the Fortress of Solitude, hitching a ride from Superboy to get there. The biting cold and the harsh winds keep the place far from the reaches of the rest of humanity, surrounded by nothing but deadly white. 
Desolate as the landscape is, it’s still in better shape than the rest of the world.
Things would be better if it was alien invaders. It would be more bearable if some sort of cosmic colossus tried to eat their solar system. At least then there would be something physical that they could fight.
Instead, the world is breaking apart, the sky and earth both fracturing to reveal glowing green faultlines. Timelines are getting mixed up and muddled; just yesterday, Duke had to evacuate a building that had been demolished forty years ago, then stop a gang leader who wouldn’t be born for another eight years from taking over a neighborhood block and holding the residents hostage. Strange creatures are appearing out of nowhere, crawling out of shadows and tide pools and from beneath the roots of trees, all horrible, monstrous things that go after people with teeth and claws. 
The Flashes and the rest of the speedsters are nowhere to be found. The last time anyone get communication from them, it had been Impulse sending Red Robin a glitchy, barely audible video chat saying something along the lines of “trying to fix—unstable—keep us here—never been alive before.” All things that are very concerning to hear, made worse by the fact that no one had been able to contact them at all. 
The quiet loneliness of the Fortress of Solitude is a welcome change from the constant screaming, death, and destruction that’s taken over Gotham as well as the rest of the world. Last he heard, even Justice League China was at the end of their rope. 
“In here,” Superboy instructs, guiding Duke through the halls. There’s no time to look around at Superman’s secret base. All his focus is stuck on staying conscious for another few hours to see if this gathering of heroes is able to find a solution to the world breaking apart.
Batman stands besides Superman. Both nod at Duke when he enters the room. Wonder Woman is watching over John Constantine as he writes something on the floor, muttering under his breath. The rest of the Justice League lean against each other, visibly exhausted as they wait for Constantine to finish up what he’s doing. A few other heroes are here too, and Duke goes to join them where they lean against a wall, fighting to keep their eyes open.
“Hey,” he greets, voice low. “Hanging in there?”
Wonder Girl sighs. “Somehow. I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There’s just too much…”
“We’ll get through this. I mean, even without us out there, plenty of civilians have formed rescue and relief groups to help with keeping things under control,” Speedy says, gently knocking her arm against Wonder Girl’s. “We just gotta keep going. No giving up.”
“What’s this plan, anyways? I just heard that they needed me here to some attempt to fix things.”
“Well, without the speedsters, you’re kind of the only one who can help with time and power related stuff,” Speedy says.
“That’s definitely a stretch. My powers don’t really have anything to do with time. It’s all just light and shadow.”
Speedy shrugs. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Too late to complain about it now.”
Duke doesn’t get a chance to say anything else when a loud clap catches his attention. The entire room goes still and silent as Constantine stands up and surveys the circle and symbols he’s written, taking up an entire corner of the large room. 
“Alright,” he says. “Time to get started. Remember, let me do the talking. If you have to speak, it’s only to back me up or when a question is directed to you.”
Batman nods to the other Justice Leaguers, and suddenly everyone is falling into formation behind Constantine. Duke hurries to join them with Wonder Girl and Speedy, taking a place on the edge of the group where he’s a little closer to the circle than the others. 
Constantine begins chanting. His voice is steady though none of the sounds make any sense, refusing to form themselves into recognizable words, and the air the in the room feels heavier. The chalk circle glows a blinding white and Duke can see magic swirling through the air, his power kicking in the let him watch as reality tears and a glowing star in the shape of a boy comes out of it.
Duke blinks, forcing his power down. The hypnotic swirls of magic fade from sight, but the boy still glows, bright and terrible as he floats above the circle and surveys them all. A crown engulfed in blue flame hovers above his head and the fabric of the cosmos is draped over his shoulders as a cape. 
Just from presence alone, Duke can tell that this figure is now the strongest existence in this universe. He hopes this boy king is kind; no one, not even Superman, would be able to beat him in a fight.
The boy king opens his mouth and speaks, but it’s not words than comes out. A strange static like sound emerges, but light and almost melodic. 
His left hipbone burns.
Duke gasps, hand flying down to it, and the boy king’s gaze snaps to meet his.
The world stands still. No one moves. No one dares to breathe.
And then the boy king drops to the floor and walks out of the circle.
“I thought you said that would hold him!” Batman hisses at Constantine, who is looking more and more distressed.
“It was supposed to! I wrote it specifically to hold the King of the Infinite Realms!”
The boy king glances at Constantine. This time, when he speaks, it’s in smooth English. “Did you name the king in your circle?”
“Yeah, I named Pariah Dark… Bloody hell, you ain’t him, are ya?”
“No,” the boy king smiles, “I’m Phantom.”
The cape and crown fade away, and suddenly it’s not an all powerful, terrifying king standing before them, but a young man with white hair and green eyes who looks Duke’s age. Like he could be any other new generation hero in the room. 
“Phantom,” Duke repeats lightly, just under his breath, but it makes Phantom look at him again.
He walks forward, ignoring the other heroes’ aborted attempts to stop him, coupled with Constantine’s frantic back off motion happening behind him. Phantom leaves the circle and the Justice Leaguers behind to stand before Duke, a soft smile on his face.
“Hi,” he says softly, “I dreamed of you.”
“You—what?”
“I dreamed of you. I have for years now. To think that being summoned was what made us meet—” Phantom breaks off into a breathless laugh.
Duke swallows, then drops his had from where it had been pressed against his hip. “So we’re really—? You have my first words too?”
In the corner of his eye, he sees Batman stiffen up. Maybe he should have just told them the day after his birthday, but in Duke’s defense, this is the definition of extenuation circumstances. 
“First words?” Phantom repeats, “Is that… Do we have different soulmate connections?”
“I think so. Here, everyone gets the first words their soulmates say to them appearing somewhere on their body.”
Phantom’s gaze darts down to Duke’s hip, then back up. “Oh. I get dreams. Where I’m from, we dream of our soulmates, and the closer we get to meeting them, the more we remember the dreams.”
“And you dreamed of me.”
“I did.”
“As touching as this is,” Constantine interrupts, and Duke gets to watch as Phantom rolls his eyes, “We summoned you here for a reason. Our world is falling apart at the seams and we need someone powerful, from the Realms, to help us fix it.”
“Okay.”
“...What do you mean ‘okay’?”
“I’ll help,” Phantom says.
“Just like that? No deal to be made, no price to be paid?”
“Just like that. I’m not one for deals anyways. If I can help, then I will. But I do want to see what the problem is with my soulmate by my side, if you don’t mind.”
Batman steps in, fixing Duke with a steady gaze, a barely noticeable tilt of his head. “Signal?”
“Yeah I’ll go with him. Of course I will. The sooner the better, in fact, because everything’s gone to shit.” Duke turns to Phantom, taking hold of one of his hands. “It is really bad out there,” he warns, “If you need help—”
“I’ll ask for help from others in the Realms,” Phantom says. “No offense or anything, but if it’s really that bad, I doubt living mortals will be able to do much to fix things. It’s why I was summoned, right?”
“Right. Let’s get to it, then.”
There’s a flash of mischief in Phantom’s eyes, and cheeky grin stealing across his face for a moment, before he says, “Aye aye, captain!” and picks Duke up like he weighs nothing and flies up through the ceiling.
Duke is able to hear everyone’s surprised, panicked shouts before they’re outside the Fortress of Solitude and Phantom is flying them away. He only needs a few directions from Duke before he finds the first of the large fractures in the sky.
“Yikes,” is all he says, which is not a great thing to hear. “I think I know how to fix it, though. We’ll need to do a little investigating as to who, exactly, started messing around with reality, but once we find the source, it’ll be an easy fix.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”
“Even better than meeting your soulmate?”
“I haven’t slept for more than four hours all week. Knowing there’s an end in sight beats everything else.”
Phantom laughs, throwing his head back and Duke can’t help but drink in the sight of him, so ethereal and bright and full of life. “Fair enough! Got any ideas as to where we should start?”
“I’ve got an entire crew of detective vigilantes,” Duke replies. He’s not taking any more chances. No more waiting to talk about important things; he messed up by keeping his soulmark to himself, so he needs to make sure everyone meets his soulmate before shit goes south again. 
“Let’s go find them, then!”
They take off again, soaring through the skies that are barely holding themselves together. 
The world is still ending, and every hero is being stretched thin, but held carefully in Phantom’s arms, racing head first into a solution, Duke can’t help but feel that everything’s going to be alright now. 
He’s had enough bad luck. Now, his soulmate with him, bearing the title of King with grace, things are finally starting to look up.
1K notes · View notes
ckret2 · 3 months
Text
Chapter 55 of human Bill Cipher finally having a little fun for the first time in over a month of captivity in the Mystery Shack:
Bill does his level best to teach Mabel everything he knows about everything as fast as possible (while Ford eavesdrops). In the process, he finally reveals something about his home dimension!
But not everything about his dimension.
Tumblr media
"Did you have rainbows in Flatworld?" Mabel had started drawing her shapesona again at the bottom of a fresh piece of paper. The heart was holding out one hand with several strips of glue shooting in a beam out from the palm; Mabel started shaking glitter onto the glue strips to make them rainbow.
"Not natural ones."
"Awww!"
"We could make them with flashlights and prisms, though."
"That's something." Still, it wasn't as cool as a real rainbow. She started carefully drawing Bill floating above her shapesona. (She probably should have drawn him before she put down glitter. She had to push up her sleeve and lift her wrist to avoid smearing the glue.) "When's the first time you saw a real rainbow?"
Bill didn't answer.
Mabel glanced at him. He had a hard look in his eyes. "Bill?"
####
For the first time in his life, the triangle was up—up but not north—in space, in the third dimension, looking down but not south at the plane where he'd spent his entire existence. It shuddered and rippled and cracked, contracting, as the entire universe crunched together around him.
Great walls of pale blue flame half a googol light years wide erupted into third dimensional space, where stars were caught and crushed between the quickly collapsing cosmic tectonic plates. He hadn't known his flat universe had stars of its own.
His home world shattered and crumbled, shrapnel and rubble spraying out, stone instantly pulverized into dust. Distant oceans rode the waves of the convulsing universe, flinging billions of gallons of water into space in a fine thin spray, glittering in the sunlight.
As the triangle watched, a great flickering rainbow ring formed in front of the ejected ocean, like the hollow eye of a hostile god staring at him in judgment.
He stared back.
And he felt himself fill with more and more and more power.
####
"Bill?"
"Sorry, I was trying to remember!" Bill sat back, laced his hands behind his head, and shrugged, "It's not coming to me. But I'm sure it was after I took charge of Dimension Zero. From time to time planets with weather systems would fall in through a wormhole, I must've seen a rainbow on one of them!"
"Oh." The answer disappointed her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why. She puzzled over it as she drew a fireball shape around Bill's hands in glue and shook on pale blue glitter.
Bill nodded at the page, "So what are we up to?"
"Fighting evil! With rainbow lasers and... whatever that magic fire thing you do is!"
"Hey, superheroes! Sounds fun. Who are we killing?"
"Superheroes don't kill people!"
"Fine. Who are we sending to the hospital with third degree burns?"
"I don't know, I haven't made up a villain yet." She almost asked Bill what kind of monsters existed in his world; but the question died in her throat. That might be too depressing a question. She added a heart-shaped glue outline around her shapesona and shook on a glitter rainbow, and set the picture aside to dry. She grabbed a fresh paper and tried to imagine what a two-dimensional butterfly would look like. Would it just have flat little stick wings since that was more aerodynamic? That sounded boring. She started drawing a two-dimensional squid instead.
Bill studied Mabel's latest finished work—the glitter-outlined heart, the glitter rainbow laser, the glitter fire, and the plain him. After a moment, he casually mentioned, "I used to wear body glitter."
She blinked at him. "What?"
"Earlier you asked me about glitter in my dimension," Bill said. "Body paint was makeup to us. I wore it when I went dancing."
"WHAT!"
"And I'd cut open glow sticks to paint my arms and legs!"
"What color glitter did you wear?!"
"Usually gold."
"What?! Bill!" Mabel laughed. "You're already yellow!"
"But I didn't glitter. That's important!"
"You're boring."
"Shut up! I was gorgeous and I knew it! Why mess with perfection?!" He gestured down at himself, perfection, as though he'd momentarily forgotten what body he was in. "Listen, club fashion gets repetitive. If you've seen one equilateral in cutesy primary color gradients, you've see 'em all. There's beauty in simplicity—not a lot of shapes can pull off a solid color with a little light highlighting and still look flashy!" He'd sat up straighter, chest puffed out proudly, as he talked about how pretty he thought he'd been. "Buuut sure, sometimes I highlighted my points for fun. And to keep from stabbing people—it's hard for other people to judge distances with strobe lights on."
"What colors."
"Usually red, blue, or purple. You know—nice contrasts with gold."
Mabel grabbed another paper and started drawing Bill dancing. He leaned closer, elbows on the table, watching with more interest now. Mabel asked, "You had clubs with strobe lights?"
"Of course we did, we aren't barbarians." Bill picked up yellow and black markers out of Mabel's supplies, leaned over to her drawing in progress, and started adding a decorative border around the nearest edge of the paper in dots and dashes.
"What kind of music did you listen to?"
"It was... It's closest to the music in— You've never been to that dimension. Well, it kind of sounds like... I'll never hit those notes with human vocal cords." He drummed his fingers on the table. "Hold on. Let me get Questiony's piano."
####
It turned out that Flatworld club music sounded kind of like a broken tornado siren.
"It doesn't sound very good on a human piano," Bill said, giving the electric piano balanced on his knees a disapproving look. "The intervals between notes are tuned wrong, it's about four octaves short, and it's missing that tympanic membrane shredding tremolo when the treble jumps."
Mabel regarded the piano with some dismay. "Do you know how to play anything else?"
Bill sighed.
He played "Don't Start Un-Believing" for her. He even did that cool thing where you drag a finger up half the keyboard at once.
####
By now, Bill seemed a lot happier to answer Mabel's questions about his world; but she quickly worked out which ones he'd actually give a direct answer. He was the most free with science-y questions, hit or miss on the fun cultural questions, and instantly evasive when asked about his own life or uncomfortable political issues.
When she asked if shapes and their houses just kinda floated unattached to anything because they didn't have a home planet, Bill said they did have a home planet—hundreds of miles below, marking south by its gravitational pull—and they lived in the sky in between their planet and its rings. When she asked what kind of clothing they wore, Bill said they usually didn't wear anything, unless it was for practical purposes (gloves for gardening; goggles for chemistry; elbow-, knee-, and corner-pads for spelunking), and when she asked about his top hat he said slyly, "You mean my telescope?" and gleefully refused to explain further.
But when she asked if it was true that equilateral triangles were the lowest rung you could stand on before getting knocked off the social ladder altogether, Bill said that was a pretty rude question to ask a triangle. And then he said his world didn't have ladders.
When he casually let slip that he'd been able to see the third dimension when nobody else could, she asked how that was possible. He'd paused, looked up from his seventh completely incomprehensible drawing of an animal (she'd asked him whether Flatworlders had pets), and, with an eager gleam in his eye, he asked, "How much time do you have?"
####
Ford heard Bill's voice the moment he opened the door—"All right, star girl, pop quiz, let's see how much of that you kept in your noggin."
"Oh, I'm so ready!"
Baffled, Ford leaned in the living room doorway. The room was absolutely plastered in crayon-covered papers—illustrations, lists, mathematical and scientific diagrams—stars, cells, planets, vehicles. At the moment Bill was pointing at six papers taped together with a diagram on them that Ford thought was a Punnett square that had been expanded into a four-dimensional tessaract. "A polygon's sides are determined by...?"
"Genetic inheritance!" Mabel announced, the proud student who knew all the answers. "You have however many sides your parents have genes for!"
"And the idea that polygons increase by one side each generation...?"
"Is propaganda! Because if everybody hides their kids without enough sides, and they only talk about the kids that did go up a side, it makes everyone think that's what always happens and their family is the only one that's failing!"
"Perfect! And the highest natural amount of sides a shape can have?"
"Twelve! Decadoggins!"
"Close enough, dodecagons! But this isn't Greek class, I'll give you full points. So, any shapes with more sides than that got them through—?"
"Random mutation!"
"Correctamundo! Meaning the only way to get shapes with hundreds of sides is..."
"Crazy bonkers inbreeding! Because the same rich families just keep marrying each other!"
"With consequences including—?"
"Um..." Mabel puffed out her cheeks as she thought. "Skeletons getting all crackly, having a hard time making babies, and high—uh—infant morality!"
"Mortality."
"Lots of dead babies."
"Yes! And remember: when a mutation makes a body produce so much more of something than it needs that it starts harming the body, that's called...?"
"Cancer!"
"Meaning circles are...?"
"Tumors!"
"And what do we do with tumors?"
"EXECUTE THEM!"
"YES!" Bill ripped the Punnett tesseract off the wall. Behind it was a piece of paper that read, in blood red crayon, ANTI-MONARCHIST ANARCISM. "You're ready to man the guillotines! A+, star girl! Give yourself another sticker!"
"Yes!" Mabel peeled a sparkly purple star off a sticker sheet and stuck it on her cheek. Her face had over twenty star stickers.
Ford leaned against the living room doorframe, watching the scene inside with wonder. He was more than a little iffy about the political lesson—he, personally, was incredibly opposed to the idea that it was morally imperative to execute anybody with extra body parts, nobility or not—but the presentation of it was certainly captivating. It had been a long time since Ford had seen Bill like this. (It had been a long time since Ford would have trusted any lesson out of Bill's mouth.)
"Now let's get back to biangles." Bill picked up a fake crystal ball that he'd drawn various lines and shapes on with a marker.
"Awww, again?!"
"Hey. Listen," he said firmly. "I believe in you. You'll get it this time, I know it."
Ford looked around the room, taking in the scene more fully. The floor was scattered with drawings of aliens. A few of them were various polygons—regular and irregular, with the irregularities further broken down by whether they otherwise showed radial or lateral symmetry—each with thin limbs and an eye on a corner. Most were fantastical alien animals, a few that Ford had seen or been warned about on other worlds. Some had been scribbled out and redrawn when Bill's limited artistic capabilities didn't live up to his unknown standards; a few were in Mabel's art style, meaning Bill must have described them to her while she drew.
Twenty pieces of paper had been taped together on the wall behind the TV, with a drawing of a planet surrounded by a circular ring of small blobs—a planetary ring?—and a moon further out. The empty atmosphere between the planet and the ring was filled with squares and rectangles, which were grouped together in red blobby circles that were each labeled by letter: "Country △," "Country B," "Country C," "Country D (communists)," etc. A badly-drawn sea serpent slithered along the outside of the ring with the words "Here There Be Monsters" written over it.
A tall column of taped together papers was covered in examples of alien writing systems—some of them Ford recognized from his travels through other dimensions. From the ones he understood, it looked like the words were demonstrations of Mabel's name in dozens of alien writing systems. Sometimes Bill spelled her name Maybell or Mabelle.
And there were so many papers scattered around the room with little graphs and symbols and arrows Ford couldn't make sense of. And in the center of it all, Bill, alive, energetic, his full attention enthusiastically focused on his student.
Bill had to be up to something; but Ford couldn't imagine what, based on the bizarre assemblage of information in front of him. What nefarious purpose could be behind showing Mabel how to spell her name in alien languages? Unless his goal was to so enchant her with tales of other worlds that he could persuade her to help him open a new portal...? No, even for Bill that felt like a stretch. 
He looked at the wall again. Surely, that wasn't Bill's homeworld. Ford had spent years of his life trying to find the world Bill was from; surely Bill hadn't just drawn it in the middle of Ford's living room. Had he?
"Okay, let's start with spherical geometry from the top," Bill said, polishing the crystal ball on his leggings to rub off the marker lines. "Don't tell anyone I can do this." He held up the ball, tapped it twice on the bottom, and it hovered in place when he let it go, freeing up both his hands to hold a ruler and marker. (How long had he been able to do that? Had he even noticed Ford was standing right outside?) He drew a line across the surface of the ball, "Pretend it's a planet. If you draw a line on a sphere, it's obviously curved, right?"
"Right," Mabel said.
"But now pretend you're on the planet. The surface of the world is a flat plane to you. From your perspective, you can walk in a straight line from point A to point B."
"But it's actually a curve. From space."
"Now you're catching on. That's what makes spherical geometry a little weird: when you're on the sphere you treat everything around you like it's 2D even though when you're off the sphere you can see it's 3D." Why in the world was Bill teaching Mabel about spherical geometry?
Bill drew two more lines to connect to the first. "So! You can draw a triangle on a sphere, no problem, right?"
"Right."
"And something you can only do in spherical geometry... is... pretend this is the North Pole and the South Pole..." Bill carefully rotated the ball under his marker as he drew a straight line from one "pole" to the other, and then drew a second straight line from pole to pole next to it. "Ta-da! If a tri-angle has three angles, a bi-angle has two angles. You've got yourself a two-sided polygon. Right?"
Mabel hesitated. "Right."
"You with me so far, Shooting Star?"
"So far," she said, with a tone that suggested she expected that to change very soon.
"But if you try to transfer that shape from spherical geometry to Euclidean geometry—" Bill turned to an expanse of still partially-uncovered white papers taped to the wall like a makeshift whiteboard, drew two points, and drew two straight lines, red and blue, between the points, "—it just doesn't work. You can't see a biangle in a flat world."
And now Mabel was squinting suspiciously at him.
Bill said, "I lost you."
"But where does it go!"
Bill shrugged. "You lost it when you lost the third dimension."
"But you said when you're on the sphere it's two dimensional!"
"From your perspective it's two dimensional, but there's still a third dimension enabling the sphere to exist."
"Then from my perspective when I'm on the planet shouldn't a biangle look like that?" Mabel pointed at the two straight lines on the piece of paper. "Since everything looks all 2D to me? But it doesn't! It's like flying from the North Pole to the South Pole through America and then flying back through China! China and America don't just squish together into the same place just because you're going in a straight line on a sphere!"
"I'd kill to hear you give a geography lesson to a Flat Earther convention."
Mabel gave him her best angry scowl.
"It was a compliment! I think you'd inspire some hilarious arguments, that's all!" Bill put two dots on the paper and offered Mabel the marker. "Look, try it for yourself! Draw a biangle."
Mabel took the marker and, after a moment of thought, drew two curved lines between the points, making a football shape.
"Those aren't straight lines, kid."
"Argh!" Mabel pulled the paper off the wallpaper, bent it into a curve, and shakily drew a straight line between the two points; but no matter how else she twisted or bent the paper, she couldn't find a path that would let her draw a second straight line between the points without overlapping the first line she'd drawn. She crumpled the paper, tossed it on the floor, and whispered, "It's witchcraft, Bill."
He burst out laughing. "I could name a few horror writers that felt the same way about non-Euclidean geometry."
"But whyyy does the biangle disappear when it goes from a sphere to normal flat paper."
"Because..." Bill groped for an explanation he hadn't already tried. He crossed an arm across his chest and tapped a knuckle just under the bow tied in his hoodie's draw strings the way some humans might tap a hand to their chin, his eyes narrowed in thought. How many times had Ford seen him make that exact same face in his true triangular form, whenever Ford was struggling to understand a lesson on portal physics and Bill was struggling to find a way to translate it into concepts Ford had encountered in his human education? "Let's try this another way."
The scene made Ford ache.
Look past the paper and the crayons, and the graph- and figure- and writing-covered walls looked so much like the advanced physics lessons and blueprints that Bill had coated Ford's starry blue dreamscape in during his sleep. Look past the flesh and bone, and Bill moved and gestured and spoke the way he had when he was teaching Ford how to build a bridge between worlds.
It was the first time since Bill's death that Ford had seen 100% of his personality shining—unhindered by grief, secrets, or a disdainful human audience. It was the first time in decades that Ford had seen Bill at his best.
In that moment, for a split second, Ford forgot how to hate Bill. He couldn't see Bill the traitor, Bill the invader, Bill the homicidal party animal. The only person in that room with Mabel was Bill Cipher the Teacher, Mentor, and Muse that Ford used to know so long ago. Like an ancient god who'd chosen to spend a day roleplaying as a giddy professor—Bill was holding back a tsunami's worth of vast, ancient, unintelligible alien knowledge so that he could drip out revelations at a faucet's pace, slow enough for his student to catch each drop in her hands.
Over thirty years ago, there had been moments when this Bill peeked out behind the above-it-all façade—and that had been the Bill that Ford was happiest to see, the Bill that Ford had thought of as a friend rather than a mere teacher... but each time, it hadn't been long before Bill seemly caught himself and turned off the faucet for the night.
Because he couldn't let Ford learn too much, or he would have seen through Bill's ruse.
Hatred tiredly crept back in.
"I've got it!" Mabel triumphantly flung her hands in the air. "It's like orange slices!"
"Orange slices?" Bill repeated.
"Be right back!" Mabel zoomed to the kitchen, shouting, "Hi Grunkle Ford!" as she passed.
Ford watched her go, then looked back at Bill; Bill had glanced at him for the first time. But all he did was frown and mutter, "I don't remember inviting you to audit this course."
Before Ford could decide whether to retort, Mabel charged back into the living room with an orange and a sharp knife. "Okay! If you draw a triangle on the orange," Mabel said, doing so with a marker, before cutting into it with the knife, "and then you—you cut it out all the way to the center..."
"Be careful with that," Ford said. Mabel was holding the orange in one palm and stabbing into it from the opposite side.
Bill said, "Lay off, Six Fingers. I'm keeping my eye on her, she's not gonna hurt herself."
"I'm being careful!" Mabel was struggling to get an even wedge cut all the way to the center of the orange; she eventually gave up and  dug into the orange with her fingertips to tug out a messy mangled handful of fruit, attached to a roughly equilateral patch of orange peel about two inches to each side. She shook orange juice off her fingers. "Pretend I cut that out better."
"I dunno what you're talking about," Bill said. "It looks flawless."
She pointed at each corner of the peel triangle. "Okay so, these are the three corners of the spherical triangle, right?"
"Right."
"And if you want to make a regular flat triangle, you can... try to cut a straight line between the corners, like..." She squeezed the rest of the orange between her knees, held the edges of the triangular peel with her fingertips, and sawed off the orange pulp underneath, trying to cut a flat level plane as near to the triangle's corners as she could. Ford almost warned Mabel about the knife again, but glanced at Bill's face and his expression of unworried, keen curiosity, and kept quiet. Bill reached out and caught the sawed-off chunk of orange pulp before it hit the ground.
Mabel held out the peel slice. "There! Right? Spherical triangle on top and flat triangle on the bottom!"
Bill considered that, one hand on his hip. He popped the orange chunk in his mouth. "All right. So far so good."
"But if you make a biangle..." Mabel drew two lines between the top and bottom of the remaining orange, and cut a wedge free. "There isn't anything extra to cut off to let you make a flat shape. There's just a straight line between the two points!"
"Ha! Okay, all right, that works! Brilliant! What do you need me for? You just taught yourself the whole lesson!" Bill ruffled her hair so enthusiastically that he knocked her headband askew.
She shoved him away, laughing, and straightened out her headband. "Bill!"
"What did I say! Didn't I tell you you'd get it?" Bill was beaming at her, impressed, delighted, proud. "Congratulations, you've just mastered college-level geometry."
"Wh—What? Are you serious? This is college stuff?" She shook her head. "No way, you're lying."
Bill pointed at Ford without looking at him. "Tell her."
He felt a little like a dog being commanded to bark; but he said, "He's right. I didn't start studying spherical geometry until my second semester in college." He was sure he could have studied it sooner, if his high school had offered it; and he doubted Mabel had absorbed an entire semester's worth of spherical geometry; but he didn't see any reason to point any of that out when Mabel's face lit up in excitement.
Bill said, "There you have it! Way to go, star girl! Two big stickers."
"YES!" Mabel peeled off two jumbo-sized star stickers with smiley faces and stuck them onto her earrings. "So does that make a biangle a girl or a boy?"
And Ford was immediately lost again.
"No," Bill said.
Mabel sighed loudly and tried again. "Does that make a biangle a line or a polygon?"
"Still no, but for a different reason. Externally, they look like lines to anyone who isn't psychic. Internally, their anatomy usually functions like a polygon's. But socially, you've gotta ask. Some of 'em consider themselves lines, some polygons, some claim biangularity is neither linear nor polygonal. Personally, I say they're whatever they say they are. Because," he said grandly, "I'm just that open-minded and accepting."
Ford stifled a derisive snort. But Bill's self-aggrandizing aside, Ford's mind was reeling trying to keep up—spherical geometry, the (gendered?) socialization of shapes, Flatworlder anatomy—what did psychics have to do with anything? Ford's fingers itched for a pen. He wished he had his journal with him.
Bill grabbed several papers off the floor and the floating crystal ball and climbed on top of the wooden TV cabinet. He left the ball hovering behind him seven feet up in the air, tossed aside several papers he'd already used both sides of to let them flutter back to the floor, and taped the rest to the wall with their blank backsides turned out. "Now back to remote viewing." He drew a grid in blue lines on the papers, said, "Toss me that triangle wedge," used a marker to draw an eye on the triangular orange peel, tapped it twice like he had the crystal ball, and stuck it against the grid, where it sat unmoving.
And the entire time, Ford watched with his arms crossed tightly.
Almost a month ago, Bill had given Ford his manipulative trap of a birthday gift, a miniature grimoire, five pieces of paper, margins filled, two rows of text per line, packed with as diverse an array of magical spells and occult knowledge as Bill could fit. It wasn't a gift, it was a boast and a taunt: look at everything I know that you don't; look at what I could teach you if you let me live. 
It was something Bill could have given him all along—effortlessly, with no cost to himself—but didn't, until Bill wanted something from him. 
On his birthday, Ford had wondered, furiously: when this was what Bill could have been—gift-giver, wish-granter, teacher, guide, friend—why did he choose not to be?! It was an internal scream of rage, the howl of a wounded victim at the condemned criminal as he was marched to the gallows: you monster, you monster, you monster, when it would have been so easy for you to be something better, why instead are you a liar, manipulator, torturer, murderer, life-ruiner, world-ender? Answer for yourself: why are you this instead of someone better? How dare you?
It had made Ford want him dead even more.
This was the exact opposite of the grimoire.
The question in Ford's head wasn't a scream of rage anymore. It was grief. It was a plea. It was one last desperate attempt to understand:
Instead of being who he was, why couldn't Bill have been this person? This charismatic, energetic, ecstatic muse who ruled like a king over a classroom he'd constructed himself, eager to share a trillion years of collected wisdom with a fragile mortal mind, lighting up with joy whenever she grasped something that was trivially simple to him? This guide to the vast wonders beyond Earth, competent and encouraging and funny, delighting in the weirdness of the wide wide universe? The Bill that Ford had once liked so much—the Bill that he'd called his friend?
"Okay," Bill said, all sunshine and excitement, "Back to how to view the third dimension from the second dimension—"
Mabel said, "Can you view the fourth dimension from the third?"
Bill hesitated a split second, but said, "Sure! You can view any dimension from any dimension! You've just gotta bend your eye the right way to see higher ones!"
"What does the fourth dimension look like?"
"Well—hm. Imagine the way that the third dimension looks different from the second, and that's the way the fourth dimension looks different from the third."
Mabel stared at Bill.
"Eddie wrote an entire book about a square meeting a sphere because that was the closest he could get to telling other humans what seeing the fourth dimension is like! If I could still visit dreams, I could just show you, but..."
"Isn't the fourth dimension time? Blendo showed us the time stream! Is that what it looks like?"
"Nnn—close! You're close. The fourth dimension isn't time, but time is in the fourth dimension."
"How's that different."
Bill pointed at the floor. "If the carpet's the second dimension and the lamp's shining on it, the third dimension isn't light, but light is in the third dimension."
"Ohhh." Mabel gasped. "That's why you called some weird thing flying around in a higher dimension an eclipse! Because eclipses were in a higher dimension in Flatworld!"
Bill's face lit up in surprised delight. "All right, skip three lessons ahead, why don't you! In a week's time you'll be teaching people how my dimension works." He turned back to his papers and started drawing a branching river. "So! That time stream you saw isn't time itself! It's a visual metaphor being generated so humans can see time too—sort of a hologram projecting from the fourth dimension into the third—have I explained that the universe is a hologram yet—"
Why weren't you this person, Ford wondered. Why did you choose not to be this person? When it was so easy for you to be this? When this made you happy, too?
Why couldn't you have been this person?
Why are you only like this now, when you're about to die?
####
(Hope y'all enjoyed Infodump: The Chapter. This is one of those chapters with something hidden in it that'll unravel the whole fic if you happen to find it, so have fun searching for that. Let me know what you thought of this week's chapter! And get excited—we've got Big Things coming up... soon.)
450 notes · View notes
Text
If she is like her mom I would think you get along alright then. I am sure her dad has something to do with it too.
0 notes
capslocked · 11 months
Text
KINKVEMBER DAY: 6
[prompt: blowjob]
male reader x hyeju
12k words
Tumblr media
“I mean, don’t you think,” Hyeju says, wagging a finger at you, “that when you suffer through a bad date, the world ought to owe you something?”
"Like what?" you ask.
"Better taste in women - maybe more orgasms; I dunno, a blowjob?" She shrugs. "The general idea is just that someone gets to cum."
You nearly choke on the air in front of you. "Jesus, Hyeju, warn a guy."
“What? I’m trying to commiserate with you,” Hyeju laughs. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Being able to kiss someone who actually, you know, might love you back, and at the same time. Imagine not hooking-up just to forget a shitty day. Sounds wild, right?"
"Utterly deranged."
"So wild."
-
The first time you hook up with your roommate, it’s because of genetics - though not in the weird, uncontrollable way your body gets rigid and sensitive to any pretty girl who wears nothing but a towel moving between her bedroom and the bathroom, or how her eyes might flick fast from your chest up to yours - or given that the absolute shape of her is a blessing from one god or another (benevolent, clearly). That's not why Hyeju and you find yourselves only a few months later grinding on each other after the clock ticked past midnight, making out on New Year's Eve.
No, it has to do with the fact that Hyeju's nearly failing the nine AM section of molecular genetics because she's spent every lecture doodling stars and planets and planets shaped like asscheeks and planet-ass constellations while everyone else writes notes or doom scrolls twitter or whatever and she is somehow simultaneously the only student who never slept with her face on the lab desk or missed an assigned reading and the only one who absolutely needs a tutor.
It's just cosmic odds that you'd be that one: her roommate, who shouldn't be talking so loudly in the library about sex (in a sort of non-sexy, Mendelian kind of way) or be thinking the kind of things you've started thinking when Hyeju wears one of her more sleepshirt-esque long sleeves, her voice getting lower as you rattle off, "fruit flies and thale cress, definitely, it's just an error of fate or chromosome splitting..." before trailing off into a question.
"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me," she finally tells you. You listen to her sigh into the binding of her textbook, facedown. "I'm really going to bomb this exam."
You tap her hand twice with your highlighter across the desk. "Then you're pretty damn lucky, if you think about it."
She turns to you, smiles a bit. "Okay, point. The worst thing will be having to retake this stupid fucking class."
"Why didn't you ask for help or go to office hours if you knew you were... failing?"
"Maybe because doing anything more than the bare minimum to get through a class I don't care about is my definition of, failing," she mumbles. "Why didn't anyone tell me a single lab is worth half my grade? Or that the TA is this fucking unreliable? How is this the one thing, really, beyond the basics, that can't be taught by wikipedia, a wikihow article and a youtube video?"
You scoot your seat closer to her. "You really need to relax."
"Fucking tell me about it."
You turn it over in your mind a few times, capping the top of your highlighter.
"Want me to get you off?"
And it’s not like you really mean it, when you say it, which is the strangest thing: you wouldn't actually suggest it, normally, wouldn't mention it in passing and then leave yourself open to the follow up and cross examination; yet there it is, after three, four hours of cramming notes on heterochronicity and the sloshing of gametes - you actually did propose it.
Hyeju jerks up, surprised.
"Are you serious?" She looks around, nearly snorting. "In the library?"
The face you’re giving her makes her scoff.
“You’re absolutely nuts.”
You have character flaws; the inability to admit wrongdoing chief among them. Hell, maybe it's from your mother - or maybe all your brains are just scrambled by the fact that Hyeju's sitting there with her pen against her pretty lips, hair glossier than usual as she scans your face and makes your entire body feel like a reactor core in meltdown.
Maybe you can blame what comes next on that.
"I'm always serious. I'm asking a serious question," you whisper, closing the textbook and resting your elbows on top. You look around quickly, like you're sneaking something in instead of this perfectly reasonable exchange, the perfectly platonic - except maybe not so much - way for friends to help each other.
"And I'm wondering what you're asking." Her cheeks are definitely pinker, you think, or the way it fills out her face, from the bottom up, is just that easy to imagine.
“I’m saying you haven’t gotten laid in months.” Here, you realize, these blocks of mental logic that definitely weren’t there when you blurted it out start to coalesce into something solid as you go on.
And you hadn't been wrong when you thought no one had given Hyeju a helping hand in a long, long time: you've heard through the walls or the floorboards at odd hours of the morning that she spends far too long fingering herself to a mind-numbing, tear-worthy frustration that leaves her knuckle-deep but never, ever sated or satisfied.
"No one's around, you'll feel better. You said it yourself."
Not a work of your imagination here - her ears are fucking burning.
"Wait a minute." She pushes her chair back, away from you and your gleaming offer. It clatters on its back legs, and a librarian waves her finger in warning. You wave back, sheepishly, until she stops and Hyeju stands and moves away from the table to talk, hands crossed over her front.
She turns and asks in a hushed-down-voice, "how did you know - did you hear something last night?"
"You couldn't keep it down even if you wanted to, honestly."
Hyeju turns further and throws a glare at the library doors, because obviously her noisiness and their collective noisemanship, or whatever the hell the word is, is clearly the root of the whole goddamn problem.
"Look - if not, no big deal - but I'm just saying you'll probably get over it and at least think less about sex. Or at least the wrong kind of sex."
You expect her to turn, sigh, and ask if you've lost your mind. Expect her to gather her jacket from the back of her chair, take her books and stomp out the room. Or even burst out laughing at the insanity, before slapping your arm lightly, in playful retaliation - anything other than the serious look she gives you in return, tilting her head, pressing her lips.
She turns up at the ceiling for a moment, contemplating something. And it's cute. It's so very, very cute, how her mouth pouts as she considers the possibility, right up until she says, "okay, fine."
The moderate twist of surprise taking hold in your brow must be visible.
"Oh, don't tell me that was all talk. Get me thinking about the right kind of sex or whatever."
You laugh, which has the librarian staring at both of you - until the librarian stops staring and probably sees Hyeju sliding back into her chair, the full, pent-up weight of her concentration pointed your way, knees inching apart - you, and Hyeju waiting, your knee bumping into her inner thigh, leaning closer as the textbook hits the floor.
"Don't laugh."
"Not laughing, seriously. Not laughing," you stammer. “I just think you’re just full of surprises.”
She spreads her knees further and sits taller, looking right at you.
"So then, surprise me," and then presses her cheek to the crook of your elbow.
You slide your chair right into the space next to hers, nuzzling up into the space under her ear. “Keep studying, Hyeju, you’ve got shit to do.” And then you slide your hand beneath the waist of her sweats, knead the swell of her thigh until you find the seam where her leg meets her body, press your palm down on the place just next to her center, your thumb in the middle. All this perfect pressure.
"Fuck," Hyeju says under a shudder. She's breathing heavier when your hot, open-mouthed kisses start landing at her neck, and she probably tries to read her textbook for about forty-five seconds longer. But there's the clench of her jaw right as your middle finger begins tracing circles beneath the fabric of her panties, and her gaze is blurring until she can't tell the difference between an allele or your fucking name.
"Shh-shh," you quiet her, finger tapping harder, playing with the slick wetness beneath all those layers of thick cotton and pressing two fingers there until her knees part like they’re not interested in resisting at all. Your lips press a kiss to the shell of her ear and she tenses all at once, hand shooting up to cover her mouth.
She simply leans back, closes her eyes, and lets you take care of her.
“Okay, you’re right,” she says, shaky and uneven, “that really did take some of the edge off. Did we ever review - poly- uh, pol-polymers here?"
The sweatshirt sleeve falling off your shoulder is a hindrance to any actual reading; her shifting against the chair isn't helping either, but you manage to push down the thoughts of stripping her down completely and giving her your tongue as yet another distraction.
"What did the syllabus say? I don't know if we need to read too far on 'polymers'," you say, having going through an entire afternoon without considering this once, but as you curl your fingers and take an honest crack at cramming the remaining chapters into her head, the knowledge that no one else is getting her this wet - except for whoever she's got in her mind's eye at three AM - is enough to get you feeling a little dizzy.
-
It’s probably supposed to be weird, given that you’ve never gotten any of your other friends off spontaneously in the library, or there's the fact that you can't really avoid each other afterwards, how she shows up in a silk negligee when you're pouring coffee before sunrise to prep for another day and you have the opportunity to notice - yes, she has amazing taste in underwear, yes, you might not have really appreciated her chest and figure enough before - yes, fuck it. She catches you noticing that first time, after coming downstairs with nothing but one of her cropped t-shirts and her board shorts, and she smirks when she realizes you're still thinking about it that afternoon, when her foot grazes yours while you're both washing dishes, and she dries the plate in her hand with a slow swipe.
And it is weird, actually, to describe what’s going on between you in words. 
A few words, anyway, like a one-word label to describe what it was: friends or roommates-with-benefits, or - fuck buddies - god, it's even worse. Fuck buddies? Fuck friends? Something equally terrible and stupid that still makes sense, like something out of a shitty rom-com: it doesn't capture any of the rest of the myriad ways in which things can feel less or less friendly between two people.
So, friends was never, ever going to cut it. Roommates - although technically correct - is just this side of too clinical. And let's be clear: strangers don't wake up every morning together, walk to the same class, sit close together in the middle seats, secretly flick a strangers' skirt up in an empty lecture hall and get on their knees and work your mouth onto her pussy and watch the legs of the desks shake when her feet arch into the floor.
"The notes you've got are better than mine," is how Hyeju tries to put things, the next day and every time after that, standing in the doorframe, or at the foot of your bed and looking every bit the disheveled and hopeless mess you imagine she might spread out over the sheets of her own.
-
It gets complicated, which isn't really a surprise.
"You think your roommate is going to be home tonight?" is the question that comes up multiple times - from a revolving door of pretty names and faces. Hyeju has at least one opinion, if not more, on each of them.
"Tell Jinsoul I say hi," she says once, watching you get ready for a date, and you nearly bang your knee on the edge of the bathroom vanity. 
It's one of the more harmless comments she's offered.
Another, backhanded: "if you’re just looking for a blowjob everyday between lunch and our physics lab, let Hyunjin or Heejin or whatever-her-name-is know she's easily my favorite," Hyeju says on your way out one morning, still under her covers.
Or,
Hyeju's texted a simple "uh, Chuu? really??" when you mention, once, how much fun you've been having - and what kind, as you make a round of self-conscious and rambling phone calls the next day that land you with only one prospect for the night - but your roommate's also no longer being your roommate by the end of it, bouncing against your thighs in the bathtub and moaning something about please more and fuck or fucking make me cum; the details escape you a bit.
That's what friends are for, probably.
Still, in the same, bare-bones explanation, friends also aren't for falling asleep on you - or letting you hold her - or fucking you awake in the middle of the night. Friends aren't for pushing down your jeans when the early-morning dew settles on the back patio, or jerking you off in the seat beside yours with a sweatshirt over your lap when a group project is due later and you all should probably work on that and instead get yourselves off and leave the mess of what you're doing half-finished. Friends aren't, probably, for offering to watch you rub your palm up and down your cock the night before next semester's exams when you can barely sit in a single chair and you can't think about molecular biology or neurochemical transcriptions when your whole body aches to do the transcribing. (If you can catch that drift.)
The lists of who are and are not good enough for you goes on and on - the latter longer than the former.
So, there's Choerry, who according to Hyeju is 'straight up, a total slut'. Yeojin, who gets mistaken for your little sister enough times that Hyeju refuses to - in good faith - let you keep sleeping with her. Both Heejin and Gowon are apparently too pretty for you. "Kim-lip?" she asks, in the middle of peeling garlic, "is that one name or two?" And laughs into a bottle of beer, loud, while you're telling her to quit being nosey and watch her fingers with the damn knife.
"You have a problem."
"Why, because I asked a few simple questions? I think anyone would be a little curious with the -" she pauses to wave her fingers - "I'd be remiss to not be interested in the very drama that unfolds literally across the hall."
She waggles her eyebrows.
You look up at the ceiling. God save you, you think. "Hyeju."
("Seriously," Hyeju chimes in one evening, arms around you, and a mouthful of the dinner you'd cooked.
"You need better taste in girls. Don't waste time on anyone too dumb, or who drinks the milk straight from the carton, or doesn't wash her socks with the same load of laundry. Oh, and - no one who chews loudly. No one who can't tell you're going to cum. The worst is someone who doesn't know what you like, trust me on that. And remember the last rule: don't do anything with someone who eats at a really slow pace, it's incredibly depressing."
You rest your chin on her shoulder from the spot behind her. "Duly noted, oh Master of all Knowledge."
She sighs into your arm, but in the next moment, her voice gets a lot softer, her hips fidgeting slightly against you. "I just mean you're the kind of person people would want to sleep with again," she says, before turning to say your name and kiss you again and again as your bodies curl inward.
"I wonder what that means, Hyeju," you say.
"Fuck," Hyeju groans as you slide further into her, pushing her back into the sofa - hands on her shoulders, legs bent on her either side, "don't tease me like this.")
-
The first snowfall of the year is mild, a tiny dusting, nothing that sticks on the pavement in the alley or on the sidewalks - or the lintels - or in Hyeju's hair, but by evening, when the snow picks up and everything goes quiet, Hyeju has changed into flannels and wool socks in anticipation, curled up like a cat at one edge of the window ledge as the world begins to go white. It's enough that you even pull on a thicker sweatshirt, open up a book, and join her.
She turns toward you, quiet.
You've reached a point in the semester where this, the silence, doesn't unsettle you anymore. It's the space you fill up with time in-between, where you can see the contours of her body against the orange lamplight of the space heater, or watch her kick off the top half of the duvet at night as you fight over space in her bed and wonder about the bare skin peeking out from her shorts.
"Feeling bored?" She slides her foot a little closer to yours, almost imperceptibly. "Am I keeping you entertained enough?"
Her lips pull up at the corner. You chuckle.
"Oh, no."
She scoffs and puts her hands on her knees, pushes herself closer to the window sill and bumps her elbow into your shoulder. The bare skin of her neck and shoulders and face is getting a little redder as she cranes it forward. "Okay, if not, do you need someone to entertain you, maybe."
Your mouth twists, fighting a smile.
Hyeju is so close to you, you could kiss her really, really easily and not care how she'd feel about that. It's not a habit, not as often as it used to be, but every once and a while - she starts this game. Every once in a while, Hyeju just starts smiling like that, and leans into you like she's daring you to play along, hard round of chicken until it's clear what the two of you are doing with each other; the minutes pass by, one, then two, and then - maybe she pushes first, her leg on yours, or a kiss to your jaw or a palm on your back as she walks behind you - and then you'd turn and kiss her full on the mouth and pull at her clothes like nothing's holding you back.
She cocks a smile, and says, "why don't you go and call what's her name."
"Because."
You glance out at the cold, gray light outside. If you had a better understanding of any of the workings inside you, you could reach forward and tell her everything that's stopped you.
-
You're supposed to meet the girl-of-the-month at a New Year's party. Hyeju looks disgusted within the first ten seconds of the whole story.
"Heejin dumped you once, like, two months ago? For no reason."
"It wasn't a break-up. We talked about what we did wrong and we're doing better," you say, lifting one finger.
She glares, then, tilts her lips into this unamused purse that you can't take seriously at all when she starts walking back and forth across your living room, hands moving emphatically to the sides as she speaks, like she's in the process of unveiling a brilliant argument and is using both palms to guide your eyes toward the unquestionable logic. "God, you're the worst. You're just her easy fuck and you'll still answer her late night calls, really."
She leaves the rest unsaid - that she's just not that into you.
"I don't tell you which boys or girls you can call up," you try, putting on a boot. "If you'd like, I can. Name off the list, and make sure that the right name leaves my mouth this time."
Hyeju doesn't blush when you glance up, which is the surprising thing. No - her cheeks have grown a little more sullen, and she stares down at her socks in contemplation. You're in the middle of fastening up the lace and getting to your feet, waiting, wondering if Hyeju's going to continue this conversation, when Hyeju takes one small step forward.
And her hand goes out to touch your chin, thumb at your lip, fingers holding it in place - like you'll turn if she lets it go - the sharp shock of the sensation like a short circuit, before her knee comes between yours, and your body tingles, at the root and stem. "Hey," she says, eyes meeting yours. The edge of her nail flicking gently as she drags the curve of her thumb downward.
"Hyeju, please - I need to get going."
When you start walking toward your car, she calls out from the window. Something about how you better have the time of your life, fun for the two of you - it’s only fair.
(You feel, somewhere, a certain strange loss.)
"What, are you going to stay up and wait until I come back? Or am I interrupting your session for the night."
You can barely make it out, the smallest look passing over her face. "Maybe," she says, and then: "god, it's fucking cold."
-
New year's parties have this sort of quality of being simultaneously the most thrilling, exciting prospect on earth and the absolute worst fucking event in the history of the planet - depending on the venue, how egregious the racket is for a gin and tonic, the guests - oh, and the company.
Jinsoul and Choerry are both in attendance; in separate corners and in equal states of undress and intoxication, which seems fine by every present party, who are for the most part busy ogling one or the other in the full spirit of the New Year - as you would too, if the stars are aligned and Heejin hasn't already gone upstairs with half the guestlist, her arm wound with someone else's, as per her recent habit; if you haven't been tossed aside for any of the usual, less forgettable prospects and for something bigger, better and certainly much more enjoyable.
Which, if there were any way to track these things down with math, you'd already be reaching for your pen and notebook, as Hyeju would describe this sensation in a phrase she picked up from some podcast. Inevitable means necessary, or something.
"Good party," says Heejin, throwing back another drink.
"Yep. You said that," and you finish yours in one long draw, hissing through your teeth.
Heejin is a goddamn delight, of course, in all the simplest of ways. When she looks up at you - mouth pink, hair framing her face - she is so clearly and completely aware of what she is, and exactly what the world has in store for her, what it has set aside.
"Do you want to know what happened at the other New Year’s party we went to last year?"
"I - yeah. Hit me. Tell me all about (another date you were on) Heejin, that’s exactly what I’d love, let’s hear it."
She throws her head back and laughs, before starting into an overlong recount of her latest, greatest conquest, you on the outside. This is the thing - this is how a pretty face, with just a hint of a flirt, will make you feel for a beautiful, attractive, vivacious - absolutely shameless, raving sex-crazed lunatic of sorts who, apparently, loves to run around town and make a bunch of your closest friends fall in love and heartbroke-er, with every passing notion of her beauty, her charm - just the tilt of her chin, and some poor fucker is lost, absolutely lost.
 Even she knows it's a bad habit of hers. 
But who doesn't have a weakness? You've got plenty of your own - plenty, Heejin can admit - everyone does, in a way, and so Heejin, the other sloppy drunks milling about the party, and Choerry and Jinsoul all agree - someone like her just happens to have the best kind of weakness - so, so many of them, in fact:
"Can you believe how easily a few words get Jinsoul riled up? Or how it only takes a couple drinks for Choerry to pull up the hem of her skirt, not knowing the effect that'll have?"
And as for the last, and arguably worst kind -
"Hyeju, huh? What a great start to the New Year," is her final word. Heejin reaches across and downs your drink. Her expression turns just shy of grave, a pensive look. "Not your smartest idea, the living-together situation. Who in their right mind would put themselves in such a mess?"
"Thanks for the great advice." You wave her off, irritated.
There's another laugh before Heejin leans her face onto the table.
"Though maybe she's onto something, now that I think of it. Who needs anyone for the New Year?" and it's almost convincing the way her mouth, lined up with the rim of the glass, smirks when she drinks. "Mm. All a matter of taste."
-
The snow is halfway up your calves when you realize you need to find a cab at 11:30 PM on New Year's Eve. (Which, categorically, is the worst time to need to find a cab on New Year’s Eve.)
Or just:
11:36 PM and the nearest bus stop is too far away.
11:41 and the temperature feels like its dropped by fifteen degrees, like you should start wondering what hypothermia symptoms look like and what signs to look out for in yourself, your future wife and your children. You try not to think about why, but you get your phone out and immediately call Hyeju, so you're not sure what you think you're denying.
"No party?" she asks. Her voice is distant and sleep-ridden, but Hyeju's quick to pick up, like always.
"It sucked, I'm trying to find a way home early. Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year." There's a long pause, filled in by the squeak of snow beneath your boots. "Get a kiss?"
"Uh, not yet. In the market, I guess."
Hyeju's low hum isn't reassuring, either. "Well, you're kind of missing your window. Bad time to start looking."
"Says you, and here you are - still up for someone to spend the night with. Look at you," you respond, all this snark in your voice that she clearly hears. There's a long sigh.
"Actually," and Hyeju, much to the confusion of you and possibly the whole world, doesn't respond, and for a few seconds, the line goes completely silent, leaving you hanging.
She breathes once and comes out of her sleep with a yawn.
"I actually," she begins. There's a lot less preamble this time - this tone - and when she speaks again it comes through not nearly as sleepy, "was sorta wondering. Are you on your way home?"
"If I don't freeze to death, yeah."
"Yeah - no, yeah," and that's it. That's the sum total of what makes any difference between where you were a moment ago, and where you are right now, head spinning, fingers buzzing. Hyeju waits and there's the wind on the line, snow settling on your hat and in the corners of your face.
"I - sorry. I probably woke you up. Are you expecting someone else," you say, very small. Your foot drags behind the other. The cars whizz by you faster, passing.
"Hm. You're the only one, I guess," and after that - just static and the muffled sounds of her footsteps on creaky floorboards - or the tick of her ceiling fan? You can't make heads or tails of the rest of the background noise. All those words she said.
You bite your tongue to stop whatever curse words start pouring out from the jumble and cross streets, or the pedestrian underpass; snow gets stuck in your lashes and burns, but your chest is like a molten furnace. You consider telling her right there on the line, everything you're feeling - so hot, it feels like fire, Hyeju, I'm not used to getting heated and desperate and impatient - that even if you're not here now - just imagining your face - the sound of your breathing, it feels like I'm on the cusp.
"Yeah. Sure - good - okay, Hyeju."
"I guess, see you soon?"
"In a bit."
(It takes 33 minutes, trudging through cold and wet. It's all very dramatic, you think, and there's no one there to even watch you suffer for it, or - though you try not to think about that particular line - really, no one at all.)
-
You hear the way your key grinds in the lock - it's been like this, jammed since summer, when you pushed the front door in late at night a little too hard and something came undone and made a sound like a small stone tumbling down the world's deepest well. The hinge squeaks, and there's ice on the stoop, on the doormat, on every nook and corner you can see, all the way up your neck.
And your face, too. You shake off your hat, undo the buttons on your jacket, and pull off your boots before hanging them and all the layers to dry.
You can make out the outline of her profile at the edge of the door frame, right in the kitchen - barefoot, hip pressed against the island, pajamas - the dim lights illuminating the shadow of her head, hair over her face -
- but you don't pause. The next layer. There's nothing left to say. You're too cold for excuses, too smart to use the same ones you'd been taught, like: this is a normal, acceptable circumstance; everything, anything, will be perfectly normal if the two of us act as though that's the case; pretend we're both acting within the norms of reason, within our senses and logical thinking and I won't make myself go out in the cold a second more - won't stand for more than five minutes with your eyes looking like they're waiting.
So you move instead toward the kitchen, where the heating is better and she's already pouring coffee. There's a heat radiating out of the oven, and it smells sweet in there, like cinnamon and warm butter, and you wish you weren't still shaking, blood barely thawed, but there it is - her face, watching you - eyes gleaming as you wrap your hands around a mug, steam rising up - a shiver running up your arms; her knees skirting yours when she takes one step back and there's the cabinet door shut, then open again, and then a palm on your back.
Hyeju presses a cup of the fresh coffee, now warm enough to drink, to your chest, and says, softly. "What the fuck happened out there?"
She starts reaching out to wipe the frost and slush from your face. You let her hand hold you still, eyes wide.
"Oh you know," and her palm stays, even though it's obviously - suddenly - gotten warmer, and wetter too, and the longer she stands there and lets her fingers warm the pale bones of your cheeks, her wrist, the base of your forehead and ears, the more expectant the look on her face grows. "The usual."
Her eyes go as narrow as they ever can. For just a moment. "You're gonna die a slow, pathetic death someday, just for the record."
"Don't forget how this starts," you try, and feel your neck go warm, throat and breath tight. And not even when her shoulders shift, her mouth going smug - just looking at you.
“I mean, don’t you think,” Hyeju says, wagging a finger at you, “that when you suffer through a bad date, the world ought to owe you something?”
"Like what?" you ask.
"Better taste in women - maybe more orgasms; I dunno, a blowjob?" She shrugs. "The general idea is just that someone gets to cum."
You nearly choke on the air in front of you. "Jesus, Hyeju, warn a guy."
“What? I’m trying to commiserate with you,” Hyeju laughs. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Being able to kiss someone you actually, you know, might love you back, and at the same time. Imagine not hooking-up just to forget a shitty day. Sounds wild, right?"
"Utterly deranged."
"So wild."
When Hyeju sighs and gives a long, nonchalant hum, leaning her body closer, pressing up until her waist hits the cabinet top and you're pressed together chest-to-chest, she looks at you and her hips settle, the heel of her foot reaching around your calf.
There's that tingle. Again and again. You're not even trying to not think about what it might mean.
But then, you start, silently and unconsciously, trying to answer the question: why don't you, maybe. Why don't you, actually - Hyeju kisses you, pulls on the loop of your jeans and lets your lips brush the corners of hers and pulls away, suddenly, mumbling and head-turning. And just as abruptly, your nose buries in the space between her neck and her shoulder, where it's all warm. And when she puts her palms on your hips and squeezes and twists her knuckles into the fabric there, it seems she wants your hands up her shirt and under the small of her back.
And her hands - they're fidgety tonight, fingers curled up to keep their nails and the chill away, moving lower - one on your ass, while the other comes forward and begins rubbing circles, a handful of times - enough so you're letting a deep, low breath escape into the space just above her collar, your knee working its way between hers.
"That," Hyeju breathes, lips at your ear, hand reaching down to trace the hard curve of your cock pressing in the spot right between you, and there's that small rush again, familiar now, like you've caught a rhythm and she wants to feel it in its fullness: "is how you can make it up to me. For making me stay up. Worrying about you, god knows why. Waiting."
You're still half-frozen in a way, slowly thawing. "Hyeju, I've been trudging through the consequences of my actions this entire night. What am I about to suffer through now?"
"It's no consequence, honestly."
You squint.
"Just an idea, but," she breathes again; your bodies getting closer, and looking up at you, she grins and reaches down to touch the very root of you, her fingers drumming. You make a sound, and at that she says, her voice coming out thick, low:
"Want me to get you off?"
She squeezes again for good measure, just to be clear. Just a slight curl of fingers that's enough to send a flash of heat and the transient thought: why, why, why is she always wearing those fucking shorts, even in the winter?
Your blood thrums through the pulse at the end of your cock. You shake.
"Alright," is the response you let out.
And at that, Hyeju takes your wrist and leads you upstairs.
"There's that look. Don't worry. We'll find a way," is all she says as your feet walk forward, up step-by-step and higher and further up to her room. "After all, isn't that what we've always done?"
"It's usually whatever will make me stop talking."
Hyeju puts her chin on your shoulder. Her eyes follow the lines and shapes in the patterns of wallpaper as you turn onto her side of the apartment, and even through the wall and behind the doorway, her arm still around you, she pulls at your chin until your faces turn and you both can share each other's heat.
"Who, you and your awful habit of talking out-loud in your head while you work through equations?" and she brings her lips to yours, close and warm.
"Hey. Fuck you," and your voice breaks into an odd, low laughter when she kisses you harder.
"Yeah, I know," she whispers as her hand dives past the band of your boxers, palm sliding easily until she's gripping you fully and letting her fingers rub. She holds you there, in her room, her arm looped through yours, another arm resting at your belly.
And she stops there. She stays like that: holding your gaze.
"Look, Hyeju," you say, unable to not, though this can hardly count for anything; this, what you're about to admit, is nothing new. You swallow. "The thing is - you shouldn't."
"Don't want me to touch you?" she says, finger to your lips.
"Well, that's different. Maybe. Is there - maybe it's not the best thing to ask you right now."
Hyeju considers for a brief moment and tuts under her breath. "Can you at least do me the decency of waiting until I'm done wringing you dry before you say shit like that."
And she moves then, toward the bed.
So:
No. Yes. Maybe. Who knows, you tell yourself. Maybe, but only because you'll do anything if it makes you feel less sick, like a creature standing over its own skeleton - an abandoned shell; a relic, something to be feared and disgusted, as you let her go between your thighs, kneel beside the bed.
"I mean - since when - have you felt," is just as far as you're allowed to go before Hyeju presses her nose into you and pulls you out of the thin, cold fabric - palm, thumb, all those slender fingers swiping over your head - and now there's just the smell of her room and the shock, the buzz that runs down your spine and settles somewhere, somewhere inside the small and desperate movement of your hips and the tension building just below.
And god, fuck, Hyeju’s lips.
These soft, wet, pouty fucking things that could suck you straight off if you were feeling any less stupid or inexperienced or sentimental - if she wasn't solely intent on teasing it out of you first; a slow drag of the tongue up the underside; the tip of it poking, tracing the rim, like she's figured you out, just where to lead you. She's ready to smoke you out - always - until you're not taking in a breath every ten seconds but starting to close your eyes to the overwhelming, needling pleasure, too sharp, the way she knows you like best.
"Now you're finally - mm - starting to sound hot," and that smirk comes back to the corner of her mouth, teasing the sensitive belly of your cock and tracing her tongue everywhere. "With the voice and -"
You're losing track, her thumb and fingers circling the whole length of you - just, one after the other - mouth a hair-breadth away, her breath hovering like a promise.
"- that face."
"Don't, fucking tease me-"
The sound of your cock going in is like nothing else.
Wet and filthy in all the right ways.
Just the suction in her throat has your eyes nearly roll back into your head - Hyeju's gaze calmly watching the terrible sort of helplessness that washes over you like this: her lips wrapped around, bobbing - her hair falling into the wet mess of her mouth and sticking there. Hyeju likes being a little sloppy, likes feeling that spark run up the length of her tongue when she slides. It's the wet and the heat that gives everything away.
"I don't have much of a choice -" her jaw and chin is smudged when she pulls back off of your cock, mouth glossy and glistening, "and honestly, wouldn't it be a better use of our time, or my talents if I actually do that thing?"
“Which is?”
She looks up for a bit and sighs, the flush blooming pink to the tip of her ears and into the rounds of her cheeks and all across her neck. "Since, as far as I can see, what you really like - is, oh I'm just spit-balling here," and she stops just to bite her tongue and look into your eyes, "it's letting the girls take care of you? Isn't that right?"
You want to tell her, no, not always, that it's not as though you enjoy giving control completely - that that would be completely and unarguably, the opposite of true -
That most of the time you love it when the person you're with is a little bossy, a little crazy for you. You know some guys really get off on a strong woman and maybe, maybe if a girl's pretty and dressed up, and - sure - a little wet, but that's hardly -
“You know I’m right,” she says, a flicker of mischief skittering across her features. “These walls are paper thin.”
You want to tell her, perhaps remind her, that she likes someone in charge just as much as you do - to be taken care of, told what to do - to have a hand curled up around her throat and the other at her tits while a guy fucks her the right way and takes the reigns when she needs. So who are you, when it comes to knowing her better? And who, really, are you fooling?
But before you can get any words in: Hyeju dips, lips parting where the head of your cock throbs, and then disappears; and the hot wet warmth, enveloping all around your shaft and back; the curve of her throat contracting.
You moan - a lot, and louder this time - into the whole feeling. The way her fingers work the distance from the base, twisting and twisting and twisting into the pout of her lips; or how the sound is like nothing - a whimpering, messy sound - almost a whine and definitely not a slurp as your cock sinks further and further, until it's all one big, heavy throb.
And it's like Hyeju can read your thoughts, the visual you have of her lips screwed tight around your shaft - cum leaking from the corners, and her eyes scrunched up tight, as she looks up to watch your face unravel - this perfect image of her taking you, all of you, swallowing each drop as your hips start rutting up into her and - and - and.
Or else she gets impatient, because then Hyeju gives one long pull off the tip of your cock - saliva mixed in the precum there, and that shiny string of fluid hanging, caught in the middle between your bodies - a disgusting and irresistible sight. Her jaw slack, lips swollen and full, and her mouth gone wide open, wanting.
"Fuck - that's good. Don't stop," you start to whimper, desperate, at the sight, the smell. Her hot breath coming quick over the red wanting wetness left behind - then touched by the cold air - fuck -
She slaps your cock to the corner of her lips as she speaks.
"Can you believe what's going on down here?"
"God, can you -"
"And to think most guys wanna jump straight in. That or fuck a load out between my tits."
"Hyeju, shit, come on -"
She kisses the soft tip, right where it’s most sensitive, rolls it along her lip. Then, back down the length of your shaft where she's generous with her mouth inch after inch - lapping, licking, laving - and Hyeju begins working her way down and downward, nestling in at the edge of the bed and between your thighs.
Your eyes blow up the first time she dips low enough to put your balls in her mouth. 
“Mmhm,” she hums.
It’s killing you and she knows it; it’s killing you and she can feel the pre-cum leaking from your slit - the thumb she has moored there, keeping everything right where she wants it, running circles up the length with such little intention - she could bring you to the end just like this. 
"Am I supposed to believe it?” she asks out from beneath the shadow of your cock, looking up at you with her eyes all wide and brilliant - pupils dark as sin. “That not a single one of those girls ever did you proper?"
You curse under your breath. Hyeju seems amused, at least, like she can't help but love doing that to you, which is almost worse and honestly the sexiest thing a girl can be. You groan - wanton, raw and desperate and feeling exactly what she wants you to feel when her nails drag along the dip of your hip bones.
"Did they not leave you fucked-up the right way?"
Her wrist flicks out these twists and turns, making your spine bend to her control. Like even when you're sure to be bundling her hair in your fingers and fucking the whole length of your cock down her throat, all of this is the worst kind of power-trip for her - not the other way around.
Her tongue runs through the tangle of your balls, slowly, lasciviously, as though the plan is to memorize and map every detail. 
And the worst part is, how much it's making you desperate for the warmth of her mouth - where she'll run her tongue up and down and over and around and inside - before sucking you off nice and slow.
"Or maybe," she laughs; another flick to the top and then suddenly her hand goes faster and the fist pumping the rest of you tightens. "They left you so needy you're resorting to having the bestie suck you off so that you won't be desperate the next time you date. Oh my god-" 
Hyeju breaks into this fit of laughter, and you're nearly cross-eyed at the feeling of your entire existence - not just your cock - so wholly held within her mercy, and her pity, and you're breathing so shallow now you'd think this is the real reason people have died and will die - this exact moment where you're choking and stuttering at the edges, so very close to cumming and going absolutely bonkers with how good Hyeju is with her hands, her tongue, her mouth - everything - how much she's wrecking you, and your jaw drops, wide open, her name dripping like molasses off your lower lip.
"Are you going to cum?" she asks, curiously. All as if she can't see you nodding, collapsing under pressure, and then and there: "should we make it official?"
Her nose tickles the seam of your balls. And your toes begin to curl and uncurl - all this anticipatory, coiling pleasure burning from her throat, shooting from the pit of your stomach; the tightening spiral, twinging and stretching every nerve - as her lips enclose around the end of your cock, softly.
And oh, just excruciatingly slowly.
You watch the irresistible shape of her mouth travel down until her throat feels so incredibly, beautifully, and unbelievably tight, and then, just like that - Hyeju starts fucking herself onto you; pushing forward and down the full, rigid length of you, hard and fast - each time hitting deeper inside her - all that sticky, messy, wet squelching.
"Unh-unh, yeah. Unh. Mm-!" you say, or moan, or some animal version of that, maybe, it’s incoherent.
But regardless:
It's messy and your hands scramble for purchase in the sheets of her bed when you feel that snap, the tightening of a trigger; when your balls roll up and it builds, and builds, and it comes faster - harder and -
"Hyeju," you pant, and it sounds so, so filthy. "I'm gonna cum, if you - gonna cum-"
Hyeju pulls you free from her lips, quite possibly at the most final of final moments, to rub the base up and down, just right, between her fingers. Your cock is resting right on her cheek when it all happens. When she squeezes her fingers around your balls just enough to hear you wheeze and make a sound no sane man should have the right to. And fuck, you're cumming all over her face - or just one side of it - which is already just -
Okay, fuck.
She makes a startled sound and her fist closes tightly around your shaft when you pump another fresh load of white up onto her eyebrow.
"I'm, ah-shit," your mouth moves faster than the blood in your veins - and now the shame - oh god, the humiliation, it's pulsing right behind you. "Hyeju," you apologize.
Only, Hyeju has no interest in any of it. She doesn't seem offended or disappointed in proportion to how you're ruining her pretty face: "no, just do it, cum wherever you fucking like."
Which isn't what you're expecting at all, because Hyeju makes no effort to close her lips, let alone avoid any of it; nor is she making a fuss about the sticky mess in her hair, her mouth, nor as another stream of cum throbs from your cock, all tangled up in the long dark eyelashes that sweep down across her cheek.
It’s fucking filthy: you're cumming all over her and she's just kneeling there, telling you, "good boy."
See, she pushes through it, languidly - all those filthy sounds, and those watery little tears gathering at the edge of her eye and all of that, mixing up together until you're rolling your head back with your orgasm, shuddering, feeling weak - drained dry -
Except,
Hyeju's pushing a finger to your chest, kneeling up tall from the side of the bed. She turns her body toward the center of the bed and wipes a bit of the cum on her knuckles into the sheets. Here you feel like you've done something terrible or at least regrettable, like that last round at the bar when you have a test the next morning; a dick move, all of the sort that requires apology.
"You gotta give me a minute, if you're thinking about hopping on."
"Hmm. Sounds like a lot to ask."
"Wait," you grab her arm. Hyeju grins and there's nothing stopping the shake of your knees now, that weakness between your thighs: "let me get you a drink."
"Or."
"Or?"
Her tongue peeks out, running along her upper lip. Her eyes drop again, hands dipping below, beneath the hem of her shorts and oh. She slips a hand past her bra. The whole outline of it. And you -
"Mm, I could show you what that actually means." She lowers her chest, her breasts, and a lot of skin to the mattress while keeping your cock firmly in her hands. "That look tells me you wanna stick around a bit. Stay up past New Year’s, you know?"
You're almost unable to parse her words, there is so much to look at: the jutting curve of her chest, cleavage pressing into the mattress as her body settles between your knees. A soft chuckle; a sigh: "you are seriously the best lay, no-one else can get hard the minute after they just fucking exploded all over me-"
"Fuck, watch it," you hiss, because there's oversensitivity - and then there's Hyeju's mouth on the line of your cock, polishing you clean.
And it’s not that she isn’t trying to prove a point. Or that she's not trying to tease - that's an inherent quality of her character: a naturally dominant position with a high appetite for your lust. That much, Hyeju gets from you, whether you've got your head down between her thighs or the other way, too, so that her neck is arched around and her ass pushed up high in the air, legs open, and if she had any idea you would spend the next twenty minutes or more just going down on her, licking into her creaming cunt while two fingers work over her aching clit, then really, Hyeju would only encourage it - maybe get on top, force you to gag - and so you don't know where it comes from - how and why you want nothing more than to drive your fingers inside her and work her until she's a wet, squelching mess, not when this was always Hyeju's role of being the aggressor; and yes, sure, even the aggressed.
Surely not because you came so hard, still somewhat shivering with the remnants of a rather abrupt, painful, sudden and all-consuming orgasm.
"We're not doing anything else," she says, lips pulled up into a smirk right at the crown of your cockhead. But before you can respond she pushes a hot open kiss, and goes lower. She presses the flat of her tongue to the seam, just below the head. Licks a line right up to the tip and finishes with a tender flick that sends you fisting the bedspread in your fingers and leaning back as your mind begins to disintegrate -
"I'm not going to ride you yet, or going to get my hips in your hands so you can fuck my pussy real hard until I cry and pass out. Nothing of that sort is gonna happen." She licks one long drag of her tongue. Then, the other way. "I want to make this very clear: this isn't some huge favor - and if you want it - want it so bad, you can stay there and I'm going to do everything for you. We will get there - together," and with her voice shaking as she brings the wet, glistening skin of your cock just inside her mouth, she looks up. "We'll get each other off, just like this," and it's the deep, dark, throated moan that makes your thighs and all the nerves in between stiffen and buck when she swallows you again.
Hyeju's hands tug, pull her whole body closer still as it slowly bends, curves - her ass raised, her stomach lying on the bed. Her mouth takes you another few inches, until the tip of her nose is barely visible, but when she pauses to lick the cum still left over - the cum that's starting to leak out again - to breathe through it, then squeeze her palm and bob her mouth down, take another inch, until the sides are stuffed and emptying out again, that's when she finally has something to say: "got anything left? I'm a little starved."
"I. Christ, yes-" you whine, which doesn't help your case at all: the image, the image of you lying flat - back with Hyeju's head tucked between your knees, her hand pulling out your cock.
Sloppy, slimy-wet.
She presses an innocent, not-at-all-innocent kiss right to your tip, puckering - 
"You know what I did learn in that genetics class?" she muses, tongue flicking over her lips. Hyeju's about ready for a second helping - you're losing it. "When I first saw that DNA diagram - the double helix and all those little base pairs, and everything - it made me think of your cock. Your cock and me. Specifically our DNA. Did you know-"
She presses her palm over the head and rolls it - teases and strokes her palm - her knuckles - her fist - the whole nine. "When I hold your big fucking cock, mm, and just get it right - up in here, rubbing all along my walls - so deep, it gets me in my fucking ribs, makes me choke like I never been choked before, ah-mm," and it's this thought sliding toward the front of your mind, this perfect picture: Hyeju, getting fucked hard and open and stuffed full and stuffed good and stupid; you’ve got more than a few inches on her, can make her feel small and delicate; you know how to do her right.
But here you have Hyeju stroking the shaft - holding her hand tightly up near the head, rolling and twisting and sliding down and pushing her whole body right into the side of your legs: the soft, solid length, warm flesh and curves everywhere pressing into you.
You sit back, and just watch Hyeju with her eyes cool and composed, like half of her fucking face isn't streaked with your cum, mouth wrapped and looking fucking satisfied to be a total, gorgeous mess. She makes a dramatic display of kissing the tip again, just before telling you words you probably dreamt up at some point - either sleep deprived, or, during three AM jackoff, fantasizing. "Sometimes, just from riding your cock, I can't sit up straight."
"Fuck," and you feel your whole body run rigid, because apparently that's something you’ve been aching to hear.
You're covering her mouth again. White streaking onto her lips - where she's catching it in the well beneath her tongue and letting it spill out of the corner of her mouth. Into the crook of your thumb, which catches a drip here and there and rubs it down the length - down the curve - and pushes it back between Hyeju's pert little pout.
"Doesn't count, mister, just more pre-cum," she says, all with the audacity of a wink and smile; her words are a little garbled around the head of your cock between her teeth. And when you nod and realize just how painfully your jaw hurts, your throat becomes tight and raw, a knot pulling the underside from the center. Hyeju slides her lips lower, lower down, to the hilt and stays there, just like that - one hand holding down the flat of your belly to keep your hips still, her chin hanging - bobbing-as she feels every pulse, every twitching shift. You curl one hand around the side of her face, over the sharp edge of her jaw; rub a thumb into the delicate skin of her throat.
She shifts. You start to tell her what you like: how hot the rush comes when a girl puts her tongue against the slit at the very tip, and licks at the precum in nice, quick circles, soft and fluttering. And how her fingers shouldn't hesitate either, Hyeju's not even struggling to give it to you - god - just giving and -
She jerks her head up, swallowing down her next breath like it's one of her last. "I'm serious, if you're going to fuck a hole, start with my mouth - we can move onto everything else after."
"You're ridiculous -"
She meets her lips to your head, kissing once. Again. Kissing every inch, letting her mouth wrap around and then just - staying, just - staying like that and humming, with you, enjoying the fullness, the smell of you, the taste, the shape, just the weight and size and you.
There is spit fucking everywhere.
And if it's not clear what you're supposed to be doing - her fingers weave through yours, squeezing hard at the wrist and you can imagine: pulling her forward by her hair and holding her down while she chokes on your cock. "Fuck, Hyeju," you say, and your voice comes out way shakier than you'd like, "when, how did it get like this, huh? You always - always did, shit, always want your mouth filled."
"Never figured you to be someone who'd get turned on watching their friend sucking their cock like this."
"Doesn't everybody love the sight of their cock in a pretty girl's mouth?
"You were really convinced they weren't lining up behind you? Or anyone in the queue who can't keep their eyes off of this thing. Tell me, and try not to lie, try not to bullshit this one out: how many girls have you come home and fucked and creamed their brains out - then asked for the sloppiest, most -"
"Honestly."
"- Filthiest, nasty, ball-busting, gut-wrenching blowjob ever to make them think - to make them really start wondering what the hell it was you did - like it's gotta be something that leaves them so ruined, they can't ever not compare - can't ever not compare this moment, right here. Ever. When you give them the hardest fucking of their life, compared to any other guy - can't not, because no-one, literally no-one's cock can fuck like you do-"
"Fuck-"
"Any harder. Come on, seriously, tell me it isn't true. Come on."
Her voice - her fucking words, the tone she uses and how her words roll: honey-warm and soaking with sweet, thick degradation - she talks like sex, and that's exactly what gets you harder, like it’s something else; like it’s nothing, like it’s less, so much worse - you feel this guilty-dirty heat pool at your tailbone and push down the hard press of you throbbing all the way to her nose. And Hyeju smiles as much as she's capable around the fat, round stretch, humming around the warm taste of you, before opening wide and sinking her throat on it.
There's nothing like it.
You've got two fists in her hair; she's so tight and wet around every god-damn inch. Her cheeks flush - hot to the touch; her tongue laving in slow, long drags, slicking your shaft nice and warm until you're balls-deep and pushing her further: a small shift to the hips, a push here, a harder, faster pull, and Hyeju's feet behind her go curling like an angry cat, wanting the tug.
A long, satisfied breath slips from the hollows of her throat.
There are tears threatening, thickening her lashes, and though she doesn't choke - you're just afraid. Every sound that she pulls out, her eyes blinking up to you as if it's only natural to love getting used by her friend's cock, like the very premise of it - swallowing down the very shape of you, dragged over her tongue and brushing cum into the back of her throat - is something she can’t go without.
But this is nothing compared to the noises from where her lips are pressed tight around you, where you're hearing and even feeling:
That gluck, gluck - where her chest spasms just the slightest when her nose gets nuzzled right into your belly and you remember how much she likes to hear you talk dirty, how fucking wet it gets her. The heavy, deep breaths, gasps; the strangled moans when your hips just buck - the heat and the thrill, and this is better than every other time because there's just something in this moment -
"I'm not gonna come again, not like this. Not in your mouth. You can’t-"
But Hyeju refuses to hear a word; just pumps your shaft faster, feeling it's familiar hardness grow and throb and ache and retch, all her effort paying off: you're slick with precum and spit, hard and straining, the whole shaft begging for release - all because of her. And Hyeju won't stop, she pushes her cheek onto your thigh and then taps a hand there to pull your hips. The motion drives your cock further still inside her. Until it’s bathed in her spit, your cum, all this mess.
Until it's reaching, choking her, and the muffled sounds she's making are filthy and wet and so incredulously hot.
But god. Hyeju has something of a temper and a habit, too: with those big beautiful eyes and the perfect plump of her pouting lips, her tits swelling up around, when your grip slips on her shoulder, and her mouth goes tighter - how the pleasure begins to make you unbearably cruel and you push her away from you, only for a second -
She doesn't wait or seem to care; Hyeju follows the cock with her whole head and whimpers so hotly in her throat when it plops right back on her tongue. "That's more - more like - fuck, oh, there we go," her nose and fingers prodding.
You groan through a high, strangled whimper, a helpless shiver that turns into an uncontrollable roll of the hips - you can't believe it: she's already so thoroughly debauched and defaced; just fucking painted with it. Your cum dripping off her chin and rolling down her neck.
"Fuck - gonna make me - ah, Jesus -"
When Hyeju seems to have reached her fill, the feeling, you're cumming - pumping the length of your shaft. And the moment she feels you twitch and throb and that first hot spill lands in the bend of her mouth, it's as if she understands and holds herself tight - her legs going stock-still while your eyes blow up behind her, your cock spewing another and then another thick, milky load into her mouth, over her tongue: all along the topography of her throat - sticky cum landing in every ridge and valley -
Hyeju catches as much as she can. What little she can. You cum and pump and gush so much that when you're finally finished - done - every last drop spent and given - your cock throbs soft between her fingers; her chin is a complete and utter mess and her chest heaves with the sound of her catching her own breath. Hyeju groans softly and just swishes the load around in her mouth for a bit as if wanting to remember its feel and weight before lifting her eyes to look into yours. You can just barely see the color.
"Jesus, Hyeju-"
The entire bit of it, slick and shining-wet. With a small moan, a sound from the back of her throat: one swallow and the cum is gone, disappeared, vanished. She smiles like she didn't just ruin your entire goddamn life and, with her body limp and exhausted beside you - her gentle hand rubbing a flat stroke over your thigh before yours slips up to meet her chin.
"You," you curse and roll your eyes, catching the mess at the edge of her jaw, the very little left in the corners of her lips. You feed the cum over her bottom lip - her chin, her throat - watching your friend: Hyeju's throat, bobbing. "Really didn't have to," you start, but you realize just how useless a point it is to make.
She's smiling and biting and showing you what's left between the tips of her canines. "Do you always do this to the people who suck you off?"
"That's an awful habit. A pretty girl's lips aren't meant to get that messy," you reply.
"Oh." She frowns. "Well, I do a lot of things I shouldn't."
"God, seriously," and you think there's no greater hell, no sweeter pain than whatever's lingering in these little aftershocks - this fizzling and dying sort of pain, where the body is buzzed with all you're aching for. It's impossible to stop this train of thoughts, is the fucking feeling of her-
But just then, Hyeju rises to her knees, a new spark in her eyes, as she grabs ahold of your wrist and tugs you off the sheets, a few inches closer.
"And you," she purrs as she drags the palm of your hand across her neck and collarbone, collecting what remains and making the perfect image, "well - you are going to help clean me up, like you said before." She sits tall; the arch of her spine is pronounced - her back, so, very, slightly tapering, to where your hand slips right off the last of it: the wide flare of her hips. "Now isn't that the gentleman's thing to do?" she asks.
"Of course." You sigh, resigned and in desperate need of water. "Of course," you add and smirk a little and slip your hand lower, toward where her skin is getting hot, and her body, "let's get you clean."
"Mm." She's already grinning. "You know what wasn't in those textbooks?"
"Oh, I can only guess." You bite your cheek and start to lower yourself back. "Give it a try."
Hyeju drags you by the wrist toward the hall, the bathroom, ostensibly the shower -
"There's no way in hell you don't want to put a baby in me, like, right fucking now."
"Is that what we're doing?"
Hyeju makes a face like you're stupid - she might've grabbed a towel on the way out. She wipes her chin a little while walking - the corner of her mouth where, well - where it looks like a little dribble has somehow remained. "No. But you’re going to fuck me like it is."
-
(There's got so much on her mind. 
The door of the shower rattling in its frame as she struggles standing up against it. Getting fucked so fast and full, the feeling of both your hands cupped beneath the weight of her breasts. It's not the fact of where you are and your situation, per say - more about the immediate, the imperative nature. About fucking you. She was already feeling herself like, leaking the moment the door shut, so all that waiting, all that patience, really - and it's what drove her insane when you were, well: like that, after she put her mouth around your cock, made a right and proper mess of herself, and sucked you off.
Though there's less on her mind, clearly, when she cums all over your cock.
She's crying with her tits up onto the glass, your palm holding her ribs. Your cum-slick cock working itself hard again as it slips, back and forth, as you're fucking her open, spread apart. It's your finger in her asshole. That's what's on her mind then. How the press of your knuckle lights her entire fucking spine on fire - how the other hand finds her clit in all this, too, when you're no longer supporting the both of you but rather Hyeju is folding on her bent knee and trusting, on shaking and shivering, raw nerves, that you're not going to collapse.
"Fucking. God, please-"
There's the harsh slap of flesh - skin on wet skin, your palms against the sides of her ass and the curve of the breast. But otherwise - it's you, sighing - soft and gentle, like you can't get over the feel of her. "Hyeju, oh-fucking, god, fucking," is what you're saying, and it doesn't end up really mattering which one of you came last because she can feel you twitching, squelching in and out with how badly you're wanting to explode inside, but also you can feel her cunt absolutely begging, this fucking fluttering and clamping down on every thrust and the moment you manage to grind this angle she loses her ability to speak properly because you're not just, like - fucking her-
Just, absolutely, completely pounding her pussy, stretching her insides, dragging and sliding along the walls; each rough rub and thrust makes her knees quiver until her body is trembling and falling. But mostly her voice, the sharp gasp that shakes into her, how her nails are scraping the walls of the shower stall and she's saying - telling, crying and asking and wondering and pleading - just utterly astounded:
"Amazing," she huffs, breathes coming out cloudy and true onto the pane of glass, "you - it’s, fucking amazing.")
-
“And I am… Ironman.”
Your eyes flicker awake, hazy, as Tony Stark snaps his fingers, killing himself alongside Thanos’ army in the process.
The TV's long been running on background noise, though not as ambient. Its characters now bickering between the rubble and ruins and being picked up for the end credits. In the dark of the screen, you see Hyeju had nodded off and slumped over the side of your body. A new year means new beginning means resolutions and diets and gym routines -
Maybe no sooner than the sun can come up, apparently.
You lean over to grab your phone from the table: 4:14 A.M.
There's a lot of things you want to say, even more you want to hear, but your mind has begun to settle a bit - a lazy and dreamy thing that fills you with this sort of, tired kind of - not sad, or empty - no, of course not. That's hardly fitting; not after tonight. You want to wrap this in an idealistic sort of sentiment - maybe hold Hyeju close and let the hour carry you and the comfort be enough to forgive whatever there is to miss: like the fact, it's still really dark, so dark even outside. The moon reflecting off the sheet of snow on the street. And not even a distant dog barking, or car driving by or someone playing loud music in the early hours of the new year.
As the film drifts off into another set of commercials, you slip into an easy sleep that feels effortless. Your head drops, landing on the cushion by the arm of the couch, where Hyeju's hand begins to slip mindlessly across your belly, tickling your waist and causing you to slightly squirm - things are cooling down, but still a little agitated.
"Don't tell me you're waking me up, cause I just -"
She kisses the pulse at your throat and answers, mumbling half-words into the spot below your ear. "A kiss for a new year."
And maybe the world doesn't owe you anything at all.
Maybe it just gave you more than enough.
1K notes · View notes