#even though there’s nothing there under a microscope

[focsle]

Excsue me, a protein shake full of DEER ANTLER gave you BLOODY PISS?

[amaranthineghost]

THE MIGHTY HAS FALLEN (BUT YOU'LL RISE AGAIN, LOVE) ( max verstappen. )

max verstappen x reader

after a tough race cut short, max pushes away any person around him, but not her. never her. she always picks up the pieces to put him back together.

authors note: I love max. I know he's not the self-deprecating typa guy, but in this, he is, OKAY. charles is after this <333

HE WAS A BOMB. the fuse getting shorter and shorter every minute that his patience was tested. everything around him seemed to irritate him more and more as he tried to keep himself from exploding, for pr's sake.

he just wanted to avoid the media all together, for obvious reasons, but he was contractually obligated to give his words to the journalists under the media tent. putting him under a microscope and asking questions that had an undertone of scrutiny in hopes of catching him break. he was close, but he wouldn’t.

it hadn’t even been a fault of his own, he rarely made those anymore. the car had caught fire, but not due to a mistake he had made, and even if it had been, he wouldn't have admitted it anyways. still he felt the guilt of his lack of performance, beating himself up after every question asked about his car and what had happened.

it was just stupid. the questions were stupid. the car was stupid. this whole race was stupid.

the pressure to perform, even in the best car on the grid, was high. despite his seat being secured for plenty of years to come, he still had expectations to meet and records to break.

it was obvious to everyone that max was hard on himself every time he didn't perform his best, his girlfriend especially noticing when she’d find him in his very luxurious driver's room sulking at even the slightest of a mistake made by him.

it didn't happen often, but when it did, she'd been there for him. he knew that.

he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and never be seen again because world champions don't make stupid mistakes.

even if this hadn't been a mistake he made, he should've known. even if there was no possible way he could’ve, he should've.

he was raised to believe that he was only deserving if he had been first, that he was destined to fail after every second place or worse finish.

so it wasn't surprising when he thought he didn't deserve her. in comparison, or more like his eyes, she was simply perfect.

and she understood him, which not many people could because he wouldn't let anyone pick apart his brain like she did.

he locked his thoughts and feelings in the dark that shrouded his mind from early childhood trauma. he promised he would never let anyone see.

but he was never great at keeping such promises because it hadn't taken much for her to pick the lock to his brain. even though he wasn't ready to spill every detail of his upbringing to her, he trusted her.

and he didn't get to do that all too often.

the media had been brutal—he knew they would be—and yet it still crushed his mentality and faith in himself.

with his race suit around his waist despite having time to change beforehand, he walked through the paddock in shame at the early retirement.

it wasn't like this determined the outcome of his career because the next race, he'd be back on top. he didn't feel so sure of it though because all his thoughts were on this failure. what if he failed the next race?

what if he failed the whole season? what if he fails her?

unlikely, the people know, but he had so much confidence which had so easily crumbled when it got a little too hot. he wasn't sure of himself anymore.

anyone could see the turmoil bubbling underneath his skin, harsh waves crashing in the ocean of his blue eyes as he pushed past anyone and everyone.

the walk through the paddock was short, considering the red bull motorhome was the first of ten. max hastily entered through the automatic doors, skipping steps as he was eager to hide out in his driver's room.

he felt the eyes of the staff follow him down the hall until he disappeared quickly around the corner. he didn't want to be seen by anyone.

the door to his driver's room closed as fast as it was opened, but much louder. she heard the slam of the door echo down the hallway.

she didn't flinch, she just calmly greeted staff with smiles and left a bag of sweets on the table for them. she always brought something for the team, to celebrate every victory and despite this not being one, they still deserved it for working hard.

since she had gotten there not too long after him, she lingered around the lobby. she didn't want to be waiting around for him to show up and have him brush her off because he wasn't in the right headspace.

he would never mean to dismiss her, and she knew to give him at least a little time to himself to think and process things. she couldn't give him too much time though because she didn't want his self-deprecating thoughts to eat away at his confidence.

from what she analyzed from the staff and their demeanor, he'd probably caught them off guard when he slammed his door.

she wouldn't apologize for his behavior because she would make him do it when he cooled down.

so she hung around and made small talk with the sparse staff around to allow max a few minutes to himself before excusing herself down the hall.

she had a bomb to defuse after all.

the clack of her heels on the hard floors bounced off the walls, but she walked quietly enough so max didn't hear her coming. he knew she would though. he knew she would find him with his head in his hands, barely covered in sweat because he didn't race for more than three laps.

his face was still flush with disappointment though. he didn't want her to see him like this even though she was with him during his last disappointing race, but even though his singaporean grand prix finish wasn't great, at least he hadn't been out of the race.

max hadn't DNF’d in two years because he was simply just that good, and he still is. he just didn't feel like it.

his hands pressed so hard against his eyes, the blood vessels in them would have popped if he pushed any harder. he had taken off his red bull hat, he felt he didn't deserve the number one right now. it was thrown lazily onto the makeshift bed in his driver's room.

the room was practically silent, every so often interrupted by a deep sigh of disappointment that escaped his lips. he had sat there for a good couple or minutes, sulking.

when she reached his door, she held the bouquet of flowers she always got for him close to her body with one arm while she raised the other to knock. her hand only slightly hesitated before her fist made contact with the door and a few seconds later, she tried entering. it was locked, which was usual whenever he was brooding.

at first, when max heard the knock, he thought of all the people last on his list that he would want to see right now, but on the bottom of the list was the person he wanted to avoid the most right now.

his dad.

their relationship was rocky. he never supported max at any place unless it was on the very top of the podium, and even then max thought he looked unpleasant.

“go away,” was all max could mutter through his hands as his heart started to pick up the pace.

she sighed, shaking her head with a smile pulling at her lips, “max.” it was all she needed to say.

part of him didn't want to let her in, he didn't want her to see him like this, but he knew she was just as stubborn as him, if not more. he knew she would stand there all day if he didn't open the door to let her in.

and he would always let her in.

she heard the low creak of the sofa she could imagine him sitting on, but not his footsteps while he made his way to the door. she only knew he heard her when the lock clicked and the door slowly opened inwards to reveal the red-faced max verstappen.

she stood staring at him, her head tilted as she studied his face. he didn't move, he just watched her eyes dart around his appearance, and he felt himself getting hot under his fireproofs.

“are you going to let me in, verstappen?” she teased, a sly smile on her lips as she watched her boyfriend roll his eyes.

he scoffed, stepping aside, “don't call me that.”

“what?” she acted innocent, stepping into his driver's room with the fresh flowers, seeing the already prepped vase, “don't call you by your name?”

“you know what I mean.” though he tried to keep a straight face and act like he was still mad, he couldn't keep a smile from creeping onto his lips. she just had that effect.

she heard the door close and lock again as she took the wrapping off and placed the flowers in the vase. she shrugged at his words, her back still towards him, but she knew he had sat back down.

“you didn't have to get those,” he mumbled, “didn't win.”

she sighed, crumbling the wrapping in her hand and throwing it away before walking to where he sat. she stood in front of him as he looked up at her.

even with heels, he was still much taller than her and even though he was sitting, he reached barely below her chin.

she spread her arms to offer a hug to him, which he gratefully took, his arms snaking around the low of her hips. pressed against her chest, her arms wrapped around his head, running her fingers through his hair.

she felt him sigh against her skin, his eyes closing as they stayed like that for minutes without speaking. she felt him caress the bare skin of her thigh with his thumb.

when they finally pulled apart, his hands still laid firmly on her hips, his hair disheveled from the hug. she ran her hands through it to fix it and he only watched as she did so.

when she finally finished after only ten seconds because guy hair is a lot less complicated than women’s hair, he finally spoke up, “why are you dressed so uncomfortably?”

she was slightly taken aback, seeing as he was just moping about his race not even ten minutes ago and now commenting on her appearance. he only assumed she was uncomfortable, but unfortunately his assumption was correct.

“what do you mean?” she looked down at her attire, which isn't so different from the other wags that she hung out with.

his hand snuck around the back of her thigh and pulled up her leg, “I thought I told you to stop wearing heels, you always complain about them.”

“i’m fine,” she said, about to cross her arms, but her balance said otherwise so she settled them on his shoulders for support.

he gave her an incredulous look because every time she wore heels, without fail, she would complain less than an hour into wherever they were that she wanted to sit.

“okay, i admit i can't wait to get these things off,” she let out a deep breath, putting a hand on her hip, “but I'm supposed to be taking care of you.”

she said in his response to take the heels off her feet for her, a simple gesture really, but this was about him.

“do you want to talk about it?” she massaged his shoulders as he threw her heels to the other side of the small sofa.

“nothing to talk about,” he shrugged, “maybe I don't deserve being first.”

she pushed his head to look up at her, shaking her head, “you just don't realize how much you deserve, max. you're a world champion, a three-time one,” she reassured him, “you've won countless races, and you still have the entire season ahead of you. I know you want to, but you can't let one bad race define your season.”

“I know, you're right.” he bit the inside of his cheek as he thought deeply, “but I have to prove myself.”

“you've already done that plenty of times,” she shook his shoulders in emphasis, “besides you'll still lead the championship, unless charles gets p1, but you'll get it right back if that's the case.”

she was right. she always was, he never doubted her. he would never doubt her because she would never lie to him. she always backed up her answers by building up his ego and confidence back up so he was ready to fight it out on the track next race.

whether it took a couple of minutes or hours to bring his mood back up, she'd take her time in making him feel like the champion he was again.

she would take his phone from him, he didn't need to see the articles being written or the missing phone calls from his dad.

all he needed was her and she would always be there.

—

taglist (found here): @slut4lrh @taylorslovesswifties13 @sbella13 @kaa212 @nhlfs

proofread by @foreveralbon <333

[ninety-two-bees]

geologist remus AU in which he has the largest rock collection known to man but it’s all granite and sandstone and other rocks that no one else thinks look cool

he has his rock hammer and his hard hat and he spends his days in stupid rural areas just looking through soil and in rivers for things he can break open or put under a microscope, and he takes samples home in his pockets even though it means there’s dirt and sand everywhere

queue sirius, who knows nothing about rocks but knows that some minerals are shiny, and he has a great time fidgeting with the pretty minerals that remus thinks are “too boring”

bonus points for remus doing a taste test on his rocks to determine what kind of minerals they are (because yes, that is a genuine way of determining mineral type)

[woso-dreamzzz]

Help

Hardersson x Teen!Reader

Summary: You're struggling a bit

*TW for eating disorder*

You didn't know when exactly it started but you knew it was here to stay.

"You not that hungry?" Millie asks as you sit down next to her for lunch.

Being the youngest member of the team had its perks and this definitely wasn't one of them. Everyone else got to choose where to sit for lunch while your older teammates made you sit with them.

You shrug. "Upset tummy."

It's not exactly a lie. Your stomach churned at the idea of having to eat a big meal (having to eat at all, actually) and it was uncomfortable. But it was uncomfortable not eating as well. You had hunger pangs almost every moment of your waking life.

Eat or not eat.

Pain or pain.

"Are you sick?" Millie asks, brow furrowed as she looks at you," You look a bit sickly."

You knew what she was talking about. You used to be able to control your eating well but you had spiralled recently. You felt ill even looking at the buffet earlier and you refused to even contemplate putting more than one thing on your plate.

It had been like this for weeks now and you knew everyone could see it.

Your skin had taken on a waxy pallor. Your nails had gone brittle and your hair was thinning at an alarming rate.

You hope that everyone just thinks you're sick. You push your food around with your fork before cutting it up into smaller pieces. You had a handle on this. You would get a handle on this.

"Bad night's sleep," You offer to Millie and she takes the bait, nodding like she understood what you were saying.

"Who had a bad night's sleep?" Your captain slid into the seat on your other side, with Pernille taking the seat on her right.

"y/n," Millie says," It's why she looks ill."

"You've been having a lot of those," Magda says, eyes narrowed as she watches you.

You try to be casual but with her and Pernille's eyes on you, you feel like you're under the microscope. You take a small bite of your food, trying not to wince when it tastes of nothing but ashes. You reach for your drink.

"It happens," You say diplomatically. You don't want to give anything away.

Magda and Pernille were protective of you anyway. You didn't want them to know this. They barely let you live on your own. You didn't want to be under their gaze all the time.

"Hmm," Magda hums, still looking at you and you load more food onto your fork.

You lift it up like you're about to eat before moving it back down onto your plate again.

"I heard that Emma's planning new drills. Is it true?"

Your question distracts Magda, who huffs and starts eating her own food. Her gaze is torn away from you as she mutters things under her breath.

You don't pick your fork back up.

Your hunger pangs worsen the more time goes on. You'd barely eaten lunch and you hadn't eaten breakfast either. You just tried to fill your stomach with water, leading to a semi-impressive feeling of bloating while also being able to feel it all slosh around in your belly.

Actually, now that you think about it as you run through drills and complete your sprints, you're not too sure when the last time you ate a full meal.

Did energy bars count as full meals?

Because you ate an energy bar during the break between drills.

Either way, it doesn't seem to be working now. Black spots appear in your vision and you have to stop moving so you can stay on your feet. You scratch at your neck, somehow feeling completely dehydrated even though you know that you had drank water not even five minutes ago.

"Hey." You don't even realise Pernille's holding your waist until she speaks. "Are you okay? You're swaying."

Her eyes look worried and you try to nod but it only makes you feel worse, more black spots appearing before you go almost completely limp.

"Okay," Pernille says softly even though she's panicking on the inside," Let's sit down, okay? We're just going to sit down."

But you don't have enough strength to sit down and you've lost consciousness almost the moment you touch the ground.

"Hey!" Pernille calls out," I'm going to need some medics!"

She checks your pulse even though she's got a feeling she already knows what's happened. Magda can be distracted but Pernille can't.

She's noticed your general wariness at lunch, the way you talk more than eat and how you play around with your food. She knows that you're not eating breakfast too just by the way you ate a cereal bar this morning.

You're sixteen so you're not exactly great at cooking either so Pernille's also sure that you're not eating well at home either.

She knew that she should have put her foot down when you moved from Vittsjö to Chelsea. She knew she should have made you move in with her and Magda.

"We need to get her inside," One of the medics say.

You're almost too light in Pernille's arms as she lifts you and carries you inside.

"Is she okay?" Magda runs over to join them.

"She's not been eating." Pernille feels confident in what she thinks. "So, no, Magda, she's not okay." She lays you down on the physio bed, running a hand through her hair in frustration. "I don't care what she says, she's not okay and she's not going home alone."

Magda's a little dense sometimes. "Who's she going home with? Is someone on the way?"

"Us, Magda. She's coming home with us and she'll be lucky if I ever let her out of my sight again. You've still got the spare bedroom made up, right?"

"Exactly as we left it," Magda says.

She looks down at you. You look much younger than your sixteen years as you rest on the bed. You've never passed out before to Magda's knowledge and your skin looks almost translucent as you lay there.

"She'll come around soon," The medic promises," Get her energy levels up and take her home. She needs rest." He glances around. "And I'll set up a meeting with the nutritionist for next week."

"I've got some trail mix in my bag," Magda offers," I'll grab some."

You come around slowly, blinking your eyes and squinting as you adjust to the light.

"Are you going to yell at me?"

"Why?" Pernille says," Have you done something that I need to yell at you for?"

She helps you sit up, jamming a water bottle between your lips so you can rehydrate before Magda dumps a bag of trail mix into your hands.

You hold it there.

"Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat," Your captain says firmly," We're not leaving until you've eaten at least half."

You have to fight to roll your eyes.

Fine, you'll play their game, nibbling on the nuts and fruit as you think of some topic to distract them both.

Only Magda doesn't let you speak.

"I don't want to hear any arguments," She says," You're staying with me and Pernille now. We've got your room ready and you'll be eating three square meals a day and snacks."

Your stomach drops. Your throat goes dry.

"What?"

Your mind works in overdrive as you try to come up with some way to make Magda change her mind. You end up deciding that the best course of action is pretending that it's all a joke.

"That's funny," You say," Is this a weekend thing or something? Because I have plans that I can't miss."

Magda's face hardens and you decide that looking at Pernille is obviously safer.

(It's not).

She looks equally as angry, if not more so than Magda. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she stares you down.

You're getting the distinct feeling that you're caught in a bear trap.

"You're a good kid," Pernille says finally as she watches you shovel trail mix into your mouth just so you had something to do," And you're so talented. I don't know what's going on but we're here to help you."

"Nothing's going on."

"There is," Pernille says firmly," And that's okay. We're going to help you."

You stand up quickly, too quickly perhaps because you wobble uncertainly on your feet and Magda has to guide you back to a sitting position.

But you still try to salvage your wounded pride.

"I'm fine. I don't need help."

"You do," Magda says," And I'm sorry that we didn't realise sooner."

"I..." Tears spill down your cheeks against your will. "I don't need help."

"We're going to help you anyway."

[oh-katsuki]

the notebook theory (tsukishima kei x reader)

masterlist | ao3

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Summary: Kei has a cynical and jaded outlook on love. When his friend Tadashi figures out that Kei has feelings for you, Kei isn’t sure how to react. After all, love is not something he does but rather, something that happens to him.

"There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason."

Content Warnings:  fem!reader (gender neutral pronouns), no real manga spoilers, slow burn, one-sided pining, angst, mentions of divorce and broken homes, toxic relationship (kei's parents), smut, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), pinching, mentions of mark making, overstimulation (m!receiving), multiple orgasms, hair-pulling

Word Count: 24.8k

A/N: i know i spent forever working on this but it's finally done and while i have a lot of thoughts about it, idk rly what to say. anyway, here's my first attempt at a tsukishima long fic. also i already know that im not beating the tsukkiyama allegations, okay? i tried and failed to beat them okay i just think there is no way to put them in a situation without it being a little homoerotic bc.. they r them okay? anyway, i hope u enjoy and would love to hear ur thoughts <3

The morning comes without warning. Kei thinks he’s read that somewhere, though he’s just sure just where he saw it. He also thinks that whoever said that is right. Morning is always a harsh assault and never as gentle as people describe it to be. 

Kei’s room, the one he rents at university, faces toward the east. In the mornings, when the sun peeks over the horizon, it shines directly into his room and onto his bed before creeping across the light wood floors. His blinds, as useful as they are, always let some through the cracks and the light cuts the ground like butter to a knife. Kei doesn’t think it feels half as romantic as it sounds. 

The light works better than his alarm. No matter how set he is on sleeping in, he never fails to wake up as soon as those slats of light make their way across his bedspread. It wakes him like fever and he’s never quite as comfortable as he felt falling asleep. This morning is no different. 

He rises like he always has, running a hand over his blonde hair and dragging it down his face after sitting up. Then, he stands once in an attempt to gather his bearings before sitting right back down on the edge of the bed. He fights the lingering remnants of sleep, feeling the ray of sunlight beat down on his back. Then, he reaches towards his glasses on the nightstand and slides them up the bridge of his long nose before standing up again once and for all. 

Yamaguchi lives in the other room. His best friend since high school, perhaps his only real friend. They’d miraculously attended the same college and decided to room together, though his other friends from his youth aren’t too far. The arrangement managed to make it all the way until their fourth and final year. Living with each other has become par for the course. 

Tadashi wakes up later than Kei does on most days, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, he has an 8 am and is usually in the kitchen before Kei has even stood up for the first time. Today is a Wednesday, so Yamaguchi is asleep in his room. The morning light doesn’t wake him the same way it does Kei. His room faces west, so it isn’t until the mid-afternoon, when Tadashi is chased from his room by the afternoon rays and heat, that he notices the sun on its blinding conquest across the sky. 

Kei’s room is clean and neat. There’s no clutter, no collection of items that don’t have a proper place. Everything is itemized and stored exactly where he intends for them to be. His floor is void of stray clothes, of socks he’d discarded the night before, his nightstand is bare and his desk is surprisingly empty save for one notebook sitting in its center. It’s a room that he could leave at any time, despite living here for nearly two years. If Kei chose to do so, he could pack his things and be gone in a day. 

Yamaguchi’s room is different. It’s lived in and well worn. There’s clutter on the floor, socks and pants he’d taken and tossed away to be dealt with later. Certain things don’t have a place and end up living on semi-crowded surfaces filled with things he likes to put down as quickly as he’d picked them up. Kei envies that way of living. A non-temporary way. He envies the rug in Yamaguchi’s room and the way he fills the space with himself. Kei thinks that even after they’re long gone, future tenants would still be able to feel Tadashi’s presence. 

To say that Kei is cynical would be accurate. He tends to lean more towards paranoia in his own strange way. He keeps things in order to quell the anxiety in it. Things stay where they are meant to be. As a result, he’s earned himself somewhat of an uptight attitude that makes Kei feel more awkward than relaxed even when he’s in his own spaces. Not that he minds it. 

Tadashi’s dish from last night is sitting next to the sink. Kei moves around it as he fixes a tea, making an effort not to drag his feet across the floor because he hates the scuffing sound. Every now and then, the glass of his mug will clink against the cheap kitchen tile and Kei will cringe in some paranoid worry that it will wake his friend. 

As he gathers his things to leave the quiet apartment, Kei wonders where his cynicism comes from. He’s sure he could pinpoint it if he tried. His parents divorce, his previous experiences with dating that have left him jaded, the holes that wore even in his most sturdy of sweaters. Inconsequential nothings that piled up until Kei had developed an undeniably cautious outlook on the world. To him, all of these things are the same. Like the morning, they’re intrusive and unsightly, but none is less important than the other. 

Kei does have things he likes. Art, for one. He likes paintings, sculptures, little pieces of history, and all of the things people make with their hands that he could never do. Kei is hopeless at crafts. His fingers are lithe and long, but they’re clumsy and hard to control. Despite his need for order, Kei has trouble controlling his urges. The subtle twitches of his fingers always mess up whatever it is he’s trying to craft. 

He likes writing best of all, specifically curatorial writing. It’s easy for him to pick which pieces belong together and how to organize them in a space, it suits his talent for compartmentalizing. Kei gets to tell a story that way, be it historical or artistic, sometimes both. The essays that his classmates find tedious, he finds relaxing despite the stress. For him, writing about art and history is a pleasure much like sipping tea that is the perfect temperature, unintrusive and natural. 

By the time he arrives at the library, it’s nearly 9 am. He works better here, in the quiet section at a table hidden by three tall shelves of books. It’s almost never occupied and there are hardly ever people seated in the immediate area. Kei doesn’t go out of his way to avoid others, but he finds that if he doesn’t approach people, they often won’t approach him. He prefers things this way, it makes the good and bad people easier to weed out. 

From this spot in the library, Kei can see where you usually set up shop for the day. You arrive after him by about 45 minutes and he convinces himself that it is always coincidental. 

Strictly speaking, you’re Tadashi’s friend, not his. You’ve known each other for a little under a year and have been by the apartment a few times, but yours and his conversations are limited entirely to pleasantries. How are you? What are you working on? We’re graduating soon, huh? Casual conversation that Kei can weasel his way out of at any time. Like his room, it’s impermanent. 

Kei has had the idea that nothing stays stuck in his head since middle school. The house he lived in when his parents were together, weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father, graduating seniors, the apartment he lives in now. To Kei, all of it is so temporary that he finds it difficult to get attached to it, not that he’s devoid of emotion. He quite loves the little things he has, but his grip on them is loose and half-hearted. Whatever leaves, Kei thinks is meant to leave, so he makes no effort to hold on. 

It’s probably unfair to think of you that way, but Kei can’t really help it. He can’t change what he is. Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a reason to think so. He’s often approached by people for his looks, people who want to get close because they think he’s tall and handsome, people who collect others like trophies. He’s not heartless, so he’s been hurt more than a few times. Kei thinks he owes it to himself to be cautious, not that you’ve done anything to earn that type of subtle hostility. 

“Thought you might be here,” someone’s hand lands on his shoulder. 

“Shit,” he groans, “is it that late already?” 

Kei glances down at the watch on his wrist, reading the time as just past 10:45 am. He’s been here for an hour and 45 minutes and hasn’t gotten anything done. Tadashi pulls the chair next to him out and sits down, resting his chin on his hand. 

“Spacing out?” 

“A little,” Kei responds, tapping his pen against the table and turning back toward his book. 

“Got something due?” 

“Yeah, on Friday,” he exhales. “Haven’t started it yet though. You?” 

“Nah,” Tadashi smiles. “I’m just chasing you around.” 

“You’re like a girl with a crush.” 

Tadashi shrugs and lets out a good natured laugh. It’s a little too loud for this part of the library, but Kei lets it slide, smiling with his friend. 

Tadashi is the opposite of him, he thinks. He smiles often and says exactly what’s on his mind when it crosses it, even if it's a little mean. Tadashi used to be a follower, but in his final year of high school and university years, grew into someone befitting of his somewhat sunny and sarcastic personality. Thoughts and words come easily to him and he has no trouble vocalizing his joy or his disappointment. 

Yamaguchi has freckles covering the entirety of his body. Kei knows this because he’s seen far more of Tadashi than he thinks he should have. His skin is tawny and warm like him. Kei finds himself looking at the ones on his hands as Yamaguchi begins to write in his notebook. Kei can’t read his handwriting because it’s terrible and he doesn’t much feel like working on his own project, so he watches his friend’s hand mark the page. Then, his gaze slinks across the library to you. 

You’ve got your head down and look like you’re falling asleep despite it only being 11 in the morning. Your hand moves lazily across your computer keypad. By the time Kei realizes that you’ve spotted him staring, it’s too late to look away. His gaze was too intentional, so he smiles at you instead, nodding his head a little. 

You smile and wave, standing from where you sit and collecting your things. They fill up your arms because you don’t bother to put them in your bag, making your way clumsily across the room and setting your stuff down across from him. 

“Hi, Tsukishima,” you smile. “Hi, Tadashi.” 

You use his friend’s given name and Kei feels a pang of jealousy hit his chest. 

“How long have you been here? I didn’t see you,” you ask, settling into the seat across from Kei. 

“I just got here,” Tadashi smiles, looking up from his notes. “He’s been here for a while though.” 

Tadashi motions towards him. 

“Aw, why didn’t you say hi?” 

“You seemed busy,” Kei lies. 

You pout, filling your mouth with air. “Next time just come say hi, ‘kay?” 

“Sure,” Kei nods. 

Tadashi tosses him a sideways glance and Kei shrugs it off. He’s not interested in being teased this morning, though when is he ever. 

Kei doesn’t like the way you make him feel. When you’re around, he becomes prickly. It sets Kei on edge in a way that he hates. His world, previously so rigid and organized, quickly begins to feel cluttered and structureless. 

You make his heart pound. You make it hammer against his chest so hard that he can feel it in his ears and behind his eyes. It goes all the way down to his already-hard-to-control fingertips and the tops of his thighs. A previously pastel colored world goes vibrantly candy-colored like it’s been plunged in saturating liquid. He nevers knows how to hold himself, never knows how to act natural. What does it mean to act natural, anyway? How should he rest his hands on the desk? Would it be weird to lace them together? Does he look as stiff as he feels? It’s entirely possible that he is suffering a massive heart attack. 

You whisper across the table to Tadashi, leaning forward and laughing at something he’s written in his notebook. You can read his handwriting, something Kei is equally jealous about as he is angry. Kei just watches your conversation, unable to really listen into it on account of the stroke that he thinks he’s having. 

The three of you stay like this for a while, earning the occasional irritated whisper or dirty look from some of the more studious people in the library. Kei pretends to ignore them, remaining quiet throughout the duration of your study session with Tadashi. His quiet corner is invaded and painted bright pink with your presence and he doesn’t know whether to feel giddy or irrationally angry. Maybe it’s both. 

“Crap, is that the time?” Tadashi exclaims, hunching over himself when someone nearby shushes him. “I’ve got class across campus in 10 minutes.” 

He hurriedly collects his things. Tadashi does it so fast, in fact, that Kei hardly has time to beg him not to leave him alone with you. So he just watches as Tadashi throws his things clumsily into his bag and tosses it over his shoulder. 

“Bye, ___,” he says in a rushed whisper. “I’ll see you at home, Kei!” 

“Sure,” is all that Kei can muster. His voice cracks when he says it and he immediately avoids looking at you and stares at nothing in particular in his textbook. 

It’s quiet for a while. Kei pretends to busy himself by glancing between his textbook and his computer and you sit with your head bowed as you take notes on a lecture you’re listening to through the single earbud in your right ear. Then, you tap the end of your pen lightly on Kei’s notebook to get his attention. 

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Tadashi left, but the library now feels like an entirely different place. His heart pounds as he struggles to keep a straight face. 

When he looks up, you’re looking at him with a tilted head. Your expression is soft and unintrusive, friendly but a bit guarded. You smile softly at him. 

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” You ask gently. It doesn’t sound accusatory, but rather a casual statement tinged with friendliness. 

“Huh?” Blood rushes into his ears. 

“I just kinda get the impression that you’re uncomfortable around me,” you say. “Am I wrong?” 

“Uh, no- it’s not that I don’t like you.” 

He’s quick to correct you and he feels heat rush to his cheeks. 

“Then what?” you question lightly. There’s no ulterior motive behind your smile, Kei can tell, but your openness makes him uneasy. 

“I dunno,” he calms himself a little. “I don’t really know how to act around you, I guess.” 

You laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Is that all?” 

“Well, yeah…” he feels awkward and his palms are sweaty. He drops them below the table to wipe them. “You’re Tadashi’s friend and I’m pretty different from him so I just…” He trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“I was worried you hated me,” you smile, chuckling to yourself. 

“That’s definitely not it,” he loosens a little, smiling lightly despite the thudding of his heart. It slows down steadily. 

“I’m your friend too, ya know?” 

“That so?” 

“Well, yeah,” you shrug and lean all the way back, crossing your arms. “I just kinda figured that we would be.” 

“Friends?” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His word placement is awkward. 

“Duh,” you laugh a little. “You know, you don’t have to speak formally with me.” 

“That’s just the way I am,” he huffs at being read. 

“Well, you can drop them with me. I don’t mind.” 

“Tall order,” he snorts. 

You tilt your head to the side. “Did you just make a joke?” 

“Uh, yeah…” 

“Funny,” you smile. “What are you studying?” 

“It’s not really studying…” he says, glancing down at the near empty document. “I’m supposed to be writing an essay I have due on Friday. Not going well.” 

He looks up at you through his lashes. You’re leaning forward across the table now, your chin angled upward as you try and peek at what’s on his screen. He turns it so that you can see better. 

“Baroque art?” You read aloud. “Oh yeah, Tadashi mentioned that you’re an art history major. Do you draw too?” 

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m hopeless at it, but I like art. It’s nice to look at.” 

“Huh, you look like you’d be good at drawing,” you say. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“I dunno, like a manga author or something,” you shrug. “You’ve got nice hands too. Like an artist.” 

“Manga?” He laughs a little, trying to play off the color he feels rushing to his face from the compliment. 

“Yeah, you look like the manga type.” 

“Is it the glasses?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Maybe,” you laugh. 

Kei looks down at his hands. They’re big, like the rest of him, and his knuckles are thin. He’s hyper-aware of them now that you’ve complimented them. He studies them briefly, following the barely visible veins up the back of them, following the line of his fingers to his nails. They’re trimmed and somewhat well kept, save for the spots that he tends to bite at when he lays in bed at night. His hands look nothing like Tadashi’s. Tadashi’s fingers are thick and his nails are short on account of him biting them. Kei wonders if you prefer them to his. 

—

There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. It’s only a bit bigger than his fist—a little thing, really—and it’s completely blank. Kei’s never written anything down in it, nothing has ever really been worth sullying the thing. It’s got brown fabric binding and a semi-thick cover. It’s malleable, but not so flimsy that he’d need a desk to write in it. 

Kei’s not too sure why he bought it in the first place. Maybe he liked the size of it, small enough to fit in his pocket, but not so small as to be ridiculous. It’s practical, much like he is. He’s considered turning it into a daily planner and putting to-do lists in it, but Kei isn’t much of a list guy, it’s Tadashi that likes making lists. Nothing has ever really felt like it suits the book. He’s considered journaling in it, but his life is one big routine and he doesn’t think there’s anything worth writing about. 

No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory. 

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. 

Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason, not that he’s about to admit to anyone else that he likes you. Tadashi managed to weasel it out of him, though he didn’t really have to ask. In fact, it was less of an admittance to Kei than it was confirmation of his own feelings. If Tadashi can tell that he likes you, then he must. 

People seem to know things about Kei before he even knows them himself. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s always confronted with his own feelings by other people, not that they’re really ever wrong, but it seems everyone catches onto what he’s feeling rather quickly. He’s not too sure why that is, maybe he’s just obvious and hasn’t realized it. 

Come to think of it, when Tadashi had confronted Kei about his feelings for you, he’d been deeply annoying about it. Kei couldn’t even try to deny it because Tadashi had come out with his guns blazing, cornering him in the living room and throwing facts about you at him until his face was beet red with embarrassment. Then, with a serious frown on his face, he’d simply stated you like them and that was the end of it. Kei couldn’t even deny it. Even he knew that it read plainly in his expression. 

To be frank, it sucks being told in plain speech how he feels about someone. Whenever that happens, it makes Kei feel like he’ll never be able to keep another secret in his life. Sometimes, he wishes that he was able to make the decision to tell someone else on his own, but even Kei knows that that is a little beyond him. Kei can think the feelings just fine, but when it comes to speaking them aloud, he seems to have a padlock around his throat. 

Tadashi knows this about him and if it weren’t for him, Kei would have agonized far longer and far worse over certain situations of emotional turmoil. Most of the time, Tadashi gets it without needing to ask or say anything. It’s nice to have someone understand him in that way, even if it does mean he can’t keep a secret to save his life. 

Feelings lately make Kei a little angry. He’s always known that he’s had somewhat of a sour personality. Kei doesn’t need to be told that he’s smug to know that he is. He’s snarky and usually touchy, picky about the people that he hangs out with. It’s not really a secret that Kei is a hard person to get along with, but lately, he feels like it’s been worse. 

Maybe it’s because this is new territory to him. As conceited as it sounds, Kei has never liked someone first. It’s not because he doesn’t think anyone is worthy, but rather, because there are very few people he doesn’t find grating. Despite how he seems, Kei is incredibly sensitive about things, so naturally, it’s easier to get on his nerves. 

He’s dated before, though not for long, and all of his relationships have started the same way. Kei is approached by them, usually on the premise of looks, and he accepts. He’s not sure why he does. Sometimes it’s because he thinks they’re pretty, other times it’s because the romantic in him hopes that it will actually work out. It never has. 

Most of the time, Kei turns out to be different than they expected. He’s too touchy, too sarcastic, too awkward in his way of trying to love. To Kei, it has always felt like it’s ended just as he was beginning to develop real feelings. 

If he’s being honest, it’s given him a twisted inferiority complex. He’s worried that somehow, on a fundamental level, he’s not enough. Sometimes, it even goes so far as for Kei to think that he’s just generally disappointing. He tries not to be. Kei wants to be relied on. He wants to be someone his friends can go to when they need something sturdy. 

Despite his personality, Kei considers himself sturdy. Well, maybe stubborn is a better word. Kei considers himself stubborn enough to be made sturdy. He’s just a little awkward. That’s all. People seem to mistake that for being unreliable. It’s a peeve of Kei’s. 

Tadashi isn’t like that. Tadashi is bright and warm, reliable in every sense of the word. Kei actually looks up to him a lot, not that he’d ever say anything like that to his face. Sure, Tadashi’s not perfect, but at least people rely on him. At least Kei relies on him. 

Tadashi is more easy going than Kei is. He has an easier time going with the flow, which makes him more personable. Kei thinks that Tadashi is the closest thing that he’s had to a better half. In truth, without Tadashi around, Kei isn’t exactly sure what would have become of him. 

It’s pointless thinking about these sorts of things though. Kei realized a long time ago that thinking about being better won’t automatically make him better. This is just the way he is and Kei’s learned to accept that, whatever it means. Still, none of this changes the fact that he likes you. 

Kei could mull over thought after thought and he doesn’t think it would have any effect on the fact that he’s definitely developed a crush. He’s positive it will go away. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s real. Maybe Kei is just jealous of you the same way he’s jealous of Tadashi. You’re bright and warm like he is. You and Tadashi are cut from the same cloth, so maybe that’s why the two of you get along so well. 

In all honesty, Kei wishes he could be a little more like Tadashi for that reason. Maybe if he were more like Tadashi, he’d have the courage to fully accept these new and uncertain feelings for what they are. But he doesn’t have that kind of courage, not right now at least. He doesn’t have the courage to solidify and lean into his feelings. Kei doesn’t want to risk what little comfort and security he has. If the relationship between you both is a blank page, Kei doesn’t have anything important to write. What if it ruins the paper? What if when he erases it, it changes the thing on a molecular level for the worse? The notebook theory. 

— 

Despite everything, Kei is rather self-aware. At least in his own head he is. Kei knows that when he pretends he doesn’t like you, he really ends up liking you more. He knows that he’s touchy, that he’s awkward, that he comes across more crass than he intends to. Kei is clumsy, not stupid. That doesn’t mean that he has to acknowledge it. 

You’ve been coming around more often since the conversation Kei had with you in the library. Maybe you’re more comfortable now knowing that he doesn’t hate you, so you’re happier to join Tadashi in their shared apartment. 

Kei feels bad about making you think that he hates you. Actually, he feels really bad about it. Like, astronomically bad about it. Embarrassingly enough, it actually keeps him up at night. So he goes out of his way to be a little nicer to you. The only other person he’s ever done that for is Tadashi. 

He greets you properly when you pass, despite the flare up of a medical condition he’s yet to fully diagnose brought on by your presence. He asks you questions about your studies, partially because he is genuinely curious and partially because he doesn’t want you to hate him. He thinks he’d die if you hated him. Kei’s being brave in his own way. It’s little, but he’s doing it. 

As a result, the two of you have grown a little closer. Kei has your phone number now, though he rarely has any reason to text you. Typing out a message to you makes him nervous. It makes him red in the face when you’re not even there. Somehow, having your phone number feels vulnerable to him, like he has access to you whenever he wants and you him. It means that if you wanted, you could make him nervous without even being nearby. That’s a lot for Kei to think about. 

Kei sees you in the library sometimes too, but he never takes the initiative to speak to you. You always come up to him first, clumsily gathering your things the way you did the day you and him sorted out your friendship and plopping them down in front of him. 

Sometimes, you both go several hours without saying anything to each other. Other times, you’ll chat away about something while leaning forward on the desk and Kei has to pretend that he’s not wildly nervous at your proximity. You’re so friendly. So genuinely warm that Kei can physically feel it when you talk. Despite his nerves, Kei would describe you as comfortable. You’re a comfortable person to him, as alarming as that is. 

His crush is out of hand. It scares him, not that he’s actively thought about that. What started as him noticing you has quickly ballooned into him being painfully aware of you at all times. He kind of feels bad about it. You don’t seem to think that he’s anything more than a friend and it makes Kei feel bad that he thinks of you as anything but that. He doesn’t want you to be just a crush to him. Kei wants you to be like Tadashi, someone he can rely on and be comfortable with. He almost feels like he’s reversed what’s been done to him his whole life, like somehow he’s only become your friend because he wants something more. 

Truth is though, he doesn’t want anything more. Kei wants to stay exactly where he is. He doesn’t want his crush to develop any further. He doesn’t want to confess, he wants to forget. Even now, sitting on a couch in the library, he wants to imagine he doesn’t feel anything at all for you.  

“Hey, are you okay?” You tilt your head at him. 

“Huh? Me?” He questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“You seem a little distracted,” you smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer for like… 10 minutes with this blank look on your face.” 

“You’ve been staring at me for 10 minutes?” He raises an eyebrow, trying to play off the embarrassment of being caught like that. 

“Not staring at you,” you huff, “but I definitely noticed.” 

“Ha, creep,” he tilts his head up a little, blowing air out of his nose. 

“You’re twisted, you know?” 

“Whatever,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks back at his computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head and smile before looking down at your work. 

Tadashi has said the same exact thing to him before. In highschool, after Kei had made a joke about his teammate Hinata’s height, Tadashi had given him a look and snorted that he’s so twisted. He’s been hearing that sort of thing his entire life. 

“Hey, are you cool if I skip out of here early?” You ask a few moments later. 

“Oh, yeah sure. I don’t mind,” he nods, hiding his disappointment. “I didn’t realize that we had like… set times to be here.” 

You laugh lightly. “Well, we don’t, but we tend to come and go at the same time, no? I kinda look forward to it.” 

Kei envies your honesty. You’re so honest all of the time. You say what you feel when it pops into your head. He wishes he could be like that, maybe then he would be able to say that he does too. Instead, he just nods and swallows his heart back down. You smile at him again and then gather your things. 

“You’ll be home on Friday night, right?” 

“Uhm, yeah? Why?” 

“Tadashi invited me and a few friends over, did he tell you?” 

“I think he mentioned it.” Kei has actually been thinking about it for the last couple days. 

“Good, I’ll see you, right?” 

“Yeah, you will.” 

“Great, talk to you later then!” You smile and with that, you walk away. 

You sounded so certain in that statement. Talk to you later. You said it like it was inevitable. Thinking about that, Kei can’t help but watch you go. He even likes looking at the back of you, though he wishes he could see your face too. It feels worse to be walked away from than walked towards. 

Kei can’t tell anymore if what he feels is romance or jealousy. It’s probably both. It’s probably some mix of the two that he can’t quite sort out. He wishes it weren’t that way. Kei gets the feeling that he might be ruined. 

So he just watched you leave the library. Someone is waiting for you at the top of the stairwell. Kei can tell they’re a guy and despite the reluctance of his feelings, his stomach drops anyway when you nudge his shoulder with yours and loop your arm around his. That’s something you haven’t done to Kei before. Touch him. You touch this other person so easily. It makes Kei jealous. 

It makes sense that you might be seeing someone, that there might be someone else. After all, you’re you. Desirable. You look up at the stranger, leaning on him, smiling and flashing your teeth. Yeah, it makes sense. 

Turns out, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks you’re interested in someone else. He likes to think it will save him the time of wondering. 

—

Kei has cleaned his room approximately four times today. Sure, it’s overboard, but every time he goes into it, he notices something else that needs to be spruced up. Like a pot with a leak, there is always something that he seemed to miss the last time he went through and cleaned up. 

It’s not like you’ll be in his room tonight anyway, but you will be in his apartment and that’s close enough to his room that he, for whatever reason, needs to make it so spotless that it looks like a set. Kei knows though, that even when you’re here, he’ll be wondering if there’s something else that he missed beyond the closed door and he’ll think about it incessantly. 

He’s been avoiding the thought of him liking you. Instead, Kei cleans and cleans and then cleans some more for good measure. It’s not like he has any sort of claim on you and he knows that it’s stupid to feel jealous over one interaction he witnessed by chance, but his mind is running away with him. Was that person your boyfriend? Has he been begrudgingly pining over a taken person all these months? Do you think that he’s creepy because of it? 

He doesn’t get to be upset over the idea that you’re seeing someone else. Why wouldn’t you be? Kei’s done absolutely nothing to indicate his interest in you (or lack thereof), besides maybe telling you that he doesn’t hate you. He has no right to feel the way he does, but he spirals anyway. His insecurities, the ones that gnaw at him in the hours before he falls asleep, play in a constant loop in his head. His unreliability, his unpleasant personality, his cynicism, the baggage he carries with him like a badge. All of it piles up one by one. 

Kei feels like a kid again, losing himself over such a simple interaction, over something so miniscule that it might not even be considered anything at all. There are a plethora of reasons for his feeling like this and Kei thinks he could draw one of his issues out of a hat and it would still somehow address the situation at hand, but all he really feels is hurt and he doesn’t want to explain it away. Kei finds that liking someone hurts. It hurts more than it feels good and the uncertainty chews at his patience and leaves it razor thin. It’s not your fault, nor is it the person Kei’s convinced himself you’re seeing, but he needs someone to blame and it can’t be himself. 

The idea of you relying on someone else makes him nauseous. He’d never considered the thought before, that you find him as unreliable as others do. Kei wants to be relied on, most of all by you, and that fact makes him upset. He’s afraid of what you think of him and without the confidence to accept his feelings, it threatens to crush him. 

Kei’s got this itch over it, so he tries to distract himself. Cleaning his space to prepare for you helps him delude himself that he doesn’t quite like you at all. It’s not your fault. He’s just confused, like his parents were when they married each other. It hurts. Like they were when they had him to try and fix their marriage, which had started to fall apart even when Akiteru was an only child. He’s confused. He’s jealous over your ability to live the way Kei has always wanted to. That’s all this is. Nothing more and nothing less. He feels like he’s being split in two, stretched thin between two modes of thinking. 

Kei glances over his shoulder and into his room one last time. He’s forgotten to wipe the mirror. He goes back in and the cycle starts itself over. 

—

He’s not proud of his behavior. Kei thinks only a seriously huge asshole would be proud of the kind of behavior he displayed tonight. He regrets it immensely, though some part of him is begrudgingly holding onto the idea that maybe he was right to be so short tempered. Of course, that’s a lunatic’s idea. 

Tadashi is standing by the apartment door, mumbling something to you behind it. Over Tadashi’s shoulder, he sees you shake your head and in response, Tadashi gives a small bow before shutting the door to the shared apartment. Then, Tadashi turns and walks towards him. 

Kei doesn’t want to look at him, but Tadashi, for some reason, commands his gaze. 

“Is there a reason you were such a huge cunt tonight?” Tadashi sort of spits the words. They land at Kei’s feet and roll around before settling. 

“What are you talking about? I was normal,” he answers, though the statement sounds like a lie the moment it leaves his lips. 

“Bullshit,” Tadashi says. “You were being an asshole the second they walked through the door and you’ve been one to me all day.” 

Kei scoffs, his cheeks burning, “I’ve just been tired, dude. Besides, what does it matter? You’re closer to all of them than I am.”

“What? You’re tired so you just get to be a huge asshole?” 

“No,” Kei responds. 

“So then what was that?” 

Kei doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what prompted him to act so cold or make such snide comments. It’s true, he’d been in a bad mood all day and he knows that Tadashi has borne the brunt of his misplaced emotions, but even Kei is confused as to why he’d acted the way he did. Still though, there is a part of him that knows that it was connected to his spiraling and what he saw in the library. He’d sound insane if he said it out loud, like somehow his growth was stunted in the third grade, but Kei is sure it had something to do with liking you and the hurt that comes with it. 

It’s not as if he’d been outwardly mean, but he had been cold. There are parts of himself that Kei doesn’t want you to see, sections of his personality that he ropes off from you because despite not liking you, he wants you to see the best in him. Tonight, he managed to somehow show off the worst. 

It started with the noise when everyone had arrived. You, Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Kiyoko, and Yachi had all piled into the apartment in one large group. Kei’d been sitting on the couch and the sound of the door startled him right off the bat. He assumed that by the time they all had rounded the corner into the living room, his face was already sour, because everyone had greeted him cautiously. 

It’s no surprise that everyone was so loud. Kei has known this particular group for many years and they, having all gone to school or work nearby, pile into his apartment often for events like these. You were really the only new factor in all of it and while Kei is known as a touchy person, he certainly was more touchy than usual tonight. 

You’d been trying to talk to him all evening and Kei, in a desperate attempt to avoid whatever lingering feelings he had for you, had been shutting you down at every turn. Thinking back on it, he’s endlessly embarrassed. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been nothing but kind to him and there Kei was holding a grudge over you for something he had no right to be angry about whatsoever. He had been holding a grudge over something that he’d learned later that evening that wasn’t even true. 

Kei thinks that what Tadashi is referring to, was deliberately picking a fight with Tanaka. Kei and Tanaka have never been particularly close. Even in high school, his boisterous and somewhat obnoxious personality has always rubbed Kei the wrong way. Despite that, Tanaka has somehow managed to maintain a connection to him through university and the two of them have established a tentative but honest friendship. 

You had been sitting on the arm of the couch beside Tanaka, leaning over him to look at something he was showing you on his phone. Then, you laughed a little too hard and Kei felt that familiar sense of injustice rise to his throat, thick and heavy. It’s an ugly feeling, the kind that makes Kei feel sick when he’s in bed late at night. Bile rose in his throat in the form of harsh words. Jealousy in the form of the verbal venom Kei excels at. 

For Kei, Tanaka was an easy target, someone he could poke at and get a satisfying rise out of. In the moment, the rise he’d gotten from Tanaka by making snide comments about the volume of his voice and his particular obsession with pretty girls had been exactly that, satisfying. 

He’d picked a small fight. Nothing physical, but just enough to get him irritated. Kei’s not proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done it deliberately. After all, Tanaka has never been the type to be the bigger person and turn his nose up. 

Sometimes, when Kei is experiencing emotions he’d rather not deal with, he decides to obsess over one single thing. Usually, it’s cleaning or schoolwork. Tonight, it happened to be the volume of Tanaka’s voice, which he knows was a shitty thing to do. Despite wanting to be reliable, Kei can’t help but feel that he was endlessly immature, lashing out at someone completely unrelated to the situation just because he could. 

Tadashi pulls him from his thoughts. 

“I thought you liked them, dude,” his voice is even, letting up on the anger. 

“Who?” Kei plays dumb. 

Tadashi responds with your name and Kei stiffens slightly. “I thought you guys had gotten closer. What happened?” 

“Nothing happened,” Kei says. It’s the truth. Absolutely nothing happened. Kei had spiraled all on his own. 

“Why did you ignore them then?” 

“I didn’t ignore them,” Kei says. Again, it’s not a lie. He may have shut conversations down and been a little cold, but Kei couldn’t ignore you if he tried, it’s sort of the whole problem he’s dealing with now. 

“Maybe, but you were cold. Like… needlessly.” 

“I was fucking normal, Tadashi. You should know me well enough by now to know that,” Kei spits. 

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I know you and I know that shit wasn’t normal. You’re twisted, but you’re not an outright asshole, Kei. What’s going on?” 

“I was normal, Tadashi. Just because I didn’t bounce around or get rowdy, doesn’t mean that something is wrong,” Kei answers. 

“Yeah, but you were like… majorly fucking weird, Kei. You were being an asshole. Don’t you like them? Don’t you want to be nice to them?” 

“I don’t.” 

“You don’t want to be nice to them?” Tadashi scoffs, rolling his eyes. 

“No, not that. I don’t like them like that anymore,” Kei lies. 

“Oh please, that’s such horseshit,” Tadashi laughs bitterly. 

“Get off my ass, Tadashi. I don’t fucking feel that way about them anymore,” Kei insists. 

“Did something happen?” 

“No, literally nothing happened! Why does something have to happen? I just don’t like them,” Kei feels himself getting indignant. Tadashi doesn’t deserve this either, but he seems to be indiscriminate with his poor behavior tonight. 

Tadashi looks at Kei for a moment, studying him and calculating all of the things only Tadashi could know about him. Kei tries to hide it. 

“Jesus, Kei, you’ve got to stop doing this shit,” Tadashi touches his hand to his forehead. 

“Doing what?” 

“Getting all in your head about every single connection you’ve ever had with a person,” Tadashi raises his voice. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means I’ve seen you do this a million times! You start to really feel something for a person and then you fucking back away like a dog with its tail between its legs!” 

“I don’t do that!” 

“Yes, you do! You sabotage yourself until the other person is forced to do something about it!” Tadashi exhales. 

“I’ve never done that deliberately! What does someone else’s actions have to do with me?” 

“It doesn’t have to do with you,” Tadashi says, “It has to do with your parents.” 

The wind is knocked out of Kei, air sucked from his lungs. He furrows his eyebrows at Tadashi, his mouth slightly open. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tadashi pushes, angry and trying to make him listen. “Not every relationship is like your parents’, Kei.” 

Tadashi knows he’s stepped over the line the moment he says it. If it hadn’t registered before, it registers clearly on his face now, regret settling over Tadashi’s usually bright features. Kei gapes at him for a moment, running through his thoughts and trying to pick out one that best verbalizes what it is he feels. Kei comes up empty. 

“Shit-” Tadashi starts towards him. “Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m just pissed off I didn’t mean to-” 

Kei pushes past him. “Tadashi, I know you mean well, but don’t try to tell me about my fucking parents.” 

Tadashi doesn’t try to stop him when Kei flings the front door open and walks outside.

—

Kei remembers it like it was yesterday. He remembers all of it. 

He can clearly recall the way shattered glass looked on the marble tiles of his childhood home. White porcelain, broken up into multitudes by his mother and father. They never laid hands on each other, but everything else in the house was fair game. Kei’s lost count of the amount of broken glass dishes and picture frames he’d swept from the floor. 

Kei’s parents had always been on and off in their affection for each other. One minute, they were deeply in love and the next, they were at each other’s throats. Neither of them were bad people, but they made each other bad people. The two of them brought out the worst in each other, maybe on account of knowing the other so well. 

Akiteru was an accident. His brother knows this because when his parents argued, they never let him forget it. In their spats, leverage was whatever they could get their hands on, and that just happened to be Akiteru and the unfortunate circumstances of an accidental pregnancy. 

His parents got married at 19, thinking that they’d be able to handle a child, that their marriage was anything but rushed. They convinced themselves that it was love, when the reality was that Akiteru came because they were too young and stupid to prevent it. At least, that’s what Kei and Akiteru had settled on in the evenings after the yelling had died down and they were left to make sense of it in their shared bedroom. 

They had Kei to fix the marriage. Kei knows this because, like Akiteru, his father’s marital “solution” in the form of a second child was constant leverage to his mother. Kei grew up asking Akiteru why his mother and father even had children in the first place. 

Their relationship was rocky and unstable, predictable and toxic. They, like Kei, would do things to get rises out of each other. They’d make digs, do things to get under the other’s skin. They did it for attention, for affection, or out of loathing for the person they’d decided to make their life partner. When things settled, they got bored. His parents often mistakened calmness for complacency in their relationship. His parents loved each other, but they hated each other just as much, and it was he and Akiteru who paid the price. 

They got divorced when he was fourteen and any chance of Kei having a normal family went to the courthouse with the divorce papers. Akiteru was 20 at the time and managed to avoid the brunt of the custody battle. Kei still gets unexplainably angry with Akiteru for leaving him alone, though he knows that it’s not his fault. The only way Kei could make sense of it was through blame and it was easier to blame Akiteru for lying about volleyball or leaving him alone than it was to blame himself. Both Kei’s father and mother tried for full custody, not because they loved him that much, but because they knew that it would destroy the other. In the end, Kei spent his weekdays with his mother because she lived closer to his school, and weekends with his father just because. 

It happens all the time. People grow together, then grow apart, and grow to loathe each other. Kei watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to his friends, he watched it happen to himself with his own reflection. That’s just the way it goes. 

The air outside of his apartment is cool and breezy. He can feel the wind through his sweater, cutting through the gaps in the stitching and into his skin. Kei feels like he can think a little better out here, sitting on the short concrete wall with his back to the apartment building. He stares at his feet, outstretched in front of him. He's still wearing his house slippers. 

Kei did this once when he was younger. The fight that night had been particularly bad and his parents had resulted to throwing things across their bedroom. Kei could hear picture frames shatter through two walls and he wondered which memories they’d decided to trash. A particularly loud shout had sent Kei out of the front door and onto the curb in front of the house. 

He remembers crying, staring at his house slippers on the pavement, afraid because he could hear the shouting even from the lawn. Akiteru had come out to get him, sitting down beside him on the curb and putting his arm around him. 

“Are mom and dad gonna get divorced?” Kei had asked through sniffles. 

“Divorced? No, no,” Akiteru answered. “It’s just a rough patch. It happens to all couples. Mommy and Daddy will be fine.” 

“It’s normal?” Kei sniffled. 

Akiteru paused for a moment. Looking back, Kei realizes that Akiteru was debating on whether or not to lie to protect him. Kei wishes he hadn’t. 

“Yeah, it’s normal.” 

Normal. Kei realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what a normal relationship looks like. He is his parents' son. What they had in them, he has in him. Kei knows that those habits, the digs, the sour statements, the passive aggressiveness, are all things he’s picked up from watching them. Some role models they were. 

He needs to apologize to Tadashi. He may have overstepped, but Kei knows that he’d been an asshole tonight. He’ll need to apologize to Tanaka as well. And to you, which is perhaps the scariest part of this. He wants to apologize for his behavior, but apologizing means that he has to admit that he’d acted the way his parents did, out of jealousy and a pull for attention. Yup, he’s his parents’ son alright. 

Kei tilts his head up toward the sky. Only half of it is visible, the other half blocked by the three story apartment complex directly behind him. It’s a clear night, but he can’t see any stars and the moon is nowhere to be found. Kei wonders when the morning will come. It’s a few hours off, but he thinks about how the sky will look when the sun begins to rise. 

“Kei,” a familiar voice calls from in front of him. 

You’re a few feet away, your hands clasped in front of you. 

“Thought you went home,” he says. 

“Yeah well, I had intended to,” you start, “but you seemed off and I felt weird going back without checking on you. Can I sit?” 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, mortified and angry at being caught like this. He appreciates the thought, but you’re the last person he wants to see right now. It just means he needs to face his shortcomings sooner. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Kei answers automatically. 

“Just decided on some fresh air?” You smile a little and Kei blows air out of his nose. 

“Yup, that’s exactly it.” 

You sit next to him with your legs outstretched the same way his are, your hands are laced together in front of you, hanging down between your thighs. Kei doesn’t make an effort to say anything and neither do you. Instead, he just trains his head back up towards the sky and attempts to collect his thoughts, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

Strangely, tonight he doesn’t feel nervous. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with being sorry to pay any mind to the heart palpitations he gets when you’re around. Maybe it’s because even though he showed you the worst of him tonight, you still came back. It’s a small hope, but it’s there. 

“Hey,” your voice comes quietly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need- I mean- if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good ear.” 

Kei nods a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about tonight.” 

“I didn’t come here for an apology, you know?” You exhale a little. 

“Yeah, but you deserve one,” he says. “I was pretty shitty to you.” 

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, catching Kei off guard, “but it happens to all of us. Sometimes we feel things and just can’t keep them inside, you know?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down his shame. 

There’s another long silence. You don’t move to touch him or talk to him, instead, you provide steady company. Kei, as strange as it is, is comforted by your presence. 

“I fought with Tadashi,” Kei says after a few minutes. 

“Today?” 

“Yeah, tonight. After everyone left,” he says. “I deserved it though. I’ve been pretty shitty to him all day.” 

You hum, leaning back on your hands. 

“I did the same shit in high school too, you know?” Kei starts. “We’ve uhm- we’ve known each other for a while, the group that was over tonight. Around the end of middle school some shit happened and I uh- I took out a lot of what I was feeling on Tadashi and the others, but mostly Tadashi because he was the only one who knew.” 

Kei isn’t sure why he’s telling you this. Maybe Tadashi was right. Maybe this is another attempt at self sabotage. 

“You bullied him?” You ask, a little surprised. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, but I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone could tell you that. I thought I was past it, though,” he admits, a little defeated. 

“Did you ever apologize?” 

Kei looks up at you in surprise. Your eyes are full of something, curiosity, maybe pity. 

“For what you did in school?” 

He nods. “Countless times, and not just to Tadashi either, to everyone.” 

“You know, stuff like this happens,” you say. “When I was little, I used to hate sharing. Toys, food, friends. I’d hate it when my friends were friends with other people. It made me insecure and I’d get mad at them for it. I grew out of it, but sometimes I still get that way and I have to apologize later.” 

Kei laughs. It’s strikingly similar to what’s happening now, not that you’d have any way of knowing. 

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” he says. 

“I’m serious,” you say. “I still get weird over it sometimes.” 

Kei shakes his head a little, smiling. 

“All that I’m saying is that sometimes we slip up, that’s all. It’s normal,” you continue. “Not that I’m condoning it. Just saying that it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you human.” 

“Thanks,” he says softly. 

“No problem,” you respond. 

“So why’d you fight with him tonight?” 

“He was angry with me because I was an asshole,” Kei shrugs.

“And you’re mad that he called you out?” You give a quiet and somewhat incredulous laugh. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, I’m angry about what he said after.” 

“What’d he say?” 

Kei debates on telling you. He doesn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. After all, Tadashi meant no harm, even if his comment did exactly that. 

“The argument kind of switched subjects,” Kei tiptoes around the fact that the subject was you. “He brought up a bad habit of mine and I got defensive.” 

“Okay,” you say, waiting for him to say more. 

“Remember when I said that something happened at the end of middle school and only Tadashi knew about it?” When you nod, Kei continues. “My parents got divorced. They were a bad match and it was messy. He brought it up.” 

You nod again, your eyes wide. 

“He didn’t mean any harm, I know that,” Kei inhales. “But uh- that stuff kind of sticks with you. Well, it’s stuck with me and I didn’t like having it used to explain my behaviors, even if he was right. I’m not deflecting or anything though. I know I was the problem tonight.” 

“Sure,” you say. “I’m sorry about your parents.” 

Kei shrugs. “It’s in the past. They’re both remarried now with new kids.” 

The last sentence leaves Kei with a sour taste in his mouth. His parents are good people, but after his childhood, he doesn’t think they have any business having more children. Maybe they’re capable of being good for them, but Kei doesn’t like to imagine that. It makes him feel like their marriage wasn’t the problem, but he and Akiteru were. 

“You say that like they got a new pet,” you smile a little. “Are you still in touch with them?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I visit whenever I go back home, though they’re really not too far from here.” 

“That’s good of you.” 

“Well, they are my parents,” Kei says plainly. 

You’re the only other person he’s divulged this to by choice and your reactions, understanding and level-headed, make him feel better. It’s like getting a weight off of his chest. This is the worst of him. This little bit of information, his history of being unable to fully confront his feelings, of taking anger out on others when he was young, is where his problems originate. 

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it,” you say. “My mom died when I was eleven. Texting and driving. I’m still angry at her for it.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

You shrug and offer him a wry smile. “It’s in the past, but I’m still angry even though I shouldn’t be.” 

“At her?” 

“Yeah,” you nod. “She made a stupid mistake that we’re constantly warned about and left my dad and me behind. I was so angry with her, still am. I love her though, perceived faults and all.” 

Kei thinks about whether or not he loves his parents. He thinks he does, even if he resents them. Kei can’t imagine what he’d do without them. Even though his childhood had few emotional comforts, he still can’t think about a world where he doesn’t visit home to have his mother’s cooking. That’s a world that you live in. 

“That’s hard.” It’s all Kei can think to offer. 

“It was,” you say. “Got easier though as soon as I started accepting things. Now I just miss her more than I hate her.”

Another bout of silence follows this. It must be close to two in the morning and he’s been outside so long that he can no longer feel the tip of his nose. 

“Anyway, about tonight,” you say, “it’s not a crime to feel what you feel, but if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. It’s easier to accept feelings and get hurt than to ignore them, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking to face you. “Thank you.” 

You’re so pretty. It’s striking. The curvature and angles of your face, the gentle look in your eyes, softened by the conversation. Kei finds himself thinking that despite not wanting to face you a few hours earlier, he’s grateful that you showed up. You’re good in ways that Kei can hardly fathom. 

“You should go inside. Tadashi is probably wondering where you are,” you say, standing up. “Plus,” you pinch the tip of his nose between your middle and pointer knuckles, “your nose looks like a cherry tomato.”

“Rude,” he says, startled by the sudden touch. 

“Payback,” you shrug your shoulders and Kei rolls his eyes. 

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Kei offers, a bit nervous about you walking home on your own. 

“I’d love to take you up on that, but you seem tired and I don’t live very far,” you respond. “I’ll call you when I get home though, okay? Since you’re so worried.” 

Kei laughs a little and then nods, standing up. “Yeah, I am.” 

His honesty surprises even him, but you just tilt your head and give him a small smile. 

“I’ll see you on Monday,” you say. “Thanks for the apology” 

“Anytime.”

“I hope not,” you laugh and Kei follows suit. 

You begin to turn on your heel, giving a small wave. 

Kei doesn’t know what overcomes him, but he calls out your name and reaches for your wrist. Before he has a moment to think about what he’s doing, he pulls you to his chest in a hug. You stiffen and then relax in his grip, wrapping your arms around him. Your body is warmer than his, sending heat through the gaps in his sweater. 

“You can call even if it’s not to tell me you got home safe,” he says. “If you want to.” 

You squeeze him around the middle. “Okay, I will.” 

When Kei lets go, he finds that his face is burning. The cold has been replaced by a flush of blood, making his vision a little syrupy.

“Thanks for coming back,” he says. “Get home safe.” 

“Of course,” you sound a little dazed, wearing an expression that Kei thinks might match his. “And I will.” 

Then, you smile at him, flashing your teeth and giving him a wave. You hold up your phone and point to it. 

“Expect a call!” 

Kei nods and raises his arm to wave goodbye.

He stands and watches your figure as you walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. When you’re out of sight, he lingers by the door to his building, just in case you decide to come back. You don’t come back, but Kei lingers anyway, considering the conversation. 

He goes inside, intent on apologizing to Tadashi. When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are still on in the living room and Tadashi gets up from the couch and walks quickly down the hall to him.

“Kei, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

“Don’t worry,” Kei says. “I know. I’m sorry about tonight too. And for treating you like that today. And for high school.” 

“High school?” Tadashi says, confused. “Why are you bringing up high school?” 

“Just wanted to apologize again.” 

Kei can feel his eyes drooping, exhaustion creeping into his body and replacing the elated feeling he had moments before. 

“I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it. How you like someone is none of my business,” Tadashi says. “I was out of line.” 

“So was I,” Kei admits through a tired sigh. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’ll apologize to the others in the morning.” 

Tadashi narrows his eyes a little and nods. Kei, besieged by that sleepy late night feeling, moves towards his bedroom. 

“Hey, Kei,” his voice comes out a little louder this time. “You’re being surprisingly easy-going. Are we good?” 

Kei scoffs a little, rubbing his eyes. “I just had some time to think, that’s all. And yeah, we’re good.” 

“Okay, are you good?” 

“Yeah, I am,” Kei says. 

Before he closes the door to his room, he furrows his eyebrows and makes a firm decision. 

“By the way,” Tadashi turns to him, cocking his head to the side in response. “I lied. I do like them.” 

“Could have guessed as much,” he responds, laughing a little. “See you in the morning.” 

“Yup, see you in the morning.” 

Kei shuts the door to his room. It clicks into place quietly. His room is spotless. It looks like a room that could be easily emptied at any time. He sighs, stepping into it and laying down on his bed. His phone is on the comforter next to him, lying face up. 

When it lights up, it illuminates the ceiling above him and he answers the phone without needing to check who's calling. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, I got home safe,” he hears your keys clink against something and then the sound of a door shutting. Then, he hears the sound of you laying down on your bed. He imagines you’re lying the same way he is. 

“Good, I’m glad,” he says. “No trouble?” 

“No trouble at all,” you say. He can hear your smile. 

“Thanks again for coming back tonight,” he says, turning over onto his side and letting the phone rest on the bed in front of his face. 

“Of course,” you say.

He doesn’t know what else to say. His nerves have caught up to him and your voice through the speaker sounds so close, like you’re whispering directly into his ear. 

“Okay, well I’m going to go to bed,” Kei starts. 

“Kei?” you say. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna take you up on your offer. About calling you. Just wanted you to know.” 

“Okay,” he swallows. 

“I feel a lot closer to you.”

“Yeah, me too.” 

“Goodnight, Kei,” you practically whisper. 

“Goodnight,” he responds, lowering his voice the same way you did. You hang up the phone and the call ends. 

He blinks at his phone for a moment before standing up and getting ready for bed. Kei goes through the motions while thinking about how the evening got here. He’d been certain before it began that he no longer liked you, that he was confused. Now, he’s certain of the opposite. 

He decides that he’ll like you for real this time. Even if he’s afraid of hurting himself, of hurting you.

Kei lays down in his bed and faces the ceiling. He thinks about his parents, about your mother, about you. The cadence of your voice, the slight tremor in it. He thinks about your expressions, understanding and unintrusive. He thinks about your history, the anger you’d admitted to him and the grace you’d given him in his own circumstances. 

He dreams of braids, like DNA. Coils of pink yarn woven together in an intricate pattern. A molecular change not visible to the naked eye. Morning comes like liquid gold, spilling across his bedspread in slats through the window.

—

Kei’s apologies go smoothly. Tadashi’s friends—his friends—are good people. They know him better than most and field his awkward, stumbling apology with steady hands. 

He’d explained his sour mood in as little detail as possible, deliberately omitting his feelings for you while doing so, and he made a special effort to apologize to Tanaka. He’s easygoing and quick to forget, but Kei knows that even after accepting the apology, Tanaka will lord it over his head for a week or two. Tanaka thinks those kinds of things are funny and Kei won’t try to tell him otherwise. 

You do take Kei up on his offer. You call him twice a week now. Sometimes it’s to tell him something relevant to him, other times, you just whisper into the phone that you just felt like talking. Either way, it’s not good for his heart. Kei thinks that at this rate, it might just give out. 

There are a lot of things that Kei could say about liking you. It makes his days a little brighter. When he remembers that he has someone he cares about like that, he feels a surge of excitement for no particular reason. He finds that he looks forward to seeing you and goes out of his way to do so, more than he did before he was willing to admit it. 

He’s noticed the way you eat, like every bite of food is even better than the last. He’s noticed that you wipe the condensation off of your cups before each sip. He’s noticed that when you’re studying, you’ll pull at the collar of your shirt absentmindedly and then become frustrated when it is stretched out of place. Kei likes all of these things about you. 

Kei has also found that liking someone hurts. It hurts worse than he thought it would. Insecurity weaves its way into even the most minor of interactions. He’s self conscious almost all of the time, adjusting his hair, clothing, glasses right down to minor details. As of late, Kei appears more put together than he ever has, but the reality is that he’s probably the least put together he’s ever been. 

When you’re around, Kei is awkward and clumsy. He drops things, trips over nothing, loses control over his lanky limbs and overshoots things. He feels like a teenager again, not that he’s that far off from one. 

Still, one thing overshadows all of this. Kei is so comfortable around you, so peaceful despite the nerves and insecurity, that he’s able to forget about the worst of it. Forgetting about the worst of things is not something Kei is particularly good at. He’s cynical by nature. You help to ease the burden of it. 

The coffee shop he’s visiting with you today is quiet. The room is decorated with dark oak wood and the tables are accented by the rings of the trees the wood was cut from. The early spring light filters in at angles through the windows letting out onto the street. It falls across your notebooks and the knuckles of your hand, wrapped evenly around a black pen. 

You’d brought him here to study instead of going to the library and Kei can’t help but think that it feels like a date. His tea sits half-finished in a mug beside his laptop, beginning to cool to room temperature. Your coffee sits by your unoccupied hand and every now and then, you’ll reach to take a sip of the warm beverage without even glancing up. 

Kei has spent so much time watching you today, that he’s hardly gotten any work done. His computer is open on a document with a paragraph of writing about nudity in the classical period, which he hasn’t touched in about 10 minutes. He’s been clicking blankly around the page, adding spaces and then deleting them and then glancing up over the edge of the screen to look at the way you purse your lips when you’re focused. 

“You’d get a lot more done if you stopped staring,” you say, not looking up from your notebook. 

Kei chokes on his exhale. “What?” 

You laugh a little, looking up at him through your lashes. God, you’re pretty. 

“The document?” You chuckle. “You’re not fooling anyone by clicking around randomly like that.” 

“Oh,” Kei furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, just can’t seem to focus.” 

“What’s the paper on?” You set down your pen and cross your arms on the table. 

“It’s not really a paper,” he says. “It’s a visual analysis on the Aphrodite of Knidos.” 

“Is that the one without the arms?” 

“No, but they come from the same family of statues,” Kei smiles a little. 

You hum a bit. “Do you like it?” 

“Like, do I think the statue’s pretty?” Kei closes the screen of his laptop to see you better. “Yeah, I do. Learning about the history of it is a bit depressing though.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, Aphrodite was one of the most powerful Greek gods, right?” He says, and you nod your head and roll your eyes because you know that already. “But this statue group intrudes on a private moment of hers. She’s trying to cover up her body, probably just before or after a bath. It’s meant to be humiliating.” 

You tilt your head. “Sounds more interesting than molecular structures at least.” 

Kei laughs a little. “Yeah, I think it’s just a bit more interesting.” 

“Why did you choose to study art history?” You question, leaning forward on your elbows. 

Kei feels awkward at receiving the question. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, let alone his passions. They tend to get away from him. 

“Probably because I’m no good at art,” he smiles a little. 

“Such a shame, what with your artist’s hands and all,” you reach across the table and tap his knuckle. 

Kei feels the color rise to his cheeks. 

“You’re no good at art, so you study art history instead?” You press for more. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I like things that people make with their hands. There’s a lot of human expression in ancient art, good and bad. Gives a bit more context into who we were before.” 

You lean back in the chair, grinning at him. Kei bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to notice the slope of your neck. 

“Why are you studying molecular bio?” He changes the subject. 

You shrug your shoulders. “I want a good cushy job that makes me a lot of money.” 

Kei watches the corners of your lips curl up. 

“Plus,” you continue, “I wanted to show off a little bit.” 

“So you put yourself through four years of torture?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Yup, I’m a huge masochist,” you grin. 

“You STEM kids are unbearable, you know?” Kei snorts. 

“But you like me anyway, yeah?” 

Kei nods, heat creeping up his neck, and watches you return to your work. 

It’s true, he does like you anyway. Kei likes you so much, in fact, that it frightens him. Well, the idea of liking someone has always frightened Kei, whether he’s noticed it or not. Commitment, or lack thereof, make Kei nervous in the same way heights do. He feels like he could lose his footing at any moment. 

That’s probably why he doesn’t want to do anything in particular about his feelings. Kei is content with just feeling them. He’s content to just be able to like you in his own way, even if nothing ever comes of it. He probably shouldn’t do anything about them, considering the back and forth battle he’s waged in his mind over the last few months. He’s too indecisive to do anything but like you, and even that feels herculean to accept. 

Not that liking you is a hard thing to do. You’re easy to like. It’s easy for him to picture touching you. It’s easy for Kei to imagine late night conversations and little intimacies shared over damp pillows. You’re easy to talk to, floating through conversations and navigating conflict with a sure step, something Kei can’t do. It’s not hard to find things to admire. 

Kei imagines what it would be like to be with you. He imagines the feel of your hands in his, how you might look spread beneath him, the inside of your thighs pressing against his hips. He imagines how his glasses might fog up with your breath and slip down the bridge of his nose. What do you taste like? What do you feel like? 

A little alarm bell sounds in his head. This is a dangerous line of thought, a greedy one. Kei doesn’t think he can handle greed, not when it comes to you. He got a taste of it that day when he saw you leave with someone else and again the following Friday. Kei doesn’t mix well with it, with wanting. Still, he wants. 

—

It’s a breezy day. It cuts the growing humidity as the beginning of May creeps on. This is no doubt one of the best times of year, though Kei prefers the fall or winter. Still, even with the slightly sticky air, his walk to class is pleasant. He’d even venture to say that it’s good. 

Light filters through the trees, blooming with their spring flowers, and in the distance he can see a familiar row of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. As he approaches them, he finds himself admiring their delicate petals, wondering just how brief their bloom will be before they come cascading down. One tree among the pink rows has yet to open its flowers. The buds sit on their branches, shades of green and gray. A late bloomer. This tree will no doubt flower once the other petals have fallen, and when it does, it’ll become the most eye-catching thing on the street. 

Kei admires it for a moment, standing below the thing and looking up through its twisting branches. It’s so small, much smaller than the rest of its counterparts, and its branches don’t look too full of yet-to-bloom buds either. 

There was a tree like this outside of Kei’s childhood home, the one his family lived in together when it was whole. It would always bloom a week after the others and every year he would worry that it never would. Of course, he kept this fear to himself, but he often watched it from his bedroom window when Akiteru was out. He’d press his face against the glass and pray for the flowers to come so that it didn’t get left behind. Sure enough though, it would bloom without fail and leave scattered pink petals across his yard and doorstep. Kei wonders if this tree in front of him will do the same. 

“Thinking about changing your major to plant sciences, Kei?” 

He jumps, started by your voice and your proximity. 

“Jesus,” Kei turns, “you need a bell or something.” 

“You’re the one standing in public staring at a tree with no flowers on it,” you laugh a little. 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, not really willing to give an explanation for the train of thought he was just on. 

“Where’re you headed?” he questions. 

“Dropping off an assignment,” you smile lightly, “wanna come with me?” 

“I can’t. I’ve got a class in 15.” 

“Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes,” you shrug. “We’ll make it.” 

“We?” Kei raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you come with me to drop off my paper and then I drop you off at class. It’s a win-win.” 

“Sounds like I’m just doing a lot of extra walking,” Kei snorts. 

“Yeah, but you get to do it with me so it’ll be more fun.” 

Kei folds and goes with you to drop off your assignment. It’s an essay assigned by an old-fashioned professor who doesn’t like electronic submissions. You comment off-handedly on what a waste of paper it is and Kei nods, just happy to hear about it. 

It’s strange. Kei is normally very tied to his routine. It keeps him sane, helps him to organize his thoughts and feelings into neat compartments. For Kei, an orderly life is an orderly mind. Somehow though, you ask him to deviate from that and he’s more than willing, eager even, to oblige you. Better yet, he does it without feeling off-kilter. Well, without feeling as off-kilter about his daily life. When it comes to you, Kei is about as stable as a pogo stick. 

The walk to your professor's office is only a few minutes from his classroom, just a few buildings over, but by the time you both arrive there, Kei’s palms are sweating. He resorts to shoving them in his pockets and wiping them on the inside of his pants, mortified at the idea of accidentally touching you like this. 

“Hey, about tonight,” you start after dropping the paper off with a quick bow. 

You’re supposed to come over. It’s the first time you and Kei have agreed to hang out at one of your places alone and Kei has been compartmentalizing his nerves so harshly that he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Maybe that explains his easy-going mood. 

“Yeah?” 

“So, Tadashi may have mentioned it in front of the others,” you give him a sheepish grin, “and they may have asked to come and I definitely told them ‘the more the merrier’.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Kei’s a little disappointed. “So they’re coming too?” 

“Yeah, is that okay?” You furrow your eyebrows. 

Kei can’t very well come out and say that it isn’t, because his reason for thinking that is entirely about monopolizing your time. Kei says he doesn’t want to do anything about these feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge just a little into the foreign feeling of accepting that he’s ‘in like’. 

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t it be?” 

You raise an eyebrow at him and Kei misses the message entirely. 

“I dunno, you’re not really a fan of bigger groups right?” 

“Not really,” Kei shrugs, “but I’ve known them for a while so it doesn’t count.” 

You nod your head and then smile. “Great! Now, where is your class?” 

“Social Sciences,” Kei glances down at the brown watch on his wrist. “In about… four minutes.” 

“Wanna run? Can’t be late, can you?” 

Kei does not want to run. He runs anyway. You’re faster than he is and your step is louder. The soles of your shoes thump on the floor with every step you take and your whole body lurches forward with each bound. When you reach the end of the hallway his class is in, Kei is completely winded. Considering that he plays volleyball as a hobby, he should really be in better shape. He attributes his lack of breath to your presence. Maybe he’d been holding it while watching you run. 

You glance into his full classroom, giving him a relieved look upon seeing that the professor has not begun her lecture yet. Then, you bounce twice on the tips of your toes and start jogging in the other direction. 

“Have a good class!” You call. 

“What’s the rush?” he questions. 

“I’ve got class now too, dummy. Just wanted to hang out with you for a few more minutes.” Then, you turn and run off, your bag bouncing against the side of your leg as you round a corner and fly down a set of stairs. 

That’s the thing about you that Kei can’t get enough of. When Kei takes a step back, when he resigns himself to being okay with just a chance meeting and a brief hello, you take a step forward. Whatever Kei lacks, you make up for tenfold. Your outstretched hand makes him greedier. It makes Kei want more than he’s ever wanted before. He goes to class starved for something that isn’t food, a feeling Kei hasn’t experienced often, let alone leaned into. He lets himself feel the hunger. 

—

Day melts away to a cool evening, still slightly wet, but like the dampness before rain. The air loses its warm touch, creeping into something chillier. Kei opens his bedroom window to let the air in. He likes the smell of cool nights. He wants his room to smell like it when he sleeps tonight. 

“Sorry that I spilled the beans about tonight,” Tadashi leans in the doorway of his room. 

“It’s not like that,” Kei rolls his eyes, already irritated with the implication that whatever you and Kei had organized was anything more than two friends hanging out. 

“Sure it isn’t,” he laughs. 

“I’m serious dude,” Kei fights the urge to throw something soft at him. 

“You wanted to hang out with them alone, right?” Tadashi tilts his head. His dark hair falls to the side and around his neck. 

“I just said it wasn’t like that!” 

Tadashi gives an even laugh. “You’re the one making it dirty, Tsukki, not me.” 

Heat floods Kei’s face, painting it red. 

“Caught ya,” Tadashi smiles. 

“When the hell are you moving out?” Kei grumbles and Tadashi gives another good natured laugh. 

“Not until you do. You’re stuck with me.” 

“Not if I kill you,” Kei doesn’t smile when he says this. 

Tadashi barks a laugh. “So what changed?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean with you. You seem a little more upbeat lately,” Tadashi says. “Nothing like the sad sack from a few months ago.” 

“I was kidding before but now I’m serious. I really will kill you.” 

Tadashi shakes his head a little but doesn’t say anything, intruding on Kei’s space until he gives an answer. 

“I just got tired of it, that’s all,” Kei says evenly, though it’s a little hard to admit. 

“Tired of what?” 

“Pretending,” he says plainly, glancing up at Tadashi in the doorway. 

“Because of them?” 

“No,” he starts. “Maybe. I don’t know. Can you leave now?” 

Tadashi shakes his head. “Too curious to leave.” 

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Kei grumbles. “I got tired of pretending I didn’t want them.” 

“Not like you were very good at pretending,” Tadashi laughs and Kei tosses him a sharp look. 

He raises his hands defensively, tucking his chin downwards and laughing lightly. “Okay, fine. I’m gone now.” 

“They’ll be here in an hour or so, by the way,” Kei adds and Tadashi gives a little hum to confirm that he’s heard him as he leaves the room. 

Kei glances around his room. The floor is bare, save for a small mat by the side of his bed to keep the shock of warm feet on a cold floor in the morning away. That notebook, dear to him as it is, still sits on the desk. It’s empty, but Kei likes the look of it. 

The hour before you and his friends are meant to arrive goes by so slowly that Kei worries that he’s gotten the day wrong. He incessantly checks his watch. It’s a brown leather watch with a square face. Thin and somewhat old fashioned, Kei prefers it to pulling his phone out to check the time. His Dad has one like it, almost matching. It had been given to him as a gift at his high school graduation and Kei had accepted it begrudgingly. He’d not been on good terms with his parents then and having them both in the same space for his graduation day was more trouble than it was worth. Still, he wears the watch almost daily. Despite having the impression that his parents never really cared about him, it was a fine gift for him and the brown strap suits his light skin tone in the same way it suits his father’s. 

He walks to the mirror in his room, hanging on the wall beside his nightstand, and peers into it. Kei’s curly hair is somewhat unruly. It’s hard to manage, especially in the warmer months when his waves turn into frizzy curls that he can’t seem to keep down. It’s gotten longer, coming down to just above the bottom of his ears at the back and curls upwards in licks of thick blond. 

Kei fiddles with it for a moment, tucking it behind his ears and then deciding to pull it forward. He could put gel in it to help calm it down, but he hates the greasy look of it and he’s never been one to primp and preen. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, square frames in a tortoiseshell pattern. They look expensive, though they’re only a cheap pair that he’d found at the drug store and had the lenses replaced. 

He looks normal. Kei looks like himself, if not a bit flushed in the face from his nerves. His reflection is one he is oddly unfamiliar with, despite it being his throughout his entire life. At some point during high school, he’d stopped recognizing the man in the mirror as Kei and started viewing him as a separate entity. Kei Two, a version of him that can make a home out of a space and find things to write in his notebook. Kei Two’s family is still whole and unbroken, and he likes to imagine that he’s a little more friendly than the real-world version. He looks away from the mirror, content today with being the original. 

Kei is in the living room and around the corner when the front door latch clicks open and is followed by a symphony of raucous voices. He takes a sharp inhale, unsure of why this feels so different from the hundreds of other times you’ve all piled into his living room. 

“Where’s Kei?” He hears you call, dragging out the syllable of his name in a soft hum. 

That’s why. It’s because this time, you’ve come here to see him specifically. You’re not here to see Tadashi or by chance, you’re here because you’d made plans to see Kei. That’s what makes it different. 

You round the corner and Kei is hit full force in the chest with his emotions and his nerves. It happens all at once, keeping the air from his lungs. You’re smiling, beaming even, and Kei thinks that maybe it’s because you can hear the hammer of his heart against his chest. 

“Hi,” you breathe, plopping down next to him on the couch. 

“Hey,” he chokes out. 

Kei chides himself for his nerves. He’d been doing better about getting weird around you, but today he feels closer to blowing up than he ever has. 

Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi, and Noya make their way into the kitchen, each one clapping Tadashi on the back as they do. They beeline for their fridge, opening the door and flooding the floor with artificial white light as they pull out enough beers and sodas to supply a small army. Kei wonders why he and Tadashi ever bought so many of them. Kei hardly drinks, but he supposes that Tadashi just likes to host. 

“Tanaka and Kiyoko?” Tadashi questions as he makes his way into the living room with the group. His beer cracks open with a satisfying pop. 

“Date night,” Noya says, sinking into one of the arm chairs situated around the coffee table. “So annoying.”

He groans about Kiyoko, someone he’s all but worshiped since high school. 

“You’re just mad it isn’t you,” Kageyama quips, giving a somewhat mean grin. 

“Not true,” Noya argues. “I am the happiest person in the world for them! But now they go on dates and I can’t come. It’s like I lost a bro.” 

“You’re so overreacting,” Yachi adds, her lips forming around high pitched syllables. “They’re here most of the time.” 

“Yeah, most but not all,” Noya pouts. 

“Give the same energy to Daichi, Suga, and Asahi next time, kay?” Tadashi laughs. 

Their friend group is a large one, consisting of most (if not all) of their highschool volleyball team. While Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi are the same age as Kei and Tadashi, Tanaka and Noya are a year older, and Kiyoko is two. Daichi, Asahi, and Suga all went to universities outside of Sendai, meaning they hardly ever see them. All in all, the rest of the group is pretty bummed about it. Kei just finds that he misses having Daichi around to reel everyone in. Now that he’s gone, that job has somehow gone to Tadashi, who is more of an enabler than anything else. 

“They’re different and you know it,” Noya frowns, opening his open beer with a hiss through his teeth. 

You lean to the side, bumping your shoulder against Kei’s. 

“Who’re Daichi, Suga, and Asahi?” You ask softly. 

“You’ve never met?” Kei furrows his eyebrows and you shrug. 

“Maybe, but if I have it was only once or twice.” 

“They’re friends from our volleyball team in highschool, but they’re two years older.” 

“Okay, so one year older than me?” 

Kei blinks a few times. “You’re a year older than me?” 

“Yeah?” You laugh a little like it’s obvious. 

“But aren’t you a fourth year?” He furrows his eyebrows. 

“I took a year off before starting college,” you shrug your shoulders. “Thought that I had to get my sillies out.” 

“Your sillies?” Kei laughs a little. 

“Yeah,” you smile, “and I had to save up some money. It makes the world go ‘round, you know?” 

“What are you guys whispering about?” Tadashi gives Kei a wry grin over the top of his beer can. 

It’s only then that Kei realizes the way you both are leaning into each other. He’s tilting his head down to hear you better and you’re leaning forward. It gives off the impression of two people conspiring, of closeness that Kei hadn’t even realized had crept up on him. 

“I was asking who Daichi, Suga, and Asahi are,” you shrug off the moment, leaning back in the chair. 

This prompts a chorus of disbelief, everyone jumping in to describe them to you. Kei takes it as a moment to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. He can feel your thigh against his, just barely there and bleeding warmth through the fabric of his jeans. 

They delve into stories about nationals, little details that Kei had forgotten a long time ago. Every now and then, someone will bring up Kei’s more-than-sour personality and he will feel the need to hide the embarrassment on his cheeks. Even though you know about it, it’s still mortifying for Kei to hear. He wants you to see the best in him, but any hopes he had of you forgetting are quickly washed away as someone brings up Kei’s relentless prodding of Kageyama’s easily pushed buttons. 

You laugh along with them like you were there, amused to hear stories about your college friends in their high school years. Kei finds himself thinking that you fit very well into this scene. 

Still though, despite the fun he’s having, Kei’s battery begins to run out quickly and after a long game of cards, he gets up to take a quick break in the kitchen. It’s not that he wants the night to end, but rather that he just needs a minute to himself and uses the idea of more snacks as an excuse for it. 

He reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a half-finished bag of chips and setting them on the counter. They’re clipped with a bright red chip-clip from the grocery store and Kei thinks that because of that, they shouldn’t have gone stale yet. If it were the peak of summer, Kei might think twice, but this time of year, they should be fine.

Then, he bends down to get a large white mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. Their plates and bowls are kept in various different cabinets, though the only reason they stay somewhat organized is because of Kei. 

“Done already?” You lean your hip against the counter. 

“With what?” Kei struggles to keep his eyes from following the line of your body. 

“Hanging out,” you smile lightly. 

“Not really,” he says. “Just needed a minute and decided to get more snacks.” 

“Wanna go sit outside for a bit then?” 

Kei glances into the living room where the group chatters away. He’d hate to be stopped on the way. 

“Relax,” you laugh. “They’re so caught up they won’t even notice that we’re gone.” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, swallowing his heart down with the spit that has pooled in his mouth. He follows you out of the front door, shutting it with a quiet click and heading down the steps of the complex and to the concrete wall lining the shrubbery outside. It’s the same place you’d come back to talk to him at all those weeks ago, though he is in considerably better spirits than he was then. 

It’s a cool night, the gentle heat of the day completely burned off to make way for a crisp breeze. He inhales, wishing that he had brought a drink to fiddle with and sip on to distract him from his nerves. 

You sit beside him, leaning back on your palms with your legs outstretched in front of you. Your hand is only a few inches from his and Kei sucks in a breath when he accidentally touches it while he gets comfortable. You only offer him a little smile in response. 

“Sorry again about bringing the troops here,” you speak first. 

“That’s really okay,” he says. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually really like them.” 

You snort. “I hope so.” 

Kei inhales louder than he intends to and when you look at him like he’s going to say something, he just holds his breath and shakes his head. The air only leaves him when you finally look away. 

“Kind of a bummer though,” you start, “I was kinda excited about just hanging out with you.” 

Kei’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows to move the metaphorical blockage. 

“We hang out all the time though,” he says like it’s enough. Of course it’s not enough. 

“Guess so,” you smile a little, though Kei can hear the distinct turn of disappointment in your voice. 

“You know,” he starts, already embarrassed at what he’s going to admit. “I wanted to be your friend for a while.” 

“Oh yeah?” you smile, opening up again and turning towards him. “Why?” 

Kei shrugs, resisting the urge to shut down completely. It’s embarrassing admitting to someone that you wanted to know them before you actually knew them. 

“You kind of reminded me of Tadashi,” he says. “And you both got along so well.” 

“Tadashi? I’m nothing like Tadashi,” you laugh, shaking your head. 

“What? No, you two are so similar,” Kei insists, lacing his fingers together. 

“What about us is so similar?” 

“Well, you’re both sociable and warm and…” Kei trails off. He can’t really think of anything else. You look at him with an expectant look in your eyes. 

“See?” 

Kei realizes that the two of you are not similar at all. Your warmth is where the similarity stops. He’d been likening you to Tadashi this entire time, not because the two of you are similar, but because you make him feel similar to the way Tadashi does. Safe and comfortable, though with the added addition of deeply awkward. He realizes that without the safety net of you being like Tadashi, he’s never had any ability to deny his feelings and with that they rage full force around the corner and slam into his chest like a heavy blow. 

“We’re nothing like each other,” you laugh and lean back against your palms. “Though, it would be cool to be like Tadashi.” 

Kei experiences the sudden realization that he doesn’t want you to be like Tadashi. Kei wants you to be like him. He wants you to be greedy and want him the same way he wants you. He wants you to be able to keep up with his turns and his moods, something he didn’t realize he wanted in the first place. If you’re like Kei, then Kei doesn’t have to be afraid of showing you the worst. You’ll have already seen it. If you’re like Kei and he loves you, then what is stopping you from loving him? 

“Even if you’re not like Tadashi, that’s fine.” His cheeks burn. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I like you all the same,” he admits quietly. 

“The same? As Tadashi?” You purse your lips a little. “I thought I was a little different. Was I wrong?” 

Kei wants to kiss you. Kei wants to kiss you so badly that his mouth has gone dry and his lips feel like they’ve separated from his body. Anything he’d thought about not wanting anything with you flies out of the window with your proximity. You’re so close to him. Close enough that if he leaned a little to the right, his shoulder would be against yours. You’re so close and you’re looking at him like you’re waiting for something, implying that somehow you’re different from Tadashi. Implying that you want him to like you differently than the way he likes his platonic friend. 

“No, you’re different,” he says, taking the bait you’ve laid in front of him. His heart pounds and he can’t look at you. He thinks he’ll kiss you if he does. 

“Am I?” 

Kei can hear the smile in your voice. It makes what you’re saying sound honeyed and curved. 

“Yeah, you are.”

“How so?” 

Kei finally raises his head to look at you. You’re grinning, leaning towards him like you’re watching a show. He feels the way his nerves rise into his throat, pressing against the very back of his tongue. He doesn’t know how to answer or what to say. Well, he does know what to say, he just doesn’t think he can. Kei is good at thinking about emotions, but when it comes time to speak them outloud, it seems that he’s still got a padlock around his throat. So he does what any logical person would do. 

Kei leans forward, pushing against his screaming nerves and trying to ignore the tremble in his hands, and kisses you. It’s awkward and his teeth click against yours before his lips fully settle against your mouth. He feels the breath you draw in, like surprise and relief mixed together, and he finds that he does the same. 

He can see the way your eyes flutter closed through his barely open ones and he realizes that your lips are so warm. He screws his eyes shut when you dip your head forward to move your lips against his. Yours are so warm and soft, like satin. A kiss has never felt like this to Kei before and he finds that he wants to catalog every single one of your reactions. Maybe that’s what he could write in the notebook. Maybe he could write down every single thing that you do that leaves him winded and wanting more. 

Neither of you reach for the other, but he can feel the knuckle of your pinky against his as you slowly kiss each other, tilting your heads side to side. There’s hunger within him, the need to take more than what he’s receiving and a greed he isn’t quite familiar with, but there’s also romance. It’s like a spell that’s yet to be broken, fed by the click of your mouths as they move together. Kei sighs, flooded with the relief of this kind of physical affection, of being honest with himself at how much he likes it. Kei loves the feel of your mouth. He loves the way your lips and tongue feel and he loves that they’re all that he can feel right now. 

The kiss lasts longer than Kei thought it would and by the time he pulls away, you’re both steadily panting and attempting to keep your breathing even. He wants to do it again. He wants it so badly that it makes his chest swell. He wants to do that with you forever, but he swallows down the desire. It’s a temporary fix, but it’s enough for him to choke out what it is he wants to say next. 

“I think I’m in really hot water,” he squeaks. 

“What do you mean?” You breathe out, the playfulness from a few moments earlier long behind you. 

“I think I want you way more than I thought I did,” he admits quietly, the first out loud admittance of his feelings to you. 

You smile a little before speaking. “I think it’s only hot water if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.” 

Your face is still so close to his. “Yeah?” 

It comes out a bit desperate, like he needs reassurance. Kei does. He’s so afraid that he thinks he could die. Afraid of the spell breaking, afraid of losing whatever moment this is and being forced to return to his one-sided pining, afraid that you don’t feel the same way.

Your face moves closer to him, breath trembling lightly. “Yeah.” 

You kiss him again, pressing your lips against his lightly before parting them. He’s so overwhelmed and so immediately lost in it. Kei feels the way your tongue teases the inside of his mouth and it makes him feel like a teenager again, swelling with desires and emotions that he can’t name. You move your hand over his, placing it lightly on top of his, and he reacts by lacing your fingers together and pushing forward more. 

Kei wants to touch you so badly, to reach up and hold your face, to touch your waist and your legs and your chest. He wants to do it all, to feel you right here under the cover of night, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you and stews in the desire, letting it swell in his chest as he listens to the clicking of your mouths. You kiss him so slowly, moving your mouth at a languid pace. It drives him crazy. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this.

“We should go back inside, I think,” you break away, your bottom lip shiny with a sheen of spit. “The others might think something’s up and Tanaka isn’t exactly good with discretion.”

Kei automatically reaches up to swipe it with his thumb. He doesn’t know where this affection comes from, where the possessive action found its origins, but he finds that he likes the way it feels to be able to do it in the first place. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kei responds, though he would have been happy to continue sitting out here with you, kissing you silly. 

You stand first, dusting off the back of your legs and waiting for Kei to follow suit. When he does, you reach quickly for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before walking in front of him. 

Kei is not sure how he should act when he goes inside. He’s tense all over, desperate to pick up where the two of you left off, and unsure if his face betrays that thought. 

“Where’d you guys go?” Tadashi asks as Kei closes the door behind him. 

In the time you’d both been gone, the living room has been transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. Empty beer cans are strewn about the tables and the blankets and pillows from the couches are now haphazardly laying around beside the couch or over people’s bodies. Then again, maybe the room always looked like this and he was just too busy thinking about how close you were to him. 

Kei doesn’t know what to say. Why had they gone outside in the first place? He’s not even sure that he remembers. 

“I wanted a cigarette and I made Kei come with me,” you answer evenly. “Why? You jealous?” 

“Of inhaling second-hand smoke? No, thanks.” Tadashi laughs, but he tosses Kei a sideways glance. Tadashi knows him well enough to know that Kei wouldn’t voluntarily stand outside with a smoker unless he was particularly fond of them. 

“Aw, man, I thought you quit?” Hinata pipes up, tilting his head. 

“I did, hot stuff,” you respond, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t worry. I won’t smoke anymore.” 

Hinata huffs and Kei takes the opportunity to sit down next to you. 

His thigh is pressed against yours, warmth seeping through his pants and into his skin. Kei feels like he could explode. You’re so close to him again, closer than before, and he can’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. He’s desperate for it, fidgety with his desire. He keeps thinking about the hot press of your mouth and the languid motion of your tongue. All he can imagine is the few points of contact between you both, mouth and hands, and how badly he wanted it to be more. He needs it. 

You touch him a few times throughout the night and the tension is so palpable that Kei is convinced he can see it. It’s like there is a rope pulled taut between the two of you. If he doesn’t stick his ground, he’ll go flying towards you, grabbing and touching and taking in the way he’s desperate to now. 

After an hour, his friends begin to grow restless. Their faces are flushed with alcohol and the things they’d been amusing themselves with are no longer enough stimulation. 

“Hey, we’re going out to the bars. Who’s coming?” Hinata speaks up. 

A chorus of agreement rings out, but the last thing Kei wants to do is go out.

“I think I’ll probably stay back and start cleaning,” he says somewhat disdainfully. “It’s a mess in here,” Kei tosses you a small glance. It’s unintentional but he’s glad for it because Kei is hoping that you’ll stay back with him, that you both can pick up where you left off. 

“I’ll stay and help too. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow anyway,” you smile and Hinata pouts. 

“You guys are so boring,” he protests. “Leave the mess for tomorrow and come out with us.” 

“I’ll pass, pipsqueak,” Kei scoffs. 

“Fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re full of regret tomorrow,” he points a finger at Kei and then moves it over to you. “And you’re too nice for your own good.” 

“Do you hear that?” You say, beginning to usher the group to the door. “I think it’s the sound of the bar and all that alcohol calling to you guys.” 

“You guys are so full of shit-” Kageyama starts, speaking up for the first time in a while, but Kei just waves him out. 

“Yeah yeah, let the grown ups clean while you guys have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

The rope is so taut between you both that it’s unbearable and by the time the door closes, you are spinning around on your heel toward Kei. 

“We’re not cleaning, right?” 

Kei shakes his head and starts towards you. The tension breaks when his hands find your hips and he hungrily leans down to press his mouth against yours. 

This kiss is different from the first, desperate and full of desire. It’s fast and your mouths move together quickly as he starts to walk you back towards his bedroom, his hands eagerly roaming up and down your hips. Vaguely, he acknowledges that his glasses have been moved out of place, but he pays it no mind as you turn the knob to his bedroom door with your back to it. 

There’s an urgency to his movements. Kei feels it in his chest, this desperate desire to be closer, to consume everything that you’ve laid out in the palm of his hand. You stumble backwards into his room and Kei catches your shifted weight with a hand around your waist. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, feeling the warm skin on your jaw and neck. His fingers tremble where they touch you, half out of desperate need and half out of the nerves that threaten to spill from his mouth. His lips though, are occupied with yours, clicking together, all tongue and teeth. 

Kei kisses sloppily down your jaw, his lips smearing across your cheek and dipping down below your ear. He sucks a trail there, unsure if he’s leaving marks, all the way down to your collarbone. Every part of you tastes better than he’d expected it to and with every push he delivers, you pull. 

You make small sounds, little pants and groans that make Kei’s hair stand on end with wanting. Your voice, so familiar and fond to him, spills out in small, breath-like bursts that make Kei want to coax more out of you. Kei’s never been one to want this way, but right now, it’s all that he feels. So much tension and impulse that he feels like he can hardly control himself. 

You reach blindly behind you for the bed and Kei guides you down, placing his hand on one side of you as you sit. Then, without disconnecting your lips, he guides you up toward the wall. 

He feels the cool tips of your fingers at the hem of his shirt, pulling downward and then upward to get him to take it off. Kei obliges you, leaning back on his knees and pulling it off over the top of his head. You eye him for a moment, the two of you slowing down enough as the urgency settles into something heavy and lingering. 

Kei leans forward again, one of his hands reaching for your hip. He slips his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt, sliding his long fingers up your stomach as he kisses you again. You’re so soft and he can feel the way your chest heaves against his palm. His touch is feather light and he slides it up evenly until it reaches just below your breast. When you nod, Kei moves it up over your bra and he feels you shudder. Kei does the same, overwhelmed by your pliability. 

He can feel the goosebumps that have raised on your skin, little pinpricks of skin that indicate that some part of you feels good. When Kei squeezes your breast, you gasp into his moan and he groans his response, letting you bite at his bottom lip. 

He feels you suck at his lips and swipe your tongue along the ridge of his mouth. When he opens it to let you in, he’s overtaken by the warmth of the soft muscle. He groans, tilting his head down to kiss you deeper, letting the taste of you spread over his mouth. It’s hot and your breath fans across his face. 

Kei hands drift from your breasts along the sides of your body. He feels the heave of your breath there against your warm skin, his palms resting on your waist. You raise your knees, the sides of them pressing against Kei’s hips. He shifts downwards slowly, dragging his mouth along your skin, past the cloth of your shirt. 

His hands make their way from your waist to your hips as he dips lower. Kei takes off his glasses, already fogged up and in the way. When he meets your eyes, you nod your permission and Kei slips between your legs, his flat palms moving to spread your thighs. 

You’re so warm and soft, so pliable in a way that Kei can’t articulate. It makes his mouth water with his desperation and he’s grown hard against the bedspread beneath him. 

“Touch me,” you breathe out. 

Kei nods into your stomach, looping his fingers around our waistband, and pulls down your pants. Your panties come with it and it’s with a slight wave of regret that he realizes he won’t get to see the way you stick to them. 

When he sees you, his heart leaps into his throat. His eagerness and his nerves catch up to him and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You shudder when the air hits your exposed cunt, an unintentional side effect of Kei’s nerves that has him grinding down against the bedspread. 

He slides his palm to rest over your center. It’s warm and sticky, wet beyond what Kei had imagined and he gingerly presses a finger between your folds. You gasp, mouth falling open above him. Then, he slides his finger into you to the first knuckle, curling up. Kei goes deeper on the second pump, curling his whole finger inside of you and feeling the way you tighten around him. 

You arch your back up off the bed and Kei groans and rolls his eyes, resting his head on the inside of your exposed thigh. He curls his fingers in you, watching the way they coat with your pleasure. His eyebrows are knit together, like he’s asking whether you like how he touches you or not, and you seem to pick up on his insecurity, nodding your head before letting it tip back against Kei’s pillows. 

Kei thinks your expression is incredible. Your eyebrows pull up in the center, pretty face twisted and mouth slightly open in an expression of undeniable pleasure. Kei’s stomach winds at the look of it and he ruts his hips against the mattress to quell the growing ache of need. His fingers, which curl at a slow and even pace inside of you, are warm with your enjoyment. It leaks between his knuckles, sliding down the back of his hand like a slow moving syrup. He wonders whether you have more to give and how you taste, his gaze slinking from your face to the place just above where his fingers disappear. 

He lowers his mouth to you without thinking, curious and needing the taste of it. Sure enough, you have more to give. Your voice comes quickly, a small gasp that is stifled by the back of your hand when he sucks sharply on your clit. Your hips push forward against his hands and then you arch up off the mattress with a small cry. Kei wonders if you’ve cum. He wonders if he’s sent you over the edge, but if he has, you’re taking all of it so well that he doesn’t dare stop. 

The taste of you spreads on his tongue, tangy and warm. You invade his senses violently, like you are gripping his throat. Kei holds his mouth to you, pressing the length of his cock into the mattress and moving his hips like he plans to fuck it. 

He moves his free hand down your thigh and onto the inside of your leg. Your skin is so soft. It’s so vulnerable, something easily pierced and bled. Kei’s pointer finger rubs gentle circles there, feeling the slight pull of the soft skin with his fingers, so thin that it almost feels like tissue paper. He’s sure that with a little pressure, you would bruise. 

The thought surprises him. He works his tongue across your clit and his fingers against that gummy spot inside of you, but his mind drifts to the softness of your inner thigh, the way it would be so easy to leave a spot that might hurt later when you press on it, remind you of exactly where he was. Then, Kei pinches you on the inside of your thigh and when you cry out, tightening around his fingers with a tapered moan, he pinches you again, harder this time. 

You whimper slightly, like you like it. No, you sound like you love it and Kei finds himself holding back a choked moan as he tries not to cum prematurely. He pinches along the inside of your legs and around the back. Not too much. Only when he feels like it. Only when he wants to hear what kind of sounds you’ll make. 

“K-Kei wait, wait,” you pant, grabbing him by his tufts of blonde hair. It hurts. He doesn’t think you mean to hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. He likes it and he twitches in his pants. 

“Huh?” He hums, detaching from your clit and slowing the movement of his fingers to a halt. Your legs shake around his handiwork. “You okay?” 

“I’ll cum if you keep going like that,” you breathe, screwing your eyes shut like you’re still on the edge. “Drag it out for me, yeah?” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Cum if you want to.” He tilts his head down to reattach his lips. 

“Not yet,” you tug at his hair. “I like chasing it.” 

Kei stares at you, unblinking and awestruck. Your chest heaves and despite the pleasure on your face, you look uncomfortable as your orgasm slips away from you. Kei likes that look on your face and he finds himself growing greedy. 

“Come here,” you coax him onto the mattress. 

Kei watches as you slip your hands into the waistband of his jeans and pull them down, leaving him on his back with his tented boxers exposed. You crawl down his body and settle between his legs with your arms between his thighs. He shudders when you run your hands up them and he briefly sees his boxers jump. 

You smile, pressing your mouth to him through his boxers. Kei can’t stifle the groan that escapes him and heat floods his face when you raise your eyebrows in response. 

“You don’t have to,” he says through gritted teeth as you slip the waistband of his boxers down. 

“But I want to,” you mumble, taking him in your hand and placing a kiss on the side of his dick. 

Kei’s head falls back against the pillow and he swears under his breath when he feels the warmth of your mouth close around the tip of him. He jerks his head up to see, awestruck by the way your lips look around the head of his cock. 

For some reason, Kei is already so sensitive. He feels everything, and when you swipe the tip of your tongue along his slit as you bob your head, he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. His fingers knot themselves in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling while you bob your head over him. 

Your mouth is so warm and wet. It’s a little messy, dripping down the length of him and onto his balls. Kei feels the warmth, the heat of you. He can still taste you on his tongue. Kei can still feel the stickiness left behind from your arousal on his mouth. The combination of you between his legs and the taste of you on his tongue is overwhelming. 

Kei can feel his orgasm growing in his lower stomach, turning over until he’s bringing his long fingers to your head in an effort to steady himself. There’s nothing he can do but give in, watching you through damp eyes as you watch his expression. 

It’s embarrassing how quickly he cums. It doesn’t take long and he teeters on the edge for a few moments before fully cresting over. Kei can’t help the way he lifts his hips from the mattress, his voice caught in his throat as it hooks on a high pitched groan. His voice cracks and he feels the way his cum collects on your tongue and across the tip of his dick in your mouth. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, red faced and panting, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to finish so quickly, you’re just-” 

“It’s fine,” you come up, your eyes glassed over and lust-filled. “I like making you feel good.” 

“Yeah but-” 

“No buts,” you crawl over him and straddle his waist. Kei winces when your weight briefly nudges his cock. “There’s still fun to be had. Can I kiss you?” 

He nods and you lean down to do as you’d asked. Your tongue moves slowly against his, less desperate this time, like you’re trying to work him down and back up again. You place your hands on his chest, settling your weight down so that your bare cunt is pressed against his sensitive cock. Kei thinks he might die. 

He brings his hands to your waist, the fatigue creeping from his bones as he digs the pads of his fingers into your fleshy sides. You draw in a breath when he does and it makes Kein feel like he’s tipping sideways with arousal. Everything that you do, right down to the involuntary twitch of your hips or eyebrows, is sexy. 

Kei turns you over, growing hard between your legs again, and gently pins you to the mattress. He kisses you for a moment longer, his lips working clumsily across yours before he pulls away to catch his breath and find his bearings. 

You chase him with your mouth, tilting your head up to kiss him. Kei feels his chest swell with arousal and his cock strains almost painfully against his pants as he peers at you. You’re so pretty. Everything about you is so pretty. On his chest, he can feel your fingers, splayed over his pecks, across his collarbone, and grazing the side of his neck. He leans closer, loving the pressure of your body and the desperation that pours from your skin. 

Kei kisses you again. He kisses you the way he wanted to outside, dipping his tongue into your mouth with a desperation that he can taste. You take control back, reaching between the two of you, and Kei shifts himself upward instinctually to give you access to him. He feels your fingers fumble for him and there’s a pause in which Kei doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this might be the part of him that you like. The awkward part, the one that doesn’t know what to do. Kei’s thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of your hand wrapping around him and tugging upward. 

His head drops and a low groan escapes his lips before he can even think to stop it. Kei’d almost forgotten his sensitivity, how desperately he wants to be touched, how overwhelming it feels. He shivers, looking down at where your hand wraps around him and pumps. When he looks back up, he finds that you’re looking at his face, your eyes glassed over and observant as you commit all of his expressions to memory. 

“What?” he says, letting out a shuddering breath and the slight overstimulation. 

“Your face is red,” you reach up with your free hand to run your thumb along his cheek. 

Kei huffs, dropping his head and you fiddle with something between the two of you.

“No,” you pick his chin up. “I like it. It’s cute.” 

You tighten your grip around him and Kei feels his expression twist, a new rush of heat and desire flooding his belly as he realizes you’re sliding a condom onto him. Then, you guide the tip of him between your legs and he feels the wet press of your entrance against him. 

“Christ,” he groans. 

You smile slightly, shifting your hips a little and then placing your hands on his shoulders. Kei pushes forward slowly, his thighs twitching. It takes everything he has to keep from cumming again and every muscle in his body screams with a desire to let go. 

Kei is so overwhelmed, partially because you feel so good, but also because there is some part of him that knows this feels different. Kei feels different about you, about being intimate with you, than he has with anyone else. There’s something alive in him, something with its own mind. Something greedy and vulnerable that stirs when your face is this close to him, when he’s buried all the way in you to the base of his cock. Emotional and sensitive, Kei feels it kick. 

His first instinct is to run. Agreeing to let himself like you, to let himself do something about it, was not agreeing to letting something live inside of him. Kei’s first thought when he registers the difference is to cut it off and suffocate it so that it stops thumping against his chest. He’d grown so used to the hollow feeling that the feeling of living emotion makes him nervous, it puts him on edge. But when he pulls out a few inches and fucks back into you, the anxiety dispels into insurmountable pleasure. A pleasure Kei can’t describe, something fulfilling and whole. 

He picks up his pace, letting himself do what he wants while you grip his shoulders with blunted nails. He likes the expression you wear. Truthfully, he likes all of your expressions, but this one is new. Pressure and pleasure, a newness to the feel of him inside of you that you can’t quite keep from your eyes or lips. He kisses you as if he could taste it, slipping his tongue between your lips. 

“I really like you,” you mumble against his mouth, breath hot as it fans across his cheeks. 

Kei’s heart hammers and his hips stutter a little. 

“Me too,” he chokes, trying to think about volleyball to stave off a second orgasm. All that comes to mind though, is you. 

“Are you close again?” you breathe, voice laden with pleasure. 

“I have been since we started,” Kei admits. 

“Cum then,” you say softly, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth back to yours. Kei likes the control you exhibit. He groans his approval.

“You first,” he mutters.

There’s this possessive part of Kei that wants to watch you fall apart on him. He wants to see it, to watch you feel good too and commit it to memory so that he can always keep it. He thinks it’s a pride thing, something attached to his desire to succeed, to his reliability. Maybe though, it’s just because he thinks it’ll look hot. 

He reaches down and lifts one of your legs up by the back of your knee, pressing it down to give himself better access. You whine and Kei feels the way you clench down around him, your fingers knitting into the hair at the back of his neck. It hurts in a good way. 

Kei slips his hand between you, rubbing circles on your clit to get you there faster. Frankly, he doesn’t know how much longer he can last like this, staring down at your face while it twists with pleasure. You’re so attractive to him. Everything about you is sexy. It makes Kei a little crazy. 

He listens as your breathing quickens, as your voice wavers further. He feels the way your cunt begins to flutter faster, pulsing around him until you attempt to cry out and warn him. Then, you clamp down around him, arching your hips up off the mattress and pulling at his hair. Kei moves his head with you, relishing in the way you tug and scratch. 

He builds up to his orgasm so fast that it hurts. There’s pressure and then the mounting feeling of nearing the top, and then the peak and crash. He cums so hard that it hurts, pushing his cock as far as it will go into you and feeling the warm spill of his cum in the condom. He moans a long, drawn out sound that you mimic, his fingers knitting into the pillow behind you and his head dropping so that his lips sit near your neck.

He lets out a shaky breath, letting himself sit inside of you for a moment. You turn his head towards yours and kiss him. It’s gentle. A smooth and languid kiss that neither of you moves to deepen. Your lips move against each other and Kei closes his eyes to savor the taste. 

You tap his shoulder and Kei rolls over onto the bed beside you, snapping the condom off with a small wince and tying it up in a quick motion. He places it in the trash bin beside the bed. When he turns over, you’re already moving to slip under his arm, resting your head on his chest. 

There’s a passing moment of silence, not unlike the ones you both have fallen into before and you sigh lightly against his exposed chest. Kei follows suit, watching the way you move with his breath. 

His skin is sticky against yours and Kei can vaguely register the smell of sweat in the room. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since everyone left, nor does he know when they’ll be back, but he estimates that it won’t be more than an hour. Kei briefly wishes that he could pause time so that he can stay here with you, just like this. 

“I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Kei admits quietly. 

“What stuff?” You ask, tracing your finger along the ridges of his lean abdomen. 

“Liking people,” he says. “Dating.” 

You give a small laugh. “No offense, Kei, but I could tell that from the moment I met you.” 

“Shit, seriously?” 

“Duh,” you breathe out. “It’s a little charming to me, though. I like that part of you.” 

So it’s true. You like the parts of Kei that he’s always worried were the worst of him. 

“Huh,” he says. “Could you tell?” 

“That you like me?” You ask, shifting your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was obvious after we established that you didn’t hate me. I always noticed you staring in the library.” 

“Really? I thought I was being a little slick with that,” Kei feels heat and color flood his face. 

You let out a good-natured laugh. “People can always tell when someone’s staring, Kei. It’s like a sixth sense.” 

“Good to know. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.” 

Another bout of silence follows. 

“You can keep staring though,” you say, “if you want to. And calling.”

“Okay,” Kei responds, “I didn’t really plan on stopping.” 

“Ha, freaky,” you laugh a little and Kei reaches up to flick the side of your head. “Wanna start going out?” 

Kei thinks about this for a moment. He thinks about being able to hold your hand, brush hair out of your face, watch movies on the couch and fix your breakfast the next morning. Then he thinks about not being able to do those things. 

“I think I’d be a little upset if we didn’t,” he admits. 

“Good,” you say. “Me too.” 

He’s fighting off sleep. His eyelids are heavy and he tries to blink away the shroud of rest that’s falling over him. Kei knows you’re fighting it too. Your breathing goes in and out of that familiar breathing that comes with sleep. Kei likes the way it sounds coming from you, restful and quiet. 

“We should… really get up to clean just a little,” he mumbles. 

“Five more minutes,” you say softly, your voice heavy and laden with drowsiness. 

“Okay,” he says. 

It’s just five more minutes. Kei fights sleep to hear you breathe like this a little longer. 

—

There’s a period after which Kei doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like the awkward start to a new hobby or passion, Kei finds himself enthralled with his budding relationship while simultaneously stumbling continuously along the way. You’re gracious with him though, letting him make mistakes and fumble until he finds his footing. 

It’s all very awkward for him, very new. He finds that it’s easier to just do the nice things he wants to do for you than to agonize over it and slowly, he begins to grow comfortable in the relationship that took you both so long to begin. 

At first, only Tadashi knew about you both. Kei thought that there was no point in hiding it from him, since you were over at the apartment all the time. Of course, Tadashi somehow already knew. That’s how it usually goes anyway, and Kei is relieved to find that his internal change did not trigger some global shift that would turn his life upside down. Everything is normal, save for the fact that Kei now tries to love without hindrance. 

Kei discovers that he’s possessive. That’s a new trait of his that he didn’t know belonged to him. Before you, before Kei had found something he so desperately wanted to keep, he’d been rather detached. Possessiveness was rare because Kei hardly ever got attached enough to want. Now though, he wants so badly that it hurts. You lean into it. Kei suspects that you like it when he wards off people who hit on you, when he pouts a little because he wants to be close to you, when he gets a little jealous. Kei doesn’t really mind it either. After all, despite his possessiveness, he never feels insecure. The both of you make sure of that. 

This sunny period with you, the one Kei worried would only last a week, drifts easily from one month into two and before he knows it, it’s been five. Kei had worried about that fundamental change. The one imperceivable to the human eye. He’d worried that slowly, it would begin to spoil what is so good between the two of you. 

“Kei,” you snap him out of it, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you okay?” 

He sets down his cup of tea, barely touched. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?” You give him a wry smile. “This was your idea, after all.” 

“Yeah, well it was a pretty shit idea actually,” he breathes, “My parents aren’t exactly easy.” 

“You want to cancel?” You ask, your eyebrows pulling up in a clumsy attempt to hide your disappointment. Kei can see right through it.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you to meet them. I just don’t want you to meet them.” 

The truth of it is that Kei would like to cancel. In an ideal world, one where the sun rises on the opposite side of his bedroom window, he’d forget the whole thing and take you out to get dinner and see a movie. Things would be simpler that way, less uncomfortable for the both of you. But as uncomfortable as it is, Kei wants you to be a part of their lives too. You’re too important to not introduce to his parents and Kei can’t see it any other way, though he’d like to. 

You snort. “What does that even mean?” 

Kei gives you a pointed and somewhat irritated look. 

“Okay, sorry,” you raise your hands defensively and walk over to place them on his shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’m excited.” 

Kei huffs out a laugh, unable to vocalize his nerves in their totality. “Excited to meet my dysfunctional, divorced parents that kind of hate each other?” 

“Yup. I’m excited to meet the people who raised you.” 

Kei smiles a little. “You should meet Akiteru, then,” It’s an exaggeration, but for some reason the prospect of seeing both of his parents together has him feeling a little more bitter than usual, even if it was his idea. 

You give him a little grin through narrowed eyes. There’s an understanding that passes from you to him, like you’re acknowledging that you haven’t forgotten what he’d told you nearly six months ago. Kei feels the tension in his shoulders relax a little. 

His parents are already at the restaurant when he arrives. It’s a swanky Italian place. The kind you go to on birthdays or for anniversaries, where the pasta dishes are things like lobster mushroom ravioli or truffle oil fettucini in tiny portions. Kei made sure to book somewhere that his parents would have trouble making a scene in, not that they ever had much of a mind for decorum when they were married. He’s surprised to find them chatting cordially when you both arrive. 

“Kei,” his mother stands from the table and crosses to give him a hug. He pats her back gently.

“Hi Mom,” Kei responds and she gives him a small smile. 

Kei’s dad adjusts the lapel of his suit, the same one he’s had for years, and reaches to give him a hug around one shoulder. 

“Guys,” he inhales, “This is my partner, _____.” 

You grin at Kei and then introduce yourself formally to his parents. Kei watches in awe as you blend right in, like you’ve known them for many years. He sits down while trying to keep the nerves from his face. 

“We’re so happy to meet you,” his mother starts, “Kei’s never introduced us to any of his partners before.” 

“I’m the first?” You smile a little, raising an eyebrow at Kei as if to tease him. 

“There really haven’t been that many to begin with,” Kei grumbles as if that somehow makes it better. 

You laugh again and the ball of conversation begins rolling. His mother tells you how pretty you are and his father nods a quieter approval. They talk about his university’s graduation ceremony, which they attended separately, as if they were together the entire time and then ask about your major, if you graduated with him, where you plan on going. You tell them what you want to do and that you want to go wherever Kei goes. He marvels at how smoothly the evening moves onward.

There are moments where the tension in his family becomes obvious. Little swells or comments that bring up a sour or shameful memory that cannot be ignored. Moments when the air thickens and it feels like the hammer is about to come down. It never does though. The tension, rather than snapping, simply fades away. 

He’d expected everything to blow up for some reason. Kei had expected that, like his childhood, the restaurant dishes would end up smashed on the floor. The glassware always ended up broken in the house, why shouldn’t they be broken here to shatter the illusion of things being good? He braces himself for a ball that never drops.

It takes him until the ride home, after a successful dinner, to realize that the dishes haven’t been smashed in years. Not since he was fourteen and his parents fought for custody. Not since his mother got remarried to her now husband almost 6 years ago and his father met his new wife. Kei wonders why he still feels like he lives in that house. The one his parents were at their worst in. Why can’t he feel like he lives in the apartment he rents with Tadashi? 

“I think that went well,” you say softly on the drive back. 

Kei nods his agreement. “I think so too.” 

You don’t bring up the fact that they didn’t fight, or that they spoke about their new kids with each other as if they were old friends. You don’t accuse Kei of being wrong, of being paranoid even though he most definitely was. 

“I’m glad that I got to meet them,” you say. “You look so much like your mom.” 

“Really?” Kei asks. 

“Yeah, you’ve got her eyes and her nose,” you smile a little. “It makes you two look similar.” 

“Huh,” he says. “I never really gave that much thought.” 

Kei turns the idea that he has his mother’s face over in his head. He’d spent so much time dreading that he was like them on the inside, that he never paused to consider the outside. So much of his life has been spent worrying that he’s just like them. That he breaks the plates and lashes out and acts cruelly even when he’s trying to love. But he has his mother’s eyes and for some reason that unsettles him. It’s like evidence. 

“You don’t really act like them though,” you say as if on cue. “You’re a little gentler.” 

“Me? Gentle?” Kei scoffs. 

“Yeah!” you say. “I mean, sure you’re prickly, but there’s a goodness to you that’s really obvious if you look.” 

Goodness. What a strange word to use to describe someone. Kei thinks that if there’s any goodness in him, if there’s anything that hasn’t been tainted by his parents’ sour personalities, it’s from Akiteru. Kei likes to believe that whatever good he got was from him. No matter how strained his relationship with him might be now, Kei is certain of that. 

“That’s a relief,” he admits in a flat tone. 

After a long pause, he speaks again. “Thanks.” 

“For what?” You laugh. 

“Bearing with me… and with them,” he says. “Couldn’t have been easy.” 

“It was easy,” you say. “Because I wanted to meet them. And I care about you.” 

Kei feels color rise to his cheeks. He turns to look in the sideview mirrors as he pulls the car into a parking spot in his apartment complex’s garage. 

“You say that stuff so easily,” he huffs. 

“What? That I care about you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, I do,” you laugh a little.

Kei’s face grows hotter and he distracts himself by putting the car into park and taking the key out of the ignition. 

“Me too,” he says quietly, waiting for you to catch up so that he can take your hand in his. “Sorry that I don’t say it a lot.” 

“Not to be rude,” you say, “but even if you never said it at all, it would be obvious. You’re kind of a sucker.” 

Kei supposes that that’s true and he gives a small laugh before nudging your shoulder with his. The parking garage is humid and stuffy, but he holds your hand in it anyway. 

—

You’re half asleep in bed beside him and your breathing comes in even sweeps the way it does just before you fall asleep. Kei listens to it for a moment, admiring the sound of it and the way your chest feels expanding against his. 

He thinks about dinner, about how good it feels to have introduced you. How real it makes this relationship feel despite the uneasiness surrounding his familial situation. Kei thinks about his parents. He thinks about their inability to be good for each other. He thinks about the worst of them, something he’s familiar with, before thinking about the best of them. Kei imagines the way their faces looked at dinner, talking about the children they’re raising properly. They’re good people, they just made each other bad. Molecular shifts that changed them for the worst. The notebook theory in its most frightening form. But they were good too. 

Kei thinks about loving you. His reluctance to do so originally isn’t quite beyond him yet. He’s unsure, in fact, if he’ll ever really get past the fear of the fall, the fear of becoming what his parents made each other. But he also thinks about his promise to love you for real. Love is not something that Kei does. He knows now that it's something that happens to him, like it happened to his parents. They loved each other once, even if it made them so blind that they couldn’t see just how bad it made them. 

Kei still resents the fact that he was born to fix a marriage that never would have worked in the first place. He resents being a fix rather than a gift, but at the very least, his existence is proof that his parents cared enough about their family to try. Even if it was misguided, at least they tried even a little. 

In the quiet after of an emotionally charged evening, loving you seems like an easier task for him now. It’s not hard to love you. What’s hard, Kei thinks, is not hurting you. He carries a lot of baggage that, for a long while, felt like too much. Kei thinks he can manage if it’s for you. He’ll bear the brunt of it. He’ll put in the work. 

Yes, Kei is his parents’ son, but he’s also Tadashi’s friend, Akiteru’s brother, the person who loves you. He doesn’t live in the house with a bin full of shards and no glassware anymore. 

“Are you awake?” He whispers across the pillow. 

“Mhm,” you hum, pushing your cheek into his arm.

“Let’s move in together,” he says. 

You tense against him and slowly attempt to blink away sleep. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he responds. “I want to live with you.” 

“Okay then,” you smile a little. “Let’s do it.” 

—

In the fall, when his lease with Tadashi ends and his friend gives him a tearful, yet somewhat silly goodbye, Kei moves into your new shared apartment. Two small rooms in a modest part of town, a shared kitchen and living room, one bathroom, a mismatch of furniture from both of your old places, and an empty fridge. The first night is spent eating take out on the floor with you in front of a TV with no proper stand. Kei has never been happier. 

And in the morning, when the sun comes through the slats of his window, broken up into gentle dots by the orange-leaved trees outside, Kei rises slowly. He rises gently. Kei doesn’t want to wake you, not before he’s made breakfast. He pads out to the kitchen, where boxes are strewn about, half unpacked, and grabs the little brown notebook from the box it’s been temporarily living in. In it, he writes a grocery list full of the things you like. It’s a good enough reason, a good enough change. 

The notebook theory. 

[the-saltiest-saltine]

Reservations and Repose

(Yan!Chrollo x Fem Reader)

@sukunasfavoritehole hopefully this is enough to tide you over until my ao3 finally gets an update hehe

Word count: ~7.3k

------

You’re naïve enough to believe Chrollo’s asleep. He loves that about you.

Warnings: NOT SFW, non -con thigh fucking, somnophilia, drugging, imagined not sfw scenarios etc

a/n: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG IT WAS 3/4 FINISHED THEN I FORGOT ABOUT IT my sincerest apologies.

Also this is my first time writing smut so please go easy on me 😥

Chrollo is very disappointed in you.

You let him kiss your cheek this morning following a deep sleep. You didn’t reciprocate, though he continues to see your progress and knows that an ever-hopeful yet can be added to the end of that statement. To some extent, the allowance of such an act could be chalked up to his acceptance of you, flaws and all, willing to appreciate the neutrality of it as opposed to ardent rejection. In a matter of weeks, you’ll be returning the gesture. And in a matter of months, you’ll be doing it gladly. Warmth, or perhaps weariness, has slowly but surely seeped its way into your actions recently, your shaky hands finding a place in his, fingers interlaced.

Is that to say he was under the impression that you’d completely given yourself to him? Absolutely not. There’s fear in your smiles, as much as they may have metamorphosed from obviously and mockingly forced to meek and endearing. Chrollo has shown you all that you know he can do. This has been enough to keep you relatively restrained over the months. If he showed you all that he knows he can do, you’d most likely curl up into a ball and sob until you dried out. That’s not necessary, though. It’ll never be.

Like many things, it wasn’t linear. It was a path that went upwards and downwards and forwards and backwards and in cycles, cycles that would always leave you curled up, sobbing in his arms, grasping onto him for whatever comfort it would give. But progress is progress, right?

Ignorantly, he began to believe the crumbs of affection, of acceptance, of acquiescence. Stupidly, he thought you were making progress. It’s been a significant amount of time since he was last this naïve. If he wasn’t so disgruntled by your transgression, he’d most likely bask in the nostalgic feeling. But he can’t, for the time being, because you’re trying to do something very rash.

As unfortunate as it is, you’re trying to leave him.

It’s audacious, having thought that the monumental power difference between you two had been thoroughly demonstrated on multiple occasions, a well established and silently acknowledged fact of your travels with him.

It’s irritating, although regarded with the same irritation as one would have with a pet goldfish trying to jump out of its tank. You silly thing, why do you want to abandon the place in which you are safe?

It doesn’t particularly make sense, though. He’s checked his cards - nothing suspicious has been bought in his name. No travel tickets or prepaid car hire. He’s even checked the jewellery collection - maybe you’d snatched up a nice necklace or bracelet or pair of diamond earrings to pawn off. But again, nothing. No suspicious bags have been packed. No loose tiles or floorboards or ceiling panels to hide supplies in. Your clothes are all neatly folded and hung in your wardrobe. 

You’ve got something up your sleeve- something desperate and jittery and not fully thought out. Something that relies on luck and prayers far more than precision and blow-by-blow planning. He never particularly took you for a daredevil, but to see you get pushed to such a limit, to be forced against your own timid nature, is beyond satisfying. If he could pluck it out of you and analyse it under a microscope, he’d be elated. Or perhaps even, he supposes to himself, he’d be so fulfilled that he might abandon the current pathway of his life, aimless and bloody and cyclical, finally so consumed with his obsession over you that nothing else is valued in the slightest. 

He can’t say he didn’t expect an ulterior motive for your apparent benevolence, at least initially, but for it to be kept up for this long? The stares felt almost too natural. The gradual lessening of your flinches when he placed a hand on your shoulder, the way your gaze would be drawn to him rather than away, even if only to flick away immediately - the subtleties were downright impressive. To be able to track everything simultaneously, to be able to remember to exhibit so many behaviours at once…Perhaps he should be taking acting lessons from you.

Chrollo had watched you, humming a pop tune this morning, cheekily shaking your hips from side to side as you fried some eggs, over easy, the notes sometimes interrupted with a sharp inhale between your teeth when the oil spat just a bit too high and would burn you ever-so-slightly. A domestic sight.

You’d let him give you another kiss on the cheek before he shrugged his coat on, giving you one last lingering glance before he’d walked out the door and into the hallway of the apartment, locking it with warm Nen made of comfort rather than capture. He gave you another cheek kiss (despite his ever-growing urge to dip lower) when he got home to the smell of spices and vegetables and the bubbling sound of a low simmer. You don’t fight them anymore, and barely even recoil now, a result of steady but slight crossing of boundaries - his record was eleven times in one day (at least, his record for when you were conscious) when he was feeling particularly affectionate, although you’d definitely soured up by the end.

The…fantasies he’d had of domesticity…they were just that, weren’t they? Fantasies, mere ideas that were appealing enough to fully flesh out in his mind. Whatever actions you’ve taken, whether it be pecks to the cheek or folding his shirts, staining them with the scent of you, they’ve all been a means to an end. That certainly wasn’t part of the fantasy. 

You’ve been buttering him up like the thick slices of white bread next to his bowl. What a betrayal.

Tonight’s stew is spicy and chunky, served courteously by you. His palate is experienced from an adulthood of travel, wealth, and nights spent with gullible women who couldn’t tell the difference between a Prince Charming and a swindler. Truly, there is little he hasn’t at least tried. Including this.

So, if there’s no other signs of you wanting to leave the comfort of the apartment and the familiarity of his presence, then what could’ve possibly cued him into your motives?

It’s something tenuous, something that could’ve gone unnoticed to anyone else. It’s something subtle, buried under layers of rosemary and thyme and paprika. But diphenhydramine is such an acquired taste. And it’s one that’s made the past few weeks and months crumble to dust.

Oh, you sweet thing.

Acting as oblivious as ever, he spoons chunks of zucchini and carrot onto the bread, taking large bites, chewing and swallowing with purpose, the taste of the sedative lingering. He considers smacking his lips for good measure, to play around with you a bit, but eventually decides against it. That’ll come later.

You sit across from him, silence between you two. Normally, he’d fill it with tales from his busy day - but you’ve been so good lately, that he’s begun to refrain from doing that. Nowadays, he asks you what you’ve been up to, every painstaking detail from your dull days without him. But that’s only if you’ve been good, or at least if he’s under the impression that you’ve been good. As it turns out, you haven’t been good, you aren’t being compliant, and now he simply waits.

You stare into your bowl of stew, but he can tell you’re watching him in your periphery. It’s so very fascinating, the way you absorb each mouthful he takes, washed down with frequent sips of water (there’s no other substances in that, obviously). He takes another swill of the liquid, tilting his head slightly back, and in the corner of his eye, he can see the way you observe his Adam's apple bobbing with each gulp. Does it appease you, the sight? Does it intrigue you? Does it make you, even for a moment, reconsider what you’re about to do?

Chrollo pauses for a moment, before placing the half-empty glass back onto its coaster. He knows the smirk that comes onto his face is nothing short of wicked, but he truly can’t help himself. 

“Are you not hungry, my love? You’ve barely touched your food.”

Barely is an understatement. You haven’t touched it at all, in fact. Stupid, really. He knows that you know that he’s observant - but that information is irrelevant in this situation, considering it doesn’t take an keen eye to figure out your pattern of stirring your spoon around, picking up some carrot - even blowing on it for good measure - and nodding along with what few words he spoke initially, before giving an mhm! of agreement and letting it drop back into the bowl. You spend extensive amounts of time apparently fishing for just the right piece of zucchini, sorting through copious amounts of lentils (and seemingly taking the time to individually count them all), dragging chunks up the side of your bowl only to push them back down into the fray of assorted vegetables.

There’s almost a sort of jump in response to the words, ringing clear and well projected. But it’s contained above the shoulders - your head snaps to look at him, your eyes widening momentarily, staring into his own, trapped.

He can feel the shaky breath you take to steady yourself from over here, air stagnant and mouth dry.

“No,” you reply, “not particularly.”

He cocks an eyebrow at that, mouthing an oh before returning to his meal. It doesn’t matter whether you take the bait or not, his suspicions have long since been confirmed. Confirmed, in the sternest sense of the word, syllables enunciated with force, the knowledge of your true intentions well recognised. Whether that displays on his face or within his interactions with you is inconsequential to the known ending of your silly stunt.

The sound of you chewing is enough to bring his attention back out of the bowl. That’s not fake.

So you’re eating it too? It’s certainly a bold move, but one he wouldn’t dare put past you anymore. You were always a clever one, one to be placed a mere few tiers below his own intellect.

He hasn’t caught you swapping the bowl out for a fresh one. Maybe you’ve mastered the art so quickly that even he can’t notice?

No, not likely. Not in just a few months. That’d be impossible.

Your bites of pumpkin are preceded with the slightest hesitation, a quick breath to presumably psych yourself up to the self-sabotage. He hates to see you so scared when you’re properly sharing a meal with him like this, deciding to return to normalcy as a reward for your cooperation.

“Tell me, darling, what did you get up to today?”

Your eyes flick to his, momentarily ensnared in the grey, before looking up at the ceiling to aid in the process of giving a verbal description of what you read, how you cleaned, how you entertained yourself with rearranging your meagre book collection (not his, that would be asking for trouble). The response is practically identical to every other time he’s asked the question, plain and unindulgent. It’s boring, he thinks, even with the unacknowledged omission of the hours you spend staring at the walls and pacing around the living area. He’s tempted to pry into how you decided on tonight’s dish, but decides against it. Not for lenience or mercy, but rather amusement. To give away what he knows now would simply be a waste of a situation you’ll never attempt to put yourself in again.

If you knew what Chrollo knew, would you still bother to indulge him?

You stare at him for a moment, allowing him to draw things out, before nodding at the I see he gives in response. He gives a forward nod to your bowl, giving you gracious permission to eat again after starving you for the length of your interrogation, merciful as ever. Your fear is better contained behind a split second’s confusion before you register the nonverbal instruction, picking up your spoon once more and eating with more confidence this time, taking exaggerated bites of zucchini that barely make it past your teeth, chewed excessively into grey paste before being swallowed. Maybe you reason that if you chew enough, you can break the drug down into something that won’t knock you out. A cute thought.

The spices stain your lips an enticing red, the chilli making them plump up so deliciously. If he kissed them, would they burn him? Would the capsaicin leave his lips tingling, a reminder of your soft touch?

He likes to think he’ll know the answer soon.

Chrollo feigns sleepiness, furrowing his brows in mock confusion as he tells you that he can’t quite keep his eyes open - perhaps he overdid it at work today. 

Yes, work, as he loves to call it, like there’s the possibility of him spending his time away from you at a desk, punching in numbers on a computer, monotonous and repetitive and damn, couldn’t things just switch up for a day? Work, as in a beer-bellied husband whose idea of experimental fashion is changing which tie he wears with the same white button-up and black dress pants each day. Work, as in an assembly line employee who wakes up at three o’clock to be at the factory by four, ready and willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to support his loved ones. Work, as in something at least vaguely respectable.

Work, as in literally anything other than stealing and slaughtering and scourging.

Chrollo relishes in the way your shoulders relax a little. It’s almost too adorable. Chrollo also relishes in the way they tense up again when he adds how it’s suspicious really. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt a tiredness such as this.

There’s an underlying anxiety in your pretty, pluckable, ever-so-slightly bloodshot eyes. Where others would be concerned for your health, he finds endearment, you precious thing. After admiring them silently for a moment, he announces that he’ll be off to bed now, darling. Remember to be there for me when I wake.

He leaves you alone in the kitchen to stew in your unease.

____________

Now he’s lying in bed, on the side closest to the door, limp as anything. It doesn’t matter whether his facade convinces you or not, he’ll have you in his arms by morning. The blinds aren’t fully down, leaving a pleasant blue hue that gives him a good visual of most of the room. Your side of the bed is still firmly tucked in from when he made it this morning, after running his hands up and down your arms until you’d given a great shudder and shoved him away - a pitiful attempt that he’d impishly gone along with. 

Anticipation tickles his nose and prods at his heart. Childishly, he wants you to get over with it already, to sprint in, swinging a knife wildly, or cue him to start the chase with a slam of the front door so violent that the hinges threaten to crack. It’s unfortunate how your faux compliance conditioned him to be unable to accept a halt, or even slowing, of progress.

Ah, some solace - he can hear your footsteps come up to the door, attempting, albeit poorly, to be quiet. Or maybe they are quiet, to the average man, but someone well-versed in the art of stealth can practically see the way you tiptoe closer. The faint sounds paint a detailed visualisation of your movements - the balls of your feet lifting from the ground, the flexing of your toes, the dorsiflexion at your ankles, the soft thud of your heels hitting the ground.

The bedroom door creaks open, a thin streak of light hitting his eyelids, making him see an ever-so-slight orange behind them. He might be able to visualise your walk accurately, but the same cannot be said for your face. Are you fearful, lips downturned and eyes wide? Are you determined yet cautious, eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line? Are you smug? Condescending? Grinning from ear-to-ear, excited to finally have what you believe to be freedom?

You’re not, he discerns.

Instead, you huff a sigh, a sweet note that makes his heart jump, a small flutter that could only be instigated by you. It’s a sigh of relief. The door is shut. He expects another door to be slammed, too - the front door, hinges quaking as you sprint to the stairs as far as you can, too scared to wait for the elevator (and for your sake, he hopes you’ve brought a pair of running shoes - you’re on the 35th floor, after all). But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, he can hear the clanking of bowls and dishes, the smooth schwip as you push breadcrumbs off the chopping board into the bin with the back of the serrated-edge knife, and how you place said knife into the block without taking another one out.

So you’ve decided against stabbing him tonight? How agreeable.

In fact there seems to be no malice in the way you’re stacking the bowls, no scraps of extra force in how you shut the fridge. Whilst the sounds of your cleanup are nothing short of a ruckus to his alert ears, there’s an intentional tenderness he can hear. A conscious effort to be as quiet as possible with somebody sleeping peacefully in the next room.

It’s a gesture he’ll interpret in the best way he can. Even if he knows he’s deluding himself that you want to be quiet for his own peace rather than so you can escape, he’ll be sure to bring up the former as reasoning for your actions over the next few days, regardless of how you’ll spit venom at him, hissing that he couldn’t be more wrong.

Next is a movement he didn’t expect in the slightest.

You come back to the bedroom, with a pile of fabric in your hands - clothes, maybe? He thought you’d be off and away as soon as possible, or you wouldn’t get close to him again at the very least, standing patiently by the door until whatever you’re waiting for had occurred. 

The quiet-ish footsteps make their way past him this time, and straight into the ensuite.

There’s the soft sound of clothes falling, and then the tap is turned on.

You’re…showering before you leave?

You really are a good teacher of the quirks of humanity. Logical as ever, he’d most certainly take no time for hygiene practices if it reduced his chances of being able to go on a small, liberating adventure. But perhaps that’s part of the plan? Do you not want to have a speck of dirt on you so you don’t smell bad? Will you hide out at a fancy gala, and have to be as fresh as possible? Are you trying to wash off Nen, perhaps? 

No, that would never work, and he’s certain you know this too. Still, the idea of a little hopeless fire in you, taking a precaution you know is futile, makes his lips twitch.

So many questions, few of them answerable at present. His mind is stimulated so wondrously, for once not finding boredom in the predictability of human behaviour. He’s truly chosen well. 

And then there’s something else, rising above the sound of the rushing water, above the drain gurgling it down, greedily gulping it away.

You’re humming.

It’s relatively random, most likely improvised, and slightly off-tune, but endearing all the same. He can taste the notes, sweet and soothing, running down his throat smoothly and pooling warmth in his belly. 

You heave a sigh, and the tune changes. And then he recognises it.

It’s something he heard as a boy, back in Meteor City. He’d hear it at night, walking back to whatever semblance of a refuge he had with Franklin and Shalnark, past the hamlets of the younger children. Letting himself get lost in it, he can feel himself crawling to shelter on scraped knees, walking on calloused heels, eating stale bread, all accompanied by the faint smell of garbage, a smell that years of exposure had waned to a neutral accompaniment of the setting, rather than an inconvenience or hazard.

Despite the unhygienic nature of it all, it’s sweet. It’s these memories - memories of grime and rot and infection - that are the most pure. The most uncorrupted. They’re full of innocence and hope - just like you.

These qualities make you think you’ll leave him.

Upon remembering this, he’s tempted to barge in and ruin your peace, eager to hear your inevitable yelp and nervous laugh as he quizzes you about tonight’s events. But he doesn’t. Your lullaby is too enjoyable, the tune far too agreeable to stomp out yet. Resisting sin by committing another, he decides he doesn’t want to kill this mockingbird, if only to selfishly continue to hear it sing.

Few moments have come like this since you came to be with him. They’re all short-lived in comparison to the cold life he’s had, a firecracker popping on his tongue, fleetingly filling his mouth with syrupy sweetness before quickly dying off, barely an aftertaste to be savoured. He’s scratched them all down in an old leather journal with a quill and ink, lest he forgets what it feels like, or how to get that feeling again, but thankfully they’re scratched even deeper into his psyche. 

You’d been agreeable enough for a reward of a dinner somewhere several stories up, city lights shining behind you, framing your hair beautifully. You were reluctant at first, turning your nose up at him and the priceless food in front of you, opting for the bottle of red wine instead. It wasn’t supposed to be gulped down with such vulgarity like that, but that was part of your charm and by your second glass you were giggling and halfway through your third you looked at him right in the eye, cheeks tinged pink, and you smiled a smile that you’d forget by morning but he wouldn’t…

He’d returned to the villa after a long day to find the fans blasting, and you slumped over on the couch as credits rolled on the screen in front of you. He’d flicked the TV off, not before noting the rom-com’s name, and regarded you, with your deep, even breaths and singlet strap falling down. He picked you up and carried you to bed, laying you down on the thin blankets, fixing your strap despite the small voice that called to him to take off the thing entirely. Your head rested on the pillow, your face not scowling for once, and you’d huffed the sweetest of sighs…

That’s the kind of moment this is.

There’s no thought of what he’ll be doing with the troupe tomorrow, or in a week, or what move to make next depending on what you decide to do. Every nook and cranny of his mind, every convolution of his brain is filled with the thought of you. Tonight, it’s warm and viscous, slowing time and cutting both of you off from the rest of the world; the rest of its filth.

In this moment, he can see himself in the shower with you. He’s across from you, lathering body wash onto his shoulders, letting the foam run down his back. All the while, he keeps his gaze on you, watching how your hands run over your body, soap running along your sternum, between your breasts, along the curve of your hips, your ass, all whilst you hum that tune… shit, he can’t let himself get hard now. He manages to drag himself out of the daydream, barely, just managing to claw himself to the surface of reality.

Caps are popped open and the lathering of soaps can be heard over the course of your performance, with a finale of the tap being turned off. There’s a fumbling of fabrics before you come out, followed by yet another move he doesn’t expect.

You walk up to the bed, peel the sheets back, and lie down beside him. You then roll onto your side, facing him. After a few moments, you prop yourself up onto your elbow.

A moment of nothing. You’re frozen, as is he. Calm before the storm, he prepares himself to catch your wrist and hear you shriek.

You lean over.

And then there’s a featherlight sensation on his forehead, right in the middle of his tattoo. 

Had it been a split second later, he would’ve opened his eyes and turned to face you with a smirk as you screamed. But it’s not a split second later, it’s now, and now you’re kissing him. There’s no real benefit for doing such a thing that he can identify right now - perhaps you know he’s awake, and would like to make amends? Surely you know that that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him.

The contact sends an electric zap to every corner of his body, although he manages to not make himself jolt. Months of stifled desire bubble up from his insides, desire that’s spent so long smothered by rationale of better outcomes and forcing himself to think of his bloodied obstacles and late nights alone in the shower. As often as his lips find their way to your forehead, unfortunately the reverse doesn’t occur even half as much.

You pull away, like you’re hesitant about what you’ve done, like you’re waiting for him to snap his eyes open and sit up with inhuman speed, ready to pin you down or tie you up or even slap you for tonight’s inconveniences. But that doesn’t make sense, because hesitation is supposed to occur before such an intrepid act, not afterward.

After receiving apparent confirmation that you’re not about to be attacked, he can sense your head slowly but surely coming to rest on your pillow. You shouldn’t strain your neck like that, someone like you could get hurt over time.

The back of his shirt is peeled up, slowly, delicately, and he has to focus to keep his breathing even.

There you lie, staring at the twelve-legged spider etched into his skin, his number a pale contrast to the black ink, practically jumping out at you.

0.

It’s your reminder, he supposes, of what he is. Theoretically and legally nonexistent, practically traceless. Zero evidence. Zero remorse. Zero morality.

Zero.

Then-

One, two, three.

Your lips mark a trail up his spine, at the bottom of the abdomen, right in the middle of the zero, on its head. Don’t shudder.

Once your deed is done, you pull back. There you lie, staring at the twelve-legged spider etched into his skin, so silent that you’re barely breathing.

The fabric of his nightshirt is guided back down. You roll over and proceed to go limp, succumbing to the drugs intended for him.

What was that?

You’re not touching him anymore. He can sense the gap between your bodies, one that he would close every night, pulling you close. 

Was it a relief? To go to sleep without him touching you?

You’d always stirred up such a fuss about his arms being around you as you slept. 

It had always been a cause for seething rage on your part, later argument, later whining, and more recently huffing. Even last night, the stiffness before you fell asleep was a cause of his own discomfort. But you didn’t have to deal with that tonight, and now you’ve fallen asleep in record time. He can’t say it was just from the pills.

Did you change your mind on leaving after you felt their effects? It doesn’t seem likely that you’d ditch all that to sleep. Rather, that you wanted to sleep on your own terms.

He’d spent so much time concerned with stopping a potential escape, that he didn’t stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, that was never the goal to begin with.

And now Chrollo rolls over to face you, gently tugging on your shoulder to pull you onto your back.

You’re serene as ever, a sight to behold. 

He brushes the back of his knuckles along your hair, feeling its texture, so light that his calloused hands - hands that have seen many a bruise and burn and slice and hangnail caught and ripped on the job - almost can’t feel it. Your exhales come out more as huffs and sighs now compared to gentle breathing, and he allows a chuckle (one that he finds incredibly endearing, as much as you’ve let your disagreement to that sentiment be known, preferring to describe it with wounding words such as “condescending” and “grating”) to slip past his lips. 

It reminds him of you when you’re awake, when you used to try so hard to be difficult for him, when you used to scream and scratch as he’d spoon you, grip ironclad, until all you could do was huff and puff and plead with him (and as much as he enjoyed your attempts to compromise, this was something he simply could not relinquish) and eventually, your cursing would die down, your muscles would go limp, and you’d fall asleep. 

Sometimes the sun would be up by the time you relented, and your breaths would be the heaviest then. It was amusing, how quickly you’d switch. One second, you were cussing him and his troupe out, the next, you were a paragon of tranquillity, the visage of an angel before him. He’d pray you love him.

He wants to grab your jaw, hold it firm, and kiss your lips as hard as he can. He wants to tilt his head and take and take and take. He wants to keep taking even if your breathing lightens. He wants to keep taking even if your eyelids flutter open, hazy doe-eyes looking at him with dozy confusion.

Well, he’d never deny his own indulgence.

Leaning in, he presses a kiss to your forehead, just as you did to him.

The touch is as gentle as he can make it, as gentle as he can permit himself to be. There’s a split second of what he could almost call fear, an image of accidentally squeezing you too hard and hearing your bones snap flashing in his mind.

He rubs his thumb over where his lips previously were, feeling an unanticipated wetness left behind.

It’s then that Chrollo realises his mouth is full of his own saliva - whether that was because he was so entranced by your actions that nothing else mattered, body as limp as he could allow, or because, like some sort of filthy animal, he couldn’t help but drool at the contact from you, starved for it like a hyena, he doesn’t know. He swallows. That’s better.

And now for the main event.

He dips down to your lips, and lightly presses his own against them. The feeling is so heavenly, he wonders if you really are an angel. If you were one, would you bless him? Would you destroy him?

If you were to know what he’s doing, would you hate him more?

He pulls away. 

The journey to get here was sizable. Memories of tonight flash by; your cooking, your conversation, your shower. Your humming.

Ah. The tune he heard as a boy. Innocent, naïve, hopeful.

Well, he’s a man now. And far less innocent.

He lets out a hum of his own, deep and rumbling.

Chrollo moves to straddle you, peeling the duvet and sheets back, layer by layer, unveiling the best present he’s ever gifted himself. Just moving into such an intimate position is enough to send pangs of heat downwards, the hardness he fought against earlier returning with an urgency.

For a moment, he tries to fight against it.

Is it to save himself from your hatred? Is it to save you from what he’s planning?

It’s neither, he discerns, as the attempt was doomed to fail before it even started. He knows it was never meant to succeed.

His groin only throbs harder, aching for friction. It’s a spur-of-the-moment thing, the way he presses it against your clothed crotch, rocking back and forth, the slight relief just momentary as his desire only grows.

He regards your unsuspecting face. Stunning. 

Restraint is draining faster now, but still is present just enough to stop him from grinding any harder despite the urge. But if he’s to stop his movements, he’ll need a different kind of stimulation.

He bunches your shirt up, pulling, sliding a hand under your back so he can slip it off your arms and neck.

Now your chest is bare. How ravishing.

His fingers hook under the band of your sleep pants, dragging them off in a clean motion.

And now your legs are bare. How alluring.

He doesn’t take your underwear off - that would simply be crude, and he doesn’t need to tempt himself anymore. If he got the privilege (or right, considering your standings) of seeing you fully nude, as opposed to having a single layer covering the most tantalising part of you, he’d be oh-so-inclined to do something regrettable. His logic fights to win space within his buzzing thoughts, fingers daring to twitch as his imagination fills in the gaps of what the thin black layer forces to be left to it.

Chrollo parts your thighs for good measure, the maximum he can allow himself at this moment. It’d be impossible to not let his hands and gaze trail up them, observing how as he roams upwards, your flesh gets softer, warmer; how the flimsy fabric can’t hide all of your darker flesh; how your lower lips are pressing against the cloth, visible despite the darkness…

God, you’re so fuckable.

There’s a pretentious voice in his head, albeit muffled, that cries protests at the use of such a word to describe you. You’re something far more than that - beautiful, exemplary, one-in-a-million, ethereal. Surely your mouth would be better put to use having a fulfilling conversation with him, a conversation he can dissect and steer and puppeteer, as opposed to just opening as wide as it can to accommodate his cock, taking it as deep as your gag reflex will allow, barely able to breathe, much less talk. Although, he thinks with a faint, deep groan, twitching in his pants, that’s certainly a hypothesis I’ll have to test.

With the sight of your breasts, nipples hard and skin goosebumped from the chill of the room, it’s decided. Just because making his cheeks warm and his cock rock hard isn’t your most prominent trait, doesn’t mean that you aren’t absolutely exceptional at it.

Temptation isn’t something he’s inclined to resist, brushing a thumb over your nipples before leaning down to take one into his mouth. He swears he can hear your breath hitch as his tongue swirls around, breathing getting slightly lighter. An eager hand reaches for the other one, kneading as gently as he thinks he can.

Soft is the first thing he thinks. Your flesh is so soft, so delicate, so tender. If you were awake, he’d vocalise his compliments - and do so loudly, unrestrained.

Your breathing changes as he points his tongue to lightly flick at your nipple repeatedly. Chances are you’re being taken out of REM sleep, but your consciousness doesn’t matter at this stage. And some part of him hopes for it, brief images flashing in his mind of barely-open teary eyes slowly rolling to the back of your head. They’re obscene, so utterly immoral to even fantasise about, yet even the split-second thought makes his stomach jump, shivering a bit as he feels himself be almost overcome by them.

He can’t help but slightly wet his lips in anticipation, relishing in the knowledge that his instincts are being held back with the slightest thread. If he moves even slightly faster than his rational, calculating, non-carnal mind intends, then it’ll snap. He’ll snap.

Almost trembling, he reaches across to his bedside table. The movements are imprecise, but he’s sure this practice will allow him to execute them with much more grace for the inevitable time you’ll be awake. Yes, you’ll be awake and whining and he’ll wet his lips in anticipation and be met with your lingering taste and you’ll want him as much as he wants you- 

He almost falls forward as his own lust threatens to overtake him. Focus on the necessary steps.

Taking a shuddering breath, he leans down to pull open the drawer, to find a bottle hidden at the back, purposefully concealed behind an upright copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Quickly shifting his weight back, he pops the cap open, spreading some of the slick contents onto his fingertips. With his free hand, he pulls down the loose elastic of his pyjama pants, shucking them off, the cold air making him quiver slightly.

Time’s running out.

The movements are trembling, sloppy as he pours lube onto his length, and then onto your spread thighs. There’s a frantic inertia of sorts, a mad momentum - the more he does, the faster he has to go, the anticipation making his stomach swell and dip. He’s really going to do this. It’s really going to happen, and it’ll be amazing.

There. Done. Everything’s ready.

Chrollo takes a shaky breath, gripping just above your knees, and squeezes your thighs around his dick.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Your thighs are warm from the duvet, perfectly cosy and wet from the lube for his cock.

Little time is wasted as he begins to thrust his hips, trying not to give himself too much too soon. The steady pace is slowly increased, little by little, a fragile incline so he can drag this out for as long as possible. 

Can you feel it? Can you feel the warmth radiating from him? Is there some part of your mind that’s awake, but can’t do anything to stop him? Or better yet, is eager to please him?

He strains out a hiss through gritted teeth, peppering kisses over your exposed neck, trying his best not to bite. The pace increases yet again. His eyes are fixated on the mound in your underwear, a more sinister form of curiosity burning within. 

What does your pussy look like?

He won’t use En, that’s just cheating. He wonders and ponders and conjures up the most filthy images his mind can muster. A warm, tight hole that clenches for him as he slips in and out, teasing you. A pretty clit for him to tease with his fingers as you whine, for him to suckle on as you choke on sobs of pleasure. Folds for him to run his tongue through as you rut your hips against his face; for him to run his tip along, collecting your slick.

He imagines how his cock would look disappearing inside of your cunt, how your grip would be so suffocating, how your tits would bounce as he fucks it (because shit, they’re already moving so vigorously now, as he holds his strength, and he can’t even begin to picture what they’d look like if he loses control buried deep inside you, repeatedly stuffing you to the hilt as you cry out). He imagines how you’d tighten around him, babbling something incoherent as you wrap your arms and legs around him, and oh fuck, he can’t pull out now. He imagines the tension snapping, giving a rumbling groan as he shoves himself into you as deeply as possible, eyes screwing shut and burying his face in the junction between your neck and shoulder, riding out his high with a few shallow thrusts.

And finally, he imagines how his cum would look leaking out of your pussy, twitching and swollen from a nice good fuck. The afterglow. The squeak you’d give if he fingered it back into you, growling at you to not waste a drop, keep it all inside for me.

The thought makes his hips stutter a little, threatening to slip out of the plushness between your thighs. Once he regains his rhythm, though, they’re speeding up, relentlessly fucking himself into your thighs over and over, kneading the flesh as he squeezes them tighter and closer.

Chrollo cups your face with a single hand, and leans in. 

It’s the second time he’s properly kissed you tonight, and it feels fucking amazing. Your soft lips, your soft thighs, they’re all working together to make his head swim in bliss. You’re working to make him feel good. Yes, him. Nobody else. You’re his.

The thoughts run wild. He has as little control over them as he does his hips.

How would it feel to fuck you in some other position? How would it feel to flip you onto your stomach, pulling your hips back to meet his, as he stuffs himself into your sopping cunt over and over, watching your ass bounce? How would you cry out at the way his balls slap against your swollen clit, building up the pressure inside you until you just can’t take any more?

How would you grind on top of him? How would you moan as you bounce, tilting your head back as you stretch yourself on his length, panting? How many times could you do it until your legs trembled uncontrollably, forcing yourself to impale yourself on his cock just one more time? When he’d plant his feet on the bed firmly and thrust his hips up, grabbing yours and bouncing you in time, would you wail, or simply slump over, completely unable to form a thought as you cum around him for the nth time?

You’re flexible enough to fold into a mating press, right? How deep could he go? How fast could he go? How would your beautiful skin look covered in love bites?

The coil of pressure within him grows even tighter even faster, balls slapping against your thighs, hips pistoning rhythmlessly.

If he asked, oh-so-nicely, for you to get on your knees and please him with your mouth, would you oh-so-sweetly do it? Would you suckle his swollen tip? Would you tease him with a glint of mischief in your eyes? Would you find his most sensitive spots and exploit them? Would you trace your tongue along the veins? Would you massage his balls? Would you let him control the pace, a hand intertwined in your hair? Would you look up at him as you tear up, doe-eyes wide and eager to please? Would you rub your pretty pussy while he shoots thick ropes of cum down your throat, pressing your nose against his pelvis?

Yes, he decides as the coil begins to snap, you would.

Chrollo comes to a sudden halt, choking out a rich groan in a low timbre. The noise becomes more strained as he rides out the high, the overwhelming euphoria becoming just a bit too intense as it begins to morph into overstimulation. Once he’s sure the moment’s over, he lets go of your legs, pulling back to catch his breath and admire his work.

Ropes of cum paint your chest, some making it as far as your neck, your chin. It’s beautiful, the unruly mess he’s made - no, the mess you’ve made of him.

You’re a real beauty, you know that?

The bathroom tiles are cold against his feet as he grabs a washcloth to clean you up. It’s sad to see it go, to a primal extent, but it’s probably for the best to ensure he doesn’t get any ideas for a second round tonight.

For future nights, though? The chest he’s covering up will soon be exposed soon enough.

He’ll have to get more sleeping pills. You simply must try this again soon. 

Next time, he’ll taste you. The time after that, you’ll taste him. He can hardly wait, nor can he stop the dull throbbing starting up in his groin again.

He sates himself for the time being with the knowledge that the time after that, you’ll be awake.

[samkerrworshipper]

the party | alexia putellas x reader

songfic based off of the song the party & the after party by the weeknd

warnings: cunnilingus, smut, minors dni 18+

With your Louis V. bag, tats on your arms

High heel shoes, make you six feet tall

Everybody wants you, you can have them all

It would be a crime to not look at her. Standing tall, her Louis Vuitton bag slung over her shoulder, her skimpy black dress that left nothing to the imagination, her tattoos that peaked over her shoulders and down her arms, her red backed Louboutin heels that made her look so irresistible and so fucking tall, accentuating her long legs and every single muscles and vein that ran along them. Your eyes were drawn to her from the other side of the room, completely pinned to the figure standing in front of you. She was insatiable, everybody in the room wanted her and yet her eyes were caught on your own, her long legs slowly making their way towards you and your seat at the bar.

In a club full of people, music and noise she silenced it all, made you feel like the both of you were the only people in the world, it was addictive, like a party drug. You almost choked on your sip of your martini as she approached you, and took a seat beside you on one of the barstools, ordering a drink from the bartender before addressing you.

“It’s rude to stare, tesoro.”

You blinked, your eyes darting to the glass in your hands.

“Lo siento.” I’m sorry

There was something about this woman that made you feel like you were on fire, and she was the only thing that could extinguish you.

“Don’t apologise, I don’t mind, what’s a girl like you doing in here anyways?”

The implication strung in her voice made you feel so shy, so small in a way you could never explain.

“Just looking for some fun I guess, how about you?”

You finally found the confidence to glance back up at her eyes, it was a rewarding sight, her deep hazel eyes locked onto your body, searching you up and down like you were a monet painting.

“Looking to have some fun on my night off.”

Her eyes were tantalising, dangerously dark and sinful, the hazel circling around her pupil into a tie dye mix of dark and light browns.

“How’s that going?”

It was a stupid question, but you felt like you were under a microscope, like a diamond under immense pressure and it was stressing you out, making you second guess everything. The mystery woman just seemed amused though.

“Could be going better, I’ve got a drink though, that’s one way to start it.”

She pulled her glass of what appeared to be whiskey on the rocks up, and you met her glass, clinking them together, a small smile gracing your lips.

“What’s your name sweetheart?”

The term of endearment sent shocks down your spine, little jolts of shivers that you didn’t even attempt to put a stop to.

“Y/n Y/l/n, how about you?”

Her eyes pierced your own from their position sitting just above your martini glass, peering over the rim at her figure, slowly taking in her figure that didn’t leave much of her body to your imagination, so much skin on show.

“Not important.”

Her voice was dismissive, and if you really cared you would push it, but you simply didn’t, so you just nodded your head.

“Y/n, that’s very pretty, suits the pretty face.”

You couldn’t help but blush a little bit at the flattery, lifting your martini glass to cover your mouth and the bright smile that you knew was spreading across your facial features.

“You’re a charmer, c’mon, give me a name to put to the face.”

She smirked at you, devilishly, like there was so much intention behind her eyes and mouth, intentions that you couldn’t even attempt to try and unearth.

“I think beautiful things should be appreciated, if you're really desperate you can call me Ale.”

You couldn’t help but feel the butterflies begin to crowd in your stomach, the heat rising up your neck and to your face at the outward compliments from your companion.

“You're very forward, most girls sitting at a bar would be a little bit intimidated.”

The woman’s eyes stayed pinned to your own, neither of you breaking the eye contact that made you feel so vulnerable and naked, like you were under a microscope in front of her.

“You’re not most girls though, are you?”

You bit your lip, her intentions were so clear and so blurred at the same time.

“You didn’t come and sit with me because I look like most girls.”

The woman snorted, setting her empty glass down on the bar.

“I’m going to the bathroom, the door with number 3 above it.”

Girl, I got your bag, I got it all

Hold your drink, baby, don't you fall

Be there in a minute, baby, just one call

You don't gotta ask me

Girl, pick up them shoes, I'll race your ass up all them stairs

She picked up her bag, her heels clicking under the floor beneath her as she strutted towards the stairs at the end of the bar, her hands reaching down to pull her frighteningly big heels so she could climb the stairs. You watched her ass and thighs move, it almost felt like she was putting a show on for you as she slowly progressed up the stairs.

You took a final swig from your glass, holding onto it and gripping down on the glass as you watched her finally ascend the stairs and out of your sight. You waited a minute or so, clutching onto your glass before setting it down and picking up your own belongings and making your way towards the stairs.

You didn’t take your time like the mystery woman, you climbed the staircase like it was a mountain you had to make it to the top of, completely relieved when you finally got to the top. It was a simple corridor in front of you, with numbered bathrooms, one to ten. You made your way down the hallway slowly, your eyes pinned to every door you passed until you made it to door number three. You felt like you were in a game show, or escape room, looking at the different doors and almost expecting something to pop out of one of them.

The surprise never came, so you reached for the door knob cautiously, testing the handle to see whether or not it was locked and quickly learning it was not. You took a deep breath, before twisting the door open and quickly shutting it behind you as you walked into the stall, making sure to lock the door behind you.

Before you even began to take in your surroundings the woman had pounced on you, her lips attaching to your own allowing you to taste the whiskey and spearmint on her tongue. It was a welcome flavour, overloading your taste buds which went into shock from the sudden contact and lust that was invading your system.

“Esta Bien?” Is this okay?

You nodded into her mouth, her tongue brushing against the roof of your mouth and pushing against the skin and tissue, exploring your mouth and lips with vigour.

“Si.” yes

The woman smirked into your mouth, continuing her bruising attack on your lips, but her hands falling to your hips and the exposed skin in between where your jeans separated from your cropped corset top. It was more like a bra, the only difference was the small chunk of material below the bra line. Her hands danced up and down your sides and you couldn’t help the little moan that left your lips as her hands brushed over the tops of your breasts and nipples.

“So desperate already, I could tell just how needy you were in that bar, desperate for some attention hm?”

You moaned openly into the woman’s mouth, your hips grinding upwards searching for some kind of contact or relief. The woman’s hand made its way to your waist though, pushing you back against the bathroom door.

“No, tomas lo que obtienes.” No, you take what you get

Her hand stayed pinned to your waist, her lips pressing against your own sinfully, moving rhythmically and nipping at your bottom lip as her teeth caught it in hers.

“Ale, please, need more.”

She was a woman that you knew absolutely nothing about, and normally that would make you uncomfortable, but for some reason it only spurred your sexual desire on, it was treacherous how horny your felt, your stomach and pussy clenching in tow as this woman’s lips moved down to your jawline, sucking on the skin.

“Is your pussy dripping for me, is it soaking through your panties?”

You nodded quickly against the older woman’s mouth, your head trapped by the grip that her lips and mouth had on your neck and chin.

You moaned openly when she dropped to her knees. Normally you’d be worried about the cleanliness of a club bathroom floor, but your whole brain was clouded with sex and that was enough for any kind of worry to leave you brain.

I understand, your body wants it

I know your thoughts, of you ‘bout it, ‘bout it

You’re a big girl, and it’s your world

And I’ma let you do it how you wanna

Girl, now ride wit it, ride wit it

I know you know, I know you wanna (ride) wit it

Don’t be shy wit it, I’ll supply wit it

I got you, girl, oh, I got it girl

You nodded at the woman when she looked up at you with an eyebrow cocked as her fingers looped into the belt of your jeans, silently asking for permission. When you nodded at her quickly she smirked, reaching for the clasp and unbelting it insanely quickly and letting it fall to the floor. Next her hands found the zipper of your jeans, tugging it down quickly and then popping the button before tugging the jeans down to join your belt. You stepped out of them and groaned a little bit as your eyes came into contact with the growing wet spot on the front of your panties, your arousal beginning to stick to the insides of your thighs.

“Oh bebita, is this all for me?”

You nodded your head once again, your head and back arching against the door as Ale’s fingers scooped underneath the elastic band of the thong you were wearing, snapping it twice against your hips, eliciting a positively filthy guttural moan that ranged from your core to your lips.

“God your so desperate, you going to ride my face, going to get off like a horny bitch in the heat and rut yourself against my face?”

It was pure filth falling from the older woman's lips as she tugged your panties down your thighs and onto the floor, her eyes latching onto your glistening lips that were directly in front of your face.

The feeling of her tongue darting out to meet your clit was ecstasy, pure pleasure as she dove into your folds, her tongue exploring the open sex right in front of her.

It was as her tongue found your open hole that you angled your hips directly above Ale, humping her face and beginning to grind your hips up and down her mouth and nose.

You half expected her to stop you, her dom persona seemingly controlling your every move, but she didn’t, so you continued to move your hips against her face, her tongue pushing in and out of your whole and your clit rubbing down hard and fast against her nose. The angle that it have you was magnificent and something that you’d never quite experienced. You pulled up for a second, out of fear that you were strangling the woman below you with your thighs, but you were quickly pulled down, your clit brushing down on the tip of her nose, it was fantastic and had you becoming a moaning mess and the coil in your stomach was so close to snapping, and then she refracted.

Her mouth moved from your lips and down to your thighs, sucking and biting down on the soft and milky skin, leaving bright purple marks as a reminder of exactly what she was doing to you. It was equally pleasurable, but not in the way you needed, not in the way you yearned.

“Ale, fuck, please, so close, please just fucking use my pussy, it’s all yours.”

She was so patient with your skin, gently sucking the marks in, your begging didn’t go unnoticed by her though, and once she finished her fourth love bite she nudged her tongue back to your opening, thrusting her flat pad in and out of your hole, generating completely sinful noises from your mouth. Your hands found Ale’s hair, fisting it in between your fingers and in your palms, tugging her up to meet your core and deepen her tongue’s thrusts.

You would have told her you were teetering on the edge, but you were too incoherent due to the amount of pleasure coursing through your body. It only took a few deep thrusts of her tongue and then a brush of your puffy clit against her nose for you to come undone, your whole body tightening and freezing against her warm mouth as you began to gush, your body grinding and your pussy gushing out and squirting all over her face as you spasmed on her lips.

Her hands pulled your thighs over her shoulders, stopping your legs from collapsing out from under you and leaving you to collapse on the floor. She guided you through your aftershocks with gentle kitten licks, sucking up any of the extra liquids that your pleasure cloud had produced.

Only when you’d come down from your high and you’d moved your legs off of her shoulders was when she moved off of her knees, revealing an absolutely soaked face, neck and top of her dress. You couldn’t help but snort a little bit at the appearance of her, a once composed and slightly terrifying woman now covered in your orgasm.

She stood up and before she could even try to say anything your lips were attached to her face, your tongue gently licking at your taste on her skin.

“That was fucking amazing.”

You moved your lips up to her nose and across her cheeks, lapping at any of the left over arousal on her delicate and clear skin.

“You didn’t tell me you were a squirter baby girl, look at my dress, all ruined in your slutty juices.”

You chuckled, a deep chuckle from your chest as you took in Ale, in all of her glory, completely fucked out and you hadn’t even touched her.

We can play all night

It just takes one night

To let me fuckin’ prove

This feelin’ I would give to you

“How about I make it up to you then?”

Your grin spread all the way up your cheeks, revealing your pearly whites to the woman.

“How about I take you back to mine and you can show me exactly how good you can be?”

Your head told you that it was a bad idea to go home with a woman that you’d only met a few minutes ago, but then the thought of going all nigh with this woman, who clearly knew what she was doing ran through your mind.

You began to take her in truly and it was then that something clicked in your brain, that you knew this woman, or you knew her face, and that was when all the puzzle pieces fell into place.

“Fuck me, your Alexia Putellas.”

The woman just smirked, her tongue dangling out between her teeth as she moved towards rhe sink, cleaning herself up a little bit but maintaining eye contact with you the whole time through the mirror.

“I will later, baby, don’t you worry, and it took you a little bit to figure that one out, now, my house? I promise I’ll give you everything you want, baby, all you have to do is ask.”

Ringtone on silent

And if she stops, then I might get violent

No call is worth stoppin’

So, momma, please, stop callin’

You reached down for you bag, and then your phone, recognising a string of texts from your roommate, worried about where you were and normally you would reply, but instead you turned your phone off, shoving it down into the bottom of your handbag and turning back to the Catalan woman, who was now standing directly in front of you, her arm stretched out as an offering.

If you had your wits about you, and not singularly sex on your mind you would have left her arm, left the renowned soccer player hanging, but then again, you definitely didn’t have your wits about you with your post orgasm brain.

So you took her arm, smiling brightly.

“Your house?”

Alexia smirked and nodded, leading you out of the bathroom and back downstairs and out of the club, a smile on both of your faces and the smell of sex radiating from both of you.

[lucyandthepen]

last young renegade | jjh

summary: your valentine’s day plans with jaehyun may have gone down the drain just a little. (okay — a lot.)

pairing: jaehyun x reader verse: canon, idol!verse rating: t warnings&tags: reader & jaehyun are in an established relationship, quite frankly there is nothing too out of the ordinary in this fic which is a shocker, it’s a rewritten fic so pls excuse any errors I may not have caught! word count: 5.02k

a/n: happy 2024 friends and family !!!!!! and advanced happy birthday to the man who created valentine’s day, he who is perhaps my first love in nct, jaehyun! this is actually just a fic I’ve been hoping to re-write a bit from before, and since it’s valentine’s themed, what better time to post it!! Enjoy enjoy, and may this year bring more fun, laughs, love (and debauchery) to this blog!

Yᴏᴜ sᴀɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ sɪᴄᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛɪʀᴇᴅ ᴏғ ɪᴛ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ, ɴɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀʏ.

♡ jaehyunnie ♡ I know I said birthday dinner but practice is running so late ㅠㅠ ♡ jaehyunnie ♡ Can we meet after? I’m sorry ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ How about I call you when we’re done? Maybe 11:30?

At times like this, you often wonder if it’s all worth it.  

You know thinking that way is counterproductive, not to mention a little unfair. You knew exactly what to expect, getting into an under-wraps relationship with an idol, and so far, it’s lived up to most of your assumptions, and then some. It doesn’t help that Jaehyun, even just by name, tends to attract an unbelievable amount of attention. You know you can’t blame him; it’s not like he wants to be high on the radar every time, either. For some reason, though, you seem to be looking for something or someone to blame, which you also know is a dead end. You have no one to pin the blame onto apart from yourself by frequently generating doubts that keep your mind running around in circles.  

It’s not even the sneaking around that gets tiring; it’s the waiting — waiting on calls, waiting on free time, waiting on a good opportunity to do something that doesn’t involve him suddenly getting pulled out to attend to one of many of his celebrity responsibilities. Over the last few years that you’ve dated, NCT has only ever gotten more popular; with that popularity came the fact that the public eye was trained on them, focusing on every microscopic detail of their lives. Jaehyun hates that more than anything, which is why he’s given up on trying to avoid it by practically escaping it altogether, locking himself up in the dorm with you when he has his precious few days off. 

While it’s true that you definitely don’t miss having to play espionage when going out for a cup of coffee with him, you’ve also managed to memorize every single inch of Jaehyun’s room, which isn’t good for your mentality, you’re pretty sure. You have to keep reminding him to open the window whenever the both of you are in there, because all you do is stay in and watch English movies without subtitles to see who can understand the most without asking questions (obviously, he always wins) while eating food he runs up and down the stairs to get every other hour. And while him trying to imitate the British accents on these shows is genuinely funny, you’re starting to suspect even he’s starting to get tired of watching Harry Potter over and over again. Twenty hours sounds like a long time unless you spend every twenty-hour period you have together marathoning the exact same films. Much to both of your disappointment, your suggestion to watch it totally out of order did not make it cooler.

Still, you suppose it’s not all bad. Jaehyun also taught you how to play Fortnite on a couple of his days off back to back, and while you hadn’t been as good a player as you both had hoped, he’d still patiently waited for you every time you got lost on the map. He’d even given you his account’s password with the sentiment that this was him ‘taking things to the next level with you,’ and you get to log into his account and play whenever you want; he doesn’t even get mad when you’ve wasted all the stuff he’s farmed on your subpar gaming skills. And, well, the bigger picture was that you loved him. Based on how much effort he put into the relationship, plus the bonus of his trust in you when it came to his Fortnite account, you could at least be confident in that he returned the sentiment.  

Except, sometimes, you still wonder if it would be easier for the both of you if he flew solo and didn’t have a girlfriend that tanked all of his player’s ammo and health kits and generally made a fool out of his cute little avatar while he was out breaking his back onstage.  

You aren’t sure if Jaehyun’s been noticing the turmoil in you; you’re not that good at hiding how you feel, anyway, but if he has, he hasn’t said anything thus far. You do observe how much more he texts you when he has free time, which makes you feel doubly bad, because you know that he’s spending precious minutes he could be resting with on talking to you instead, which isn’t the best trade-off for someone who’s constantly busy — and thereby constantly tired — like him.  

♡ jaehyunnie♡ ___________ I’m going to practice again, okay? Wait for my call ㅠㅠ You I’ll wait for your call ♡ ♡ jaehyunnie♡ I love you ㅠㅠㅠㅠ ♡ jaehyunnie♡ You love me too — a lot, right? I’ll keep my phone now, but I’ll make sure to check that you said so. ㅋㅋㅋ You Right! ㅎ I love you a lot! ♡

When the clock hits 12:01, and your phone is silent, your mind starts working on overtime again. It’s only when the special ringtone you’ve set for him comes to life at half-past midnight that you break your train of thought and put on your socks so you can meet Jaehyun at your front door.  

You’ve made a rule — sort of like a deal — between the two of you that apologies aren’t necessary when work holds you up. You’ve cashed in on that deal a couple of times, but you’re both aware that it’s more for Jaehyun’s sake than anything else, and he keeps to his word on that much when you open the door and duck into his car. All he does is smile at you, and you smile back, and for the rest of the car ride, everything seems okay.  

He always asks you about your day — unfailingly, at any chance he can. It’s never an off-handed question, either; Jaehyun takes great pride in his memory, and the sweetest thing about him is that he’s dedicated a good deal of it to knowing almost everything about you. Right now is no different. He asks you about your team manager, what you had for lunch; he grills you on if you took your vitamins today and if you got to break in the new shoes you bought online — the ones you’d been pining over for the last three months. He even asks you about the guy from the neighboring department who keeps asking you out for after-work drinks.  

“He wanted to go to Hongdae tonight,” you tell him as he slows for a red light. “There’s some new pub of his friend’s doing a soft opening there tonight.”  

“You could have gone.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “I wouldn’t have minded.”  

“I didn’t want to.”

“Good.” He glances at you, a grin slowly spreading on his lips. “Because I lied. I might have minded a little. Or, you know, a lot.”  

“Don’t tell me after all these years, you’ve turned into the kind of boyfriend that doesn’t let his girlfriend go out without him.”

“That’s impossible for me, and you know that,” he chuckles. “You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Just not with that guy from the other department.”

“Don’t worry.” You tinker with the little charm dangling on your phone — half of a flat, metal heart dangling from a gold chain that Jaehyun had given you two years back on your birthday. He keeps the other half, but since he can’t freely attach it to any of his belongings, he keeps it wedged between the back of his phone and its case. You like watching him change the backing because he does it so carefully, like he’s worried the other half of the heart is going to break if he rips off the case willy nilly. “I told him my boyfriend and I were going out on a date tonight, so he backed off. Although he did wonder why I keep talking about a boyfriend he’s never seen.”

“And? What did you say?”

“I said it was none of his damn business.”  

Jaehyun laughs loudly, and you go along with him, but you don’t miss how tired he looks when he sobers down, the green light illuminating all the shadows on his face as he steps on the gas again.

Nothing good is open this late at night — that is, nothing you haven’t seen before. You hadn’t even expected to go out at all, but since it was the day before Valentine’s Day as well as his birthday (or it would have been, if you hadn’t waited until midnight), Jaehyun had wanted to do something special without having to run into a huge crowd of couples on the day itself. Your only option is this from-out-of-town carnival that’s set up in tents and even has a medium-sized ferris wheel by the edge of the metal barricade. The parking lot is practically empty when Jaehyun pulls into a slot; you joke that he should break one rule and park in two slots, which he smugly replies to by saying he couldn’t park badly even if he tried.  

He tucks your hair back behind your ears as he loops the strings of a face mask around them, using another one for himself. Between that and the brim of his cap, you can barely see his eyes. The only knowledge that you have that you’re walking next to the man you love is that he takes your hand in his, slender fingers finding their way between yours.  

The carnival is half-closed when you get to the middle of it; there are still a few stragglers, but half the kiosks have their lights off already. There’s a woman dressed in flashy clothes standing on a patch of dead grass a few feet away, and she’s holding a hoop that a ginger cat is jumping through. Jaehyun steers you to them, and you stand there for a good five minute watching the cat roll on the ground and stand on its hind legs, but you can tell it’s been going it at for most of the day because at one point, it just ignores the lady, opting to weave its way between Jaehyun’s and your legs instead. You do have a pretty good time when he picks it up and cradles it in his arms so you can pet it for a second, but it just hisses when its owner approaches and jumps out of his hold, disappearing behind a row of trash bins.  

Jaehyun doesn’t have anything in his wallet apart from his credit cards and 50,000 won, and the coin machine operator says he only has enough coins left to break down 5,000 won for the games, so you end up having to jog back to his car so you can fish out some coins from inside his glove compartment. You come up with a grand total of 1,500 won, and you have to sheepishly go back to the coin machine operator to change four 100 coins and a couple of 50s just to get the last 500. Jaehyun tells you to hold onto the three coins so he doesn’t run off with them entirely and leave you destitute.  

You learn you can only do three things at most — you dedicate 500 won for the Ferris wheel entry tickets, which leaves you with 500 won each. The both of you agree on choosing one kiosk to play in, and with only about five left that are open, you don’t really have that many options. You end up dragging Jaehyun over to a stall with a pond filled with those magnetic toy fish, but 500 won only gets you one fishing rod. Since it’s your choice, Jaehyun lets you play, but you feel kind of stupid doing it on your own with him just watching you. In the end, he decides to stand behind you, his arms around your waist like he thinks closer contact isn’t even more distracting. You do manage to fish out 10 fish and win a small bear on a keychain. It doesn’t even pass through your hands as Jaehyun takes it from the stall operator immediately. 

“That’s mine!” You whine, reaching out in vain to take it from him; he just holds it high over his head. His eyes are twinkling under the shadow his cap casts over his face. “I worked hard for that.”  

“Let me keep this one,” he mimics the pleading lilt in your voice. “I’ll put it on my bag.”

“You know you can’t! Give it back.”

“I’ll win you a bigger one,” he promises. “Let me keep this one. It’s cute. It reminds me of you. I’ll kiss it goodnight before I sleep.” He starts to laugh softly. “And then you’ll feel this weird spirit kissing you at like two in the morning, and you’ll know it’s me.”  

Your arms aren’t long enough to retrieve it, and you don’t really want to, so you settle with twisting his ear. He takes it in stride even if he over-acts, making pained noises while leading you to the kiosk he wants to go to. It’s a shooting range stall, and he pays his own precious 500 won for a dart gun. He’s barely paying attention when the guy starts explaining how many points are assigned to each balloon color, more concerned with talking to the bear keychain in his hand and pretending like he’s cooing at you. You have to hit him across the shoulder to get him to focus.  

“You need to start picking out what prize you want,” he tells you — the actual you, not the animal keychain version — as he lifts the dart gun.  

“I’ll wait for you to finish first.”  

“No way.” He tilts his head, closing one eye to steady his line of sight. “Pick already. Or just go for the biggest one.”

“You know that Fortnite and dart guns aren’t the same thing, right?”  

“Yeah, but I’m well-motivated.” He grins at you, one eye still shut. He looks like a baby pirate. “Go ahead. Pick the biggest one.”

“Why don’t you just shoot, and we’ll see.”  

“Pick it,” he insists. “Tell me you have faith in me. Tell me you love me.”

“Okay, I love you,” you agree. “But I have no faith in you when it comes to this.”  

“One out of two is fine,” he concedes, taking aim.  

All three of you, including the stall operator, let out a disappointed groan when he misses his first shot. His comes with a sheepish laugh as he reloads, suddenly telling you to pick the second biggest prize instead. You can’t even watch him miss over and over, so you pretend to be interested in a bunch of teenage boys playing a game of cups one stall over, trying not to giggle when you hear him get increasingly more frustrated at himself. When you turn back around, you notice he’s holding two small pieces of gummy candy, offering one to you like a kindergartener. He helps you tug your face mask down so you can eat it.  

There’s a food stall nearby that, thankfully, accepts credit and debit; Jaehyun fishes out his card to get you a corndog — only one because he’s watching his weight for the upcoming concert, apparently. This is information you hate hearing but have no say in, and he knows this; you know he does because he says ‘don’t worry about me’ totally out of the blue, like five minutes after the conversation ceases to be relevant.  

His phone starts ringing when the food comes out, and he takes a tiny bite of it — more bread than hotdog — before he answers. You know it’s Taeyong by the way he answers.  

“Hyung, sorry — can we talk later? I’m out with ____________.”  

Taeyong says something loud but indiscernible on the other end. You piece together that it’s about tomorrow’s schedule when Jaehyun speaks again.

“I know. I’ll be home in a bit; don’t worry about it. I haven’t forgotten.”  

There’s more garbled speech on the other line; Jaehyun gestures for you to keep eating, and you do, but you more concerned with the morphing expressions on his face than you are with the act of chewing. He’s making noncommittal noises in response to what seem to be commands and reminders. You’re pretty much done with the corndog by the time he says ‘Okay, hyung. Hyung — I’ll see you later, okay?’

“Taeyong hyung says hi,” he tells you once he’s hung up the phone. “He says you still need to give back that book you borrowed from him last year.”  

“Oh yeah,” you finish off the last of the food. “I’ll drop it off within the week.”  

“Don’t worry about it. He doesn’t actually mean it.”  

Jaehyun watches you snap the stick in half and toss it in the trash bag.  

“We can go home,” you say finally. His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re busy tomorrow. I forgot.”

“I didn’t forget, and it’s fine.”  

“It’s almost two in the morning.” You check your phone to verify. “You probably have to be up in a few hours. You need to sleep, or you’ll die, Jaehyun. I’m too young to be a grieving widow.”

“Let’s at least ride the Ferris wheel,” he suggests. Before you can protest, he tugs you towards the rickety contraption, digging the 500 won out of your pocket and handing it to the bemused operator. He lets you choose what carriage you want because literally no one is on it anymore, and Jaehyun asks for the best carriage. You’re not sure how it differs from the rest, but he makes a show out of guiding you into it, and you don’t miss the corny ‘my lady,’ he mutters under his breath.   

It’s small, clearly meant for either a tiny group of children or couples who want to be as close together as possible. It’s also not air-conditioned, and only one of the windows is open, so you end up sticking to Jaehyun’s arm on the way up. The view is still great, though, and you feel his hand settle on your knee as the carriage makes it slow ascent.  

The ride up is quiet, and you press your face as close to the glass of the carriage as you dare, but Jaehyun doesn’t move an inch. His hand is still heavy on your thigh, but it doesn’t do anything but lay there. When you’re close to the top, you’re hit with the urge to do something romantic — kiss, maybe, tell him happy birthday, or say ‘I love you’ to him in the most sickening way possible — but when you turn to look at him, you have to hold your tongue.

Jaehyun is asleep, leaning against the corner of the carriage, head tilted down a little. His shoulders are rising and falling slowly, and he’s pulled down his face mask a little so he can breathe better; his lips are slightly parted by the slackening of his jaw. His left hand is shoved in his pocket, like he’d passed out halfway through reaching for something in there.  

He doesn’t wake even when you move slightly so you can lean back next to him, rocking the carriage a little — not even when you reach up and adjust his head so he can rest on your shoulder. He breathes deeply, evenly, and you wonder if his ear against your shoulder allows him to hear your heart plummet unfairly to the bottom of your stomach.  

You have to shake him to rouse him when the ride comes to an end; when he opens his eyes and realizes what happened, he looks mortified. Instinctively, he opens his mouth, but you fling the carriage door open and step out before he can apologize.

You have a deal, and he knows what he shouldn’t be doing.

His grip on your hand is much tighter as you walk back to the parking lot, and he doesn’t let go, even on the road. The trip back is quieter, maybe because it’s late, or maybe because there are a ton of things the both of you want to say but can’t.  

He slows down when he gets to your street, but when he stops in front of your building, he doesn’t immediately unlock the doors to let you out. Instead, he turns to you, licking his lips a little nervously.

“Can you…” he clears his throat because his voice cracks a little on the first attempt. “Can you come back with me? To the dorm?”  

“I have work tomorrow, Jaehyun.”  

“It’s still at eleven, isn’t it? I can bring you home before that. You still have some stuff in my room. You can get ready there.”

“Won’t you be too busy?”  

“Just—” he sighs softly. “Can you? Please?”  

You don’t know how to say no to Jaehyun, and tonight isn’t a night you’re willing to try. It’s why fifteen minutes later, you’re walking through the front door of his dorm. Donghyuck, sitting at his computer in his room with the door ajar, greets you sleepily as you pass by.  

Jaehyun steps in the shower with you; you don’t talk, maybe because you’re worried you might wake the others up if you start a full-blown conversation in a bathroom surrounded by other bedrooms. He just passes you what you need, and you do the same for him, and somewhere in between, he kisses you under the spray of the water.  

Later, he falls asleep with a face mask on, and you have to peel it off for him and toss it into the trash. The tip of his nose is shiny, and you want to kiss it, but you know it’ll wake him, and you noticed he’d set his alarm to go off two hours from now. He’s set out a couple of earplugs for you so that you don’t hear it, but you don’t put them in. You want to see him before he leaves, even if it’s in the deadest hours of morning, so you just crawl into bed with him. A minute before you doze off, you feel his damp skin press against your neck, his form curled up against your back.  

The alarm never wakes you; the sun is out when you open your eyes, and when you check your phone, you see that it’s already half-past nine. You also notice that there’s nothing from Jaehyun on your screen, but you try not to dwell on that, considering that you’d been expecting to wake up to an empty bed. His side of the mattress is cold, which means that he’s been gone for some time.  

You don’t know if it’s just because you’re groggy, but your insides still feel like lead when you sit up. The part of you that nags about this relationship is back at full force when you start thinking about Jaehyun going to a pre-recording two hours after spending the last of his energy on you. You start wondering if you’re doing the right thing if it feels like you’re just dragging him down. Your heart clenches tightly when the worst thought hits — maybe, just maybe, he’s tired of you, too.

But you won’t let him go. More to the point — you can’t. He’s the best part of your life; it’d be a cold day in hell if you decided to leave him.

Even the thought of it makes you feel like dying.  

Then again, this isn’t all up to you.  

You’re rubbing the sleep out of your eyes — and maybe a couple of frustrated tears — when the door creaks open. You see two mugs and his hands before you see the rest of him come through the doorway. Jaehyun whispers a careful good morning as he sets the coffee down on his table, making sure to push his keyboard away to avoid accidents, before sitting down next to you. You notice that there’s an envelope next to one of the mugs; the flap is slightly open, and from under it, a flash of red peeks out.  

His hand finds its way back to your knee — it’s his favorite resting place, he’s told you once. Your lap feels like home, he’d joked. Maybe he touches it every so often because it’s like a reset button for him.  

He doesn’t ask if you slept well, or if you want to get ready before having your coffee, or if you’re okay. He just squeezes your knee a little tighter. It’s you that has to start the conversation this time.

“How did it go?”

“It went great. You’ll see it on TV later tonight,” he starts rubbing your thigh idly. “You’ll watch it later, right?”  

“Of course. I’ll call you and tell you how cool you look.”  

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. When you lapse into silence again, it’s because you’re expecting him to say something, but he doesn’t come out with it directly. You try not to let it show that you’re worried, that you’re skeptical, that you’re wondering if he thinks he’s too tired, too busy for this, too.  

You’re expecting him to start how most break-ups start. You know I love you, right? And then the telltale but… would come, and you would have to hold back your tears and smile for him, and tell him you know, and that you understand it isn’t the right time, but maybe one day, someday, when he isn’t everyone’s Jung Jaehyun anymore — only yours.  

“You love me, right?”  

It’s not what you’d been expecting. Nor is it the playful little text he’d sent — no laughs, no jokes. His expression is somber, mouth pressed into a thin line.  

“You know I do.”

“A lot, right?”

“A lot,” you confirm softly.  

“Then whatever it is that you’re thinking about us,” he says quietly. “Don’t. Don’t think it. Don’t do it.”  

“Jaehyun—”

“I know it’s hard,” his fingers dig into your skin a little. “I know I put you through a lot. I know you think that I’m suffering because of this relationship too. I know everything. But whatever you think I’m going to do, I won’t do it — not ever. So if you’re thinking of it too, I’m begging you. Don’t. Please.”  

Maybe he had noticed all this time. A wave of guilt washes over you when you see the pained look on his face; perhaps you were even more transparent than you’d originally thought. You nod slowly to show your understanding, and he continues.  

“I know yesterday wasn’t the best you could have hoped for,” he carefully avoids apologizing, although it’s written all over his features. “For me, too. I… I wanted something different. It’ll be better next time. Do you believe me?”  

You hear him swallow — his nails are biting into your thigh a little, so you have to gently peel his hand off. Your fingers replace it, tightening around his palm as you nod.

“I believe you.”  

“And you trust me, right?”

“With my life.”  

“Then can you put your faith in me right now?” He asks. “Don’t panic. Just — just say yes.”

He pats around his pants, finally deciding to slip his hand into his left-hand pocket. Unlike on the Ferris wheel, he manages to extract something, but he keeps it closed in his fist. It’s shaking a little as he takes your hand in his other one, pressing something small and hard into your palm before he curls your fingers over it. His hold keeps your fist closed as he starts talking.

“It’s not immediate. We’ll figure it out. We’ll tell the right people, and they’ll help us tell everyone else — the public, the press. It doesn’t have to happen right now, or any time soon either— not if you don’t want it to. We can take it slow, or whatever. Anything you want — just as long as it’s with me.”  

“Jaehyun,” you shake your head, a little dizzy. “What are you talking about?”  

He slowly loosens his hold on your fingers, his hand dropping to the same spot on your knee. You’re free to open your fist, and when you do, you can’t help but feel a little stumped.

“I don’t mean now,” he repeats, now sounding doubly worried. “It’s not — It’s just…”  

“You’ll get in trouble. We can’t.”

“I won’t. Not if we do this right. Like I said, we can do it slowly. Months — years, however long it takes to do it well. What it is — it’s just… a promise.”  

“A promise,” you echo. It does have a nice ring to it.  

“That I’m not leaving you. Not ever. And… if you say yes, that you won’t either.”  

Your coffee has probably turned cold. Jaehyun is watching you carefully, looking like he’s trying hard not to bite his lip. You look back down at your hand, and he speaks up again.  

“You know I love you, right?”  

You smile slightly. “No but?”  

“No but,” he agrees.  

The ring fits nicely on your finger; maybe it’s well-measured from the amount of times he’s held your hand tightly in his.  

“Okay, Jaehyun,” you whisper. “I promise.”  

When you place your hand on his, he twists his palm, slender fingers gently twirling the ring around the base of your finger.  

Minutes later, he hands you your coffee. It’s sweet and milky, the way he knows you like it best. When he settles back down on the bed, you notice his eyes travel to your finger again, a small smile playing on his lips.  

Perhaps, in this moment, you finally learn to ask the right questions — not about if it’s worth it, but if he is.  

And in this moment, where he sits in silence with you, the sunlight pouring in from his window hitting the tips of his hair and the end of his nose, with the knowledge that his heart is as full as yours, you come to realize that there can — and never will be — any doubt of that.  

[rosiesmuts]

Clandestine

BLACKPINK Lisa

Words: 2,200

Tags: 🍑

A/N: Late quickie.

It could only be described as paradise. The gentle rays beaming down, crystal clear blue water surrounding all around. A vast system of valleys and caves with not another person in sight. Yet the only thing your mind could process is the barely covered Thai idol–her skin glistening with beads of ocean droplets lighting up her already pale skin.

"Are you sure about this Lisa?"

"Just shut up and take the picture. I've been living under a microscope for the past 7 years."

She raises her arms above her head and poses for the perfect Instagram shot–the teeny bikini barely covering up her tight little ass.

"Let me see. Let me see." Lisa excitedly scurries over after hearing the shutter of the camera click. While she giggles and taps her fingers against her phone, you're left gawking at her ocean soaked body. Even with paradise all around, there's only one thing on your mind. Everything about Lisa was long and slender, every inch of her body from her fingers all the way down to her toes. Two tiny pieces of neon green fabric left almost nothing to the imagination; a thinly veiled excuse of a bikini. It's truly a magnificent sight, how could anyone be so toned yet soft and smooth.

"... And it's posted!" Lisa screams out energetically. Seven years of living under constant scrutiny, her contract is at an impasse while both sides remain under negotiations. Lisa was always a wild child, but now she feels the extra freedom with the weight of the company off her shoulders.

Lisa smirks, catching you staring like a deer caught in headlights. No point in denying it now, your slack jawed expression says it all.

"I'd tell you to take a picture, but you already did." Lisa teases as she catches you in the act. She walked towards you, a mischievous smile on her face, taking slow methodical strides with her long legs until she's nearly pressed against you. "Do you like what you see?" she whispers into your ears. Clearly a rhetorical question, one that she gives you no time to respond to. Hands and lips are all over you, lips nibbling at your collarbone while hands frisk at your chest. Lower and lower she goes, leaving a trail of kisses and light bites as she takes place on her knees.

She's in prime position, but she's one to play naughty little games. Over the protection of your shorts, Lisa gently grazes your shaft with delicate light touches. But that's not all, her full lips kiss the tip of your clothed cock–your desperation for her touch grows with each passing moment. Her cute face didn't match her lecherous actions, but this is only the beginning of what's to come. Her hands travel up to your waistband, her fingers sliding under the elastic. Painstakingly lowering your shorts until your friend springs into position.

"There's my favorite little toy." Lisa sing talks as she takes a hold of your cock.

"Excuse me? Little?"

"There's my favorite big toy," Lisa giggles at your bruised ego. "Now lay back and let me have some fun."

You do as instructed, laying flat on your back. Lisa straddles your right leg, leaning in to give your cock gentle kisses and licks, her soft tongue playing with your precum. She looks at you with her big gorgeous eyes, "Are you ready for some real fun Oppa?"

Her lips part and she sucks hard on your head. You moan out loud, your hips bucking upwards to meet her oral assault. Her mouth is warm and wet, it feels as though she's bathing your member in a pool of her own saliva.

"Mmmmm, I can feel you getting bigger and harder." She moves lower now, using her gentle fingertips to caress your balls. "I don't know if I'll be able to fit you in my mouth, but I'm going to try."

Her hair is getting in her face, so you hold it back. Your cock hits her throat, but she gets lower and lower each time. She gags a bit, but still manages to keep sucking away. Soon enough she's deepthroating you, her pink tongue swirling around your head as she looks up at you with a grin.

"You taste good."

Up and down she goes, taking the full length of your cock into her throat every time. The elicit noises of her gagging are the most erotic sound in the world. Lisa's stroking your thighs as she bobs her head, keeping constant eye contact. She pulls away and takes a deep breath before diving back in–holding herself down, her nose pressed against your pelvis until she turns red, tears running down her round cheeks.

She pulls herself off, coughing and gasping for air–a long trail of saliva still connected from your cock to her chin.

"I thought you said it was little." You tease as she struggles to catch her breath.

"Nope, it's big" She pouts. "But you're such a dirty boy, making me gag like that."

"I didn't make you do anything. You gagged yourself, you filthy little whore."

"Excuse me, I'm your filthy little whore." She giggles. "And I want more. Are you ready to stick that big cock into something tighter than my mouth?"

She bends over on her hands and knees, shaking her delectable cute ass in your face. As much as you love to slowly peel off her bottoms, there's no time to waste, pulling the knots on one side of her bikini and throwing the flimsy cloth into the sand.

You stick two fingers into her mouth, she sucks and licks, coating them with her saliva. Using your well lubricated digits, your tease around the ring of her ass. With great care you work your fingers inside, watching in awe as your fingers disappear into her tight hole. You continue on, twisting and twirling, spreading her out for what's to come.

"Just fuck me already" Lisa begs, always the impatient one when it comes to her ass.

"Your wish is my command, my Thai princess."

You grab ahold of her hips, moving her forward and then pushing her back. Your cock still slick with saliva, pressing your tip against her tight hole. Just your head penetrates when she lets out a scream of pain and pleasure.

"Keep going," she whimpers, her body relaxing to take more of you in.

You go slow, inch by inch, watching her as she squirms, trying not to move too fast. Her body relaxes with each pass, feeling her opening spread wider. Soon enough you're fully inside, your cock buried within her. Every inch of her is squeezing you tight. You've fucked her ass dozens of times by now, but each time gets better and better.

Your hips start moving, Lisa's moans blend perfectly with the sounds of the ocean.

"Harder, faster!" She begs.

You oblige, holding on to her hips as each slam of your hips gets faster. Every one sends shivers through her body, forcing a stuttering gasp to escape her lips. With a tug of the string to her top, it floats down into the sand–moving your hand upwards to grope her tiny tits, pinching her sensitive nipples in your hand as you pound away at her ass.

"Ohhh~" Lisa squeals, desperately trying to grasp at the sand.

"Is this what you wanted?"

"Yes, yes!" She cries out. "More!"

With that you pick up speed, thrusting with everything you have. Your stamina has grown immensely since you started fucking each member of BLACKPINK. Her body tenses up, her ass clenching even harder against your shaft.

"Just like that. Just like that." Lisa pleads. "Give it to me. Fuck me Oppa!"

"As you please"

Your pace continues, slamming into her tight little ass. Her body writhes under you, her moans turn into shrieks threatening your ear drums even in the open air. Her tenseness immediately loosens up as she screams out, her orgasm ripping through her body.

"AHHH~"

Her back arches, her ass spasms around your cock. Her beautiful face is locked in a grimace of pure ecstasy. Lisa shakes uncontrollably, her mouth wide open and her eyes squeezed shut as she convulses. You keep pounding away inside, holding onto her hips tightly, your thrusts slowing down to prolong her bliss.

"I... I..." Lisa pants, "...I haven't came that hard since that last time you fucked me."

You chuckle, kissing her on the cheek.

"I'm glad I could help, you were amazing."

"I forgot how good you feel..." Lisa leans back into your embrace. "...But what about you, Oppa? You still haven't cum." She feels your rock hard cock still pressed against her cute little ass.

She pushes you on your back, her long body looking intimidating from below as she towers over you.

"You know it felt amazing when Chaeyoung gifted you my pussy for your birthday..." She giggles.

It was hard to believe, Lisa allowing you fuck anything but her ass on her own volition, but there was no time to harp about it. She straddles your waist, reaching down to grab a hold of your cock, lining up your tip to her wet, post orgasmic folds.

You grip her hips, guiding her in. Her tight little snatch opens up for you, allowing you to easily slide inside. Lisa squeezes her pussy around the base of your cock, massaging it with her insides. She's earned the title of main dancer, doing body rolls with you buried deep inside her.

"How's it feel to have my pussy wrapped around your cock again Oppa?"

"Amazing."

"Well get ready for a ride." Her hands plant on your chest, bracing herself upright. Her feet steady themselves in the sand, then she's off to the races, bouncing herself up and down, your entire length gliding against her silky walls.

"Mmm...so fucking full..."she whispers to herself, snapping her head back. Your hands sneak up when she closes her eyes, your thumbs circling her sensitive nipples. The sudden jolt of excitement only redoubles her efforts, the sound of clapping flesh carries in the wind. A subdued moan escapes her lips and her movements become erratic. Her fingers interlock with yours, her eyes fluttering and her leg start to quiver. With a renewed, intensity, your upwards thrusts match with her downward slams and she screams out in ecstasy once again.

"Such a greedy little one, cumming again when you were supposed to be helping me."

Rather than answer your playful little tease, she leans in and shoves her tongue in your mouth, moaning into it while she rides out her orgasm. Her lips pull away and she lets out a sly smile, still leant over, her small little breasts just inches from your face. Once again, she shows off her renown dancing skills, twerking just her hips up and down. Showing off her multiple talents, her hips never stop moving even while she reaches behind and tickles your balls.

Followed up are little whispers into your ear; "They feel so full Oppa. I want you to cum for me. Cum anywhere you want. On my tiny little tits or my toned abs. Maybe on my face, hell you can even cum inside of me if you want..."

Her words are just the motivation you need.

"You're gonna make me - " You cry out, trying to hold back.

Instead of slowing down, she speeds up her twerking. Her chest rubbing against yours as she leans in and nibbles on your ears. "Just let go. Cum inside me Oppa."

Her erotic words hypnotize you into submission. You thrust upwards into her, driving yourself deeper with each forceful stroke. Her velvety walls squeezing you hard, and you finally release inside of her with a hefty groan. She keeps twerking her hips, trying to milk you for all your worth.

"That's it" She coos. "You're a dirty boy, filling me up with your cum."

She leans back and smiles, spreading her legs apart, making a display of the spunk oozing out of her and onto the sand.

"I'm a mess Oppa, but I like it." Lisa giggles.

You sit up, taking her dainty hand into yours and helping her up to her feet. She goes ahead of you, leaving her bikini behind and proudly makes her way back naked to the beach house.

She turns around and screams back at you, "GET READY FOR ROUND TWO OPPA!"

You let out a sigh, laughing to yourself, watching Lisa skip away without a care in the world. You lay back in the sand before following her back, taking the stairs up to the second floor. As soon as you enter the door, you see the four girls sitting on the couch.

"Hi!" They cheerfully greet you...

[lxclerc]

𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 | 𝐜𝐥𝟏𝟔

SUMMARY: a careful girl with a fear of falling finds herself with a certain monegasque determined to prove to her he's here to stay. PAIRING: single mom!reader x charles leclerc WARNING: none, pure fluff. not proofread at all WORD COUNT: 4.8k

NOTE: based off taylor swift's song by the same title!

masterlist

Love, you thought, is far more trouble than it’s worth. You and love never had a good relationship, your only example of it growing up being your parents’ marriage. With a cheating father and an emotionally abusive mother, love, you thought, isn't really all that. From what you’ve seen of it, it’s ugly and painful and full of tears. If this is love, then you want absolutely nothing to do with it. 

But not even you is exempted from cupid's cruel arrow, falling for a guy who doesn’t have the courage to catch you, who walked out at the first sign of hardship, leaving you with a baby you don’t know how to care for and a broken heart to nurse. You decided then that love is not worth it. Love is not worth the pain it comes with and you will never subject your daughter to the same broken childhood as you, hiding under the bed with your hands on your ears to try and block out the screaming and the sound of broken glasses downstairs as your parents show you exactly what love is. 

Your daughter will never know pain as you did. She will never know abandonment as you did. She will grow up loved and cared for, not walking on eggshells in his own home like you did. Love will never break Sofia’s heart like it did yours. 

The first time you met Charles, you were waiting tables, having taken another extra shift for Sofia’s upcoming birthday. He smiled at you so brightly that you had to look away, believing that surely no one can be that happy. There’s far too much ugly in life for anyone to smile that big and that assured. A pretty smile and a pretty face, an expensive watch probably worth triple your paycheck and clothes that fits him too perfectly. You already know the likes of him and you’re quick to stay clear away. 

Charles Leclerc is love. You knew that the first time you met him. He is the type of love that makes you feel as though you’re floating on a cloud of happiness only to come crashing down in even smaller broken pieces. You know it all too well and you decided then and there that you will not be love’s next victim. For this one, you’re more than happy to sit it out. 

But you’re only human after all. After weeks and weeks of him coming in everyday with you avoiding him, you figured you might as well get it over with now. Is he here for you? You aren’t sure. Do you want him to be here for you? No, you told yourself repeatedly. But are you entirely too curious for your own good, unable to let something be without wanting to put a microscope on it and observe every nook and cranny? Absolutely. It’s a problem. 

So when he entered after the third week, you finally caved and approached his table, armored with your usual neutral smile. You hadn’t missed the way his eyes seemed to widen in surprise as you stood before him. It’s almost adorable if only you hadn’t felt that telltale roar in your chest. You’re quick to school your features, plastering the polite, nearly emotionless smile on your face. 

“Hello,” you greet softly, bring out your pad and paper. “What can I get you?”

His cheeks colored pink, realizing he had been staring and he swiftly switched his gaze from your face to the menu in his hands despite already knowing every meal on it. You’re way too pretty, it feels almost suffocating to be this near with you standing over him, your floral perfume attacking his senses. Charles was more than happy to watch you across the room. He doesn’t mind that you never took notice of him or that you never even looked in his direction. It’s a crush, nothing more and nothing less. He was more than ready to just let it pass. But now that you’re standing over him, he can barely breathe.

“How about coffee,” you offered with a small, knowing smile. He’s been staring at the menu for what felt like hours. “Then let me know what you want to get.”

“Okay.” Charles hates coffee. He loves the small, teasing grin forming on your lips though. 

He can feel his breath returning to his lungs once you step away, giving him an opportunity to take a deep breath as the scent of her perfume lingered. Charles has raced hundreds of miles per hour, he’s experienced breathless pressure but he’s never experienced the way his heart seemingly wanting to beat out of his chest from the mere smile of a woman. He realized he doesn’t mind it all. There’s a certain kind of adrenaline with being near you, one that he finds himself beginning to get addicted to. 

When you return, he’s finally figured out what he wants to order – pancakes with bacon. “I’m Charles, by the way,” he says suddenly, voice thick with a french accent as you jot down his order on your small notepad before he realized that you hadn’t asked nor did you ever indicate that you wanted to know but somehow he wants you to know just so it’d be a little harder for you to forget about him.

The small smile that you gave him was suddenly worth the sudden heat in his cheeks. “I’ll have your pancakes in a few minutes, Charles.” 

“Oh – um – yeah, sure. Take your time.” God, he’s absolutely hopeless.

Charles doesn’t ask you out that night nor does he the night after that or any night within that week. You try to convince yourself that you’re relieved, thankful you aren’t being put in an awkward position. You ignore the flutter in your stomach everytime he stutters over his English while talking to you or his cheeks color red everytime you tease him. You ignore that you’ve been giving him the bigger bacon pieces or that you can’t help but glance at him whenever he’s in. 

But on a specific Saturday night, what should have been your day off, your defenses crumble. You’re exhausted. You didn’t do as well in your uni finals as you wanted to, your babysitter just quit after she found a much stable job and Sofia had been sick the night before, a bug you’ve obviously caught if your migraine and runny nose is anything to go by. After buying medicine and a few cheap toys to cheer her up along with finding a much more expensive babysitter than your old one, you’re severely lacking on money for this month so you took an extra shift despite your body begging at you not to and it feels as though the entire world is toppling on you. 

When Charles came in, you couldn’t even find it in yourself to give him your usual smile – much genuine now, like an old friend greeting another. Instead, your eyes are squinted, attempting to get them to focus on his figure and your body sagging in exhaustion.

“Are you okay?” He asked as soon as you reached his usual table, genuine concern in his eyes and sincerity lacing his voice. 

You wanted to cry on the spot. It’s been a while since anyone genuinely asked, not just as a passing question. Sofia is far too young, only three, to notice whenever you feel like everything is too much. You moved away from the small town where your parents reside the moment you were able to and you don’t exactly have time to make friends between balancing your uni work, two side jobs and raising your daughter. All you have are friendly acquaintances and coworkers. 

“Y/N?” He asked again, sounding more worried. You hadn’t even realized that tears had begun falling to your cheeks. You felt pathetic as you stood before him, crying like a teenager and looking like a mess. If he was ever interested in you before, he’s surely not anymore. You’re a complete mess. 

But Charles only looks worried as he stands up, immediately wrapping you in his arms as your silent tears begin to get louder, turning into full on sobs as you break apart, all of your exhaustion and worries finally pushing you over. Thankfully, no one else is at the restaurant, only two tables filled with uni students who don't seem to care about your current breakdown. 

Charles took notice of your feverish skin, but he doesn’t say anything as he allows you to sob to his chest. Your arms, which were previously tucked to your sides, reach to wrap around his torso till you’re clutching at him, allowing him to keep you grounded. For the first time since the start of the day, you don’t feel as though you’re about to fall over as you leaned onto him. 

“You’re sick,” he says as you finally calm down. “I’ll take you home.”

You’re quick to shake your head, however. You’re both sitting in the booth now, you by the window and him next to you. You’re still leaning against him and his arms are still around you as you try your best to stop crying. “My shift doesn’t end till seven. I can’t leave yet.”

You really really want to though, but you also don’t want Charles to remove his arms from around you. And even then, you have your other job to get to – delivering for a small pizzeria till midnight. 

Silence enveloped the two of you again till Charles spoke up. Checking his watch, he realized it’s only five in the afternoon, only two more hours till your shift ends. Gently removing his arms from around you, he stood up. “You just take orders, right?” 

“Yes.”

“You stay here and rest, I’ll do it and then I’ll take you home.” He grabbed the pen and notepad you placed on the table. 

You want to start crying again. It’s been so long since you felt taken care of that it feels foreign to you. “Charles, I can’t let you do that.” 

“I’m offering,” he says with a smile. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Despite yourself, you managed a small smirk. “Are you telling me I look bad?”

“Never.” He said it as though he can’t believe you even asked. “You are Aphrodite.” 

And with that, he turned away, leaving you with your heart beating against your chest and a flutter of butterflies in your stomach. And when he turned to you, that smile on his face and that look in his eyes, you cursed yourself. He is friendship, definitely. He might be love, if you let him be. But he is not nothing. He will never be nothing. 

Charles wasn’t the best at taking orders, but he did try and it’s obvious barely anyone can resist his charming smile despite the often confusion in his voice. Eventually though, your coworker must have felt bad, saying that you can go early and she’d cover your shift, a small friendly smile on her face as Charles lit up. 

You try to keep your eyes on the drive as he drives you to your apartment, trying to ignore the flutter in your stomach whenever he’d throw a glance at you. You thought it’s unfair for him to look so beautiful bathed in darkness, nothing but the streetlights lighting his face. You try not to think about how he smiled at the customers as he did your job and the way he kept checking at you. You try to forget the feeling inside his car as he insisted on taking you home, watching the way his hands gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to stop yourself from watching him.

When you arrived in front of your building, you expected him to drop you off and leave but Charles insisted on walking you to your door. After everything he’s done for you, you decide against arguing.

Your door flew open before you could even insert the key, your daughter’s smiling face greeting you. You try not to get self conscious over the clear surprise in Charles’ face, the child before him’s features uncannily similar to yours. 

“Maman!” Sofia called happily, barreling against your legs. “You’re home early.”

You try not to get self conscious over the clear surprise in Charles’ face as you kneel before your daughter to return her hug, the child before him’s features uncannily similar to yours. 

“You are Aphrodite,” he told you earlier. Will he still think so knowing you have a daughter?

“Hi, angel. This is my friend Charles.”

At the mention of his name, Charles did as you did and kneeled before Sofia, the little girl’s bright smile removing the confusion on his face and replacing it with a smile of his own as he offered his hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, pretty little lady.” 

“Heureux de vous rencontrer aussi.” your daughter said proudly, her small hand holding Charles’. Her French is definitely much much better than yours, practically as good as her english. Unlike you, who moved to Monaco already as an adult, Sofia was born and raised here. “Je m'appelle Sofia.” Nice to meet you too…My name is Sofia.

Charles’ smile widens from her perfect French. “Vous avez un beau nom, Sofia.” You have a beautiful name, Sofia.

Your daughter practically preens over his praise, her smile widening, showcasing her toothless grin. 

“Vos yeux sont vraiment jolis,” she says shyly, making the monegasque let out a small laugh. Your eyes are really pretty. 

“Yours are prettier I think.” 

You can see him practically falling in love with your daughter, his eyes shining under her bright smile. It wouldn’t be the first time. Nearly everyone Sofia meets, she manages to charm, having them wrapped around her little finger without them even realizing it. 

Your daughter blushes, now completely beaming at Charles. “Do you want to play with me, Cha?” 

“Honey, it’s pretty late,” you interrupt, joining in on their conversation. You don’t want to bother Charles more than you already have. “I’m sure Charles has somewhere to be.”

“I actually don’t have plans for tonight,” the monegasque interrupts and the smile he gives your daughter is enough to melt your heart. “I’d love to play with you, Sofia. Only if your mum is okay with it, of course.” 

At that, Sofia turns to you with her best puppy eyes, lips a little pouty as she presses her hands together. “Maman, s'il te plaît, s'il te plaît. Cha peut jouer avec moi ?” Mum, please, please. Can Cha play with me?

You were torn. The thought of letting Charles in more than you’ve already had terrifies you along with your daughter growing attached to him only for him to be a temporary thing. Love, you realize, terrifies you and love is in his eyes as he awaits your answer. Love is in his smile for your daughter. Love is in the way he’s looking at you. 

But with the two of them looking at you like that, how can you ever say no? As you hesitantly nod your head, you try to convince yourself that this will lead to nothing, just an odd night that won’t become anything more. 

And as the two of them shared a victorious smile, sharing a small high five in celebration, you know you’re lying to yourself. 

“Only for a while though,” you say slowly. “I have work tomorrow and I’m sure Charles does too.”

The conditions don't matter as Sofia nods her head, still grinning as she pulls Charles into her room, barely giving you or Charles to say anything else. Heaving a sigh, you continue inside. Your head is still spinning and your vision hazy as you send home the babysitter. 

You can hear Sofia’s excited voice from her room along with Charles’ voice and you wonder since when you’ve become so trusting that you’ve let your daughter be alone with a man. Wondering if you should follow them, you decide against it. Instead, you open her bedroom door, smiling at the two of them, so you can see inside from your place on the cough. They both sat on the floor, Sofia introducing Charles to her dolls and Charles nodding along as though all of it made sense. 

Somewhere along watching them have a tea party, your exhaustion won against you as you fell asleep on the couch, Sofia and Charles’ laughter being the last thing you remembered. You dream of boys with french accents and light green eyes smiling at you. 

It must have been a few hours when you woke up, Charles gently shaking your shoulder. Immediately, with a little rest, you already feel much better than you had a few hours ago, your head still spinning but significantly less. 

“Sofia’s asleep,” he tells you as you sit up, him sitting next to you. 

“Thank you so much for everything and I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you today–” you start but Charles places a hand on your arm, a soft smile on his face. 

“You didn’t cause me any trouble at all, ma belle. And I enjoyed spending time with your daughter,” he assures you. 

You nod your head, nervously chewing on your bottom lip and not knowing what else to say as a silence falls between the two of you. 

“So there’s her,” you can’t help but explain even though you know you shouldn’t. “I got pregnant at 19. Her father is out of the picture. I know what it looks like. A young, single mum working two jobs just to keep a roof–”

Charles leaned in, pressing his lips on yours. And for a moment, you sat still, eyes open with your lips pressed against his, frozen as everything about him – his scent, his touch, his lips – attacks your senses. For the first time in a while, your brain shuts down, the million things always running in your mind disappearing. 

It was when Charles hesitated, beginning to pull back, that you returned to yourself, hand reaching forward to clutch at his shirt and pull him towards you as you kissed him back with the same vigor, the same softness. A careful girl with a fear of falling but in that moment, you’ve never feared anything more than him letting you go. 

He pulls back just enough, barely half an inch between the two of you as your foreheads touch. “I’m in, my Aphrodite. I’m all in.” 

But of course, you revert to your fear now that his lips aren't on yours. Charles is love but before him, you knew a different kind of love, one that was ugly and angry and sad. “For now.”

“For as long as you want me,” he promised. 

—

Your relationship with Charles is like breathing, it came effortlessly. Sometimes, it feels as though he can look into your soul and know exactly what you need. He’s patient and kind and whenever he smiles at you, it feels as though you can take on anything. 

On the other hand, Charles and Sofia seem to hit it off better than the two of you, becoming inseparable whenever Charles isn’t away at his races. And even then, Sofia would be begging you to call him. She watches every race, celebrating every wins and every loses as though it’s wins, congratulating Charles so enthusiastically you’d think he won a world championship. In Sofia’s eyes, Charles is a superhero who can do no wrong. 

And selfishly, it makes life so much easier for you. With Charles around and Sofia always tailing him, you get more chances to study for your exams and focus on work. You have more time to focus on uni and actually learning something rather than just passing. 

“Tu es sûr que tu ne veux pas mettre quelqu'un d'autre ?” You hear Charles ask Sofia from the living room. “You can put someone famous.” Are you sure you don't want to put anyone else?

“You are famous,” you hear your daughter’s voice. 

Shutting your textbook, you found the two of them sat on the floor. Charles crossed legged and Sofia on his lap, the small coffee table filled with crayons and paper. You walk over to them, planting a kiss on Sofia’s forehead and sharing a small one with Charles. “What’s going on here?” 

“Mummy, who’s your favorite hero?” Your daughter asked excitedly, making you think. 

“I don’t know, baby,” you admit. “Spiderman maybe. Who’s yours?”

“Charles!” Sofia didn’t even hesitate as she proudly said it and you can immediately see the way Charles’s cheeks tinted red. 

“I told her to choose someone else,” Your boyfriend immediately explains. “But she refuses.”

You’re quiet for a moment. Sofia adores Charles more than anything and deep in your heart, you know Charles adores her just as much and try as you did, your fears and doubts always follow you. Questions often fill your head whenever you see them like this. What if this doesn’t work out? What if Charles leaves? What if he decides he’s had enough of you? You wouldn’t just be breaking your heart, but Sofia’s as well. 

As a mother, you always question if you’re doing the right thing. Was it right to immediately introduce Charles to Sofia as your boyfriend? Was it right to let your daughter be as attached to him as she is now? Had you moved too fast? 

You force a smile on your face as you face Charles. “It’s okay.”

But Charles knows you well and that night, with Sofia tucked in bed and snoring the night away, as he slipped onto the bed beside you, his arm wrapping around yours and your back hitting his chest, he knows something is wrong. 

“Talk to me,” he says. “Please.”

You lay motionless for a while, trying to articulate your thoughts without offending him. “My parents never loved each other. They fought and screamed and threw things at each other. It was horrible and I hated every moment of it. Their hatred for each other was more important than I ever was. Sofia’s father and I never loved each other and at the first sign of trouble, he fled. I know what it’s like to be darned by love. I know what it’s like to be unloved and abandoned. I don’t want Sofia to know that, Charles.”

He was quick to catch on to what you were trying to say. 

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I love Sofia and I love you. I’m here till you want me here. We’ll never make your parents’ mistakes.” 

You feel tears pricking your eyes as you shift to face him. “You’re the best thing that’s ever been mine, Charles Leclerc.” 

—

The first time you appeared on the paddock, it was the first race of the 2022 season in Bahrain. You’ve been dating Charles for a year by then with him already having posted pictures of the two of you. You’ve moved in together and have met his family whom you deeply adore. 

Sofia especially adores Arthur. The first time you met, you’re sure your daughter had developed a crush of sorts on the youngest Leclerc, her usual boisterous charm becoming more timid as she practically blushes at everything Arthur says. Charles absolutely despised having to share her attention, giving the rest of you entertainment as he spent the entire weekend of your family vacation convincing Sofia that she loves him most. 

And though Charles has asked, you requested that he doesn’t post pictures of her, terrified of what his rabid fans would say about your daughter. What they say about you, you can handle but you’re not quite sure you’ll be able to handle. Charles was respectful of your wishes but of course, upon searching you up, people found out about Sofia anyways. Thankfully, there’s very very few bad things said about her from Charles’ fans and you don’t particularly go around searching for them. 

For Sofia’s 4th birthday though, her wish was clear and simple; to be able to go with Charles to a grand prix. And quite frankly, neither of you had the heart to tell her no and so you decide it’s as good a time as ever.

And so with that, the three of you step into the paddock, Sofia wearing a Ferrari shirt Charles had made especially for her as she walks between the two of you, holding both your hands. The clicks of the many many cameras can be heard as you three walk towards the Ferrari motorhome. A few fans stop you to take a picture with Charles with the monegasque easily agreeing though never letting go of Sofia’s hand. 

Halfway through your walk to the motorhome however, Sofia tagged lightly on Charles’ shirt, asking to be picked up to which he easily agrees to, his hand now clasping yours.

“Where’s uncle Arthur?” Your daughter asks.

You smile at her, pushing her hair back. “I’m sure he’s busy with his own race, mon amour.” 

Many more rounds of pictures were taken with Charles now having your daughter on his hip that you’re sure will be spread all over the internet. Most fans even greeted her, making Sofia smile widely. 

 Eventually though, you reach his drivers room after being introduced to the entire team, all of them fist bumping your daughter as Charles introduces every mechanic one by one. 

Charles places Sofia down once the door closes behind you, needing to get ready for some press and the drivers parade. He plants a kiss on her forehead. “Be good for mummy, okay?” 

At that, Sofia’s eyebrows creased together, realizing he’s going to be leaving as her hand immediately clutched at his shirt. “I thought I’ll be with you?” 

“You will be,” Charles calmly explained, tucking a strand of hair that fell from her braid behind her ear. “But I’ve got work to do first and then I’ll come back to you immediately.”

But your daughter only shakes her head. “No, I wanna go with you.” 

“Sofi,” you start, trying to gently pull her away from him. “Charles is at work right now. We’re just here to support him but he needs to focus on his work. Kind of like when you need to focus when doing your homeworks.” 

But still, she adamantly shakes her head, shaking your touch away as she all but runs into his arms. “No, I wanna go with daddy.”

You practically choke on air as you heard her words, Charles’ eyes immediately widening and as he turned to you in panic. The entire year you’ve been dating, this would be the first time she ever outright called him her dad. Of course, the sentiment has always been there. He stepped up as a father figure in her life and she’s always treated him as one but she’s only ever called him either by his name or ‘Cha’.

You and Charles have talked about it though as he expressed to you how much he wants her to. You can see the happiness in his eyes now as he hugs her to his chest, practically melting at her little declaration. 

You think he might cry as he clears his throat and you can’t help the way your heart bursts in happiness at the sight. “Alright, pretty little lady. You can stay with me but you have to behave as daddy works, alright?” 

Immediately, a big smile breaks across her face as she eagerly nods her head. Charles faces you, his own smile big and tears pooling at his eyes as he wraps you up in a hug, discreetly wiping his tears away. Neither of you say anything, only sharing a small kiss.

“We’ll be back,” he tells you and you only nod your head as Sofia plants her own kiss on your cheek. You smile as they exit his drivers room.

A TV shows the media pen outside and you watched as Charles walked out with Sofia in his arms, his media manager directing him towards an interviewer. 

“Charles Leclerc, first race of the season, how are you feeling?” The interviewer asked, making your boyfriend smile. 

“I’m feeling very very good,” your boyfriend answered with no hesitation. “The car is good, the team worked hard and I believe we really have a chance at the championship this year.” 

“And of course, it must be nice to have the support of your family today.”

Charles’ smile widens. “Yes, especially with this one around.” He plants a kiss on Sofia’s temple, making her smile at him. “She gives me a lot of motivation to win.” 

“How do you think he’ll do today, little lady?” 

Sofia immediately perks up as the mic is turned to her. “Daddy is going to win!” 

Despite the obvious surprise from drivers, interviewers and staff alike at her statement, nearly everyone laughs. 

“There you have it,” Charles says with a chuckle. 

As it turns out, Sofia was right because that day, Ferrari won with a 1-2 with Charles getting P1, making you, Sofia and everyone else in the garage cheer. When Charles greets you both after exiting his car, he claims the two of you are his good luck charms and for the first time in your life, love no longer terrifies you.

taglist: @ricsaigaslec @dragon-of-winterfell @coffeehurricanes @rdtbattinson @privcherry7 @miniminescapist @sebsdaniel @strelcka @writing-about-current-obsessions @amsofftrack @lostinketterdam @bisexual-desi

[drabblesandimagines]

Dove (part four)

Leon Kennedy x female reader Part one. Part two. Part three.

The time for Leon’s next perimeter check comes and goes, yet he remains in place on the sofa, you cuddling into his chest. He knows he could try and shuffle along a little bit, get you to lie down, but he doesn’t.

You must be exhausted, both physically and mentally, to have fallen asleep on him after all. He doesn’t want to risk waking you up when it’s the first time he’s seen you properly relaxed in the last 24 hours. It’d be more awkward if he did try to move and woke you up, too. Plus, if he did successfully pull it off, it’s not the widest of sofas either - what if you rolled off when he was outside and damaged your shoulder even more? You’re already bruised and battered from your encounter with the Lickers and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna let you get hurt again under his watch.

It’s everything to do with that and nothing to do with the fact that he can’t remember when he last held a woman like this, content in his embrace. He’s not a big one-night stand guy – won’t deny he’s had them, but they’re not a preference - so intimate moments like this are few and far between. Besides, you’d asked him for a hug, you’d fell asleep in his arms. It might not be proper, but he’s not overstepped professional boundaries by reassuring a victim in their moment of need.

Just like he totally hadn’t overstepped when he helped you undress last night.

God, when you’d asked for his help with your bra… Memories of awkward fumbles with girlfriends under covers had flashed through his mind, still isn’t sure how he pulled it off one-handed.  

Leon swallows as you unconsciously nuzzle your cheek up against his chest, bringing him back to the present moment. He chides himself for the distraction, shouldn’t be thinking about that when he should be thinking about the job at hand. There’s been no reply from Hunnigan, though he wasn’t expecting one unless there was any sort of development. She’s probably waiting for his full report before she’ll give him a crumb of anything in return.

He looks at the laptop sat open on the coffee table, though it’s long gone to sleep. He was maybe a little ambitious with his timeframe of having it in her inbox by 2000, as now he’s going to have to type it up, listening to the audio, all in the same room as you as he does.

Problem for later, he decides, as is you being asleep on his chest preventing him from doing his perimeter check. His hand remains on the small of your back - keeps you steady against him, whilst he compromises for scrolling round the camera feeds a few times one-handed.

There’s nothing to note visually from his last outing - though he definitely wants to be able to double-check with his own eyes rather than put his full trust in pixels on a 3.5-inch screen. There’s been no motion detected either, so it’ll do.

It’s turning into a nice evening, he muses, warm enough to be out without a jacket. It’s a shame he can’t take you outside for some fresh air, stretch your legs with a walk around the perimeter – after he’d checked it first, of course – and maybe make you feel less like a prisoner. Knows from experience that it won’t be long until the frustration of being restricted to three rooms is going to surface. Always does. You’ve already shown some over the medication being locked up last night.

He also knows how much the restrictions and protocols seem overkill, but if anything were to go wrong on this mission, all his actions are going to be scrutinized under a microscope, discussed at length by a panel who will either sign him off for active duty or accuse him of being a traitor to the good old US of A.

You jerk almost violently on his chest then, nearly clocking him in the chin, your good hand scrunched up in the fabric of his shirt – all tell-tale signs of a bad dream. Leon begins to rub slow circles with his hand on the small of your back, hoping it’ll be soothing enough to stop the dream progressing, perhaps enough to draw you out of that REM state but not enough to wake you up entirely.

He slips his phone back in his pocket as he continues to rub large circles on your back, can’t help but smile as he watches you settle, your face relaxing once more.

Leon closes his eyes, then, relishing the weight of you on his chest. It’s not selfish, he reasons, no, because although those sleeping pills work wonders, they can never replace a true night’s sleep – again, he knows that from bitter experience. It’s enough to shut your brain down for a solid eight hours, but it’s never going to be a restful sleep when it’s synthetic.

Not in the way you’re napping right now, safe in his arms.

God, Kennedy, pull it together – you just met the girl.

Still, doesn’t open his eyes though.

He’s about to drift off himself when you whimper and he swears it breaks his heart. Your grip tightens on his shirt, face twitching once more, now alongside furrowed brows and hitched breaths as you face invisible demons. He strokes your hair with one hand, still rubbing circles on your back with his other but it doesn’t have the same effect this time as your restlessness continues.

“No…” You whimper again, nails digging in his chest from your grip and he admits defeat. He sits up slowly, stills his hand on your back and moves his other to rest lightly on your arm to give the most gentle shake.

“Dove, it’s okay.” Leon says, softly. “You’re all right. It was just a dream.” He moves his head down, in dangerous territory of being headbutted, speaks a little louder in the hopes the movement and his voice will break through your slumber. “I’m here, Dove. You’re safe with me, okay?” Your eyes shoot open and you lift your head off his chest but his reflexes don’t fail him as he moves his head back from the collision. You emit a sharp gasp from your mouth, catching your breath and look at him briefly in alarm, feeling entirely disorientated and confused, heart pounding.

“Hey.” He smiles.

It takes a beat for you to properly gather your bearings – never been a fan of napping during the day, always made you feel worse more than anything. You’re in the safe house, in the living room, with Leon – the kind DSO agent who made you oatmeal and sandwiches for lunch – whose warm palm still is pressed solidly against the small of your back…

“You fell asleep. I… It seemed like you were having a bad dream, so…”

You remembered asking him for a hug, how nice it had felt in his embrace, how you thought it would be fine to close your eyes for just a moment. Afterall, they were so dry and tired from all that silly crying and how nice and warm Leon felt, with your cheek pressed up against his chest.

Yes, you were just going to savour all that for a couple more minutes and then you’d sit up.

But it hadn’t happened that way, waking up whoever knows how long later, holding onto him for dear life.

“I fell asleep… on you.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

His smile turns somewhat bashful. “Yeah.”

You realise then that your hand is flat on his chest, right over his heart – you can feel it pound underneath your fingertips and you snatch it back into your own chest, sitting up poker straight, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Dove. I can add emergency pillow next to the first aid qualification.” He teases, relieved it seems to make you relax a little by the way your shoulders drop. You smile, placing your good hand back on the sofa for balance to shuffle back along. A little reluctantly, Leon brings his hand back to rest on his thigh.

“Do you, er, want to talk about it?”

“Not much to tell.” You shuffle in place again, trying to get comfortable as your injuries begin to ache. “I was being chased… But that’s all I can remember.” You shake your head as if you could shake the uneasy feeling out of it. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long.” Leon shrugs, though he knows exactly how long it was. Doesn’t want to say he let you sleep on him for over 90 minutes because he liked the human contact.

You look up at the TV, not knowing what to say, and see it’s still on at a low volume – the channel unchanged and the house renovation show ongoing. Must be some sort of afternoon marathon.  

“So, I need to do my, er, perimeter check. I won’t be long, but can I get you anything before I go?”

“Can I have the next dose of painkillers?”

Leon checks his watch and frowns - you’re over an hour away from the next dose. Maybe he shouldn’t have let you sleep in that position after all, torso twisted to lie across his chest – the fall down the stairs had to have a done a number of your ribs. “I’m afraid not for another hour or so, Dove. Is the pain really bad?”

“No, I’m just starting to ache a bit. I’ll be all right.”

“We can arrange a call with a medic if the painkillers aren’t bearing up, see if we can get you on something stronger.” He offers, getting to his feet.

Your stomach flips. There it is, that horrible niggle of doubt in the depths. Leon seems sincere enough in his offer – hell, this is the man who prepped your toothbrush for you this morning, made breakfast and lunch, let you sob and then nap all over him. That’s surely not how a government agent who suspects you’re a bioterrorist is going to treat you, yet you can’t bring yourself to fully relax around him, painfully aware that he might be feeding back everything you say or even do to superiors.  

Is this a trick or a test, to see if you’ll take up stronger pain medication after you insisted yesterday that what you were given had been adequate? Oh, you lied about that, did you? Did you lie about your whole statement too, Dove?

“No, that’s not necessary.” You’ve taken too long to reply, so time to try and deflect. “I’m just being a baby.”

“No, you’re not.” He replies, firmly. “Have a think about it, okay? You’ll have been running off adrenaline for a while, might have numbed the real extent of the pain when you were being assessed. Been there a few times myself.”

You nod, unsure of what else to say, still feeling a little awkward in the way you’d woken up.

“Okay, I’m heading outside. See you soon.”

You lean forward and grab the remote control. “Take care.” It comes out before you even think about what you’re saying and you turn up the volume on the TV, as if it could drown out what you’d already said.

Leon smiles as he picks up his duffel bag, slings it over his shoulder – he’s locking it in the garage on his way out. If you’ve noticed he keeps it in his line of sight at all times -besides the time it was behind him but you had been very snug in his arms - you’ve been polite enough not to mention it, or maybe you just don’t want to hear the answer. He wishes he could make the call, but until those above him officially deem you as a victim who needs protection and not a suspect under surveillance instead of the hybrid moniker you’re under, he needs to keep you and the weapons separate.

Like you could do any damage to him with your arm in a sling, bruised, grazed and sore, all whilst on sleeping pills and painkillers for God’s sake. If you were faking all of that, call the Academy cos there’s a new Best Actress in town.

---

Part five.

Masterlist . Requests welcome . Commissions/Ko-Fi

Comments, follows, likes and reblogs make my day!

[hxney-lemcn]

The Riddle of Love — Gotham! Edward Nygma x gn! reader

summery: Edward's interest shifts to someone who indulges in his love of riddles.

tw: bullying (?), kristen kringle is a warning all her own in this fic, implied rejection (not really tho, Ed's just awkward).

a/n: I hope so much that I wrote all these characters correctly. I have riddler fever rn and really wanted to write for him, but I've always been scared that I'd write him too ooc. I think I did good tho.

wc: 3.1k

Master List

“What is it that no one wants to have, but no one wants to lose either?” I asked. I already knew it was a lost cause. Edward Nygma was the smartest man I had ever met. Dorky? Yes. Nerdy? Absolutely. Smart? Incredibly. So trying to impress him at his own game wasn’t exactly the smartest move. Yet, the first time I gave him a riddle to solve (which he solved ridiculously fast), I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy. So I continued to scour the internet in my free time to try and find obscure riddles. 

Although this riddle wasn’t that obscure. I was running out of riddles to find, and I sure as hell couldn’t make my own. 

“A lawsuit,” Eddie replied without missing a beat, still focusing on testing blood samples. 

I couldn’t stop the pout that formed on my face, “It’s not fair how smart you are.”

I didn’t see Ed’s lips twitch up, how the praise I didn’t think twice about saying impacted him more than he’d like to admit. It was quiet for a few minutes, and I looked back down to the papers I had brought with me. Sometimes, I found myself working in the forensic lab when I could. One of the perks of being a criminal data analyst. I could make my notes on paper, and then just copy them into the computer later. 

Since I was a data analyst, I was in the record archives often. I was acquainted with Kristen Kringle, which obviously led me to Edward Nygma. She would complain about him if I came in after he had left. At that point I didn’t know him, but I also found her complaints unfounded. I’d let her vent, but I’d also speak up for him, which made her glance away in what I assume was guilt. Then there were the unfortunate times that I’d walk in on his awkward flirting. I’d just tensely put away or take the files I needed for my research and leave them to it. 

But after enough times, I’d caught him in the middle of one of his riddles. An easy one, probably to dumb it down for Kringle so she’d be enticed to answer it in the first place. Yet he had caught the attention of the wrong person. Although that didn’t seem to put a damper on his mood. He only sent me a tight lipped smile with a little ‘ding ding ding!’. That’s how I was caught hook line and sinker. His mannerisms were oddly endearing to me, and that’s how our odd little friendship formed. 

I was brought out of my reverie as Eddie shuffled over to his microscope, “I am a nine lettered word and rhyme with perfection; I am another name for love. What am I?”

I blinked, not ready for a riddle, even though I always should be in the presence of him. I looked up from my work, and I noticed how Eddie was sweating, his cheeks flushing a bright red. I tapped the metal table anxiously, the word love had thrown me off my game and my brain felt empty of anything else. I mumbled words under my breath that rhyme with perfection. 

“Deception, reception, perception,” I mumbled, yet none of them fit the rest of the rhyme. The longer I took, the more anxious Eddie seemed to get. “Affection. Oh! The answer is affection!”

Ed cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses, “Y-yes, that is correct. G-good job.” My proud smile fell into a more awkward one, thinking over the implications. That riddle sounded like one he’d save for Kringle. Was he running out of riddles as well? The thought alone was preposterous. It was tense for a bit. And when I realized I had nothing left to do but input the current data I had on some wanna be gang leader. The sad part is I knew that the cops aren’t going to be the first ones who get them. 

Even though I needed to leave, it felt wrong for some reason. To leave the situation after Edward had seemed to admit something in his unique way of sharing. I didn’t want to assume his feelings, yet I knew he also wasn’t one to just state them willingly. Biting my lip anxiously, I decided to just do it. 

Walking over towards Ed’s hunched form, I leaned down to place a light kiss to his cheek, “I’ll see ya later Eddie.” Then I booked it out of the room, leaving behind a very flustered dork. 

It wasn’t much later in the day when Doctor Lee Thompson entered my office. It wasn’t much of an office. The dark walls made the space feel enclosed, and it barely fit my desk and the few cabinets it held. Yet I didn’t mind it since it was a space for myself. Lee, on the other hand, was another acquaintance whose office was nowhere near mine. She’d only come to my office for a few reasons, if it was work related (which was rare since our departments weren’t similar), or if it was personal. Sometimes she fessed that it seemed I needed some company, that it would do me no good to spend all this time alone in my office. Other times…it was on a more personal note, about Eddie and I’s relationship. 

She plopped a candy bar on my desk, a placating move that was all too familiar.

“You must’ve done a real number on Ed,” She smirked, sitting on my desk. Due to the tiny size of the room, and the nature of my job, I didn’t have a seat for guests. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. Deep down, I knew exactly what she meant. I knew Edward was an awkward man, and his experience with flirting was an ultimate zero. Yet it was hard to imagine that he was still affected by a small gesture of affection… Okay maybe the gesture wasn’t that small, for either of us, but still! 

Lee’s smirk widened, “I think you know exactly what. Poor little Ed kept stumbling over his words when I brought you up. Something must’ve happened.”

I unwrapped the candy bar as she spoke, wanting to avoid any thought of the earlier moment. Looking back it was so awkward and a terrible attempt at…what? Flirting? Was that my intention? I didn’t even know my own intentions! 

I took a bite from the candy bar, savoring the sweet flavor before having to explain the painfully awkward memory. When I managed to explain the event, Lee couldn’t stop herself from chuckling, causing me to finish my candy bar with a bitter look. 

“That sounds like something you’d both do,” She smiled.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” I huffed, trying to fight off the flush of embarrassment I felt. 

“Nothing,” She sighed wistfully. “But you two really take your time, huh?” 

“Shut up,” I scowled. 

“Okay, okay,” She threw her hands up in mock surrender. “I’ll stop teasing…for now. But seriously, I think you two would be cute together.”

I let out a childish groan, “I get it. Is there anything else you need?” 

“No,” She smiled as she stood up. “Just wanted to see what had Ed all wound up.”

I rolled my eyes, but my heart skipped a beat at the implication. As Lee saw herself out, my mind kept racing. What was Ed doing right now? What was he thinking about? Did he really care enough about my opinion, about my affection, that he was still affected by it? I stared at my computer screen, the cursor blinking mindlessly. Glancing at the time, I scowled as I realized I still had 30 minutes left to my shift. The idea of going home, having a relaxing dinner and then maybe treating myself to a warm bath. 

…

That was only the beginning. It seems that Eddie’s admiration had shifted from Kristin Kringle to me. It was flattering, to say the least. At least to me. Once I gained Ed’s attention, I seemed to have gained his colleagues attention as well. Typically, I didn’t work with the officers, I’d research criminals, then that data would be added to the files. So when I walked past James Gordon and Harvey Bullock, I never thought twice. But when Ed had waved at me, that cute tight lipped smile on his face as I waved back, a smile of my own adorning my face, it drew the attention of the two detectives. 

"Careful Ed,” Harvey mocked. “Don’t wanna scare them off.” Jim only glanced up briefly, not interested in the situation in the least. I watched as Ed’s smile twitched for a second, Harvey’s words seeming to get to him. I felt my smile slip, not liking how they treat him in the slightest.

“He…didn’t do anything wrong,” I shrugged, before waving goodbye, making my way to the record archives. Not only them, but even Kringle was looking at me more than just as a person to vent to. 

“I feel sorry for you,” She stated, adjusting her thick rimmed glasses. Her hazel eyes held their usual air of judgment as she placed some files back in their spots. 

“Why?” I asked, flipping through to find the person I needed. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” She asked, raising one of her perfectly maintained eyebrows. “Edward’s got his eyes on another victim.” I frowned, anger bubbling within me at the way she always found new ways to insult him. 

“I wouldn’t describe it like that,” I managed to grit out. “I find the sentiment sweet.”

“Wait,” Kringle paused, turning to look at me with disbelief. “Do you…like him?”

I sighed, finding it hard to focus on the task at hand with this irritating conversation, “Would there be something wrong with that?”

“Isn’t it kind of weird how fast he switched?” She asked, a hint of jealousy in her tone. “I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he loses interest in you.”

I slammed the cabinet shut in a bout of rage, leaving the room before I do something I may regret…or lose my job over. As I exited, my scowl worsened when I realized I didn’t even get what I needed. 

“Hello!” Edward’s excited voice greeted me as I entered the break room. When my gaze landed on him, I felt my expression soften, my shoulder’s relaxing. His brown eyes were so expressive, that silly smile on his face never failed to melt my heart. 

“Hey,” I muttered back. Looking over the options in the vending machine. Just get something to eat, and hopefully I’ll feel better. 

“Is…something the matter?” He asked, fidgeting with his glasses. I let out a long sigh as I sat across from him at one of the few tables. 

Taking a bite of my snack, I took some time to gather my thoughts and feelings, “Sometimes I just hate people.”

His eyebrows raised, nervously fidgeting with his tie, “Th-that’s…understandable.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, finally cooling down. “Someone was just saying some really mean things and it got to me.”

Edwards’ demeanor changed in an instant, a frown replacing his smile, and his eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of concern and anger, “Who?”

I blinked, “What?”

“Who insulted you?” He asked, fists clenched. This wasn’t what I was expecting. He would get annoyed, yeah, but he’d always just stew in it until he calmed down. And he was barely angry when I was around, which was something I was proud of. So seeing him react so harshly was unusual. It made me feel a bit appreciated, that he cared enough to get this angry over it, yet it was also unsettling.

“They…they were insulting you,” I clarified, rubbing my arm awkwardly. “And trust me, I was ready to do some things that would’ve gotten me fired.”

Ed blinked, calming down drastically at the revelation, “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I swear if she says one more damned thing about you I’m gonna…” I strangled the air, the only way I could express how frustrated her insults made me.

Edward fake coughed, his cheeks tinged a light pink, “I assume you mean Miss Kringle.”

I paused, hoping it didn’t hurt that his past interest was still as rude as ever. “I didn’t even manage to get the files I needed,” I grumbled, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

“...I can get them for you,” I felt my heart crack. Was he still interested in her? Was that why he was so ready to go into the den of the woman who so readily insults him? 

“Oh, no you don’t have to do that,” I shook my head. “I’ll just have Lee do it.”

Ed blinked, seeming to think over something before standing up, “I’ll be right back.” Before he was fully out the door he paused, “Whose case files did you need?”

I couldn’t help the tiny grin at how eager he was as I gave him the names of the people I needed files on. Yet that smile fell. Was he really so excited to get a chance to see Kringle that he almost left without knowing what files he needed? I finished my snack, getting a drink from the vending machine while I was at it. My mind continued to make up terrible scenarios that could be happening at that moment. How she could manage to crush Ed’s precious heart even more than she’s already managed to.

Ed was back quicker than I realized. It took him less than ten minutes! He set the files I needed on the table, that tight lipped grin on his face as he waited for my input.

“Oh! Thank you!” I thanked, flipping through the files to make sure they were all there. “She didn’t give you any trouble, did she?”

“No,” He replied simply. As I met his gaze, that’s when I finally realized that he was truly over Kringle. I should’ve felt disturbed at how intense his gaze was, at how strong his emotions seemed to be when he wasn’t even trying. Yet I only felt flattered, important, and wanted. Emotions I wasn’t completely used to, and caused my heart to stutter at how strong my own emotions were becoming. 

Standing up, I leaned in and kissed his cheek again, this time a bit more confident then the last time I did. I waved goodbye as I walked out with the files he gave me. I felt pride swell within me as I watched Eddie become a flustered mess as I left. It was a good mood lifter as I watched him fumble with his usual nervous ticks, before he was finally out of my sight. 

…

Edward’s courting tactics only seemed to grow after that. I wasn’t sure what changed him to do so. I could only speculate that Lee had something to do with it. She kept stopping by my office, asking how Ed and I were doing like she hadn’t just seen us the day before. I can’t lie, I was reveling in the attention that Ed was giving me, and I could tell he’d revel in my attention as well. A mutual pining on both sides. 

Normally, I’d be okay with that. Too scared to try and push things forward. Edward Nygma was different. He was just so…amazing. I’ve never felt so strongly towards someone. He was sweet, attentive, smart, and overall lovely. I couldn’t just settle for pining, I wanted to experience what it would be like as his lover. 

Which led me to this horrendous mess up of a confession.

I dressed up a bit nicer than usual, hoping to impress the cute dork. I felt confident in myself, an emotion I don’t feel regularly. I greeted Lee, who seemed like she guessed the occasion and sent me a wink when I walked past. 

“Hey Eddie,” I greeted, setting a cup of coffee down on the counter.

“Oh! Hello,” He greeted me, smiling. “You seem chipper this morning.”

Nudging the coffee towards him I smiled back, “It’s a good day today. I got you a coffee.”

“You didn’t need to,” Ed replied sheepishly, not used to people giving him things. 

I only shrugged, “I wanted to.” I tapped the counter I was leaning on as nerves started to slowly creep through me. So, before my anxiety could get the best of me, I blurted out, “What is mine but only you can have?”

With furrowed eyebrows, Ed actually paused to answer a riddle for the first time during this little game we had. His eyes flitted around the room, like he was trying to avoid the answer. I know he was smart enough to figure it out, so the fact he was taking so long to answer caused my heart rate to spike from anxiety. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I was reading the room wrong. I blame Lee for feeding me a wrong understanding. 

“I…uh…” Ed stuttered over his words, sweat dripping down the side of his face. Shit, shit, shit! I shouldn’t have said that. He does know the answer, I found it online easily, he obviously knows. He doesn’t feel the same and now he’s trying to find a way to politely reject me. 

“Nevermind!” I exclaimed, trying to quell my nerves by getting the fuck out of here. “Stupid riddle! Never needs an answer. I should get to work.”

“W-wait!” Eddie called out, making me stop in my tracks. So close yet so far. “I can be a fruit, I can be on a calendar, I can be important, and I can be forgotten. What am I?”

Turning back around, I watched as Eddie picked at his nails. We both seemed like complete messes at the moment. It was hard for me to think of anything due to my previous failure of admitting my feelings. I bit my lip awkwardly, trying to stop myself from making any more of a fool of myself.

“I…I’m not sure Eddie,” I chuckled solemnly.

Clearing his throat, he adjusted his glasses before admitting, “A date. W-would you accompany me on one?” I stared at him with wide eyes, unsure if I heard him correctly.

“Y-yeah! Of course I will!” That tinge of embarrassment was quickly overpowered by exhilaration. The smile that stretched across my face almost hurt with how big it was. Eddie’s smile was also wide as he still couldn’t meet my eyes.

“Is…is tonight okay? Dinner? 7 o’clock?”

“That sounds perfect.” 

And to make the moment better, I kissed his cheek before parting, excited for what the night held for us.

[mrswint3rs]

haiiii!! i was wondering if you be willing to write step dad whesker x reader where you come in from college for a family reunion and he takes you out back behind the building to feel you up, and as he does someone catches you and he continues to fuck you as the family tries to get you both to stop. :3

𝐀 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞 ❦

pairings - Stepdad! Wesker x Fem! Reader

a/n- this is definitely the darkest fic i’ve written so far😭 thank you for the ask!! hope you enjoy (as usual, not proofread so lmk)

𝐂𝐰- Step-cest, exhibitionsm?, cheating, fantasizing, taboo relationship, age gap (reader is in her 20s, Wesker is 48), mild daddy kink, use of praise and pet names, reader is a virgin, unprotected sex, dumbification?, breeding kink if you squint, dacraphylia ꨄ

༺

“It’s so good to have you home, hon!” your mother exclaims, suffocating you with her usual greeting of a hug.

It had been a couple of years since you’d been home. You chose to go to a college a few states away, which your mother absolutely despised. But as an adult, you’re responsible for your own decisions and that’s where you wanted to go.

It was far away, but you could still visit whenever you wanted. Though, simple face-times were more convenient in between those timeframes.

You couldn’t make it to last years family gathering, mostly because it’s on the most random day of the year and you had exams. So this year, you make the effort to come visit.

It was nice to get a break from the burdens of school.

“It’s good to be home,” you reassure your mother with a few awkward back pats before pulling away from the embrace.

“Albert set the TV back up in your old room for the week.”

Convenient. You had almost forgotten about the man your mother married. Or rather, tried to force yourself to forget him.

Wesker came into you and your mother’s life out of nowhere, quickly becoming head of the household. And taking over your thoughts entirely.

He was a fickle man, something about him just always seemed off in a way you couldn’t quite decipher. He was just eerie. Somehow, that was appealing. You found yourself wanting to get closer to the man.

But you would never do that to your poor mother. She loved him a lot, so it seemed. So you just pushed him out of your memory when you left. It was nothing that serious. Never even discussed out loud. Hell, the two of you hardly ever spoke, always awkward around each other.

Especially now, as you pass by on your way to your room.

He just watches, as if inspecting you under a microscope. Not saying a word, just staring all open mouthed like he was going to.

You force a tight lipped smile, directing it to him as a hello. Some things just don’t change. Not even your old bedroom.

But you sure did.

Wesker couldn’t help but notice your major change in wardrobe. He always saw you as the sort of insecure and self conscious type. Now you fully displayed yourself without shame, wearing tighter, more revealing clothing. Shorts so short your ass hangs out around the edges. And your makeup, less minuscule. To say you grew into your looks was an understatement.

You completely changed appearance wise, even if you remained the same inside. He felt like he was looking at you for the first time.

He liked what he saw. A little too much. He knew how wrong it was to see his own stepdaughter in that light, but as he takes in every inch of you, all the blood rushes from his head to his cock, making him shift uncomfortably as his pants suddenly grow to be too tight.

He just leaves without greeting you, welcoming you home like he wanted to originally.

Hopefully you didn’t take it the wrong way, he just desperately needed to relieve himself. To get those dirty thoughts out of his head.

He rushes off to the bathroom, dropping his pants and boxers down to his ankles and immediately gripping his cock. He closes his eyes as he fucks into his hand, using the thought, the image of you in his mind.

Something was seriously wrong with him.

It only took a minute or two before he made a mess of himself, cumming in bursts he’d never experienced. He had never gotten off that fast, or released that much. But with the thought of you, it felt completely different. Completely wrong and so damn good. Was he really that depraved?

Usually he goes back to normal after he finishes, but not this time. It only made him want more.

As he starts to go again, he’s halted by the sound of your mother’s voice. Dinner was ready. She planned all week for this, making sure to make your favorite meal for your first night back.

With a frustrated sigh, he washes the filth from his hands, looking at his face shamefully in the mirror before pulling up his pants again, making his way to the dining room.

You’re already there, sitting quietly at the table. He sits opposite of you, trying to remain as far away as possible. Trying to pretend he didn’t just jerk off pathetically to the thought of you.

“So, Wesker…” you speak up, almost giving the man a heart attack. “Mom told me about the new job you started.”

It takes him a minute to process your statement. He realizes you’re attempting to make conversation with him, clearing his throat before replying. “Yes, pays quite nicely.”

Was that too bland? He shouldn’t have to think this hard for a simple discussion.

“Do you like it?” you try to continue.

He freezes up as you start eating, lips wrapping around the spoon, making direct eye contact with him. He zones out, imagining those pretty lips around his cock, struggling to take him down your throat. Shit. When did he become this desperate?

Again he shifts, feeling that familiar tightness. “I like it just fine. I get a decent amount of time off.”

“Are you looking forward to the cookout tomorrow? Your favorite aunt will be attending I’ve heard.” he continues, hiding the tremble in his voice.

You nod, “It’ll be nice to have everyone together again.” and the conversation ends there, leaving your mother to carry it on throughout the rest of dinner.

He tries his hardest to be normal, refusing to look your way. But he can’t help it. He continues stealing glances at you throughout the meal, writhing in his chair every time you meet his gaze.

By the end of it, he’s in the bathroom again, unable to calm himself down. Meanwhile you’re going to bed without knowing at all.

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄

The following day is even worse. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get through the day without doing something. Let alone the rest of the week that you’re staying.

Half of the family is over, completely taking away any chance of privacy for his restroom breaks. He would just have to deal with it.

That was going to be completely impossible though.

It’s a hot day, you’re dressed in a tank top and an even shorter pair or shorts than the day before. With your hair up, unkempt and out of your face, smiling and laughing so sweetly with the others. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you, off of your exposed skin.

He’s struggling to keep up with his role with the grill, almost burning the food an embarrassing amount of times.

He wanted so badly to slip away again. But even then he wouldn’t be satisfied. Not until he got to have you the way he wanted.

If he was going to survive this family reunion, that’s what had to happen. He just didn’t know how he was going to pull it off. He had a feeling you might be attracted to him, but he was never certain. You hid your feelings better than even he could.

When he notices the grill is running low on charcoal, he sees it as an opportunity. “Could you help me out with getting these bags from the shed? Could use an extra pair of hands.”

Being the good girl you were, you drop everything you’re doing to help him out, following him towards the other side of the house.

He didn’t at all need help. Before you know it, you’re pinned to the wall, silenced by his rough lips taking over yours. He forces your shorts down with ease, dipping his hand directly into your bare cunt while the other holds you there.

You go completely dizzy, not fighting against him. Instead you’re kissing your stepfather back, letting those urges take you over, all the pent up tension that built over the years.

You whimper into his mouth as he rubs at your clit like a mad man, already making you quiver. “What if we get caught..and the neighbors…if they-“

“Let them. They can watch for all I care. I need you, now.” he interjects, and you submit.

He discards his pants, hooking his arms under your thighs to hold you up and aligning himself with your entrance and shoving all the way in, balls deep.

You let out a guttural squeal, clinging onto him with tears welling up in your eyes.

“Holy fuck…” he growls almost animalistic, “So fucking tight. Are you still a virgin?”

You nod. Well, you were. And now your first time was his. Knowing that drove him over the edge. “It’s alright, daddy’s got you. I’ll take care of you, my darling.” he croons.

But that was partially a lie. As much as he didn’t want to end up hurting you, he couldn’t control himself. He tried his best to slow down, but his hips thrusted into you on their own. The head of his cock jabs at your cervix, over and over.

Your nails dig into his back seeking stability and he does his best to hold you.

You’re sobbing, from pain or pleasure he can’t tell. All he knows is it’s turning him on even more. Everytime you whine, it brings him closer.

“You’re okay.”

“Such a good girl, letting me have my way with you. You’re taking me so well.” he coos softly, continuing to fuck up into you ruthlessly. “Daddy’s gonna fill you up, you’re going to take it like a good girl, hm?”

You can find the words to speak, only mewling out needy and incoherent attempts at his name. It’s enough to push him over. He cums deep inside, not even attempting at pulling out.

Instead, he continues, stuffing you full of his seed.

His pace doesn’t even slow during the second round, steadily pumping his cock into your walls. You suck him in so tightly as he splits you open mercilessly. As much as he cared for you, nothing was going to stop him from fulfilling his needs.

Not even favorite aunt who’s horrified at the sight in front of her. She grows to be heated, preaching on about how disgusting he is, pleading for him to separate from you.

It goes in one ear and out the other. He doesn’t even pause to look at her, keeping his eyes on yours. He wasn’t going to stop until he was fully satisfied.

“Just look at me baby, don’t worry. We’re in this together. Daddy’s got you…”

You’re feeling completely humiliated, guilt churning in the pit of your stomach, his cock only stirs it further.

Your aunt fades out to the background, your ears start to ring and your vision goes hazy. You climax so hard you can’t stop your shaking. You tighten up around him in the process, completely draining him into you.

Again he sounds a carnal growl, feeling that sweet release he’s been yearning for.

When he pulls out and sets you down, you’re clinging to him like a whipped dog, soaking his shirt with your tears. It wounds his heart to see you so upset.

He pulls his pants back up, yours as well, zipping up your shorts and buttoning up the button for you. He runs his hands through your disheveled hair and wipes away your streams of tears.

Whatever the consequences were for his actions, he wouldn’t let you go down for it.

The two of you could run away together if needed, he hardly cared all that much for your mother anyway.

Not when you were in town.

mlist

[cinnamostar]

drunken confession

pairing : jeongin x gn!reader

summary : jeongin is hopelessly in love with his best friend and finds himself drunkenly confessing his love

wc : 3.2k (got carried away)

cw : unrequited love (soz), best friends, angst, sadness, alcohol/drinking, allusion to hook ups, non idol!au, post college, let me know if i missed anything

a/n : this wasn’t suppose to be very long. I kinda hate the ending but let me know whatcha think! also im still on my phone so i apologize for any mistakes made :’)

jeongin sighs heavily, vexation all over his face as he watches you from a distance, the empty seat in front of him mocking his lonesomeness. his grip on the now empty cup of coffee tightens in frustration, his knuckles turning white as the poor disposable cup collapses onto itself due to his strength, while yours still remains full on the other side of the table, likely losing all its warmth at this point.

he couldn’t quite understand what he was feeling and what he has been feeling the past few months, but it was becoming extremely irritating to constantly feel this sinking feeling in his chest whenever your attention was ripped away from him. he hated the bitter taste that filled his mouth every time you’d talk to him about your latest date, how he had to force a smile, and pretend he was happy for you even though he could feel his stomach churn over every detail you shared. it was miserable, it was becoming unbearable as time went on, yet there was no way he could ever resist an opportunity to spend time with you.

despite the difficult emotions of jealousy, the moments where he was able to have you all to himself, he felt like he was floating through time and that the stresses of life no longer existed. the impeding doom of growing up and adulthood was nowhere to be found when he was with you, as you always infected him with childlike joy and laughter he dearly missed. your very presence had become absolutely addicting, finding himself craving your radiance and wanting nothing more to bask under the warmth of your personality.

somehow, you were able to create to this addicting cocktail of placidity and nervousness that he downed every day without hesitation. one that made him fidget with bubbling shyness and excitement, yet he had complete trust in your willingness to accept him wholly with no reservations. he knew your gentle touch would handle his glass heart gingerly, never daring to overlook a single scratch or mark on it, yet you had no idea that recently, you’ve been the cause and remedy of the microscopic cracks and tears his heart had been weathering. the naked eye would never be able to notice how your ignorance to his unwavering devotion to you brutalized his tender heart, how your inability to recognize his undying love for you was slowly causing his resolve to crumble down as he struggled to contain the truth of his emotions. and despite your lack of awareness, the flustering butterflies you’d inject him with would cause his entire body to overheat, turning him into a blushing mess, which ultimately melted away the very fissures you created. the constant push and pull of this relationship was becoming exhausting and jeongin knew he needed to say something soon, as it wasn’t your fault your best friend kept his true feelings clandestine from you.

but how? jeongin knew every detail of your love life, he had witnessed you go through countless partners, and he was certain he was far off your image of a potential suitor. he had his full trust in you, knowing that if you didn’t return those very feelings, it would never change the nature of your friendship with him, however the fear of rejection was absolutely paralyzing. he wasn’t afraid of losing his friendship with you, but he no longer knew if he could trust himself to not let it drastically impact your relationship with him, not knowing what an inevitable heartbreak would do to him. his silence was his prison, and fear was his captor.

especially now, something as simple as you catching up with an old classmate at the cafe you are both at sends his mind into a seething frenzy of jealousy and insecurity. he has no idea who this person is, but he hates witnessing how much they make you laugh and how they would so inconspicuously brush a hand against your arm in some lame flirtatious attempt. he doesn’t like how much you’re enjoying the conversation, and is desperately pleaing to whatever divine entity there is to smite that person away. he should be the one making you giggle so bashfully right now, not that guy.

eventually, you make your return to jeongin, but he doesn’t miss the fact that you just exchanged numbers with that mystery man. “ah, sorry about that! i didn’t realize how much time had gone by,” you apologize sheepishly, taking your seat while lifting the now lukewarm coffee to your mouth.

jeongin does his best to push aside the whirlwind of emotions he had just gone through, “it’s okay, it happens,” he shrugs off convincingly, “who was that?”

“that was minho! he was an old classmate of mine! we worked on a group project together in freshman year,” you respond with a playful smile tugging on your lips, “he’s kinda cute, hm?”

internally, jeongin could feel himself fall to his knees and scream, but instead, all he does is hum in agreement. “he’s pretty good looking,” his eyes avoiding your gaze, “i assume you got his number?”

you chuckle at his question, “of course i did!”

“nice,” is all he could muster out as he does his best to ignore the acidic taste jealousy that was traveling up from his gut.

“mhm, maybe i’ll text him and see if he wants to go on a date tonight or something,” you muse, “what do you think?”

jeongin finally looks into your eyes with furrowed eyebrows, “tonight?”

“yeah, why not tonight?”

“y/n, we have plans tonight,” he reminds you, exasperation in his voice, “we’re suppose to go out to celebrate felix landing that job.”

your lips round out into an ‘o’ shape, “ooh, you’re right… i definitely forgot, im sorry! i guess that’s for another day.”

he rolls his eyes, both jokingly and with annoyance, “you can get laid another time,” but you don’t miss the layer of spite in jeongin’s tone.

you raise your eyebrows in confusion, “are you okay?”

“i’m fine,” he mumbles while forcing a smile, yet you’re able to see through it.

“no, something’s wrong. i can tell,” you press on, “what is it? lately you’ve been so… agitated? i thought you were just stressed with work, so i wasn’t going to bring it up, but i’m starting to get worried, jeongin.”

right, you always were quick to pick up on jeongin’s mood, even if it was the slightest change, yet somehow you couldn’t pick up on the one thing he prayed for you to notice. “it’s nothing,” he responds, wishing nothing more for the topic to be changed, “don’t worry about it.”

“you know i’m going to worry about it anyway.”

“i know, i’m sorry, it’s just…” he pauses for a moment, anxiety filling him as he tried to search for some excuse you’d accept, “i’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

“that’s okay, but you know i’m always here for you. promise you’ll let me know what’s going on when you’re ready?” you ask sweetly, a delicate smile of concern adorning your features as you hold out your pinky finger, “pinky promise?”

he lets out a breathy laugh, unable to suppress a loving smile at your antics as the resentment he felt earlier washes away under your inviting warmth, “pinky promise.”

જ⁀➴ જ⁀➴ જ⁀➴

the night arrives sooner than jeongin was prepared for, and he was way more buzzed than he planning on being. felix insisted on everyone taking a shot as soon as they arrived, even ordering 3 more rounds after that. it was safe to say that no one in the group was sober, but it seems like everyone was enjoying their time as they all cheer and clink their fourth shot of the night.

jeongin takes it upon himself to stay by your side the entire night, making sure you wouldn’t get yourself into any trouble in your drunken state, although he wasn’t the most reliable person in the room at the moment.

jeongin’s entire body is hot to the touch, likely the affects of the alcohol getting to him, but the drunken, lazy smile you flash him every now and then did not helping the growing red blush forming across his face. luckily, no one would expect you being the cause of his reddening face, but he was becoming uncomfortable sweaty as the night progresses.

perhaps it was his inebriated state, but jeongin often finds himself staring shamelessly at you, his heart overwhelming itself with affection at how stunning you look under the lowlights of the bar. there’s a subtle, yet enticing glow the alcohol brings out of you and he was absolutely enjoying how relaxed you seem in these moments. his heart would flutter and soar to the sky every time you’d laugh at one of his jokes, the way your eyes would become crescents and your nose would scrunch up caused him to bubble up with pride, and it had become his personal mission to continue to elicit that reaction from you.

although, much like other outings, something or someone would steal his spotlight and become the center of your attention. and it was just his luck that your old classmate, minho, happened to come to the same bar that night to celebrate something with his own friends.

usually, jeongin would be suffering from some case of anger and jealousy, but at this very moment, he wears a pitiful pout with somber eyes, his gaze catching the upsetting sight of you and minho flirtatiously giggling across the bar. he can feel himself sink deeper into his sadness, especially with the way you were leaning into minho every time he made you laugh, the way your hand would playfully swat his shoulder, god, did he wish that was him. how he envied the proximity you and minho were sharing, his heart trembling each time minho would lean into your ear to whisper something with a smirk, which clearly left you in a flustered state as you hid your face behind your hands.

this was an awfully cruel punishment, and he wonders what he had done in his past life to deserve this fate. eventually, a concerned chan notices the melancholic expression jeongin was wearing, and after following his line of sight, he was quick to connect the dots. the older man takes a seat next to jeongin and rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, “you like them, right?” he asks, using his other hand to point in your direction.

jeongin turns to chan, nodding his head while mumbling a hushed yes. chan offers a sympathetic smile, “and you haven’t told them?” again, jeongin can only shake his head, unable to produce a verbal response in fear his voice is would come out in a croaked sob.

“what’s stopping you?”

jeongin furrows his eyebrows at the ridiculous question chan asked, “why would i ever tell them when they’re clearly not into me?”

chan shrugs his shoulders, “well, you never really know. even if they don’t return your feelings, wouldn’t confessing help you move on? better yet, what if they do feel the same way? there’s only one way to find out.”

jeongin’s drunken brain was too fried to properly process chan’s words, turning his attention back to you and minho as he burns holes into minho’s head. “you’re telling me i have a chance? when they’re all over that guy?”

chan’s face cringes at the sight, “i mean…” he pauses, “you might..?” he says with uncertainty coloring his voice.

“you’re not a great hype man, chan,” jeongin responds dryly.

“hey! i’m trying to help while also being realistic with you,” he exclaims while raising his hands up defensively.

jeongin sighs, “i know, it just… it just sucks.”

suddenly, jeongin notices you leaving minho’s side and are now approaching his table. chan takes note of this, patting jeongin’s back as he makes his exit, “i’ll leave you to it,” leaving him with a small wink.

you appear in front of jeongin with a giddy smile on your face, leaning into his ear to whisper, “hey, i think i’m heading out now.”

he snaps his head to you, narrowing his eyes, “what?”

“yeah, with minho!” you respond coyly, unable to hide the widening grin on your face.

“y/n, no, you’re way too drunk right now,” he replies sternly, grabbing hold of your wrist before you try to make an escape.

a whine escapes you, “but jeongin! i’ve done this before, i’ll be okay. plus, he’s drunk too!”

“no,” he huffs, “i’m not letting you. besides, you’re suppose to be here for felix, not minho.”

“i’m sure felix wouldn’t mind!”

“i definitely do mind!” his voice raises as the anger he had been suppressing finally makes its appearance.

you’re taken aback by this, worry etching onto your features once more, “are you okay?” you ask, confused as to why jeongin now cares about this, as usually he has been rather supportive of your adventures in the past.

jeongin’s not thinking before he speaks, and he swears his drunkenness is going to get him in big trouble as he curtly replies to your question, “no, no i’m not and i haven’t been for awhile. but who cares, y/n. just go have fun with your hook up.”

your mouth drops open in surprise, “jeongin, what’s wrong? talk to me,” you’re slurring over your words, but your eyes are wide with worry and concern for your best friend who was clearly being afflicted by something. “minho can wait, jeongin. what has you so upset right now?”

“i-“ jeongin squeezes his eyes in frustration, trying to bite back his response as he rubs his temples, feeling a headache come on. “you! you’re what’s wrong!” he moans out, mentally cursing at himself as he watches himself create a mess.

“… me?”

“yes, you.”

you were silent as you watch jeongin put his head down on the table, your brain trying to understand jeongin’s few words, but the alcohol was doing a number on your thinking, struggling to come to any understanding. “i’m… i’m sorry?”

“it’s not your fault,” he mumbles, still hiding his face from your gaze, “it’s my own fault. it’s not your fault that i’m an idiot.”

“no, you’re not dumb, jeongin,” you reply, “look at me. tell me what i did.”

jeongin sighs, peeling himself from the table he was slumping over to meet your concerned eyes. “nothing. you did nothing, but…” he stops himself, unsure whether he should continue with his words as a surge of nerves causes his body to run cold. the anxious anticipation filling him as the words were just on the tip of his tongue, his heart pounding through his chest as his eyes struggle to focus on yours.

“but what?”

he bites his lip as his heart clamors away in his chest, the loud chatter of the bar suddenly fading away in the background as his face grows warmer than before. is this really happening? is he really going to say it right here, right now? while you both are far from being sober? this is not how ever envisioned this moment going, this was far from it and was plenty less romantic than he would’ve liked it to be, but his mind didn’t care about the current circumstances and was operating purely off the raw emotions his body was feeling. reason and logic had flown out the window, and the liquid courage was going to force him into a confession he was not prepared for.

“i’m in love with you.”

the world stills as soon as the words left his mouth, which instantly dries from the nervousness he was feeling. his hands slightly shaking as he tried to examine your face as frantic energy takes over his once angry demeanor. your face pales at his confession, your mouth twitching as you try to conjure up an appropriate response in that moment, but he knew from the lack of excitement in your face that you did not feel the same way about him. his heart ached and writhed in pain, one he always prepared for mentally, but the anguish was far more greater than he could’ve imagined as his chest collapses onto itself, his breath becoming shallow as he held back the ugly sobs threatening to spill out his lips.

“i’m so sorry, jeongin, i… i’ve never thought of you that way,” you ramble apologetically as your wore a pitying face.

jeongin only nods, shooing you off with a hand, not fully trusting himself to open speak.

“jeongin…”

“its okay,” he whispers in a quivering voice, hurt reverberating from each syllable, tears slipping down his rosy cheeks “just… go. it’s okay.”

part of you feels wrong to leave your best friend a sobbing mess all alone, wanting nothing more to comfort him, but you knew it was best to respect his wishes when you were the cause of his pain. “okay,” you whisper, a layer of guilt washing over you as you rush over to chan, whispering in his ear asking if he would watch over jeongin for the rest of the night. chan reassures he’ll be okay and that he’ll take care of him, not before asking you where you were headed. “ah, i’ll just go home… i don’t really think i should be here anymore,” you respond.

chan opens his mouth with raised brows “with that guy?” he inquiries, pointing towards minho.

the question earns chan a stern look from you, “i’m not that mean, no, not with him. i’m taking an uber home…. alone...”

chan laughs, “hey, i’m not judging if you do… you know…” quickly making an inappropriate motion with his hands that causes to slap his arm.

“chan.”

“just saying! nothing wrong with it, but don’t worry, he’ll be in good hands! i’ll let pretty boy know you went home alone, definitely not with that guy.”

“please be serious,” you plead, not wanting to rub salt on jeongin’s wound.

“alright, don’t worry about it. i got it,” he promises, waving you off as he walks back to a tearful jeongin whose slouched in his seat. “hey bud,” he whispers affectionately, wrapping a secure arm around his shoulders, “it didn’t work out, but i’m proud of you for doing it. it’s okay, this will pass too.”

jeongin wipes his tears away, taking a deep breath in to steady his voice as he sits himself up, “it’s fine, it’s fine. i’ll get over it soon enough.”

“right, you will.”

“just sucks a lot right now.”

“it does, but it’ll pass.”

“they’re going to fuck him anyway, right?”

“no comment.”

jeongin groans once more, throwing his head back while he sniffles. he knew his chances with you were nonexistent from the start, he saw this coming long ago, but it didn’t change how agonizing the pain of heartbreak was, and he foolishly realized all the time he spent avoiding it only worsened its blow. perhaps he should’ve ripped the bandage off sooner, but at the end of the day, it was his fault for falling in love with his best friend who never showed an ounce of interest in him. though, somehow, even if you were the one to break his heart, he knew you’d be the one to help him mend it once more.

[lolahauri]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ It's Been a Secret for the Longest Time

Ship: Hoodie/Reader

Type: Smut, One-shot, F/M, Reader Insert.

Contains: Unaware voyeurism, afab reader/female anatomy, multiple o's, masturbation, oral (f receiving), breeding, creampie, no plot, size kink if you squint.

Words: 2.7k

Request?: Kind of.

Hoodie was standing outside your room, peeking through the near-microscopic crack in the door. It was opened just enough to see the show going on inside. He didn’t even remember what he was coming to tell you, but it didn’t matter anymore. There were more important things going on now. 

-

“Hah- oh fuck!” you hissed under your breathe, slowly swiping a pink vibrator over your throbbing clit, two soaked fingers sliding in-and-out of your pussy, working perfectly in sync with the toy. Completely nude, long strands of hair framing your glistening chest as you inhaled sharply. And as focused as you were on reaching your climax, the main thought occupying your mind was Hoodie. He was all you thought about during your private sessions, longing to feel his big strong hands tease your sensitive areas while holding you down and telling you who you belong to. 

Broken whimpers poured from your plump lips, now imagining what his cock looked like, what’d it feel like inside you. You wonder if he’d be willing to cum in you. Is he more rough or gentle? Not that you would care either way, you’ve fantasized about every possible scenario. 

You were obsessed with him, but you’d never tell him. You didn’t want to ruin the friendship you two had built, or make working together uncomfortable. There was just to much at risk. As much as you loved and lusted him, you’d continue to try your best at keeping these feelings to yourself. 

Unbeknownst to you though, you were about to find out he thought the exact same way of you. 

-

Brian continued to watch the pornographic scene in front of him, he was stuck in a trance almost, watching intently through his black mask. His eyes slowly worked down your entire body, starting with your mouth. He watched as your lips parted, letting out another angelic whine. Your face was dusted with a light rosy tint. Your entire body glimmered from the light droplets of sweat building up over your smooth skin, the room was hot and smelled of sex. He fucking loved it. 

Eyes trailing further south, he reached the real show. Your soft, small hands toying with your slick, wet pussy. The sounds of your soaked fingers, moans, and vibrations were like a symphony to him. This was everything he’s ever dreamed of, the kind of sight he’d imagine when he’s pleasuring himself. It was almost too good to be true.

- 

He was suddenly snapped out of his daze by the throbbing twitches of his cock. Becoming aware of his own body and desires now, he palmed his hard on through his pants, trying to relief some of the aching arousal he felt. Deep down he knows this is wrong, it’s creepy, you’d hate him for thinking this way of you, for watching you like this. But he can’t think straight right now, he felt dizzy from the way your undressed body hypnotized him. 

The way you’re drawing him in could only be compared to a siren luring a lustful man to his demise, using nothing but her beautiful voice and enchanting figure. Quietly unzipping his pants, he kept rubbing his hardened cock as he stared right at your tits. Every movement making them bounce ever so slightly, for a moment he thinks he might’ve actually died and gone to heaven. He imagines what it’d feel like to knead and caress them, sucking on one nipple and rolling the other between his fingers. He so badly wants to hear you whimper his name while he teases you, grinding his length against your exposed heat. 

Brian moved his pants and boxers down just enough for his cock to spring out, sucking in a sharp breathe as it hit the cool air of the hallway. His gloved hand slowly circled his throbbing tip, smearing precum that had already begun dripping out. Slowly stroking himself, he pretended it was your hand jerking him off, imagining you on your knees in front of him, your soft tongue teasing the head as you pumped your hands up and down his long shaft. He was only a few seconds in and already his cock was threatening to spill it's seed onto the floor. 

It’s insane to him, you haven’t even touched him and he’s already about to cum for you and cry your name out while he does it. His movements slowed down abruptly, trying to savor this moment for as long as he could. His attention never left your body, jolts of electricity shot through him every time you made a sudden action or sound. 

Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he picked up speed again, moving in rhythm with your hands. The thrill and anxiety of possibly getting caught, mixed with the beautiful sight before him was getting too much to handle. He wishes so badly he could just walk into the room, pull your fingers out and replace them with his cock. He dreams of pumping you full of cum, watching it pour down your thighs and mix with your own juices. 

He’s huffing quietly as he comes to a stop yet again, working himself up far too quickly for his liking. But you look like you’re getting close, he wants to cum with you. He watched as you picked up speed, moans flowing consistently. Fuck yes, you’re about to cum. He begins to aggressively pump his cock, not caring anymore if he’s being too loud, he needs to cum with you now. 

-

Squeezing your tits, you pick up speed on rubbing yourself off. Moaning and whining becoming out of control, but you’re confident you’re alone, you don’t care what sounds you’re making anymore.

“Mmph, ah, oh god, fuck” the pressure in your lower stomach erupts into an earth shattering orgasm “fuck- Brian!” you scream his name as your reach your peak, whispering it a few more times as you come down from the high.

-

Just as he’s about to cum, Hoodie stops in his tracks when he hears you yelling his name out. A cold rush shoots through every vein in his body, there’s no way he heard that right, right? But his confusion is confirmed when he hears you whimper it a few more times. You were actually thinking of him while you played with yourself. His brain short circuits momentarily, realizing all this time, you must’ve felt the exact same way as him. A fog casts over his mind, he’s not thinking clearly again. 

“Fuck it” - he thinks to himself “ now or never, i guess. ”

He pushes your door open with one hand, watching as you jump in shock, covering your tits with your arms while your eyes grow wide, face becoming red hot.

“What the- Brian!” embarrassment and confusion clear in your voice “what the hell are you doing here?” 

He doesn’t say anything as he takes off his mask and walks up to the edge of your bed, not breaking eye contact. You were about to tell him to get the fuck out, that was until… 

“Oh my god…” you whispered to yourself as you gasped, shock turning to pure lust as you finally spotted it. His hard, twitching cock was out, fully on display. 

Wait, has he been here the whole time? Oh well, who cares, your fantasy is about to become reality. You’ll tell him off for spying on you later. Just enjoy the moment for now. 

Brian crawls on top of you, sliding his bent leg up at an angle, his knee forcing your left leg to spread open* You gasp when you feel his erection press up against you, but you're quickly distracted when he pry's your arms off your chest, pinning them to the side of your head as he lowers his face to yours. He’s smirking as you gaze up into his eyes, “ so fucking cute” he thinks to himself.

Slowly, he brings his lips down to yours, immediately bringing you into a heated make-out session. You both close your eyes into the kiss, lips moving in perfect harmony, maybe it’s the lust talking, but it almost feels as though your lips were made for each other, like two puzzle pieces clicking together. 

The kiss turns more heated as you wrap your free leg around his waist, beckoning him to get some friction going. He knows exactly what you trying to do as he quickly begins to roll his hips into yours, his cock getting coated in your previous orgasm. You’re both moaning into each other's mouths while he moves a hand down to squeeze your tit, rubbing his thumb over your sensitive bud. 

The sensations are sending you to Nirvana. His tip is perfectly rubbing right against your clit with every forward motion. You’re panting now, locking your legs tighter around him as a silent way to beg him to just fuck you already. He’s been waiting for this for a long time though, and he knows the second he slips inside he won’t be lasting too long, he wants to drag this out as far as he can. 

You whine as he slowly pulls away from you, leaving you dazed and needy for his touch. 

“Don’t worry, i’ll give you what you want.” his voice is soft, but husky.

Before you could even ask what he’s doing, he moves back, just enough for him to lay down and rest his head between your trembling thighs. He moves his arms underneath you, his shoulders pressed close to your plush bottom, two strong hands reached up to hold your waist down. He breathes against your heat, sending a cold shiver up your spine. 

“Brian… please do something.” your voice was breathy and light, already so high on sex you could hardly get the sentence out. He loved it though, if he wasn’t so pent up himself, he’d tease you till your crying and screaming for more. Next time. 

He chuckled a bit and gave an experimental lick up your pussy, going in for more when he heard you gasp and felt your thighs twitch around him. His tongue darted up and down your folds like a zipper, swiping against your aching clit each time it went back up. He savored each little sound you made, relishing in the feeling of your thighs gently squeezing the sides of his head. 

You let out a high pitched moan as he suddenly began to focus on your clit. Sucking lightly between each circular swirl of his tongue. The more you squirmed and twitched, the harder he pressed his hands into your waist, pinning you down harshly as to not mess with his rhythm. He sucked your bud a few more times before dipping back down, sliding the entire length of his long tongue into your pussy. 

“Oh holy shit! You gasped loudly at the sudden penetration, squeezing tighter around his head. Instinctively, you brought a hand down to his hair, pushing his face in to your heat just a little more. Hoodie eagerly took this as a sign to continue, and so he did. He repeatedly fucked his tongue in and out of you, curving upwards to rub at the spongy spot on the top of your pussy. 

“Brian…” your voice and breathing was shaky “I’m- i’m gonna cum, jesus!” 

He instantly moved a gloved hand downwards to toy with your clit while he continued to abuse your g-spot. He couldn’t stop grinding on the bed for some sort of relief, almost reaching his own climax when he felt yours begin. The familiar pressure of a nearing orgasm slowly dissipated as a wave of pure euphoria crashed over you. He groaned at the feeling of your juices soaking his mouth, thighs still wrapped around his head and shoulder. He really never wants this to end. 

You’re senses momentarily heighted afterwards, becoming hyperaware of what was happening. But that didn’t last long, your brain was once again clouded with arousal as Hoodie suddenly crawled back up to you, bringing you into a harsh kiss. His cock was back to sliding between your folds, prepping for what was about to come.

“Is this okay?” Brian asked quietly as he reached behind you, grabbing a pillow to prop your hips up.

“God, yes. Please, just fuck me already.” you were gripping his clothed shoulders tightly as you lifted your hips, allowing him to slide the pillow underneath you. 

“Fuck.” he huffed as he bent down a bit, allowing his hips to align with yours. He almost couldn’t believe it, he’d been fantasizing of this moment since he laid eyes on you, and it was really happening now. He slowly pushed the head of his cock into you, both of you threw your head back and signed in unison.

“Shit” he hissed at the feeling of your tight walls clenching around him, he’d barely gotten the first inch in and nearly got close to cumming, you must be some kind of demon the way you get him going. He starts burying himself in further, inch by inch, not giving you much time to adjust. Though, you're so wet and turned on he didn't get much resistance anyway. 

Brian snapped his hips forward, adding the last three inches and fully bottoming out inside you. Gripping his shoulders tightly, you cried out from both the pleasure and the slight tinge of pain. He had to have been at least 8 inches, and it’d been so long since you’d been fucked last, it was a lot to take in no matter how prepped you were. 

He gave you just a second to adjust before he leaned forward a bit, setting a quick pace with his thrusting. About half his length would be taken out, before he quickly slammed back into you, the sexual frustration being clearly communicated through his movements. He wanted to take his time with you, he really did, but you just felt too good. The way you were squeezing him so tight and screaming his name drove him fucking crazy. 

The aggression only ramped up the more you dug your nails into him and begged for more. His thrusts became more harsh and quick, brutally slamming his cock into you in an almost primal, animalistic way. 

“Oh Jesus Christ!” you screamed out as he lifted one of your legs over his shoulder, somehow hitting deeper when you didn’t think that was even possible. Hoodie grabbed your other leg and propped it up on his hip, pushing forward and repeatedly knocking into that sweet spot yet again. 

You were quickly being brought to your third orgasm tonight. Brian was breathing heavily above you, trying so hard to last as long as he could. An uncomfortable ache was starting to build in your abdomen, overstimulation had finally begun to set in. Your back was involuntarily arching off of the mattress, your legs were caging in the man above you dangerously tight.

“Mmph… Brian.” you whined out, trying to let him know you’re getting close again.

“I know, i know. Go ahead, cum for me.” And that was all it took. You were seeing stars as you reached your high, screaming his name and grabbing onto his shoulders for stability.

He wasn’t far behind you, the feeling of your pussy clenching on him and coating his dick with your fluids sent him over the edge. He was grunting hard as he thrusted in a few more times, filling you to the brim with his load. Your legs dropped down to the bed as you both nearly went limp from exhaustion. He hovered above you for a minute longer, both of you panting and trying to ground yourselves back into yours bodies. 

Hoodie slowly pulled his cock out of you, watching as his cum instantly started to pour out of you and onto the bed. He’ll definitely be adding that image to the bank.

He was laying beside you now, studying your body and face as you calmed down more. “Wow, that was -” you paused and turned to look at him, still a bit in shock from what just happened “- incredible” 

He smiled pulled you close to him, holding your head in his chest and laying a blanket across the two of you. “Next time will be even better.”

“Next time?” you let out a breathy laugh as you wrapped your arms around his torso.

All he did was hum in response, reaching over to turn off the lamp beside your bed. You can talk about this with him tomorrow, for now, he just wants to sleep with you.

[dystopicjumpsuit]

The Plant Prowler of Pabu

A/N: I’m scared that Pabu is going to be toast after this week, so I wrote a little fluff to make myself feel better. Also, this is the first time I’ve been able to finish a fic in six weeks, so… yay me!

Pairing: Crosshair x Reader (GN)

Rating: T (but MDNI as always)

Wordcount: 2.1K

Warnings and tags: mild language; fluff; a kiss; spoilers for The Bad Batch season 3

Summary: Exploring the island during his first morning on Pabu, Crosshair encounters a mastermind of botanical crime: you.

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Whoever said, “It’s darkest just before dawn” had clearly never woken up to go for a walk before sunrise. Even if Crosshair hadn’t had enhanced vision, it would have been easy for him to navigate his way down to the beach of Pabu in the dim half-light. Hunter had wordlessly watched him exit the Marauder, pretending to still be asleep, but Crosshair knew that his brother would have drawn his vibroblade in a flash if he’d even glanced sideways at Omega.

Crosshair didn’t exactly blame Hunter for his caution, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. The squad had arrived on the idyllic island the previous day, and Crosshair was immediately swarmed by a horde of curious locals. With Hunter determined to keep Crosshair in sight at all times, there had been no escape from their onslaught of hospitality, and by the time the celebrations had died down, Crosshair had been clinging to the tattered threads of his patience and sanity.

It was a hell of a thing to go from barely speaking to anyone for months on end to suddenly being plunged into the midst of a vibrant and chaotic crowd of nosy spectators. He’d escaped to the Marauder at last and pretended to sleep, keenly aware of Hunter’s eyes on him. He’d spent enough time under the microscope in the past several months, though, and he was ready for some privacy.

And so it was that he found himself wandering down the empty terraced walkways of Pabu, making his way to the shoreline in the pale gloaming. He didn’t encounter a single soul as he walked—barring the ubiquitous moonyos that seemed to frolic across the island at all hours. Pabu was the sort of place that seemed too flawless to be real. Too flawless to last.

Not quite as flawless as it seems on the surface, he acknowledged as he turned down a path that snaked through one of the sections of the island that had yet to be rebuilt after the catastrophic sea surge he’d heard about countless times at the welcoming party the previous night. The buildings had been reduced to rubble, and judging by the weeds sprouting in the cracks of the walkway, the locals tended to avoid this particular part of the island.

Perfect.

The gentle breeze off the ocean was chilly, and he told himself it was the reason his hand trembled more than usual that morning. He shoved both hands deep into his pockets as he navigated the last few levels before he reached the beach. As he stepped onto the sand, a gust of wind buffeted against him. It was bracingly cold, and it smelled like salt and aquatic vegetation and wet earth, and he closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and focusing on the sensation.

When he opened his eyes, a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision had him snapping his head to the side. He froze. A figure meandered slowly down the beach, sticking close to the bottom of the hill where the lush foliage grew thickly right up to the edge of the sand. He was certain you had spotted him, but you didn’t immediately acknowledge his presence.

He watched for a moment as you paused and stooped down to examine one of the plants, then carefully plucked a few bunches and laid them in the basket you carried. Bizarre. What the kriff was this person doing out here so early? Nothing innocent, that was for damned sure. Why would anyone sneak down to such an isolated stretch of the beach at this obscene hour if they didn’t have nefarious intent?

Aside from me, obviously.

He squinted slightly. Even with his enhanced eyesight, it was dark enough, and you were far enough away, that it was difficult to make out your features, but he was reasonably sure you hadn’t been at the party the night before. 

Hmph.

He turned and walked the opposite direction, away from the person who’d had the audacity to interrupt his solitude by getting to the beach first. Better not to get involved.

Crosshair took a different route the next morning, arriving at the beach just as the sun rose. As bad kriffing luck would have it, you were exiting the beach just as he arrived, and your paths inevitably intersected. He braced himself for a conversation, but you simply met his eyes and nodded quietly as you passed him.

He suppressed a sigh of relief. Stepping aside to make room for you to pass on the narrow trail, he couldn’t help noticing that your basket was filled with a variety of neat bundles of leaves and twigs. Odd, but your hobbies were none of his concern. Even if they did involve herb rustling and grand theft shrubbery.

He continued his path down to the shoreline and wandered along the water’s edge, staring out at the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see your solitary figure making its way up the steep slope and into Lower Pabu. He was now completely sure that you’d not been at the welcoming party, nor had he encountered you in the village. It wasn’t that surprising; after all, hundreds of people lived on the island, and he wasn’t in any particular hurry to meet them all—or any of them, if he were honest.

Of course, he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Wrecker had flatly refused to allow Crosshair to isolate himself, while the gregarious mayor Shep Hazard seemed equally dedicated to the twin causes of thrusting Crosshair into the community and plying him with as much fruit as he could eat in a lifetime. He was starting to feel a tiny surge of violence every time he saw a jogan fruit.

On the third day, Batcher woke up with Crosshair and scrambled out of the Marauder, bounding ahead of him down the ramp and then turning to wiggle her entire body in anticipation as he followed. He let the lurca hound pick the path that morning, not bothering to hide his thin smile at Batcher’s endless curiosity and enthusiasm. She crisscrossed the walkways incessantly, sniffing and exploring, chasing the moonyos playfully down the hill, investigating every nook and cranny of the village, and easily running five times the distance that Crosshair traveled on their way down to the water.

The beach was empty this morning, to Crosshair’s relief. At last, some peace and quiet. Or at least as quiet and peaceful as it could be with Batcher rocketing back and forth across the wet sand, grunting and huffing as she charged into the surf and back up to Crosshair, crouching into a bow as she tried to entice him to play with her. When he didn’t immediately comply, she took off chasing a flock of seabirds, scattering them into the air in a cacophony of indignant squawking.

She chased the birds down the beach, barking joyously as she splashed through the surf. When the hound disappeared around a bend in the shoreline, Crosshair sped up slightly, not wanting to risk Omega’s wrath if anything happened to her pet on his watch. As he rounded the bend, he was greeted with a most unexpected sight: Batcher was lying on her back on the sand, writhing with delight as you rubbed her belly.

Your basket was overturned, and all the neat little bundles of herbs were strewn across the sand. It wasn’t hard to deduce the instigator of such carnage. Batcher spotted Crosshair and immediately jumped up and shook the sand off herself before rushing to greet him.

“Down,” he said sternly as she jumped up and swiped at him with her massive paws.

She dropped obediently, and trotted along next to him as he approached you. You’d already begun picking up your fallen bundles of leaves, and he quickly bent to assist you.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbled.

“No harm done,” you replied, shaking a bit of loose sand out of the bundles before you dropped them into your basket. “They all get washed before I hang them up to dry anyway.”

“So you’re not just engaging in botanical heists for the adrenaline rush?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, it really gets the blood pumping,” you replied, deadpan. “My day just doesn’t feel complete without a little horticultural larceny.”

“I can see you like to live on the edge,” he said with a tiny smile. “The Plant Prowler of Pabu.”

“And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for a mysterious stranger and his meddling dog.”

He liked you. Damn it.

Crosshair didn’t see you for the next several days. He assumed you’d moved your criminal enterprise elsewhere on the island, and after the team returned from Barton IV, he didn’t feel the same need to escape the Marauder as he had previously. Still, he wasn’t sleeping particularly well, and after an excruciatingly restless night, he slipped out of the ship not long before dawn and wandered aimlessly down the streets of Pabu until he found himself in the unstable section he’d discovered on the first day.

As he picked his way through the ruins, he spotted movement two terraces below, and he grinned. Forcing himself to walk casually so you didn’t suspect how pleased he was to see you, he sauntered down to your level, only to find you ripping weeds up from between the fragments of pavement with uncharacteristic abandon.

“What did those plants ever do to you?” he asked.

You must have spotted him before he arrived, because you didn’t even flinch at the sound of his voice.

“Invasive species,” you replied. “I try not to over-forage, but in this case, I’ll make an exception.”

“And I thought your crimes only extended to vegetational theft,” he drawled. “I had no idea you’d escalated to floral murder and agricultural vigilantism.”

“The hero Pabu needs,” you said with a smile that had no business being as charming as it was, considering you were currently covered in a fine layer of dirt and assorted bits of leaves and twigs. “If this plant gets established on the island, we might never be able to eradicate it. It will outcompete the native plants and could cause significant disruptions to the ecosystem.”

“How altruistic of you,” he remarked drily.

“Not at all,” you laughed. “It also happens to be delicious.”

Crosshair stooped down and pulled one of the plants up by the roots, examining it closely. “It’s on sight, then.”

“Exactly. No mercy.”

As the first rays of the sun appeared on the distant horizon, you packed the large bundles of weeds into your basket, then stood and dusted your hands off on your trousers. You stretched a bit, clearly a little stiff from your labor. Impulsively, Crosshair spoke.

“Want to watch the sunrise with me?” You looked surprised at his offer, and he cleared his throat, looking awkwardly away. “Or do you turn into a meiloorun if you stay out past dawn?”

“Yes,” you said. “I mean, no. I mean, yes, I’d like to stay. No, I don’t turn into a meiloorun.”

You bit your lip and stared down at the bundle of weeds in your basket, poking at it ineffectually as you muttered something unintelligible under your breath. Stifling a laugh, Crosshair climbed up onto the crumbling half-wall of a destroyed structure and extended his hand to help you up after him. You scrambled up and sat down next to him, gazing out at the tranquil ocean as the sun began to paint the high clouds in brilliant shades of gold and pastel.

“Not a bad view, is it?” you asked quietly. 

“Definitely worth waking up early,” he replied, watching your face as the light caught on your cheekbones and reflected in your eyes.

Without making a conscious decision, he lifted his hand and brushed a little loose dirt off your cheek. His damned hand trembled, and he mentally cursed. You didn’t seem to notice the slight tremor, though—or if you did, you didn’t say anything about it. Instead, you turned your head slowly, grazing your lips across his fingertips as you met his eyes. It seemed the most natural thing in the galaxy to continue to trace the line of your jaw until his hand curled around the back of your head.

Your lips were soft and warm in the cool breeze, and you tasted like sea salt and dew and something he didn’t quite recognize. Something new. He liked it. You leaned into his kiss, and when at last it came to its natural conclusion, he drew in a shaky breath.

“Hi,” he whispered. “I’m Crosshair.”

---

Want more Crosshair? I have another Crosshair x Reader ficlet here!

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