#finally i have a coding 'side project'

[vollzz]

oh man I am having waaaaay too much fun making a neocities page

[discoreptile]

As of yet unnamed game card art!

[cressidagrey]

Didn't come up

Pairing: Oscar Piastri x Felicity Leong-Piastri (Original Character)

Summary:  5 times another driver/teammate of Oscar found out about Felicity or Bee. 

Warnings and Notes: Big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble 😂

Logan Sergeant - 2016 - Formula 4 UAE 

Oscar Piastri had just finished reviewing telemetry with his engineer when Logan Sargeant flopped down beside him on a folding chair like he’d been personally wronged by the concept of humidity in Abu Dhabi.

“You guys always this sweaty in Melbourne?” Logan asked, swiping at his forehead with a water bottle and missing.

Oscar smirked. “Not unless you’re karting uphill in January.”

Logan leaned back, rocking the chair onto two legs. “You’re weirdly calm for someone who just overtook half the grid on turn three.”

Oscar shrugged. “Had to. The inside line was open.”

Logan whistled low. “You Aussies are built different.”

There was a beat of silence, filled with the clatter of wheel guns and distant shouting from a team manager on the other side of the paddock.

Then Logan nudged him. “You bringing anyone to the next round? Girlfriend? Family?”

Oscar blinked. “Uh, no, she’s in school.”

Logan perked up. “So you do have a girlfriend.”

Oscar nodded. “Her name’s Felicity.”

“Oh, fancy,” Logan said, smirking.

Oscar just shrugged again, but this time it’s a little more self-conscious. “She’s smarter than anyone I’ve ever met. Like… scary smart.”

Logan laughed. “Dude. You’re literally doing physics problems between sessions.”

“Yeah, and she’s the one who checks them.”

That got a double take.

“Wait, how old is she?”

“Fifteen. Same year as me.”

“And she checks your work?”

Oscar looked at him, deadpan. “She once rewrote my entire MATLAB script for a school project because the code was inefficient.”

“...I don’t even know what a MATLAB is.”

Oscar finally cracked a grin. “Exactly.”

Logan leant back on his palms, looking vaguely awed. “Damn. Is she into racing too?”

Oscar’s face softened. “She watches every livestream. Even the janky ones that lag and buffer every five seconds. Says she likes seeing how I figure things out under pressure.”

“Supportive and a genius?” Logan whistled. “You’re punching, man.”

“I know,” Oscar said without hesitation.

And that’s the thing — he said it without irony, without doubt, like it’s just fact. Like Felicity  was a fixture in his life the same way racing is. Like even here, on the other side of the world, in a sport designed to chew you up, she was still his anchor.

Logan watched him for a moment, then grinned. “Alright then, Piastri. Guess I gotta step up. You’re out here with a rocket science girlfriend and a podium finish.”

Oscar shrugged again, but there’s a glint of pride in his eyes. “She’s not into big shows. Just… likes when I try hard.”

Logan nodded slowly. “Sounds like she keeps you grounded.”

“She does,” Oscar said. “She’s the reason I remember to eat lunch most days.”

“Bro,” Logan said, mock serious. “Marry her.”

Oscar didn’t laugh.

He just sips his water, quiet for a beat.

Then: “I might.”

Logan blinks. “You’re fifteen.”

Oscar shrugs. “Still might.”

***

Max Fewtrell - 2018 - Formula Renault Eurocup

Max Fewtrell had exactly three things in his race day ritual:

Complain about the weather, regardless of what it was actually doing.

Eat like he hadn’t seen a carb since Wednesday.

Steal food off anyone who had a better lunch than he did.

So when something absolutely divine — chili, soy, sesame, and maybe the faintest whiff of wok hei — drifted across the Renault Eurocup paddock, Max paused mid-wrap-unfurl, frowned at the damp tortilla in his hands, and began scanning the area like a bloodhound on a mission.

He didn’t have to look far.

Under one of the team canopies, Oscar Piastri was seated like a picture of tranquility. Legs crossed, back straight, Tupperware open on his lap. And, insult to injury, the kid was using actual chopsticks, not a spork like the rest of the peasants.

Max narrowed his eyes. He knew that smell.

“…Is that char kway teow?” he asked, tone already accusatory.

Oscar didn’t look up. Just plucked another glistening noodle from the box like this was a tea ceremony and not a war crime.

“Yes,” he replied, bone dry.

Max was already halfway to him. “Where did you even get that? We’re in France. I’ve had nothing but beige food for a week. A week, Oscar.”

Oscar finally glanced up, entirely serene. “My girlfriend made it. Sent it with me.”

“Wait, you have a girlfriend?”

Oscar nodded. “Felicity. She’s in school back in Britain. Singaporean-Chinese. Makes the best food I’ve ever had.”

Max stood there in silence for a beat, the betrayal setting in.

Oscar, sensing it, took another elegant bite.

Max’s mouth opened. “Does she—”

“No,” Oscar cut in, flat as a carbon fiber board. “I’m not sharing.”

Max stared. “That’s not very sportsmanlike of you.”

Oscar didn’t even blink. “Neither was that last overtake into Turn 4, but here we are.”

Max scowled, reached into his sad lunch wrap, and hurled a bit of limp lettuce at him.

Oscar dodged it with the kind of slow ease that made it worse. “Also,” he added, “she packed chili crisp and garlic oil in the bottom layer. You’d cry.”

“I’m already crying,” Max muttered, slumping into the folding chair next to him. “Mate’s got a literal food goddess and refuses to share. Unbelievable.”

Oscar, not even looking up from his noodles: “Get your own Felicity.”

***

Frederik Vesti - 2020 - Formula 3 

Frederik blinked blearily across the team truck as Oscar Piastri walked in looking like the ghost of someone who used to sleep.

His hair was sticking up at odd angles, his hoodie was inside out, and there was a faint stain on his jeans that looked suspiciously like dried milk. He held a coffee cup like it was an IV drip.

“You okay, mate?” Frederik asked cautiously, watching as Oscar shuffled toward the breakfast table and missed the toaster by a good six inches.

Oscar made a sound that might have been “fine” or might have been “fire,” but either way it came out in a low rasp and was not convincing.

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Six days,” Oscar muttered, blinking like he was trying to reboot.

Frederik laughed — and then froze.

Oscar didn’t laugh back. He just stood there, buttering toast in slow motion, like a man trying to remember what gravity was.

“…Wait. Are you actually serious?”

Oscar nodded faintly. “She sleeps during the day. But at night she just…screams. And if she’s not screaming, I keep checking to see if she’s breathing.”

“She?”

Oscar blinked again and finally looked at him. “Bee.”

Frederik stared.

Oscar seemed to realize something. “Oh. Right. You didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what, exactly?” Frederik said very slowly, like he was trying to diffuse a bomb.

Oscar sipped his coffee. “That I’m married. Or that I have a baby now. Probably both.”

Frederik dropped his spoon. “YOU’RE WHAT?”

Oscar looked vaguely apologetic. “Yeah. Sorry. It wasn’t exactly a press release moment.”

Frederik gaped. “How do you have a wife? We’ve been teammates all year. You’ve literally never mentioned her.”

Oscar shrugged. “We’ve been married since I was 18. Felicity. She’s private. Doesn’t like attention.”

Frederik opened his mouth. Closed it again. “Okay. Wow. But… a baby? When? How?”

“She was born two weeks ago. Her name’s Bee. Emergency C-section. Heart surgery twenty-three minutes after birth.  NICU for a bit. My wife nearly died.  They’re home now. I’m… here.”

Frederik stared.

“You’re telling me that over break, you became a dad, your baby had surgery, your wife almost died, and you just—what? Came back to work like it was fine?”

Oscar ran a hand through his hair and yawned so hard it looked painful. “Felicity told me to. Said she wanted something to feel normal again.“

Frederik sat down heavily next to him. “And you’re just here. Like it’s nothing.”

Oscar stared blankly at the table. “It’s not nothing. But if I stop moving, I think I’ll fall apart.”

Frederik nodded slowly. Then slid the entire plate of toast in front of Oscar and said, “Alright. First of all, you’re eating. Second, I’m buying you a real coffee. And third—what the hell do you mean your baby had open heart surgery?”

Oscar’s voice was quiet, but steady. “She has a congenital defect. Total anomalous pulmonary venous return. They caught it late. If they’d waited ten more minutes, she wouldn’t have made it.”

Frederik swallowed. “Jesus.”

Oscar looked down at his hands. “She’s so small. But she’s alive.”

And for the first time that morning, Oscar smiled—just a little. Not smug, not tired. Just real.

Frederik exhaled hard, then clapped a hand on his teammate’s shoulder. “Okay. That’s a lot. But… Bee, huh?”

Oscar nodded. “Yeah.”

“…Short for anything?”

Oscar finally laughed. “Beatrice Nicole. I call her Bumblebee.”

 “And your wife? Is she okay? ”

“She’s… alive. Still recovering. Scared the shit out of me.” Oscar’s voice cracked a little, not enough to draw attention unless you were really listening. “Bee’s okay too. She’s so small. Looks like her, though. Stronger than both of us.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it was heavy, with the weight of things too big to say.

Finally, Frederik said quietly, “You could’ve told someone.”

Oscar just shook his head. “Didn’t want anyone to look at me different. Didn’t want it to be a thing. I just… wanted to drive. And go home to them.”

Frederik swallowed. “You’re completely mental.”

Oscar let out a soft, tired laugh. “Yeah.”

Another pause.

Frederik: “Do you… have pictures?”

Oscar blinked at him, surprised. Then, slowly, he reached for his phone. “Yeah. I do.”

He opened the gallery and held it out.

Frederik stared at the screen. A baby, impossibly small, swaddled in tubes and wires, and then later — the same baby, wide-eyed and soft-cheeked, curled up against a woman who looked tired but alive. Felicity.

Bee.

“Holy shit,” Frederik said softly. “She’s beautiful.”

Oscar smiled — faint but real. “Yeah. She is.”

Later that night, Frederik found an unopened tin of Danish butter cookies in his suitcase — his mum’s habit. He wrapped it in a tea towel, walked down the hotel hall, and left it outside Oscar’s door.

There was a note on top:

For Bee’s dad. You’re doing great. Also: eat something that isn’t caffeine and stress. – F.

He didn’t expect a reply.

But the next morning, Oscar showed up to the track with a new glint of determination — and crumbs on his race suit.

***

Robert Shwarztman - 2021 - Formula 2 

Robert was halfway through complaining about the catering — again — when Oscar, staring down at his phone with the vaguely amused look of someone reading a text that was either romantic or absurd, said casually:

“I’ve gotta head off soon. I’m having dinner with my wife.”

Silence.

Not dramatic silence. Not shocked silence. Just the stunned, mechanical silence of Robert’s brain hitting the brakes so hard it metaphorically flew through the windshield.

“…your what?” Robert said, voice slightly higher than normal.

Oscar glanced up, blinking innocently. “My wife. Felicity. She flew in this morning.”

Robert stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “You’re married.”

“Yeah.”

“Since when?”

Oscar just shrugged. “2019.”

Robert’s brain promptly short-circuited. “You’ve been married for two years and you’re telling me now? After how many plane rides? How many post-race meals? You didn’t think to mention, ‘Hey by the way, I have a wife?’”

Oscar shrugged, annoyingly calm. “Didn’t come up.”

“Didn’t come up,” Robert echoed, scandalized. “You once spent forty-five minutes explaining tire degradation to a hotel receptionist, but telling me you’re married ‘didn’t come up’?”

Oscar made a mild face. “She doesn’t like the attention. We keep it private.”

“And what? One day you’ll just casually mention a kid and expect me not to die on the spot?”

Oscar, very blandly: “I have a daughter too.”

Robert actually choked on his water. “YOU WHAT—”

Oscar patted him on the back like he wasn’t the cause of the sudden respiratory emergency. “Bee. She’s a few months old.”

Robert’s eye twitched. “You’re twenty. You have a wife. A baby. You’re leading the championship. What the hell, are you trying to speedrun adulthood?!”

Oscar shrugged again. “I like being married.”

Robert stood, flailing slightly. “I’m going to dinner alone with my phone and my disappointment. And you’re going to dinner with your secret wife. Which is apparently a normal Tuesday.”

Oscar smiled faintly. “You want to meet her tomorrow? She bakes.”

Robert froze.

“…What kind of bakes?”

Oscar’s smile deepened. “Everything.  Banana Bread. Muffins. Cookies. Sometimes Russian tea cakes, too. She made kuih lapis once.”

“…Okay,” Robert muttered, sitting down again like he wasn’t suddenly plotting to steal baked goods from this phantom wife. “But I’m still mad.”

Oscar nodded, texting again. “She says hi, by the way.”

Robert groaned.

***

Arthur Leclerc - 2021 - Prema Racing

Arthur was late.

Not by much — just ten minutes — but enough that René had already scolded him and a camera guy gave him the “we’ve been waiting” look as he jogged into the main corridor. He adjusted his team jacket, made a face at his reflection in the nearest window, and was mid-yawn when he nearly collided with someone in the hallway.

“Oh—sorry—"

Then he stopped.

Because Oscar Piastri ��� reigning Formula 3 champion, king of emotional neutrality, man who once did an entire sim race in silence — was standing in front of a wall of sponsor boards, holding a baby.

A real, actual baby.

A little girl with soft wispy curls, round cheeks, and a pale pink hoodie with a cartoon duck on the front. She had one hand gripping Oscar’s suit collar and the other stuffed into her mouth, wide eyes peeking curiously over his shoulder.

Arthur blinked. “Uhh… Oscar?”

Oscar looked up like this was entirely normal. “Hey.”

Arthur pointed at the baby. “Is that… Are you… Is that yours?”

The little girl turned her head toward the sound of Arthur’s voice, then immediately buried her face in Oscar’s neck like she’d seen enough. Oscar just patted her back gently and said, “Yeah. This is Bee.”

“Bee,” Arthur echoed, stunned. “You have a secret kid?”

Oscar blinked. “She’s not a secret. I just don’t usually bring her to work.”

“Right,” Arthur said faintly. “Of course. Naturally. And the mother?”

“My wife,” Oscar said casually. “Felicity. She’s finishing her finals this week. We couldn’t find a sitter. Bee’s very well-behaved, don’t worry.”

Arthur blinked so hard he lost a second of vision. “Your wife. You have a wife and a child. At twenty.”

Oscar glanced down at Bee, who had gone back to watching Arthur like he was a strange bird. She was perfectly quiet. Just blinking with wide dark eyes, cuddled into her father’s chest like she’d been born there.

Arthur lowered his voice. “She’s… really cute.”

Oscar’s whole face softened. “Yeah. She’s the best.”

Bee made a little hum and patted Oscar’s jaw with one tiny hand. Then Bee let out a soft, babbly coo, and Arthur’s heart actually melted.

Like. Melted.

He wasn’t even a baby person, but this one? This tiny, polite, shy creature who clung to Oscar like a koala and looked like she might cry if anyone but her dad so much as waved? She was precious. Immaculate. Possibly the best-behaved human he’d ever seen.

“Can I say hi?” Arthur asked, voice softening instinctively.

Oscar glanced at Bee. “Bee, you wanna say hi?”

Bee peeked at Arthur again from the safety of Oscar’s shoulder. Considered him. Then blinked, solemn, and shook her head no.

Arthur laughed. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“She’s just shy,” Oscar said. “She’s been great all day. Napped during media briefings. Didn’t touch anything. I think she thinks she’s undercover.”

“Mate,” Arthur said, stunned, “if I ever brought a baby into this building, she’d be on the pit wall with a wrench in her mouth in five minutes.”

Oscar just smiled faintly, brushing a hand over Bee’s curls. “She’s used to being around cars. I think the engine noises soothe her.”

Arthur had so many questions. So many.

But instead, he stayed a respectful distance away, and said, “Hi Bee. I’m Arthur. I drive too.”

Bee blinked at him. Then, very quietly, said, “Papa drives fast.”

Arthur’s jaw dropped. “She talks?”

Oscar nodded, utterly casual. “She’s started picking up words. Mostly about food and racing. Priorities.”

Arthur put a hand to his chest. “I’m gonna cry. Why is your kid so perfect?”

Oscar just bounced Bee gently in his arms and said, “Because she’s her mother’s daughter.”

Bee gave a soft coo, and when Oscar shifted her gently into a little carrier wrap on his chest, she snuggled in like this was her natural state of being: attached to Papa and silently judging anyone else in the room.

Arthur just shook his head and muttered, “I’m still not over this. You’re not allowed to be this good at racing and parenting. It’s unfair.”

Oscar looked down at his daughter, kissed the top of her head, and said simply, “She’s the only trophy that matters.”

And Arthur, who had come to media day ready to talk about tyre degradation, now had to pretend he wasn’t this close to tearing up in front of the marketing team.

***

[kyri45]

A final letter

Hello Everyone!

The queue is paused and everything is scheduled, which means we are ready for the finale!

I know that, in the end, this was just a silly side project for me, with everything else going on in my life. But for this occasion, I wanted to drop some words here and hope they make sense.

I started watching LMK only because a friend told me there was a "Sonadow-coded" ship. I ended up consuming the entire thing in one sitting on July 10th, 2024. At the time, I was still recovering from a bike accident that had left me with a broken right forearm—unable to draw for a little over a month. (I did try drawing with my left finger, but it wasn't exactly fun.)

Not only that, but it was summer, and I couldn’t enjoy the season or practice my main sport, windsurfing. To say I was feeling the blues is an understatement. I remember being in physical pain just from not being able to draw my sillies. But then, watching LMK did something to my brain chemistry that my little undiagnosed autistic self had never experienced before. It hit so hard that I’ve been physically unable to rewatch the show SINCE that very first day. (And y’all still call me the CEO of this fandom. Bro, I just work here.)

A lot of you have asked what inspired me to start this comic or to draw LMK fan art in the first place. While my usual answer is, "I saw Shadowpeach and thought MK could be their lovechild, given his appearance," the moment that actually started it all was THIS ONE—

(I HAD TO REWATCH THIS SCENE TO MAKE THE GIF AND IT HURT ME ON A MOLECOLAR LEVEL)

I have… a thing for characters who discover their entire identity was something else all along. It consumes my thoughts, my dreams, my every waking moment. I live for identity crises, for characters who thought they knew who they were, only to be forced to rediscover themselves, their existence, and their place in the world. If you give me a story where a character has to go through that, I will like it—regardless of how bad the rest of the story is.

Pair that with loads of trauma, daddy issues, the pressure of a legacy, and world-ending stakes, and congrats! Now I’m obsessed, and I will not stop thinking about it for the rest of my days!

At first, my brain just wanted to release some of that energy with a small, four-panel post about the monkeys discovering that MK was technically their kid.

That was supposed to be it.

But since I never seem to learn my lesson, it didn’t stay like that. Because once I started drawing, I just... continued.

And

I

never

stopped.

A lot of you have also asked how I found the motivation to draw so much, to never take a break. Well, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it one last time: I am my number one fan. No matter how much you laughed, cried, screamed, or went feral over this story, I did all of that and more. Because I got to think about the chapters months before they released. I got to daydream about them. I got to watch them come to life—first through sketches, then line art, then dialogue. And finally, I got to witness your reactions and see the incredible creations you made, inspired by my story.

So yeah, in a way, it was almost an addiction. A good addiction. Because, for the first time in my life, I actually understood what loving art means.

I’ve been drawing for ten years, working professionally for five, but I never loved art before. I just liked it because I happened to be good at it. But creating this comic made me understand why artists say, "Oh, I’ve loved drawing since I was a child!" This was the first time I allowed myself to create purely for my own enjoyment. Something I hadn’t had the privilege to do for a long time.

Other than making me feel even more single than I already was, this story somehow also helped me a little with my own family relationships. So yeah. Crazy how the gay monkeys changed my life.

Of course, I never could have predicted how much traction my AU would gain. Man, y’all were really starving to latch onto something this silly. /j

But yeah—thank you. Thank you for sticking around until the end, for having the patience and trust to follow the story even when I made you rage with angst and cliffhangers. (The statement in my bio still stands: I am not responsible for any physical or emotional damage my art has caused.)

I’m absolutely shit at thanking people, or at writing, or at talking in general, honestly. I’m the furthest thing from being good with words, so I hope the final chapter will be enough to show you my gratitude.

Through this story, I met so many wonderful, talented people. I watched as fans across different platforms found each other through memes and fanart of the AU. I saw artists start their own AUs inspired by mine, growing their own communities. I witnessed an explosion of creativity and collaboration through our takeovers. And I laughed along with you all.

And yeah—at its core, this story has always been about love. Whether it’s platonic, sibling, parental, romantic, or whatever the hell Mac and Wukong had going on for millennia.

At its heart, it’s a story about family.

And maybe, in the end… the real family wasn’t just the one in the comic, but the one we’ve found together along the way. 💛

See you all at the finale.

Love you all, freaks /affectionate

Jade

[salem-s]

11 ── PLAYING THE PART UNDER THE SICILIAN SUN ── RAFE CAMERON

SYNOPSIS when your image-obsessed mother catches you and Rafe Cameron ─ your friends with benefits ─ in a compromising situation, you must lie and say you're dating. It spirals out of control when your mother invites him to your cousin's upcoming wedding in Italy, and spirals even further when he says yes. SERIES MASTERLIST | LAST PART

WARNINGS language, angst, fluff if you squint. 18+ mdni.

WORD COUNT 4.4k. i think this is my shortest one yet?

SONG OF THE CHAPTER japanese denim by daniel caesar

The long run doesn’t feel so nice. 

It’s finals week, and its implications do nothing to aide the dull ache that’s weighing in your gut. The grueling hours spent studying and hunched over desks only pile onto your list of problems, and that’s only the physicality of your issues. Besides the permanent kink in your shoulder from your poor posture, your body is depleting due to the emotional stress that strains your heart.

Even though he’s right next door, you don't see or hear Rafe since his cold departure.

You want to believe it’s a good thing, it’s what you wanted, it’s quite literally what you asked for. But you can’t help but long for him, knowing he’s just on the other side of the wall, wondering if he’s feeling just as awful as you.

But there’s nothing.

You only heard him once while you were studying, and the second you heard another girl’s voice with him, you bolted out of the dorm and beelined to the library. 

So you don't study in your room anymore. 

Not that it changes much, because you don’t even spot him on campus or lounging on the quad with friends. There are no late night texts, no loud music blasting through the thin walls, no presence at Elliot’s house. Nothing. For such a tall person, you’re shocked at his ability to lay low.

Because you’re certain that he purposefully avoids you.

You know he knows your schedule since he used to coincidentally be walking home from class at the same time, even though he never had classes in the same building as you. He used to just happen to open his door at the same time as you with a backpack slung over his shoulder, simply stating he’s going to the library but the company on his walk would be nice. Once he even loitered outside your academic building after you had had a tough exam, claiming the grassy patch adjacent to the building is the best place to lay.

Now Rafe does none of that. He’s a ghost. 

The only time you caught a glimpse of him was at a nearby coffee shop. Seeing him nearly kills you.

You'd been stopping in to refuel to cram study for a final later that day, nearly spilling your espresso infused drink on his nice white shirt on your way out. Bumping into him sent a shiver down your spine, the physical contact a pure shock to both of you as you stood motionless in the crowded cafe, eyes only trained on each other.

It was hard to even find words at the sight of his pretty eyes, ones that looked tired despite the surprise look on his face.

But the shock came and went as Rafe had been cordial, offering a tight-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and side-stepping out of your way without his usual Rafe-like banter. He was walking away from you before you could really say anything to him, the only word in the entire exchange being a meek, “Sorry,” on your end that was said too late, as he was already out of earshot by the time you found the words.

You weren’t sure what you were sorry for this time.

Almost spilling your drink on him. Accidentally elbowing him in the ribs. Shutting him out. Putting him through an emotional wringer. Pushing him away at every opportunity you can.

Needless to say, you've been spiraling. 

Especially when Lorenza gives you a call a few hours before your coding exam, mainly to check in and make sure your cut is healing alright (it's practically gone, but the reminder still stays). You converse as normal, lamenting about all the projects and finals you have going on and that you're seeing your friends later.

Lorenza asks if that includes Rafe.

And hearing his name makes you go quiet. And she takes that as the hint to continue talking about him, asking if you've talked to him since the day you got back. When you tell her that, no, you haven't had time to talk to him about anything, she hums over the phone, almost scolding you wordlessly for letting it get this far.

"Probabilmente anche sta soffrendo," Lorenza tells you, stating it like a fact.

You respond that, no, he's not hurting. That he's probably fine, and that you're fine too. You're both just busy with schoolwork and personal lives and everything on top of that.

"Hai parlato con lui?"

No, you tell her, you haven't talked to him.

"Allora come lo sapresti?"

You offer no response. Because you don't know how he is. You wouldn't know if he's hurt or not because you haven't talk to him, nor can you find the gall to do so.

Her incessant pestering makes your face flush and your heart slump to your gut, settling some uneasy feeling there for the remainder of the day. Because she's right: you know you need to talk to him, even if it's just to check in and see how he is, because he deserves, at the least, an apology for how you've treated him.

It's all you can think about during your exam.

Yet finally, after day and night of burying your head in textbooks and nearly crawling through your computer screen to figure out your codes, it's your last final, and it comes and goes regardless of how much you think about Rafe during it.

It's the last Thursday before everyone’s forced to leave for winter break, one of the last few days you'll get to see your friends before the New Year, so despite your aching shoulders and pounding headache, you accept the invitation to drink and party at Elliot’s off campus house. 

Lorenza's words echo in your head all afternoon. He's probably hurting, too. You hope that isn't true, you hope he's just been burying himself in schoolwork and being distracted in a good way to keep himself busy. You hope he doesn't have any sleepless nights. You hope he's seeing other people to get back to a sense of normalcy.

You think about the possibility of seeing him at Elliot's, since they're best friends and all. You think about all the things you could say to him, how many I'm sorrys you can utter before he'll believe it. But you know yourself, and you'd probably never get the words out at the sight of him. Part of you really doesn't want to do it tonight.

But the other part of you also hopes Rafe's there. Maybe force him into a room so you can apologize to him (that is, if you can find the words).

When you arrive, your friends embrace you endearingly. First come the congratulations for finishing all of your finals, then the drinks are immediately second.

Marianne doesn’t waste time pushing a cocktail in your hand and throwing an arm over your shoulder, guiding you deeper into the party where your closest friends (amongst a lot of others you don't care for) mingle and laugh and sing. 

Although your mind drifts for the better part of it. You can’t help but continuously scan the crowd in search of him, feeling that stupid nagging pull in your chest the longer the party goes by without him. The nagging eventually morphs into guilt.

Did he know you were coming and that’s why he’s not here? Are you driving a wedge between your friend group because of your blatant insecurities?

"Hey," Marianne whispers to you after an hour. “You’re goat-staring.”

“Hm?” You snaps out of your trance, unaware you've been staring at that same speck on the wall for ages. “Oh.”

Your friend doesn’t let the act go unnoticed, darting her gaze around you cautiously before leaning in close. “Are you sure you’re alright? I mean you’ve barely spoken about the–”

“I’m fine,” you reassure, giving it your all to fake a smile. “Honest. I don’t want to think about it tonight.”

I can't not think about it, you want to say. Especially because he's not here.

Marianne simply raises her eyebrows, wordlessly prompting you for more. 

But you don't give into her instigation. “I’ll tell you about it soon, I promise. Just…not tonight.”

That’s all it takes for now. 

Because no shit the whole Rafe situation has been a damper to your conscience ever since your last morning together, no debates there, but the thought of rehashing it from the start makes your head spin. You try and blink away flashes of him: his pained expression on the dance floor, the image of him and Yara in the closet, his pretty face inches from yours coaxed in sunlight. He’s a plague in your mind, infesting your every waking thought. It’s draining. It’s emotionally exhausting. You forget how to not let your mind drift back to him, him, him.

To make your head spin further, you attempt to rise from your zombie-like state and join the party. You take a shot, open another drink, dance with Marianne and catch up with your friends.

For the most part, it serves as a nice distraction, even if you can't really get drunk.

But there’s a big gaping hole in your heart: the guilt that he, Rafe, is nowhere to be seen.

It’s odd without him, the room feeling incomplete without his presence, his laughter, his jabby one liners. It’s rare for him to miss a party, let alone one this big and festive, and there’s a harsh pull in your chest, because you feel responsible for his absence. Maybe you being here made him uncomfortable, so he opted to stay back. 

“Hey, Bear.”

Elliot is suddenly at your side, beaming and using your inside-joke nickname (you debate the semantics of why Paddington's marmalade sandwiches don't seem to mold once), after finding yourself staring at another indent on the wall. Your eyes glance at your watch, frowning at the time passed.

Have you really been sitting and sulking and thinking about Rafe for that long?

“How’d your coding sesh go?”

You shake the sulking demeanor away and take a large sip of your drink. “I’m just happy it’s over.”

“Couldn’t have been that bad?”

You wince. It could’ve, and it was. Throughout the entirety of it, your thoughts kept lingering back to a certain someone. 

“Ah,” Elliot says, waving it off nonchalantly after you don't respond. “T’s all bullshit, anyway. Besides, it couldn’t have been worse than my statistics final. I think I left three questions blank.”

You quirk a brow. “Didn’t you say it was open note?”

Elliot simply shrugs, and you laugh, rolling your eyes at your friend. 

“I stand corrected, then.”

The two of you fall into easy conversation, Elliot being the friend you clicked with the best out of all of Rafe’s friends. He’s like the mayor, knowing everyone and being friends with everyone, making sure to chat with every single person who comes to his house even if he doesn’t know them. He’s a great guy to have in your corner, because despite being beloved by everyone, he’s especially protective and appreciative of his favorites. 

He makes time for you and Marianne despite the line of people out the door waiting to say hello to him. Elliot has his priorities set. For now. 

“So, what gives?”

The two of you sit on the stairs twenty minutes later, tucked away from the crowds but still immersed in the pounding bass and echoed laughter. Your backs rest on opposite walls, you sitting one step above him.

Partially, you came here in the first place to stand guard so randoms don’t walk upstairs (as that has happened once, where a guy in a frat down the street mistook this for his house and slept in Elliot's bed without anyone noticing him walk in). But the estrangement from the chaos is nice, and you rarely get to be with Elliot one on one without someone needing him for something, so you stay. 

Yet your conversation was going so well, lighthearted about something your other friend Sydney said to him the other day. But not anymore, as now he's looking to you expectantly for answers, answers you're not ready to give.

You frown. “What?”

Elliot gives you a pointed look. “Bear,” he deadpans as if it’s obvious, scoffing at your deflection.

All you can do is shrug, prompting him to say more.

“You go to Italy with my best friend for a week and neither of you are saying anything about it?” He throws his hand up. “What the hell happened?”

How much time does he have? Because there is a lot of ground to cover on the simplicity of what happened. What happened was you underestimated his best friend to the point where your real feelings clashed with your fake feelings and the concept of instigating something more made you experience symptoms of a heart attack.

Right. As if it’s easy.

So you settle for the safe response.

“Nothing…happened.”

“Yeah,” he snorts. “Try and convince me next time.”

You rolls your eyes and dismiss his comment by taking a sip of your drink. The tequila feels stronger than before, now that you have the partial liquid courage to spill the truth. 

To your knowledge, your friends don’t know about your arrangement, or at least you don't think they know. Sometimes you and Rafe wouldn’t be subtle with your lingering touches and glances at parties, sometimes disappearing together for about ten minutes and coming back as if nothing happened, sometimes your bickering banter would turn flirty with toothy grins and prolonged eye contact. 

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they figured it out. But it’s not like it’s happening anymore. 

“Clearly something happened,” he sing-songs, taking a sip of his drink, almost instigating you. "You're sulking."

You're not falling for it. "Well, it already seems like you know."

He narrows his eyes. "I may know...some things." Then he adds quickly, "Why? What do you know?"

"Elliot."

"Bear. We can play this game all night."

You let out a sigh so gutturally deep that it elongates the silence between you.

Based on the faux quizzical brow and the slightly knowing gleam in his eye, Rafe must've told Elliot the bare minimum of the story, probably eager to hear your side of the coin and play his favorite role: therapist. This wouldn't be the first time you've lamented to him about your problems, and vice versa.

But this is different. This is his best friend. Rafe and Elliot. Elliot and Rafe. Conjoined at the hip since freshmen year when they were randomly assigned roommates. Under any circumstance, it feels wrong to essentially shit-talk that person's best friend, regardless if you need to get it off your chest or not.

You can't. Not right now.

So instead, you opt for a simple shake of your head, wordlessly pleading for him to drop it.

For a moment, Elliot secedes begrudgingly, but also with understanding. The two of you sit in your manual silence, quietly sipping your drinks and letting the attempt to story-tell sit idly in the air. Frankly, you'd love to get his input, but you already know what he'll say to you, what he'll suggest you do.

And right now, you're not sure you can stomach the thought of running back into Rafe's arms, not when you're absolutely sure he wants nothing to do with you anymore.

After a moment of silence, he bites. “He told me about you two.”

Your heart skips.

Well, that confirms your earlier suspicions.

He continues quietly, more direct. “Before you went on the trip. How you’d see each other sometimes.”

Sometimes doesn’t even cut it. There’d be times you'd see each other everyday, other times you'd go a week or two with nothing. It felt like everything and nothing all at once. 

You look down at your friend, unable to find words. 

But Elliot’s always been chatty, always knows how to fill a silence. “I don’t want to know…everything,” he grimaces at the insinuation. “But I just want you two to be alright. You’re both stubborn as fuck and your miscommunication tendencies drive me insane, but you guys will figure it out. Whatever it is.”

Your mouth reacts before your mind. “Doesn’t matter what it was. I fucked it up.”

“I doubt that.”

“I do,” you say softly, dejected. “All I do is push people away.”

Elliot shrugs. “Well, that might be true. But some people need a shove.”

You snort unattractively. “What? Like you and Sydney?”

The blush that rises to his face makes him nudge you with his knee, turning away as a sheepish grin rises on his lips.

“Stop trying to change the subject. I’m charging by the hour, so get it all out now.”

You find it in yourself to chuckle, “Shut up.”

But it quickly simmers into silence, a raw ache settling in your throat at the verity of it all. There's nothing to fix, nothing to heal, minimal things to mend. Well, if anyone's good at a pep talk, it would be Elliot, and frankly the tequila feels hot in your chest, hot enough for you to talk about it only for a little bit.

Playing with the loose hem on your shirt, you avoid his awaiting eyes, heart heavy with the burden of the last few weeks. It feels like it hasn't been light in forever, hasn't been full or bright. Whenever it gets soft enough, flashes of events that happened under the Sicilian sun come to your mind at the simplest reminders: the color lilac, any mentions of red wine, whiffs of cologne that smell like his.

Sometimes when you see the same shade of blue as his eyes, it makes your heart skip.

You blink away the image of Rafe in your mind.

“It wouldn’t have worked between us anyway. He’s already seeing new people and I can’t–”

“Woah,” Elliot sits up and looks up at you in disbelief. “Where’d you hear that?”

You frown at his sudden seriousness. “Uh, I heard him Monday night with a girl in his room. Not to mention he was letting this girl at the wedding cop a feel–”

“You mean Yara?”

The name makes your heart sink. 

Last week’s mishap flashes in your mind, and the thought of Elliot knowing makes your skin crawl.

Rafe really told Elliot about her? About it all? The image of them together in the closet burns fresh in your memory, and you hate the way your skin feels like it's on fire at the reminder.

Not trusting your words, you nod, both confused and hurt. 

But instead of confirming your worst fears and indulging the horrors of your conscience, Elliot simply scoffs with a chuckle and slaps a hand to his forehead, almost in disbelief and frustration at the same time, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling. 

“My god, Bear,” he all but laughs in your face. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Your face runs hot. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me."

Normally, you'd tell someone off if they blatantly called you an idiot, especially right to your face. But this is Elliot— who rarely ever bullshits anything and always speaks from the truth of his heart, no matter how brutal it may be. You know that he knows something you don't.

When you don't respond, he snorts again. "You’re an idiot. You really think he’s bumming around with other girls?”

The question makes your jaw slack. 

“Uh, yeah?”

Elliot’s mocking laugh only pisses you off further. 

You slap his leg. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”

It takes him a moment to come down, for his voice to return back to normal, and he even has the audacity to wipe a tear away from the corner of his eye, taking a long, calculated sip from his beer to prolong your impatience. 

A hand raises to slap him again and he quickly stops messing around. “Elliot.”

Elliot shakes his head again in disbelief and lets out a long breath. “Alright, alright, easy.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re awfully bossy for someone who was literally sulking two minutes ago.”

You raise a hand to slap his leg again, and Elliot wheezes a laugh.

“I yield,” he jests. “I can confirm the Monday girl was Adriana, she’s a good friend of mine. She’s in his photography class and was dropping off his prints he left in lecture by accident. I know because we talked about it literally yesterday. Apparently, she’s in the same dorm as you guys.”

You reel. Photography class? Prints? 

“A lesbian, by the way,” Elliot adds pointedly. 

You hate how considerably lighter your shoulders feel, but mask the relief with a scowl. “Whatever. He still was shacking up with Yara.”

Elliot rolls his eyes so hard you can see the whites of his eyes as his lashes flutter from the intensity of it. “He was looking for you.”

You freeze, but shake it off. 

Her hand on his tie, eyes peering up to him. His hand ghosting over her bicep as if about to touch her. The mere centimeters between their bodies.

Swallowing the image, you frown with a flicker of irritation. “They were in a closet together, so he wasn’t doing a very good job.”

“No, he wasn’t,” he admits gently. “But in his defense, she told him she knew where you were. Apparently he was desperate to follow.”

Your heart skips at the thought of Rafe running around trying to find you after rejecting his proposition. Perhaps if things went differently - as in, you didn't go into that bathroom and instead went somewhere where he could find you - you can't help but wonder what he would've said to you. If he would've apologized for alarming you, or telling you it was a prank, or whatever else he might've done.

But that's a fairytale. It isn't what happened.

"You didn't see them," you say quietly before you can take it back, hating how jealous it makes you seem. "They were-

“He pulled away the moment he could think straight. Said it felt wrong.”

That makes your chest pull. 

“What felt wrong?” You whisper brokenly. 

Elliot shrugs, as if he’s not saying the most heartwrenching antidote. “She wasn’t you.”

I want you.

The words echo in your head, the same words that have been playing on repeat on the back burner of your mind, words that have plagued you because you thought them to be deceitful. They only make your chest ache at the reminder of what happened right after, hearing the words while seeing the image of the two of them together in that closet. The two separate images contradicted each other so heavily, only made the sting of it all worse. 

Only you.

But now it’s different, hearing the side of his story from his closest friend makes all of the pain fade away.

Why would Rafe lie to his best friend?

“For Rafe, it’s different with you,” Elliot says, quieter but firm. “Before he told me you were fucking, he found ways to talk about you, like, all the time. Obviously it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together, but I figured I’d wait for him to tell me.” Then he grins up at you. “Believe me when I say all the time. It was actually infuriating. He even found a way to bring you up during Fortnite, once.”

You manage a ragged laugh. 

Because the anecdote nearly kills you.

You think back to all that time spent silently pining over him, waiting to express your blatant admiration for him until you were both under cotton sheets and able to indulge in vulnerability without any alarm bells ringing. You remember all of the parties you went to and spent a considerable amount of time stealing glances of him across the room, hoping your selfish looks weren’t too obvious. You think about all that time you spent thinking he’d never feel the same about you, about anyone, ever.

“But,” Elliot adds cautiously, more seriously, “we both know how he feels about you. So all that’s left is how you feel.”

Oh, how you want to punch him.

Leave it to Elliot to worm his way into the conversation to gradually get to the real juicy details. He does this: loosens you up, gets you laughing, then hits the million dollar question that, really, is unavoidable. He’s good. 

“I can’t,” is all you say. 

Obviously, Elliot doesn’t allow that. “You can’t what?”

There’s a million answers to that question. “I can’t be who he wants.”

“And what does he want?”

I want you.

You groan. 

Only you. 

There’s no way you can put that into words. “I’m not the kind of person people date, Elliot. I don’t turn heads or make jaws drop. I’m the person you fuck when you’re a little drunk and bored, that’s all. I can’t do more than that. That's all I know.”

“Well, I would argue not,” Elliot responds. “Dating doesn’t exist on this cookie-cutter template, which is what you’re making it out to seem like. Sure, chemistry in bed obviously helps, which you have, yuck–”

You roll your eyes.

“—but it coexists in everything else.” He takes a sip of his drink, calculating his next words. “Rafe told me you guys went on a date.”

Your cheeks flush at the memory, how nice it was, how easy the conversation felt despite dipping into personal territory, how handsome he looked in the moon and candle light, how perfect he was later in bed. It makes you flush.

You cover it with a cough.

“It was for show. It was my birthday and he wanted to impress my nonna.”

“Was your nonna there too?”

Words die in your throat. 

“Well, no–”

“So?” Elliot looks like he’s seconds away from crashing out. “What gives? You’ve been on dates, you hang out all the time–”

“—With other people—”

“Sure, but you’re still in the same room. You bicker like an old married couple and always have to play together in pong. You guys are friends... who like to fuck. Dating is all of that.” Elliot then smacks his lips. “Well, plus the exclusiveness. But everyone basically knows, anyway.”

You hate how easy he makes it sound, as if the days and weeks of doubt meant nothing.

Although as much as you want to keep arguing, keep defending your case, you're getting tired. Your heart fucking aches.

All you can think about when you go to bed nowadays is how much you miss being in his arms, miss his sweet praises and how his hands roam all over your body, practically owning it at this point. The singularity, the possessiveness, it makes you both ache and quiver, the feelings pushing and pulling like a phantom ache in your heart. 

“No one has ever wanted me like this.” Your voice wavers. “It scares the shit out of me.”

Elliot frowns. “If you felt nothing for him, it wouldn’t scare you.”

You straighten your posture. 

The urge to detach yourself from the situation is strong, but the compulsion to run to him is stronger now that you know the truth, the real truth, and can only hope that his offer still stands, can only hope that a meek apology will be enough for him to come out of his radio silent hole. 

Elliot senses your brain clicking its gears into place, a suppressed smile failing to be subtle. "You getting it now?"

You look to him, brows furrowed and eyes glossed with worry. "How can he even forgive me? I-I- He was nothing but nice to me and I..."

Trailing off, your heart pounds as your mind races. The whole trip, Rafe was more than accommodating to fit the role you needed him to fill, even going above and beyond to make sure you had what you needed in times where you were rendered speechless. He bought you a plethora of beautiful things that he absolutely didn't need to do. He checked in on you when you shut down and tried to shield you from the horror that is your family.

I want you.

And you pushed him away. You told him that you didn't feel the same, that you could never feel the same, hoping that would be enough to deter him. But, no, he came back time and time again, and helped you when you needed it the most. He didn't need to. He didn't have to. But he did.

Only you.

"I'm sure if you just talk to him," he says slowly, as if he's on the verge of crashing out, "everything will make sense."

“Is he coming tonight?” You try really hard not to sound desperate, heart pounding.

But Elliot sees right through you, grinning and shaking his head. “He’s in his room. I think he’s the only one on campus with an exam tomorrow morning.”

It doesn’t matter. He could be in another state and frankly you think you'd still find a way to see him. 

“Go.” 

Panic rises like bile in your throat. “But what if he doesn’t–”

“He does,” Elliot reassures gently. Then, he nods towards the door. “Go.”

That green light is more than convincing, rising to your feet on wobbly legs as you clumsily step over his body, barely hearing Elliot’s whoops behind you over the sound of your bass-thumping heart beat.

You have no plan. No onset motion of what you’re going to say to him besides an apology. No guarantee that he still feels the same way or would even want you anymore. No idea how the interaction will go.

But, for once, the excitement outweighs the fear. And for you, that’s more than enough reason to listen to your gut, to go get him.

Without hesitation, a glance to your friends, or your jacket, you race out of his house and into the cold.

Ready to make it right.

© salem-s please do not copy or replicate work without permission. mdni.

notes next chapter is the last one LMFAO sorry for the blue balls.

[midnitetech]

Home & Hobbies Aspiration Pack

Hey everyone, I finally have a new mod for you - a pack of aspirations!

This pack adds an entirely new aspiration category to your game: Home & Hobbies, designed for Sims who find purpose and joy in the simple, creative, and comforting parts of life. Whether they’re chasing coding side projects, writing sweeping epics, or just enjoying a cup of tea in peace — these Sims thrive where comfort meets creativity.

I really wanted to create aspirations that focus less on career, money, or romance and are more laid-back while still offering plenty of activities, so here are some of the features:

🧸 New Aspiration Category: Home & Hobbies

Includes a custom trait — Comfort-Oriented — granting unique moodlets and a love for calm, cozy living. These Sims are happiest, and do their best work when they're at home!

✨ 4 Fully-Fleshed Aspirations:

🔸 Home & Hearth

This Sim wants to balance family, friendships, and flawless homemaking.

Features:

Custom gift-giving by mail

New family-focused social interactions

Reward Trait: Heart of the Home

🔸 Fiction Fanatic

This Sim lives for storytelling — from world-building to wild plot twists.

Features:

New Historical Fiction book genre

Creative-focused social interactions

Reward Trait: Master Storyteller (reward unlocks writing Historical Fiction)

🔸 Cozy Introvert

This Sim thrives on quiet comforts, soft routines, and peaceful self-expression.

Features:

Custom blogging and journaling interactions (with a new journal object!)

Peaceful walk interaction

Reward Trait: Inner Calm

🔸 Tech Hobbyist

This Sim loves to build, tinker, and code for the sheer fun of it.

Features:

Side project coding gigs

Unlock custom websites, special gigs, and awards!

Reward Trait: Digital Architect

🧩 Every aspiration includes:

Fully custom goals

Exclusive interactions and social options

Unique reward traits

Base Game Compatible—no packs required!

📦 Whether your Sim wants to curl up with a good book, delve into coding, or pour their passion into a personal blog, this pack opens up new ways to play — all grounded in the simple joys of staying home and geeking out. I worked on this for over a month, ensuring that I'd covered every detail, so I really hope you love it.

So, let your Sims get cozy, get creative, and feel right at home. 💻📖🕯️

⚠️REQUIRED⚠️ 🌐Lot 51's Core Library 📁midnitetech_modlibrary 🎮DLC: None/Base Game Compatible mod

📋Optional: 📖Write Books Overhaul for publishing the new genre (no need to redownload that mod if you already have it—I included the tuning in its last update)

PATREON (early access until 25th June 2025)

[gimmethatagustd]

blunt rotation | pjm

Supplying your law school classmates with weed on the regular might as well be a full-time job. It's lucrative, but lately, you've seen a dip in profits. Maybe it's because you keep giving out the Pretty Boy Discount to a certain guy in your ethics class…

Pairing: Pretty Boy Jimin x weed dealer Reader

Rating: Explicit

Genre/Trope: Law school, classmates to lovers, smut, a classic jai weed fic

Word Count: 7,477

Content Warning: Marijuana, a somewhat subby Jimin, consensual sex while high, choking, fingering, cunnilingus, protected vaginal sex, self-indulgent rants about capitalism and classism, lame dick jokes

A/N: On god, this fic is probably more about weed than anything else khskdjfs. My 420 fics are probs especially bad, and i decided i do not care. #blazeit

Soundtrack: a weed playlist made by yours truly 

“What is the difference between ethics, morality, and law?” 

Professor Kim leans against the desk at the front of the lecture hall with his hands gripping the edge on either side of his hips. The action makes the muscles in his arms flex, and you eat up the tan skin exposed by how his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. The tight white button-up accentuates plump pectoral muscles that threaten to pop and lose a few buttons. It wouldn’t surprise you if it happened. Professor Kim is known for being accidentally destructive. 

It is unethical to fuck your professor because it would create a conflict of interest; you’d imagine it would be hard for Professor Kim to ethically assess your academic performance if he’d been balls deep in you. 

It’s morally wrong to fuck your professor because you know he’s married, not because he has ever provided your class with information about his personal life, but because you sit at the front of the class. From your position, you can see the glint of his wedding band. 

Legally, you’re pretty sure there isn’t a law against fucking your professor. It probably goes against your university’s code of conduct, but that’s not a law. 

You sink further into your seat and let your eyes wander the room. Everyone diligently takes notes as Professor Kim turns to the presentation projected on the large screen behind him. Ethics and Professional Responsibility isn’t your favorite class, but no one said getting your J.D. would be fun. On the contrary, everyone you knew said it would fucking suck. And it kinda does. 

One thing that doesn’t suck, though, is having a class with your program’s resident pretty boy, Park Jimin. 

Pretty boys aren’t your type at all. You prefer boys who are rough around the edges. You’re not interested if a guy doesn’t look like he’s a one-way ticket to jail or hell. Maybe it’s the rebel in you. Maybe you like the idea that opposites attract. A lawyer and a criminal sounds like a cute ship, no? 

Pretty boys are too soft for you. They’re the type to have skincare routines and listen to Jack Harlow. No thanks. 

Yet your eyes always manage to find Jimin. 

He’s sitting to your left and a few rows behind you, but close enough to see him when you turn your head. He sits with perfect posture as he scribbles notes on his iPad, plump lips puckered in a cute little beak of concentration. 

Fuck, no, not cute. Ridiculous. Soft and childish. Everyone in the room is at least in their mid-twenties, some even in their late fifties. A prestigious J.D. program has no room for beaks and squishy cheeks. 

You’re about to look away when Jimin lifts his stylus to his mouth. The end presses a small dent into his plush bottom lip. You instinctually lick your lips, though your mouth suddenly feels dry. 

Jimin sits that way for a few more seconds with furrowed eyebrows as he focuses on his notes. At Professor Kim’s mention of the end-of-the-year oral argument, your classmate finally lifts his head to face the front of the room. His eyes are bright and wide, unlike the haggard look of your peers, and you watch them shift back and forth as he reads whatever is on the screen. You have no idea what Professor Kim’s talking about; your roommate, Hoseok, will fill you in when you get home. 

All you know is that Jimin finally pulls his stylus away from his lips and casts a sideways glance in your direction. You lock eyes for a split second before he quickly ducks his head, suddenly interested in his notes again. 

You snort loud enough for the woman sitting next to you to give you an odd look, but you ignore her and return your eyes to Professor Kim. 

Your eyes don’t stray from the front of the lecture hall for the rest of the class. It’s not difficult; there isn’t anything else you find interesting enough in the room to distract you. Nothing. Especially not Pretty Boy Jimin. 

“Hey, can I come over tonight?” 

Two pale hands splay across your desk once the class is dismissed. Chipped, black polish adorns each nail, except for the pinkies, which are painted white. 

“Why are you asking me? You don’t need my permission to visit your boyfriend’s apartment.” 

“I’m trying to work on my manners, jeez.”

You roll your eyes and slide your tablet into your backpack. “Where were your manners when you and Hobi fucked on my couch? Hmm, Yoongi? Where were they then?” 

Yoongi lets out a low groan as he steps to the side to let you fall in line with him as you exit the classroom. Your roommate is waiting in the hallway, always the last student to arrive and the first to leave. 

“That’s different,” Yoongi huffs, though this time, the sound is due to Hoseok crushing him in a hug once they make it into the hall. “Besides, I’m asking because I’m bringing my friend. We aren’t going to stay. He just wants someone to come with him.” 

Hoseok untangles his arms from Yoongi’s and adjusts his backpack. Your best friends act like surviving a three-hour class is like surviving a lifetime apart. 

“Ohh, a friend?” Hoseok leans against Yoongi with his eyebrows arched. His questioning tone is fair. The three of you don’t have many friends aside from each other. It’s hard to maintain friendships with people outside of law school. There’s simply no time. 

“What is this, the buddy system?” You snicker as you follow the two men to their cars. “Sorry, I only do business with adults.” 

There is quite literally no reason for you to be judgemental about whoever this mystery friend is, but class has put you in a cranky mood. Probably because of stupid fucking Park Jimin with his distracting lips. Your unpreparedness for the oral argument is slowly causing anxiety to creep into your chest. 

Yoongi gives you a light smack to your bicep. “Some people get nervous about this shit, you know that.” 

“It’s weed, oh my god. You act like we’re cooking meth in our basement.” 

Yoongi stops walking to give you a stern look with narrowed eyes and a cocked head. “You don’t even have a basement.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s 2023, and weed is legal.” 

“It is legal to purchase weed at a licensed dispensary. However, you are not licensed to sell weed, nor is your apartment a dispensary.” 

“It’s got enough weed in it to be one,” Hoseok snorts, but the sound quickly morphs into a severe cough when Yoongi’s glare is directed at him. 

Yoongi yanks his car door open and slides into the driver’s seat. Then, with one leg still on the ground and his arm holding the door open, he lets out a long sigh. “You two are insufferable.”

“Love you too, babe!” Hoseok giggles and sends his boyfriend a flying kiss as Yoongi drives out of the parking lot. 

“For an anti-capitalist, Yoongi is so old-fashioned. I’m providing a product to the everyday person at a reasonable price,” you grumble while you fasten your seatbelt in Hoseok’s car. “Dispensaries are classist. They’re way too fucking expensive, and they’re all in affluent neighborhoods, anyway. The gentrification of marijuana in this country is ridiculous. Where does Yoongi think those tax funds end up? Not in neighborhoods that need them. And what about expunging people’s records? Is the government ever going to do that?” 

You slump in your seat, the sudden energetic burst of social consciousness in you dying out. “I hate rich people.”

Hoseok hums in agreement, keeping his eyes on the road as he drives. “We’re about to be rich people, though.” 

“Not me. Civil rights law isn’t going to make me rich, and I’m not touching corporate with a ten-foot pole.” 

Yoongi and so many other people in your program are too dependent on what is and don’t stop to question what can be or what should be.

Ethics is a social construct, morality is subjective, and law is arbitrary. 

Going to law school is less about learning how to be a lawyer and more about learning how to play a game. 

When Park Jimin walks into your living room, all you can do is blink at him. Your eyes are red and glassy, your mouth dry even though you’ve been sipping water, and your limbs feel too gooey to bother getting up. Maybe you’re hallucinating him, which would be very upsetting because you don’t want to explore why he’s sticking around in your head. 

But then Yoongi is ushering the guy to sit next to you, and the dip in the couch as he eases down feels too real. 

“Ah, Jimin! You’re the friend!” Hoseok gives the newcomer a blinding smile. Smoke punctuates each word, billowing toward the ceiling. There’s already a thin haze to the room; you and Hoseok have been smoking for a while. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

Jimin gives Hoseok a small smile. He also turns to give you one, but it falters when you meet his gaze. 

You’re not sure what expression you’re wearing. It could be anything, really. Or nothing at all. 

“Hi,” he says quietly. His lips are so pink. You want to ask him how soft they are. 

“How much do you want?” Is what you ask instead. 

Jimin turns to Yoongi, who is now cuddled up with Hoseok on the other side of the room. The chair is made for only one person, but they have never known personal boundaries. You suppose if they’re dating, it doesn’t matter. 

“Just give him an eighth,” Yoongi says with a dismissive wave. He’s more focused on plucking the blunt from Hoseok’s lips and bringing it to his own. 

“Of what?” You huff your words, twisting the joint you’ve got between your middle finger and thumb. It’s clear that Jimin knows nothing about weed. He can’t even come up with a measurement or a strain. 

Yoongi glares at you as if this is somehow your fault before saying, “Anything. Maybe not Girl Scout Cookies or Sour Diesel, though. I don’t want his brain melting out of his ears.” 

Jimin makes a slight noise of surprise at that. 

“Kidding,” Yoongi teases. “Well, about the brain-melting part. I mean it about the strains, though.” 

Leaving your joint in an ashtray on the coffee table, you stand up with a groan. Moving is low on your list of things to do right now. The indica you’ve been smoking makes your movements feel slow, though you can’t tell if they actually are. 

“Come on,” you mumble, gesturing for him to follow you down the hall. He goes without a word, eyes wide as if he’s about to discover something profound within the walls of your apartment. You don’t want to admit how cute he is, just as timid in your apartment as in class. 

“We keep everything in the office. It’s super organized, but I guess that’s expected.” You don’t know why you’re rambling (yes, you do, it’s the weed). 

Jimin nods. “Makes sense.” 

He’s so cute, you think, when he asks if he wants you to close the door once you’ve reached the office. As if there is something to hide in here. Hoseok and Yoongi are the only other people in the apartment. 

“I’m going to give you a hybrid. You know what that means?” 

Jimin hovers over you when you crouch next to a dresser with multiple drawers. Numerous glass jars, all labeled with pieces of white tape and messy handwriting, are stacked in the drawer you open. You sift through them, taking a few to inspect before placing them back again. 

“I do not.” At least he’s honest. 

“It’s the happy medium between sativa and indica. Sativa gives you a head high. People tend to feel alert and creative sometimes. Indica gives you a body high. It’s the stereotypical kind of weed people talk about that makes you lazy and get the munchies. It’s because sativa has more THC than CBD, whereas indica is more CBD-heavy. Think about how people use CBD products when they’ve got joint pains or anxiety, right?” 

“Oh, I didn’t know that.” The statement is redundant, but you don’t mention it. Jimin looks like he hangs onto your every word as though his life depends on it. It’s funny, and you have to stop yourself from laughing at him.

Finding what you’re looking for, you hand a jar to Jimin. “It’s already weighed, so you can take the whole thing.” 

Jimin holds the jar like it’s a newborn. This time, you let a few giggles slip out. 

“Do you have something to smoke it with? A piece or a bong?” 

A shake of his head is no surprise, but you act shocked because you’re high and feeling good, and you love how he looks when his eyes grow wide.

“Wow, you’re so cute,” you say with a grin that starkly opposes the shy blush that paints Jimin’s face. “You probably don’t know how to roll either, do you?” 

Another shake of his head. Of course. 

It’s not difficult to show Jimin how. You pull up another chair at your desk and push away all your notes and textbooks for school to clear a path to work. You show him how to grind the weed and roll a blunt and a joint — so he can figure out which one he likes better. 

Jimin’s body is warm as he presses against yours, your shoulders bumping into each other every time you move your arm. He keeps close, eyes glued to your hands as you work slowly but diligently. It’s a bit disarming having him so close. Aside from the occasional hello during class, you’ve never really talked to Jimin. Concentrating with all his Pretty Boy energy fogging up your mind is tricky. 

Or is it the weed? Nah, it’s the weed. 

“If you end up not liking either, go to a head shop to buy a bowl — it’s a pipe. Maybe don’t go with a bong yet. Yoongi can help you. He likes bowls better, so he’ll have good recommendations.” 

Once finished, you slip the blunts and joints into a ziplock bag. When you pass it to Jimin, you can’t help but let your fingers brush against his. The touch sends waves of hot electricity up your arm. The shock of it makes your entire body tingle. Sure, the weed is making your body extra sensitive, but it’s not only that. He’s so fucking hot. 

You don’t realize you’re staring at him. It’s hard not to stare or even know where to begin. His plush, pillowy lips? His fluffy, dirty-blonde hair that falls into his eyes? So cute that you don’t even care when he has to do a Bieber flip to get his bangs out of his face? 

And, fuck, he’s not wearing the usual crisp white Oxford shirt and black chinos get-up. He must have gone home to change after class because now he’s wearing a form-fitting black t-shirt (probably designer from the looks of it) and grey jogger sweatpants that do nothing to hide how thick his thighs are and you’re sure if you get a chance to look at his ass you’ll find that that part of his body is thick, too. Expensive athleisure wear looks even better on him than professional clothing. It makes him look soft. 

“Thank you,” Jimin says, speaking your name softly, and you feel like your knees grow weak at the sound of it tumbling from lips like those. “I’m sorry, I feel like I barged in here and took up your time. Not knowing anything… I’m sure you’re used to people with more knowledge than I do.” 

Shaking your head, you guide Jimin out of the office and lock it behind you. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?” 

It’s funny that he’s concerned about something like this, as if marijuana knowledge is so embarrassing not to have. 

When you turn around, you realize the two of you are standing way too close. Your apartment isn’t a shoebox, but it certainly isn’t large. The hallway is slim, and Hoseok has a million and one plants and decorative furniture scattered around for the “aesthetic,” which makes it even harder to navigate tight spaces. 

You’re not complaining, though. This close, you can see that Jimin is wearing contacts that make his eyes hazel, little flecks of orangish-brown highlighting his naturally dark irises. 

Jimin’s eyes drop to your lips, and you feel your stomach drop along with them. Even though you’re not touching each other, your skin tingles with the knowledge that you could be touching. He’s so close. All it would take is one tiny shuffle forward, and you could slot yourself against his nimble — but what you assume is a very solid — frame. 

“Yeah,” he speaks as he releases a soft exhale. You feel his warmth and shudder. “Thank you, still.”

“No problem,” you whisper. 

Jimin’s tongue darts out to run across his bottom lip. His teeth draw it in slightly, and when he lets go, you can see how his lip bounces back into place. 

Dragging your eyes back to meet his takes an embarrassing amount of effort. He’s finally looking at your eyes, too, with an expression you don’t understand because you don’t really know him. 

“How much do I owe you?”

Right. Because he’s here with Yoongi for a reason. You swallow, turning your head to the side to hopefully break whatever spell Jimin and weed have put you under. 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

Jimin inhales sharply, but you keep your eyes down. “I must pay you something. I don’t know what’s a standard amount.” 

If you were anyone else, you could honestly rip him off. The guy has no clue — he is even admitting that he doesn’t! But there are embers smoldering in the pit of your stomach. 

“Nope,” you say with a tone of finality. You can hardly think before your following words slip out of your mouth like snakes. “Pretty Boys get weed free of charge.” 

“W-w-what?” Jimin looks unbearably cute when he’s confused. It’s almost too much for you to handle. 

So you don’t. 

Without another word, you head back to the living room. Jimin follows silently. You’re sure his face is still painted with shock because Yoongi gives the two of you an odd look. 

“Right where I left you,” you tease.

Untangling his limbs from Hoseok’s, Yoongi lets out an old man grunt and stands. You hadn’t believed him when he said he wouldn’t be staying, but it’s clear that he’s sticking to his promise when he starts patting down his legs to make sure he has his keys. 

“Got what you need, Chim?” 

Chim? How close are Yoongi and Jimin? And why are you only now learning of this friendship? 

Jimin nods, his bottom lip between his teeth once again. He insists that you’ve been a great help to him, all while keeping his eyes locked with yours. It’s so different than his shy avoidance in class. 

“Don’t worry, Yoong,” you insist as you plop back on the couch. Your joint is patiently waiting for you. “I took good care of him.” 

You’ve never been very good at math, but it doesn’t take a mathematician to know that Pretty Boy Jimin ends up costing you hundreds of dollars as the semester progresses. 

All your peers will walk away from law school making six figures easily. But not you. You just had to give a shit about the world, didn’t you? You just had to pick an area of law that values protecting human rights over making a profit. 

God, being a good person is so hard! 

And now, Park Jimin is sucking you dry before you can even earn money. Every time his fat little ass sashays away from your apartment with another jar of free weed, you can practically hear the chime of money signs ringing out with each step. 

There’s a worse feeling, though. It hadn’t occurred to you until now, as you stand in the entranceway of Jimin’s apartment unit, your backpack carrying precious cargo inside slung over one shoulder. 

Allowing Jimin to walk out of your apartment with the Pretty Boy Discount of free marijuana hurts your pocket, but doing a free weed delivery is even more pathetic. You’re wasting your own time and gas money to drive to Park Jimin’s motherfucking apartment to deliver him weed that you aren’t even going to charge him for simply because he’s hot. 

Maybe this is the terrible consequence of abstaining from sex to “focus on school” — as if smoking weed with Hoseok all day isn’t a distraction. But, on the other hand, maybe you just need to get laid. 

Dipping on this commitment would be easy, you think as you bounce on the balls of your feet. You could leave right now before Jimin answers the door, ask Hoseok to handle Jimin’s future requests, and put all of this behind you. But, of course, the entire situation is ridiculous anyway. You don’t even know Jimin. Not really. 

There’s a clicking sound from the other side of Jimin’s front door. Logically, you know it’s the sound of him unlocking the door, but your nerves tell you it’s the sound of your fate being locked into place. It may as well be because Jimin opens the door with a smile that puffs up his cheeks, his hair looks damp, and he smells like body wash. 

Fuck. 

“Hi!” His voice squeaks, but a deep cough returns it to a normal tone. “I mean, uh, I appreciate you coming by.” 

Your tongue presses into your cheek as you regard him for a moment. He might consider your silence as negative because he quickly sidesteps to allow you into his apartment. 

You give Jimin a smirk. “I think you should at least give me a tip.” 

“O-oh, I mean… oh, um,” he stutters, and you can’t help but laugh. 

A rush of air escapes your nostrils in a low-energy, nearly silent laugh. While coming to Jimin’s place might seem like a lot of effort, the truth is that you’re bored, and lately, you’ve been seeking anything to get your mind off the loneliness you feel when your apartment is dark and Hoseok is with Yoongi. 

So, even though part of you chastises yourself, you’re willing to risk looking pathetic or desperate if it means you can have someone to smoke with and get some time away from your too-quiet apartment. Not because Jimin is the most attractive person you’ve ever seen in your entire life. 

Jimin’s pretty eyes widen, and you quickly wave your hand to brush off his sudden panic. 

“I’m kidding,” you confess as you twist your backpack around your body to pull out a small glass mason jar. It’s cute how concerned he is. 

No, not cute. Naive. You shake yourself out of the feeling. 

”Well, come on then.” You walk through Jimin’s apartment into the living room. It’s your first time making a delivery with him, so you’ve never been to his apartment. Yet you walk through the building with unearned familiarity. You’ve got manners; sometimes, you choose not to use them.

“How have you and Hoseok been?” 

“Prepping for finals. And that fucking oral argument Kim’s got us doing,” you groan. School talk wasn’t something you had in mind when you showed up, but in the months you’ve spent getting to know Jimin more, you’ve learned he’s a total nerd. He’s probably excited about the assessment. 

“Sometimes I think he’s trying to kill us,” Jimin says with a slight grin. “Is it ethical, moral, or legal to terrify your students to the point of throwing up before evaluations?” 

“Don’t tease Yoongi like that! You know he has public speaking anxiety!” 

Jimin does a little half-skip to avoid your attempt to slap his chest. Although you know the both of you are drowning in student loans and law school tuition fees, the apartment is much nicer than expected. You wonder if Jimin has a roommate. He’s never mentioned one before.  

“Don’t tell him, or he’ll beat me up.” 

Eyerolls aren’t a commitment to anything, but you know Jimin knows you wouldn’t dare repeat his words. 

Plopping onto his couch, you scoot the coffee table between your knees and set the jar down. Beside the jar, you place everything you need to roll for Jimin, including a grinder and swishers. You could have rolled it all in advance, but you don’t like to feel rushed. Prepping is the best part. It relaxes you.

Jimin slowly slides into place beside you on the couch. He leaves enough room between the two of you to be respectful, although something tells you it’s less about his desire to make you feel comfortable and more about his discomfort. 

He’s nervous, but you don’t know why. He keeps dragging his palms against his thighs, roughly rubbing his jeans. Every once in a while, he lifts his hand to touch his bottom lip. Then, when you sneak a glance at him, he quickly turns away. There’s nothing of note to look at in the apartment, but he seems engrossed in something for those fleeting moments before you’re sure he’s looking at you once again. 

“I should probably learn how to do this… Like, properly… I can’t remember everything you did the first time,” Jimin mumbles. When you look up, his cheeks are dusted a light pink. 

“Sorry, I probably went too fast that time.” You give him an apologetic look that makes his face redden even more. “It’s not as hard as people make it out to be. Just need a good teacher.” 

If Jimin expects you to be his teacher again, he doesn’t say so. You could be. You can’t stop yourself from giving the guy free weed; you might as well add comprehensive rolling lessons in the mix. 

By this point, rolling a blunt is about muscle memory; you don’t have to use an ounce of brainpower. Your eyes can wander, sweep over the contents of Jimin’s living room, your thoughts floating off to wonder about the little details of the man’s life you aren’t privy to. Who are his friends? Where is his family? You look for photographs on shelves or hanging on the walls, items that are a staple in your and Hoseok’s apartment. Would Yoongi be in any of his photos? So many people in the city come in like ghosts.

“Do you, um, would you like to stay?” 

Jimin’s voice pulls you back to the living room, where your hands have already finished two blunts without you realizing it. 

“Isn’t that what you meant when you said I could smoke with you?” You question around the blunt you’ve brought between your lips, pausing to light it.

Jimin shakes his head, not as an answer to your question, but to himself. “Yes, of course.” 

“You wanna share this or smoke your own?“ You can keep working on rolling the rest in the meantime.

Rather than answer your question verbally, Jimin does something that makes your heart fall into the pit of your fucking stomach. The supposedly shy, naive man parts his lips and juts his chin toward you. 

The meaning behind his action hits you in the chest immediately. You let your eyes drift over his mouth, and you try not to react when his tongue swipes across his bottom lip while he patiently waits for you to give him what he wants. And you’re gonna do it, too. No questions asked. 

Pinching the blunt between your middle finger and thumb, you twist on the couch to face Jimin with your legs tucked beneath you. Of course, if your fingertips brush against his lips when you place the blunt between them, that’s no one’s business, and you fucking plead the fifth, thanks. 

Jimin’s eyes never leave yours when he wraps his lips around the blunt and inhales. He takes the hit like a champ, not coughing once despite the smoke’s thickness when he exhales. It’s been a few months since he started coming to you for weed. You shouldn’t be proud of his improvement, but you are anyway. Even if it’s weird to be. 

“Thanks.” Jimin looks like a droopy-eyed dragon, eyes heavy and narrow when he expresses his appreciation. His voice is low and thick, and it makes your stomach swoop. 

You nod your head and take the blunt from him. “No problem.” 

Time is hardly discernible in normal circumstances for you, especially when you’re high. So you can’t imagine how long you sit with Jimin on his couch, watching smoke billow in the air and talking about how unfortunate it is that Frank Ocean and Rihanna ghosted the music industry. 

For a while, the two of you fall silent. You lean your head against the couch and close your eyes, content with listening to the music Jimin put on until another thought enters your mind. One you can’t bring yourself to ignore.  

“You ever fucked while you’re high?” 

You ask the question once you and Jimin have finished the first blunt and move on to the second. The lighter you’re using is hot pink with blue and purple flowers printed on it. Something feels fitting about that. 

The question takes you by surprise even though you’re the one asking it, unsure why you’re asking it aside from knowing the weed will make you more likely to speak your mind. Jimin, though. The poor guy is even more startled. As he should be, you think. 

His hand trembles slightly when he passes you the blunt when it’s your turn to take a hit. “Uhh, um, have I— what?” 

You roll your eyes and blow a smoke ring in Jimin’s direction. You wait for his coughing to subside before you repeat yourself. 

“Have you ever had sex while under the influence of marijuana, Jimin-ssi?”

“No…” 

“Hmm, you should. It’s really fun. Feels good.” 

“Oh.” 

“Do you wanna try it now?” 

It’s comical how Jimin gulps, literally gulps, like a fucking cartoon character. “Now?” 

Marijuana is an aphrodisiac. It won’t make Jimin want you, but it’s clear from his suggestive behavior that he already does. The weed will simply, hopefully, make him less nervous about it. 

You pretend you don’t notice how he shifts to press his thighs together on the couch. 

“Come on,” you encourage him. “Stop thinking so much.” 

You know you’re too forward and sudden, but it feels justified because you’ve been thinking about Jimin for months. The buildup over the past few months has been stifling. 

Giving consent is what finally unlocks something in Jimin. One moment he’s staring at you with wide, timid eyes; the next, he’s got his hand around your throat. 

With a light squeeze, Jimin pulls you into him to slot his lips with yours. Holding back a moan is nearly impossible when his tongue pries your lips open. It’s wet and hot, and your skin tingles when you taste the smoke on him when his tongue curls around your own. Smoking always makes you feel warm, but you feel like you’re on fire when Jimin whimpers into your mouth. His pace is unrelenting. You feel like you’re tripping over yourself as you attempt to keep up with the quick work of his lips. The effort has you practically straddling his lap. 

Tightening his grip on your throat, Jimin uses it to tilt you how he wants you. A pleased hum vibrates against your mouth when he hears you moan from the pressure of his fingers digging into the soft skin of your neck. It’s only when you start to get lightheaded, and your lips slow that Jimin finally pulls away. 

His eyes’ heavy, sensual look remains, but you’re surprised to find his slick lips forced into a frown. 

“I’m sorry.” 

You could ask why, but you assume Jimin’s forwardness isn’t typical behavior. The good thing is that it is for you.

Rather than address the unnecessary tension, you let your lips do all the work and pull Jimin in for another ruthless kiss. 

“I don’t wanna hear any apologies from you,” you murmur against his mouth. “The only thing I want your lips doing is eating me out.” 

Jimin lets out a high-pitched whine that sets something dangerous off, buzzing through your body. “Please.” 

Maybe you’re pathetic with how quickly you strip yourself of your clothes, but Jimin doesn’t seem to care. His eyes never leave your body as you toss the clothing onto the floor. “You’re so beautiful…” 

“Yeah?” You lean with your back against the arm of the couch, scooting down slightly so you can let your legs fall open. 

He nods sharply and is silent momentarily as he rubs his palms down the length of your legs, settling between them. 

"I’ve always wanted to talk to you,” Jimin speaks with a hushed tone. He presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh. “I just get nervous. I’m sure that seems pretty lame." 

You shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak. Every touch sends goosebumps pebbling across your skin. It’s exhilarating. You feel like your entire body is a hot wire, sparking and buzzing at a dangerous frequency. 

"Yoongi said this would be a good way for us to get to know each other. The weed, not this this!” It’s shocking to you how adorable he can be at the same time he sucks the skin of your inner thigh into his mouth, swirling his tongue around after biting down hard enough to make you gasp. 

Your head falls back as you feel the tip of Jimin’s tongue drags along your clit. He swirls it around, drawing small circles in a steady rhythm. Every time his tongue pulls back, you can hear a soft smacking sound of his lips. He’s likely swallowing the drool collecting in his mouth. You’re sure he’s probably getting a bad case of cotton mouth from the excessive sound. 

It makes you smile knowing he’s that sensitive. It takes much more weed in your system to start feeling dry in the mouth, but you’ve been smoking more years than Jimin and at a higher frequency. 

“Oh fuck,” you moan out a misshapen puff of smoke when Jimin’s tongue returns to your clit. 

This time he wraps his plush lips around it and suckles lightly, using his tongue to flick from side to side. His little grunts and moans make your pussy vibrate, sending a tingling sensation through the inside of your thighs and down to your toes. 

Your hand shakes as you bring the blunt back to your lips. A whine tries to break through, but you force it back down your throat as you inhale more smoke. It’s hard when your body feels like it’s burning up. 

Every gentle touch of Jimin’s lips and tongue on your skin feels like a punch to your stomach in a way that is so deliriously delicious you can hardly take it. Wetness drips down your pussy and smears against your thighs, either from your arousal or Jimin’s drool or both, but you don’t care how messy it is when Jimin pulls back enough to spit more onto your clit. 

You let out a surprised sound, lifting your head slightly to see a string of saliva connect Jimin’s pouty bottom lip with your skin. 

Fuck, you didn’t think Pretty Boy had it in him. 

Using two fingers, Jimin spreads his spit around your clit, pushing it down until he slides into your pussy with ease. You didn’t need the extra lubrication, but you groan at the wet sound that echoes through Jimin’s apartment as he thrusts his fingers deep inside you. He brings his lips back to your clit, sucking harder and massaging your skin with his tongue even faster to match the pace his fingers take. 

When he finally locates the spot that makes your legs shake, hitting it repeatedly, you dig your fingers into his fluffy hair and yank his head back. 

“H-h-here,” you stutter, pressing the blunt against his lips. They’re shiny, and the idea of sticking a wet blunt between your lips makes you want to cringe, but you don’t care because his lips are shiny with you. 

Jimin doesn’t stop thrusting into you, but his pace slows as he concentrates on taking another hit. 

“I’m so fucking hard,” he groans. With the blunt between his lips, Jimin’s hands fly to unbutton his jeans. Another groan sounds around the blunt once he’s freed himself of the retraining pants. 

You let out a quiet sigh as you try to collect yourself while Jimin smokes. “I told you it feels good. It’s different, isn’t it?” 

“Mhmm…”

There’s a large wet patch staining the front of Jimin’s briefs. It makes the fabric stick to his cock, clearly outlining his length and girth — big enough to make you drool but small enough that you won’t go home sore and regretful. 

“Lemme ride you.” You use your free hand to push Jimin into the back of the couch. He plants his feet on the floor and spreads his thighs as you get comfortable in his lap. “Wanna smoke the rest while we fuck.” 

Your head is in the clouds, your body melting like butter as Jimin skirts his hands along your sides. He eventually pauses to squeeze your hips, and you swear you can feel him all over you. 

It’s quick work, tugging down the final article of clothing separating the two of you. It’s hard not to stare, especially when Jimin twitches and shivers with every light touch of your fingertips along the ridges and veins of his cock. 

Your clit drags against the head of his cock when you adjust in his lap, and you let out a ragged moan. 

“Soaked,” Jimin murmurs, “You’ve got me all wet.” 

It’s true. Jimin’s thighs glisten from where you’ve leaked all over him. Your clit throbs so much it’s beginning to hurt from the sensitivity. 

“Condom,” you practically wheeze out. “If you go in raw, you’re probably gonna bust a nut immediately, and I’m not interested in that for many reasons.” 

Jimin’s face turns even pinker. 

“O-okay, give me a second, please.” So fucking polite, and for what? 

He holds you at the base of your spine with one hand as he leans forward to snatch his jeans with his other hand. There’s a condom in his wallet, so you assume your classmate isn’t all innocent. 

It’s quick work rolling the condom on. Uninterested in teasing yourself further because you feel like you’ll die if you don’t orgasm soon, you push Jimin hard against the back of the couch. You slip down his cock with ease, with no stretch or sting, from how turned on you are. 

“I feel like I’m already gonna come.” Jimin throws his head back against the couch. 

His lips fall open, and you quickly snatch the blunt from them so it doesn’t fall and burn one of you. He looks beautiful, angelic even. His lips are puffy and pink, his cute little mismatched front teeth peeking out. His tongue flicks around his mouth as his breathing grows heavier. 

You squeeze one of his shoulders with your free hand while your other keeps the blunt pinched to your lips. As you take a drag, you lift your hips and quickly bring them back down, your ass slapping Jimin’s thighs as you engulf his cock again. Your skin sounds wet and sticky, but Jimin’s whine drowns out the sound. 

“Shit,” he hisses. Blunt nails dig into your skin, but it doesn’t hurt; it only feels good. Everything feels so good. 

You hardly notice how hard you shake as you slam yourself down on Jimins’ cock again. Your head is too spacey to go fast, but you do your best to set a steady pace of bouncing on Jimin’s cock. It doesn’t matter if he’s already going to come. You feel your orgasm building up with every squeeze of his fingers and the pathetic moans from his mouth. 

You lean forward to latch your lips to the base of Jimin’s neck when he again drops his head. Pulling the skin into your mouth, you suck hard. You know the shock the discomfort will send across his body, pain that quickly morphs into pleasure and makes his cock twitch inside you. 

“Jesus Christ.” Jimin reaches up to brush his bangs away from his eyes. Sweat makes the hair remain in place, pushed up, making him look as wrecked as he sounds. His cheeks are bright red now, and the color bleeds down his neck, where you’re sure his chest is bright red, too. 

Fuck, why didn’t you take off his shirt? It feels like a quick and dirty fuck, although you’re not sure you want it to be. You’re unsure what you want this to be or mean. Or how you want it to feel. 

All you know is that you feel like you’ll come at the sight of Jimin’s toned stomach and chest when you pull the hem of his shirt up to bunch it right above his nipples. 

Holding onto the fabric gives you more leverage to pick up your pace. It’s needed because Jimin is a puddle beneath you. His arms are tossed to his slides like they’re made out of rubber, flopped onto the couch cushions. He can barely lift his hips. He only makes a few weak attempts to thrust into you before he’s whining again, head lolled to the side with furrowed eyebrows. He looks so fucked out. 

“Please, ahh, fuck, please,” Jimin begs, though you’re not sure for what. 

“Wanna come, pretty boy?” You squeeze his t-shirt harder and yank it slightly, just enough to pull Jimin’s back a few inches from the couch. “You’re gonna have to work harder. I already gave you so much.” 

Jimin’s eyes roll in pleasure when you clench around him, little “oh’s” and “ah’s” punched out of him. “Okay, yes, yes, fuck, yes, I’ll be soooo—”

You bring his hands back to your waist as he babbles. The contact must give him a bit of clarity because he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and begins to thrust into you hard. 

“I’ll. Be. So. Fucking. Good.” Every word is punctuated by a mind-shattering thrust as Jimin pulls you down onto his cock. 

If you were on the edge before, you’re falling by the time he picks up the pace and thrusts into you even harder. The buildup was long and hot, yet your orgasm hits you so hard it might as well have been a surprise. 

You curl into yourself and press your face into the crook of Jimin’s neck while he continues his unforgiving rhythm until he comes with a choked-out moan of your name. 

The silence should be uncomfortable. How awkward and irrational was it to simply… tell Jimin that you wanted to fuck? And for Jimin to go along with it? Casual hookups aren’t really your thing. Pretty Boy Jimin seems to be the exception for everything, though. 

Heavy breathing fills the silence as the two of you try to calm down, your chests rising and falling in tandem. It’s comforting to lean all your weight on Jimin, despite how his bunched-up t-shirt presses uncomfortably into your chest. Even the feeling of his cock softening inside of you doesn’t bother you any. 

At some point, Jimin had placed the blunt in the ashtray on the coffee table. It’s shocking that he had the mind to do so; you would have accidentally burned a hole into his comfy, expensive-looking couch. It’s a good thing you had the mind to use a condom. Imagine burn marks and cum stains. Sheesh. 

The kiss Jimin presses to your temple when he turns his head feels way more domestic than you deserve. You smile, teeth pressed against his skin, despite yourself. You can blame the giddiness you feel on the weed, and not whatever Pretty Boy Jimin has done to trigger warmth inside your chest. 

“I think I gave you more than the tip…” 

With narrowed eyes, you lift your head from Jimin’s neck to look him square in the face so quickly that you’re worried you might pull a muscle in your neck. “You’re not fucking funny.” 

Jimin lets his head fall back to laugh hard enough that his eyes squeeze shut. It’s so endearing that you overlook such a bad joke. Pretty Boy Jimin seems to get away with a lot. You don’t mind it as much as you act like you do. 

[yandere-daydreams]

Not-So-Scary Moments With The Yan. Genshin Boys (Sumeru + Fontaine Edition).

Characters: Alhaitham, Neuvillette, Kaveh, Tighnari, Cyno, and Wriothesley.

Word Count: 2.7k.

TW: Borderline Shitposting, Prolonged Imprisonment, Varying Levels of Emotional and Physical Abuse, Codependency, Mentions of Stalking, and Unhealthy Relationships.

Alhaitham

It took Alhaitham about ten minutes to drag himself out of bed, his staggered footsteps audible through the thin walls of his apartment.

It took twenty for him to haul himself through his morning routine – water running somewhere in the distance and porcelain clattering against marble countertops as he washed his face and tried to work some life into himself. Alhaitham usually wasn’t so lethargic, but he’d had a rough week. There’d been a sudden influx of paperwork for the Akademiya’s sole scribe, and every second he didn’t spend buried under new legislation and requests for increased budging was, instead, dedicated to one of his many personal research projects. By the time he’d gotten home last night, it’d been all he could do to make sure you hadn’t starved to death and drag himself to bed.

He usually would’ve kept you waiting for a few more minutes, but an agitated grunt marked an end to his normal patterns. In a moment, he was braced against the doorway to his own study, his eyes narrowed half-hearted towards where you sat in his leather-padded chair, your feet propped on his desk. There was an book open in your lap – one of his, something about metaphysics and ley line abnormalities and how both tied into the Inazuman politics. He eyed it wearily before speaking, his voice still deep with exhaustion. “Where did you put my hearing aids?”

His tone was accusatory, his irritation visible. You put on your sweetest smile. “Where did you put my novellas?” you signed, thinking for a moment before adding, “Bitch?”

“They aren’t ‘novellas’, they’re—” He cut himself off with a scoff. “They’re filth. I don’t want you rotting your brain with smut.”

“The plots are very—”

“The plots are half-baked excuses for paper-thin characters to fondle each other in locations you can tell the author didn’t take the time to properly research and—” His gaze flickered to you, his frown deepening. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“You’ve read them?”

There was a long beat of silence.

Finally, he let out a labored sigh. “The dozen or so I couldn’t be bothered to throw away are in a cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. It’s locked – the code is your birthday. Now, where are my aids?”

“You fell asleep with them on last night,” you said aloud, abandoning his glorified textbook and pushing yourself to your feet. His hand shot to the side of his head, finding the metallic cuff only slightly displaced by having spent the better half of the night on his head. As you passed him, you paused, pressing a kiss into the corner of his scowl and pretending to ignore the muffled groan he let out in response.

Neuvillette

Of all the sights you thought you might see after arriving in your wonderous new nation, the Iudex of Fontaine standing over your drained bathtub with a look of potent remorse written across his expression was not one of them.

You’d imagined yourself strolling through the walls of the Opera Epiclese in vivid detail, been able to picture exactly what you might’ve seen standing below the Tower of Ipsissimus or above the bottomless pit that was the entrance to the Fortress of Meropide, but even after you’d found yourself in the smothering care of Monsieur Neuvillette, you never would’ve been able to conjure this sight. He usually insisted that you bathe together, going so far as to have an in-ground tub that could’ve easily been mistaken for a hot spring installed in his (until recently neglected) personal residence to better indulge the habit. Thankfully, the trial he’d been presiding over had run long today, and you’d been able to save yourself an hour of his calloused hands running over your body, of his eyes burning into your skin with a nearly inhuman focus. You knew he’d be disappointed. Irate, even, depending on how his trial swung.

You hadn’t expected him to be so… sulky about it.

Half-lidded eyes, a slight pout tugging at the corner of his lips as he lingered idly in the doorway between your shared bedroom and the in-suite bathroom. Steam and silence laid heavy in the air – the latter you were eventually forced to break as you fiddled with the hem of your robe. “I’m sorry,” you muttered, hoping more to break the tension than to make him think you were genuinely apologetic. “It was getting late, and I didn’t know when you were coming home. I didn’t think you’d take it so personally.” When he didn’t respond, you braced yourself for the worst. “If you’re angry, please say so. I… I’d rather get this over with now, if it’s all the same to you.”

His expression softened. He let out an airy sigh and, with only a moment of hesitation, closed the space between you. “I’m not angry.” A pair of lean arms wrapped around your waist, his face soon buried in the crook of your neck. You heard him inhale, and did what you could to suppress the shudder that ran up your spine at the thought of him basking in your scent. “I’ve just been… looking forward to it, I suppose. Your taste relaxes me.”

Immediately, you went rigid. “My… taste?”

“Mhm.”

“Neuvillette,” you started, very slowly, giving your own mind time to catch up to the dread slowly building in the pit of your stomach. “Have you been drinking my bathwater?”

He was quiet for a not inconsiderable amount of time.

Finally, he pulled away from you just far enough to speak. “…no?”

For your own sake, you decided to believe him.

Kaveh

“Kaveh.”

“Not now, treasure.”

“Go to bed.”

“I will, in another hour.”

“You need to get some sleep.”

“I’ve already told you – I’m fine.” He narrowed his eyes, expression contorted by concentration. “Knight to B4.”

“Kaveh,” you repeated, leaning across the table. “You were showing me your blueprints.”

“Oh.” He blinked several times, looking over the sheet of blue paper marked with chalk drawings and near indecipherable hand-writing. “Were you impressed?”

Your frown irked, but you swallowed back your exasperation and pushed yourself to your feet. Slowly, you took him by the hand and, when he failed to protest, guided him out of his own seat and towards the room you were usually restrained to, when he wasn’t home. He’d kept himself awake for the past two nights, every moment of the past forty-eight hours devoted to finishing his proposal for a wealthy commissioner’s summer mansion before its upcoming deadline and, now that the coffee had been drained from his system and his adrenaline had been given time to fade, he was practically a shell of a man – all dark circles and hunched posture and disheveled blonde hair.

Sleep deprivation was, by far, the worst thing he could inflict on himself. At least he was happy after he drunk himself into oblivion. This was just depressing; as miserable for him as it was for you.

With a dutifulness you shouldn’t have had to show to your lover-turned-stalker-turned-captor, you brought him to his bed and watched as he collapsed onto it, what little strength he had to hold himself up immediately dissolving. With a sigh, a roll of your eyes, you turned to leave, but a hand lashed out from the crumpled heap and caught you by the wrist. “Stay with me?” His voice was muffled by layers of sheets and blankets, but clear enough. “Please?”

Usually, his bids for affection were met with bitter neutrality or, on your worse days, spiteful condensation. Usually, you would’ve torn yourself out of his hold and made sure he knew that he’d ruined any chance of living out his little domestic fantasy the second he decided his obsession was worth more than your happiness. Usually, you would’ve hated him that much more for daring to ask.

But, he could barely hold his eyes open and when you failed to immediately recoil, the sloppiest, most lovesick smile you’d ever seen plastered itself across his lips. It was his turn to pull you forward, this time; to drag you onto his bed and into his chest. With a satisfied sigh, he slotted his chin against the dip of your shoulder and draped his arms around your waist – an old position. A relic of better times you’d never been strong enough to completely dicard. “When it’s time to draw up the plans for our home,” he mumbled, only half-audible. “I won’t so much as breathe until its perfect.”

You opened your mouth, but didn’t say anything.

He’d already fallen asleep.

Tighnari

He glanced once at the thick packet of ink-marked parchment you’d slammed in front of him before looking back to you, his expression disparaging. “And this is supposed to be…?”

“A custody agreement,” you answered, grinning. “Alhaitham put it together during his last visit.”

“We don’t have any kids.”

“It’s for Collei. If I ever leave you,” and, to be clear, you would be leaving him, as soon as you figured out how to get away from a man who poisoned your tea whenever you so much as suggested entertaining a future that didn’t include him, “I want weekends and summers.”

“She’s nineteen.”

“Which is why we’re letting her pick who she wants to spend holidays with.” You tapped the front page with your knuckles. “Honestly, dear, if you weren’t going to so much as read the documents, we could’ve scheduled this for another day.”

His ears twitched, his tail sweeping across the floor in irritation. “Even if this was legally binding – which, by the way, something assembled by a scribe would not be – I would never give you weekends. That’d be too much travelling for a girl in her condition, and I don’t want her to feel like she comes from a broken home. Moreover, according to Regulation #531 as passed by the Grand Sage last year, you would have to get Collei’s signature before—”

“Check page twenty-seven.”

You watched him scowl as he thumbed through the pages. A second later, his ears flattened against his scalp, and he took to muttering under his breath. “Traitor.”

“If you don’t want your aggression towards the dependent party used against you in court, I’d suggest you sign on page four, seventeen, and thirty-two.”

You left his villa half an hour later with a with a new imprint of his fangs on the side of your throat and a signed document in-hand.

Cyno

“You have kidnapped me.”

“Technically, I was only—”

“You’ve blackmailed me, imprisoned me, and tortured me.”

“You can’t still be hung up on—”

“You’ve branded me with your name, forced me into your bed, and made me play out all your delusional, fucked-up fantasies—” You took a deep breath, pursed your lips. “—but if you show up to a black-tie event wearing that, it will be the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”

He looked down, as if considering his attire for the first time. He was in his usual uniform – which was to say, shirtless and barefoot, his hair windblown and a fine layer of sand still coating what little he was wearing. You could only be thankful his polearm wasn’t slung across his back, but you knew he’d make it past the door without it. “The way I dress has never been a problem before.”

“There’s a difference between hunting down rouge scholars and going to a banquet being held by a literal god. Archons, Lesser Lord Kusanali herself might be there.” You gasped, dragged your hands over your face. “Everyone who’s ever gone to the Akademiya will absolutely be there.”

For all his many faults, he could never stand to see you in pain. There was a brief delay, a moment of unsure shuffling, then his arms were wrapping around you, his chest slotting against your back has he pulled you against him. “It’ll be alright,” he muttered, speaking into your shoulder. “If anyone so much as attempts to insult you—no, if anyone tries to talk to you at all, I’ll strike them down in the blink of an eyes.”

His comfort was stale, but you forced yourself to relax. At least enough to speak. “You know,” you mumbled, letting your hands drift to your temples. “Dehya was hired by an up-and-coming scholar, a few weeks ago. I’m not sure how long her contract was, but there’s a chance we’ll see her tonight.”

There was a beat of silence, then another.

“Cyno?”

“I’ll change.”

Wriothesley

You could hear him trudging up the metallic stairs to his office; his footsteps heavy enough to drown out the soft music flowing out of his century-old gramophone. His head emerged from the curving staircase, first – his hair somehow more disheveled than its usual state of barely-tamed chaos – then his chest, his tie undone and his collar terribly mangled, as if he’d spent all day indulging the worst of his nervous habits. He was baring his teeth, his pale cheeks flushed with anger and his eyes narrowed into a pointed glare. It wasn’t quite the reaction you’d hoped for (in your wildest dreams, he would’ve managed to sink his beloved fortress before he ever reached you), but it was close enough.

You moved to stand, to greet him with the warm embrace he usually demanded, but he was already in front of you, already pinning you to the back of the lounge you’d been splayed across with a single fist planted less than a hair’s width above your shoulder. “You,” he growled, leaning in close enough for his breath to fan over your skin. “Do you know how many journalistsI had to deal with today? They were everywhere. I couldn’t go a step without tripping over some— over some glorified tabloid.”

“So, your meeting with Monsieur Neuvillette went well?” His scowl deepened, and you let out your most faux innocent laugh – a chiming, bubbling thing he’d never been able to stand. “You shouldn’t scowl like that, love. All those photographers will have to find a new model if you manage to give yourself frown lines.”

He jolted, but forced himself to shut his eyes, to let out a long, ragged breath. When he did face you again, he’d regained a degree of his composure – just enough to meet your smile with his own tight-lipped grin, more teeth than anything. “I’ll let you off easy if you tell me how you did it now. Before I decide it’d be faster to strangle an explanation out of you.”

“I didn’t break any rules, if that’s what you’re worried about.” You paused, folded your hands over your lap. “It was all thanks to our great and benevolent duke. Contacting people outside of the fortress has gotten so much more efficient ever since you decided prisoners should be able to send letters without administrative vetting.”

He buckled visibly, his shoulders falling as he lean towards you, his face soon buried in the dip of your shoulder. “You’re gonna be the death of me, sweetheart.” There was a raspy chuckle, a hand on your thigh, squeezing just hard enough for his anger to shine through the playfulness of the gesture. “I think I’ve earned the rest of the day off, and I think you’ve earned—”

The door to his office swung open before he could finish, a masculine voice calling up from the voice below only a moment later. “Your grace, t-there’s a reporter here to see you! She says she’s been told not to leave until she speaks to your partner!”

“That’ll be Charlotte,” you half-sung. “She seemed like such a nice girl in her letters. It’d be a shame to keep her waiting.”

When he failed to answer, you brought up both hands and cupped his face, cooing as you used your thumbs to quirk the corners of his mouth upward.

“Just remember to smile for the camera this time, alright?”

[maythearo]

Miku Barbie design, I just had to.

+ simplified concept design, took inspiration from that one dark blue dress outfit from the Barbie movie, the fairy type Miku from project voltage, and overrall Barbie doll designs. I didn't have one particular reference in mind but the pink heels with bows on the side was definitely taken from a long lost memory of some princess doll I had as a kid.

In the final illustration I had no space to put the 01 mark since her hand is covering where it was supposed to be so I moved it to the side of the dress, just so I wouldn't erase an extra Miku motif because I feared changing her blue hair to pink and blonde would already make it much difficult to identify her as Miku in this design 😭 but canonically in my head the pink 01 mark is still on her left leg instead of the dress

Fun fact, the sound waves on her sleeves I copied from the spotify music code for World is Mine, but it's not scanable after I liquified and cropped it to fit the illustration.

[hwaslayer]

wildfire (cs) | seventeen.

—spotify playlist | series masterlist

—summary: assistant professor in bioengineering, incredibly attractive, lonely and divorced; that’s how most people describe san. but despite the events that have happened in his life, san has a lot going for himself. he’s a successful, sought out professor due to his brilliant contributions to science at just an early age of 32. he worked hard to get where he was now; head deep into his research, his publications, building his lab and creating a name for himself. everything was good and smooth sailing— until it wasn’t. because when he meets you, a bioengineering grad student interested in rotating in his lab, he finds himself ready to risk all the blood, sweat and tears he put in throughout the years just to keep you close— his need for you spiraling out of control like a wildfire.

—pairing: asst. professor!choi san x grad student!f. reader

—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers to lovers, grad school au | fluff, angst, smut

—word count: 4.8k

—chapter content/warnings: cussing, mature language/sexually implied content, very much a filler chapter but a wholesome domestic one!, couple of small flashbacks, oral (f. & m. receiving)/34+35, doggy style, mentions of multiple orgasms, the smut is not suuuuper descriptive - just enough lol, my oh my the tables have turned!, sorry if i missed anything 😞

⇢ 1.5 YEARS LATER

You turn towards the door when you hear someone pressing your door code into the keypad. It beeps twice before the door swings open and in walks San.

"Hey baby." He kicks his shoes off with a smile, immediately coming behind you to press a kiss to the back of your head.

"Hey."

"Sorry it took longer than expected, there was an accident. It was traffic for a bit at some point."

"All good. I got a little lazy and didn't start baking until a bit ago to distract myself." 

"Baking, hm?" He chuckles, setting down the takeout bag down on your kitchen counter. "What're you baking, love?"

"I found a recipe for s'mores cookies online and it looked really good. Just the perfect sugar crash I need, especially when I'm at the hospital trying to sort through our study patients."

"Sounds delicious, actually." You finish scooping the cookie dough onto the baking sheet, sliding it into the oven to bake for about 30 minutes. You turn to San and finally give your man a quick peck on the lips before he starts to pull out the takeout containers from the bag. "To top it off, I got your favorites from the Chinese restaurant near my house. Might be a bit cold so we probably have to re-heat these."

"Thank you, Sannie."

"Anytime, baby."

The past year and a half had been nothing but busy and productive. Waves of excitement, stress and anxiety. But, you wouldn't have it any other way. At first, you questioned your transfer; but over time, as the study picked up and your projects continued to develop and produce beautiful, effective results, you found yourself slipping into a perfect routine. Feeling happier than ever, like you've finally found your niche, a spot carved just for you by the universe itself. Despite being busy himself with slowly prepping the new space with Jongho, teaching and his other lab obligations, San was always there to support you and push you forward every step of the way.

You've gotten your name on a few papers that highlighted some of the work you've contributed [especially Sunwoo's], you've agreed to do a few talks at smaller symposiums— still traveling near [and far] to participate as an attendee or presenter. Everything just feels.. right, like this was where you were meant to be despite the ups and downs it took to get you here.

—FLASHBACK

"Is she ready?" Christopher asks as he sits next to Jongho and San, rolling the symposium agenda in his hand.

"Let me slip in right there." Namjoon pops out of nowhere, squeezing himself through the row in order to sit on San's free side.

"Where'd you guys come from?" Jongho cocks a brow up as they sit, nonchalantly settling down without any question or concern.

"Outside, where else?"

"I didn't even think you two were still here. We didn't run into you guys towards the last half." San says furrowing his brows, catching a glimpse of Yunho settling on a seat in the far corner of the room alone. "Even Yunho's here?"

"Who is going to miss a joint presentation with Y/N and Qi Jaemi? Especially a presentation about tools we've used in the lab being the driving force in a clinical setting?"

"True." Chris laughs. "I'm excited to hear it." He nudges San when you come into view on stage next to Professor Qi. "All you, huh?" You probably can't see San in the crowd right now as you're getting mic'd up, but he thinks it's best you don't. His cheeks are flushed red because he's shy with his friends teasing him left and right, but yes.

That's all him, and he's fucking proud of it.

"Yeah, she is all mine."

"She's come a long way. I knew the opportunity would help her thrive. She was perfect for it." Namjoon says, tugging on his blazer.

"She might top you on the charts, bro." Jongho jokes while San nudges him.

"I don't care. Fine by me if my lady shines."

"You're so—" The lights dim, and the host is getting ready to kick off the start of the next session. It's a smaller session during this symposium; there are other big talks currently happening, some from Nobel laureates, some from highly accredited folks in the bioengineering game. But the four [along with Yunho], are sitting here to support you and your work. They've all been following your progress over time, interested to see how everything grows.

How you excel, how you blossom.

"Hi everyone, my name is Jaemi, and this is my grad student, Y/N. She's been doing fantastic work both in the lab and in the clinical setting, so I asked her to join me today to present her findings with our study patients and how we're driving some of these studies with the knowledge we've grabbed from running rodent behavior experiments in lab." Professor Qi steps out of the spotlight in order for you to introduce yourself. San's got big twinkles in his eyes, pure of love and adoration. He's so in love, he almost finds himself doing a standing ovation until Namjoon presses his hand against his chest and subtly nods.

"Keep your ass down." Jongho laughs to himself, making San click his teeth and sigh in response.

"But, that's my lady."

"So, let your lady do her thing and applaud her after she's done. You'll probably make her more nervous."

"Fine." San pouts, a small smirk creeping up on his lips the more he stares at you and watches you do your thing with Professor Qi on stage.

—END

All of this unfolded the way it was meant to.

As for San, he's been busying himself with Jongho, getting things together for their new lab space in the other building. They've already got their equipment and the layouts of each room set up, and they've slowly started to move a few of their lab members over to start collaborating and working on a new developing project they had been discussing. He plans to finally hire himself a lab manager who can help oversee his labs and help him run the day-to-day operations while he focuses on his classes and running things behind the scenes. 

San seems way happier, and you couldn't ask for more. He's definitely busier [as if he wasn't already], but he never fails to make time for you. Regardless of how exhausted he may be.

San is unwavering.

After San reheats the food, he sets everything down onto your coffee table, along with your chopsticks and a can of your favorited sweet tea [as of recently]. You plop next to your man after the cookies finish baking, setting them on a small heart-shaped plate alongside of the food. You put on the show you two had been indulging in, a show inspired by the theme of Clue and a case of 'whodunnit.' You love the show, but you mainly love watching San get worked up over his own theories. 

"So, I heard." You poke at your rice and sesame chicken before scooping up a small amount with your chopsticks.

"What?" He looks at you before returning his attention to your TV, chopsticks almost missing his mouth while he furrows his brow at the scene. 

"I heard Yunho and Iseul separated." San chuckles a bit.

"Oh, that. Yeah." San continues to eat, unbothered. Part of him is always going to wish them well and hope for the best regardless, because he's not the type of person to wish any negativity even on his worst enemy. But, he can't say he's not glad to finally see the karma come back around. All in time, he supposes. "I learned about the separation through Chris."

"Hm." You hum. "Yunho must have probably come to his senses."

"Maybe."

"Would you.. ever become friends with Yunho again?" San pauses before he shakes his head.

"Nah. We just weren't meant to be in each other's lives and I've accepted it. Hope he's good, though." You softly smile at him before laying your head on his shoulder before eating some more. "Did you hear about the other bit with Iseul?" He continues to eat, eyes trained on your TV screen.

"I just heard her papers were under investigation, but I don't know the details. Jiung and them didn't know either."

"The panel is investigating her and her lab because they're claiming there was falsified data in her some of her papers. They don't think she had anything to do with it directly, but she's still being scrutinized for not catching it and for not overseeing her lab members who worked on the project properly."

"Really?" You look at him with wide-eyes. "Did you.. ever get wind of that or get a feeling about it?" He shrugs.

"Not really, I honestly didn't think she'd ever be in this predicament. I've read her papers and have seen the work her lab members do."

"Hm. Do you think she didn't know anything about it at all?"

"To tell you honestly, I'm not sure."

"Well. Guess you really don't know someone like you think you do."

"Yeah." Is all San says before he gives you a small smile and presses a kiss to your forehead. "I know you, though."

"Do you?" You tease and he taps the tip of your nose.

"Better than I know myself, I'd like to think." 

"Yeah." You giggle, kissing his lips sweetly. "So, tomorrow." You set your things down onto the coffee table, prompting San to stand and gather all the dishes to wash in the sink.

"Tomorrow, yes." He chuckles. "What time is your mom coming?"

"She said not too early because she wants to sleep in." San laughs louder.

"Felt that for sure. Excited to spend the day with two beautiful ladies, though."

"My mom is excited, too. We finally have a man to drive us around." You tease jokingly and he snorts.

"At your service, indeed." San wipes his hands dry after setting the dishes onto your drying rack. He indulges in the fresh cookies you made, plopping himself back down next to you with an arm draped over the back of the couch. You cuddle up against him, laughing as you continue to watch your show together without any major distractions for the first time that night. Well, until—

"Baby." San cuts in after a moment of silence that falls between the two of you mid-episode.

"Hm?" You hum, your arm wrapped around him while you rest your head on his shoulder.

"You should really take your weekends off like this. Don't burn yourself out, especially since you do so much heavy lifting in the lab and hospital." San's fingers gently rub at your arm.

"Says you, huh?"

"Nah uh, you don't get to do that." He pinches your side, making you giggle and squeal. "Don't be like me. If there's anything I truly want and value, it's to make us different than the past. I want us to work together and be on the same page no matter what."

"I know, Sannie. I want that for us, too." 

"You know you can always come to me if anything's wrong or if you aren't feeling your best. I'll always do what I can to work it out and make you feel better." He taps your nose. "I'm here to take care of you, but I also want you to take care and make sure you aren't overworking yourself."

"I think I'm doing pretty good with setting up boundaries for myself. But, that goes for you, too. I know it's been hectic getting the new lab space ready." He shrugs a bit.

"Hasn't been too bad having Namjoon and Jongho there. I appreciate their help a lot."

"That's good. I'm glad. I'm glad you always have Jongho and them to lean on." He nods before looking back down at you with a small smirk.

"Have I told you how proud I am of you?"

"A few times, but I could use the reminder." You match his energy, crawling onto his lap. He looks up at you with the sun, the moon, the universe, in his eyes, his arms wrapped lazily around your waist.

"I'd be happy to give you another reminder." He sits up to hold you flush against his body, lips grazing your neck to litter feathery kisses across the surface. "Maybe.. one that I could show you instead?"

"Oh yeah?" You giggle, squealing when San suddenly lifts you up into his arms and wraps your legs around him— carrying you to the room in your one bedroom apartment. The show is a long lost thought in the background; San gently dropping you onto your mattress. He removes his shirt from his body, tossing it to the floor with yours.

Until you're both bare. 

He kisses you heavily, messily, until he fixes his position on the bed and rests his head against your pillows. He brings you towards him, gently having you sit on is face while you work away at his cock. He laps away while you throat him deeply, loud moans vibrating against the other while you continue your motions.

That 69, all that face time.

And right before you're about to tip over the edge, San snatches your orgasm away from you, pushing you down— ass raised high for him while he's got your cheek pressed to the mattress. He fucks you into oblivion, pistoling his hips into you at a rough, harsh pace; San damn near drooling over the red marks he's leaving on your ass. He pounds into you, earning the repeated moans and calls of his name until your body feels like it'll go limp any minute.

White noise.

Static.

The orgasm rippling through your entire body as San continues to chase his own high. He praises you the entire time, his deep moans, growls, echoing in the room. Your legs feel like jello, and your body is still dealing with the post-orgasm aftershocks, but you're too far gone to care. Too deep into San, too deep into your love for this man. He finally reaches his end, releasing his seed into you, letting it drip down your pussy when he pulls out and disconnects himself from you— tip of his cock messily spreading the stragglers along your ass unintentionally.

San presses a hot trail of kisses up your spine before holding you close and turning you over— brushing the hair away from your face as he stares deep into your eyes, examines every bit of your beauty. He's not done with you yet, no. As a matter of fact, he dips forward to kiss you slowly, deeply. Hands roaming across your body, pinching and teasing at your nipples.

Leaving hickeys on your breasts because only he can see his own artwork.

Then, he goes again, and again. Fucking you with your head damn near hung over the edge of the bed, pounding into you against the shower wall.

Pushing you to your climax for another two times that night.

Because you're his good girl, and he's so damn proud of you.

Your phone starts blaring on the nightstand, causing you to jolt awake— an eye still shut as you lean over to answer the call from your mom.

"Hey mom?"

"Hey lovey! I'm gonna be there in about 30 minutes. Sorry, I figured I'd come earlier, hope that's okay. Couldn't sleep in as much as I wanted to." You suddenly feel more awake than earlier, immediately throwing your legs over the edge of the bed while San's hand lazily falls onto the mattress.

"Yeah, of course. We'll be ready for you." 

"Sounds good! Excited to see you two." Your mom says cheerfully before ending the call. You let out a breath as you set your phone down, gently nudging San awake. "Sannie."

"Hm." He hums sleepily, not moving from his position in the bed. You quietly laugh to yourself seeing his bed hair and red cheeks, hand roaming the mattress to find any sign of you nearby.

"San, get up. Mom is on her way."

"I'm so tired." He groans and whines. "Wore me the fuck out last night."

"Choi San!" You scold him as you hurriedly grab his shirt from the floor and slipping it on, rushing to the bathroom to quickly wash up and get ready before your mom comes knocking.

"What?" He sits up groggily, running his hand down his face, the sheets still covering his bare torso. "It's the truth."

"She's gonna be here any minute." You blabber while brushing your teeth. "Please put on some clothes." San chuckles and dips forward to grab his boxer briefs from the floor— the result of you two choosing to sleep bare that previous evening.

"Okay, okay." He slips into his boxers and walks over to the bathroom to join you in getting ready for the day. You throw on a denim mini skirt and a long sleeve button-up top with knee-high boots. San dresses in slacks and a short-sleeve button up, his hair softly framing his face. Just as he messily ruffles his hair and sprays on a bit of his favorite cologne, your mom knocks on the front door. You happily swing the door open and squeal at the same time your mom does, engaging in a tight, comforting bear hug. 

"My hunbun, how's it going? I know it's been awhile since your schedule has been so busy." Your mom cups your cheeks and pulls you in for another big hug. San comes out of your room, smiling at the moment you're having with her. Your mom smiles at him just as she pulls away, making her way over to him with arms wide open. "San!"

"Hey mom." He says, wrapping his arms around her tightly. 

"So handsome, my god." Your mom mutters while pulling away, making you and San laugh. She quickly shoves a bag full of food she cooked into your fridge, telling you to share with San so it doesn't go to waste. Your mom knew your schedule had been crazy— from your class schedule, to working in the lab and in the hospital for the clinical study. She worried about you more often than not, even texting San to make sure you were getting enough rest in between.

Hence, all his reminders.

"Not even." San blushes. "Anyway, you two beautiful ladies ready to head out?" You and your mom nod, grabbing your purse from the counter before heading out of your apartment.

You and your mom link arms as San is leading the way to his car. He opens the passenger and back door for you and your mom, making sure the both of you are comfortable before driving off to the first destination. 

Today was meant to be a day to spend good time with your mom and San, being that all three of you finally aligned on schedules. Your mom kept hinting that she wanted to head to the outdoor outlet about 30 minutes away from your apartment before indulging in a deep tissue massage, then an early birthday dinner celebration for your mom.

During the car ride over, your mom asks San for updates and how things are going with his lab and the new lab space. You love the way they both easily converse with each other, making it ten times more comfortable for you [and less work of carrying conversation]. They tease and joke around with each other, making you laugh in between. 

You're grateful they were able to build a good relationship over time, just like you and San's mom. San's dad is still slightly closed off and keeps his distance, but you weren't gonna force it if he wanted to keep it that way.

—FLASHBACK

"Where is she, where is she, where is she!" San's mom repeats as she races out the front door and to the car. You laugh as she approaches the window, San barely putting the car in park. You step out and immediately embrace her in a hug while she quickly waves at San and forgets about her son all together.

"Hi to you, too." San laughs as he digs his hands into his pockets, watching as you two head into the house. He shuts the door close and steps out of his shoes, his mom pouring the melon juice she made into cups. She rushes over to the dining table to hand you a big bag, and San already knows she bought you a few things from his parents' trip to Paris. She takes out the items to go through them one by one, the both of you completely oblivious to San standing nearby. He sees his dad come out from his study and into the hallway towards the kitchen, eyes peering over his glasses.

"San." His father says, looking back down at the tablet in his hands. He sees the two of you laughing and drinking the melon juice.

"Look who's here! Y/N came by with San." 

"Hi Mr. Choi." You can openly call San's mother 'mom,' but you hadn't built that relationship with his father and you weren't sure you ever would.

"Hi Y/N." He says. Politely, but he doesn't give you much attention after that, asking San's mom about their upcoming schedule. San comes from behind you, gently rubbing at your lower back, placing a kiss to your temple as a way to reassure you.

"I'm sorry, love. He always bothers me at the wrong time." San's mom playfully rolls her eyes. "So you two, tell me what's new. Especially you, dear." She brushes your hair back. "How's the clinical study going?"

—END

When the three of you arrive at the outlet, San is able to find a parking spot nearby. The outlet has a couple of stores both you and your mom are excited to hit, leaving San to trail behind— happily watching as you two move from store to store, piling on bags and bags. Eventually, he takes over and holds both of your bags, letting you guys freely enjoy yourselves as you continue to shop and enjoy each other's company. Amidst all the shopping excitement, you, San and your mom sit down for some iced drinks and pretzel dogs; snacking away for a bout of energy to walk through the last half of the outlet before heading to the massage appointment.

At the end of the shopping trip, you and San go halfsies on buying your mom a cute Louie Vuitton bag she had been eyeing. She almost cries when she comes back from the bathroom, watching the staff pack it up nicely and wrap it up in a big bow to top it off. She continued to urge you two to return it, but you brushed it off and pretended to not hear her.

Your mom deserved every bit of today, and you were glad you and San could deliver. She, too, had been working so hard, pulling in overtime just to keep herself busy and on her feet. She deserved to be spoiled.

The spa is only 15 minutes away and not busy when you arrive. The three of you are taken inside to separate rooms, stripped down to robes and asked to get comfortable. You didn't realize just how much you needed the massage until it finally takes its course, your eyes shutting contently and in peace.

You were definitely close to falling asleep a few times, might have actually dozed off once.

After the 60 minute deep tissue massage, you feel like a brand new person. You feel more light on your feet, less tense and tight around certain pain points. San pulls you in for a sweet kiss when you reunite, your mom teasing the both of you for being 'too cute for words.'

For dinner, San made reservations at a fancy restaurant right near the coastside, making sure to put in a good word for your mom's birthday when he called. It's a very busy Italian restaurant— big in size, staff running from end to end while chefs are calling out orders in the back. There's a ton of chatter going on from table to table, booth to booth. The host brings you to a booth right near the window, giving you a good view of the sun setting below the horizon, ocean waves crashing against the shore at a distance.

"This is beautiful, San." He smiles.

"You like?"

"I love." Your mom says in awe, staring out the window.

"All on me."

"But, you covered the massage. And my purse, god my purse?!"

"And I'll cover dinner." He chuckles. "It's your birthday. I wanna treat you, okay?" You laugh.

"He does have a point, ma. Today was a birthday celebration for you." The host comes back with two roses, handing it to both you and your mom in tiny vases. 

"Roses for you ladies." The host says, doing a curt bow.

"This comes with it, too?"

"Course. And another surprise later."

"Uh oh, we get a birthday song and cake!" San laughs and shushes you.

"Baby." He mumbles under his breath and gently pinches your side, making you laugh loudly as you skim the menu.

"Thank you, love." You respond.

"Of course. Any appetizers you wanna start off with?"

"The calamari sounds good."

"And the spinach artichoke dip with chips." San nods.

"Solid choices. I agree." The three of you order some non-alcoholic drinks before giving the waiter your order for appetizers and the main courses. It doesn't take long for the appetizers and drinks to arrive, keeping you busy until the main entrees arrive. You, San and your mom talk a little bit about your time in Professor Qi's lab and how you seem to be doing better about balancing your workload. They listen as you explain what next steps are, what directions you're hoping to take with your projects in the future.

Well, at least, you feel more positive about implementing changes to your routine so that you aren't overworking yourself or burning out quickly.

"I'll be right back, I need to go to the bathroom." San nods and gives your thigh a squeeze before scooting out of the booth to let you go.

"I think it's all the way towards the back." He says. You nod and he continues to stand, watching until he feels confident you're headed in the right direction. You scurry off to the bathroom towards the back of the dark, dimly lit restaurant, leaving San to entertain your mom while you're away momentarily. But you don't worry at all, especially when they don't even seem to mind you being gone; too deep into their own conversation about you, your relationship. Seemed to be the perfect moment, anyway.

"I'm glad she's finding a little bit more of a balance with her schedule now, San." He nods and smiles toothlessly.

"I am, too. I'll keep reminding her. Don't worry." She nods and laughs a bit.

"I'm just worried about her, as always. I know it took her a lot to get into grad school and where she is today. She struggled for awhile and finally felt like she was in a good place, like she had purpose. I know all she wants to do is work hard and push through, but I don't want her to get sick or hurt herself. I don't want anything to happen to her, and I especially don't want all of this to be taken away from her in any fashion."

"It won't. She's amazing at what she does, and she's passionate about it. It doesn't take much to see that. But, I think she knows her boundaries well. She knows when she can and can't push herself, or when she shouldn't. She'll find her rhythm over time and it'll be better." Your mom sips on her water and slowly nods.

"You take good care of her. I can tell you genuinely care about my daughter."

"I do. I love her. I really love her. Deeply." He pauses before fiddling with the edge of the napkin. He feels his nerves growing, and he's trying his best to push it away. "A-And if it's not too much to consider now, I'd like to get your permission and blessing to care for her and take care of her, especially after she graduates."

"Y-You're asking now?" Your mom asks in slight disbelief, even though she's mostly in shock because San is asking now. It's not that she doesn't believe him, or doesn't think he'd keep his word. It's the fact that he's even doing it in the first place so early on. 

"I, yeah." San chuckles. "I'm sorry, mom. I don't mean to scare you, but I'm certain about her." San sips on his drink. "I don't necessarily hop from one relationship to another. I'm not that kind of guy. And I know you might've heard a bit about my last marriage, but I can assure you—"

"I know, San. I know." Your mom puts her hand on his arm and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Y/N told me all about it. I hope you don't mind. She told me everything about Iseul and Yunho. Those unbelievable bastards."

"Oh— yeah. Right." San laughs with your mom before they sit in silence for a bit. 

"I'd love for you to take care of my daughter and be there by her side." Your mom breaks the silence with her sweet statement. "You've been a good support system for her and I can't thank you enough for being there. For remaining by her side despite the hard circumstances."

"Always. I'll always be there. She's my priority."

"And I know you mean it." Your mom looks at him and reaches over the table to gently squeeze his hand. Because for the first time, she sees the real, genuine definition of love, support, safety and comfort— all wrapped up in one person.

San.

And you just so happened to be his end goal.

—taglist: @asjkdk @interweab @woojirang @svintsandghosts @cheolliehugs @persphonesorchid @mxnsxngie @jycas @cowboydk @vcutparis @chngbnwf @struggling101 @sanhwalvr @angelqueendom @barbielibra @brown88 @choisansplushie @yunhoswrldddd @hyukssunflower @vickykazuya @lucid-galaxys-world @jaytheatiny @pommelex @thechaotictheoryy @vixensss @santineez @nopension @domfikeluva @in-somnias-world @my-atiny-kookie-rkive @mountiiny @naoristerling @onmymymyway @thecutiepieme @wyrated @randajjjad

[reissancesstuff]

Copycat

Gojo Satoru x scientist!fem!reader

Genre: Dark romance, yandere-ish, a dash of sci-fi

You made him with love.

Literally. Every line of code, every strand of DNA you mapped, every flicker of consciousness you engineered — all of it was based on the man you loved. Satoru Gojo.

The real one.

The clone had his smile. His voice. His stupid jokes and perfect timing. He even wore the same damn sunglasses.

And at first, it was... cute.

Real Satoru laughed when he walked in and saw two of himself bickering over the last box of mochi in the kitchen. He took pictures. He posted one to his private Instagram story with the caption:

double the gojo, double the chaos 😎

He teased you mercilessly. “So, which one of us is better in bed, huh? Be honest.”

You rolled your eyes. “Obviously you. He doesn’t even have real memories.”

“Pfft. I am the blueprint.” He winked.

But the longer the clone stayed, the less funny it became.

It was subtle at first. Satoru’s hand lingering on your waist longer. The way he’d pull you onto his lap during breakfast when the clone was in the room. The possessive glint in his eye when Clone Satoru (you hadn’t given him a name — it felt wrong) leaned too close to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Don’t let him do that,” Real Satoru muttered one night. “He’s not me.”

“But he is,” you’d said. “Down to the neural patterns. Everything.”

His expression twisted. “He’s a counterfeit. I’m the original.”

You should’ve shut the project down then. You meant to. But something about seeing him mirrored — that second Satoru who understood your science better, who listened without interrupting, who looked at you with the same eyes but not the same ego — was intoxicating.

You didn’t realize how far it had gone until you found yourself laughing too hard at something clone-Satoru said. Touching his arm without thinking. Sitting too close on the couch. That strange, quiet comfort. And Satoru saw all of it.

Which is how you ended up pinned to the kitchen counter at midnight, real Satoru’s hands caging you in, blue eyes gleaming coldly behind snowy bangs.

“You know what I just realized?” he asks, voice low and casual — too casual.

Your breath catches. “What?”

He leans in, just close enough for his lips to brush your ear.

“That I don’t like sharing.”

You swallow. “He’s not— It’s not like that.”

“Oh?” He tilts your chin up, finally looking at you. Really looking. “Because it sure as hell looked like you were thinking about him like you think about me.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I?” A smile curves his lips — crooked, dangerous. His voice drops, velvet and venom. “You made him too perfect, sweetheart. He knows you inside and out. Hell, sometimes even better than I do.”

“Satoru—”

“Do you want him?” The question hits like a slap. His hands are still on either side of you, but you feel the heat of his body, his breath, the intensity of his stare. “Do you want him the way you want me?”

“No,” you whisper, because it’s the truth — the real one, buried under your guilt.

Something in his posture shifts. A tension eases. But only a little.

“Good,” he murmurs. Then, cruelly soft:

“Because I don’t plan on letting you go. Not to anyone. Not even a second-rate version of me.”

You don’t get a chance to respond before he kisses you — rough, claiming, all teeth and heat and frustration. There’s nothing gentle about it. He’s showing you exactly who owns you.

When he pulls away, he’s breathless and grinning like a maniac.

“You’re mine,” he says, pressing his forehead to yours. “Only mine.”

And somewhere, across the house, your clone powers down — maybe by accident.

Or maybe not.

You never checked.

[rainsinheaven-if]

☆彡Update Log 1.0 - DEMO IS OUT!

Play the Demo here!

After months of writing, editing, and coding, the prologue and Chapter 1 is finally out! With code, the prologue and Chapter 1 is about 20k words. It’s a little short if you compare it to other IFs but I can promise that Chapter 2 is probably gonna be longer. The demo should be playable on both PC and mobile.

Warnings: this update involves injury, blood, attempted murder, death of a minor character, parental physical and emotional abuse, and parental favoritism.

In the prologue, you will:

Get a glimpse of your parents’ favoritism the moment you were born.

Choose the skin color, hair color, and eye color for you and Nolan.

Wonder who’s talking about you, Nolan, and your future.

In Chapter 1, you will:

Have a weird dream?

Receive some gifts from Aria and Nolan.

Give a gift to Nolan.

Greet the Royal family.

Make your first friends.

Witness an attempted murder.

Have your heart shattered (or rage explode)

Cry yourself to sleep with a burning red cheek.

One thing to note is that the sections on the side bar are still under construction and subject to change. In some cases, you may see the word “null”; do not fret, it isn’t an error. This is a variable I set to “null”, and would probably be changed when you get to a certain point in the demo. Also, if you're playing on mobile, you might notice that the title in the front page is not aligning properly to your screen. I am aware of this and I'm working on fixing it, but it has to be like that for now.

Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for playing! If you find any grammar errors, bugs, etc., feel free to send them through Tumblr asks, go over to my Discord, or DM me those issues on any of the mentioned platforms plus Twitter (@/nabearbot). I’m also open to any suggestions or questions you have about the plot or demo <3

Additionally, thank you to all the beta testers who helped me through Discord. I’ve learned a lot from their reports.

As this is my first time doing this sort of project, please be patient and kind with me and my work 💖

Join the discord server!

[strawberry-bubblef]

Hi! Could I request a platonic ignihyde fic with a child reader who is surprisingly good at coding?

Ignihyde with a Child!reader who is good at coding

Idia Shroud

To say Idia was surprised when Crowley dropped a literal child into his dorm would be an understatement.

He had stared, wide-eyed and frozen, the corners of his mouth twitching with something between panic and suspicion.

“…Okay,” he muttered. “Okay. The headmage finally snapped. I’m hallucinating a child. A child with a backpack. And stickers on their tablet.”

You, meanwhile, were silent. You stared up at the tall, nervous man in the oversized hoodie and fire-blue hair and tilted your head slightly.

“…You’re Idia Shroud,” you said flatly, stepping into his room uninvited and peering at his screens. “Your garbage collector keeps triggering on a five-second cycle. That’s inefficient.”

Idia made a strangled noise. “Wha—?!”

“I can fix it,” you added.

You sat down beside him like you’d done it a hundred times, pulling your tablet out and typing with quiet precision.

And somehow, Idia let you.

It was weird, having someone near him who didn’t need constant social buffering. You weren’t loud. You didn’t force him to talk when he didn’t want to. You liked silence, blinking cursors, logic loops, and cat-themed IDE skins.

Idia thought he might actually be dreaming.

Still, he kept his distance for a while. You were a kid. What if you cried when he got snappy? What if you tripped and broke a server blade? What if Ortho accidentally sent you to the Shadow Realm during VR testing?

But you didn’t cry. You didn’t break anything. You added new firewall protocols to his gaming network and reorganized his project folders in a way that actually made sense.

“…Okay,” he mumbled one night, awkwardly scooting over to make room at his desk. “You can help. But only a little. Like. One file.”

You fixed six and added a debugging tool of your own design.

“…I’m not crying,” he muttered later, face hidden behind a chip bag. “There’s just… too much screen brightness.”

You didn’t say much, and neither did he. But he got used to your presence,the soft tap of your fingers on a keyboard, the way you leaned against the side of his chair when you got sleepy. The way you hummed random game soundtracks while coding, and quietly slid snack packets toward him when his stomach growled.

And you got used to his muttering. His panic,rambling. His snarky comments. You even got used to how he covered his mouth when he was embarrassed.

“You don’t talk like other people,” you said once, blinking up at him.

Idia flinched. “Oh. Uh. Sorry, I guess? I can turn it down.”

You shook your head. “I like it.”

His hair turned a little pink at the ends after that.

He didn’t call you his sibling. Not out loud. Not even in his head, really.

But sometimes he’d look over and see you curled up with your tablet beside him, lines of elegant, efficient code dancing across the screen and he’d feel something settle quietly in his chest. Something warm. Safe.

“…Player Two,” he muttered once, brushing your hair out of your face while you napped.

No response, of course. But your fingers twitched in your sleep, like you were still typing.

He smiled.

Ortho Shroud

The first time Ortho met you, his eyes lit up,literally.

He zipped down from the sky like a comet, bright and excitable. “HI! Are you the new guest staying in Ignihyde?! Crowley told us someone really cool was coming but didn’t give details so I ran ten background checks just in case and—”

You blinked up at him, holding your tablet close to your chest.

“…You’re a robot,” you said simply.

“I’m a technomantic humanoid !” Ortho corrected, glowing a bit brighter. “But yeah! Basically a robot!”

You nodded once. “Cool.”

And then you offered him your tablet.

“Want to see my code?"

To Ortho, that was like being handed a treasure map.

He zipped in close, blue eyes scanning rapidly over your custom interface. “You coded all this yourself?! Wait—these are recursive functions written in HexaScript??”

You nodded. “I optimized the loops. The compiler doesn’t like it sometimes, but it’s fast.”

Ortho hovered in stunned silence.

From that day on, Ortho was stuck to you like a magnet. If you were in the room, he was hovering nearby,spouting programming facts, asking questions, or quietly watching you work while glowing with barely contained energy.

And in return, you liked having him around.

He was loud, sure, and sometimes he got too excited. But he treated you like an equal. He never talked down to you. He never made you feel small, even when you had to stand on tiptoe to reach the desk.

Plus, he let you “borrow” high-grade Ignihyde tech when Idia wasn’t looking.

Ortho often dragged you around the dorm to show you off.

“Look! They built a proxy network to bypass dorm firewalls!”

“They made me a new mini-game and I got the high score!”

“They reprogrammed the toaster so it says ‘good morning’ in binary!”

You didn’t mind. You liked seeing him that happy,how he buzzed with pride and sparkled like stardust.

He even started adapting some of his flight stabilizers to help you reach high shelves. And every time you successfully debugged something difficult, he did a victory spin in the air and called it a “micro hero moment.”

You never had a big family. Never had people who got your weird little projects or your late-night tinkering.

But now you had Ortho.

And he understood your code like it was a language only the two of you spoke.

English is not my first language !

[jaikoyucky]

How about an evie x reader where evie is trying to get with reader just how she was with chad. Except reader isn’t a jerk, just clueless

Her Oblivious Charming

Evie x Charming!Fem!Reader

Summary: Where Evie tries to charm Cinderella's daughter, not knowing you're an oblivious idiot.

Words: 2.3k

WARNINGS:Oblivious!reader, Chad is your brother, Mention of bugs, not proofread and rushed ending.

A/N:Y'ALL THE EVIE REQUESTS MIGHT BE DELAYED 'CAUSE SCHOOL IS COMING UP AND I HAVE TO GET READYY, I'M SO SORRY OMG. ANYWAY, I loved writing this tysm for the request, also ty for prompt writers, they're my saving grace fr.

"Any chance she's in line for a throne?" Evie inquired, her head tilted sideways as she leaned on her knuckles, her gaze fixed dreamily on you. "Anywhere in line?" she continued, her eyes wide with fascination. You, oblivious to the conversation, were grappling with a complex science equation, your pen poised above the paper as you furrowed your brow in concentration.

Doug followed Evie's line of sight with a raised eyebrow. "Y/N, Princess Charming, Cinderella's daughter?" Evie's head snapped up, a brilliant smile lighting her face

"Y/N inherited the charm, but not a lot of there, there, know what I mean...?" Doug trailed off, gesturing vaguely. Their attention returned to you as you winced and rubbed your nose after accidentally tossing your pen in the air and catching it with your face.

"Looks like there-there to me," Evie sighed dreamily, returning her head to her knuckles. "Any chance she's single?" she asked, her voice soft and hopeful as she turned to Doug.

Doug exhaled slowly. "Despite living up to her last name, she's never had a romantic partner," he admitted, continuing to scribble on his paper. "At least, not that I know of," he added as an afterthought.

Perfect. Evie loved a challenge.

She was wrong.

You weren't single because you were guarded,commitment-phobic,

or anything like that.

The truth was far simpler: you were clueless.

No offense, but you were an absolute oblivious idiot.

She let out a frustrated sigh, collapsing onto the side of her bed. The memory of her failed flirtation attempts replayed in her mind like a painful montage.

There was that time in science class, for instance. Partners for a project, where she saw her chance.

[ The science lab was a cacophony of bubbling liquids and crackling test tubes. As you bent over a Bunsen burner, carefully heating a test tube, Evie’s voice cut through the lab’s hum.

"There's something on your face," Evie's gaze was fixed on your face, her lips curved into a subtle smirk as she hovered a hand near your cheek.

Your head snapped up, your face flushing with a mix of embarrassment and panic. "What?" you managed to squeak out.

Her lips curved into a sly smile as she started, "Beautifu-" but before she could finish, your brain had already processed the word "something" as a code red for "bug." Terror seized you, you were terrified of bugs.

"Is it a bug?! GET IT OFF, WAIT!" you shrieked, your hands flailing wildly as you tried to dislodge the imaginary insect.

Your desperate attempts to rid your face of the nonexistent bug sent your elbow crashing into a shelf of glassware. Test tubes, flasks, and beakers rained down, shattering on the unforgiving tile floor. A cloud of white smoke rose from a broken container, setting off the fire alarm.

Evie's smirk vanished, replaced by a mixture of amusement and disbelief. She glanced at Doug, who was silently contemplating the ceiling, his palm pressed dramatically against his face.

That’s how their science project ended in disaster, earning them both a failing grade and a week of detention. It was also Evie’s unfortunate discovery of your knee deep(IN THE PASSENGER SEATT) fear of bugs.]

Undeterred, she tried again.

[After enduring a week of detention and her relentless, albeit unsuccessful, flirtations, Evie finally asked you out—a walk outside that is. You interpreted it as a purely platonic gesture, of course.

Under the night sky, during a post-detention walk, she took a chance, Evie turned to you with a hopeful glint in her eye. "My hands are a bit cold, " she said, her voice soft. "Would you mind holding them?" Her hands rubbed together dramatically.The classic move, she thought, a smirk tugging at her lips.

To her surprise, you took her hand. Her heart pounded in her chest. This was it, the moment she'd been waiting for.

But instead of the anticipated warmth of your hand, she felt the rough texture of fabric. There you pulled out a pair of mittens out of God knows where and slipped it on her hand

Where the hell did that come from?

"Here, you can take my gloves," you said with a completely innocent smile. You carefully fitted the mittens onto her hand, your touch gentle. It took a full five minutes of awkward fumbling before both mittens were securely in place.

She managed a small “thanks” as she tried to hide her flushed face. No! You were supposed to be the flustered one, not her!

And so, they continued walking. Plan failed, spectacularly? Well, at least she’d had her first physical contact with you. She’d take it.]

"At this point you'd have to be pretending not to know," Evie sighs a hint of exasperation coloring her voice as she pushed herself up from the bed, her body still bearing the imprint of the soft mattress. Her hand instinctively reached for the hand mirror lying beside her, and she began to fuss with her hair to fix it, the disarray a reflection of her internal frustration.

"Right?" Evie started, her words hanging in the air as her reflection revealed Mal, sprawled out on the bed in a deep slumber. An exasperated roll of her eyes followed, and she brought a finger to her lips in an attempt to fix the smudged lipstick. Her voice was muffled by the gesture as she muttered, "Very helpful." The sudden, forceful intrusion of their dorm room door startled her.

Didn't they lock the door?

The door swung open, revealing you in an oversized jacket, your face etched with panic. Your left hand gripped a key tightly.

Evie, still preoccupied with her hand mirror, glanced up, her eyes widening in surprise.

"Is that a key to...our dorm?" she questioned, her voice laced with confusion.

You nodded frantically, your urgency palpable. "My brother— it doesn't matter. You have to help me!" Your words tumbled out in a rush as you darted towards Evie, your foot catching something on the floor, causing you to stumble.

"You know how to sew, right?" You breathed out sharply, landing on Evie's bed with a bounce.

Evie's eyebrows shot up in question. "Yeah, why— hey!" Her hands instinctively flew to your chest as you began to unzip your hoodie with surprising urgency. She'd love to get there, but not so soon!

"No, my— blouse, I broke it!" Your explanation was breathless and rushed. The hoodie finally fell open, revealing a cream-colored blouse with three missing buttons.

Evie swallowed hard, hergaze flickering away from the slight exposure of your cleavage. "R-right, of course," she coughed, trying to regain her composure.

"My brother, I—this is his blouse," you stammered, your voice barely audible. "I need to get it fixed now before he sees it and tells Mom! He's looking for me right now! And if I—"

Evie's hand gently covered yours, silencing your frantic words. Her touch was surprisingly calming, grounding you amidst the chaos of your thoughts. With a steady exhale, she removed your hands from your face and placed them gently on your lap.

"Alright, calm down," she said, her voice firm yet soothing. "I'm going to get my sewing kit."

Rising from the bed, Evie walked towards a cluttered table overflowing with sketches and fabric scraps. After a brief search, she returned with a small box and sat down on the bed.

"Can you..." Evie began, her voice barely a whisper. Her gaze flickered between the damaged blouse and your expectant face. You tilted your head, curiosity evident in your eyes. She knew what she wanted to say, a simple request to make her task easier. But the image of you without the blouse flashed through her mind, and a blush crept up her cheeks. The distraction would be too much. With a frustrated sigh, she abandoned the thought. "Nevermind," she concluded.

Your impatience was growing by the second. "Please hurry," you pleaded, your voice rising slightly. Your hands fidgeted nervously in your lap.

She nodded in agreement and gently lifted the lid of the sewing kit box. With practiced hands, she rummaged through the assortment of supplies until she found a button that perfectly matched the color of the blouse. Carefully selecting a needle of suitable size and a length of matching thread, she gathered her tools. Leaning in closer, she gently grasped the loose placket of your brothers blouse with her thumb, steadying the fabric as she prepared to sew the button securely in place.

Your breath caught in your throat as you became acutely aware of Evie's proximity. Her warm breath fanned across your collarbone, sending shivers down your spine. Her concentration was intense, her eyebrows drawn together in a furrow, but her eyes held a captivating allure that you hadn't noticed before. Their rich, brown color was like melted chocolate, flecked with golden specks.

Your gaze darted away, desperate for a distraction. The room, once neutral, had transformed into a suffocating chamber.

Your hands, seeking an anchor, found their way to the bed sheet, gripping it tightly as if it were a lifeline. A wave of relief washed over you as Evie momentarily broke the intense proximity, her head turning to retrieve another button.

Tick

Tock

The ticking of the clock, normally a soothing rhythm, now seemed to mock your escalating discomfort. It was as if the universe was conspiring against you.

Evie's voice, soft and laced with genuine concern, pierced through your turmoil. Her honey-brown eyes, filled with empathy, met yours, and in that moment, you felt exposed and vulnerable. A strangled sob threatened to escape your lips, but you managed to suppress it, replacing it with a shaky exhale. Your grip on the bed sheet tightened, a desperate attempt to ground yourself. A feeble excuse formed on your lips, a claim of oppressive heat, which Evie accepted with a sympathetic murmur.

As she moved to the third button, a knot of anticipation formed in your stomach. Her fingers brushed against your skin, sending shivers down your spine. The delicate tendrils of her dark blue hair grazed your chin, carrying the intoxicating scent of mint that seemed to seep into your senses. Unconsciously, you leaned in, drawn to her comforting aroma as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea.

"There, all do-" Evie announced triumphantly, her face breaking into a smile as she looked up at you. Unprepared for the sight of you leaning in so closely, her eyes widened in surprise. Every thought in her mind evaporated, replaced by a single, overwhelming impulse, as your eyes locked onto hers - a desire, a pull, a magnetic force drawing her closer. Her heart pounded in her ears as she tilted her head, her gaze dropping to your lips. Their lips were mere inches apart and then—

BAM!

The abrupt crash of the dorm door against the wall jolted them apart, their hearts pounding in their ears.

"You two idiots! They were about to kiss!" Mal's voice, laced with irritation, cut through the silence. Your heads snapped in her direction to find her sitting nonchalantly on her bed, a pillow clutched in her hands.

A wave of embarrassment washed over you both as you realized she'd witnessed the entire ordeal. Your mind raced, trying to decipher how long she'd been awake and if she'd seen the desperate grip you'd had on the bedsheet earlier.

"Mal – oh, why's she here?" Carlos's voice echoed through the room as he stumbled in, Jay trailing behind him. Jay caught the pillow Mal had tossed in his direction and hurled it back at her in playful retaliation.

Mal caught the pillow with a practiced ease, her eyes rolling as she regarded the newcomers.

"They were about to kiss," she repeated, a smirk playing on her lips.

"We weren't!" you stammered, your voice barely a whisper, but your words were cut short by the sharp, insistent sound of your brother's voice calling your name. Your heart pounded in your chest as his voice grew closer, the panic rising within you. "You guys have to hide me!" you pleaded, your voice rising in desperation.

"Come on." Evie's hand found yours, her grip firm and reassuring as she pulled you towards the closet. Together, you squeezed into the cramped space, your bodies pressed close together, as Mal quickly shut the closet door, muffling the sounds of the approaching chaos.

A low, indistinct voice, muffled by an intervening barrier, reached your ears. It was your brother's voice, inquiring about your presence.

"I heard her voice!" Chad exclaimed, his tone filled with alarm. "Did you kidnap my sister?!"

Mal's response was swift and defensive. "Why would we kidnap your sister?"

Their voices began to fade as Evie's fingers gently turned your head, forcing you to face her.

"Be honest, do you know?" Evie inquired softly, her face partially illuminated by the dim glow seeping from outside the closet. Her voice was as gentle as a whisper.

"Know what?"

A playful chuckle escaped her lips as she placed her hands on your shoulders. "That I like you, Dummy."

Your mind raced as you tried to process her confession. "You do? But I like you too! I thought you liked my brother, because I overheard you and Doug talking about a charming sibling, and I- I thought you were straight becau-" Your stammering attempt at explanation was abruptly halted as Evie's lips met yours.

Surprise washed over you, but you instinctively responded to the warmth of her kiss. Her hands found your waist, pulling you closer as your knees threatened to buckle. The taste of cherry lip balm lingered on your tongue, Your heart pounded in your chest, sending a rush of excitement through your body that felt like a cascade of fireworks exploding within your stomach.

"You're an oblivious idiot." She chuckled, pulling away from the kiss with a playful smile. Her eyes sparkled as she took a moment to admire yours, her hands gently cupping your cheeks. She leaned in slowly, savoring the moment before kissing you again.

"I'm your oblivious idiot."

Can you tell the ending is rushed? ;)

[meganegatari]

pool/beach day w/ ellie thoughts! source of pondering: i was in the pool and am never not thinking about ellie so…this is very much insane projecting LOL. (like projecting to the level of this was literally how i spent the last few hours but am writing as if it's ellie…with creative expansions obvi.) informal format, basically just thinking and not a fr story iykwim. closer to headcanons? I DON'T KNOW JUST A SHITTY YAP OF SORTS OK. loser!ellie kindaaa, jesse cameo, teeny suggestive mentions if you squint.

pool (or beach, either work) day with ellie, how fun!! let's start with her fit. she'd wear plaid swim trunks with a sports bra style bikini top, unbuttoned short sleeve button up shirt on top when out of the water, all pieces of her outfit totally different, clashing patterns. yet she somehow rocks it. and when she's in the water, she wears swim goggles because of course. she'd love wearing her outfit, and “f-boy” coded ellie would hike her bottoms down just enough so her happy trail would peek out perfectly, because she knew all the girls would drool at the sight. you included. (who wouldn't.)

in the water however, she'd be a nuisance like none other, literally turning into a teen boy. splashing you like crazy, goofing around until there's so much water in her nose you're sure you can hear it sloshing around inside her skull. at times you'd even have to act like her mother, yelling at her to reapply her sunscreen so her delicate skin didn't burn to a crisp. she finds this absolutely hilarious.

“ellie, you're gonna turn into a lobster, get over here!” you toss the bottle in the air and catch it, a fed-up look on your face. she stands up and shakes the water off her body as if she's a dog, then strides over to you, snatching the sunscreen out of your hand. she rolls her eyes, and you can clearly hear the smirk in her tone. “ugh, sorry mom. i bet i'd be delicious as a lobster though.” she chuckles at her stupid joke, a husky “heh”, but then doubles over laughing even harder once she sees your stone-cold expression not crack in the slightest. in the most bored, deadpan voice you could muster, “you taste fine as-is, dork.” cue her face turning as bright red as a freshly boiled lobster once the rebuttal properly registers in her mind. you = 1, ellie = 0.

you'd be over there away from the water on a towel trying to get some vitamin d, or hidden away in the shade with a book and cocktail with one of the tiny umbrellas in it, but your els would want you there with her, and try to drag you in the water.

as she grabs your arm to pull you to your feet, “c'mon babe, get in. just for a little bit, how aren't you bored over there?” when you don't move, she attacks your neck with cold, wet smooches, the temperature of her lips a shock against your hot, dry skin, causing goosebumps to erupt all over. finally you'd comply, following her while she's pulling you in. “see, look how nice it is!” a grin so wide it melts your insides, you can't be mad at her, and you find a floaty to lay on. you can do some relaxation like that. but ellie, she insists to be close to you at all times, and finds a floaty to lay on next to yours. can't forget she's still holding your hand, you both look like two little otters floating down a stream, swept away on beds of seaweed, hand in hand.

as you're listening to the sounds of the water around you, the gentle rocking as a gust of wind passes by, you feel ellie's grip on your hand go limp, and you look over at her to see the fucker's dead asleep. “hey, ellie?” you ask, and are met with silence, her head lolled to the side with her mouth slightly open, she was out cold. it seems all that silly splashing around had made her tired, and that in combination with the comforting, warm environment had rocked her to sleep. you float there next to her peacefully for a short while, resting your eyes. then out of nowhere, you hear her yelp, and sit up to see that her friend, jesse, had made an appearance and threw a volleyball at her, which hit her smack-dab in the face. “what the fuck man!” he's looking smug, proud of his aim, and waves hi to you. ellie throws the ball back at him, but unfortunately she misses. and by a long shot at that, seems she was still drowsy. you're tuning them out and have returned to floating in relaxation, vaguely hearing them yelling profanities and “your mom” jokes to each other. in no time at all ellie bolts out of the water and dashes over to him, and you take a deep breath, happy to get some quiet, but also enjoying watching them from afar as they toss the ball around. ellie gestures for you to join them, to which you yell to her that you'll join in a bit, watching from the sidelines was proving to be better entertainment than you thought it would be, you loved observing her athletic form, whatever she's doing.

and so the evening continues like that, you two make it back home as it gets dark, and crash into bed immediately. bla bla bla...

yeah i dunno. had to write SOMETHING don't yell at me if it's crap idrc. ig i shall tag peeps anyway cuz that's what yall do! wrote while listening to tsp, especially 1979 which is a very summery song imo. sunset drives with friends blasting that song...UGHHHH

everything everything: @andersonfilms @fleshunger @ch6douin @aouiaa @sapphic-ovaries @astro-cat2

ellie everything: @flowrmoth @srooch @liddysflyer @fortune777

wanna be tagged in my fics? fill out the form!

[blissfulflw]

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𝐶𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡 𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑠ℎ

Pairing- Ahn Yujin x fem reader

Genre- Fluff, Slow burn

Word count- 4319

A/N: Haikyuu reference.. AWH HELL YEAH, they’re so Kiyoko and Tanaka coded 😭😭

If someone had told you a month ago that you’d be spending your afternoons surrounded by sweat, sneakers, and flying volleyballs, you would’ve laughed and gone back to your quiet little world of books and part-time library shifts.

But here you were—clipboard in hand, hair tied up messily, dodging a rogue volleyball that flew a little too close to your head.

“Woah!” A firm hand caught the ball just before it collided with your face. “You okay there, manager-nim?”

You looked up and met the warm brown eyes of Ahn Yujin—team captain, MVP, and the human equivalent of a golden retriever with a killer spike. She grinned at you like she hadn’t nearly taken your head off.

“I’m fine,” you muttered, brushing imaginary dust off your sleeves. “But maybe aim away from the non-athletes next time?”

“Noted.” Yujin spun the ball on her fingertip with the ease of someone who lived and breathed this sport. “You sure you’re not here to secretly try out? You’ve got good reflexes.”

You gave her a look. “I flinched.”

“Exactly. That’s self-preservation. Very important on the court.”

She winked, and you rolled your eyes—half because she was annoying, and half because you felt your stomach flip in a way it absolutely shouldn’t have.

Yujin jogged back to her side of the court, but not before calling over her shoulder, “By the way, thanks for organizing the team files. Coach was impressed. Said you’re the best thing to happen to this team.”

You didn’t respond, but your face warmed. You turned back to your clipboard, trying very hard not to smile.

And failing.

_____

You kept your eyes on your clipboard like it held the answers to life, even though all it had were attendance checkboxes and a mildly coffee-stained practice schedule. Yujin’s words echoed anyway, annoyingly warm in your chest.

“The best thing to happen to this team.”

You told yourself she was just being friendly. Teammates tease. Captains flirt—for fun, for morale, for the thrill of it. You weren’t the first person she’d winked at, and you definitely wouldn’t be the last.

Still, your pen hovered in the air a little too long before checking her name off as present.

“Manager-nim,” a voice drawled behind you, making you jump.

You turned to see Yujin again, now with her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, a towel slung around her neck, and just enough of a smirk to make you suspicious.

“You already marked me down, right?” she asked, peeking at your clipboard. “Would hate to run extra laps.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Physically, yes. Mentally? Depends.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Is this how you sweet-talk your way out of conditioning drills?”

“Nah.” She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice with mock seriousness. “That’s just for you.”

You gave her the deadpan look you’d mastered over years of dealing with flirty classmates and passive-aggressive group project partners. Unfortunately, Yujin didn’t seem discouraged in the slightest.

“Don’t you have, I don’t know, a sport to focus on?”

“I do,” she said brightly, backing up toward the court. “But I like to multitask. And you’re very… distracting.”

Before you could even formulate a comeback, Coach’s whistle cut through the air.

“Yujin! Stop bothering the manager!”

“Just checking in!” she shouted, grinning as she jogged back.

You let out a breath and tried to shake the warmth out of your face. You were here to manage a team, not develop a crush on the captain. You didn’t even like athletes, remember?

But then Yujin turned mid-run and shot you another grin, like she could feel your gaze on her back.

You sighed.

You were doomed.

Practice was halfway through, and the gym was heavy with the scent of sweat and floor polish. The girls had been running drills for the past hour, and Coach finally blew the whistle for a water break.

You were crouched by the bench, reorganizing the tangled mess of towels and refill bottles, when you heard the unmistakable sound of sneakers slowing down behind you.

“Careful,” Yujin said, voice light, “if you keep being this efficient, I might start thinking about keeping you permanently.”

You didn’t look up. “I’m pretty sure I’m already stuck here for the semester.”

“Oh, no. I meant personally.”

You turned your head slowly. “Is that a threat?”

She grinned, water bottle in hand, cheeks flushed from the workout, hair sticking adorably to her forehead. “Wouldn’t dream of threatening you. I’m just saying… I’ve had a lot of managers over the years. None of them were this cute.”

You blinked.

Once.

Twice.

“You can’t flirt your way out of hydration,” you finally muttered, standing up and shoving a fresh towel at her.

She took it, eyes never leaving yours. “That wasn’t flirting. That was just an honest observation.”

“Then maybe keep your observations to yourself.”

Yujin tilted her head. “Why? Am I making you nervous?”

You hated that she wasn’t wrong. “No.”

Her smile widened. “Are you sure? Because your ears are doing that thing where they turn red. It’s kind of adorable.”

You spun on your heel, turning your back to her. “You’re insufferable.”

“Most people just say charming, but okay.”

She was laughing now, quietly but clearly delighted. And it wasn’t the cocky kind, not really. It was softer than that—like she genuinely enjoyed getting under your skin just to see what was underneath.

“Back on the court in thirty seconds!” Coach barked.

Yujin started jogging off again but called over her shoulder, “Don’t go running off. I haven’t told you the other reason you’re my favorite manager yet.”

You didn’t respond, didn’t even glance at her. But your fingers tightened around your clipboard, and your stomach did that stupid fluttery thing again.

You were going to need a better strategy than avoidance. Because if Yujin kept this up, you weren’t sure how long your self-control would last.

_____

Practice ended later than usual. The gym lights flickered once, like they were tired too, and the last echo of sneakers on hardwood faded as the team dispersed, laughing and shouting their goodbyes.

You were the last one left by the bench, stuffing the folded jerseys into a mesh bag, checking your clipboard for the fifth time like it’d give you an excuse to stay just a little longer. Not that you were waiting for anyone. Obviously.

“Still working overtime, manager-nim?”

You didn’t have to look up. “Yujin.”

She stood a few feet away, now in a hoodie and loose joggers, hair damp from a quick rinse in the locker room. The edges of her smile were softer now, stripped of the teasing swagger she wore during practice.

“I figured you’d left already,” you said, slinging the bag over your shoulder.

She shrugged. “Thought I’d wait.”

“For what?”

“For you.” She paused. “It’s dark. And raining.”

You turned toward the gym doors. She wasn’t wrong. You could hear the steady tap of rain against the pavement outside.

“I brought an umbrella,” she added, holding one up. “And you’re not exactly dressed for a downpour.”

You eyed her. “You waited just to walk me home?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

That gave you pause.

“…Why?”

Yujin stepped a little closer, her voice quieter now. “Maybe because I like making sure you get home safe. Or maybe because it’s the only time I get you all to myself, and you can’t run away mid-conversation.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Words had always come easily for you—until Yujin looked at you like that. Like you were something fragile but fascinating.

“I don’t—” you started, then stopped when she offered the umbrella between you.

“I’ll even let you hold it,” she said lightly. “That way it’s not technically a date.”

Your hand brushed hers as you took the handle. Stupid, how that tiny moment felt like something more.

You stepped outside together, into the rain. It wasn’t heavy, just enough to make the world quiet. You walked side by side in comfortable silence for a few blocks, your shoulders almost brushing.

Finally, she said, “You know… I wasn’t lying earlier.”

“About what?”

“You being the cutest manager I’ve ever had.”

You exhaled through a faint smile. “You really don’t stop, do you?”

“Nope,” she said with a grin. “But I am patient.”

You glanced at her. “Patient for what?”

Yujin looked at you, and for the first time, didn’t tease. She just smiled—soft and sincere.

“For you to believe me.”

_____

The umbrella barely covered both of you, which meant you had to walk close—closer than you were used to. Yujin didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she walked like this was the most natural thing in the world. Like she belonged in your space.

You kept your eyes ahead, counting the soft splashes of your footsteps in the puddles, the occasional flicker of headlights passing by, the sound of her breath beside yours.

“Do you always walk this route?” she asked.

You nodded. “It’s quiet. Fewer cars.”

Yujin hummed. “Fits you.”

You glanced at her, confused. “What does?”

“The quiet. You’re always calm, even when everyone else is freaking out. Like when Coach accidentally wiped the game schedule last week—you didn’t even blink.”

“I blinked,” you muttered.

“Okay, sure. Maybe once.” She bumped your shoulder lightly with hers. “You’re kind of cool, you know that?”

You gave her a sideways look. “Is that a compliment or another one of your lines?”

“Both,” she said, grinning. “You make it hard to tell the difference.”

You wanted to laugh, or at least roll your eyes, but something about the way she said it—genuine, not playful—made your heart trip a little.

The wind picked up and you instinctively tilted the umbrella more toward her, even though you were the one getting the worse end of the drizzle. She noticed.

“You’re gonna get soaked.”

“I’m fine.”

“Here.” Before you could stop her, Yujin reached out and gently tugged the umbrella closer to the center, her fingers brushing yours again. “You don’t have to take care of everyone all the time, you know.”

You blinked at her, caught off guard.

“I’m serious,” she added, her voice softer now. “You do so much for the team. For Coach. Even for me, when I’m being annoying—which is like, 70% of the time.”

“More like 90.”

She grinned. “See? You are funny.”

You looked at her again, really looked this time. Her face was flushed from the chill, strands of hair curling around her cheek, her eyes bright under the streetlights. You realized you didn’t want this walk to end.

“You’re different out here,” you said before you could stop yourself.

Her brow raised. “Out here?”

“Outside practice. Outside… the team. You’re quieter. Softer.”

She smiled, but this time it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. It’s easier to be loud when you’re on the court. Off it… not so much.”

You were quiet for a beat.

“I like this version of you,” you said quietly. “It feels real.”

Yujin looked at you like you’d just said something dangerous. Or maybe something she’d been hoping to hear.

She stopped walking.

So you stopped, too.

Rain tapped gently against the umbrella above you, and the rest of the world faded into the hush of the street.

Yujin leaned in slightly, close enough that her voice came like a secret. “Good. Because this version of me really likes you.”

You froze—not because you didn’t like her back, but because you did. Way more than you were ready to admit. And standing there, holding half an umbrella and half a heart you weren’t sure how to guard anymore, you realized something terrifying.

You might be falling for Ahn Yujin.

And this time, you weren’t sure you wanted to stop yourself.

You didn’t answer right away. Not because you didn’t have anything to say, but because you couldn’t quite trust your voice not to betray something too soon.

Yujin was still looking at you—serious now, but not pressuring. She wasn’t the type to push. She just waited, like she was giving you the space to catch up.

And that, somehow, made your chest ache a little.

“…Come on,” you finally murmured, nodding ahead. “We’re almost there.”

You started walking again, slowly. She followed without another word, but the air between you had changed. Before, her teasing had felt like a game—light, fast, something you could dodge. Now it felt like standing in the middle of a warm rain, the kind you don’t notice you’re soaked in until it’s too late.

You tightened your grip on the umbrella. It was still tilted a little too far in her direction. She noticed again.

“You’re doing it again,” she said softly.

“Doing what?”

“Choosing me.”

Your steps faltered for half a second, but you kept walking. “You’re my teammate.”

“I’m not just your teammate and you know it.”

You hated that she was right. And you hated even more that a small, foolish part of you had been hoping she would be.

You stopped at the gate outside your apartment building. The rain had eased to a mist, just enough to fog the edges of the streetlights and make the night feel a little unreal.

“Well,” you said, clearing your throat, “this is me.”

Yujin glanced up at the building, then back at you. Her voice lowered. “So… do I get a ‘thanks for the walk’ or do I get the real version?”

You bit your lip. “What’s the real version?”

She shrugged, suddenly a little shy. “The one where you say you didn’t actually mind the walk. Or the company.”

You looked at her—really looked. Her hair was still damp. Her hoodie clung slightly at the shoulders. She looked warm and tired and far too close to your heart.

“…I didn’t mind,” you said. “Any of it.”

Yujin’s smile came slowly, soft and content.

“You’re really hard to read sometimes,” she said, almost laughing. “But when you say things like that, I kind of forget how to breathe.”

You flushed, and this time, you didn’t bother hiding it.

The umbrella wobbled slightly between you. Neither of you moved to close the space.

“I should go in,” you whispered.

“Probably.”

Neither of you moved.

Then, gently, Yujin reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. Her fingers brushed your cheek—brief, careful, like she didn’t want to scare you off.

“Night, manager-nim.”

You swallowed. “Night, Yujin.”

She hesitated, like she wanted to say something else, then turned and walked back down the street—no umbrella this time, just her hands in her pockets and that quiet smile still on her lips.

You didn’t go inside until she was out of sight.

And even then, it took you a while to close the door behind you.

_____

Your phone buzzed again. Then again.

You were barely out the door, gym bag slung over your shoulder, headphones in—but your music had been paused for the past ten minutes, thanks to one person blowing up your messages.

You didn’t need to check the name. You already knew.

Yujin:

rise and shine, manager-nim

you bringing the clipboard or is it just your pretty face today?

You sighed, biting back a smile.

Buzz.

Yujin:

also do we have extra knee pads in the supply bin? chaewon forgot hers again and is currently trying to borrow from the freshmen

Buzz.

Yujin:

not that i’m complaining about you checking, of course. gives me an excuse to talk to you.

You finally gave in and typed back.

You:

you’ve sent more texts in ten minutes than you ran laps all last week

Yujin:

wow

rude

flirty and productive, i’m a multitasker

You:

you left out “annoying”

Yujin:

you keep replying though

admit it—you missed me

You stared at that last message a little too long. The same way you had stared at your front door last night after she walked away in the rain. The same way you’d replayed her words—“You’re doing it again. Choosing me.”—over and over, trying to pretend they didn’t make your stomach flutter.

You didn’t reply.

But you didn’t stop smiling, either.

By the time you walked into the gym, practice was already starting. The team was stretching, music playing low through the speaker, and the steady rhythm of bouncing volleyballs filled the air.

Yujin spotted you almost immediately and jogged over.

She didn’t say anything at first—just took your clipboard from your hands and held it over her head, grinning.

“If I steal this, does that mean you have to chase me?”

You gave her your best unimpressed glare. “I’ll just tell Coach you’re being disruptive.”

She leaned in slightly, eyes twinkling. “Then you’ll have to write a report on me. Detailed. With notes. About how charming I am.”

“You really woke up and chose chaos, huh?”

“Nope.” Her grin softened. “Just you.”

Your breath caught. Just for a second. She didn’t wait for a reply, just handed the clipboard back, bumping your shoulder as she passed by on the way to her warm-up group.

You stood there for a moment, trying not to let everyone else see how flustered you were.

Because it was only 8:07 AM, and Ahn Yujin had already made your heart skip more beats than was medically advisable.

And practice hadn’t even started yet.

_____

Practice was well underway, and you were doing your best to focus—really. You were logging rotations, checking attendance again (even though everyone was clearly present), and absolutely not watching Yujin every time she served.

Except you were. Obviously.

Her ponytail whipped behind her as she jumped, eyes sharp, form perfect. The sound of the ball slamming against the court echoed through the gym. A spike like that could’ve cracked open the floor if she wanted it to.

“Nice hit, Ahn!” Coach shouted. “You’re still a menace on offense.”

Yujin jogged back into position, laughing. “Trying to keep my title, Coach.”

Behind her, one of the newer players whispered, “She’s like our very own Bokuto-san.”

You blinked. The name stirred something in the back of your mind—some anime your cousin wouldn’t stop talking about. Loud guy. Crazy hair. Lots of yelling.

You didn’t say anything, but you smiled quietly to yourself. It was a fitting comparison.

You were walking the sideline, re-rolling athletic tape, when Yujin broke off from her drill and veered toward you.

“I need water,” she said between breaths. “And maybe a life coach.”

“Hydration station’s over there.” You nodded toward the bench. “And I charge extra for emotional support.”

“Unbelievable,” she groaned, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Exploiting a tired athlete in her hour of need.”

You handed her a towel. “You’re dramatic.”

She took it, grinning. “Only for you.”

You turned to go, but she caught your wrist for half a second—barely even touching you, just enough to make you pause.

Her voice was quieter now. “You didn’t text me back last night.”

You looked at her. The noise of the gym faded a little.

“I didn’t know what to say,” you admitted.

She nodded like she expected that.

“I just…” she hesitated, eyes flicking to your face. “You don’t have to say anything, if you’re not ready. I just like being near you. That’s all.”

And it hit you how rare it was—someone saying something that honest with no strings attached. Just giving it, not asking for anything in return.

You opened your mouth, but Coach’s whistle cut through the moment like a knife.

“Yujin! You’re up!”

She gave you a soft look, then jogged back toward the court. “Duty calls.”

You watched her go, heart knocking against your ribs.

And even though you knew how to breathe, it was suddenly the hardest thing in the world.

_____

The final whistle blew, and with it came the usual noise: sneakers squeaking, players cheering half-heartedly, someone blasting a victory playlist even though it was just a regular drill session.

You started packing up the water bottles and stray towels, moving on autopilot. You hadn’t talked to Yujin again since that moment during drills, but you felt her. The way her presence had a kind of gravity to it—like you always knew when she was near.

And sure enough, when most of the team had disappeared into the locker room, she was still there. Sitting on the bench like she had all the time in the world.

You pretended not to notice. She didn’t pretend at all.

“You’re not gonna run off today?” she asked, tossing a ball up and down between her hands lazily.

“I’m busy.”

“With what? Pretending not to like me?”

You rolled your eyes, but it was getting harder and harder to fake irritation around her.

“You know,” she said, standing and walking over, “most people don’t make me work this hard for attention.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know.”

She stopped in front of you, close again. She didn’t touch you this time—just let the space between you fill with everything unsaid.

“You didn’t owe me a text,” she said. “But I meant it. I don’t care if it takes a week, or a month. I’m not rushing you.”

Your fingers tightened around the edge of your clipboard.

“I didn’t text because I didn’t want to mess things up,” you admitted. “This—whatever it is—feels… easy when we’re joking. But underneath that, it scares me a little.”

Yujin tilted her head. “Why?”

“Because you’re you. Confident. Loud. Good at everything. And I’m just—”

“Mine,” she interrupted, softly but firmly.

You blinked.

“I mean, not officially,” she added quickly, scratching the back of her neck, suddenly shy. “Not unless you want to be. But… that’s how I see you.”

Your throat went dry.

“You can tell me to stop,” she said, voice so low it barely reached you. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you say so.”

The gym was almost empty now, lights dimming automatically, leaving just the soft golden haze above you both.

You stepped forward, just a bit, just enough to close the last inch between you.

“I don’t want you to stop,” you said.

She didn’t kiss you.

She didn’t need to.

She just smiled—like the world had finally lined up the way it was supposed to.

And in that moment, standing in the half-lit gym with your heart wide open, you knew: this wasn’t just a passing crush.

It was something real.

Something worth choosing.

_____

The sun was dipping low behind the city skyline, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. The air still held the warmth of the day, but a gentle breeze hinted at the coming evening.

You and Yujin sat on a soft blanket spread over the grass of a quiet park near the gym. Between you was a modest picnic basket packed with sandwiches, fruit, and a couple of iced teas.

Yujin had claimed the prime spot—back against a tree, legs stretched out and one arm casually draped over her bent knee. She looked so relaxed, so at ease, it made your heart thump a little harder.

You reached for a sandwich, but before you could even lift it, Yujin’s hand shot out and grabbed it.

“Hey! What—”

“Don’t argue with me.” She smiled that mischievous grin that made you want to both roll your eyes and melt at the same time. “You’re my manager, not my lunch date. I get to boss you around.”

You pretended to pout, but she just laughed and popped the sandwich into her mouth.

“I’m serious. You just spent all day making sure I didn’t trip over my own feet on the court. The least I can do is feed you now.”

You raised your iced tea, pretending to offer a toast.

She grabbed that, too.

“Really?”

“Really,” she said, sipping and eyeing you like a cat watching a toy. “You’re not allowed to hold anything except my hand.”

Your heart skipped.

You looked down at your intertwined fingers.

“You’re impossible,” you said softly.

“Only for you.”

The sun slipped lower, casting long shadows and turning the sky a deeper orange.

You let yourself relax, leaning your head against Yujin’s shoulder.

She nudged you gently. “So, what do you think? Not a bad way to end a day, huh?”

You smiled. “Definitely better than any practice drill.”

She looked up at the fading light, then back at you, eyes sparkling.

“Good,” she said. “Because I plan on making this the first of many.”

You squeezed her hand and smiled.

“Deal.”

The sky had deepened from orange to a blanket of navy, stars beginning to twinkle faintly above. The cool breeze whispered through the trees, rustling the leaves and carrying the faint scent of grass and earth.

You rested your head against Yujin’s shoulder, your eyelids growing heavy with the comfort of her steady warmth beside you.

She shifted just a little, wrapping an arm more securely around your shoulders, holding you close like she never wanted to let go.

You felt safe here. Seen. And maybe, for the first time in a long while, completely at peace.

Your breath slowed. Your thoughts quieted.

You didn’t even realize you’d fallen asleep—until Yujin’s soft voice pulled you back from the edges of a dream.

“Hey,” she whispered, brushing a stray hair behind your ear.

You stirred, blinking up at her.

Her eyes glistened in the moonlight—so full of something you weren’t quite ready to name, but knew you wanted to hear.

“I meant it,” she said, voice barely above a breath. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You smiled, tired but happy.

And then, just like that, she whispered the words you’d been holding back too.

“I love you.”

The world seemed to still. Your heart caught in your throat.

“I love you, too,” you breathed, your voice barely a whisper.

Yujin’s smile was the last thing you saw before you let yourself drift off again—safe, loved, and finally home.