#god it's so hard to remember which tags I used

[tobethemselves]

What are your current thoughts on L+H?

Hi love,

honestly it's hard to say. Most of the time I do believe that they are still together but that they want to keep their privacy and that's one of the reasons why they don't signal as much anymore.

Past reactions of them when the other's name was mentioned, don't give me the impression that they have broken up. And then there's the umbro shirt that H decided to wear twice, some other stuff that happened during the past few years and timelines that show that they do have lot's of opportunities to see each other. When I look at all of that I'm inclined to believe they're still together.

But nowadays it's impossible to say. They don't signal as much, if at all anymore and the only signs we get are probably only coincidences and nothing intentional. So I really don't know.

Most of all though, I just believe in true love and I've had the luck to see it in my own live too. It's possible and I think those two found that in each other. And that's the biggest part that makes me believe in them as a couple. Once you reached that part of your relationship with someone there is not much that can happen that could break you up, because then it's not "how do I get through this time" anymore but "how do we get through this".

Either way, I just want them to be happy and if they do decide they're happier apart then that's okay for me. It won't make Larry any less true and I'll still be here because I love their history but most of all I love their music and who they've become as an artist. And that's the main reason why I'm in this fandom.

[mariyekos]

And side side note sometimes I wonder if it would be worth trying to get evaluated to see if i have. Something. But also I'm an adult and I don't think anything would really change or it would matter. It would just be confirmation of "oh that's probably why I feel lile XYZ. Neat." But really I also feel like if I'm fishing for some sort of diagnosis then it's probably not genuine and I feel bad for thinking about that so. Yeah. I feel like anything probably would've been caught so to speak when I was younger, so I think I'm just in my head and have those Web MD moments where you go "wow did you know getting occasional headaches means you have Evil Life Altering Disease 35" even though what it means is you actually just don't drink enough water. So I'm probably fine just. Anxiety prone.

[bendover-productions]

Hiiiiii, have you watched the capture the flag in Japan season yet? Just curious 🩵

i have!! i really liked it—i thought it was a fun new idea with lots of opportunities for strategy and i wouldn’t mind another season of capture the flag, although i haven’t listened to the layover to know if it’s logistically feasible to do again. also, i was SO charmed by scotty and how earnest he was. i wanted him to win and do good so bad and scotty can do no wrong in my eyes 🫶

[buckytakethewheel]

heavy in your arms

Summary: Bucky has big arms. And you've been dreaming about losing yourself in them since you saw him for the first time. Inspo: beefy!bucky wrapping his bicep around your neck to pull you flush to his chest while he pounds into you deliciously Pairing: beefy!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Warnings/tags: smut; porn without plot; breath play (kinda); arm kink; chocking kink; silent play; p in v; unprotected sex; praise kink (reader); no use of Y/N Word count: 2.6k Notes: quick drabble i wrote in like two hours because i couldn't stop thinking about this post by @fckmebarnes

You’re not entirely sure how you got to tonight’s events.

You met Bucky Barnes a few months ago in a local market. He seemed lost. Like buying tomatoes and plums from a sweet vendor on the street was the hardest chore someone could do in a lifetime. You approached. He looked uneasy, pulled away. You spoke, soft and tender. He barely answered. American. 

But you saw each other again. And again. And again, on the same market. At some point, you wondered if he would come just to see you. One day, you invited him to your home. You didn’t think he would say yes, but he did.

You know his name. He’s hiding something dark, deep, and he’s got a shiny metal arm instead of a left human arm. All the rest of him is… normal. He’s quiet, quieter than should be comfortable, but you’re okay with it. And his presence in your home comes like a balm. Becomes a routine. He comes over once a week, you make him his favorite soup. He always looks tired.

Then, tonight, something shifted. You made a comment about his arms. His big fucking arms, because, God, he’s muscular and big, so much bigger than you. And you’ve wondered what it would be like to lose yourself in those arms, to have them wrapped around you as he fucked you into oblivion, until you forgot yourself.

You’re both in the living room, and Bucky is the first to reach forward, towards you. He’s careful in his motion, but firm, his body moving with a certain precision. Flesh hand, warm, wraps around your smaller right wrist and tugs you closer, until your bodies are practically touching. Every inch of him on every inch of you - almost.

His icy blue eyes trail over your features like he’s studying you, learning, memorizing. They are directly locked into your own eyes for a moment, holding your gaze, and you think you detect something behind that look, like he’s about to say something, but decides against it. Then his eyes are on your cheeks, taking in the pinkish tone on your skin, and then lower, on your lips. Plump, a little trembling, as if they are begging to be kissed. To be devoured by his own. You don’t need to ask it out loud. Bucky’s memories are scattered across the continents, but the look on your face - the want - that one he recognizes.

His body towers over yours and he starts to lean down, and you still catch the moment he starts to close his eyes. And then, a hairsbreadth later, his lips are pressing to yours. The kiss isn’t tender, isn’t sweet. You didn’t expect sweetness from him, anyway.

Bucky is hungry and he kisses you exactly like a man starving. When was the last time his lips were on someone else’s willingly? When was the last time he felt like his body really was his own? He’s not sure he remembers, but this, right here, your small, fragile body on his - it feels good.

Your lips move together, hard and hungry, and he tastes like alcohol and fruit and the mixture is strange on your tongue but not unpleasant. He licks over your lips, inviting himself into your mouth before his tongue slides past your lips and tastes all of you. His flesh hand is still holding on to your wrist, but when he kisses you like that you moan and instantly, his hand moves to grip your hip tight. Bucky holds you hard against his body, and already you feel the outline of his hard cock through his jeans. Your hips roll forward, teasing, seeking friction, and he makes a noise into your mouth which you swallow like it’s your own.

Bucky breaks the kiss for a moment to search for air, and he takes in the sight of your flustered face. He seems proud of the work he’s done, metal arm reaching up and craddling your cheek as his thumb rubs over the reddened skin.

“You’re beautiful.”, he says, and his voice is rough with desire. You open your mouth to say something, but Bucky catches your lips in another lustful kiss that leaves you breathless before you can get a word out. Then he’s pulling away again. “No, love. No speaking unless I ask you to.” His head lowers and you think he’s about to kiss you again but instead his head dips between your neck and your shoulder and he licks a strip across your neck. Then, his teeth are digging into the skin before he sucks it into his mouth and that elicits another moan from you. His hand on your hip tightens and he groans in disapproval. “No noises either, love. You don’t make a sound. Do you understand?” You’re a quick learner, because his question doesn’t receive a spoken answer. Instead, you simply nod, your body already slightly trembling under his hold. “Good. Such a good girl for me.”

His words bleed into your ears like acid, burning their way through every inch of your skin, crawling, a brand being placed upon you. Such a good girl for me. It echoes inside of you, and you can imagine that, many moons from now, those words will still be glued to you like they are a part of your core.

Bucky is still kissing your neck, and his teeth graze the skin ever so slightly a couple of times. He’s testing you, testing your restraint. And you provide nothing. Not a single sound, only your eyes rolling into the back of your head, back arching slightly into him. He’s hot and warm and built like a wall - firm, big, his muscles so big they completely crowd your every sense. There is so much of him. Standing tall and strong, the red henley strained against his arms as his muscles flex as he grips you tight. And your mind is spiraling, because you had to be blind to not notice how big he was, but now, this close, you feel so small in comparison, so breakable. And you are sure he could break you if he wanted to. You’re not entirely sure he isn’t doing that, right now, just in an entirely different way.

You almost mewl in disappointment when Bucky momentarily pulls away from you, but you don’t, and he takes notice. You’re being such a good girl, and he’s never been quite this turned on, even though you’ve barely done anything at all. Both his hands move to the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head before discarding it somewhere in the living room. Then he’s walking forward, and you walk backwards, and somehow, you end up with your back against the couch. Bucky is grinning at you. Not a full grin, no, but a delicious half-smile, confident he’s tearing you apart bit by bit. His eyes are skimming over your torso, landing on your black lacy bra and he can’t help but immediately move his flesh hand to massage one of your breasts, grabbing, the size of it perfect in his big palm. His thumb brushes the soft material of the bra to the side, just enough to free your hardened nipple and he plays with it between his fingers. 

You still don’t make a sound. God, it’s the hardest thing you’ve done all your life - not making a sound when he’s teasing you like this. But you’re a good girl. You can be good for him.

“Love-”, Bucky breathes and he kisses over the expanse of your chest. “Tell me how you’re feeling.” His voice isn’t demanding like the rest of his body is right now, but it’s rough enough to make it clear he needs an answer.

“So good.” 

*

A while later, you’re both naked, Bucky stroking your bare back with his fingers as you suck in a breath.

You are slightly bent over your couch, legs spread, and your arousal is slowly dripping down the inside of your thigh. Bucky catches some of it in his fingers and uses it to stroke his cock as he looks at you. 

What a sight to behold. You, spread out for him. Wanting, needing, not making a damn sound, like he asked you to. The imagery makes his cock twitch in his hand and he has to take a deep breath, slow his thoughts, otherwise he’d be gone before this even started. 

Bucky runs his metal hand over your hip, around the base of your back, so close to your ass, and his touch is reverent, like he physically needs to touch every inch of skin to make this perfect. Then, the tip of his cock is pressing against your folds, and the intrusion is most welcomed. Your hips roll back into him, and Bucky rests both hands on your hips to stop your movement.

“Don’t be greedy.”, he breathes, but in the next second he’s slowly sinking himself inside of you. His cock stretches you out and you grip the edges of the couch hard, so hard maybe you’ll leave nail marks afterwards, because it’s the only way you can stop yourself from making a sound. Sweat coats your body, and his, and his metal arm circles your waist, gently pressing against your stomach to keep you pressed tight to him as he sinks deeper, and deeper, until he’s fully seated inside of you.

Bucky groans and it’s the hottest sound you’ve ever heard in your life. He doesn’t remember any other feeling quite like the feeling of being buried so deep inside of you. Your pussy feels divine, wet and warm, gripping him like a vice. It feels like it’s singing to him, a goddamn siren song, and he will never be able to leave again. 

“Oh, fuck, love- so tight.”, Bucky says, half a whimper, and he gives one tentative thrust. And you feel it then - his body shaking against yours. “Tell me this feels good. Tell me you want this.” Bucky’s pleading, a small contrast to the way he’s handling you, and you let out a soft gasp you had been holding on.

“Please, Bucky, I want you. I want you so bad.”, you respond, and the arousal in your voice is confirmation enough that you’re not lying. “Please, your cock feels so fucking good-”

And then your sentence is interrupted, because Bucky slides his flesh arm around your neck, hard bicep wrapped around you as he pulls you flush to his chest. He uses his knee to lift one of your legs from behind, resting it against the back of the couch, and then he starts fucking into you, thrusts slow, hard, deep, his bicep pressed so hard around your neck that you feel almost light headed. The grip of his arm is not enough to take your breath away, but it is enough to hold you in place, to stop you from moving, from doing anything at all. Anything but moan for him. You’re not sure he wants you to right now, but you can’t really hold it back when his cock is buried so deep, hitting every sweet spot, his balls slapping against your ass in a slow, sensual rhythm that sends you flying.

“Bad girl.”, he moans into your ear, but he doesn’t make a move to stop, and instead, fucks you through it, a little harder, a little deeper. “Making noise when I told you to be quiet.”, he continues speaking, voice hoarse, but his hips don’t snap out of their rhythm, and so you still moan. One of your hands comes up from the back of the couch and you drag your nails over his large arm, the one wrapped around your neck, and his hips stutter for half a second. “Naughty. And I fucking love it.”

He angles his hips better, lifts your leg a little higher with his knee and then he’s changing the pace, his cock driving in and out of you a little faster. The noises coming out of you are pure filth, obscene, and you’re glad he isn’t asking you to be quiet now, because you don’t think you could. Bucky’s lips drop to your neck, and he kisses the soft skin as his metal fingers slide down your stomach and start rubbing circles around your clit in time with his thrusts. He feels you trembling in his arms and he tightens the arm around your neck, keeping you more in place.

“I’ve got you, love.”, he moans against your neck, and his metal hand doesn’t stop, his hips don’t stop and the sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room, along with your moans. “You’re so amazing. Could stay inside this tight pussy for hours.” Your body shudders against him, teeth digging into your bottom lip as his filthy praise makes his way into you. God, you want, need, more of this, more of him. 

But he has you pressed flush against his chest, against his body, and you’re his to take. He doesn’t let you move anything other than your arms, everything else in his total control. And you love it, you’d beg for it if he made you.

His metal fingers fasten the movements on your clit, and the cold metal feels perfect against the heat of your folds, so perfect. Your stomach feels tight, muscles coiled with the pressure of the orgasm that is building right in the back of your gut, spreading over your every limb, expanding and threatening to make a mess out of you. Bucky feels it, feels your walls clutching around his cock and it only spurs him on. His hips snap faster, fucking you with renewed vigor and his lips trail from your neck to your ear, whispering all the filthy things you seem to love.

“Gonna cum so hard inside this pretty pussy.”, he says and you whimper. He responds to that by thrusting particularly hard inside of you. “So good for me. My favorite girl. You gonna cum for me, love? Gonna cum all over my cock? Let me feel you.” 

Your arms are clawing at the bicep still tightly wrapped around your neck, not because you want him to move it but because you need to hold on to something as you come apart, in all senses of the word. “Bucky, I’m so close- please don’t stop.”

He wasn’t planning to. 

And shortly after, he tips you over the edge. You see white, your mouth opening to let out a strangled gasp as your orgasm washes over you and your whole body trembles against Bucky. He whispers soft praise into your ear as you cum, hold you through every spasm and moan, flush against his chest, and his hips don’t falter. He fucks you fast and hard and hot until you’re going limp in his body, and then he thrusts a couple more times, his rhythm broken, before he curses your name under his breath and spills himself inside of you, his seed filling your pussy to the brim. 

For another minute he just fucks lazily into you, like he’s just making sure no second of his or your orgasm go to waste. His arm around your neck loosens up and it seems like he’s about to move it completely out of the way, but you hold on to it. You feel his gaze on you, almost confused.

“Don’t move.” You ask, a little pleading. Your eyes are closed as you try to get your breathing back to normal. “Stay. For a while.”

He does.

For a while.

[neverendingford]

.

[juicykvnture]

MONEY HONEY (2)

Bruce Wayne x fem!reader

tags: AFAB reader, brief age gap mention (reader is early 20s), praise kink, mirrors, manhandling, light choking, semi-public

a/n: I heard the people were yearning for more DILF!Bruce..

wc: 2.7k | part 1 | masterlist

“I thought you said it would just be dinner,” you let out a huff as you awkwardly shift your heels, staring at the rows upon rows of stores before you.

“Dinner, a side of shopping - same thing.” Bruce shakes his head, glancing down at his watch and then at you.

You’re pretty, no you’re not pretty - fuck that.

Bruce really finds you to be nothing short of gorgeous.

Sure, he has a set of eyes and he could tell through the screen that you were a looker but nothing could’ve really prepared him for how you look in real life.

He just hopes for the sake of his own ego that you didn’t notice how much his palms were shaking when he met you outside the restaurant - or the fact that he was literally holding the bouquet of roses he got you so hard the poor stalks almost snapped.

You’re making that face again, that slightly stunned little smile.

It’s cute, more than cute - he’d tattoo it inside his skull if he could.

“The floor is yours,” he holds his hand out, leading you up to the escalator.

You don’t miss how his eyes trail down to your hand in his, his thumb gently rubbing over the back of your hand.

His gaze lingers on your nails a little longer, admiring the pearlescent sparkle under the dim department store lighting.

To say you were nervous to meet Bruce for dinner would be the biggest understatement of the millennium.

To put it plainly, you were a total wreck.

You were running on leftover lash glue and a dream, actually.

You couldn’t remember the last time a man had you acting like this, it had your dearly concerned girlfriend on FaceTime with you playing out an episode of Say Yes to the Dress for hours before settling on the very first option.

Oh, and when a friend of yours enquired how old he was?

You just smiled and nodded.

“Where to first?” you break the silence, glancing down at your hands and then around the store as you step off the escalator.

“Wherever you want.” Bruce shrugs, his hand moving to rest at the small of your back, listening to the almost soothing click-clack of your heels until it comes to a stop, your eyes lingering on one of the makeup displays.

He soon finds himself sitting on a chair in the corner with makeup swatches all over his hand, watching in mild amusement as you run laps around the NARS display, dropping various lipsticks into his lap so he can help you pick a shade.

To him, they’re all pink, they’re all pretty.

He’s just more puzzled, trying to figure out why on God’s green earth a makeup brand would settle on “deep throat” and “orgasm” and deem those appropriate names for blush shades.

He’s almost rethinking his life decisions, is this what the youth is into nowadays?

But whatever makes you happy, right?

“Which ones better?” you snap him out of his momentary moment of contemplating the state of the world, making him crane his head up as you stand over him.

“Well, I’m partial to the deepthro-“

He sputters slightly, staring up at you,

“I’m sorry, you’re asking me about lipstick, aren’t you?”

When you nod he just stares up at you, smoothing out his tie when presented with both opinions.

“The pink one?” He clears his throat, hoping it’s the right answer.

“They’re both pink, Bruce.”

“Ah,” he offers a slow nod, still staring at you.

“Get them both.”

Your brows furrow a little and he just grins, he can tell you’re about to tell him not to bother, that it’s all too much - blah, blah, blah.

“Don’t even think about it.” he’s already rising to his feet, settling on which card he should use.

“I’m getting you both.”

“Bruce, don’t be silly. You can’t tell the difference between those two shades!”

He just shrugs, his hand sliding up to rest at the small of your back again, walking you over to the cashier.

“I’ll learn the difference.”

He’s serious, he’ll buy out every single one ever made if he has to. Maybe he’ll even dig his glasses out from whatever drawer they’ve been banished to.

“Are you alright in there?” Bruce calls out from outside the changing room, watching over all the shopping bags you’ve amassed in the last few hours like they could grow little legs and run away.

No, not on his watch. All your precious lipsticks and blushes and that new wallet are staying right here, neatly wrapped up.

“..yeah!” you call out, awkwardly drumming your fingers against your knee as you try to keep your voice steady, clutching the pink lace in your hands.

Okay, maybe you’re not okay.

There’s a slight chance that you may be having a nervous breakdown inside a changing room with Bruce right outside that sliding door.

Bruce always had a habit of sending you various gifts, including lingerie. Hence, it’s no surprise your impromptu shopping trip resulted in the two of you taking the escalator up to the next floor, landing in a Victoria's Secret.

It’s not that you’re scared he won’t find you pretty, he’s made it abundantly clear that you’re the most gorgeous woman he’s ever met - he’s said that over text and to your face, repeatedly.

It’s just, this is real life.

You can’t angle your camera a little differently, you can’t change your lighting, you can’t pose a certain way like you normally would.

You don’t have the control like you usually would.

“You sure?” he calls out again, softer now - noticing how long you’re taking in there.

“I’m sure.” you insist, awkwardly fumbling with the lacy corset straps to try to tie them up, bending every which way like it’s the first time working your way around something like this.

It isn’t, you do it all the time.

Just with him outside that door and not behind a screen, it feels different.

The gentle knock on the door makes you panic, fumbling around to throw on a dressing gown and fix up your hair, offering Bruce a practised smile.

“You need help with that?” he offers, glancing down at the tangled ribbons in your hand, arching a brow.

With an awkward chuckle, you extend your hand, his fingers lightly brushing against yours as he starts to untangle them.

“I’ve made a mess of them, I don’t know how you’ll untie that,” you huff under your breath, fidgeting with the sleeve of your dressing gown.

“Mhm,” Bruce mumbles, preoccupied with undoing the knots.

“I can do many things, I have many skills.” he shrugs, holding the now untangled ribbons in front of you, tilting his head to the side.

You glance down at the floor and then at Bruce, chewing on the insides of your cheeks.

“..do your skills include lacing up bras?”

That has Bruce pausing for a moment, blinking slowly as he stares at the floor.

“Possibly.” he nods, adjusting his tie to have something to do with his hands, something to focus on, other than the woman standing in front of him - scantily clad to say the least.

You glance over at the mirror, fingers curling into the sleeves of the dressing gown before you pull it open, letting the silky fabric slide down your back, still holding it in place at your hips.

“So,” Bruce clears his throat as he takes a step forward, his eyes briefly meeting yours in the mirrors reflecting before he averts them, focusing his attention on pulling the ribbon through the top loops of the corset.

“Any other stores you want to stop by?”

You’ve been to almost all of them, but he just can’t deal with the silence.

When your only response is a shake of your head, he frowns slightly - eyes drifting to the mirror to get a look at your face.

“You’re tense,” he observes, holding the satin ribbon between his fingers.

“I’m tired,” you shrug, clutching the dressing gown a little tighter, trying to ignore the feeling of him breathing down the back of your neck.

Bruce offers a curt nod, but he can’t miss the way your shoulders tense up again when his fingers ghost along your spine, his expression softening for a moment.

“Similar colour to the one I sent you last time, no?” he murmurs under his breath, running his finger along the strap of the bra you’re wearing.

He’s got the image of you in that other pink set drilled into his head, so much so that the sight of something even remotely similar has his slacks feeling tighter.

“Yeah,” you breathe out, glancing towards the mirror “they’re both pink, I guess.”

Bruce just nods again, his hand mindlessly following the slope of your torso, fingers almost reaching the hem of your underwear at your hip - breath ghosting over the side of your neck.

“Sorry,” he catches himself after a moment, mentally berating himself - he’s probably making you uncomfortable.

“You don’t owe me anything.” Bruce clears his throat, pulling his hand away.

“I know,” you speak before you think, your hand moving to rest over his, the dressing gown pooling at your feet on the floor.

You swallow.

“I know I don’t - still.” you rest your hand over his, subtly pulling it to rest at the top of your underwear.

Bruce hesitates once more before his thumb runs over the soft lace, his chin moving to rest on your shoulder.

“Are you sure?”

He really, really hopes you are.

He lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding when you nod, letting his hand slowly slide down under the thin lace, the cold metal of his watch pressing against your lower belly.

“Is this you trying to be polite again?” you breathe out, breath hitching when you feel the tip of his finger circle your clit, his crotch pressed against your ass.

“Maybe.” Bruce murmurs, a muffled groan into your shoulder soon following when he feels you lean into his hand.

“Stop.”

He blinks, about to pull his hand away before he feels your fingers encircling his wrist.

“Stop trying to be polite, Bruce - or is that beyond your skill set?”

That’s all it takes before his other hand finds your neck, gripping it hard - forcing you to tilt your head up.

Not necessarily to choke you or anything, more to convey the fact that you’re not getting away from him any time soon.

“Are you doubting me?” his eyes remain locked on the way your body moves and the expression on your face when his grip on you tightens.

“No,” you swallow, his firm hand on your neck has you pushing your thighs together.

“Good.”

His knee slots between your legs, leaving you no choice to almost fall back against him before his arm locks around your waist, making you choke out a shaky “fuck”.

His eyes narrow, staring at you under his dark lashes.

He likes that sound, he wants to hear it again.

He will hear it again.

His hands grasp your hips so hard they could bruise if he isn’t careful, staring at the wet patch in those brand new panties with a small scoff.

He was planning on buying you those anyway, but now he has to - considering your pussy has managed to soak them through already.

“This impolite enough for you?” his breathing is ragged, his question rhetorical as his lips find yours, more spit and teeth than anything else.

You just offer a dumb nod, your hand reaching down to fumble with his belt, trying to pry the clasp open - he isn’t helping you.

“C’monn, you said you’d fuck me if you ever met me,” you sound more desperate than you’d like, your back pressed against the cold panels of the changing room wall.

“Did I?”

You swallow, offering another dazed nod.

“Ask me nicely.”

“Please,” you slur out, trying to grind yourself against his thigh to no avail.

“Nicely,” Bruce repeats, gripping his belt so hard his knuckles turn white.

“Please, fuck me like you said you would.”

That has to be the best sentence he’s ever heard in his whole life.

“Good girl, was it that hard?”

Maybe not, but know what’s hard?

His dick.

His tone may still be composed but his actions are far from it, it’s like he’s desperate under all that practiced suave as he pulls himself free from the confines of his slacks, giving his aching cock a slow stroke.

When he pulls your underwear to the side, his breath hitches for a moment, letting out a shaky groan under his breath as he lines himself up with your sopping pussy, your shaky hand gripping his tie hard.

“Fuck,” Bruce hisses under his breath, as he feels your body press against his, your cunt around his cock as he sinks into you.

Without wasting any more time, he pushes all the way into you in one swift motion, his hands firm on your hips as he keeps you pressed against the wall.

"Oh, sweetheart," you could feel every thick inch of his cock stretching you, his pace immediately hard and fast as he slams into you with barely hidden desperation.

He’s barely been inside you a second and your little sounds are already making him almost delirious, one hand finding your thighs to wrap your legs around his hips.

It’s embarrassing to admit but ever since that call, you’re all he could think about.

It got to the point he was up at night fucking his fist like an idiot cause you weren’t there with him, he couldn’t handle it.

And now that he’s inside you? Fuck.

You can barely think, clinging onto his tie like it’s the only thing keeping you tethered to reality, trying to muffle your whines into his neck in that cramped changing room.

Bruce Wayne thought his billionaire playboy days were long behind him.

But right now?

Fuck, he might aswell be 25 again with how he’s pounding into your poor cunt, fingers digging into the soft skin of your thighs to keep you braced against the cold wall.

He’s trying to keep his hands from shaking, cursing under his breath about how well you’re taking his cock - how pretty you are - how long he’s been thinking of this exact moment.

It’s actually kinda sweet how you think hiding in his neck will do you any good.

You’re in a changing room with a mirror that takes up half the wall space, why not put it to good use?

“Sweetheart,” he leans in closer, punctuating his words with a thrust of his hips just to watch you watch your back arch, his hand moving to give your hair a gentle tug.

“Watch the mirror,”

Bruce was a pretty rough guy; his voice was always gruff, he was always firm, but he knew when to soften the way he spoke. He didn't want to frighten you or push you away.

He just wants you to see how pretty you look when he fucks you, is that too much to ask?

It takes another little yank on your hair before you finally open your eyes, lips parted in a shaky whine as he holds your jaw steady, giving you no option but to watch how you arch into his touch.

You’re so much better in real life - so is your pussy.

“You look pretty, huh baby?...” he mumbles into your jaw, his thumb pressing into your bottom lip.

He can only smile when you manage a fucked out “yeah” - each thrust of his hips coming with another mumbled praise.

His thumb pushes into your mouth now, his hand on your thigh starting to squeeze even harder.

“Uh-uh, you’re not gettin’ away from me that easily, sweetheart…” he mutters.

“You’re gonna keep those eyes on that mirror, and you’re gonna watch yourself while I fuck you again, and again, and again.”

It only occurs to you after he’s fucked you any way possible and your head is spinning - despite being in a literal store, you haven’t been interrupted once.

Perhaps when he said the floor was yours, he meant it.

The bastard probably rented the whole mall out for you.

a/n: over 700 notes on the last one I love u wtf??? Thank you for reading!!

another day of work at the DILF factory and this era is going strong and my suggestions are open..

[paracosmic-murdock]

give you my wild, give you a child

john arrives at the tower with his son for the weekend thanks to the custody arrangements and is greeted with a last minute mission. as a favor, you helped him with taking care of his toddler while he was gone, which altered bucky's brain chemistry to the point of insanity. because it sure was insanity to look at you and picture you with one of those but that belonged to you and him; it was insanity because he believed he could never give you the peace you deserve. but there you were, of course, to kiss his insecurities goodbye.

pairing: new avenger!bucky barnes x new avenger!reader

warnings/tags: established relationship, insecure bucky barnes, reader is a speedster like the flash and quicksilver, i made up a name for john's son, his kid is younger here than he actually should be according to mcu timing but idgaf, bucky has baby fever he's fighting to end, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, breakup and reconciliation, reader is good with children, reader wants to be a mother in the future, both reader and bucky want to have a family, but it's more complicated than that, song: peace (taylor swift)

3.8K words

✰ becky's upsetting father's day card (unplanned part two)

✰ mila's anthology (main masterlist)

It all started when John took a bullet for you. Now, you owed him your life and said you would do him a big favor as payback if he ever needed you.

That's how you ended up being the mediator between him and Olivia, his ex-wife, in the shared custody arrangements. You went with him to pick Nathan, his toddler son, spoke to Olivia on his behalf whenever he had a last minute mission and couldn't take care of the baby on his weekend, or just about anything because their relationship was appalling.

You used to tease him, saying he calculated the whole thing so you could owe him one. In reality, and when he would just bring your favorite dessert to thank you, you just tell him that you would have done that even if you didn't owe him your life. He laughs and thanks you again.

One time, Olivia was adamant that John had to keep Nathan for that weekend since, for the last two times, he had missions and couldn't have him.

And it happened again.

“Mel, I can't go,” John told Valentina's assistant. “I have my son for the weekend.”

“I get it, I'm sorry, but Val-”

You sighed. “I'll go in his place, let him stay.”

Mel shook his head. “Sorry, Val said-”

“I know it's not your fault, but can you please-”

“She said it had to be John because he knows the target already.” she told you.

“Okay,” John nodded. “I guess I'll talk to Olivia.”

“Great,” Mel smiled and continued detailing the mission, clearly in a nicer tone than Valentina's usual.

Once the meeting was over, you stopped John before he left the briefing room.

“John,” you called him. “I'll stay with Nathan, we'll figure it out later.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You must’ve your stuff.”

“Don't worry, it's just filling out some mission reports. I can do that while he naps,” You smiled. “And he's a little angel, you know he never gives problems.”

“God, I don't think I can accept that.”

You shook your head. “It's okay, remember what Olivia said.”

“Yeah, yeah, but-” He groaned tiredly. “Thank you for this.”

“You're welcome.” You curved your lips in a kind smile.

“You called me, doll?”

You looked up and hushed him softly to show him the baby was asleep in your arms. “Yeah, baby, thanks for coming. I need your help.”

“Is that John's kid? Why are you babysitting?” Bucky asked in a lower volume, taking a seat on the couch next to you in the rocking chair.

“Valentina had John go on a mission last minute, but if he called Olivia to ask her if she can have him again, she'll change the custody situation and he might not be able to see Nathan much. Or at all, so I offered to take care of him for the weekend and take him back on Monday… He's been working so hard for this and I wanna help him however I can.”

“You're telling Olivia?”

“Up to John,” You shrugged. “It's like a dad leaving their kid under the care of their auntie Y/N.”

Bucky nodded. “One wouldn't believe that's John's kid. So peaceful.”

You pouted. “Sure he is… my little baby.”

“What do you need me for, then, doll?” he asked, a soft expression on his face at the sight of you, there, acting as if you were in your natural habitat.

“I wanted to ask you for a favor, of course if it's okay with you… Could you take Nate's crib to our room for the weekend?”

“To our room? Why don't you use the camera thing?”

“He's still getting used to this new environment, not to mention that he doesn't come very often. I don't want him to feel alone in John's room without his dad.”

“What if he cries and all that?”

You sighed. “Buck, if it bothers you, I'll sleep in John's room with the baby.”

“No, no, it's fine,” Bucky replied. “I've never been so close to a baby, that's all.”

“Wanna carry him while I look for the diaper bag with his things? He's a little too heavy but I don't want him alone.”

He raised his eyebrow, hesitant to answer. “Something tells me you're too attached.”

You hushed him. “This is my baby for the weekend. All mine. Don't ever tell John I said that.”

“Okay, give it to me,” Bucky opened his arms to carry Nathan.

“It?”

“You know what I mean.”

A soft laugh left your lips and you gave him the kid. Nathan stirred a little, and Bucky made a panicked grin at the thought of the baby waking up and crying in his arms. “Uncle Bucky is gonna take care of you while I get your stuff… Will you take care of Uncle Bucky for me, too, my baby?”

“He's asleep and doesn't understand what you're saying.”

“Shut up,” You rolled your eyes.

You wouldn't lie: seeing Bucky carrying Nathan made your uterus explode. You were probably ovulating because your mind was plagued with ideas you wouldn't entertain otherwise.

Either way, his faux reluctance was almost ridiculous… It was clear that he was carrying the two-year-old with a tenderness rare to watch in a man his size, and it was making you melt.

“What am I seeing?” Ava asked, appearing suddenly from the wall. You flinched.

“We're-” you began talking, trying to say you're babysitting John's child as you said before.

Instead, Yelena spoke from the other side of the room while eating cereal. “They're clearly playing house.”

“We're not,” Bucky declared, irritated, giving you the baby back. “I'll do what you asked.”

You smiled and held Nathan tighter, rushing to John's room where Bucky would be to pick the crib.

“Yeah, John, he's doing great,” you said through the phone, watching The Backyardigans with Nathan on your lap. “Don't worry.”

“This is killing me, I need to get back,”

“I need you to be at peace with this,” you replied after letting out a frustrated sigh. “I had Bucky move Nate's crib to my room so he wouldn't be alone at night. I spend every passing second with him, I take speedy showers while he sleeps, and I'm back to him in like a millisecond. He's never alone, I think he's not used to this place yet and I don't want him-”

“I appreciate so much what you're doing, but you're making him consume you completely and that's not good for you,” John noted. “Also, you're making him codependent.”

You scoffed. “Come on, don't be like that!”

“I'm sorry. I am so grateful for this but I just don't want to stop your life for a favor you're doing,”

“Think of it as an appetizer to motherhood for when I have my own children.”

John chuckled. “Oh, tell that to Bucky.”

“Not telling Bucky is a better one.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Don't even mention it, dad,” You smirked.

You heard him groan in annoyance. You could even feel him rolling his eyes. “Could you send some pics of Nate so I know he's safe and sound?”

“Yeah, sure,” you agreed. “Now go to work, you're making me miss the pizzeria in the ancient Mexico episode.”

“You're not serious,”

“I so am.” You hung up the call and straightened Nate's position.

You looked up and spotted Bucky staring at you from afar.

“Why are you staring at me?”

Bucky frowned and walked to you. “I can't look at you now? You're my girlfriend, may I remind you.”

“Well, you can look every once in a while, not stare like you're a lioness plotting how to kill your prey, me, and feed me to your family.”

“I can't do that because we're sharing our room now, but I will on Monday right after you drop the baby with his mother.”

“After we drop him. You're driving, sir.” You smiled, already excited to see him with the baby, acting like a whole dad in front of you. It's important for you to see how well he plays the role, since you do want to be a mother and you don't really want your baby's father to be someone that's not Bucky.

“I don't owe John my life unlike you, it's better if you leave that to him when he's back. Or at least leave me out of it.”

“Well, I said I'd do it. Nathan has to be with his mom before she goes to work in the morning, and I don't know if John will be here by then,” you replied.

“Aren't you doing a little too much? That's not your child.”

You sighed. “I know he's not my child, but he is my responsibility for the weekend. It won't kill me to take him back home.”

“I know, but I think it's too much.”

“I'm taking care of him as if he were mine, so whatever I do is the bare minimum, Bucky, not too much. This is like… an introduction to motherhood.” You looked at the kid fondly and then back at Bucky. “And I'm lov-”

“Doll, you're not a mom and you won't-”

You rolled your eyes before he finished the sentence, genuinely dreading the end of it. “You know what, Bucky? Just go. I'll call an Uber or whatever. And I'll be taking the crib back to John's room and I'll sleep there if it bothers you so fucking much. If you won't help, at least don't get in my goddamn way.”

“That's not what I meant, doll,”

“But sure it is what it sounded like.”

Before he could say anything more, you turned off the TV and rushed to John's room with the baby. Nathan laughed once he saw himself somewhere else that suddenly.

It made you smile warmly and wonder whether or not it would be a good idea for your future kids to be speedsters like yourself. A small part of you stopped worrying about the supersoldier part, which you hated to see happening.

To clear your mind, you took the pictures of Nathan that John asked for and sent them to him.

You: He's the cutest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You: I love him sm 🥹

John: He is

John: Thanks for this

You: Don't worry ab that

You: I'll put him to sleep for his afternoon nap :)) Take care

John: Thank you ❤️

“What if we go to sleep now?”

Nathan frowned.

“You know you have no choice. It's nap time.”

Bucky was in the kitchen, watching a food tutorial on his phone that explained step by step how to make apple compote for Nathan as an attempt to make it up to you.

He wasn't meaning to be rude at all, he just wanted to see you with the baby the least possible because he was getting weird ideas. You truly looked the happiest you've been in a while, at ease. The baby got along with you very well, as if you were his mother, and his laughter mixed with yours always lit up the room. He even catches himself smiling fondly at the sight, imagining you with one that belongs to you and him.

But that couldn't be.

He would be lying if he said he didn't want a family with you, but he knows that there must be peace to have a family.

And peace? He doesn't have it in himself to give you peace. In his perspective, you were always the one to give, and him the one to take. And he can't spend the rest of your lives taking so much from you without giving anything back at all.

“Let me know when you're done in the kitchen,” Bucky heard you say as you saw him and then tried to leave, clearly not wanting to share space after what happened.

“I- uh… I'm about to finish,” he replied before you left. “I'm making Nate an apple compote. Wanna try it?”

You frowned, surprised, but approached Bucky.

He smiled softly and offered you a new spoon filled with the food; you accepted it, taking a hesitant taste of the compote.

“It's good,” you curved your lips weakly. “He'll like it, thanks. I can take it from here, though, so you don't have to do more.”

“No, look, I-” Bucky exhaled tiredly, turning the stove off. “I'm sorry. I wasn't meaning to be rude or upset you, I just chose the wrong words.”

“An honest mistake, I guess.”

He nodded slightly. “I think we have to talk about this.”

“Can we leave this conversation for later? I am exhausted and the last thing I need right now is for you to keep choosing the wrong words.”

“Yeah, sorry,” He sighed and covered the pot. “Here's the compote.”

“Thanks.”

As you finished dressing Nathan to take him back to his mom, you couldn't help but feel a bit sad at the thought of not having him for a while. Like, two weeks.

Bucky was right: you got too attached.

John was right: you are now codependent.

And you also got too involved. You even got a potty for him and started training him.

“I'll miss you so much,” You kissed his forehead and carried him in one arm and the diaper bag in the other. “But your dad is gonna bring you back soon and we'll play again, and watch cartoons…”

You noticed the Uber was already outside, so you left John's room.

“Where're you going?” Bucky asked as he saw you pressing the elevator's button.

“I told you I'd take Nate to his mom's today,” you answered, your voice serious. A bit passive-aggressive if anything.

He pursed his lips. “Alright, let's go, I'll take you.”

“There's a car waiting, Bucky,” you explained. “And you already said you wouldn't take us, so why do you care all of the sudden, huh? You don't have to get involved in any of this.”

“I just want to help, come on,”

“No, you don't wanna help, you just want to be on my good side again,” you accused him, seeing the elevator door open. “We'll talk when I get back.”

“Doll-”

“Don't call me that, Bucky. Not now.”

He nodded and took a step back, giving you space.

And knowing he had cosmically fucked up.

You spent the whole day out: ran some errands, had lunch with Mel, visited Pepper and Morgan in the afternoon, and then went back home.

When you returned to the Avengers Tower, everyone was gathered. John and Alexei had arrived from the mission not too long ago.

“Hey,” John stood up to receive you. “There's nothing I can do to thank you enough for this.”

You smiled. “It's okay, John. That's what friends are for.”

“Not at all,”

“Of course, Yelena would've done it.”

“No, I wouldn't have.”

John shrugged. “See? Just tell me what I can do.”

“I'll let you know when I come up with something,” You took a seat between Bob and Ava. Everyone was surprised you were away from Bucky but said nothing. “How was the mission, boys?”

Alexei began recounting everything that happened like a Greek epic, telling every detail and exaggerating much of it. To this day, you all were used to it, even entertained by it.

Bob hushed at you softly to get your attention meanwhile. “Hey.”

“Hey, Bob,”

“Are you alright?”

You nodded. “Yeah, you?”

“Well, I did the dishes today.”

“Attaboy,” You smiled widely.

Bob turned around so he could sit as if you were in front of him. “You're sitting a mile from Bucky and he looks more like Grumpy Bear than ever. What happened?”

“We just have a… pending conversation.”

“A bad one?” he inquired.

“I think so, yeah,”

“Are you breaking up?”

You shrugged.

“Oh,” Bob grinned sadly. “I really hope you talk it out. Let me know how it goes?”

“Yeah, Bobby,” You squeezed his forearm. “Thanks.”

The rest of the conversation went between your efforts to ignore Bucky's stare and to understand Alexei's oral mission report. You could hear, but not actually listen, not when Bucky's piercing eyes were so uncomfortably fixated on you.

You didn't notice when Alexei finished his story, nor when everyone started drinking, much less when they all left and you and Bucky were the only ones staying there.

But he did.

“Hey,”

You looked up silently, then all around, then back at him. “Hey.”

“Is it time to talk?”

“I guess so,”

Bucky nodded and sat beside you now.

“I wanna apologize for what I said,” he began. “I know that choosing the wrong words isn't an excuse, but I guess that's what I meant to say. What… you thought.”

“What I thought?” You frowned. “What did I think, according to you?”

“You thought I didn't care about children.”

“So, you don't care about children?”

He stayed silent.

“You mean to tell me that you don't want children now or in the long term?”

More silence received you, but he nodded.

“And you didn't care to tell me before, why? You've known I wanted children for ages, Bucky. I told you multiple times, even in Wakanda before we were together. You knew this, and you knew you didn't want children all this time and still got in a relationship with me. And you waited until I was so in love with you to come clean and say so.”

“I'm sorry, I-”

You groaned. “You're sorry?! So what? What are we gonna do now? Because I don't know how much we're willing to compromise here.”

“That's the thing, you shouldn't have to compromise or give up on your dream of having a family one day.”

“Are you doing what I think you're doing, Bucky? You're breaking up with me?”

And he was silent again.

“Oh, my God!” you yelled at him and stood up. “What the actual fuck?! I- I've been beside you through every-fucking-thing, Bucky! I looked for you for years with Sam, I protected you and fought for you despite what you did, I went to Wakanda with you, I was beside you when Steve left… I had given up on fighting but came back for you when you needed me, I'm here because of you! And is this how you pay me? By… making me believe we'd be a family one day? By lying to me whenever I mentioned marriage and kids?”

“I didn't know for sure until now.”

You exhaled, visibly upset. Well, upset was the understatement of the century. “Fuck you, Barnes. Truly, fuck you.”

That very same night, you thanked God for your powers more than ever. Not spending more than thirty seconds packing up every single one of your belongings came in handy considering that Bucky was right there.

Once you finished, you went to Bob's room and told him everything that happened. You told him you would leave, but that he could still call you and you would answer. Whenever.

Soon, you were at Mel's place to spend the night, telling her what had happened.

“Okay, but are you sure that this wasn't something that came from an insecurity of his? Like, maybe he's scared to mess things up with you and decided to let you go,” she theorized. “I'm not saying you should forgive him and get back together with him, just to… give him the benefit of the doubt. As far as I know, he really loves you and isn't the type to do something like this.”

“Maybe that's right, but he still did it,” You exhaled heavily. “And now I can't help but feel that he made me waste all this time.”

Mel nodded. “Why don't you get some sleep? Maybe tomorrow morning we can think of all this with a clearer mind.”

“Bucky, you dick.”

He sighed. “Good night to you, too, Mel.”

The next morning, you woke up to the smell of your favorite breakfast, and it surprised you that Mel even knew, considering you haven't been friends for that long. You know about her daddy issues, she knows about your PTSD, but your favorite food or colors are off-limits.

However, instead of seeing her, Bucky was the one waiting for you on the dining table.

You rolled your eyes. “What did you come for, Bucky? To break me again? Let me remind you that I did nothing but love you all these years, and you're-”

“Can you let me speak?” You stayed silent. “I… thought it all through last night. Well, I had thought it through before talking to you yesterday, but I then realized that I took that choice away from you, and I shouldn't have. The truth is that I want everything with you, I honestly can't live with the thought of your future children having someone else's eyes, but I know that a family needs peace, and I don't have any of it to give you. I know this is your dream and I couldn't live with myself knowing that I took that away from you, or that you'll wake up one day and regret us. I'd rather miss you my whole life than make you let go of what you want.”

You frowned. “Bucky, you've given me peace since the moment you let me in when we were in Wakanda. You make me feel safe and loved, and if that isn't peace, I don't know what the hell it is. I just need you to stop pushing me away when it gets hard and fight for us.”

“That's what I'm trying to do,” He sighed and took your hands in his. “I try my best to not be intimidated by you, by your integrity, your beliefs, and everyday I feel like I do it all wrong and I'm just wasting your honor. I… I'd do anything for you, I always give you the best of me, but is it enough if I can't give you peace? Will… my love be enough?”

“Bucky, you've always been more than enough for me,” you muttered. “Your best is all that I need, but I need your best to include staying and communicating when something like this happens. We have been together for a while, and I must know if you're committed to this. To me. To us.”

“I am, and I'm sorry I got scared,” he replied. “I only want you to be happy no matter what.”

“Buck, I could never be happy with anybody that's not you. You are my peace and my happiness, and your love is all that I need.”

He curved his lips slightly and approached you hesitantly, not knowing what your reaction might be but not wanting to let the fear of rejection get the best of him.

But you kissed him, and he knew it was all worth it.

[uncuredturkeybacon]

𝚘𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 || 𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚒 𝚏𝚞𝚍𝚍 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

in which you're loopy from anesthesia

You should’ve known Azzi wouldn’t let you go through your wisdom teeth extraction alone. The moment you brought it up in your shared dorm room, nervously fiddling with your hoodie strings, she’d immediately put a hand on your shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

And she was. Right along with Paige, KK, and Sarah, who insisted on tagging along purely for the chaos. You, on the other hand, were too doped up on anesthesia to know or care.

Which brings us to now.

The car is quiet for all of two seconds before you open your mouth.

“I think I’m in love with the sun.”

Paige, driving, glances in the rearview mirror with a smirk. “Weird way to say Azzi’s name, but okay.”

Azzi, who’s seated next to you in the backseat, watches as you lean dramatically against her shoulder, cheeks puffed out and eyelids drooping. “She’s prettier than the sun,” you murmur, as if it’s a grave injustice. “Like… have you seen her face? Her face is… like… like art. Like a Picasso.”

“Picasso?” KK chokes out from the passenger seat. “Bro. You sure you don’t mean a Renaissance painting or something?”

“Nooooo,” you whine, head tilting toward Azzi again. “I mean like the good Picassos. The ones that don’t look all melty and weird. She's the opposite of melty. She’s all, like… symmetrical and stuff.”

You blink up at your girlfriend, heart doing cartwheels in your chest. “You… you’re so pretty,” you mumble around the gauze, voice muffled and drowsy. “Like. Like so pretty. So. Prettttyyy. Prettier than like. Flowers. And like… sunset on a beach… and like that sparkly filter on Instagram.”

Paige, trying to focus on driving, lets out a snort-laugh. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

“No like. Like I love your face,” you continue, staring at her with awe, like you’ve never seen her before. “You have like. Eyes. And like. Cheekbones. And your lips are like. Boom.”

“Boom?” Sarah asks from the seat behind you. She’s riding along just for the entertainment at this point. “What does boom mean exactly?”

You lift your hand (with great effort) and vaguely make an explosion motion next to your head. “Boom,” you repeat. “Like. BOOM. Lips go boom.”

KK is wheezing.

“Oh my god,” KK says, recording all of it on her phone. “Azzi, you better save this. For her birthday. Her wedding. Her Hall of Fame induction.”

You tilt your head dramatically against Azzi’s arm, face scrunched in pure adoration. “And your arms, oh my god. Your arms are like… Greek statues. But like better. Like real life. And soft. But also strong. Like you could carry me and I’d be like ‘thank you I live here now’.”

Azzi chuckles softly, brushing a loose strand of hair off your forehead. “Thanks, baby,” she says sweetly, but her eyes are already dancing with amusement.

You blink up at her. “Your arms. Your arms are my favorite arms in the world.”

Paige is wheezing now. “Wait, what?”

“They’re so… strong. Like, I bet you could carry me and my emotional baggage. And like… a whole Costco haul. At the same time.”

Azzi’s trying not to laugh, but it’s impossible now. Her shoulders shake as you grab her bicep with both hands, eyes wide with childlike wonder.

“See?? Look at this! Look at this muscle! This should be illegal.”

Azzi’s laughing, full-bodied now, biting her lip to keep it together. She flexes her arm a little just to mess with you. “You like these arms, huh?”

“LIKE THEM?” you cry, suddenly very emotional. “I worship them.”

“Oh lord,” Paige groans, covering her face but laughing so hard she’s crying. “This is the greatest day of my life.”

“Like one time you were wearing that tank top in practice,” you ramble, eyes glazing over as you remember it with awe. “And I was like… should I call a priest? ‘Cause that was a religious experience.”

Azzi leans her head back against the seat, her whole body shaking from laughter now.

“I love her so much,” you whisper suddenly, voice cracking. Your eyes go wide and glassy. “Like. So much. Like. Like more than pizza. More than... nap time. More than sweatpants. More than muffins, Azzi.”

“Oh no,” KK says, as your face starts to scrunch like a baby about to cry.

“Muffins, bro?” Paige says. “That’s real love.”

Tears are now freely rolling down your cheeks. “She’s so beautiful, you guys. And smart. And she smells good. And she always ties my shoes when I’m tired. And one time I was sad and she brought me gummy bears and kissed my forehead and it FIXED EVERYTHING.”

Azzi wraps both arms around you and pulls you into her chest, laughing even as she blinks back a few of her own tears. “Baby, it’s okay. I love you too.”

You look up at her with big watery eyes. “Do you?”

“Oh god,” Sarah whispers. “We’ve entered the Dramatic Phase.”

“I do,” Azzi says, kissing your nose. “I love you so much.”

You sniff, then smile, cheeks puffed. “Yayyy,” you slur. Then, without warning: “I want to marry your arms.”

“Not you?” Azzi teases, brushing your messy hair back.

You pause. “You can come too. But your arms are the main event.”

Paige almost pulls over to the side of the road because she can’t drive through the laughter. KK is gasping like a fish. Sarah is doubled over.

“I’m gonna make this my phone wallpaper,” Paige says, pointing at the video of you stroking Azzi’s arm like it’s a priceless artifact.

“I’m gonna make shirts that say ‘I want to marry your arms’,” Sarah adds, wiping tears from her eyes.

Azzi just hugs you tighter, beaming like the proudest girlfriend in the universe. “You’re never living this down, by the way,” she whispers in your ear.

You mumble something incoherent into her shoulder.

“What was that, babe?” she asks gently.

“…boobs.”

Azzi is dying, trying to keep her composure while you pat her arm repeatedly like you’re making a point. “You don’t understand. These arms? They cook for me. They hug me. They shoot 3s. Swish!” You raise a limp arm in the air in an awkward imitation of her jump shot, smacking the car roof lightly.

Paige is crying now, laughing so hard the car swerves slightly. “Okay, okay—no impersonations in a moving vehicle, please!”

But then, without warning, you suddenly sniffle. Your face crumples like a sad raccoon.

“I just love her so much,” you sob, nose stuffy and gauze hanging from your lip like an unhinged vampire. “She’s so… beautiful. And kind. And nice. And smart. And she helps me study when I don’t understand econ. And she remembers my coffee order. And… and her smile? Her smile?! It’s like sunshine and glitter and heaven.”

The car falls into stunned silence. You hiccup. Then:

“Also her butt is really cute.”

That does it.

Paige literally pulls into the campus lot doubled over the wheel. KK slams her hand against the dashboard, crying with laughter. Sarah is recording the entire thing from the back, breathless with giggles.

Azzi, blushing furiously, has both hands on your cheeks now. “Okay, okay, babe. Let’s get you inside, yeah?”

You cling to her like she’s your personal teddy bear. “Will you marry me?”

Azzi chuckles, kissing your forehead. “One day. When you’re not on drugs.”

You squint up at her, serious as ever. “Okay. But your arms better still look like this.”

“They will,” she promises, half-laughing, half-melting. “Just for you.”

You beam like you just won the lottery, then look over at KK. “Can you officiate?”

KK clutches her stomach. “Say less. I got ordained online last week for this exact moment.”

They help you into the dorm, you still babbling about how Azzi’s smile is “probably what inspired the concept of light,” and how you’d fight God Himself if He ever tried to take her away from you.

Azzi tucks you into bed, wipes your drool, kisses your temple, and whispers, “I love you too, my dramatic little baby.”

Paige’s Instagram: [blurry selfie of the car] "Y/N's wisdom teeth got pulled and she proposed to Azzi mid-anesthesia. She also gave a TED talk on her biceps. 10/10 entertainment."

KK’s Tiktok: [video of you poking Azzi’s arm repeatedly] “She said ‘these arms do God’s work’ and started crying 💀💀💀” Song playing: “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis

Azzi? She saved every single video. And so did you.

[letbludcook]

warning. explicit sexual content

tags. creampie, slight dumbification, blud tried to be gentle only to end up ravaging you, idiots in love type of fucking

you and him having sex for the first time and he's so annoyingly gentle as if you're made of fragile glass. the fact that he still managed to make you cum with his fingers despite all that baffled you.

but then, just right after you came, he hesitates putting his dick inside. he gets out of bed, says something along the lines of "let me get us a bath," until he hears you huff a sob. he turns to you again only to see you touching yourself. begging him, perhaps out of spite, to drop the hesitation.

you're a big girl—his girl, even—and that means you'd be able to take all of him. you know what made him walk back to bed, pet your head, pepper you kisses, and mutter apologies?

"i've been prepping myself like this every night, been imagining you inside me for as long as i can remember."

you incoherently moan your grievances—of how much you need him, of how desperate you are to feel his dick slamming you, of your yearning to hear the slushing wet sounds of his balls slapping against your skin as he pushes even deeper, and most of all, of his cum flooding you at the peak of it all.

what a bad man he is, he thinks to himself, as he pulls your fingers out of your cunt. he brings it to his mouth, holding back a chuckle.

"prepping yourself with this, darling?" he muses, then sucks on your fingers clean, savoring your taste. you nod, pathetically so, and he shakes his head. "but these pretty little fingers are far from enough if we're talking about prepping."

it's the thought that counts, though—his gentle apology kiss on your hand tells you that much. and you quickly come to understand his point when he replaces your fingers with his actual dick.

"you see?"

then he thrusts inside.

god, it is indeed not enough to prep you.

"b-but, yeah," he rasps, then there goes another thrust, "it must be hard for you, no?" he thrusts again; you gape your mouth open, "never knew you like me—fuck, baby—this much."

hell you do like him so much; if you're not a babbling mess you'd be able to throw a banter, but he sucks on your nipple, quickly earning your forgiveness.

"mind repeating what you said earlier?"

which one? you ask in your mind, physically incapable to speak as soon as his fingers flick on your clit.

"you want my cum flooding you? you like me that much to let me do that, huh?"

"yes!" you wail, oh the things that could bring you back from being dumbed by this man. "b-been—hah—yearning for it, please."

his approving hum thereafter just tells how pleasured he'd be to do that. you really are no fragile glass he must mind touching. you're his girl, his woman, and you own every crevice of his body. if you wish a hard one, then a hard one you'll get.

it doesn't take long for him to lose control as per your wishes—his dick slamming, the wet slaps of your skin echoing inside your bedroom in synch with your cries and his growls. much to your pleasure, he eventually traps your legs down so it wouldn't escape as he cums.

you're trapped—helplessly bound, wrists on top of your head by his hand—because you want to. because you wish for it. when he buries his dick deep inside you feel his seed gushing, emptying, as he struggles to flutter his eyes open because he wants to see your face while he empties himself. it brought you to a seemingly endless bliss.

you two take your pretty time coming off your highs.

and despite your weakened state, you still sit up to look down as his cum drips from your cunt.

you giggle softly, thinking; this wouldn't be the last time you'd ask him to do this.

ERWIN smith, LEVI ackerman, WOLFGANG grimmer, KENZO tenma, GOJO satoru, AKI hayakawa, etc.

[husbandhoshi]

title: royally screwed [m]

pairing: joshua x f!reader

wc: 30.8k in total; part 1: 15.4k, part 2: 15.4k summary: between remembering last night’s party and pleasing your unrelenting family, you think being a princess is hard enough. then you’re thrust into an arranged marriage to royal darling joshua hong—straight-laced, infuriatingly obedient, and everything you’re not. pretending to be the perfect couple? impossible.   notes: romcom + smut (part 2), modern royalty!au in which yn is the princess of cotria/joshua the prince of acros (both fictional), enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, quarterlife crisis/coming of age, very very slow burn. lots of swearing, lots of alcohol, lots of feelings. smut tags: oral (m!receiving), mirror shenanigans, unprotected sex, softdom!shua, mating press, idk. they're in love your honor. [read part 1 here!] (please)

You decide June looks good on Acros. Unlike in Cotria, now sure to be perspiring with tourists, the downtown here is comfortable, inviting, even. At home, you’d be shoulder-to-shoulder with three other people right now. 

This is one of the things you like about this country: it seems to be intentionally idyllic. It’s becoming more clear to you that Joshua’s parents weren’t actually in need of anything from you other than a status boost. You suppose they’re learning the hard way what exactly that comes with.

Jeonghan’s car, or rather, the car Jeonghan happens to be in (he couldn’t drive his way out of a paper bag, try as he might), pulls up to the curb. He’s fresh off a stint of good press, meaning months of speeches, ribbon cutting, and run-ins with parliament and journalists and business moguls all vying for a bite of a future king. You’d add yourself to that list, but you know you’re at the back of the line—you practically live there now, but you’re not sure if things could have happened any other way. 

You watch him step out of the van, never windblown even though he likely just got off a flight. Always with a smile, too, one tired but recognizable, so different from the plasticky ones he wears on TV. 

The first thing he does when he gets out is throw his arms open for a bear hug. “Hey, cricket,” he says, voice wrought with jet-lag. “Missed you.” 

“Glad you had time for one more stop,” you murmur, squeezed into the million-thread count of his shirt. 

“I always have time for you,” he replies, which is decidedly untrue, but you don’t have it in you to say that. All you do lately is get into arguments, and you’re not looking to add your brother to your hit list. 

(He hugs Jihoon, too, since you all practically grew up together. Is that your gun, or are you just happy to see me? Jeonghan jokes. Jihoon’s reply: It’s my gun. It’s always my gun.) 

The second thing he does is push the brim of your baseball cap down.

“The paps,” he warns, as if they were the boogeyman.  

“If they can’t recognize us, they need to get better at their job.” Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake, Jeonghan, we’re all wearing matching hats.” 

No, you are not kidding. Jeonghan, blue, you, red, and Jihoon, green, a la The Powerpuff Girls, which was a joke you made about six years ago and could not let go of. 

“Whatever,” he laughs. “Aren’t you supposed to be showing me around? This is your domain now.” 

“Don’t get excited. I just got here.” 

“What do you need to go shopping for, anyway?” he asks, now walking side-by-side with you. 

“I ask that question every day,” Jihoon replies, glancing at Jeonghan as if to say Women, right?, save for the fact that the both of them have exactly zero game. 

“Somi’s birthday!” you exclaim, two ticks too loudly. “Stuff, I dunno. Just trying to get used to this place.” 

“This isn’t exactly Rodeo Drive, you know.” 

That, Jeonghan is right about. You’re sure there must be a shopping district somewhere in Acros, but definitely not here. Here, the streets are lined with dense cherry plum trees, wine-stained and fragrant. They frame driftwood-paneled shop windows housing kitschy art galleries, mom-and-pop bakeries, and patioed bistros with striped awnings. 

An elderly couple passes you. They smile and wave, visible even under the shade of their parasol, either blissfully unaware of your status or too wise to care. 

“I know,” you waver. “Whatever. I'll just get Yunjin to find me something for the party.” 

Your eye wanders to the jaunty facade of a music store. The sign flaunts handmade, cursive letters with a curly treble clef in the lacquer of old paint. In Cotria, the same sign would be neon, Hollywood-esque, vain. 

“Party?” 

“Let's go there,” you interrupt, hoping to run your big mouth over with some more talking. Of course Jeonghan wouldn’t be cool with any party, nonetheless the one Somi was planning on throwing, but, either by habit or wishful thinking, the news just tumbled right out of you. 

“Party?” Jeonghan repeats. He trails close after you, hoping to grab the door before you can. Such is what he had been taught, after all, which came more naturally than navigating big-brotherhood. “Jihoon?”

Jihoon shrugs, and opens the door before the both of you get there. You’ve trained him well. 

“It’s a small thing,” you tell him. “Close friends only.” It’s not technically a lie—small is relative, and it’s not your fault Somi has two hundred-some close friends.

Inside, you notice the shop is bigger than it looks from the outside. In the front, their nicest pianos: the glossy Yamahas, the baby grands. a lone drum set, on sale, the hi-hat sparkling under the LED lights. And finally, guitars hung from the wall like posters, some lime green and child-sized, others sanded down so the mahogany glows. 

“You already know what I’m going to say,” Jeonghan says, the lilt of his voice verging on not-so-casual. 

“Then don’t say it,” you reply flatly. “You went to those parties too, by the way.” 

“Used to, but—” Jeonghan sighs because he’s beat, and he knows it. 

You absentmindedly flip through a book of sheet music—Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory. behind it, 40 Taylor Swift Songs for Piano. 

“You’ve been good, I hope?” you cut in. “Not too tired?” 

“No,” Jeonghan says.  “I've been great. You?” 

You can’t read his expression. Old Jeonghan would tell you that he’s ready for a nap, that he hates sleeping on airplanes, that his hands still get sweaty when he gets in front of a crowd and the camera flash hurts his eyes. New Jeonghan never complains, either because of some drastic change in his character or because he feels like he can no longer complain to you. Both hurt your feelings in equal measures.

“I called, you know.” 

“I was busy, cricket.” He holds up a copy of Complete Advanced Piano Solos and wrinkles his nose. He's hoping you’d laugh with him about it, but you’ve already moved on, now fixated on the shining columns of electric guitars. “I wanted to ask about, you know, all the new stuff going on.” 

“You mean my arranged marriage?” The words feel stiff in your mouth. 

The arranged marriage I'm doing for you? I split my heart open for you, and that’s the thanks I get? 

You avoid Jihoon’s tentative glare to look at your noodled reflection in the polish of a red Fender. You think of Joshua, of a corny rendition of Here Comes The Sun and a pick between his teeth, cradling a guitar held by a linty, ten dollar strap. 

Then you think of what he said on that piano bench—that somehow he could have prevented this. Actually, this might have been all your fault. One too many shots, and you ended up setting feminism back five centuries. 

“Y-yeah.” You watch Jeonghan’s silhouette appear behind yours. “Has it been okay, at least?” 

Okay is a complicated word to use. It’s hard to say, even for you. 

It would certainly be TMI to tell Jeonghan that you’ve been kissing a lot more often. First it was under the flimsy guise of practice—We have to be ready for our dinner tomorrow, Joshua had said, to which you readily agreed. You couldn’t be the unwilling victim of another headline like KISS OR MISS! It would be terrible for your ego, even more so than your public image. 

Yesterday, though, as you were winding down for bed, Joshua had come out of the shower, damp white tee and all. A sorry, unspeakable part of you willed you to posit—Hey, maybe we need a refresher? You couldn’t even get halfway through your sentence. Hell, his glasses even came off.

You really only liked each other past 9 PM—you still couldn’t quite manage to get through a conversation like normal people. At this point, you had a 50/50 split in terms of who would cast the first terrible stone of petty disagreement. The only thing we have going for us is a dubious physical attraction, seemed like way more of a mouthful than okay, though. 

“Yeah, it’s been okay.” You look around. There's a decent amount of mediocre acoustic guitars on the back wall, more than enough to scratch the itch of someone too afraid to defile something more honorable. “Hey, don’t wait up for me. I think i might buy something.” 

—

[august 10, 2:57 pm; a dress fitting. 

In the ten-foot mirror of the boutique dressing room, you watch Yunjin yank the ties of your corset into a punishing knot. Your mother watches behind you, perched on the chaise. 

“Regal and radiant,” she reads aloud, the shiny cover of a magazine between her hands. “Finally, some good news.” 

“About you and Joshua?” Yunjin asks. 

“Ye–ow!” you wince. “Yeah. We went out to dinner yesterday.” 

The dinner: an exhausting, stuffy affair at an Italian restaurant with two Michelin stars. You came in a nice dress, Joshua in slacks and his best button-up. Smile, wave, a kiss on the cheek. You fed him a spoonful of dessert, a stiff, too-sweet panna cotta. It was either raspberry or strawberry—you were too distracted to really notice. Instead, you’d been practicing the steps, the motions of a true love. 

Should we hold hands over the table? Joshua had asked. 

I don't think we have to. Your hand had curled over the napkin on your lap, as if the thought of his touch physically stung. 

“This is a nice color,” your mother interrupts. She pinches the fabric of the skirt up at your waist, watching the way it bunches over your hips. “It's suitable.” 

Suitable. Right. The dress for your engagement ball, suitable. Just like you, newly suited for the engagement. 

You watch your image in the mirror. It’s taller, more regal, likely the product of Yunjin squeezing all the air out of you, Or worse, the penetrating gaze of your mother over the top of the tabloid.

You blink hard; you waver. ]

[august 20, 10:13 pm; a quiet return to acros after a day at the beach with somi and soonyoung. 

The castle sleeps, warm under the soft glow of candlelight on marble. You pad through the halls, carefully, as to avoid waking the entire country with the thwacks of your still-wet sandals. Hopefully Joshua is sleeping. He'd certainly ask questions, either about if bikini tops really need all that padding or what the SPF of your sunscreen was. 

You approach your room, where the lamplight from the cracked door oozes into the hallway. There's a determined rustling noise coming from the interior. Incriminating. Holding your breath, you cast a long glance into the thin slice of bedroom you can see from where you’re standing. 

There sits Joshua, cross-legged on the bed. Between his legs, the guitar you bought him. It must have finally shipped. He’s tied the gift ribbon it came with to the guitar strap, a woven linen with an offensively bright jacquard pattern. 

A hesitant A major chord, then G major, offkey. Hm, he hums aloud. Then you notice his phone propped on a pillow, a Youtube tutorial rumbling in the background. He tries the G major again. Better, he says, pumping a fist into the tired air. 

God, what a dork, you think. But you don’t walk away.] 

– 

From the garden, the Acrosian moon renders the city blue, like ink from a spilled well. 

It’s quiet out here, you notice. The forest spills into the sky, and the scent of roses lies heavy on your skin. You’re seated on the bench beneath the sculpted gazebo, a worthy centerpiece, and you revel in the coolness of the granite, the bated still of the air. You like this garden better than the one at home, although it’s entirely possible that you’ve been conditioned into hating all topiaries, no thanks to your parents. 

It's only when you hear the quiet click of footsteps behind you that you realize you’ve lost track of how long you’ve been outside. You’re now able to tell them apart–these, Joshua’s, steady and purposeful, sound like they have a heartbeat. 

You don’t turn around to greet him. “So you finally had enough, huh?” you ask instead, sliding to the left so he can sit beside you. 

“How'd you know?” he chuckles. 

“I'd like to think I know at least a little about you.” 

“I appreciate it,” is his reply, surprisingly warm.

Just a few hours earlier, your parents had come to visit. They cooed and giggled and connived alongside Joshua’s parents before launching into a very long, very serious discussion about your engagement ball. You’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff, the small stuff being the color of the napkins, the members of the string quartet, the hors d'oeuvres. But then it got weird: the symbolism of the color of your nail polish, which journalists were allowed to watch you make out, when and how Jeonghan was supposed to announce his presence during all of this. 

Then things got critical, which really sucked. No one was safe this time, not even Joshua. You lasted about an hour, Joshua about forty-five minutes more. You wonder what his breaking point was. Maybe it was his mother finally telling him off for having more than three buttons undone whenever he wore a dress shirt. 

In the silence, you feel an inexplicable peace. Maybe this is the only time you can get along; underneath the same moon, the same stars, the divide doesn’t feel quite as wide. You let your mind clear, first, past the fog of Somi’s birthday bash, glittery and blinding in your mind’s eye, past Jeonghan’s tired shoulders in the music store, past all the magazine covers and photo ops. The heavy reality feels heavier in your stomach, but you’re no longer as scared, although resignation looks like acceptance when you whittle it close enough to the bone. 

“Have you ever been in love before?” 

Joshua’s voice is so low, it takes you by surprise. You look to your side and see his eyes, shaded by the long curl of his lashes, trained on the sky, his expression unreadable. There’s a piercing sincerity to it, one you haven’t seen before. 

“No,” you reply, the answer coming to you faster than any regret ever could. “How could i?” 

“So all the boyfriends before, just…?” he trails off. He's referencing the magazines, all the covers with full size photos of you and the model of the month holding hands by the riviera, sharing a martini, kissing outside a nightclub. There are too many to remember, but you’re surprised he’s aware of any at all. 

“It was just stupid fun. I dunno. We hung out, had sex, whatever. It was never serious. I didn't tell them about anything at all; I was okay with them not really knowing me, at least, not as anything other than a party girl, the runaway princess, etcetera. We didn’t owe each other anything.” 

“Sounds lonely.” 

“Sometimes,” you answer. “But it was fun. I don't regret it. I just never saw room for them in all of this.” 

Joshua hums, low and deep. 

“And you?” you ask, incredulous. “In love?” 

“In university,” he says after a brief pause. “There was a girl. I think I loved her more than I had ever loved anything else before.” 

“What? Who?” you interrupt. “Do I know her?” 

“No.” Then, a quiet chuckle. “No one did. She was a civilian, a normal girl. She wanted to be a biologist, I think. it was either that, or a nurse. We snuck around a lot. Probably more than you did.” 

“Can I ask what happened?” 

“I told her I'd marry her. I thought if I wanted it enough, it would happen. I'd go to my parents, profess my love, and all our rules would fall away somehow. Just like that.” 

Suddenly, it feels like there is a gaping wound in your chest. Every new word seems to draw the bloody edges of your skin further apart. 

“Well, they didn’t,” Joshua continues. “I broke her heart. and I learned that all of this would never go away. Not for love, not for anything.” 

There is an impossible hollowness inside you. You imagine Joshua, twenty-one and bright-eyed at Cambridge, hiding beneath the arch of the cobblestone bridge, the long one behind the quad, to carve hearts into the limestone. There's a girl wrapped in his jacket, her laughter like bells. She draws him close, runs a delicate hand through his hair, a shorter cut, more sporty than it is now. The night is still just as kind, forgiving, as it is now, and the moon still round like a young pearl. 

“And that’s why you’re…you know.” You pause. The words all feel stuck to the roof of your mouth. “You like the rules.” 

“Because it would mean that it didn’t end in vain. That it wasn’t really my fault.” 

“You don’t want to mess up again. I get it.” 

“Yeah.” 

You notice your arms are touching, that they have been touching. Somehow, you don’t want to move away. 

“Why are you telling me this?” you ask.

“Not sure.” Joshua sighs, having fully abandoned the filter he normally speaks to you through. “I don't think we’re so different. I don't know. It feels good to tell someone.” 

“Do you still love her?” 

“No. I don't think I can.” 

“I'm sorry,” you swallow, feeling the familiar lump in your throat. 

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

It’s getting cold, the twilight breeze now coming in from the sea. A silence, now sticky, caustic, settles between the two of you. The thought of Joshua, hopelessly in love, a line you hadn’t even dared to cross, seems to wind itself deep into your neurons. 

“No really,” you insist. “I'm sorry. I gave you a hard time—no, I've been giving you a hard time. I didn't know.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“What?” 

“Be nice to me. No one’s watching.” 

“I know,” you say, a foolish conviction rising in your stomach. You almost feel silly, juvenile, for never really baring your heart like how he had. You’re not sure which was worse. 

You turn to look at him, really look at him. He's framed by the haze of the violets, the gentle curtain of the willows. 

“Says the real you?” Joshua asks.

“Yup,” you laugh. “Usually is. You probably get the worst of it, to be honest.” 

“She’s not so bad.” He returns your gaze; it’s honest, unsearching. “According to the real me, by the way.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

There are no words left. In fact, nothing quite says more than the way you now sit together, hands close enough to touch, without quarrel, complaint, or a yearning to prove yourself to some invisible standard. Instead, you enjoy the quiet calm, the way it drapes itself across the garden, the city, the quick of your heart. Now that you think about it, it’s the first time you’ve been able to do this without feeling like you were putting on a show.

This time, you think it’s real when you lean against his shoulder, and he leans back, chasing your warmth.

And it certainly seems to stay real when your hands find each other. You realize he does it the same way every time—the gentle skim of his fingertips down your hand before your palms meet, gently, forthright. 

And it’s here, in the uncertain glow of the summer moon, where you think you’re the closest to ever knowing just what Joshua had been talking about earlier. 

His hand curls around your cheek, holding you, wanting to see you clearer still, and he kisses you. It's not the practiced motion of an ill-conceived love, nor a hungry, blind stumble in your unlit bedroom. No, this time, it's as if you are being drawn back, wonderfully, slowly. Joshua kisses you as if it's the first time, as if to undo all the other times.

And somehow, almost by magic, the fountain song and the phantom photographers, the parents and the press, the world and everything in it, finally draw quiet. 

–

“So,” Jihoon says, reloading his pistol. “You ok? Don’t you hate the range?” 

You push your earmuffs aside to hear him better. “What?” 

“I said, don’t you hate the range?” 

“Well,” you balk. Jihoon puts the gun down and leans against the booth, looking at you from behind the glare of his safety glasses. Behind him is the paper target of a man with five bullet holes through his head. “I think I've gotten used to it.” 

This is all true—you did hate the range, but it’s where you can always count on finding Jihoon on a Sunday afternoon. Better people went to church, but Jihoon preferred to terrorize the poor center circle of a bullseye. 

“Hm.” He picks up the pistol again, stares down its iron sights. “Somi need anything for her birthday?” 

“She needs a new man,” you reply, and Jihoon laughs. 

Bang. Bang. 

“But, no, I'm getting her that vintage Cartier watch she’s been wanting forever. They were auctioning it off in Paris.” 

“Right, since it’s time for her to get a new boyfriend,” Jihoon deadpans, although he can’t quite get it out before he chuckles. “What about Soonyoung?” 

“They cannot get together. You’re just being messy.” 

“Sure, I'm the messy one. Didn’t they sleep together?” 

“That was, like, two years ago. Drunk.” 

Bang. Then a click–the clip’s empty. “By the way—you decided if you’re going to Cotria this weekend? Jeonghan will be back again, you know.” 

You pause, watching Jihoon reload the magazine, shiny bullet by bullet. You definitely know Jeonghan’s coming home—minus all the time you spend on Find My Friends, you were always acutely aware of when he was in town. The real question is if you wanted to see him again. Usually, you’d count down the days, make plans at all your favorite restaurants, buy a bottle of cheap wine to split over a shitty Godzilla movie. That was when you still talked. 

The last time you saw him was when he visited you in Acros. After the music store, you milled around a couple shops, walked through an art gallery. (Remember when you got lost at the Prado? he had asked. You were staring at that painting with all the butts. 

Kinda, you had replied noncommittally. All Jeonghan did lately was start his sentences with remember, like he wanted you to forget who he was now.) 

“I dunno,” is what you land on. “I'm busy.” 

“Well, Jeonghan asked me.” Jihoon takes down his old target and sets up a fresh one, another formless, black silhouette. 

“Asked you what?”

“If I could ask you to come.” 

“Does Josh know?” 

“He actually already helped with arrangements for you to go back,” Jihoon replies, palming the gun again. “He said only if you wanted to, though.” 

The tightness in your chest seems to coil over itself once more. Joshua had asked you about Jeonghan over breakfast one morning, before handing you a coffee and a croissant to soften the blow. You had been talking a lot more lately, which, somehow, you didn’t mind. If he wasn’t making fun of you, he was actually a decent listener. 

You watch Jihoon steady his arms. 

Bang. Bang. Bang. 

–

Like all of your great ideas, it began in the back of a car. 

Surprising, maybe. Accidental? Never. 

You’re getting ahead of yourself, though. It really started earlier tonight, at the charity event you attended with Joshua. 

Lesser beings would blame the wine, a cheap chardonnay only fit for sorority girls on a Friday night. Naturally, you and Joshua were responsible for downing about half the bottle—a fun amount, you’d like to say, although you admit you were surprised at your date’s ability to hold his alcohol. 

You, however, can peg the real culprit: a reasonably slutty dress, removed from the annals of Somi’s closet, back when she was less of a Paris Hilton and more of a Princess Diana. 

The evidence: damning. As you were getting ready—Can you zip me up? you had asked Joshua, fiddling with the rollers in your hair, already a generous ten minutes late. Then the slow, lingering skim of his touch, molasses up the hollow of your spine. At dinner, a warm hand on your knee. You didn’t hang around much longer after that, but walking to the car was a wondrous excuse for the flat of his palm to find the small of your back, fondly, comfortably, as if you had known each other for years. 

Since you had spoken in the garden, certainly you had acted like more of a couple. It came more naturally, likely due to the fact that you had no idea if you were actually a couple or not. You suppose it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Well—sort of.

Now, you’re just being obtuse. What you’re really trying to do is explain how your hand found its way down Joshua’s pants in the back of your limousine. And still, found is too generous of a word. But you digress. 

The short version: you kissed Joshua. Jihoon parked the car out back, you had gotten tired of Joshua glancing at you through the side of his eyes, and you kissed him. Regrettably, this hasn’t gotten boring yet. You enjoy the way he searches for your touch, the part of his soft lips. 

Sometime between the third and the tenth time your tongue found its way into Joshua’s mouth, Jihoon removed himself from the situation—he was always good at that part. Two wandering hands later, your palm skimmed over the front of Joshua’s slacks. No big deal, except he was half-hard and he moaned in your mouth like he was doing the ad-libs in a Cupcakke song. 

“Whoops,” you had babbled. This whole night, you’d been searching for the brakes on the clown car winding through the horny fog of your horrible, vexed mind. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Joshua replied just as quickly, the words seeming to slip back down his throat. 

Then you had stared at each other and blinked, hard, as if that would erase the fact that, one, the prince of Acros had just cursed approximately half an centimeter from your face, and two, you’d now crossed a bridge that could not be uncrossed. 

You could no longer lie to yourself about the fact that you are hopelessly attracted to Joshua. You don’t even know if you want to lie anymore. You still thought of the time you ran into him, birthday suit and all, all those weeks ago in the bathroom. And, yes, you had wondered how big he was, although you blame Somi for planting that evil idea in you. 

Hence, with God as your witness (since Jihoon was no longer there), you had said, “I can help, you know. If you want.” 

You didn’t expect Joshua to nod so quickly. Then again, you now know yourself to be a poor judge of most things, especially ones relating to whatever this is. 

“Do you want to?” he had asked, eyes fogged over. 

“Yes. really.” Then you stopped. “Is this your first—”

“No. Does it really seem like it?” 

Okay. You’ll have to unpack that later. 

So, finally, here you are. Somewhere along the line, your shame had fallen to the wayside, and a new desire now rocks you. 

“Could’ve just asked earlier,” you tease, thumbing the buckle of Joshua’s belt. 

“Should’ve known you’re not one for subtlety,” he laughs softly, his eyes fixed on how you undo the clasp. It’s a silly comment, but all the blood still rushes to your cheeks at the idea of him wanting you not just now, but all night. “Next time.” 

“Really now.” The button at his waistband proves difficult with your new nails, so you instead sit your hand on the tent in his pants, palm him over the fabric. “You’d let me do this in the washroom of a charity ball?”

Delightfully, you watch him squirm. He doesn’t fight you, instead, uses his hands to bring you closer so you can feel his voice on your skin. “You’d be surprised,” he replies. 

“His highness,” you say before returning to the wretched button, “Fooling around at a formal event? Scandalous.” 

“Says the walking scandal,” Joshua laughs again, nipping at your earlobe. Then a sigh, breathy and tortured, as you finally peel back his slacks. 

“Isn’t this about the time where you be quiet and let me do my thing?”

“Is that an order?” 

“Yeah, since you seem to like them so much.” 

He opens his mouth to complain, but you’ve beaten him to the punch. Skin meets skin; you watch his eyes flutter shut, the slow fall of his shoulders as he exhales. 

Fuck, you think to yourself. If that’s all it takes for him to get hard— you force the thought back to where it came from. You’re getting ahead of yourself. Already, you’re reveling in the lewd image before you: the nation’s darling prince, legs spread and slack-jawed in the back of a limo, dizzy at the thought of a pretty girl playing with his cock. 

Your hand wraps around his length, pulls it out of his briefs. Feeling the weight, heavy and warm on your palm, makes your skin prickle. He is big, but even if he wasn’t, the way he gasps into your ear when you start pumping him is enough to satisfy. 

You start slow, just to be a little mean. He's longer than you expected, you realize. A turn of the wrist at the base, a little more pressure, and you hear him groan, loudly, shamelessly, as he tips his head back. 

“Feels good?” you ask, voice lower than a whisper. You know it does—you’re not inexperienced by any stretch of the imagination, but something about turning the prince into putty makes the months of horrible foreplay worth it. 

“Yeah,” he says, part sigh. “Really good.” 

“Good.” Then you hold out your palm in front of his mouth. You tell yourself it’s a litmus test for his freak-o-meter, but there’s a part of you that wants to make this the best handjob of his short, unexciting life. 

First, he looks at you, wide eyes unblinking. There's already a flush, pretty and pink, across his cheeks, the column of his neck. Then, it clicks. He spits into your hand, and you watch it trail down the plush curve of his lips, his chin, the ridge of his adam’s apple. The color spreads to his ears; his mouth twists shyly. Oh, he looks perfect, maybe even more than perfect like this. 

As if drawn by a magnet, you kiss him, and your hand finds his cock again. The friction alone draws out a low whine from Joshua’s chest, enough for you to feel the sound on your own tongue. Emboldened, you pump faster, harder, loving the way his hips kick up to meet your touch. 

Still, he gives no indication that he’s close. Something tells you he has more stamina than you think, which surprises you. Thirty minutes ago, you thought he was a virgin. 

“Josh?” you murmur, your lips brushing over his. “Wanna taste you.” 

He meets your gaze, expression unreadable. You think maybe you’re moving too fast, that you’ve crossed some sort of boundary, until you feel the shadow of his hand move, first on your waist, then up the back of your neck. He gathers your hair in one hand, easily, as if he’s done this many a time before, and you get the message. 

You wet your lips, swollen at this point, and bow your head. You’re running on something crazier than adrenaline at this point—even seeing the bead of precum at his tip is making your jaw feel heavy. 

The first taste, always thrilling, sends sparks to your cunt. You seal your lips around his cockhead, feeling its weight on your greedy tongue, and he pulls your hair just enough to make you moan. 

“Were you thinking about doing this all night?” Joshua asks, voice deceptively innocent. 

You can’t answer. You don’t want to. He tastes good, he even fucking smells good, and you want him bad. Instead, you take him to the base, feel him bump against your palate as you try not to gag. You can’t fit him all the way, so your hands make up the slack. He's even bigger fully hard, and already, you feel the ache in your cheeks, your temples. 

“Fuck, you must have been.” A groan, low and slutty. “Doing so good for me.”

You can’t tell if he’s being genuine or if this is his version of dirty talk, but it’s working. His hand is gentle, restrained behind you, letting you lead. The worse part of you wonders what it would take for him to break, but that’s a project for another time. 

Honestly, he doesn’t need to do much—again and again, you chase the feeling of his cock deep in your throat, enough to bruise. You don’t even care if you gag around him; when you do, he pulls your hair back, just enough to make your scalp prickle wonderfully, seemingly oblivious to the fact that you like it. 

You feel heady with arousal. You start to wonder how he is in bed, if he’d hold your hair like that, run his mouth like he is now. He's vocal, more than anyone else you’ve been with, and every little noise goes straight to your core, makes your thighs squeeze together pathetically. By now, you’re sure you’ve ruined this set of panties. 

“ ‘m close,” he says between breaths. “You don’t have to—” 

Stupid, stupid boy, you think. You don’t think you’ve wanted to do anything more. So instead of answering, you look up at him, eyes big and watery, and you suck hard. with your tongue nestled underneath his cockhead, right by the vein, it’s almost too easy. 

He groans, loud, satisfied, and you feel his release fill your mouth. Even after swallowing, it’s enough to run down your chin, get your makeup all smudged, and you like it. If you weren’t in trouble already, you are now. 

“Ah, I made you a mess,” Joshua says, gravelly and intimate. With one hand, he takes the handkerchief out of his suit jacket and cradles your jaw with the other. “Hold still.” 

“You,” you manage after clearing your throat. “You don’t have to sacrifice your pocket square.” 

“Yes, I do,” he chuckles. He wipes the corners of your mouth, your aching chin, and it almost makes you cry. “You literally gave me head in the back of a car. The pocket square can go.” 

He draws you up to his chest so you can rest your head on him. There’s a warm, melty feeling between your ribs, minus what you had just swallowed. Inexplicably, even as the horny fog clears from your brain, you still want to be close, closer than close and then closer still. 

“Head? I don’t like hearing you use normal people slang.” You pout, and you feel his laugh radiate from beneath his skin. “Good head, at least?” 

“Oh, please. Better than good,” he answers. “You’re perfect. perfect.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” you start. Then he shuts you up with his mouth over yours, and you forget to think about liking him, loving him, or marrying him—this, you think you can do. 

—

“We’re in Barcelona!” 

You’re greeted by a pocket sized Somi and Soonyoung as they grin at you from your phone screen. They look to be on the balcony of a hotel suite, both wearing their matching silk robes. 

“Wow,” you reply. “And where was my invite?” 

“We did invite you, bitch,” Somi says, pulling down her sunglasses to look at you. “You said you were busy.” 

“Well, I mean…” you uncap a bottle of nail polish. “That's not untrue.”

“The ocean needs you,” Soonyoung whines, clutching his chest. “We need you.” 

“I'm sorry! Josh and I have been doing engagement stuff.” 

“Josh? Since when were you on a nickname basis?” 

“Whatever,” you interrupt. “What are you guys gonna do today?” 

“Beach,” Soonyoung responds brightly, with Somi’s Don’t let her change the subject! loud in the background. 

To be honest, you don’t even know the answer to her question. It just sort of happened, which seems to be the new normal for you. You’re also trying to pull apart last night–the freak-o-meter test came back inconclusive, and, for some reason, Joshua fell asleep with his arm over your middle. (Actually, you can think of a few reasons why he did that, but you’re not really sure how to feel about any of them.) 

“Ugh, I miss you guys.” You wipe at your pinkie toe, having smudged the polish beyond repair. “Drink a little extra sangria for me. And by little, I mean a lot.”  

“You’re still coming to Somi’s birthday, right?” Soonyoung asks.

“Yes, of course she is,” Somi replies. “Unless you can’t. Which I totally understand.”

“I still can,” you lie. “It just has to be more low-key than usual.” 

“No paparazzi,” Somi says. “And I'll tell everyone to keep you on the down low. Super duper down low.” 

“No way.” Damn, you curse to yourself—you keep screwing up painting your big toe. “Seriously?”

“Anything for my queen,” she giggles. “Pitbull is also confirmed, by the way. Secret Pitbull now.” 

“Good, because that’s the only reason I’m coming.” 

“Boo, you whore.” Somi wrinkles her nose at you playfully. (Is she being serious? Soonyoung asks in the background.) “Also, I'm still waiting for my update on the whole prince thing. I've been very patient.”

“No updates. Nothing to report,” you insist. Frustratingly, your cheeks are hot, like you’re in secondary school all over again. 

“You fucked him, huh?” 

You bite the inside of your cheek. 

“Halfway. Maybe.” 

The combined sound of Somi and Soonyoung’s gasps rips apart your phone speakers, and you draw in a big breath. I did it for the plot doesn’t quite seem like the right justification, not like it used to be. The plot never used to involve the M word, love, or any sort of feelings at all. Now things are more confusing than late-stage Grey’s Anatomy, but good luck explaining that over the phone.

“So you do like him,” Soonyoung says, saucer eyes sparkly on-screen.

“I don't know,” you answer. It’s true, you don’t. To you, like was flirting over text and french kissing. Paradoxically, you had told Joshua all of that, and he still decided to do whatever he did to you on the ledge of the fountain all those days ago. It felt like he ate the heart right out of your chest. Then you had to go and suck his dick, which never made anything less complicated. 

“Oh please. Look at you,” Somi laughs. “Yeah, you do.” 

Fuck. You’ve smudged all the polish off your big toe again. 

– 

Not much surprises you these days, but you can’t say you were expecting to see your riding boots to be the first thing you see when you arrive home in Cotria. 

The second thing you see is Jeonghan, smiling at you in his big, stupid riding helmet, camo-printed because he bought it when he was 15 and his head never grew much bigger since. 

“For old times sake?” He then holds your own helmet up by the straps, and whatever twinge of annoyance you had felt earlier makes way for something softer, more forgiving. “Everything's set up outside.” 

It doesn’t take you much time to take him up on the offer. If anything, a long ride usually solves all your problems, and you definitely have problems that need solving. 

You saddle up in the stables, wordlessly, moved by habit. It seems to be the same for Jeonghan, too. Even Peanut acts like it hasn’t been years since he’s seen him, and he noses at the box of sugar cubes like he always does. Then again, horses don’t hold grudges, at least, not like you do. Even Joshua seemed more optimistic about this encounter than you did. 

“So you're back back,” you say, hooking your feet in the stirrups. “Or do you have more jet-setting to do?” 

“Back back,” Jeonghan replies. “Missed home too much.” 

He cocks his head towards the old riding trail, the one that loops the long way through the woods. The gesture is but a formality—it’s the only path you ever take. Still, you follow behind his horse, watching the beige swoosh of Peanut’s tail the same way you did when you were a little girl and things were far simpler than they are now. 

Under the cornflower sky of a near-autumn, the forest seems endless. A flock of geese split the sky in two; a warm breeze haunts the canopy, scattering the afternoon light. The dirt under you is soft, peaty from the morning rain. The hoofbeats are silent today. 

Jeonghan’s horse slows so that you ride side-by-side. 

“Hey, cricket?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I…” Jeonghan clears his throat and pauses, quite unlike him. “I wanted to come out here to talk.” 

“Everything ok?” 

“Yeah, I…” Another pause. “I know things haven’t felt normal between us. For me, at least.” 

You almost drop the reins. A strange, floating feeling is set off in your body, like a flare. 

“Yeah,” you reply. “I was kinda hoping you would say that.” 

“I'm sorry.” A hard swallow. “I haven't really been the best brother, have I?” 

“Well, not…not really.” Quickly, frenetically, words bob up in the back of your mouth like you’re playing whack-a-mole. You had been waiting for this conversation to happen for so long, you realized you hadn’t planned much further than that. “It felt like you’d changed. A lot.” 

The wind feels like ribbons around you. You sway back and forth on Astrid, as if on a boat. 

“Was it the birthday party thing?” you ask. “I didn’t mean for it to…you know.” 

“Actually, that was my fault.” Jeonghan smiles bitterly. “I shouldn't have let Mom and Dad run me over like that. You should’ve been there. It was never really the same without you.” 

“Well, I should've come,” you admit. “So we both fucked up.” 

“Maybe,” he chuckles. “But the rest—definitely my fault. I made myself busy because I felt like I had to.” 

You’re growing to really hate that word. Jeonghan had to grow up, Joshua had to break up with his first love, you had to learn to pick up all the pieces of both of these things and try to fit them back into your life. 

“You didn’t even look back.” 

“I was scared, cricket. That if I kept looking back, I wouldn't be able to go forward. And I didn’t want to leave you behind, but I did. I think there was a happy middle somewhere, I just couldn’t find it.” 

“Jeonghan, you’re not really making sense right now,” you say, flattened, and he laughs. 

“I don't even know what I'm saying. I think I'm trying to say that I just want you to be happy. And that I'm sorry.” 

You bite your lip, as if to distract yourself from the strange pressure in your throat. You think you want to cry, but you’re not sure.

“But are you happy?” you ask. “With the coronation and everything? Did you even want this?” 

“I am, believe it or not. I know you don’t, but I'm not lying. Somewhere along the line, I started liking all of the talking, the traveling, the interviews. I like that I can help people. Some of it sucks, but not all of it.” He laughs, finally one that sounds like something you can remember. “Not everything you have to do is bad.” 

“Jeonghan, I'm getting married because of you. Because of this,” you say, trying to keep your voice from cracking. “I don't know how to do this. Any of this, not like you, not like Mom, or anyone.” 

This, in fact, does make Jeonghan stop. He stills and falls silent. At once, it seems the forest goes quiet too. 

“Don’t get married, then.” You don’t respond, so he says it again. “You don’t have to go through with it. Not for my sake, at least.” 

“What?” 

“I've been thinking about it ever since it happened. I can talk to everyone. You’d rather not be with the guy, right?”

Your tongue freezes in your mouth. You thought you had an answer, but it refuses to come out. 

“I have a duty to protect you, too. I’ll be fine with or without the press.” 

“Jeonghan,” you say quietly. Many moons ago, you would have laughed at the word duty, but instead, your stomach turns over and over and over. “You don’t have to.” 

“I want to,” is his simple answer. “I want to because I care about you. We can figure out the rest.” 

Something in your bones feels heavy. You’d also been waiting to hear those words, but it didn’t feel as freeing as you thought it would. You think about Joshua, his books and his perfectly placed bookmarks, his dumb dad jokes, the way he reaches for your hand, fingertips before palm. 

“Can I think about it?” 

“Of course. The engagement ball is probably happening either way, but it’s no big deal. Bigger engagements have been called off in far worse circumstances.” 

You’re having trouble believing him, but you have no other choice. Your life would certainly get a lot easier if everything were to just end. No more press releases, scripts, or awkward pictures. And no more worrying about if you could go out on the weekends or just how much of yourself to give up to make things work. 

“There's no rush.” He turns to look at you with the same wild shine in his eyes that you’d grown to miss so much. “Truce?”

That, somehow, you’re much happier to hear. You thought you’d be angrier than this, feel the usual metal-red of your gut, but all that’s left is a sobering feeling of relief, of home. At last, things feel close to normal. 

“Truce.” 

So you ride and ride, but a decision doesn’t come to you as easily as you thought. The sunset breaks; the word duty clings to you, unshakable, unrelenting. 

—

Somehow, you have gone full circle: at the end of a long day, you find yourself back at the piano, much like you did when you were seven, and the only thing you could do right was play Hot Cross Buns. 

Joshua had bought an unreasonable amount of music books, half guitar for him, half piano for you. You’d forgotten just how much you had liked playing until that night, many nights ago, when you and he had first muddled through that duet. 

Yesterday, you and your parents had tea at the waterfront before you had left the country. You were still undecided on the engagement; frustratingly, the needle hadn’t moved much in either direction since Jeonghan had raised his proposal to you. 

Congratulations, your mother had told you, right over her cup of oolong. 

For what? 

You’ve risen to the occasion. You’ve grown up. 

To you, this was not a compliment. You didn’t know what it was. You had twisted the ring on your finger, back and forth, a habit you picked up after all the time you spent wearing it. You wondered if somewhere, you had become exactly like Jeonghan, molded and spun into someone unrecognizable. Maybe that was why Joshua finally seemed to like you.

Have you practiced for your first dance? your father asked, and you no longer had time to worry about the state of your personality—you had other fires to put out. 

Really, that’s why you’re at the piano today. You thought you could play the damn tune and somehow remember all the ballroom dancing lessons you had taken when you were younger. Unsurprisingly, it hasn’t worked yet. 

There’s a knock at the doorframe. “Come in,” you say, already knowing that it’s Joshua. No one else does that; Jihoon barges in and just starts talking, and you can hear Joshua’s parents from a mile away because of all the jewelry they have on. 

“Just wanted to see what you were up to,” Joshua says. He leans against the frame of the piano, already dressed down for the night. 

“Nothing,” you reply. “Just magically hoping that I remember how to ballroom dance.” 

“Well, first things first, you can’t dance sitting down.” He chuckles, and you pull your lips tight. 

“I'm serious, Josh,” you whine. 

“You really don’t remember?” He gives you one of those looks, one that you’re quite used to now, with the judgmental wrinkle of the brow. “Didn’t you take lessons?” 

“Yeah, like…fifty million years ago.” 

“I couldn’t tell,” he says, grinning something foolish. “You don’t look a day over fifty.” Then he offers you his hand, which you take, and he easily pulls you from the bench. 

“Flattered,” you say, unable to push down the corners of your smile. “You gonna teach this senior citizen a few moves?” 

“Perhaps, as my good deed for the day.” He holds your hand, still firmly in his, and slides it up his arm to rest on his bicep. “Left hand here,” he tells you. 

“Are you flirting with me?” 

“Not yet,” Joshua laughs. “The ballroom hold ring a bell?” His other hand finds your free one, and you interlace fingers simply, easily. Then, the warmth of a hand between your shoulder blades, one that draws you to his chest. 

“I think the only dancing I know how to do is half drunk in the dark. Can’t exactly throw it back on you in front of God and country.” 

Joshua grins, a big one, and you, traitorously, feel your cheeks get prickly. 

“I wouldn't want God looking at you like that,” he teases. 

“And country’s already seen it all.” 

“They should consider themselves very lucky, then.” His eyes meet yours, lit by the scattered light of the chandelier. “It's my turn to ask you to let me lead.” 

“Fine,” you pout, noticing that familiar warmth in your stomach. 

Joshua begins to count your steps off (one, two, three—ow, that’s my foot! —sorry!). He’s patient with you, more patient than you think you deserve. His hand seems to slot perfectly into the curve of your back; his gaze settles onto you in a way that makes your chest feel heavy, molten. 

“For someone who goes out so much, you have a terrible sense of rhythm,” Joshua says, teasing. 

“Hey,” you object. “Maybe I just have a bad teacher.” 

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” 

“Well, I'm not about to blame Britney Spears.” 

Joshua laughs, and the sound is so close to you, you can feel it on your skin. 

“I still think it’s the student’s fault.” 

“Me?!” Perfectly timed, your sock-clad feet collide (yours, striped and fuzzy, his, plain white). “Impossible.” 

“Too distracting,” he murmurs, and you notice how unfairly pretty his eyes are. “You bump into me, criticize me, you look at me like that…”

You feel dizzy. You don’t know what Joshua’s doing to you, but it’s mean. Your face is warm, and normally you’d blame it all on the alcohol but you haven’t had any. Worst of all, the soft part of you, the lizard-brained, impulsive part, can’t stop thinking about his lips and how they would feel on yours.

It’s a thought you don’t let linger, much like all of the other half-thoughts you have, and you kiss him, as if it was a reprieve from the terrible, horrible way he’s making you feel. (It isn’t.) 

“You talk too much,” you tell Joshua, right against his lips. “Not enough teaching.” 

“I'm putting you in remediation.” 

“Devastating.” 

“And giving you homework.” 

“Whatever shall I do?” 

Joshua answers that question for you. He kisses you, once, twice, still not enough, and, somehow, things feel more simple than they ever had before. 

—

Jihoon’s eyes are dark, dagger-sharp in the rearview mirror. 

“We’re coming up,” he says. “A few minutes out.” 

“I know,” you answer. Yunjin was successful, almost too successful, in her task of finding you an appropriately revealing dress for a newly engaged twenty-something at the party of the year. The filmy silk stretches around your thighs; the cowl neck flirts with the neckline of the bikini top you have on underneath. 

You look good, probably better than how you’ve looked in months. And yet, for some reason, you don’t feel good, at least, not how you’d thought you’d feel on the way to the only event you’d been looking forward to this year.

Somi’s gift rattles in your lap. It’s covered in this loud, hot pink wrapping paper unbecoming of something you had spent years tracking down on the antiques circuit. Normally, you’d have a laugh with Jihoon about it, maybe take some selfies in the car, but instead, you find yourself spinning your ring around your finger like you always seem to do these days.

You think of Jeonghan, of Joshua. Of course, what you do or don’t do on your best friend’s birthday is none of their business (although, very inconveniently, Jeonghan did have some event this weekend, and Joshua was traveling). But still, you think of the boldface headlines, the whispering gossip forums, the washed-out image of you in your little dress on the cover of a cheap magazine. This wasn’t exactly a tame party, and things weren’t just about you anymore, not like they used to be. 

Marking your arrival isn’t the GPS nor Jihoon, rather, it’s the firefly buzz of the cameras outside your limo as it’s forced to come to a stop. You squint, trying to see past the tint of your windows, and see Somi, radiant in her birthday tiara, as she pushes through the crowd. Behind her is the villa she rented, illuminated by pink and gold strobe lights. 

You crack open the car door and are met with a stifling deluge of camera flashes. Music pulses through the air, enough to feel beneath your heels. 

“Who's my favorite princess?” Somi exclaims, throwing her arms open. “You made it! you look hot.” 

“Not as hot as the birthday girl,” you reply, and you let her squeeze the air out of you in a wonderful, bone-crushing hug. “What's with all the cameras?” 

“Professional photographers. Just wanted something to remember the night by, because we are blacking out.” She giggles, already tipsy. “Come, come, we’re doing shots inside.” 

“Without me?” 

“We’ll catch you up.” 

Somi drags you by the hand through the sea of people, and you watch the cameras follow as they always do. She leads you up the stairs, underneath the towering balloon display, and into the foyer, already darkened, lit only by a disco ball chandelier and the neon backlights. 

You spot Soonyoung by a champagne tower that seems twice his size, as promised. He's in a leather jacket, no shirt under, and you watch his eyes light up as they meet yours. 

“A shot for her highness,” he shouts over the music. 

“I thought this was champagne.” 

“Tequila's close enough.” He laughs, eyes upturned, bright like gemstones. 

The first shot goes down easy. It always does. So does the second, unsurprisingly. Around the third is when Somi tells you that the strippers are coming in an hour. (—Strippers?! —Not everyone has a fiancé, you know.) 

And, just like that, you’re back to the beginning. It’s hard to think over the ridiculously good Kesha mix the DJ is playing, but, terribly, you think you’re starting to understand what Jeonghan was talking about. You’re still not sure how you feel about duty, responsibility, sacrifice, those heavy words that feel impossibly heavier in your mouth, but all you know is that, as much fun as you’re having now, it comes at a fair price. 

Somi told you nothing, no compromising pictures, no drama, would reach the press, but, as hard as she may try, you feel like enough people have laid eyes on you already that someone was bound to hear something. If not now, then definitely in a few hours when everyone’s on at least two and a half substances, and all bets are off.

Briefly, you recall your appearance at the derby, the memory like a shard of glass. You had stood guileless next to Joshua, tripping over your words because you hadn’t cared enough to read the damn briefing, and he had covered it up with a dad joke or two. Coming up with those abominations must have been hard enough for someone whose first book was the Oxford Dictionary, but you don’t even think God and all his angels could cover up this. More than that, the thought of everyone having to try anyway makes your gut twist. 

Someone tells you to smile for a selfie. You recognize her, but you don’t remember her name (Amelia or Alicia, one of Somi’s friend of a friends. On second glance, there are definitely more than 200 people here). Let's dance! another voice shouts in your ear. 

Your head hurts. You hate the idea that Jeonghan might be a little right, but you hate even more that you’re starting to agree with him. Maybe you need another shot. 

“Your gift,” you say, fighting over the chorus of Your Love Is My Drug. “Somi!” 

“Oh my god, you did not!” she squeals. She clasps her hands over yours, wrapped around the box, and draws them to her. “Let me take it to the table. I’ll meet you by the pool—oh, oh, there’s a hot dog stand out there too!”

“Actually,” you start. You’re not that drunk, not yet, but now you think you can feel the ground start to sway under you. It wouldn’t be too far a stretch to say that in half an hour, after a little time at the bar, you’d probably be spending the night, no question. “I think I have to run.”

“Aw, really?” Somi tilts her head and squints, as if trying to read your mind. 

“I am so sorry,” you tell her, as sincerely as one can over a pop song from the 2000s. “Swear I'll make it up to you.” 

“Life stuff, right?” 

“Yeah.”  

“It's ok,” she says. “Really really. Go home, figure your shit out, and we can have our own party.” 

She holds your joined hands to her heart. Whatever look you gave her, she believed. That, or she knows you better than you think. 

So you leave. The car ride home is silent. Jihoon doesn’t ask questions, and you can still hear the sound of the music ringing in your ears, on and on and on. 

—

You think the worst thing you’ve ever woken up to was the Crazy Frog ringtone of one of the guys you had slept with during university. 

The second worst has got to be five voice memos and three consecutive missed Facetime calls from Somi, which is the first thing you see upon opening your eyes. 

“Oh fuck,” you murmur, still coming to. Your bed is empty, but you see Joshua's suitcase in the corner of the room. He must have come home early this morning, while you were still sleeping. 

You crack open your text messages. 

��OH MY GOD.

–I AM SO SO SORRY. 

–someone must have gotten paid off for last night’s pictures…i had no idea i swear 

Then a voice memo. Then another voice memo. then a PopCrave Twitter screenshot: YOU CAN TAKE THE PRINCESS OUT OF THE PARTY–OR CAN YOU? followed by the worst, most incriminating photo of you and Soonyoung, arms linked, throwing back a shot. 

“No, no, no, no.” You squeeze your eyes shut, feeling the stone-cold drop of your heart to your feet. “Fuck. Fuck.” 

Shit. You have to find Joshua and make it right. 

Somehow, you thought it wouldn’t matter, that you didn’t care what did or didn’t get out as long as you were able to have a good time—you desperately search for that same feeling, knowing that it’s long, long gone. You don’t even think you truly ever believed that. 

You race down the palace hallways, ones that feel far more familiar than the rigid bastions they were when you first got here, but it’s Joshua who finds you before you find him. Or rather, it’s his voice you hear, trickling out from behind the library door. 

Suddenly, you’re five again, and you’re spying on Jeonghan talking to your parents. You peek through the crack of the doorframe. As Somi would say, nightmare blunt rotation: there stands Joshua, surrounded by both sets of parents, and no one looks happy. 

“We knew it,” another voice says—your mother. “We’re sorry, but we said this would happen.” 

“It’s no matter. There’s nothing left to do but call the engagement off.” 

The room goes quiet. You notice your hands are shaking. Your face feels numb.  

“You’re right. I don't think anyone’s getting what they want out of this, anyway.” 

“We’ll cancel the ball. There’s no way around it. Likely a relief, right, Joshua?” 

The moment seems to squirm, suspended in time. This is what you were waiting for, right? Your parents were right—no one wanted this anyway. You certainly didn’t, and now you get your get out of jail free card. On top of that, you get to hear what you’d been expecting all along—that Joshua never liked you, that this was fun and all, but he’s ready to stop playing pretend. 

“I…I disagree.” You freeze. “She's my fiancée. I made a commitment to her, and I'm not going to walk away.” 

“Joshua, my dear, this arrangement was never going to work. You can be honest.” 

This is the part where Joshua nods, does his perfectly symmetric smile, and agrees. This is what he does, what he’s been doing since forever. The story always ends the same way. That was the point. 

Instead: “I am being honest. Since when was it illegal to go to your best friend’s birthday party? I don't care what the rest of the world has to say. She’s not who they, or you, think she is.” Through the door-gap, you watch the pursed, resolute draw of Joshua’s lips. “You didn’t even invite her here to talk about her own engagement. You never once gave her a chance.” 

A stunned silence falls over the room. 

 “I’m sorry, but this is how I feel. I won't let you take another girl I love from me. Not again.” 

Your hand flies over your mouth, and something twists deep in you, like you’re drowning from the inside out. You can’t, won’t, believe what you just heard. That somehow, beyond all the fighting, the quiet nights, the snide remarks and the fake smiles, that Joshua loved you? Loved? Enough to say all that to the people that ruled his life with an iron fist? None of this made sense, but nothing’s made sense since you got here. 

The room erupts into noise, peals of voices all colliding into each other, and you do what you do best—you leave. 

—

No one talks about that morning. You don’t even think anyone knows you were there—part of you wishes that you actually weren’t, so you didn’t have all this on your mind. (Joshua, later that day: I got you something from Seoul. From his suitcase, a bottle of soju. Just kidding. Then a jade bracelet, so vibrant it looked like the ocean.) No one talked about Somi, and no one talked about the party. 

In fact, everyone had just rolled on as usual, all the way to the end of the week, the day of your engagement ball. Even you did. The word love felt so big, so burdensome, when Joshua had said it to his parents, but you didn't mind it on you.

The lingering touches, late night talks, tea made the way you like—nothing really had changed much since shit hit the fan, but now you knew that was the label. You guess that when you told Joshua you had never been in love before, you were really telling the truth. Either that, or he was just saying whatever the hell he needed to stop your engagement from imploding. 

Still, you found yourself still reaching for him. There was an unfamiliar comfort about his nearness. You woke up this morning cradled to his side, and, for once, it wasn’t a scene you wanted to erase. 

Now, your hairstylist hoses your blowout down with hairspray. You’d spent the better part of this morning sitting in different chairs, hair, makeup, nails. A part of you waits for the other shoe to drop: Joshua’s mother would waltz in and tell you, Surprise! You’re a single woman again, just as you should be. 

It never happens. You’re wrapped in various mists and creams and powders, all the while fielding all the same questions about the ball (—Excited for tonight? Yeah, of course. —How does it feel being the surprise couple of the year? Surprising.)

It’s not until Yunjin comes in, wheeling in your giant, sparkly engagement gown, all Italian lace and satin brocade, that things feel real. 

The dress itself is beautiful, a pale champagne number, gathered at the waist with a smattering of crystals down the train. Earlier, when you’d first tried it on, it looked like a costume fit for the girl playing wife. It was another smothering thing that hung on you, just like everything else in your life. 

Today, you watch your form tall in the mirror. You meet her eyes, her uncertain mouth. It’s you, for sure, but there’s a stillness about you that you can’t quite put a finger on. Maybe Joshua’s demeanor was contagious. 

Yunjin laces your bodice up, careful eyelet by eyelet—“You’re nervous, huh?” 

“Is it really that obvious?” 

She laughs. “Breathe. You’re not getting married. Not yet, at least.”

“Yunjin, isn’t it weird that no one has talked to me about Somi’s birthday? Everyone on the planet saw the leaks.” 

“Maybe they finally learned to stop giving a shit. You looked hot, you had a good time, end of story. It’s not like anyone died.” 

True. She grabs your shoulders and looks at you through the reflection of the mirror. 

“Smile. Enjoy yourself. You look so, so beautiful.” You take a deep, soaking breath. You think about Joshua and all the sharp edges of his voice when he said he loved you. You had argued with him a lot, and you had never heard him like that. “You want this, right?” 

Well, when she puts it like that? Yeah, you do. You think you really do. 

—

The Great Hall is unrecognizable when you stand before it; the pink and white zinnias have been replaced by bouquets of calla lily and eucalyptus, the arched ceilings, once cold and imposing, now are bathed in the buttery, warm glow of candlelight. And the too-big space, usually empty, is now filled with partygoers, radiant in their best dress. 

You stand at the top of the grand staircase. A thrill, anxious and skittering, runs up your bones. You’re reminded of your last big public showing at the derby, of the sea of microphones and the eye of the camera and the crowd, all staring you down. 

You run through the cruel motions. First, a curtesy, so slow you think the audience can see you tremble. Then you take the first step down the stairs, and you watch them turn to you like the tanned halo-faces of sunflowers. 

There, in the center of the crowd stands Joshua, unwavering. He's wearing a deep blue tuxedo, unfairly flattering (though, the lone curl of hair falling into his eyes is strong competition). Meeting his gaze, you watch the corners of his mouth fold up in a way that reminds you to breathe. In, out. You’ve got this. 

Every step, you feel like you’re learning to walk for the first time, like you've lost your sea legs. Amongst the guests, you spot Jeonghan, next to him Jihoon. Then back to Joshua, like your eyes can’t stay away. He shoots you a covert thumbs up—you’d expect nothing less from the corniest man on Earth—but, nonetheless, it makes the long walk to the center of the room feel much shorter, despite the torture devices on your feet (Louboutins, not broken in).

One, two steps, and you’re face to face with your fiancé. Your heart is still racing, thrumming against the cage of your bodice like it's trying to escape. You’re sure the whole congregation could hear it if not for the quartet that’s come to life, now playing the opening notes of Blue Danube. 

Yes, that’s right, you tell yourself. You still have to dance in front of the whole fucking country. 

Before you crash out and make this a national emergency, you feel the warmth of Joshua’s touch. Fingertips before palm, always the same, he finds your hand, like he manages to do every single time. 

“I’ve got you,” he says, low enough for only you to hear. And for the first time, you believe him. 

—

Really, you could have gotten away with saying nothing. It would be much easier, to be honest. 

The ball had gone off without a hitch so far. The music was good, the food even better, and your parents were somehow silenced, instead opting to dance among the crowd like they were young again. Still, you can’t seem to put your mind at ease. With everything that had happened this week, Jeonghan’s offer only seemed to weigh heavier, more urgently upon you. And of course, there was the matter of Joshua choosing to opt into your engagement, against all odds. 

You realize you had gotten quite good at running away from things—your family, your responsibilities, the media, even Joshua—not knowing how to bear the weight of an impossible duty. Actually, you thought it was a royal failing until you had seen Joshua in the library that morning, jaw set, unbending. 

“Hey, Josh?” you ask, with a few bats of the eyelashes to soften the blow. 

He tilts his head in that way he does, and his gaze softens. Damn you, you think. Trying to distract me with those horrible, pretty eyes.  

“Can we talk about Sunday?” 

“What about Sunday?” He still looks confused, and you know the look well enough at this point to know he’s not faking it. 

“Um…Sunday morning. After the party,” you say slowly, as if giving yourself time to back out, just in case. “I heard you talking with our parents.” 

In an instant, his expression changes, and his eyebrows roll into their usual furrow. You feel his hand falter behind your shoulder blades. 

“Oh,” Joshua’s voice drops. “That.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say, realizing all you do is apologize. “It was supposed to be a small thing, no cameras, I barely even stayed—.”

“Hey, it’s ok,” Joshua interrupts. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” 

“I-I know,” you fib. The thing about pretending is that you’ve both become so good at it that you have trouble believing him. “It’s just that I also heard what…what you said.” 

Somehow, the wrinkle between his brows grows deeper. 

“I said a lot of things that morning.” 

You press your lips thin, feeling what you’re about to say ball up on your tongue. Easily, you could change the subject; you didn’t have to know anything, really, you could stay silent and let the world work around you, just as you had been taught. But you watch the soft twist of Joshua’s gaze, how he studies your expression, and you know you can’t go back to how things used to be. 

“You said you…” You take a hard swallow. All the blood in your body only wants to exist in the apples of your cheeks, away from your brain where you need it most. “You loved me.” 

At once, the world spins off-axis. You feel the anxious flutter of Joshua’s heart under your palm, and your own stomach flips in its cage. The L word coming out of your mouth seems ten-thousand times more ridiculous than anything he could say, probably because you can’t remember the last time you actually said it and it came out all wrong. 

He must feel the same way. For once, he can’t meet your eyes. His mouth opens and then closes, as if hoping to delete what you had just said. Maybe you would just keep dancing, beat by beat, and this would all go away.

Silly girl, you think, traitorously. Pick a damn side. Either he likes you or he doesn’t. The problem is that, somehow, both options hurt your feelings. 

“I mean, I totally get it if you just said it to keep up the act,” you cut in. “There are a lot of reasons why this is a good idea.” 

“The act?” 

“Well, yeah,” you reply. “Isn’t that what this is? Haven’t we just been lying to everyone? To ourselves?” 

Joshua’s hand at your waist stiffens before he draws you closer to him. You expect him to roll his eyes, do one of those exaggerated sighs that he does when you’re being difficult. 

Instead he leans in, close enough for you to feel his voice against your skin. 

“Do you think I was lying back there? Or now?” 

Your heart lurches. 

“I—no, but.” You pause. Every single coherent thought you’ve ever had scatters to the wind. “Well.” 

“Because I’m not,” Joshua says, this time, more softly. “Not about this. Or us.” 

“But how? Why?” You bite the inside of your cheek, feeling your chest swell in a way it never has before. “You’re perfect, and I'm…I’m me.” 

“That’s why,” he answers, simply. “You’re smart, funny, honest—sometimes too honest, even. You reminded me there was a better version of me that I had left behind. One that wasn’t perfect, but was happy.” 

He holds you in his gaze the same way he did in the garden, carved by moonlight. An impossible warmth fills your skin; at once, it feels like, in your vision, there is only him, like you're in a cartoon. 

“At the same time, I understand if—” Joshua starts. 

“I feel the same,” you blurt out. “I…I don’t know what this is, and I don’t think I ever really did, but I want to try.” 

You watch the surprise write itself all over his doe eyes, his unfairly rounded cheeks. From by the hors d'oeuvres, nosy Jeonghan peeks over the shoulder of another guest, already familiar with your lack of volume control. You watch him grin something stupid, triumphant. 

“You’re uptight, judgmental, and you make the worst jokes. But I…I think I might be falling for you too.” 

Saying it is like getting peeled back, terrible layer by layer, like you wrapped a hand around your heart and ripped it out your chest. And yet you’re glowing, newly-bitten with something that feels like freedom.  

“I thought you said I was perfect,” Joshua says, the pink of his lips already unraveling into a smile. This one, you think, finally reaches his eyes. 

“Shush, you—” And amongst a chorus of Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! (which would be, quite frankly, humiliating in any other scenario), you finally give in to your adoring public, and kiss. 

—

The walk back to your bedroom is a blur. All you remember are hands—hands on the small of your back, hands riding up the length of your thigh, hands in your hair, pulling at your roots. You remember hands, and the taste of Joshua’s mouth. 

It’s a walk you are not proud of, one that you’re glad happened in the dark, with all the guests gone home. 

“Did I tell you how beautiful you are?” Joshua says, pressed to the hollow of your neck as you fumble with the handle of the door to your room. “Couldn’t take my eyes off you. No one could.” 

Then his lips on yours, before you finally remember how to open a door. 

“Fuck, Josh,” you breathe between kisses, stumbling backwards until your back hits the vanity. “Need you, need you so bad.” 

He bites your lip, lets you sigh into his mouth. 

“Dress, off,” you tell him, and you lean forward on the table. Obediently, Joshua gets to work. His touch feels fiery, electric on your skin. 

In the mirror, you’re able to see the damage: your lipstick, smudged beyond repair, your blown-out pupils under your heavy lashes. There’s a hickey on your collarbone. 

“Now you have me wishing you'd wear one of those party dresses,” Joshua murmurs, still working at the lacing at your waist. “Far easier to take off.” 

“Really. The same ones that got me in big trouble with you lot?"

"For what it's worth," he replies, before kissing the back of your neck, then the ticklish space under your ear to make you laugh. "I always liked you in those. Even before we met." 

"No way." He’s finished with the lacing; your dress falls to your feet in a glorious heap of silk and lace, leaving you in your slip. Another kiss to your jaw, your cheek. "You hated them." 

"I almost bought a copy of Insider, the one with the cover of you in the black dress with the long sleeves." 

"Shut up," you laugh again, somewhere in between kisses. He’s talking about Soonyoung's New Year’s Eve party, a few years back. You were getting out the back of a cab, alcohol-flushed and on a phone call with God knows who. "I still have it, you know. I could wear it for you one of these days." 

"Don't tempt me." Joshua kneels, bending down to undo your heels. You feel him press his lips to the back of your knee, your thigh. “Friday. Dinner?” 

“Done.” 

Then he stands back to full height and leans into you, just so you can feel him. Like clockwork, your skin prickles wonderfully even just thinking about blowing him in the back of the limo, that night he had held you down on his cock. 

Joshua must see how you squeeze your legs together. He pushes your slip up over the curve of your ass; you feel the rough of his hands over your skin, over the flimsy lace you have on for underwear. Then, before you can say a word, he pulls the waistband back, meanly, enough to tug on the hood of your clit, and lets it snap back against your skin. 

“Oh, fuck,” you keen. You had no idea you were so sensitive, but Joshua’s foreplay game was way better than you thought. “Please, Shua.” 

“Oh? So you like when I'm a little mean?” 

You watch your face in the mirror flush pink, your bitten lips fall open in surprise. He pulls tight on your panties again, loving how your eyes squeeze shut. 

“Maybe.” You pause, humiliated. Fuck it, the cat’s already out of the bag. “Yeah.” 

Joshua’s hands are warm, so warm, when they peel the fabric down your trembling thighs. 

“Legs apart, darling,” he tells you, mouth pressed to your shoulder. “So you like to boss me around the castle, but now you want me to tell you what to do? Is that so?” 

Before you can answer, you feel a finger along the seam of your cunt. You can’t see Joshua’s face in the mirror, but you can sure see yours, and you hate how even the smallest of touches has you drooling. Then a touch to your swollen clit, just rough enough to draw a gasp from you. 

 “I-it’s different,” you protest. Two fingers now, both rolling your clit under them. A whimper tumbles out of your chest, and your hips seem to be moving on their own accord. “Didn’t know you had…experience.” 

“Still not sure what made you think otherwise.” A quiet chuckle, then the slow, agonizing push of one of his fingers inside you. “Fuck, you love that, huh? Soaking my hand.”

“Yeah…” The vanity table suddenly feels too crowded to support the weight of your body, especially like this, as Joshua continues to work your clit with his other digit. Feeling your body surge again with heat, you push aside your makeup bag, all your stupid little bottles, so you can prop yourself up on your arms.

Another finger, and your legs are shaking. Quickly, he seems to have figured out how to hit your g-spot every time, every pump of his hand knocking into you just the way you like.  

“I think it was how annoying you were that did you in,” you finally answer, trying your best to put up a fair fight. “Kinda detracts from your sex appeal.” 

“Annoying?” Joshua asks, right up against the shell of your ear. Like this, you can see him in the mirror, and it almost sends you over. The dark hair in his face, the insatiable look in his eyes. Then a third finger, and your eyes roll back. “Am I annoying you? Doesn’t really seem like it.” 

Your body answers for you. You feel yourself tighten around his fingers, fuck, you’re so close, you feel your head start to spin. You watch your reflection shake her head, glassy-eyed and dumb. 

He laughs cruelly. His free hand reaches up to find your tits, and, over the slip, he grabs one, rough like he’s a meaner man, like he’s slutting you out. 

At once, you feel the lightning heat of your release. You cry out, airy and high-pitched, and feel your body rock against Joshua’s as he pins you between himself and the vanity. 

“There you go,” he murmurs. His hand slows, letting you ride out your high, before he pulls out. “Wanted to do this ever since I kissed you that night.” 

“Which night?” you ask, catching your breath. A kiss to your shoulder blade, the nape of your neck. 

“The night you taught me to kiss. Or rather, tried to.” 

Ah, yes. The night you told him what Shark Tale was, and the night you made out for so long, you felt it on your lips in the morning. Dumb fucking Joshua, stupid and in love. The affection that surges through your body makes you mad. 

“You needed lessons.” 

“Not really, don’t you think?” 

“Bed. You’re talking too much,” you insist, turning around to see him. “Also, you’re wearing too much.” 

“Back to arguing with me, I see. Can’t stay away.” Joshua’s shit-eating grin prompts you to yank his tie impatiently, shutting him up. It comes off easily, just as his belt and the waistband of his slacks. (You weren’t about to let them best you a second time).

“Maybe ‘cause you find a way to be difficult about everything.” You wrinkle your nose, and Joshua’s grin only grows wider. “Don’t make me give you another order,” you warn, fully aware that since you guys got here, it’d been him doing the orders. 

You pull your slip over your head, now only in your bra, and lay back in the bed. You think of all the sleepless nights, then the ones spent talking, the ones in his arms. To think they would all culminate to this, to you now watching Joshua undo button by button with a desire unlike any other you’ve felt—it would almost be unbelievable if you weren’t doing it right now.

Like a striptease, you watch his chest peek out between the linen of his shirt. He's wearing a necklace today, one that settles meanly between his pecs. As he moves lower, you can’t help but notice the outline of his cock in his briefs, the spot of precum on the fabric. 

Traitorously, you feel your mouth water. The shirt comes off, and your lungs fill with another shaky breath. 

You know you’re both letting your freak flag fly (one of you more surprising than the other) but it’s in this moment, caught in the lamplight, that you realize how much things have really changed. Still, you’re not able to tell Joshua that this is the first time you’re sleeping with someone you might be in the L word with, but you think he sees it too, or at least, reads the look on your face. 

You feel the dip of the bed underneath as he joins you.

“Are you ok? That wasn’t too much, right?” 

“No, it was…it was good. really good,” you admit, feeling your face heat up again. “I just…I dunno. I like you a lot, that’s all.” 

“Hm?” 

“I—” you stutter, and your mouth freezes up again. “I said I like you a lot.” 

“Sorry, I just wanted to hear you say it twice.” He sees the dismay on your face and smiles. “Hm…I like you an adequate amount. On a good day.” 

Against your will, you crack the fattest smile you think your body is capable of. “You are the worst. The absolute worst, and I still want you to fuck me.” 

Upon hearing this, Joshua does not waste time. That he does—it isn’t long before he has your knees hiked to your chest, cock between your pussy lips. 

“Say you want it,” he whispers. You feel the cold kiss of his chain on your chest, the slick rock of his length between your legs. He's so hard, so big, your cunt already aches at the thought of it. 

“Want it.” Your voice comes out small, breathy. You would fight back, but you’re realizing you quite like this side of him. “Please.” 

When the head of his cock presses into you, there is no hiding. Already, you moan, sweet and loud, feeling the familiar pressure in your gut. 

“K-keep going,” you babble. Fuck, he barely fit in your mouth and now he’s stuffing your cunt. You wrench your eyes shut, listening to him talk you through it (—Look at you taking me so well. Feels good, huh? You’re so beautiful. Honestly, it’s a miracle Joshua’s ex never had a royal baby with how much they must have fucked.) 

Your second orgasm comes quickly, not long after Joshua bottoms out. He groans right in the space where your neck meets your shoulder, and it’s the best noise you think you’ve heard in your life. 

The third comes slowly, more intensely. With your knees to your chest, you think you can feel Joshua all the way in your stomach. Every stroke fucks the sound out of you, his cockhead right up against your sweet spot as he fills you again and again. Sometime between orgasm two and three, he’s pulled your tits out from your bra, left marks across your chest. 

“Want you to touch yourself,” he tells you, voice low.

Mindlessly, you listen. One hand finds your nipple, the other your clit, and you let yourself get lost in the feeling. 

“F-feels good, Shua.” He enters you again, all the way, and the pleasure is white-hot. “O-oh, fuck,” you warble. 

“You’re so good at listening to me, you should do it all the time,” he murmurs. “There you go. Take it, take it, just like that. This must be what I have to do to get you to be nice, hm?” 

All you can do is stare up at him, positively fucked dumb, and take it, just as he told you to. One, two strokes, and you feel yourself get impossibly tight; “Fill me, need it, need it,” you whine, delirious. Everything from the look in his eyes, the flushed sweat over his brow, his collarbones to the way his expression responds with every word you say, makes you wonder why you wasted time fucking anyone else.

When he comes, he bites your shoulder, hard, and it’s what you need to follow soon after. You feel so fucking full, so satisfied, you think you could die happy here. 

Joshua flops down on the bed next to you, boneless. You think he’s about to say something akin to that you should have put a towel down, but he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls your body to him, lets you feel the warmth of his skin play against yours. 

He’s murmuring wonderful things to you, which you would gladly reciprocate if words weren’t coming to you one letter a minute. It’s not your fault though—you need to recover physically, emotionally, spiritually after getting the soul fucked out of you.

Then, “Me or you shower first?”

You groan as a response. 

“I’m serious.” 

“Together?” you offer weakly. 

“Fair chance we won’t just be showering then.” 

“Oh nooo.” 

That’s all Joshua needs to whisk you to the bathroom, where, indeed, he seems to be right yet again. 

—

The spring morning washes over Acros like a second skin. The birdsong rouses you; through the curtains comes sunlight from the garden, spackled on the wall as if spots on a doe. 

It’s been almost a year since your parents had told you that you were marrying Joshua Hong, prince of Acros. Six months since he had told you he had loved you. Two months since you and Jeonghan had pulled off your first joint production at the youth theater (a roaring success). One month since you were fully, fully moved in, Astrid and Jihoon included. 

After your engagement ball, you and Joshua had agreed to take it slow, as slow as two people who had very publicly announced their wedding could. But still, somehow your parents, both sets, could tolerate the two of you wanting to do things the right way. Perhaps they were still shocked things worked out as well as they did. 

“Morning,” you call out. The bed beside you is cold. “Josh?” 

You’re surprised he’s up. Last night, he went out with you, Somi, and Soonyoung. Somehow, he had drunk enough to get up and solo karaoke a Whitney Houston song, although you’re suspecting the alcohol was just a cover for his true intentions. 

Then you look out the window. You spot Joshua, seated on the bench overlooking the garden. This time of year, the roses are in full bloom, their bright heads reaching for the sky in brilliant red and gold. 

When you go to join him outside, he’s no longer at the bench. You actually don’t know where the fuck he went, but it’s no matter. Here, you’re able to appreciate the beauty of the season, the rolling green of the country you’re now calling home. 

It was also here where you had your first real conversation with Joshua without fighting, funnily enough. Now, you’d say the both of you were more agreeable, but that’d be a lie—somehow, you think you actually enjoy bickering with him, but that’s a conversation for another day. 

Behind you, someone (Joshua) clears his throat. 

“Now, what are you—” you say, spinning around. It was too damn early for games, but Joshua had no shortage of bad ideas. 

It’s then that you see Joshua behind you, on one knee. His smile tells you everything you have to know, and every thought in your mind freezes in an instant. 

“When I first saw you, I knew I would marry you,” he starts. That's a joke he’s probably been saving for months now, but instead of rolling your eyes, you can’t help but laugh, like you’re a broken soundboard. “No, really.” 

You stand there, immovable. Of course you had to be in your pajamas (his shirt and boxers, really), no makeup, hair untouched. And yet, you can’t imagine anything more perfect. 

“You drive me crazy,” Joshua continues. “In every way possible. I can't imagine life without your laugh, or your thinking face, or how you always need to have an answer for everything.” 

He produces a small box. It’s different from the first one, the one he used all those months ago when nothing mattered. Inside it, a new ring, something far simpler and more beautiful.

Joshua says your name, wonderful and reverent in his mouth. “Darling princess of Cotria, I'm asking you to marry me. Again.” 

And you say yes, for the very first time.

[END]

[anundyingfidelity]

BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS — Billy Butcher, Soldier Boy

Summary: A normal night where Butcher and his new pal, Soldier Boy, fuck just their stress out with a new toy, you.

Pairing: Billy Butcher x female reader x Soldier Boy

Word count: 1.5k.

Warnings: porn without plot, dom!butcher, dom!ben, one thought of dub-con but not really, double penetration, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, rough sex, vaginal sex, anal sex, unsafe sex (creampie and switching holes basically don't do it, this is just porn), squirting, dirty talk, blowjobs, facial, degradation (usage of whore, slut, etc.), cumplay, some dacryphilia, choking, hair pulling, blood, mentions of violence, Ben and Butcher being kinda jerks, normal misogyny coming from SB, some ego competition, hints to aftercare.

Notes: You already know english is not my main language, not betad and barely revised, lol sorry for the mistakes in here. The amount of horniness I have for these two I swear is not fucking normal. Normally I'd apologize for writing this, but I'm ovulating.

the boys/jackles tags: @k-slla

☕ if you like my writing, support me with a ko-fi !

GEN MASTERLIST!

A pair of rough hands held your legs open. Your empty pussy was throbing as Butcher knelt between your thighs rubbing the tip of his cock against your cunt.

You gasped, the man behind you spreading you further for his new team mate to get better access while he fucked your ass senseless. His cock reaching all the right spots. You moaned loudly, almost screaming when Butcher finally pushed inside you. Soldier Boy never seemed to cease his insane thrusts from behind.

"Luv, you're so fucking tight," Butcher grinned, your walls engulfing him perfectly.

They both soon set up a rhythm, one pushing in while the other almost slide out of your hole. Each stroke of their massive cocks inside you exploded something you never felt before. It was a new kind of spark eliciting from the deepest places, and you wanted to come undone there, over and over, forever, between their strong bodies.

"Oh, fuck! Yes right there, god!" you growled, screamed, and cried out incoherences as the two men continued fucking you to bliss.

A layer of sweat covered your skin and you rolled your eyes back, the familiar knot on your belly building up yet again. You didn't have an idea of how much time had passed since you arrived back to the dirty motel. All three of you arrived covered in blood, dirt and the weight of murder, and you still let them take you and you welcomed them the same way. You let them have fun with you however they pleased.

The last thing you remembered from that night was coming back from a mission. Your aching body begging for a shower and good sleep, but Butcher and the new supe found other ways to take their own stress out. You doubted at first. Of course you didn't know it could feel this good. They left bite marks all over your neck, nipped your tits, spanked your thighs open for their mouths to devour you while the other fucked your throat until tears streamed down your cheeks.

They continued bruising and marking your skin. Like a canvas, they left their prints, covering your flesh with different colors all over and used your mouth and pussy as they fucking wanted, granting access to the other, spreading your legs, manhandling you all over the disgusting, shitty room. Then Soldier Boy had the idea of using your ass, just for him, and at first, you were fucking scared. It was all too much. But once he had you ready and stretched enough with his fingers, you quickly fell for his rough touch and his dick, which was as huge as his ego. He was fucking addictive. Both were, in fact, fucking you amazingly hard.

One of Ben's hand wrapped around your neck, climax reaching its peak as Butcher rubbed your clit with his thumb. Your walls clenched around both of them and the vulgar sound of your pussy filled the place along with their skin hitting yours.

"Little slut, gonna cum for us?" Ben said, voice full of lust, pressing your back against his bare chest. You clenched again, his dark chuckle enhanced heaven down your cunt.

Wetness increased between your legs, and you moaned. Louder than ever. The whole place might already know what was happening in the room, but neither Ben or Billy made you shut up. In fact, they wanted you to scream your lungs out.

"Oh, she's definitely gonna cum," Butcher followed, a smirk on his lips. "C'mon sweetheart, don't be shy. Give us one more."

"I-I feel like- fuck!" with a loud cry you squirted all over them, their dicks sliding out of your holes. Shit, that was the harderst you came for the night.

Immediately you tried to close your shaky legs, but Butcher's hands held you in place, pussy clenching around nothing as your fluids coated their hard lenghts and thighs.

"Fucking hell. I'm gonna break you, sugar," Ben hissed, taking your legs and fixing your position on top of him, sliding you down his dick, but this time he claimed your pussy, pistoning in and out of you without any mercy. Even if your body still trembled and you were so fucking overstimulated. You moaned.

Butcher tskd as he watched you, tears streaming down your face and lost in pleassure. "That was mine, pal."

"Yeah, I don't give a fuck- Jesus, she's fucking tight!" Ben hoarsed.

He didn't care about Butcher, he just wanted to fuck you until you passed out and his name was the only thing on your mind.

You whimpered softly. "Please, please," you were getting there again, under the brunette man's dark eyes as the soldier fucked you insane.

But before you reached that sweet peak again, Ben pulled out of you. His strenght forced you to bend over the matress on your hands and knees, Butcher positioned himself right in front of your face. It was so fast and they moved quickly, like a dance already choreographed between them to take advantage of all you got to give.

"Open wide, baby" Butcher ordered. You complied happily, letting his cock touch the back of your throat smoothly.

Ben's rough hands gripped your hips, down your ass, giving a spank on one of your cheeks, making you jump slightly. He grabbed your ass cheeks spreading them to expose your hole, the tip of his cock teased your ass until he slid in a swift motion. You whimpered with your mouth stuffed. He filled you up perfectly and you fucking loved it.

"Such a good cumslut, taking my cock so fucking well," Ben praised, voice husky. He roughly gripped your hair, forcing yourself down more around Butcher's shaft. You gagged, he smirked. "Might just keep you around as my little, personal fuckdoll."

"Fuck- easy there, mate," Butcher warned, as you worked your tongue and lips on his cock as much as you could. "We have another deal, remember?"

Ben smirked cockily at him as you clenched around his cock. You let out a moan muffled by Butcher fucking your mouth. Both their thrusts harder than ever. "Still, I don't give a shit."

Ben's gaze admired you, hands on your hips, as he watched himself shoving into your hole. "You're gonna fucking cum again, you dirty little bitch," he ordered.

"Mmm..." You nodded as best as you could with the twitching cock on your mouth.

Butcher suddenly pulled out of your mouth, a string of saliva leaked down your lips to the tip of his cock. He kept your head in place as much as he could and jerked himself off with his other hand. He came with a hard groan all over your pretty face. His white seed painted your cheeks, lips and your tongue sticking out as you shut your eyes.

"Bloody hell, don't you look ravishing," Butcher whispered darkly. His thumb collected his cum, now mixed with your tears and a small stain of dry blood on your face. He dragged it to your lips so you could taste it. Your plump lips closed around his finger with a moan.

"Insatiable slut, just how I like them," Ben hissed, pulling out of your asshole, making you whimper. "Now, I'm gonna cum inside this pretty little pussy."

He rubbed the tip of his dick on your slit and entered slowly. You felt every inch stretching you out and he slammed into you brutally, he was so fucking close. You could feel it. It surprised you how much they actually endured, their stamina was endless and you lost count of how many times they made you cum already. And yet, you felt that precious sensation anew, soft walls clenching repeatedly around him.

"C'mon whore," Ben gripped on your hair, pulling your back against his muscular chest, taking both your wrists with his other hand. "Cum around my cock."

Your cunt pulsed, he grunted. And you came, again, with shaky legs, shaky breath and the sight of a naked Butcher, who already had taken a seat on the couch in front of the bed. Your orgasm triggered Ben's, and he filled you up completely. You cried out when his fingers found your clit, the grip on your hair long gone now. He continued fucking his cum inside you, balls deep, until he started to soften inside you. His thrusts slowed down little by little.

Ben finally pulled out, letting go of your wrists and you collapsed on your hands and knees on the mattress. He spread out your pussy with his fingers and admired his white cum dripping out of you.

"Well, that was a fucking ride," he smiled. His middle finger wiped his seed and forced it back inside your pulsing cunt. "Fuck, where do you find these kind of women?"

Butcher shrugged. "I have my contacts."

"I'm still here, y'know," you breathed out, rolling on your back.

Ben hovered over your tired figure. Messy hair, cheeks stained with Butcher's cum, teary eyes, and some dry blood spots decorated your face. They did break you and put you back into pieces. He was damn proud of that. He leaned down and sucked into the skin of your neck. You moaned, your fingers tangled on his scalp as his lips carressed your neck, his beard burning on your soft skin.

"Ben, I'm tired," you said, and he stopped his kisses. He shared a suspicious look with Butcher and then locked his lustful green eyes with yours.

The supe winked at you. "Later, doll."

You rolled your eyes and heard Butcher standing up.

"Gonna prepare you a bath, luv," he said as he disappeared inside the bathroom. "Have to take good care of ya."

[cookies-after-dark]

S Anon reporting for duty 🫡 rambling to you with something MUCH sweeter as a black sapphire enthusiast !!!!

Okay but like imagine if he caught feelings for us, my god he'd probably be even more frustrated, he'd HATE it but he didn't exactly "HATE" the feeling if you catch my drift, suddenly the hate fucking occasionally get softer- the slut shaming almost toned down but his grip is hard as he's plowing us down but he's muttering things we can barely catch but it sounded so soft and said in a loving tone.

He catches himself before he goes too far and strangles us again though and back to shaming he goes 🫡 maybe he stays awake while we're curled up by his side fast asleep after everything, wondering how the hell this happened (catching feelings)

(additional tags: explicit content,

(ships: black sapphire cookie x reader, hints of shadow milk cookie x reader)

Honestly, I've been writing Black Sapphire Cookie to be so aggressive and jealous on this blog so far, but after rewatching his scenes in episode 8, I feel like that purple dude is a pretty good caretaker and is more than capable of caring for other cookies! Not that I thought he had no feelings before, but I really paid attention to how much he cares for Shadow Milk Cookie and Candy Apple Cookie. His pleasantness is not just for show around those two.

That, coupled with the fact that he genuinely just enjoys entertaining you, I can see him getting used to you quickly enough if Shadow Milk Cookie truly established you as part of the "family".

Don't get me wrong, Black Sapphire Cookie still greatly enjoys being in control. He loves to be the 'host' out of the two of you. It just feels rightnto have himself cater to you in a way in which he takes care of you, not the other way around. He likes being in charge. He likes knowing the script and having you play along.

But Black Sapphire Cookie's dominant nature slowly transitions from "pushing around the lowest member of the hierarchy to teach a lesson" to "caring and providing for the newest addition to the family and giving them lots of entertainment to laugh at". Black Sapphire Cookie finds himself bringing you things he'd think you'd enjoy more, telling you more funny jokes and swapping more stories of his times out in Earthbread.

He goes from "Candy Apple Cookie...! ...Oh, it's you." to "Oh, it's you!" and having the realization that something has changed gives Black Sapphire a very hysterical "Oh shit." moment.

It's not that hard to notice that Black Sapphire Cookie actively seeks you out more, instead of just leering at you from afar. The way he rubs himself up against you and roams his bands over your body is less possessive and more affectionate now. Even the way he fucks you so thoroughly is more intimate than ever before, with more thought and care put into it rather than just using your body as a toy.

Candy Apple Cookie and Shadow Milk Cookie both think it's just so hilarious. Shadow Milk Cookie even gives helpful tips and tricks on sensual lovemaking unprompted, pushing the two of you together and saying, "You kids be safe, now! Remember to practice safe sex!" (despite the fact that he shares you).

If you ask, Black Sapphire Cookie will just smile sweetly for you and deflect to something else. "What, you think I'm hiding something from you? Perhaps we could make a game out of it, if you're willing."

That's okay. You know the truth, and so does he. Neither of you have to say it out loud to know that you've gained another loyal companion.

[wbbpls]

Platonic Plus One

Chapter 1

For purposes of the story line I made people up but our Uconn girlies will still make appearances!

Paige and Azzi became best friends instantly. They met during USA basketball in high school and have been inseparable ever since. They easily mixed their friend groups and families, as if they’d always been in each other's lives. So when Azzi was asked to be a bridesmaid in her cousin Jessica's wedding, bringing Paige along was a no-brainer.

Jessica and her high school sweetheart Brandon were well-versed on all things Paige and Azzi at this point and weren’t shocked at Azzi asking Paige to be her plus one.

Storrs, CT

“Paigey please go with me? I don’t want to show up alone and if you don’t go I’m just going to be texting you the whole time.”

Paige pauses her game and places her controller down. “I don’t know Az. I don’t want to intrude. Like I know I’m not tight with Jess like that, but don’t you think I would have been invited if they wanted me?”

“Uh no because they gave me a plus one, which I’m sure my family knows means you. You have to remember his Mom has been weirdly involved in the planning and she’s more traditional about this stuff.”

Paige moved to sit at the edge of her bed with her feet dangling off the side. “So then wouldn’t they want you to bring like a real date?”

Azzi knows she got her title of people’s princess with her sweetness and innocence…so why not use it to her advantage? She moved to stand between Paige’s legs and rests her hands on Paige’s hips (in a very platonic way of course). “P c’mon please? For me? I just really don’t want to go alone and deal with commentary from my family.“

Paige looked down at Azzi’s big brown eyes and melted. The truth is, Paige would kill to be Azzi’s date. The issue is that Azzi is straight, so she shoved those feelings down a long time ago. Also, she isn’t asking Paige to be her date, just her friend to accompany her. “Yeah, okay, whatever, Az. Just tell me what to wear.”

Azzi wrapped her arms around Paige’s neck jumping up and down in excitement. “Yay thank you Paigey! We’re gonna have so much fun I promise.”

——————————

KK and Caroline tag along for wedding shopping. KK stayed with Paige while Caroline and Azzi went to pick up her bridesmaid dress at another shop.

“Damn dude you lookin mighty fine.”

Paige is trying on a light blue suit, making her eyes pop, with the jacket being slightly oversized. Under the jacket is a black vest with a deep v at the top and showing skin at the bottom. Paige has always been comfortable showing skin and trying new styles, so here’s to hoping Azzi approves.

“You think? I’m feeling’ it forreal, but Azzi gotta like it too.”

“Ah yes the girlfriend stamp of approval.” KK says with a knowing smirk.

Paiges eyes bulge out of her head. “Bro what the hell! She could walk in at any minute.”

“Alright I’ll chill but how are you gonna do this for a whole week?”

“Do what? I’m just going with my best friend to a wedding”

“You mean doing what normally people in a relationship do?”

“You don’t think I thought about that?” Paige scream whispers. “But I can’t say no to her and I need to get over whatever I’ve been feeling so maybe a week hanging out as friends will be good.”

“Just don’t get yourself hurt P boogers.”

Paige just sighs and takes in KK’s words while looking at the suit. Suddenly she hears giggling that she’d recognize anywhere.

Caroline is the first to walk in talking about who knows what. “And then she was like—oh my god Paige you look so good!”

Paige smiles at them and notices Azzi just staring at her. “Thanks Car…uh Azzi what do you think?”

Azzi swallows hard. “Uh yeah no I mean great you look uh yeah good.“ Everyone looks at Azzi confused.

“Oh I mean if you don’t think it’s good I totally have some other options it’s cool really.”

Azzi shakes her head and moved forward quickly. “NO! I mean no it’s fine, really this is perfect. I was just uh caught off guard, it looks really good, P”

At this point Caroline and KK are eyeing each other understanding the complicated relationship of the girls in front of them. Paige has spent countless nights crying to KK, praying her and Azzi could be more. Caroline has tried to talk to Azzi about how different their relationship is. When Azzi pushes back, Caroline alwaya brings up the friends don’t get jealous of their friends hooking up with other people. Azzi always has a myriad of excuses of why those girls just aren’t good enough for Paige and changes the conversation.

“Cool cool…well uh I’ll go buy this then.” Paige says trying to hide her blush. She takes off the jacket and begins unbutton the blazer as she enters the changing room. Now Azzi is the one to get red. “No I’ll buy it! I’m the one making you go.”

Before Paige could protest Azzi was running to the front to buy the suit. The three girls left standing there stood in an awkward silence until Paige finished changing back into her normal clothes. Caroline joined Azzi at the front to make sure the flustered girl was okay.

When Paige exited the changing room KK gave her a knowing look. Paige rolled her eyes and started the gather her stuff and checked her phone.

“I mean that girlfriend approval amiright?” KK says as she wiggles her eyebrows.

“Girlfriend?” Azzi finally composed walked in on the last part of KK’s words and is unfortunately back to little composure. Was Paige talking to someone and she didn’t know? Did Paige send a picture of her outfit to some girl?

“What no? No one has a girlfriend she’s just playin.” Paige says with very little conviction.

“Yeah you know me always playin! But like if there was a girl that would be cool too right?” Paige elbows KK in the stomach to try to get her to shut up.

“Yeah that’s great, P. Can’t wait to hear all about her. Uh we should probably get going to beat traffic.” Azzi says with a shaky voice yet flashes Paige one of her signature smiles and walks towards the exit.

Paige can already tell this will easily be one of the longest weeks of her life.

[jnnul]

tokyo 1988

a/n: oh my god. everything hurts. when i say that this fic took it all out of me...i mean it. i learned as much from this fic as i healed. love is never easy and first love especially is so difficult. but there will always be a way to get up. special thank you to hua @polarisjisung for reading this monster of a fic and loving it with me! quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

word count: 29.5k (i'm so sorry...)

tags: girlboss neuroscientist!y/n x her resident!riki x ex!jungwon, she's a complicated one, lot to be learned and a lot of hurt to be experienced there’s a lot of soul searching in this one, i poured my heart and soul into this please love her the way i do warnings: mentions of sex, alcohol, death, pregnancy, family trauma, relationship trauma

[tokyo, 1988]

you stand outside the tokyo international airport, rubbing your shoulders to bring some warmth into them. you knew to bring a thicker jacket but somehow, it had completely slipped your mind when you left seoul. 

of course, you were otherwise occupied when you left so leaving behind a jacket was really the least of your concerns. 

your gaze strays upward as you wait, looking at the downcast skies and quite threatening clouds. they’re angry and a deep gray that makes you more and more sure that it was going to rain soon. 

you’d forgotten your umbrella with your coat. of course.

you check the watch on your wrist sullenly as you continue to wait. it was already half past two, meaning that yang jungwon was a good twenty minutes late. which would be concerning, considering how punctual the man was, but for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to be upset with him. 

it’s hard to be mad at someone you’d been in love with once - no matter how it ends. 

just as you’re about to head back inside to make a phone call to jungwon’s office to get a hold of him, an unfamiliar toyota pulls up to the curb of the airport pick up area. jungwon rolls down the window and your breath catches in your throat when you see him.

he’s a little bit more masculine than he was from your memory. a little more filled out, with more muscle than baby fat that had all but melted off of his body. he’d grown out his hair a bit, long enough that he had to shake it out of his eyes. his eyes were a little more tired but still full of life, just as you remembered. 

“long time, no see,” he quips, offering you a slight smile - one that you reciprocate. 

“it’s only been four years,” you point out as he exits the driver’s side to help you load your bags (the only two that you had) into the back of the car. 

when he’s shut the door to the backseat, he turns to look at you and you suddenly realize that he’d somehow grown even taller. you hesitate for a moment before stepping forward, and jungwon envelopes you into a gentle, tender hug.

“a lot can happen in four years, y/n,” jungwon says softly into your hair. you don’t say anything, not trusting your voice to speak without giving way to the tears threatening to slip from your eyes. but you know he knows by the way his grip on your frame grows just the slightest bit more firm before he lets you go. 

you try not to think about the implications of the fact that it almost physically hurts to see him pull away, as he took his warmth with him. 

jungwon opens the passenger side door for you, closing it gently when you’ve sat down and settled in your seat. 

he pulls out of the airport pick up area, merging onto the highway with ease - as though he’s done this many times before. he’s gotten used to tokyo, with the winding roads and the traffic that far exceeds seoul’s own traffic. your heart grows tight in your chest before you remind yourself that you’ve lost all right to feel anything anymore. 

“have you told hyewon that i’m in tokyo?” you ask after a couple minutes of jungwon driving in silence. jungwon hesitates before nodding.

“yes. she knows you’re in tokyo,” jungwon concedes. you sigh, leaning back into the seat.

“i’m sorry i couldn’t make it to your wedding,” you say. jungwon just shakes his head as he takes an exit off of the highway.

“it’s alright. i’m sorry to hear about your grandmother,” he says and you just turn to look at the scenery outside. there’s a slight drizzle as you and jungwon drive through the busy streets of tokyo that slowly morph into less busy residential areas.

“she missed you,” is all you have to offer in comfort. jungwon sighs, closing his eyes when the car rolls to a stop due to the traffic. 

“i’ve missed her - and your grandfather - too,” he confesses and somehow, the words bring more sadness than happiness that jungwon still cared for the past that the two of you shared - even if he didn’t care about you as a person anymore.

“i’m sorry.” jungwon stares at the road in front of the two you with a particularly confused look and you know that the look is meant for you. 

“for everything,” you continue, pressing forward with your eyes focused on the landscape outside, not once looking at jungwon, who sounds as though he’s about to protest. “for not coming to the wedding. for not telling you about my grandma. for not explaining anything before i called because i needed a place stay. for not being a good girlfriend while i had you. and - and for still loving you even when i have no right to anymore.”

jungwon is silent, and you know you’re not being fair to him at all. but jungwon is the one person that you’ve always been truthful with, even when it’s not fair and you know it’s not fair. because he’s the only person you’ve ever loved and quite possibly the only person you will ever love. 

“it’s not your fault,” jungwon promises.

he puts the car in park as you pull up to a standalone home near the outer ring of the city. 

somehow, the fact that he’s not upset with you the same way that you were upset with him makes you want to cry just a bit more. 

you get out of the passenger seat once jungwon unlocks the door, hesitating before stepping out. 

the house is nice - especially considering how expensive homes were this close to the city. it was two stories tall, with a well maintained lawn and a couple of rose bushes that lined the path to the front door. the entire house was white and gray, painted a color that was muted but somehow still lively against the dark tokyo skies. 

it was picture perfect. just like jungwon.

and jungwon and hyewon’s marriage. 

“come on, y/n,” jungwon says, carrying both of your bags. he’s standing at the point where the driveway gives way to the entrance of the home and for some reason, you want to take a picture of him like this. in front of this perfect home, looking every inch the man you’d fallen in love with as a young woman. 

maybe you could look back at the picture later, pretending that it was your house that you’d bought with jungwon. if you closed your eyes shut tightly and tried hard enough, you could imagine browsing houses until you found one that you and him both like. you could imagine making sure that the neighborhood was connected to a good schooling system for your future children. you could imagine waking up in bed next to jungwon everyday, knowing that it wasn’t a luxury to be able to do so because he was the man you’d married.

you open your eyes.

jungwon is standing in the entrance of the doorway turned to look at you, where jo (yang, you have to correct yourself) hyewon is standing with him, watching you.

[seoul, 1982]

“what would you do if we broke up?” you asked, playing with jungwon’s fingers. you already knew what jungwon’s answer would be but you can’t help the question anyway, needing to hear it from him.

“we’re not going to break up,” he said gently, shifting to look at you but you continued to stare up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle in the dead of the night. you’re not supposed to be on the rooftop of one of the college lecture halls with him like this but you figured that if you weren’t rebellious in the last few months of college, you’d never get the chance to do it again.

“but if we did,” you persisted, letting him weave his gentle and calm fingers with your own restless ones. “what would you do?”

jungwon was silent, the same way he was every time he was in deep in thought. it was one of the things that you loved about him the most; jungwon never said anything lightly or just for the hell of saying it. he was always so soft and gentle, thinking every word through before putting it out into the universe.

“i don’t know,” he confessed finally. he turned to look at the stars with you. “i don’t know what i would do. but i do know that i would never be the same. i don’t know if i could ever live a life without you, y/n.”

in that moment, the world felt so big and yet all yours. 

now, you knew it was just the foolishness of young lovers but at the time, it just felt like the truth. you’d taken jungwon’s presence, his love, and all of his patience for granted at the time, thinking that it was an infinite resource that you could always call upon.

it wasn’t until you were forced apart by fate that you realized just how silly the notion was.

[tokyo, 1988]

the interior of jungwon’s house is nearly as perfect as the rest of him. there’s cozy furniture placed tastefully, every inch the comfortable and inviting home. the dark wood of the house contrasted with the emerald green accents and the occasional gold decorative piece made the entire house look incredibly put together and well thought out. an elegant balance between a cozy look and and an expensive taste.

“hyewon picked it out,” jungwon says from behind you. you nod, swallowing down any bitter words as you try to offer the younger woman a sincere smile.

“it’s very beautiful,” you manage, a little bit softer than you were hoping. hyewon is silent for a moment, a habit you know she’s picked up from jungwon, before a small yet hopeful smile spreads on her lips. 

“i’m sure you see a lot more impressive people at work,” she says shyly, and you feel a tight squeeze in your chest when you realize just how young and sweet she is. 

“being a doctor seems a lot more fancy than it really is,” you cough drily, forcing a smile when you see that hyewon’s seems to have faltered, receding into her shell a bit. “but it is really special to be able to study the brain in ways you never would’ve expected.”

at this, hyewon seems to perk up once more, seemingly enthused that you held no contempt for her. 

you honestly didn’t. nothing that happened between you and jungwon was her fault. and while it hurt that she was living the life that you’d wished for so long was your own…it really wasn’t her fault. as much as you might hate the circumstances of your arrival back in jungwon’s life, you really couldn’t hate her.

“y/n, why don’t you go ahead and take a shower in the guest room? the flight to tokyo might be short but i know how much you hate not taking a shower the second you get home,” jungwon offers, head inclined towards the interior of the house - where you assume the guest room is.

you hold the bag in your arms a little closer to your chest before smiling sadly. “i don’t get that paranoid about not taking showers as soon as i get home anymore. there’ve been a few too many times i’ve collapsed without showering after a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital.”

jungwon falters, and almost as if to search for comfort, his eyes drift to hyewon. your heart feels tight in your chest when he does. there’d been so many times that he’d done that with you. when you were the person he sought out amongst people he knew and loved, just because he knew he would always be the most comfortable with you.

“but,” you choke out, clearing your throat. “i should take a shower this time. it seems that it’s the time of year where everyone has a runny nose and a cough.” 

the tension in jungwon’s shoulders melts in just the slightest as he nods, and you follow him further into the house. of course, the entire house is decorated similarly to the living room, with all dark wood paneling and…heated flooring?

“you have heated flooring even outside the bedrooms?” you ask incredulously, examining the warmth that seemed to be radiating beneath your feet. jungwon laughs sheepishly before opening one of the doors next to the kitchen area, leading you into the guest bedroom.

“hyewon gets cold pretty easily so we decided to get heated flooring installed everywhere for the colder months,” jungwon explains, depositing your bag at the foot of the bed. you hum in understanding before your eye catches on a specific painting faced away from you, so that you would see it laying in bed but not when entering the room.

you draw closer to it, breath catching in your throat as you recognize the painting.

“it’s the one you painted for my birthday,” jungwon says gingerly, and you nod, the lump in your throat not allowing you to verbalize your inner thoughts.

“i didn’t think you’d keep it after - after we broke up,” you confess and jungwon shrugs, looking at the painting with you.

it’s a simple painting. it’s just a crude painting of an emerald jewel that you’d painted after taking a painting class with jungwon in college. you’d always promised that you would show your magnum opus that you’d been working on for the entirety of the course to him when it was finished, finally presenting it to him on his birthday.

when he asked you what it meant, you’d cited his own words.

“we’re not going to break up. so this emerald is meant to represent our love, since emeralds symbolize deep, unconditional and everlasting love.”

the irony of the situation is not lost on you as you stare at the painting until the emotions inside of you overwhelm you to the extent that you feel like you can’t even breathe properly, forcing your head away from the painting.

jungwon coughs before turning away as well, padding over to the other end of the room, pushing a door open to reveal the attached restroom.

“feel free to use anything in there,” jungwon mumbles before rushing out of the bedroom, leaving you there, alone, with nothing but your racing thoughts and beating heart.

“thanks,” you whisper to no one particular, a cold loneliness setting in your bones - even with the heated flooring.

[incheon, 1981]

“who’s most likely out of all of us to get married first?” lee heeseung wondered aloud, slurping from his ramen. there were six of you huddled around a campfire, bundled in blankets and warmed up by the ramen that park jongseong had boiled for all of you.

“logically, it should be you, heeseung, since you’re an old fart,” park sunghoon said, twisting away when heeseung threatens him with the lid of the pot that the precious ramen was resting in. “but honestly, probably jungwon and y/n.”

you and jungwon shared a shy look before turning away, huddling closer in the much too thin blanket that heeseung had brought. 

“nah, it’s probably going to be jay and sumin,” you pointed out. it was then your turn to evade death by ramen pot lid, ducking into jungwon’s warm embrace when jongseong (who’d gotten the name ‘jay’ due to the time he spent in america before his family moved to seoul) started wielding the pot particularly intimidatingly.

“we’re only twenty-three years old!” bae sumin protested, but you see her leaning further into jongseong’s embrace, and it was clear that she wasn’t all that put off by the idea of marriage.

“so? my mom and dad got married and had me by the time they were twenty-one,” sunghoon snorted and you and jungwon had twin expressions of alarm on your face.

“i’m twenty-one, sunghoon and i’m nowhere near having a child!” jungwon exclaimed, and you nodded. while marriage wasn’t completely foreign to the two of you, with you having established that having a career set in place was most important (the path to becoming a doctor was a long and tiring one), you inevitably had to push back any plans of marriage for later than perhaps most couples who’d dated as long as the two of you.

after all, dating for six years was usually an experience that people heeseung’s age were more likely to have rather than your own peers as juniors in college.

“yes, but by the time that y/n gets into medical school and jungwon’s in a good place for his job, you’re going to be around twenty-four? maybe twenty-six if jungwon goes to military service right after college?” jay pointed out, finally putting the lid back on the ramen pot instead of wielding it around like a shield.

“heeseung will be his late twenties by then,” sunghoon sniggered and heeseung rolled his eyes, taking another slurp of his ramen.

“i’m only going to be twenty-eight or twenty-nine. i don’t know why you guys make me sound like an old fossil,” heeseung said sullenly, shaking sunghoon’s hand off of his back when he rubs his back in a part sympathetic and part sarcastic gesture.

“you already are an old fossil,” sumin joked, joining in on making fun of the oldest friend in the group.

the rest of the night was more fun at the expense of heeseung, the ramen pot lid being tossed from person to person to prevent decapitation at the hands of the enraged eldest.

you and jungwon hadn’t said anything at the time, just sharing a sweet smile and all too thin blanket.

[tokyo, 1988]

“when do you start work?” jungwon asks from across the dinner table. hyewon’s laid out a korean dinner filled with all of your favorites - almost like your grandmother did for you when you lived in the house she’d shared with you, just two months ago. 

staying in the house that you had been born in and your grandmother, the only parental figure you’d ever had in your life after your grandfather died three years prior, died in was far too much for you to handle, which is why you’d all but uprooted and ran away from seoul with little formality as soon as you could.

it’s funny, how something as simple as bulgogi can shake even the strongest of minds, taking them back to memories that they’d prayed to move past. 

you thank hyewon when she hands you a pair of wooden chopsticks that have a design engraved into them, shaking you out of your thoughts. they were a nice pair of chopsticks; not just a random pair of chopsticks that you give to guests for a single use. the knowledge that one of them had bought you a pair of nice chopsticks in case your stay extended long enough to need them makes you feel strange.

“i technically start on the fourteenth but i have to go in on the twelfth to get some paperwork in,” you explain, waiting for hyewon to sit to begin eating.

“do you need a ride to work?” he asks, reaching over the table to deposit some rolled omelette cutlets into his bowl, smiling up at hyewon when she does it for him instead.

“uh, yes, i would appreciate that. at least until i buy a car,” you say softly, eyes fixed on your own plate, unsure of if you really had it in you to look up and see more of their intimacy. 

“that reminds me,” jungwon begins, taking a bite of the omelette once hyewon’s also sat down next to him. “there are a couple of dealerships near hyewon’s school. we can all go together after i pick up hyewon from office whenever you’re free.”

you nod, chewing on a spring onion slowly. “sounds good with me. i was planning on going on the twelfth so you won’t have to be driving me around for more than a week.”

jungwon waves you off. “it’s not a bother for me. the hospital is owned by the university that hyewon’s doing her masters at so it’s not out of my regular route.”

“you’re doing your masters?” you ask hyewon, who’s been silent throughout the meal. hyewon seems to be startled, as though she had been checked out completely before she nods belatedly.

“yes, i’m doing my masters. i worked for a couple years but i realized that i wasn’t really getting promoted because i’m a married woman and because i don’t have higher education,” hyewon elucidates. jungwon opens his mouth to say something - undoubtedly to comfort her by saying that the sexism of those around her was not an accurate representation of her caliber but you beat him to it.

“you’re a smart and talented person, hyewon. higher education just gives you a certificate to prove it but i’m sorry that people don’t want to acknowledge your talent without a simple, largely useless piece of paper,” you say, voice steady and clear. hyewon pauses mid-bite and jungwon also freezes, his chopsticks halfway between his bowl and his mouth, his omelette slipping from his chopsticks and falling into the bowl.

they exchange a look before hyewon smiles - a real, genuinely touched smile.

“that means a lot coming from you, y/n,” jungwon says and you know he means it in more than one way. 

the rest of dinner is relatively quiet, with hushed requests for one dish or another but for some reason, it finally feels as though the tension in your shoulders has started to melt and you feel like you can take a breath of fresh air.

after dinner, hyewon decides to retire early, leaving you and jungwon to do the dishes, even though both of them protest heavily. 

“what kind of host would i be if i let you wash the dishes?” jungwon complains, physically trying to nudge you away from the sink with his hip but you ignore him, starting to move the various dishes into little containers once you find the correct cabinet.

“i’m living in your house as an uninvited guest until i find a house of my own, jungwon. i can’t take advantage of your hospitality,” you chide, snapping the lid of the tupperware open to line up the leftover cutlets inside.

“please don’t feel like a guest or feel uncomfortable. you moved to a new country and we’d love to make your move as easy as possible,” hyewon says, having changed into sleep ware as she unscrews her water bottle to fill it up with hot water she’d heated up before heading upstairs.

you just shake your head as you stack each filled container on top of each other, moving the emptied dishes into the sink. “i won’t feel like a guest and please don’t treat me like one. think of me as long lost family, if that makes you feel better about me doing the dishes.”

jungwon frowns as he sets the washed dishes into the dishwasher next to the sink to let them dry. “i’m not letting you do the dishes, y/n. but i will be very thankful if you could put those containers in the fridge.” 

hyewon just watches as the two of you work in tandem, slipping into a familiar rhythm as she turns around to head back upstairs, her water bottle still empty and her heart feeling as though it was going to beat out of her chest.

[tokyo, 1988]

hyewon wasn’t unaware - not of your history with jungwon. he’d been very open about his past and only previous relationship with you and had told hyewon very early into their relationship. she knew about how you and jungwon had been friends for years before realizing that perhaps there were more than just platonic feelings for each other. she knew about how he’d asked you out during your first year of high school at the suggestion of his friends, park sunghoon and park jongseong.

neither of them had come to jungwon and hyewon’s wedding - only lee heeseung and bae sumin.

hyewon knew about how the two of you dated for eight years before breaking up due to various reasons. she knew about the wreck jungwon had been after breaking up with the girl who was his first love, best friend, and inspiration to work hard all during the breakup. she knew about the eight months that hyewon and jungwon had tiptoed the line between friendship and something more when jungwon moved to tokyo, a year after you and him had broken up. 

she knew that he told her that he fell in love with her at first sight but he was carrying so much guilt from everything from his past relationship that he couldn’t cross the line in good consciousness until hyewon crossed it for him. she still remembers the look in his eyes when she kissed him as he was rambling about how he wasn’t good enough for her and that she deserved someone who wasn’t such a mess. god, he was so in love with her that it almost breaks her heart to realize how long it’d taken for her to really understand that look in his eyes.

so when jungwon told her that you were moving to tokyo after the death of your grandparents, hyewon thought she was okay. she had all the facts laid out in front of her and she knew that jungwon, while he would always hold a soft spot for you, was no longer in love with you anymore. she knew all of this as a fact because jungwon had promised that he wouldn’t open their doors for you if hyewon was even a bit uncomfortable with the idea that you would stay with them for however long it took you to get on your feet in a new country.

he told her, in words that were a lot more gentle and less charged, that the year of marriage that the two of them shared was a lot more important to him than the eight years of love and eleven years of friendship you’d shared with jungwon.

so yang hyewon had said that she was alright - that she wanted you to stay with them as long as you needed to. 

but when you appeared, stepping out of jungwon and hyewon’s red toyota, somehow hyewon lost the quiet confidence she’d had previously. not her confidence in jungwon. not when the moment jungwon parks the car, and perhaps even before, his eyes begin to search the entryway of their shared home for her, drinking up the sight of her the moment she opens the front door.

it’s when you step out of the car with so much grace, so much poise, carrying yourself with a sense of regality that hyewon cannot begin to emulate. that’s when hyewon starts to lose confidence in herself.

you’re elegant, with every step you take filled with a self-assuredness that hyewon knows only comes from having been battered down by the world in every way possible and still getting up every time. your blouse was pressed neatly, tucked into your slacks as though you’d walked off a ralph lauren runway, rather than the runway of an airport. 

your hair is perfectly pulled back into a low but neat ponytail, mascara smudged ever so slightly so it gives you a touch of humanity rather than looking messy. your eyes are analytical but still full of warmth when you look at jungwon - whether you realize or not.

and then you looked at her, and you’re skeptical. of what, hyewon’s not sure. maybe of the way she looks? her age? the way that she carries herself? her clothing? suddenly, hyewon feels like an awkward teenager again as she looks down, examining her body.

she’d gained a bit of weight after finals last semester, prone to late night meals after spending too much time studying. not so much that she felt she’d changed drastically, but hyewon can clearly see that there’s more fat around the circumference of her thighs than she remembered there being. her clothes are wrinkled at the ends of her shirt - not so much that it’s obnoxiously obvious but for some reason, hyewon feels as though you were able to see right through her and at all of her flaws.

see how she was just a young woman fumbling through life, trying to prove to the entire world that she was capable of being a career woman. it feels like it’s just not possible, though, when she knows that you’re a doctor (a neurologist, at that) and that you’re everything that hyewon wishes she was. intelligent, strong, brave, hard-working, elegant, and somehow, the right amount of detached and attached from and to the world.

for some reason, for some explicable reason, hyewon wants to prove herself to you. prove that jungwon was in good hands, even if you’d broken up with him. she wants to prove that even though she was two years younger, she was still mature enough to be included in every conversation. that she was able to hold her own household - one that included her husband. 

and then you enter the house, saying that the interior was beautiful and suddenly, everything makes sense to hyewon. 

hyewon was guilty. she felt guilty that she’d gotten all of the blessings in her life at your expense. at the expense of your relationship with jungwon. at the expense of your happiness.

she wanted to prove that she was worthy having everything that you wished for. just as you had everything she had wished for.

and as jungwon holds her to his chest, his other arm running through her hair gently, hyewon can’t help the tears that stain his satin pajamas - something that jungwon chooses to keep to himself, just holding her even tighter.

[seoul, 1987]

“i’m sorry man, i just really don’t think i’ll be able to make it to the wedding,” sunghoon said over the phone, tucking the cup of the phone into his shoulder as he pours two mugs of coffee.

“is everything alright in seoul, sunghoon? jay called me yesterday and told me that he’s not making it either,” jungwon said over the other end. his voice sounds grainy, somewhat choked up but sunghoon couldn’t tell if it was because of the connection or because of the emotion in his voice.

“i really am sorry, jungwon,” sunghoon said simply, sliding over one of the mugs to where you were sitting at his dining table, stretching the cable of the phone thin as he padded over to the table and then having to spring back before he pulled the phone box out of the wall. 

jungwon just sighed, and sunghoon felt a pang of guiltiness in his chest before jungwon spoke again, sounding almost defeated. “it’s alright. i just - i won’t have half of my friends on the biggest day of my life. i just always wanted to have all of you here with me but i understand that life doesn’t work the way we want it to sometimes.”

he was silent, perhaps waiting for sunghoon to change his mind and retract his statement but when sunghoon didn’t say anything either, he just whispered a soft goodbye before the phone clicked, indicating he’d hung up. sunghoon put the phone back in the phone box before slipping into the seat across from you, where you were sitting, a blank look in your eyes.

“i wouldn’t blame you if you go,” you said softly, never looking up from the inky recesses of the coffee you were sipping from. sunghoon reached over, covering your hand with his.

“i’m not going because i don’t agree with what he did, y/n. not just because of your - history with him. that wouldn’t be fair to him and it really wouldn’t be fair to you either,” he said, patting your hand gently before lifting his mug to his lips, retracting his hand from yours. 

“he did what was right, considering the situation, sunghoon,” you protested, but your voice was weak even to your own ears.

sunghoon thought for a moment, shaking his head when he came to his own conclusion. “no. he didn’t. leaving you when your grandfather had just passed was not right, no matter what you try to say.”

“sunghoon, you’re not being fair,” you tried to say but it was clear that your words were falling on deaf ears.

“he could’ve postponed going to tokyo, even if you guys had already broken up by then. we were all friends even before you guys started dating. it’s ridiculous that he forgot that conveniently,” sunghoon said, and your gaze grew concerned when you realized that his grip on the mug had turned his knuckles white. 

“don’t do that sunghoon. maybe that was his way of trying to get over everything. a fresh start in a fresh place. grandpa was always fond of jungwon, like a son. it must’ve been hard on him and he moved to a new country while he was mourning the loss of a father figure.” sunghoon was silent and you knew that no matter what you tried to say would’ve been moot to him - sunghoon had always been like an overprotective older brother towards you and had been the first person to draw lines between you and jungwon when you broke up. your first ally.

“you’re too kind to him.” 

“i love him.”

sunghoon shook the hair out of his face, looking at you with a strange expression as he analyzes your words carefully. 

“you love him?”

“i can’t help myself. i’ve spent twelve years out of twenty-six being in love with him.” 

[tokyo, 1988]

the drive into downtown is surprisingly less awkward than you’d expected it to be. hyewon and jungwon are engaged in quiet conversation in the front and you’re left to dissect your own thoughts in the back, feeling as though you’d be intruding on a private conversation if you were to listen to them speak. 

like an uncomfortable guest in a cozy home.

you shift in your seat, watching the skies turn from pinkish-orange to blue as the sun rises in the sky, later than you’d expected, shocked by the inky skies when the three of you had piled into the car twenty minutes ago. it seemed like the sunrise was even later than it was yesterday, when you and jungwon had headed out together for you to complete your paperwork at the hospital.

“y/n, you’re the first one on route,” jungwon says, turning onto a smaller street off the main one. you nod before realizing he couldn’t see you and coughing out an, “alright.”

“my classes are over at three and jungwon gets off of work at six o’clock,” hyewon explains, twisting in her seat to meet your eyes. “when do you get off of work today?”

you sift through a couple of papers that you’d been handed yesterday to learn your schedule before starting your rotations today, squinting as you read when you would be ending today. “today…i get off at three o’clock.”

hyewon hesitates before speaking, clearly not having discussed what she was about to say with jungwon. “would you want to go to the dealership with me before jungwon gets off work? it’s not too far of a walk from the university and it’d be good to look at your options before finalizing a car. unless - unless you already have a car in mind?”

for some strange reason, there’s a funny feeling in your stomach when you hear hyewon lose her confidence as she speaks and it’s plainly obvious that jungwon senses it too when he glances at her out of the corner of his eye.

“i have a few models in mind but i’d love if i could get a second opinion before i get a third,” you say as gently as you can, trying to make it obvious that this was as close to an olive branch as you would be able to extend.

hyewon hums in satisfaction and turns back around, but not before you see the shy smile on her lips. jungwon meets your eyes through the rearview as the car draws to a stop in front of the hospital and as you set foot outside the car, he nods.

thank you.

you tug your bag over your shoulder, stuffing the other papers you’d been examining into the bag somewhat haphazardly as you head into the hospital, not once turning around to watch the car drive off into the distance.

the hospital itself is much larger than you’d thought it would be when you first arrived yesterday, given that it was a sister hospital to the hospital you’d originally been working at had shifted you to as part of the fellowship program you’d applied to.

everything is white and glass, looking as though it’d been pulled straight from the future, with top to bottom glass windows and various, streaking pillars of sterile white that supported the entire hospital.

you fumble with your keycard as you pull it out of your bag, flipping it upside down once or twice before finally figuring out how to swipe it through the glass gates that separated the employee entrance from the rest of the hospital. you tuck the keycard into your bag before rushing through the gates as they start to close on you, letting out a sigh as you manage to make it through.

“it was pretty confusing on my first day too,” a voice says from behind you. you turn around to confront the new voice, only to have your gaze continue to travel upward as you come to face an extraordinarily tall man, who looks at you with a cheeky grin.

“i see,” you say simply, turning back around. the man doesn’t seem too discouraged however, reaching out from behind you to press the up button as you wait for the elevator to arrive.

“my name is riki. riki nishimura,” the man continues and you turn around once more to get a good look at him. he’s tall, dark, and every inch the type of beautiful that makes you a little nervous. the type of beautiful that an elegantly carved dagger might be - dangerous and yet so captivating.

he has dark hair that’s strewn across his forehead in a carefully calculated way so that he still looks put together and yet so casual at the same time. angles draw the harsh lines on his face, with a sloping nose and a gaze that makes you feel like he’s reading you inside out. but all of his lines are somehow softened by his lips, which are full and…currently moving, sounding out words that you most definitely have not been listening to.

“the elevator’s here,” the man - riki - is saying when you tune back in and you turn in horror to see that the elevator, in fact, is very much open and the doors are about to close in your face when riki’s hand shoots out to prevent them from closing. you rush inside abashedly, scolding yourself internally for being so caught off guard.

this wasn’t the first time that you saw a pretty face and most certainly wouldn’t be the last time you saw a pretty face. that didn’t mean that it was alright to stutter and trip over yourself every time you did, and for the elevator ride up to the ninth floor, you’re completely silent, chiding yourself for acting so immaturely.

“ladies first,” riki says, extending his arms in an almost overly gentlemanly way. you just bow your head in his general direction before hurrying out the elevator, turning to enter the neurology department’s office, only to belatedly realize that riki had not only not gone the other direction, but was actually patiently waiting for you to enter the office so that he could enter behind you.

you clear your throat, willing yourself back into the composed, analytical version of yourself you’d grown so accustomed to before opening the door to the office, not bothering to keep it open for riki.

there aren’t many people in the office, you notice, as you enter. there are a few very tired looking interns and residents who are scattered throughout the office, with majority of them taking power naps on the long table at the far end of the office or filling up yet another cup with coffee from the coffee machine.

you duck your head forward to see if you can catch sight of your little office from here, only to rear backwards when riki moves directly into your line of sight.

“are you dr. l/n? the new neurology fellow?” he asks, his hands tucked into the pockets of his white coat. you nod, attempting to side step him to make your way to the office but riki stands in your way once more.

“i’m sorry, can i help you?” you ask, shifting so that the bag sat a little more comfortable on your shoulder. riki watches you for a moment - a moment that makes you feel more nervous than you care to admit - and then he shakes his head with a grin.

“you’re spearheading the biomedical research on the new study on neuron death, right? and it’s relation to age and lifestyle?” he asks and your heart for a sinks for a split second as you realize why exactly his face had struck such an impression on you (or at least enough to render you speechless long enough to nearly miss an elevator).

“you’re my resident for the next three months,” you say drily and riki’s grin grows even cattier, if that was even possible. “i was told that you’d be showing me around the hospital today.”

riki offers a mock bow before straightening up quickly when he realizes that the other people in the room have started to brighten up from their fugue state at the presence of a new doctor.

“i’ll be showing you around the hospital and the laboratory facilities. and i’ll also be at your beck and call for the next three months - you’re the only doctor at the university of tokyo’s medical hospital studying synapses and i’m the only resident who’s on any of the neurology research related rotations,” riki explains, looking all too smug as he does so. 

you hum in understanding before turning to him with a question swimming in your eyes. “there’s so many residents in here. how are you the only resident on the neurology research rotations?”

riki finally steps out of your pathway and the two of you exit the main office to walk through the hallway to your office (which was the size of a broom closet, much to your delight) in tandem.

“they’re all first year residents so they have to go on all of the rotations. i’m a second year resident, so i get a little bit more control over the specialties i work in. not to mention that neurology research is a fairly difficult area of specialty to get into in the first place,” riki says as you stop in front of your office, pulling out your keycard to swipe into the small office, trying to keep the wonder off your face at such advanced technology when the lock to the office clicks open.

“i see,” you say absentmindedly, dropping your bag on your chair as you draw the blinds open, pleasantly surprised by the view, as you were greeted with the view of tokyo’s streets filled with people embarking on their own journeys.

“i hear that you’re the youngest doctor to be conducting neurology research,” riki says, making you aware (as if you could forget) of his presence in the cramped room.

“korea’s system is a bit different from japan’s medical system,” you say, turning back around to start pulling out the necessary papers from your bag. 

“i think you’re being too humble,” riki smirks, folding his arms over his chest. “i read your file, you know. wanted to see who would be taking over such a big research project. that was when i saw that you graduated at the top of your class in medical school and that you’d already published research as a medical student, two years earlier than other students. and then that you’d finished your speciality residency in two years, meaning that you’re the youngest fellow at our hospital.”

you blink, genuinely taken aback at the amount of research that riki has done into your academic history. “uh…i didn’t know any of that was publicly available information.”

riki just smiles, fingers tapping his arm as he watches you carefully. “it’s not.”

you frown, but before you can ask riki what the hell he means by that vaguely ominous statement, he slinks out of the room - presumably to check in at the computer in the front of the office, leaving you bewildered and somewhat worried in the room.

you take a deep breath, pulling out more papers when your eyes fall on jungwon’s signature on one of the forms.

emergency contact: yang jungwon.

a pang of guilt runs through your body, a dull ache like thunder after lightning, and for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to even begin to wonder where the guilt came from.

[seoul, 1983]

jungwon held your hand tightly between two of his own, tears threatening to escape from his eyes as he sat in the chair that he’d pulled up to the side of your hospital bed. sunghoon stood at the foot of the bed, frowning as he examined your state.

he’d just returned from military service a couple days prior, excited to see his friends (other than jay and heeseung, who he was forced to see everyday in the military) after making his rounds with his family, only to have to rush to the hospital in shock after jungwon called him that morning.

“sunghoon? hello? sunghoon?” jungwon had warbled out, immediately striking fear into sunghoon. in all the years that he’d known the younger man, sunghoon could count on one hand the number of times that he’d heard jungwon be that concerned.

“jungwon? what happened?” he said, already rushing to the entryway of his apartment to grab a coat from the coatrack. 

“y/n - she - she’s been working so hard lately because she’s doing research and she’s just started her first year of medical school,” jungwon said, it’s only then that sunghoon realized that he’d completely misread jungwon’s emotions. while there was definitely concern swimming in his voice, he could finally hear the sheer panic that jungwon was facing.

“jungwon. where are you?”

“at the hospital. y/n’s medical school called me, saying that she passed out. sunghoon, i’m her emergency contact.”

sunghoon tried his best not to show his displeasure on his face as he watched jungwon, who had his head down, buried into the hospital bedsheets.

“i’m her emergency contact.”

for some reason, jungwon’s words kept running through his mind like a never-ending chant as sunghoon tried to think. it wasn’t the words themselves. no, the words themselves were…fine. 

it was jungwon’s tone. the way that he sounded like he was somewhat in disbelief that he would be your emergency contact. the way that he almost sounded…unhappy? no. no, jungwon would never feel unhappy. he simply wasn’t the type to sound unhappy about anything that was related to you - or at least, as far as sunghoon was aware.

so what was it? what was it that was rubbing sunghoon in all the wrong ways?

it’s only when you finally woke up, two hours later, promising jungwon that you wouldn’t work yourself that hard again, that sunghoon finally realized what exactly was wrong about the whole situation.

it was jungwon’s panic, as if the reality that you cared about him more than he could ever realize, had just set in.

and somehow, sunghoon had a feeling that it was a reality jungwon wasn’t ready to face.

[tokyo, 1987]

“jungwon, please,” hyewon cried, reaching out to try and hold onto jungwon’s hand. jungwon stood as still as a statue, and for a moment, hyewon thought that he was going to shake her hand away, that he would cringe from her touch. but jungwon relaxed as she coaxed her hand into his, and it looked like all of the fight left his body as he slowly sank to the floor.

he looked up at hyewon, who was seated on the couch, watching him worriedly with eyes filled with unshed tears. jungwon closed his eyes, letting himself cry freely and hyewon falls to the floor, gathering jungwon in her arms as she cried into his hair.

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, hyewon,” jungwon sobbed, clutching at her tightly, as though he was scared that she would disappear if he didn’t hold onto her.

“it’s okay,” she whispered softly, tucking his head under chin as they sat, kneeling on the floor.

“it’s not, hyewon. it’s just not fair. it’s not fair to you because it’s not fair that i’m still crying about y/n when i just married the woman of my dreams less than a month ago.”

hyewon remained silent, knowing that jungwon needed to spit up all of the guilt that had turned into poison, sitting deep inside his soul, to finally get better.

“it’s not fair because i loved her so much. i loved her so much that i thought i was going to die when she broke up with me. i - i knew that we weren’t perfect, that there were so many things that came in our way at the end of our relationship. but i thought that we would get past it. we’d made it eight years, and i can’t help but think that if i had just made it past those last eight months, we would’ve lasted.

“and i just feel so frustrated with myself because i cannot believe that i’m even saying that because if things had actually worked out, i never would’ve met you when you’re the single best thing that has ever happened to me, hyewon. the day that you changed your name from jo to yang, i swear to god, i thought that it would be okay if god decided to take me from earth that very second because at least i’d die the happiest man on the planet.

“but - but there’s a part of me that i just can’t understand. did - did all of those eight years mean nothing? did i even love y/n like the way i thought i did? i did at some point, because i wouldn’t have been so broken when we ended our relationship…right? but if i loved her then and that was true love, then what is this? and if this is true love, then what was that? is my doubt the real reason why we broke up? then will i be the cause of destruction for our relationship too? it’s my fault that i couldn’t introduce you to my friends - the friends that i’ve spent half of my life. i’ve destroyed every single relationship i’ve ever made for myself. maybe…maybe you and i - ”

jungwon never finished his sentence, his rambling mind given a pause when hyewon pressed her lips to his, firm and so sure of herself.

and between salty tears and apologies, jungwon finally learned how to forgive himself.

[tokyo, 1988]

you’re unsure of what to say, what to do when hyewon finally meets your eyes.

“why the hell would you tell me that, hyewon?” you ask, unable to keep the anger from staining your tone. “what could you possibly achieve from telling me about the intimate details of your marriage?”

your voice is soft but deadly, and yet hyewon sits, unfazed by the sheer venom in your voice.

“i couldn’t sleep these last few weeks,” hyewon confesses, holding her books closer to her chest. you look at her incredulously.

you’d just come back home after a grueling week at work, where you were meeting people that you didn’t particularly care about meeting, fending off riki’s double-meaning words, and trying to figure out how the hell anythingworked in japanese hospitals. where you were hoping for some quiet, perhaps some peace of mind, hyewon had asked you to follow her upstairs, into her and jungwon’s shared bedroom.

jungwon wouldn’t be back for another two hours, so you had been confused on why hyewon wanted to speak with you and hyewon’s recollection of the first month of marriage with jungwon was certainly doing a very poor job of helping you understanding anything.

“i’m really not following what you’re trying to say, hyewon. i’d be very thankful if you could just tell me,” you say gruffly, and hyewon looks at you strangely, as if you were the weird one for not understanding her intentions.

“i haven’t been able to sleep for a week - not because i was worried that something would happen. i see the way that you look at him, you know. i know that you still love him, and it’s so incredibly heartbreaking to see you love him so much because you need to know that it’s just not worth it.”

hyewon’s words feel as though as she’s struck you with something very large, very heavy and very painful as the wind gets knocked out of you.

“it’s not worth it? what’s not worth it?” you eke out once you manage to find your voice.

hyewon looks at you with sad eyes, an unreadable expression on her face. “loving him this much, now, isn’t worth it. maybe it would’ve been worth it back then, when you spent night after night working at the hospital instead of spending time with jungwon, but you chose to prioritize your career.”

“are you seriously saying that because i chose to become a doctor, my relationship with jungwon failed?”

hyewon shakes her head rapidly, almost as though she was begging you believe her. “no! no, that’s not what i mean. i mean…jungwon thinks that the reason that your relationship didn’t work out is because of his own doubts that you didn’t love him as much as he loved you. and there’s some stupid, dark, twisted part of him that won’t admit it but i know that it was because he felt insecure. all the doubt, all of the complaints about the long hours at the hospital, all of it came from his insecurity and i know that because i love him so much, i want him to be the proudest person on the planet. i want him to always hold his head up, being the most perfect person in the room and - and i just want him to be happy with himself.”

you’re shocked into silence, unsure of what to say - or if there even was anything that you could say at this point.

“and i’m telling you all of this because you love him so much that you keep loving this vision of him that you’ve glazed over in rose-colored glasses, holding onto a love that only exists in the past. and it’s just not worth it, y/n. you’re everything that i’ve ever wanted to be and i can’t bear to see you look at jungwon like that,” hyewon says, tears streaming down her cheeks.

you gulp, trying to force down the lump in your throat painfully. “like what?”

“like you’ll never be able to love anyone but him ever again.”

you sigh, turning your head so that hyewon wouldn’t be able to see you cry, brushing away the tears in your eyes as quickly as they form in your eyes.

“why are you telling me this, hyewon? all of a sudden? two weeks after i’ve been living in your house? are you telling me this because you want me to leave? what do you want from me? are you trying to see if i’m going to try to steal your husband? what do you want that i could possibly even give you?” you manage to eke out, trying your best to keep your emotions out of your voice.

“i want you to know that you might not have jungwon but you have so much,” hyewon says, slipping down from the bed to sit next to you on the loveseat on the other side of the room. “and that what you went through with jungwon’s parents was the same i went through. maybe that my career, or my profound lack thereof, was the reason why they pushed jungwon to marry me, even though we had only been dating for a year. that his insecurity about your career wasn’t jungwon’s issue alone, but the thoughts that his family had been shoving down his throat - but you already knew that.”

you laugh, a dry and grating laugh that sounds bitter even to your own ears. how could you forget? how could you forget the way jungwon’s mother had tried to convince you to quit medical school when your grandfather brought up marriage for the first time with the families? the way that jungwon’s father had turned his nose up while your grandmother bragged about the seventy-eighty hours a week you’d spend studying, working, or in class? the way that jungwon’s bright eyes clouded over with doubt at some point, whenever you brought up the future?

the way that sunghoon had been silent the whole time that you’d been in the hospital during your first year of medical school, slipping out quietly when jungwon asked you why you made him your emergency contact, a look of anger and sadness on his face.

“i still don’t know why you’re telling me any of this,” you say, looking up at the ceiling to physically push the tears in your eyes back to where they came from.

“because even though it’s so much easier said than done, you need to fall out of love with jungwon. you’ve gone through so much in your life and if there’s something that i know about you, it’s that you deserve to be happy. and you’re never going to be happy stabbing yourself with a double-edged sword of heartbreak. you deserve to heal, y/n,” hyewon says, mimicking you as she looks up at the ceiling.

“why now, though? why are you telling me all of this now?” 

“i don’t know. i’ve always been a patient person but i just felt like i needed to tell you. it was eating me up day and night for the past few weeks. i just - i just thinking that maybe if my older sister was still alive, she’d be a lot like you. and i’ve never wanted her to be anything but happy.”

“you want me, your husband’s ex-girlfriend, to be happy? the one that i’m sure your in-laws have been completely defaming for the past two years? the same one that happens to be living in your house without paying a cent of rent?” you ask, and this time the laugh in your voice sounds just a tad bit less sad than before, more shocked than anything else.

hyewon smiles through her tears, shrugging. “i’ve learned that anyone my in-laws don’t like is someone that i should definitely go out of my way to talk to.”

“how rebellious for the princess,” you say sardonically, and hyewon turns to you with a nostalgic melancholy written plainly on her face, seemingly not having picked up the dryness in your voice.

“my older sister used to call me princess,” she whispers, voice full of adoration, and it’s clear that hyewon’s older sister was an important figure to her - wherever she was. you turn to her, and for the first time in two and a half months, you feel as though there’s something that’s keeping you tethered to the ground beneath your feet. someone to keep you tethered.

“i’m sure your sister would be so proud of the way her younger sister has grown,” you say, turning away when hyewon starts crying even harder, trying to hide her tears from you, and you two sit there for almost an hour, just trying to be okay with not being okay.

[tokyo, 1988]

“are you avoiding me, dr. l/n?” riki questions, leaning against the inside of the door to your office, having had stormed into your office quite early in the morning as you sit at your desk, looking through some previous literature.

“i’m not even avoiding my ex-boyfriend that i live in the same house as when his wife told me that i need to fall out in love with him because she wants to see me happy after twenty-eight years of sheer tragedy,” you respond, not even looking up from your papers. “not to mention the fact that i quite literally can’t buy a house right now because i’m not a japanese citizen so my ex-boyfriend and his wife are my sponsors in this country so i can buy a house in another two months - even though this country colonized mine just forty years ago.”

“uh…i don’t know if you’re being completely serious about that or not but i hope you know that i personally don’t (and didn’t) condone the japanese colonization of korea…” riki says, his usually suave demeanor giving way to his genuine worry. you crack an ironic smile, looking up at him finally.

“i’m not avoiding you, riki,” you counter, setting down your pen to give him your attention. “and i’m being completely serious. although…i’m not sure why i told you any of that.”

riki hums, ducking to see if anyone was looking into your office before sitting down in the chair across from you. “i haven’t been in the lab for the past week.”

“you haven’t?” you ask sarcastically. “i never realized that my only resident never showed up to work.”

riki rolls his eyes before checking his pager to make sure that he hadn’t been paged before leaning forward in the chair.

“it took some threatening but i heard from dr. watanabe that you’ve been scheduling me conveniently on his rotations more often rather than your own. that sounds like you’re avoiding me,” riki points out and you shrug, neatly stacking the papers in front of you into piles.

“i hear you’re considering neurosurgery as the speciality you want to declare next year - dr. watanabe is one of the best neurosurgeons this department has to offer. i figured you might want to get as much exposure as possible before you go ahead and grab a scalpel,” you explain drily but riki’s gaze doesn’t soften in the slightest, jaw tight as he watches you.

“i’m considering neurosurgery. i might also want to go into neurology research too; i don’t know how i’m supposed to make an informed decision if i only have enough information about one career path because my fellow keeps pushing me away,” riki says and for a split second, your movements pause at the iciness of riki’s tone.

“i’m sorry riki. as your fellow, i thought i was doing you a favor so that you’d be able to make decision towards a cooler profession,” you confess, eyes soft and tone gentle, as though you were speaking to a petulant child - and this only serves to piss of riki even more.

“i’m twenty-seven years old, dr. l/n,” riki says after a moment of silence. “if i felt a certain way about being scheduled on your rotation, i am more than capable of saying so.”

“i’m glad to hear that, riki. i’m sorry for overstepping,” you say, attention diverted to the articles in front of you once more, completely oblivious to the grim line that riki’s lips were set in. the caring tone of your voice should convince riki that you might be shedding some affection on him but it’s not the caring warmth of someone who loves another.

it’s the type of care that a babysitter might offer to the child. like the affection between a young child and a daycare worker. platonic, mentor-like, and just far too coddling.

he watches you for a couple more seconds before getting up suddenly, the squeak of the chair when he does so resounding through the tiny room, startling you enough to accidentally mix up a couple articles. 

“dr. l/n, you may be the brightest person in the room when it comes to neurology but…” riki never finishes his sentence, shaking his head as he leaves the room, leaving you just as bewildered as you always seemed to be in his presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“hey, you guys know my cousin? the korean one?” one of the residents said excitedly, waving a piece of paper suspiciously as he spoke.

“uh, the hot, married way too soon one?” riki asked, flashing the resident a smirk when he groans.

“yes, hyewon. anyway. she told me that we’re getting a new fellow from korea,” the resident continued. riki yawned, looking around to see if the line for the hospital cafeteria had reduced enough for him to go and get lunch.

“…and she’s SO hot, i actually think i got a nosebleed when i snatched this,” the resident said, taunting the other men around him by hiding the piece of paper from them, which riki belatedly realized was likely this hot new fellow’s application.

riki snatched the paper from him, ignoring the protests from the resident as the other men crowd around him, and immediately, a gasp seems to echo through the four of them. and riki couldn’t even blame them.

dr. l/n, y/n. god. even your name was gorgeous. 

his eyes traveled down the paper at lightning speeds, trying to soak up every piece of information he possibly could before he eventually lost grip on the paper that everyone else was trying to snatch away from him.

“she’s hot and she’s smart? we’ve got to keep her as far away from riki as possible,” one of the other residents joked, merely laughing when riki glared at him.

“i can’t believe that riki’s playboy antics are going to cross international borders,” the first resident snorted, rolling his eyes when riki’s eyes stare daggers into him.

“all of you need to shut up,” riki muttered, and the men finally seemed to register riki’s displeasure with their joking because the clump broke up as the men took their seats.

“why sleep with seven nurses in the same hospital if you didn’t want the reputation of it?” the resident said, stuffing the paper back into his coat pocket. he’s about to say something else (which most likely would’ve led to his death) but he was interrupted by his pager going off, groaning as he gets up to throw out the rest of his unfinished lunch.

“is it true that you actually slept with seven nurses?” one of the other residents, one who still has a bit of shine in his eyes, asked before leaning back when riki raised a very critical eyebrow.

“i don’t know who the hell started that rumor but i highly doubt that spreading lies like that led to too much of a laugh,” riki replied simply, and some of the men groaned, upset that the rumor of the neurology resident stud was untrue.

“you’re lowering our street cred, riki! if people find out that the rumor isn’t true, then no one is going to want to join neurology anymore!” they bemoaned but riki just ignored them, getting up to finally get his lunch since the line had grown so short.

but every step riki took to the lunch line felt like his legs were made of cinderblocks as he kept thinking about the beautiful doctor on the paper. not only was the doctor drop-dead gorgeous, but also well studied and extremely accomplished for only being a year and a few months older than riki.

he sighed as he dug his hands deep into the pockets of his white coat. there’s no way a woman like that could ever fall for him, he decided finally. no matter how riki portrayed himself, he was well aware of his capabilities and his capabilities seemed to lie exclusively in falling for women who wouldn’t even look at him twice. 

granted, there weren’t that many people who fell in that category in the first place, but that made riki’s predicament even worse.

y/n.

something about that name, that face everything made riki feel as though his entire body had been doused in cold fire.

it was confusing, invigorating, and frustrating all at the time. little did he know that it was only to get more confusing, invigorating, and frustrating, just with your mere presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“dr. l/n!” you hear someone call out behind you, and you slow your pace as you turn to meet the person who’d called for you. you’re face to face with a man that you’ve grown quite accustomed with over the past few weeks in your time at the hospital, and it’s clear that he’s had to speed up quite a bit to catch up with you by the way he’s perspiring just the tiniest bit when he reaches you.

“dr. watanabe,” you greet, adjusting the strap of your bag over your shoulder. dr. watanabe flashes you a crooked smile, running his hand through his hair.

“dr. l/n,” he says and you look at him strangely, even with a hint of a smile threatening at your lips.

“you already said that line,” you remind him and this seems to snap him out of his stupor as he shakes his head.

“right. sorry. brain fog,” he explains as the two of you start making your way to the revolving door. “i’ve learned that a neurosurgeon should never do more than three surgeries a day to keep from going a little loopy.”

“i’ll keep that in mind?” your voice lilts upwards, as though you were asking a question rather than making a concrete statement. 

“right. you don’t do surgeries. sorry. brain fog,” he repeats as he pushes the first panel of the revolving door so it would be easier for you to push your own, given how heavy the doors were.

“is there anything you wanted to speak with me about, dr. watanabe?” you ask once the both of you are standing on the other side of the revolving doors.

dr. watanabe shoves his hands into his pocket before shaking his head, and then nodding, moving his head in circles from the conflicting motion. you watch him with a bemused expression before a small laugh escapes your lips, clearing your throat to regain your composure.

“i’ll get going then?” you say, feet pointing towards the parking garage you stationed your brand new toyota everyday. dr. watanabe’s hand reaches out, as if to physically stop you before he retracts it quickly, shoving deep into the pocket of his coat.

“i just - i just wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to get some drinks?” he asks, blinking his eyes quickly (due to what you presume to be nerves). noticing your hesitation, he adds, “it’s with the entire neuroscience department! or the ones who are either fresh grads or young residents, anyway.”

“oh, i’m not sure…” you trail off, checking your watch. but for some reason, hyewon’s face flashes through your mind and you look up at dr. watanabe, who’s looking at you as though you’d physically hung the sun in the sky yourself, an uncharacteristic shyness for someone so intelligent.

“i understand if you’re busy, dr. l/n,” he says softly and you bite your lip, debating your options when your eye catches on riki, who’s looking at you from the other side of the glass, an unreadable expression on his face as he watches you.

“no. i’m not busy - and please. call me y/n,” you say, smiling up at dr. watanabe, who returns a megawatt grin as he tells you to also call him by his first name.

“here, the bar’s not too far away from the hospital (which is honestly a safety concern, now that i really think about it) so you can leave your car here. also, you can’t have more than a drink if you’re driving back but you can leave your car in the parking garage and i can drop you off at home if you drink more than one drink over an hour,” haruto rattles off as the two of you start walking in the direction that you presume the bar is. you nod along, tucking away the important information as you walk. of course, you weren’t planning on having more than a drink (or staying longer than one or two hours) so that wasn’t much of an issue but it was still kind of haruto to look out for you. 

it was strange that he cared about your safety as much as he did though - whether out of just politeness or gentlemanly tendencies or even a crush that he’d happened to develop of the course of mere weeks and few conversations outside of neurology was still yet to be discovered.

in fact, it was very surprising that dr. watanabe of all people were to invite you to this gathering. out of everyone in the neurology department, you were closest to riki, due to working with him nearly every day for the last month. so the fact that this invitation had been extended by haruto rather than riki was surprising to say the least.

“dr. watanabe - i mean, haruto…is it alright if i invite riki too? i really don’t know anyone besides him and you, of course, but i’d hate to occupy your attention the whole time,” you explain, finding an answer in the intention behind dr. watanabe’s actions when he bristles at the mention of the younger man.

and riki said you were oblivious to things. you can’t help but turn your nose up a little bit, proud of yourself for not being out of the realm of worldly desires for so long you forgot what it was like to have someone like you.

huh. have someone like you. that, you were no stranger to. have someone like you back. that…it’d been a long time since you’d felt that.

you wait for haruto to mumble out an, “of course - i love riki!” before hurrying back inside, where you see riki pressing the button outside the elevator door to go upwards through the glass.

you fumble with your keycard, which you’d tucked deep into your bag, thinking you’d no longer need it for the day, cursing when you see the elevator door open through the employee’s entrance.

you rush through the door, hurrying to stop the elevator from closing on you but you groan in despair when the elevator doors close before you even get within three meters of it. you sigh, a bit too tired too really contemplate your uncharacteristic behavior (you couldn’t remember the last time you’d had the energy to run for anything) after nearly twelve hours of running experiments in the lab.

you’re about to turn around to rejoin haruto, somewhat dismayed, when the doors slide open, bringing you face to face with riki.

he doesn’t say anything, just looking at you with those piercing eyes, a sense of mirth swimming through them as he watches you take deep breaths to regain your balance. and somehow, you can’t find words to piece into the situation, as you watch him from the other side of the elevator. you watch as the doors are about to shut in your face before riki takes one step with those long legs so that he’s outside of the elevator vestibule, far too close for comfort.

his chest nearly presses against your own as he waits for you to acknowledge your behavior - or at the very least, say what you chased him down to say.

but instead, you just look up at him, unsure if you could find the right words to offer to him, tired and every bit confused of what exactly you were doing. it felt as though your brain was fuzzy, filled with cotton instead of brain matter and its a feeling that instills a deep seated panic in you. 

this was riki. the boy - man that you saw more of a younger brother than anything else…right? a mentee? a student? definitely nothing similar to siblings, if you really think about it. but…what? why was it that suddenly, being this close to riki made you feel like taking too deep of a breath was too intimate?

you couldn’t remember the last time you felt this way. had you ever felt this way? reckless and confused? utterly flummoxed by the person opposite from you?

you don’t get an answer to your own question as riki just smirks, cocking his head. 

“let me grab my stuff and sign out,” he says, not once breaking eye contact with you. 

he steps back into the elevator, and even with the distance between you now, you still feel like you’ve just run a marathon with how short of breath you are - all the way until the elevator doors close in your face.

you turn around, your back hitting the wall rather roughly as you try to catch your breath. 

something about it all makes you feel as though every single nerve in your body had been set on fire and then doused in icy cold water soon after.

[seoul, 1980]

“you really think that this is a good idea?” you questioned, ducking under the umbrella that jungwon holds out, shielding you from the pouring rain. 

“does it matter? we’re only twenty and stupid once, y/n,” jungwon reminded you, smiling when you nearly tripped into his embrace.

“true…so what does being twenty and stupid mean to you right now?” you asked, looking up at him, drinking up every single inch of perfection that jungwon always reflected.

“in this moment?” jungwon whispered, leaning in so close, you can see the individual water droplets that are starting to collect together from where he’d gotten soaked running to get you an umbrella. “it means we finish the soju in your apartment. sumin is staying at jay’s place tonight.”

“how do you even know that?” you retorted, inevitably smiling when jungwon presses a rather deep kiss to your lips.

“because jay asked me if i have any spare condoms,” jungwon snickered and you gasped, looking around as though anyone would be outside your apartment complex at two in the morning, eavesdropping on your conversation.

“jungwon! you can’t just say things like that!” you reprimanded him, but to no avail, clearly, when jungwon just ignored you to clasp your hand in his tightly, running straight through the cutting rain to make it all the way from the convenience store your apartment complex faced to your apartment building.

“but i just did!” he called out over the rain and you couldn’t help the shy grin that twists at the corner of your lips. it wasn’t often that jungwon acted like that - like a normal twenty-year old instead of an old man, as you so often teased him for acting like. jungwon always acted as though he was well into his forties and always spoke as though he’d had at least three lifetimes of experience before he’d even hit fifteen years old. it was usually endearing and definitely fit into the slow, innocent love that you and jungwon shared.

but the way that jungwon looked at you in that moment made you feel as though your entire body had been doused in gasoline and then set on fire. there was something different in his eyes - something that you hadn’t seen in the past four years that the two of you had been dating.

a hunger that you’d only dreamed of in the most private of your dreams but never really seen in your kind, sweet, calm boyfriend.

even the way he had one arm wrapped around your waist, and you could feel the intensity of his gaze on your back as you looked determinedly forward, almost too nervous to look back and see what exactly you were faced against.

the way that jungwon had been tapping his foot, waiting for you to unlock the door to your apartment with uncharacteristic impatience as you fumbled with the keys.

the way that his clothes got your own as wet as his when he presses you up against the door of your apartment the next second that you manage to click it closed.

the way that he grasped at every inch of your body in a way that wasn’t foreign or unwelcome but in a way that made you feel as though he was burning your skin with every touch.

the way that he made you gasp as his lips started to lead downwards - further down than you’d ever remembered them going. 

the way that it suddenly felt suffocating for the two of you to be in so many clothes. 

the way that you felt absolutely complete and satiated in his presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“you’re being cruel, y/n. come on, we all know each other way too well and you’re already a bottle of soju in and you won’t even let a single secret loose!” one of the residents cries from the other side of the table at the restaurant all of you were seated at.

you laugh, waving the overenthusiastic resident off. little did he know that you were about half a shot of soju away from absolutely word vomiting about everything you’d ever done in your entire life - starting with all of the secrets you’d sworn never leave your little box of ‘cannot ever share’. but you’re glad that night after night of drinking yourself nearly to death whenever you’d crossed the legal limit for hours you could work a week had allowed you to perfect this poker face you had going on.

or rather, a very precarious grip on your lips.

“i’ve told you a lot about myself,” you laugh, ignoring the protests of those around you. namely, you very determinedly ignore the way riki is staring at you out of the corner of your eye and the way haruto is slumped over pitifully on your other side.

“you’ve told us that you’re twenty-eight, a neuroscientist, and that you want to adopt a dog. you’re not exactly revealing world class secrets here,” another resident points out and you can’t help the drunken giggle that escapes you.

if there was one thing that you were good at, it was keeping your mouth shut. which made the fact that you told riki the real situation you were faced against early into your working partnership all that much more compromising for your sanity but that would have to be an issue when you could stand on your own feet without teetering over as a drunken mess.

“what else do you want to know about?” you hiccup, smiling at riki when he passes you a water bottle, still determined to keep from looking him straight into his dark, probing eyes. somehow there’s a pool of fire in the pit of your stomach that takes you back eight years but you just can’t place the time or the feeling exactly.

all you know is that if you have any more alcohol and you do make direct eye contact, all sense of propriety and decorum would be going straight out the window. and you did not have the confidence to keep it from doing so.

“tell us about your first love!” the original resident calls out from the other side of the table and the entire table immediately erupts into a series of cries and protests (the two women present, who were thankfully more on your side) and wolf whistles (wildly inappropriate and incredibly drunken behavior from the rest of the twelve or so men barring haruto and riki). 

“you think that such a big secret will come out just like that? come on, dr. y/n. take a shot and at least slip us half a secret or so,” the other most proactive (read: drunk) resident retorts, sliding over a shot glass filled to the brim with soju.

“you’re telling me that i have to take a shot and i have to spill a secret? how drunk are you guys?” you laugh, pushing back the shot glass. the table groans, having failed to get their mysterious new fellow to spill her guts but somehow you find that the shot glass has made its way back to your side of the table.

you look up, and you regret it for just a moment when you see just how deep riki’s gaze is when you meet it. he pushes the shot glass just a tad bit closer to you, a challenge hidden in the way looks at you and with a sense of absolute lack of control over his sobriety. or perhaps, that was just the way that he looked, with the red blush that dusts over his cheeks and the way his eyelids are heavy as his gaze grows naturally sultry.

and for some reason, you accept the shot glass and knock it back in one smooth motion - and no one notices, having dispersed into their own little conversations by the time you do. in fact, even haruto is too busy trying to keep his head up at all to even pay attention to the fact that you and riki have slapped down a few thousand yen bills and have shrugged your coats on and left.

but it doesn’t seem to make much a difference because the rest of the night is a blur and you can’t seem to remember a single thing after you left the restaurant with riki.

[tokyo, 1988]

there’s a violent pounding in your head when you come to and you severely regret whatever it was that you did last night - even though you can’t quite remember what exactly it was that you did last night.

you remember bits and incriminating pieces as the previous night fades in and out of your mind like a sick and twisted person had to decided to play a rerun but decided to leave all the crucial parts.

you try to sit up but slip, and your head meets the pillow rather unceremoniously when you realize two things: these sheets were silk and that was an issue. not because the sheets are ridiculously high quality silk.

but because you (or rather, jungwon) doesn’t own high quality silk sheets.

you gasp, lifting the covers of this foreign bed ever so slightly, wincing when you realize that you were wearing nothing but a men’s t-shirt and boxer shorts - both of which you did not own.

you take a deep breath, trying to recall as much of last night as possible before you get a migraine from thinking too hard.

there are a few things that come to mind:

you were at a little company ‘dinner’ with all of the neurology residents.

you left said company dinner early after getting violently drunk like you haven’t in quite some time.

you left with riki nishimura, one of the main reasons you got as drunk as you did.

you remember having wine with him after you got back to his apartment.

you remember asking him about his first impression of you.

you’re woke up in his bed wearing his clothes.

it’s not much to go off of but it doesn’t take a neuroscientist to figure out what had happened last night. your worst fears are realized when you twist to the best of your efforts and come face to face with riki. or rather, chest to face, as you realize that riki had, and some point in the night, laid his long (rather well built!) arm across your body, from the way that his arm falls just short of your thighs.

you twist back as quietly and gently as possible, trying your best to refrain from any sudden or large movements that might wake the slumbering giant next to you. you lean just slightly out of the bed to catch the time written on the alarm clock, cussing when you realize that you’re not only too late to make a clean escape back to jungwon and hyewon’s place without either of them realizing, but way too late to make it on time for your shift.

“i called us both out sick. the hospital knows that the neuro residents get rowdy during these dinners - they only let us do this twice a year,” a deep voice rumbles from behind you.

you freeze. okay. this is fine. there has to be a solution for this situation. 

attack it systematically. the facts are laid out in front of you. what next?

you decide to slowly sit up in the bed, realizing that there was no way that you could make it out of this situation without having a conversation with the unfortunate owner of the bed you were currently in.

“oh. uh. good to know…i think,” you say, swallowing as you realize just how dry your throat is. “do - do you know what happened last night?”

riki is silent and you steel yourself to sneak a glance at him, only to realize that he was already looking at you with those stupidly hard to escape eyes, full of depth and a promise to something that you’re not quite sure of.

he shifts so that he’s also sitting up and turns so that he’s sitting facing you, much to your horror.

“you don’t?” he asks, eyes not leaving your face even once. you swallow again, pretending to be very interested in the thread count of riki’s bedspread (at least a few hundred, you gather, from how soft these sheets were) rather than having to face him like the grown woman you were.

“not really. i remember pretty much everything up until insisting that you don’t call me a taxi home,” you confess, still trying to memorize every stitch of satin. “i can’t remember a single thing after taking a sip of the wine.”

the silence that fills the room feels stifling as you wait for riki to say something. to put you out of your misery by addressing the elephant in the room. or even better, not address it at all and pretend as though it never happened.

“i see,” he says finally, and there’s a twinge of pain that forces you to finally tear your eyes away from the sheets to look at him. he looks the same, you think. there’s no change in expression on his face…but there’s a twitch of the eyebrows, a look in his eyes that gives way to the inner war that you know he’s going through.

not because riki was easy to read. but because of the way that the same war seemed to ravage at your own chest. stupidly enough, you wanted him to feel the same tear in his chest that you felt in your own.

about what, why, or what you were even feeling, you didn’t have a single clue. all you knew was that you didn’t want to feel alone in these feelings. it felt like after the loss of your grandmother, you’d been alone for so long. 

and although this wasn’t the catalyst you’d expected would finally get you to start processing the sheer amount of trauma she’d left behind, for some reason, you just didn’t want to feel alone in this. even stranger, you wanted riki to accompany you in these feelings.

for the first time in about four years, jungwon wasn’t the one on your mind.

“do you want to talk about it? or acknowledge this at all? or do you want to pretend it never happened and bury it?” riki says finally, shaking you out of your thoughts. a question that you don’t have an answer to.

“i don’t know,” you answer honesty. “do you?”

riki sighs, running a hand through his hair. “i can’t believe that you don’t remember anything that i said last night.”

your eyebrows furrow. “what does that mean? what did you say?”

he looks at you, and this time, you can’t even pretend to not see the heartbreak written so plainly on his face. 

“forget it, y/n. let’s pretend this never happened, if that’s what you want.”

and although that is what you wanted initially, for some reason, there’s a tightness in your chest that, like everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, you can’t explain.

[tokyo, 1988]

the torment doesn’t end when you make it back to jungwon’s home. as it unfortunately appears, both hyewon and jungwon had been so worried sick about your whereabouts that they had taken the day off from school and work to wait and see if you’d make it home before presumably notifying the authorities.

neither of them were strangers to days where you were so busy with a patient or an experiment that you wouldn’t be able to make it back but you were usually really good about phoning home or leaving a voice message about your whereabouts.

so when you finally stumble through the door, exhausted both physically and mentally, by the events of the past day, you’re immediately greeted by a teary eyed hyewon wrapping you up in a deep hug.

“where have you been y/n?” jungwon asks from behind her, arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed. his tone is stressed, angry, worried, and even a little bit disappointed, you register vaguely.

“i’m sorry, i should’ve called,” you concede, setting down your briefcase next to the umbrella stand as you manage to peel off your jacket and hat the best you can with hyewon still lingering around you.

“yes, you should’ve called. but can you at least explain what you were up to for the last twenty hours that you’re completely unaccounted for?” jungwon says and you’re taken aback for a moment. yes, it was irresponsible of you to get that drunk in a foreign country. and yes, it was very kind of jungwon and hyewon to extend their home to you considering the history between you two. 

but you were also an adult woman who was free to do what she pleased, according to your own free will. you were a neuroscientist for crying out loud. you were more than capable of making intelligent decisions for yourself.

…is what you wish you could say.

you just sigh and shake your head, hanging the jacket and hat up on the coatrack. “i’m sorry jungwon. the neuro department had a dinner last night and i had a few too many to drink. a coworker took me back to their place.”

jungwon doesn’t seem to be appeased by this answer and begins to start questioning even further but hyewon thankfully cuts into the conversation, latching her arm around yours as she guides you to the bedroom you were using. 

“come on, you should get some food and a nice hot shower in you. i can’t imagine how tired you must be right now,” hyewon says, turning around to undoubtedly shoot jungwon a death stare when he starts to protest behind you.

“thank you,” you whisper when the two of you have moved far away enough from the overprotective man standing in the foyer.

“don’t mention it,” hyewon says, but it’s clear that the conversation is far from over when she closes the door behind her when the two of you reach the guest bedroom.

“what’s wrong?” you ask, trying not to think about the fact that the bedspread that you’d been using for the past three months suddenly felt so much less comfortable than you remember it being as you sit down on the bed. hyewon wrings her hands, clearly unsure how to bring up whatever was on her mind.

“i got a phone call from my cousin. i’m not particularly close to him or anything - so i’m sure you can imagine my surprise when i got the call,” she begins and you start to grow worried as she seems to contemplate every word that leaves her lips. 

you nod, wanting to give her the space to approach the topic however she felt most comfortable.

“he mentioned that you had left the dinner with riki, one of the last year residents. mind you, he was drunk out of his mind and he said that riki was probably just making sure that you sober up and get home safe. i just know riki’s reputation so i wanted to talk to you about it. or at least let you know that i’m here if you want to talk to me about it,” she says finally, looking up tentatively. “i didn’t want to tell jungwon because you know he gets about people he feels protective over.”

you just look at her, not quite sure what to say. “right…”

“yeah. that’s all i really wanted to talk about,” hyewon concludes, wrapping her cardigan around her lithe frame a little tighter.

you nod, processing this new information that had been added to the equation. “can i ask what you meant by riki’s reputation?” 

hyewon bites her lips as she contemplates for a moment. “i mean, from what my cousin has told me, riki has a bit of a reputation as a playboy. i don’t know how true it is - and i also know that my cousin is very prone to exaggerating things to make them seem cooler but i figured it was better to tell you than find out that you had no clue later on.”

“i didn’t,” you whisper, a hot rush of shame rushing up your shame. 

“what?”

“i didn’t know that riki had that kind of reputation,” you explain, swallowing with great difficulty as it feels as though some obstruction was forcing your throat shut. “i didn’t realize that. i mean, i worked with the man for what, three months? i must’ve really been living in a bubble these past few months.”

but even as you speak, you find yourself more confused than ever. what did it matter if riki had this reputation? riki was a grown man and could have relations with whoever he pleased and however he pleased. you had no stake, claim, or even reason to wish for anything over him. 

and yet there’s a whisper of a certain green-eyed monster sitting on your shoulder that you have to physically shiver to shake off, unsure of why it was there in the first place.

“i wouldn’t take it too seriously. i just wanted to let you know since - uh - it seems that the two of you are rather close,” hyewon says, trying to backpedal and take back her words. you just shake your head, offering hyewon a bitter smile.

“thanks for letting me know, hyewon.”

[seoul, 1984]

“hey, are you alright?” sunghoon asked, shaking you out of your contemplation. you were sprawled out on his couch, exhausted after another grueling day of talking to people who thought of you as much as they thought of a piece of gum stuck on their shoes. patients and fellow doctors alike.

“i’m fine,” you offered with a smile, accepting a cup of coffee that sunghoon offers you.

“you know this is the third all-nighter you’ve pulled this week, right?” he reminded you and you just nodded tiredly.

“don’t worry about it. i signed up for this,” you sighed and sumin rustled from the other side of you, adjusting so that she was facing you as she spoke.

“yeah…but did jungwon?” she inquired carefully. you and sunghoon both tensed up alike at this. jay’s eyebrows were furrowed, clearly wary of what she was going to say.

“i’m sorry - what does that mean?” sunghoon demanded and sumin just shrugged, taking a sip of her own coffee.

“i mean, you knew that you were going to be working long hours and everything but it kinda feels like jungwon was left in the dark about all of it,” she explained and you looked at her in shock.

“he knew what y/n was signing up for. he was the one who pushed her to apply to medical school. he gave up on korea university to go to seoul national university with y/n so that they could both work on getting her into medical school,” jay fought back and for some reason, it feels like your vision is tunneling as the tensions in the room start to rise.

sumin rolled her eyes as jay spoke, and it was clear that wasn’t the first time they’d fought about this very topic.

“yeah. and then he couldn’t get a job for six months because all of his connections preferred a candidate from korea university,” she reprimanded and you’re stunned by the anger in her voice.

“sumin, did jungwon say something to you? it feels like you’re kinda saying things deliberately but i’m just not sure where it’s coming from,” you retorted. sunghoon sat down next to you, his grip on his coffee mug rather tense.

sumin set down her cup of coffee on the table in front of the two of you, silent as she chose her words.

“it’s just…don’t you realize how much jungwon has given up for you? he chose the same university as you to support your goals and ambitions. he fights with his parents about you spending long hours at the hospital. he pushes off his own wants and needs for you. and he even gave up on marrying in his twenties like he dreamed of because he knew that you wouldn’t be ready to even think about marriage until you started fellowship. and then the only time that he really feels how important he is in your life is when you list him as your emergency contact. you don’t call him while you’re at the hospital. you don’t have the energy for dates.

“even now, you’re only sitting here because heeseung emotionally blackmailed you into being here because we haven’t seen you in four months, y/n. can you believe that? we all live within twenty minutes of each other by walking distance and you haven’t even called anyone. it’s either we reach out to spend time with you or we don’t even see you.

“i can’t even imagine how tired jungwon must be. he put in all of this effort - he changed his entire life just for you and it’s just not fair to see him get bogged down by all of the realities of how much effort he puts in to treat you well and how much you just don’t do the same.”

“i do love him,” you whispered, tears welling up in your eyes. sumin looked at you with a sympathetic look but it was clear that she felt no mercy as sunghoon just gave her a death glare and wrapped an arm around you loosely to ground you to the situation instead of being lost in your own mind and insecurities like sunghoon knew you tended to do.

“i believe you, y/n. but i just don’t think that it’s enough for him. and to be honest, there are a lot of other things that i think that he’s so kind to just brush past in your relationship but i really don’t think that it’s my place to say any of that,” she concluded, picking up her coffee mug once more.

“i think that’s quite enough. you’ve said a lot of things that weren’t your place to say,” jay said finally, getting up rather abruptly. he stormed into the kitchen and you exchanged a look with sunghoon, and you left sunghoon’s side to go talk to jay, knowing that it was best sunghoon that stayed with sumin right now than you.

“hey. you okay?” you asked quietly, watching carefully as jay stared out of the tiny window above the kitchen sink. jay was silent, but you knew that he didn’t mean to use the silence as a weapon. the two of you were similar in that; silence was a friend, not a foe and you and him both knew that you being there was enough of a comfort for both of you to try to sort through your thoughts.

“i’m sorry about that,” he said softly, loud enough for you to hear but not loud enough to drown out the tension in the other room. “i wish i had an excuse for her behavior but she’s been acting the same way with me these last few weeks.”

“i’m sorry to hear that, jay,” you consoled him gently, sighing as you set down your coffee mug. “it’s not easy to be in a relationship for so many different reasons. sometimes…you learn that it’s best to call it quits than to try to force it.”

jay looked at you through the corner of his eye carefully before shifting his gaze back to the stars. “you really want to call it quits on an eight year long relationship? you think that’s fair?”

you figured that it was a rhetorical question at the time so you didn’t answer, even though in retrospect, you probably should’ve.

you probably should have told the truth about just how much pain you felt every time you had to leave jungwon’s sleeping figure to creep out in the middle of the night and head to the hospital. about how you used to cry yourself to sleep in the on call room when you missed anniversary after birthday after promotion after the next reunion with friends. explained how you loved them all beyond belief but the only way you’d ever be able to win over your mother’s family was to show them just how successful your grandmother and grandfather had raised you to be.

there was so many truths that should’ve come out in that moment. perhaps if they had, jay would’ve helped you explain the situation to jungwon and heeseung, who were late to the reunion due to work. maybe it would’ve pushed him to be more honest with sumin about their relationship’s troubles, and maybe jay and sumin wouldn’t have broken up three months later. 

maybe when jungwon came home that night with news about a promotion to the tokyo office, you wouldn’t have encouraged him. and maybe that gray house with the wood and emerald green interior would be yours and his.

but you didn’t. and the price you paid came at the expense of your friends, your lover, and every bit of warmth left in seoul.

[tokyo, 1988]

“you’re avoiding me,” riki says, echoing his statements from just a few weeks ago. this time, he doesn’t knock. doesn’t offer you any pleasantries about his day or even sound slightly amused by the way that you’ve been dodging him. you don’t look at him, pipetting the buffer solution into the tube carefully. 

“you’re not my resident anymore, riki,” you remind him, ejecting the pipette tip into the little bucket before sticking a fresh one onto the pipette.

“since two days ago, y/n. you’ve been avoiding me for the past week and a half!” riki exclaims, running a frustrated hand through his hair

“i had no assignments for you to get done. i already submitted a glowing recommendation if you choose to do neurology research and patient care,” you offer in rebuttal, but you know that once again, you’re doing everything to avoid addressing the actual issue. 

“you’re not being fair, y/n,” he says, and although you can hear the pain and just how fed up he is, you still can’t bring yourself to give him the closure that you know that he’s seeking.

“you said that we didn’t have to talk about it if i didn’t want to talk about it,” you say softly, carefully moving the tubes over to the freezer to chill the specimens over night. 

“i said we could pretend it never happened,” he corrects, although it’s hard to believe the kindness in his words when he says them through gritted teeth. 

“so let’s do that!” you exclaim, ripping your gloves off.

“yes, but that means that we have to be able to exist in the same space, y/n!” riki yells back. you give him a hard stare before turning away.

“just because you have practice doing this doesn’t mean i do,” you murmur under your breath, hoping he wouldn’t hear you. but alas, riki catches it because as you try to leave the workbench, riki corners you against the wall, so that you’re forced to look at him.

“what is that supposed to mean?” riki says, his voice dangerously low. you try to duck out of sight, not wanting to have this conversation here, where either of the two other professors who use this lab space could come back.

“forget about it, riki. i didn’t mean to say that,” you say, avoiding his gaze.

“didn’t mean to say it or didn’t mean that i would hear it?” he presses.

you squirm. “what difference does it make? either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“it makes all the difference in the world, y/n. if you didn’t mean it, then you’re so stressed because of something that you’re just saying things you don’t mean. if you did mean it, then there’s something you want to talk to me about that you’re just not brave enough to raise,” riki retorts.

“brave enough?” you pause your squirming, and for some inexplicable reason, a wave of fury flushes over you. “don’t you dare talk to me about being brave enough for something, riki.”

you push your finger into his chest, angry beyond belief. “i came to a foreign country by myself because i couldn’t bear being in the same country that i lost all the parents i’ve ever had. my mom, my dad, my grandfather, and then my grandmother. and i’m still here, trying to do my best to stay afloat and not break.”

riki is silent, staring at you in shock, but you’re not done yet.

“i’ve lost so much, riki. i’ve lost my parents. my grandparents. jungwon. my friends. i’ve lost so many people for reasons that were completely out of my control. so i started to just push everyone away! the second that i feel like i start to want to see someone in my life, i push them away before they go ahead and leave on their own.

“so when i woke up in your bed, not knowing what the hell happened the night before, what do you think was going through my head? i didn’t know what i did with you, what i told you, or even how i got there in the first place. i don’t even know why anything that happened happened. i don’t know why i asked you to come to the dinner. i don’t know why i couldn’t even get those words out, to ask you to come.

“i don’t know why my heart feels like it’s going to fall out of its chest when i see jungwon at home and then i come here to see you and suddenly, i get the same damn feeling. i don’t know why i started stumbling over my words the day we first met. i don’t know why i’ve worked this hard for this position and i lost so much in the process, only for it to somehow make sense when i met you.

“you frustrate me beyond belief for reasons that i kept telling myself i didn’t know, when the reality was that i just didn’t want to accept the truth that i possibly could’ve started to like someone. the last person i liked was the love of my life! the man that i had dated for eight years. the man that i thought i would get married to. what the hell do you think that i felt when i got that funny feeling in my stomach when i saw you being so…charismatic? handsome? with that stupidly probing look in your eyes, like you could read me to filth? only for hyewon to tell me that i’m one of maybe fifty women who also feel like that! to know that whatever the hell i might feel about you was probably completely not reciprocated!”

your chest heaving, and you’re painfully aware of how crazed you must look in this moment. hair in every which way from the way you’d been tugging at it in frustration. eyes wide and teary with rage and confusion. the slight goggles line on your forehead from a good four hours with them on. the way your lips are swollen from the way you’d been biting at them all day.

yet, he just looks at you, eyes fixated on your own. 

almost as though he can sense another rant coming on, he lifts his hands to cup your cheeks.

and suddenly, his lips are on yours. soft. insistent. but gentle. sweet. tender. you want to push him away, yell at him for doing that. but you can’t. even as your lips don’t move, shaking as you try to process everything. even as you raise your arms to push him away, to shield yourself from the vulnerability that comes with being so intimate with someone, you just can’t. 

even when you break, so damn tired of fighting him away.

even as your arms snake around his neck to pull him even closer, feeling the warmth radiating off of him.

his hands drift from your cheeks to your waist, pressing your body directly against his own. it feels as though all of the anger that you’d been harboring was slowly starting to melt away the longer he held you in his arms, enough pressure to keep you anchored to him but gentle enough to let you run away at any moment.

but you don’t. you find that your heart is tired of running and so you let it rest here, in his embrace.

riki doesn’t push you away, even when he pulls away. he lets out a soft sigh as he catches his breath, resting his forehead against your own.

“are you still angry with me?” he asks, eyes traveling across your face, as though trying to commit every inch to his memory.

“yes,” you whisper, although you’re well aware that there isn’t a shred of anger in your voice.

“that’s okay,” he laughs softly, bundling you up in his arms. “now that i know you feel the same way towards me that i feel towards you.”

“what about all the other women you’ve used the same line with?” you retort drily. riki finally pulls away from you to ensure that you can see the sincerity oozing from his eyes as he speaks. 

“i’m not sure where i got this playboy reputation from, y/n. it’s true that i was flirtatious with women in the past but i’m not a player. i don’t do one night stands. i had a phase when i was in college but i’ve grown out of it. my reputation followed me into medical school and i never felt the need to correct anyone because i never liked anyone enough to want to dispel the rumors. but hear me loud and clear when i say this: i have never loved someone like i love you.”

you can’t help the tears that gather in your eyes again, and suddenly even his gaze feels too intimate for you. you look away, trying to brush away the tears that slip from their confines.

“i don’t think that i can love you, riki…not yet…” you warble. riki just smiles a sad little smile as he steps closer, using the pads of his thumbs to brush away your tears.

“that’s okay, y/n. for you? i’ll wait until whenever you’re ready. i’ve got enough for the both of us.”

[seoul, 1987]

“you know, since jungwon moved on and is getting married, you could also put yourself out there again,” sunghoon said, confiscating your soju bottle. you didn’t even have the energy to fight him, letting him steal your solace from you without so much as a peep.

“i don’t even have enough time to take care of myself. where would i get the time to go date someone?” you lamented but sunghoon looked neither bemused nor sympathetic.

“you drink yourself half to death and then max out your hours at the hospital very much voluntarily, y/n. i’m not throwing you a pity party here,” sunghoon said firmly. you couldn’t dispute his statements. he was right. the death of your grandfather and breaking up with jungwon were both things that happened to you somewhat out of your control. the alcoholism and working yourself to the bone at the hospital was all your own doing.

but it just wasn’t fair.

“did you see the picture of her in the wedding invitation?” you asked sullenly, slumped over sunghoon’s table. sunghoon just stared at you for a moment before sighing, sitting down in the seat next to your own.

“i did,” he admitted.

“she’s gorgeous.”

sunghoon was silent. he agreed.

“i want to move on, sunghoon. you think i don’t hurt? i might’ve broken up with him but it wasn’t because i loved him any less than i loved him when we started dating. i honestly love him even more than that! you know that’s why i broke up with him. and you know how much my grandfather meant to me. after everything that happened with my mother’s side of the family, he still was the one to fight with all of them and cut all of them off when i landed on his doorstep.”

“i know.”

“so then why won’t you let me be sad, sunghoon? why won’t you just let me ruin my own life when i’ve already lost two of the most important people i had!” you cried, but even through your tears, you could feel how ridiculous you were being. 

“i love you, y/n. you’re one of the most important people i have. and i refuse to make that past tense.” so simply. that was it. sunghoon loved you and you loved him. he was the brother you’d always wished you had. the family that you wished you had when you saw other children bring their brothers and sisters to the park to play with them. 

sunghoon took one look at you before covering your hands with his own. “would you let me do this to myself?”

you sniffled. “no.”

he finally cracked a smile at the speed of your response. “so i’m not going to let this happen to you. you’re my little sister, right? i’m gonna protect you.” 

and that was how you finally started healing.

[tokyo, 1988]

“do you have any christmas plans next week?” hyewon asks. it’s a rare feat to have all three of you sitting together for dinner, with jungwon often coming home late due to the end of the year projects at his office. it also didn’t help that you had taken on more patient care work, meaning that your hours were all over the place, trying to treat patients and also complete your research in time for the holidays.

“not really,” you say. “do you two?”

jungwon and hyewon exchange a look before jungwon clears his throat, leaning forward in his chair.

“we were going to hyewon’s uncle’s place in the evening…” jungwon trails off and you can surmise the parts that the two of them are struggling to say.

“go. please. i am a big girl and am more than capable of spending time by myself,” you laugh. more time to get some paperwork done, you think. maybe even spend some time calling sunghoon, since he’d also been very busy with the end of the year projects he had to complete.

“i know…but still. i remember how much christmas meant to your grandmother. i don’t want you to feel like you’re alone on the holidays,” jungwon explains gently and your breath catches in your throat for a moment before you’re able to swallow down the pain.

“oh, don’t worry about that. grandma always wanted me to be a successful doctor more than she wanted me to be a family woman because of everything that happened with my mother’s…you know what. don’t worry about it. i’m gonna be just fine, trust me,” you rasp, picking up your chopsticks again. hopefully shoving more food down your throat would make you feel less like throwing up.

“honestly y/n, i’m more than fine with skipping this dinner if you want to do something together instead,” hyewon says earnestly, but you just shake your head.

“no, please, i don’t want you to miss out on spending time with your family on my account. i heard christmas is a couple’s holiday in japan anyway, right?” you say, trying your best to keep from sounding too sardonic. “besides, i’m not going to be alone.”

hyewon nearly falls out of her seat. “you’re not gonna - do you have a boyfriend?”

you think for a moment before shaking your head. “not a boyfriend.”

“then what? if you know that christmas is a couple’s holiday, and you’re not going to be alone, that means that you’re in a relationship - right?” jungwon interrogates. 

you shrug. “you don’t have to have a boyfriend to be in a relationship.”

“well, then do you have a girlfriend?”

“no.”

“significant other.”

“…jungwon.”

“so then what do you have?”

“i don’t know. we’re taking things slow. it’s only been two weeks. i’m not ready to put any labels on this just yet,” you say casually but your explanation doesn’t seem to satisfy jungwon, who just chews on his shoga-yaki rather intensely.

“uh…but it’s a something?” hyewon asks tentatively. you pause before nodding slowly, tapping your chopsticks on the plate as you think.

“it’s a something,” you agree. “but i’m being very serious when i say that i want to take things slow. i’m a bit out of practice and this is the first time i’ve liked someone since…”

suddenly the wasabi in front of the three of you looks incredibly interesting. hyewon clears her throat, the first to recover. 

“well, whatever it is, i hope it makes you happy, y/n. you deserve a lifetime of happiness,” she says, scooting out of her chair to start putting the leftovers away. jungwon looks at you with a certain look in his eyes - one that you know all too well.

you saw it quite often right before you broke up with each other. 

the feeling that you’re being pulled in opposite directions from each other.

“you’re too sweet, hyewon,” you say, unable to take your eyes off of jungwon - who holds your gaze. he wants to say something - you can tell by the way his grip on his chopsticks grows just that much firmer. you wait, and it feels as though the tension is physically rising to suffocate you…and then jungwon’s grip grows lax again as he turns his gaze back down to his nearly empty plate.

“oh, speaking of big changes,” you begin, getting up slowly. “i have some news for the two of you. i haven’t said anything yet because nothing was finalized but i think that there are only a few steps left.”

hyewon turns off the sink she was washing dishes at, turning to you with a worried look. “is everything okay y/n?”

you nod. “everything’s more than okay - you guys remember the apartment i went to see a few weeks ago? well, i just got my clearances back today and the landlord said we could move forward with the process! i’ll be out of your hair in less than a month, at the maximum! it’s in azabu, so the other side of shibuya but the commute to work is much shorter.”

hyewon leaps forward to wrap you with a tight hug. “that’s so amazing, y/n! you’re never a bother for us but it must be so exciting to have your own place and everything now!”

you laugh and hug her back. but even as you do so, you are distinctly aware of jungwon still sitting at the table, silent. hyewon seems to register this as well by the way that she peels herself off of you to look at him.

“jungwon, aren’t you so happy for her?” hyewon asks, her arms still resting on your own. jungwon doesn’t respond, instead putting the dishes in the sink and then heading upstairs wordlessly, not once looking at you or hyewon.

[seoul, 1984]

“you want to break up?” there’s no anger in his voice. no surprise, no disbelief, nothing. 

you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. 

“it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?” you could hear the sheer exhaustion in your own voice.

jungwon sighed, running a hand through his hair as he contemplates. “i don’t know.”

“when did you start waking up and knowing that this wasn’t going to work?”

“i don’t know.”

he sounded equally as tired. you swallowed, almost afraid to ask the question that had been pressing on your mind since sumin had confronted you two weeks ago.

“do you still love me?” you ventured. jungwon looked at you as though you’d asked him if you were suddenly glowing and bright blue. and for the first time since you’d sat him down half an hour ago, saying that you needed to talk, there’s an emotion other than tiredness jungwon’s face.

“i love you so much it hurts, y/n. but sometimes, love isn’t enough.”

[tokyo, 1988]

“what are your plans for christmas, riki?” you ask. you don’t look at him, casually flipping through the pages of your literature. not a word on those pages register in your mind as you wait for riki’s answer.

riki hums, tying his shoelaces. it’s been a long day for both of you - riki was officially in the surgery rotation and was being pummeled left and right with long hours and back to back surgeries. his suspicion was that haruto was taking out his anger on his resident but you thought that haruto was too nice to do something that petty.

“i’m not sure. my parents don’t really care for christmas so…i guess it depends on what the girl i’m seeing wants to do,” he says smugly. you can feel the heat rise up your spine and settle on your cheeks, ducking out of sight from riki before he takes notice.

but it’s clear that riki had spoken with a clear goal in mind, with the way that he smirks from across the desk.

“uh, that’s nice,” you manage, clearing your throat. “and if she wants to just stay at home?”

riki shrugs. “that’s fine by me. i’m not scheduled for christmas so i’m alright with doing whatever you’d like.”

you nod, setting down the papers that were blocking your face once you’ve managed to compose yourself. you’re about to say something (perhaps another quip at the ‘girl riki was seeing’) when a wave of nausea washes over you, forcing you to grip the handles of your chair as you try to fend off the wave.

riki looks at you with concern, watching you keel over as you try to take deep breaths to keep yourself from emptying your lunch all over your desk.

“y/n? are you alright?” he asks tentatively, getting up to squat down in front of you. his brown eyes are full of palpable concern and you try to muster a smile, waving him off. 

“i’m fine,” you manage. “i’ve just been having these bouts of nausea lately. i think that the sashimi i had a couple days ago has been taking a toll on my body.”

riki doesn’t laugh at your attempt at lightheartedness, instead calculating in his mind. “y/n…you know, it’s been around four weeks since we…”

you lift your head slightly. “yeah?”

riki takes a deep breath, taking one of your hands in both of his. “did you get your period this month?”

you reel backwards, snatching your hand away from riki in the process. “don’t be crazy riki. it’s food poisoning, not a child.”

riki raises his hand in surrender, still kneeling on the floor. 

“i believe you!” he says, but you can tell that he’s not fully convinced. “but wouldn’t it be better to be safe than sorry?”

you just stare at him, unable to process anything all of a sudden. you had been having pretty bad migraines the past week. and your appetite was suddenly nowhere nearly as robust as it used to be. but you had chalked all of it up to working too hard over the past few weeks, trying to tie up all the lose ends before the end of the year. 

no. all of that was just due to stress. there was just no way that you were pregnant. you were dr. l/n y/n, for heaven’s sake! there’s just no way that you would be pregnant of all things. not after you’d done everything to run away from a family, there’s just no way that the universe could be so cruel to give you the one thing that you were the most afraid of.

but something about the way that riki was looking at you made you feel as though there was a cause for being concerned.

“i - we didn’t use protection?” you ask incredulously. riki pauses before slowly nodding his head and then shaking it.

“we did…the first two times,” he says, somewhat sheepishly. and even as you’re scared shitless, you can’t help the startled giggle that escapes you.

“riki, i need you to tell me exactly what happened that night.” your voice is serious, but not unkind and riki sighs before getting up, dragging the chair on the other side of the desk to the side that you were on.

he holds your hand once more before taking a deep breath, and recounting what had happened that night.

[tokyo, 1988]

“i’m not drunk, i swear,” you promised, but riki was thoroughly unconvinced by the way that you couldn’t walk in a straight line. riki was nowhere near sober (in fact, he was vaguely sure that he was also on the verge of blacking out) but at least he could tell his left from right. with about 10% confidence. 

and somehow, that was better than you were faring.

“yeah, and i don’t have the world’s fattest one sided crush on you,” he snorted, somewhat under his breath and somewhat for you to hear.

it’s clear that even if your occipital lobe might not be functioning at 100% capacity, your auditory system was sharper than ever. you pause, stumbling into riki a little bit.

“you what?” you asked, hiccuping slightly as you gasp. “did you, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven years, old use the word crush?”

riki rolled his eyes. “that’s what you’re fixated on?”

you giggled. “it’d be so beyond stupid of me if i never noticed the chemistry between us.”

this took riki aback, sending him stumbling into the alleyway behind him. in any circumstance, riki would be wary of being in such an alleyway in the middle of the night in the dead center of tokyo but he’s too fixated on what you said.

“you knew?” he whispered incredulously. you shrugged, clearly not understanding the weight of the words you were saying.

“that you had a ‘crush’ on me? not really. but i always felt kinda attracted to you - like magnets, you know? i figured it wasn’t one sided if the tension was that strong.” you said it so nonchalantly, as though you were reminded riki that there are 365 days in a year or that uracil is found in RNA, not DNA. 

the next thing riki remembered is the look in your eyes when he drew closer and the gasp when his lips were on yours.

after that? nothing.

[tokyo, 1988}

you look at riki, trying to gauge whether he’s messing with you or being completely serious. “you don’t remember anything after that?”

riki shakes his head. he ducks quickly to avoid the angry swat you aim in his direction. “hey! it’s not like i was sober either!”

“but you remembered enough to know that we…you know…more than once!” you splutter, and riki lifts up a finger as if to protest.

“i only know that because of contextual reasoning, actually. i found the condom wrappers in the trash later but i know we went to sleep around four or five in the morning because my alarm went off at five and you nearly fell out of bed because you thought it was a fire alarm,” riki says, eyebrows drawn tightly together as he tries to piece together what happened that night.

you let out an exasperated sigh. “if we were both that drunk, i can’t imagine we were making all the best decisions regarding sexual safety.”

riki’s hand latches itself back onto your own. he looks up at you earnestly, sincerity oozing from him. “i mean this so genuinely, y/n: no matter what happens, we’ll figure it out, okay? pregnant or not, we’ll figure this out. just promise me one thing.”

you look at him, almost afraid of what he was going to ask of you.

“what?”

“just promise me that you won’t run away. promise me that you’ll let me be by your side. promise that you’ll actually lean on me. promise me that we can figure this out together,” riki asks, emotion thick in his voice. you blink, shocked that that’s what he wanted you to promise. 

he could’ve walked away at any moment. pregnancy or not, you knew that the blame always fell on the women. especially in asia? pregnant? when you and riki weren’t even in an established relationship, much less not married? you knew that the implications would be enough to make you lose your job, just for the absolute tarnishing of your reputation.

but riki wants to be here with you, and take the fall with you? the fall. oh. you’re gonna lose your job. and riki’s gonna lose his job for standing by you. and then…and then it’ll all go to shit. all of the things you’d worked so hard for your entire life would be for nothing. all the sacrifices you’d made to get here would be moot. everything your grandparents gave up for you to become a doctor would be meaningless.

riki seems to register that you’re starting to spiral by the way your breathing grows more rapid, as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. he gets up, and gently guides you into his embrace as he leans over to hold you to his chest. his chest is firm, and so is his grip on you, but in the way that a snug sock might be. firm but not demanding. gentle and reassuring. maybe not like a sock then.

“it’s okay, y/n. i promise,” he whispers into your hair. and suddenly, it’s as though he’s unlocked something inside you as the tears start to flow, soaking riki’s button up shirt. 

“how can you say that?” you sniffle through your tears and riki’s heart seems to physically break at the pain in your voice. he might not know what you’ve gone through for you to seem so distraught or unbelieving of the fact that everything was gonna be okay but riki made a solemn vow to himself in that moment.

he was going to make sure that you never had to doubt that he would be there with you. that you’d have to struggle to make everything okay on your own.

“because i’m here with you, y/n. and i promise that i will be for as long as you’ll have me.”

riki doesn’t move as you just cry for the next twenty minutes.

[seoul, 1985]

you sat, almost numb to the coldness of the hospital chair as you tried to commit your grandfather’s every minuscule movement to memory. your grandfather had always seemed so strong - as though he’d been made out of the thunderclouds that were threatening torrential rain outside. he was tall and still fairly muscular - remnants from his youth as a farmer’s son. he always had a bright smile and a looked like he hadn’t aged past forty well into his seventies.

it was so strange seeing him laying there in that hospital bed. he looked so small and fragile. completely opposite from the grandfather that you remember teaching you how to ride a bike or write a check. the grandfather who’d knock on your door and bring fruits while you were studying and didn’t have time to eat.

it felt wrong.

your grandmother came back into the room with two cups of coffee, extending one out to you. you sat up in your chair as you accepted it and she sat down next to you, watching the gentle rise and fall of her husband’s chest.

“i can’t believe he has cancer, grandma,” you said, unable to keep the worry out of your voice. your grandmother looked at you before looking back at her husband.

“i told him that those cigarettes would be the end of him,” she sighed, but you could hear the pain in her voice. “but he was a stubborn old man and he always used to tell me that they were his one solace when you weren’t at home.”

a feeling of guilt sat low in your belly, like it was churning its sickness into you. 

“i should’ve come home more often,” you whispered but your grandmother waved you off.

“we wanted you to work hard and become a doctor. it was your mother’s dream, after she saw her sister become a dentist but things never really worked out,” your grandmother sighed. you paused, your breath catching as you turned to your grandmother slowly.

“my mother had a sister? i thought you told me that you only had mom and that’s it,” you said. your grandmother paused, as though she were deciding to rectify her slip or to smooth it over. the truth won out as your grandmother sighed, leaning back in her chair. you watched with bated breath, shocked at the possibility of having a family that your grandparents had withheld from you.

your grandmother kept her gaze on the cup of coffee in front of her.

“your mother had a sister. she was from your grandfather’s first marriage.” your grandmother took a long sip of her coffee as she waited for you to at least somewhat recover from her shocking revelation.

“what happened to her? i knew that grandpa had a wife but i didn’t know that they had a child,” you spluttered. your grandmother nodded.

“they had a child. your mother and her were very close when they were children, even though they had different mothers. her mother died when she was young so i was like her real mother. and it was all alright until she went to college. your mother must’ve been fifteen or sixteen when her sister went to college.

“i don’t know what happened. it was as though she went as a happy, loving child and came back so broody and snappy all the time. that was around the time that your mother and her sister started growing distant. eventually, she stopped coming home.

“she started to cut us all out slowly, only keeping in touch with her father. and then one day, she showed up on our doorstep with a wedding invitation with some rich boy. his parents had looked at our family background and offered her an ultimatum: denounce her family or be unable to marry their son.”

your grandmother sighed, looking down in her lap. had she always looked so weathered? the lines in her forehead seemed so prominent all of a sudden.

“she chose the boy. she wrote to your grandfather a few times but that was about it. and then your mother grew to become an english teacher and got married to your father and got pregnant with you. she always missed her sister, no matter she tried to hide it. she invited her to her wedding but she never came. i think she had someone drop off congratulatory cash though.

“your grandfather was so upset by that that he forbade any of us from speaking to her - not that that was possible. he wrote her out of the will and never allowed us to speak about her. but your mother, she had a heart that was too soft for her own good. after - after she died giving birth to you and your father died in that car crash on the way to the hospital, we found out that she wanted you to grow up under her sister’s care if something happened to her and her husband.

“the last time we saw your mother’s sister was when she came to our house to say that she wouldn’t adopt you because her in-laws were too obsessed with pedigree. they said that they didn’t want to adopt someone who was born to poor parents and…a child who had ‘killed’ her parents before she was even born. it didn’t help that your father also didn’t have his parents and didn’t have a huge sum of cash to fall back on. your grandfather was so furious at her words that he held her by her elbow and threw her out of the house.”

the tears streamed down your cheeks silently as you listened, unable to even think straight as you tried to process her words. your grandmother chuckled drily, shaking her head.

“that old soul loved you from the moment he laid eyes on you. said that he lost his daughter for only three minutes because she was finding her way back as you,” your grandmother said and you choked as you tried to catch your breath, winded by the realization of just how much your grandparents had sacrificed for you.

“i can’t believe you didn’t tell me this,” you said, unable to speak properly because of the tears clogging your throat. your grandmother tried to smile, rubbing your back gently.

“what good would’ve that been? you are our angel, y/n. our blessing. we got to experience being parents all over again because of you. but that’s why your grandfather and i always pushed you so hard to be a successful doctor. we wanted you to do everything your mother couldn’t do…and prove to them that pedigree has nothing to do with the amount of money you have, but the way you grow,” your grandmother said, and you leaned into her warmth as she continued to rub your back.

“i will grandma. i am going to be so successful that grandpa is going to be able to walk down the streets with his head held high because that family is going to weep because of how successful i’d become,” you promised, eyes red with determination.

and even though in hindsight it was probably just coincidence, there was a slight smile on your sleeping grandfather’s face as you grit your teeth and set your sights on ambitions higher than the clouds in the skies.

your grandmother swore, two weeks later, that that determination is what finally allowed him to rest easy when he closed his eyes for the last time.

[tokyo, 1988]

riki looks at you, beyond shocked at what you’ve revealed to him as the two of you sit on his couch at his apartment. the two of you had decided to move from the hospital to his apartment so that you could take a walk watching the tokyo sunset to calm down your emotions a bit after buying the pregnancy test. you laugh through the tears streaming down your face as you fan yourself.

“that’s the first time i’ve ever told that actually. i can’t believe how much burden has been lifted off of my shoulders by talking about that,” you say. riki is still frozen as he tries to process this incredible amount of information that you’ve disclosed with him.

“i - i don’t know what to say, y/n,” he says honestly. “i am so thankful you trust me enough to tell me though.”

you brush at your cheeks to wipe away the tears. “i felt like i had to explain my spiral from earlier.”

riki finally moves, raising his own hand to cup your cheek and brush away your tears. “you don’t have to justify yourself to me, y/n. but thank you for telling me. it makes a lot more sense why you told me you were so protective about your job…and your hesitation with pregnancy.”

“yeah, having your mom die during pregnancy and then being called a killer for her dying in labor doesn’t really prove to be a great way to embrace motherhood,” you eke out, failing to keep the dark dryness out of your tone.

riki lifts his other arm, twisting so that he was facing you as he sat, and cups your other cheek. “y/n, if you take that pregnancy test and it’s positive and you don’t want this child, i am here for you. it’s one hundred percent your decision and my approval or lack of it means absolutely jack shit but just know that if you want to abort this baby, we will abort this baby. you are the most important person here right now and i want to do whatever you want to do.”

you nod, unable to come up with the words to express your thankfulness. not just at the way riki has placed so much of the deciding power in your hands, but also because of how gentle and kind he has been throughout the entire time you’ve been spiraling.

“i wish i could tell you how much that means to me,” you whisper gently, leaning into riki’s warm touch for just a moment longer before taking a deep breath and pulling away.

“you okay?” he asks, slowly retracting his arm. you hesitate for just a moment before resting your hand on his arm, trying to offer him a comforting smile.

“i’m perfect, riki. i - i think i should take the test. it’ll take half an hour to get the results anyway,” you swallow and riki just watches you carefully before slowly nodding.

“alright. well. you know where the bathroom is - let me know if you need anything, okay?” he says softly. you nod, but you can’t hear him well over the pounding of your heart as you slowly make your way to the restroom.

the process itself takes a lot less time than you’d expected. between opening the package and peeing on the stick, you manage to finish the whole thing in less than seven minutes (which you know for a fact because you count out each individual minute for the last four minutes). the rest of the time that you’re in the bathroom (six minutes, that you also count out) is you biting your nails, trying to figure out how to break this to jungwon.

whether it was negative or positive, there was just something that seems to have clicked when you were sitting with riki on his couch, talking about things that you’d never had the courage to talk about prior to this evening.

with jungwon, things had always been so easy - everything just happened because it felt like it should happen. there was no hardship until the moment that the two of you grew up, and realized just how much you would have to sacrifice for each other to stay together. it felt like when push came to shove, the two of you had been so used to the comfort of always having each other’s presence that you never truly imagined how difficult it would be to adjust outside of that life.

but with riki, every step seemed to be the universe offering you a new life lesson. there was so much growth that came with riki and yet, it felt right. riki never ran away from you, no matter how much you thought you were a burden in his life for all of the unresolved, messed up, jumbled feelings that seemed to weigh you down everyday.

and in the few short weeks you’d been seeing riki, somehow you were presented with more difficult decisions and more conflict than you were exposed to with jungwon over the near decade that the two of you were dating.

and the fact that riki was able to coach you through all of them, despite the fact that he was younger than you, and give you the support that you needed (never mind the near magnetic compulsion you felt towards him) gives you the courage to step out of the restroom.

riki is standing just outside the restroom, back leaned up against the wall as he seems to be reassuring himself quietly, rubbing his thumb over his own knuckles in a rhythmic motion.

“how are you holding up?” you ask quietly, and riki’s head whips towards you when he realizes you’re out of the restroom. he shrugs, running a hand through his hair but you know that there are words he wants to say that are on the tip of his tongue.

“i’m fine,” he says. you nod, almost ready to take this as an answer before a chord of dissonance strikes through your body and you turn around to face him once more.

“are you sure, riki? i mean, this is a big decision for you too,” you say gently. and it’s as though these are the words that riki needs to hear for the dam of his emotions to just break. he looks at you for just a moment, taking in every single inch of your aura as he just stares.

and then he pulls you in for a kiss that feels as though he’s physically trying to mould your soul into his. like he’s trying to transfer every single ounce of his doubt, fear, and love into your brain just by the force of his kiss. 

your hand trails up his arm to cup at his cheek, gently caressing it as riki begins to calm down, his heart rate growing steadier and slower with your touch. he pulls away to rest his forehead against yours, eyes closed as he tries to steady his breath.

“i’m so scared. but i’m also so ready for this. and maybe our relationship happened all out of order and without convention but i just…i know that there’s something here. something i can’t let go of, y/n. no matter what,” riki whispers.

these words uttered by anyone else, would make you want to run and scream and bury your head in the soil, running far far away. but from riki? it just feels right.

you just look up at him and smile, taking a deep breath. “i’m here for you riki. just as much as you’re here for me.”

riki nods and then pushes the door to the bathroom open, where the pregnancy test is sitting on the counter and you don’t even have to look at the test to know the answer.

instead you just see riki melt into you, wrapping you up in a protective, warm, and vulnerable hug.

it’s positive. 

[tokyo, 1989]

“that’s the last of the boxes, i think,” jungwon huffs, dusting his hands off as he sets down a large cardboard box. you and hyewon had been a little too excited when you’d gone furniture shopping together for your new apartment so the number of boxes that were now lined up against the walls were far too many to count.

“thanks for helping out, jungwon,” you say, offering him a glass of water that he accepts with a tight smile. hyewon was downstairs, in the lobby of the apartment building, picking up the carry out food that you’d ordered to your apartment.

or at least, this was the excuse that she was using to escape from the sure to be nuclear fallout that would emerge after jungwon found out that you were pregnant, which she’d convinced you to reveal today.

you’d told hyewon pretty much right after you’d found out. they’d just come back home from christmas dinner, and hyewon had been looking so light and bubbly.

“you know what, y/n. i wish that you’d get married to that boy soon. i just visited my niece and she is just the most precious person on the planet! i wish i’d get pregnant to have my own bundle of joy but until then, i’m gonna hound you until you have one,” she’d said, folding her formal attire and putting it away in the closet. you didn’t notice in the moment, but she was looking at you with a strange, almost knowing look as she spoke. you hummed, nodding along as you meditated on whether or not to tell her that her wish may be coming true sooner than hyewon might expect.

you glanced at the shut door that led to the bathroom, where jungwon was taking an obnoxiously long shower. 

“hyewon…” you began, a thumb running over your knuckles in an effort to ease your nerves. “i have to tell you something.”

hyewon turned around slowly, her gaze growing serious at the pensiveness in your tone. “is everything alright?”

you nodded, and indicated for her to follow you out of the master bedroom. she might’ve invited you up there to chat but you still didn’t want jungwon to see you speaking in hushed tones with hyewon. he’d been a little distant from you since you told him that you were going to be moving out and you didn’t want to put hyewon in an awkward place if he saw you confiding in her.

not to mention the fact that there was no way in hell that you could even tell jungwon about the pregnancy.

“everything’s fine hyewon. do you wanna drink some hot cocoa with me? i brought some from my date,” you said, trying to calm hyewon down. she nodded, though clearly not satisfied with your secrecy.

the two of you made your way downstairs, each lost in your own thoughts. the entire time that you fix up two mugs of hot cocoa, you’re silent, unsure of what exactly to say to her. 

“are you pregnant?” hyewon was the one to break the silence and you turned to her, shocked. 

“how did you know?” you asked, dumbfounded that she’d known so quickly. hyewon accepts the mug of hot cocoa that you handed her as she thought, trying to find the words to answer your question.

“i’ve known for a while,” she admitted quietly after a few moments of silence. “there’s a glow that you didn’t have before. at first i thought it was because of the man you were dating but it’s almost…softer than that? i don’t know. there’s a maternal energy that you have that is a lot more prevalent now. you’re a lot warmer now.”

there’s a blush on your cheeks as you listened to hyewon. had you truly changed that much? were you that different of a person? in the short time that you were aware of your motherhood, you had never really considered that anyone else would be able to recognize your inner tsunami of emotions.

much less that anyone would be able to tell that you were growing a new life - a thought that was equal parts frightening and beautiful.

“does anyone else know?” she asked, and you’re forced back into the quiet hum of the heating in the background.

“just riki - the father - and you,” you confessed and hyewon nodded, taking a long sip of her hot cocoa.

“does sunghoon know?” she continued. you shook your head, opting to drink from your own cup instead. you’re not sure if it’s the morning sickness or the realization that you need to tell sunghoon but there’s a queasiness in your stomach that doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave anytime soon.

“not yet. and obviously, neither does jungwon,” you said. hyewon nodded, silent as she contemplates your words.

“neither of them are going to react well to this,” she said plainly and while you’re somewhat taken aback at her matter-of-fact statement said so bluntly, you knew that was the truth. seeing the panic on your face, hyewon got up, pausing for just a moment in front of you before wrapping you in a deep hug.

“but even if they don’t, know that i am happy for you. if you want this baby, i will be here for you every step of the way. they’ll come around. they just love you a lot,” hyewon said.

you hoped so.

“hello? earth to y/n?” hyewon says, waving her hand in front of your face.

“sorry, i was just spacing out,” you say, blinking as you’re brought back to the present.

“you’ve been really spacey over the last two weeks, y/n. is everything alright?” jungwon asks. it’s the first time that jungwon has spoken to you about anything other than basic small talk ever since you’d broken the news that you were moving from their place. 

hyewon and you exchange a look and hyewon mumbles something about using the restroom and escapes once again, leaving you to face jungwon alone.

“jungwon, i have to tell you something,” you say with a deep sigh. jungwon stares at you, unsure of exactly how he was supposed to react to that statement. he settles for just nodding, and the two of you head from the kitchen to the living room, where the only furniture that had been set up was a couch and an ottoman.

you sit on the ottoman, across from jungwon, who sits on the couch. but as you open your mouth to tell him the news that had been causing you to be so distant lately, there’s a buzz at the door and your stomach sinks. 

in your rush to move all the boxes and all the furniture into the apartment, you’d completely forgot that you had invited riki to come over and help with the move in process, thinking that jungwon and hyewon would leave by the time he would come over. you curse as you check your watch, realizing that you’d miscalculated just how long it would take to move everything in. 

jungwon gives you a strange look. “are you going to answer the door?” 

you swallow, nodding as you get up, buzzing riki in. “jungwon, i need to tell you about someone and…you’re going to meet him right now and i need you to like him. okay?”

“y/n, what are you talking about?” 

you’re not sure what compels you. maybe it’s the fact that this is the longest conversation that you had with jungwon in over a month. maybe it’s the growing pressure to tell him. maybe it’s the nerves. the probing look in his eyes. or maybe…maybe it’s the comfort that you feel in jungwon. the comfort that you felt years ago, when you were head over heels in love, and felt like it was almost a crime to keep anything from him because you knew just how much he cared. 

“i’m pregnant, jungwon. and riki is the father. and you don’t know riki. but he works with me at the hospital. he’s a year younger than me and i’ve been seeing him for two and a half months. and i - i think i love him.” 

the words practically trip over themselves as they rush out, each one more disastrous than the one before. jungwon grows pale with your confession, before a flush rises in his cheeks, anger so obvious in his eyes that for the first time in your life, you’re afraid in his presence.

and as if the universe hadn’t had enough contempt for you very existence, there’s a knock at the door and you don’t have time to react. jungwon leaps up, faster than you can move, and opens the door in the blink of an eye. 

everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion. jungwon grabbing riki’s collar. riki locking eyes with you and keeping his hands behind his back. jungwon pulling riki into the apartment. pushing him against the wall. hyewon rushing out of the bathroom. riki doing nothing to stop jungwon when he draws his fist back. hyewon trying to physically pull jungwon away from riki.

“YOU PIECE OF SHIT - YOU KNOCKED HER UP? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HER? DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID TO GET TO WHERE SHE IS NOW? AND YOU JUST RUINED HER LIFE?”

jungwon was screaming, but for some reason, you can’t process anything he’s saying. all you can do is stare, dumbfounded. 

riki just looks at him, almost as if he’d expected this explosive reaction, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons. you’d told riki bits and pieces of your past with jungwon - especially about why you were so hesitant to jump into a serious relationship - but nothing significant enough for him to just stand there while jungwon was threatening to beat him up.

“i love her, jungwon.”

jungwon’s fist just barely swings past riki. you don’t give him a chance to wind up and aim properly this time. you leap out of your seat and push jungwon away, and it’s clear that jungwon is taken aback by the statement when he practically topples over from your slight push.

“you what?” jungwon whispers, chest heaving as he looks at riki as if he’d grown a second head. hyewon looks tense from behind him, her arms still circled around his waist.

“i said, i love her. and i’m gonna stick by her. and…and if she wants to keep the baby, i’m gonna marry her,” riki says, almost matter-of-factly. this time, you almost topple over. it’s as though the sheer nonsensical nature of the situation has knocked all the anger out of jungwon as he just stares at riki. and then you. and then riki.

“you’re…what?” he says.

“you - you’re - you…what?” you echo. riki nods, looking down at you with a warm yet concerned gaze. he lifts his arm, no doubt to wrap you in a protective hug, but decides against it when he looks at jungwon again.

“if you want to keep the baby, i’ll marry you, y/n. not because i think that marriage is going to magically take away all the issues or anything. but i want life to be easy for you. i want life to be good for our baby. i want you to have a family - if that’s what you want.” his voice is soft, but firm. earnest and sincere but full of conviction. 

if he was running for a political seat, you’re sure that you would’ve already cast your vote for him. 

“huh?” at least the confusion was causing jungwon to steer away from anger as he just looks at you with an almost visible question mark floating above his head.

riki is the one to answer his (many) questions. “i’m a doctor at the hospital y/n works at. i’ve known about her since way before she and i even met and i’ll be honest - it was love at first sight for me. but i didn’t think that she would ever look at me like how i looked at her.”

“youngest in her class to be a fellow. top graduate from one of the best schools in korea. at the forefront of innovation in her field. sincere and dedicated to all of her patients. she was just about perfect in every way, shape, or form. and then i met her in person.”

“she was gorgeous, intelligent, and every inch of a walking goddess that i had envisioned her to be. but she didn’t see me. not the way that i saw her. at first, i thought it was because of my age; the fact that i was a year younger than her. or perhaps that i wasn’t nearly as accomplished as her. or even that i scared her. i didn’t know what it was.”

“then one day, she casually mentioned you - jungwon - and her living situation. she mentioned in passing, like she wasn’t thinking about it but for some reason, it was stuck in my head. and then i realized that she didn’t see me because she wasn’t seeing any man - any man but you. so i tried to give up. i tried to forget it but when you know, you just know. no matter what i did to try and push away my attraction - writing it off as lust or just puppy love, i couldn’t. i was in deep.”

“and then…she walked into the hospital and suddenly i just knew. knew that even if she wasn’t completely over you, maybe i had a chance. maybe she would open her eyes and look at me - see me for me. see me the way i had been seeing her the whole time.”

“imagine my surprise when she confessed, drunk out of her mind, that she saw me at least somewhat like i saw her. we were both at the neuro department’s dinner and had one too many drinks. and with that confession and all that alcohol, one thing led to another and…we…slept together. i woke up with the woman of my dreams in my bed and i was beyond ecstatic - did this mean that we could progress past the relationship of a fellow and her resident? did she see me as a man instead of an immature person who followed her around?”

“she said she wanted to forget it ever happened. i didn’t know what to do. it felt like my entire world was crumbling to pieces. i had hoped, dreamed, and twisted my heart into so many different shapes that i didn’t think it could handle any more bending before breaking. did she just see me as a one night stand? or worse…did she even know that it was me? was her confession just an alcohol induced babble? i was lost. and then she stopped talking to me. avoided me when i came to talk to her. pretended she didn’t see my pages. assigned me to so many surgeries, i was too tired to search for her.”

“there were more times than i can count that i staked out in front of her office, determined to catch her and confront her. only to fall asleep before i could. i always woke up to a warm jacket wrapped around my shoulders and another intern waking me up to tell me to sleep in the on call room. i knew she cared - i just didn’t know why she was running away.”

“and then she kissed me and suddenly, nothing mattered anymore. she kissed me, she was in my arms, she was running and she chose to come back. and that’s all that mattered. everything else, i would figure out. i would help her fix it all. not because she needed me or my help. but because i wanted nothing more than to be hers. i wanted to be in every inch of her life that she would let me touch. i just wanted her to trust me and tell me everything that she’d been afraid of, excited for, and ever in love with. i wanted her past, to heal her. i wanted her future, to be a part of it. and i wanted her present, because i wanted her to realize just how beautiful she was. inside and out.”

“then came the pregnancy. when she was taking the test, i was nervous. not because i didn’t want a family with her. no. i knew from the moment she ran up to the elevator, flummoxed by the badging in system that she was the woman i wanted to marry. but i was nervous because i was scared she would run again. and this time, i was scared that she would run away from me. and there wasn’t a thought scarier than that. but she didn’t. she looked at one of the most frightening moments i can only imagine straight in the eyes, grabbed my hands, and decided to run headfirst.”

“i want to marry her, jungwon. she was my inspiration to be a better man before i ever even met her. when i was just her resident, there wasn’t an effort i spared to try and impress her so that she would notice me as anything other than just her resident. when we became something more, there wasn’t a star i didn’t thank for getting so lucky with her. and then when she became pregnant, there wasn’t a god i didn’t pray to that we would get through this and she would let me stand by her side. i want to marry her because she’s been in every beat of my heart since i started counting the moments that i have with her. i want to marry her because she’s been in every dream since i developed dreams beyond just waking up every morning. i want to marry her because i want to be there for her in all of her moments. when she’s sad, angry, happy, upset, frustrated, ecstatic, proud. i want to just be there for her in it all.”

“and as much as i hate it, this world won’t look kindly upon her if she were to give birth without a ring on her finger. to me, marriage is just a paper to declare something that i already know: i found the love of my life. but i want nothing more than for her success to be expressed in its fullest. i want people to look at her with all of the respect and love that she deserves. and if this world were any more fair, they would regardless of a baby. but if they won’t, i’ll do everything to protect her - and our child.”

for the first time in a very long time, your heart has never felt so light. even with everything, this was enough for you. you throw your arms around riki, not caring for who was watching or what they were thinking, tears streaming down your face.

“will you marry me?” he whispers into your hair, and you feel the weight of the velvet box in his pocket when he says the words. so tender. so gentle. so forgiving.

“i will, riki. i’ll marry you."

[tokyo, 1989]

jungwon doesn’t look at you. the door to the bedroom that the two of you are sitting is closed but you’re well aware that hyewon and riki have already left the apartment. they’d mumbled some excuse or another as they herded you and jungwon into the bedroom and shut the door behind them.

you look at jungwon, trying to memorize every curve and line of his face. not in the way that you used to, hoping that if you stared at him for long enough, you’d be able to commit his face to memory to carry you through long nights studying and clinical shifts.

just…because you forgot what it was like to search through every dip and curve of his face to read him. it had been so long since you’d felt like wanting to do so.

“you’re going to marry him?” he still doesn’t look at you. 

“i’m gonna marry him,” you affirm. “he’s a good man, jungwon.”

jungwon sighs, hanging his head low between his knees. you look away, almost ashamed of causing jungwon to feel like he has to do so. it isn’t for another few moments that you realize that jungwon is crying.

as if there hadn’t been enough shocking moments today, jungwon’s shoulders start shaking as his sniffles grow louder.

“are you - are you crying?” you ask. it’s a stupid question but the universe has thrown one too many curveballs today. 

jungwon doesn’t answer, but his cries grow even louder, despite his best attempts to conceal them. you watch for just a second longer before scooting over, weaving in between the boxes scattered across the room. you pause…but then you hug jungwon.

it was strange. it was jungwon that you were hugging. your jungwon. your first boyfriend. your first chance at universe’s best gift. your first love. but it didn’t feel the same. something had changed. it felt like you were hugging an old friend, one that you were greeting after years apart.

someone who’s changed in the absence but cares about you just the same.

“where did all fall apart, y/n? i couldn’t be happier with hyewon. she’s everything that i’ve ever needed. she loves me despite my flaws and my faults. she’s the most patient, loving woman i have ever had the pleasure of loving in life. she’s everything to me. she’s my everything. i couldn’t live without her but…where did…where did we end? was it the day we broke up? the day that you and sumin fought? when my parents confronted your grandparents? when your grandfather died? when we committed to the same college?”

you’re silent, unsure of what to say. when had it all fallen apart? but when you try to pinpoint a singular moment, you find that you’re unable to.

“i don’t know, jungwon. but you’re never going to stop being important to me,” you admit. “you’re always going to be my first love. and we have grown apart, into different people. i know it’s strange. but…i think it was meant to happen. it feels strange that someone who was my entire world is someone that i can walk away from - into a new apartment and into a new life. but trust me when i say this jungwon: i will always be here for you. think of us going back to the start. we never fell apart; we’re just going back to the way things were supposed to be. we’re going back to being friends.”

“i thought that you stopped loving me. i thought i stopped loving you. i was dead wrong about myself - i don’t think that i could ever stop loving you,” jungwon confesses. you smile, despite the tears in both of your eyes.

“jungwon. you know that it’s not the same. i will always love you. but i’m not in love with you. and you love me. but you’re not in love with me. i’m in love with riki, the man who challenges me and supports me in every way possible. you are in love with hyewon, the woman who inspires you to be a better man everyday.”

“this is all so complicated.”

“it’s life and we’re humans, jungwon. it’s all meant to be complicated.”

“how the hell are you gonna break this to sunghoon?”

“i was hoping i could leave that to you.”

“he already hates me. i’ll be sure to invite you to my funeral though.”

[tokyo, 1988]

“i hope to find love again,” you said, kissing the coin in your hand before flipping it into the fountain before sighing, gathering your bags as you headed towards the hospital to sign your paperwork.

on the opposite side of the fountain, unbeknownst to the you, a tall man stands, holding a coin tightly in his fist.

“i hope she’ll love me back one day,” riki wished, flipping the coin into the fountain.

maybe it was luck. maybe it was fate. or maybe it was the will of the universe when the coin flips onto the fountain and lands right next to where a young, heartbroken woman’s coin had fallen.

the two of you walk in opposite directions but life has a funny way of working out. between gray clouds and broken hearts and reconciliation, tokyo in the year 1988 would prove to be the year that everything fell apart and seemingly fixed itself all over again. 

because that’s life. and life is beautiful, messy, complicated, and full of love if you know where to look.

[f4ggydog]

mari x reader🔞: you look so fine

tags: smut, nsfw, reader has a dick, cum painting face, cum swallowing, oral, blowjob, porn without plot, a little filthy but not dark, pussy eating, a bit of overstim, hopefully not too ooc, established relationship

“Hey you.” You smirk at a slithering Mari whose crawling up next to you. You play with a strand of her dark hair and chuckle. “Don’t you think it’s a bit late to be up right now?”

Mari doesn’t entertain your question. Oh, you know the drill. Unfortunately, you’ve grown to have quite a weakness to those big doe eyes. Those brown eyes could turn you to mush within a minute and Mari knew that.

“Sooooo, are you gonna do something about it?” Mari shrugs.

“About what, babe?” You roll your eyes. Everybody in the cabin was already asleep. Mari should be resting too. But of course she had to get her way before she could seek out a proper slumber.

Maybe it was your fault that you were such a sucker, that those big eyes weren’t something you could easily say no to. It was your favorite feature of Mari’s. Not that you’d trade any of her features for the world, but her eyes in particular lit a warmth inside of you that wasn’t comparable to any previous encounters you’ve had with other women.

“You look cold,” Mari giggles. “You know, I heard somewhere that going to sleep cold could, uh, make you more likely to die.”

“Are you a scientist now Mar?” You lay your hand over your forehead.

“It’s just frostbite! It has to do with frostbite! I don’t know, I remember reading it in a book.”

“Baby, while I do appreciate your efforts to convince me to have sex with you right now, I do think there’s too much of a risk with everyone around us.”

“We’re in the attic, idiot. Remember? Nobody’s gonna come up to the attic because they hear some groans or something. They probably will think it’s some ghosts.”

God, your gorgeous girl and all her excuses.

“It’ll be quick,” Mari begs, flashing you some of the biggest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen. “Need you a lot right now.”

“Mar,” you sigh, wiping your face. “Can’t we wait till we’re on a hunt or something? Then, we can sneak off into the forest and do what we need to do.”

“We don’t have to do anything crazy right now,” Mari whines. “Please. I’ve been thinking about you all day. You barely talked to me today, dumbass. It’s like you hate me or something.”

Yeah, she always adds the insult at the end.

“C’mere.” You invite Mari to pull down your pants. “But we can’t be so loud though, okay? Even if either of us feel really good.”

Mari makes quick work of your jeans. She pulls them down to your ankles and your semi-hard cock springs out from the containments its been kept in. You always find yourself giving into that pretty princess. But saying no is always simpler stated rather than done.

She quickly takes your cock between her hands, pumping slowly at first. Then, she places a kiss on your tip, which makes your hips twitch.

“You like what you see, Mar?” You gently caress the back of her head.

“I’ve seen bigger,” Mari teases, leaning down anyways to plant kisses along your veiny shaft.

“You little brat,” you growl. “How would you feel if I just started fucking your face for saying that?”

Mari whimpers, using one of her hands to now fondle your balls. She may still be clueless at proper foreplay, but she’s touching as carefully as she can.

“Too big for you?” You coo, a sly smirk resting on your lips.

“Shut up. I’ve literally sucked you off before.”

“And let’s not pretend that you didn’t struggle. That was one time, Mar.”

Mari’s cheeks are a rosy pink and she lowers her head in slight shame.

“Don’t get shy on me now, pretty girl. You were such an eager beaver before.”

“Don’t s-say eager beaver,” Mari replies. “You sound corny. What kind of loser still uses that term?”

“The loser who’s cock you’re about to suck.”

You had a talent for matching Mari’s energy. A little banter could never squash your ego.

“Fuckkk,” you groan, slowly guiding Mari’s lips onto your cock head. “There you go. Just start with the tip.”

You buck into her mouth ever so tenderly, making sure not to bruise her throat or cause it to go sore. She’s still your beautiful girl at the end of the day. The sex wasn’t about agony or punishment or teaching her a lesson. Sure, you occasionally used playful little threats to entice Mari and give her ants in her pants. But, at least for now, you knew that you couldn’t go super rough on her. Mari was the definition of “too cute to harm,” like a butterfly flapping its wings through the forest.

“Just like that,” you encourage. “Mhm, there you go, Mar. Take it nice and easy.”

Mari nods, her doe eyes locked onto your gaze. She briefly pulls away to catch her breath before diving right back onto your hunk of flesh. Her nose nuzzles up against your pubes, inhaling that scent she’s craved so intensely.

Though, any compliment of your body parts wouldn’t do justice to Mari’s own beauty. She’s a gift sent to you from the heavens, an angel wearing the disguise of a semi-rude teenage girl. Her body’s divine, a treasure that you didn’t deserve. But yet, life was generous enough to supply you with the most beautiful royalty on the planet.

“So good Mari,” you praise. “Such a good girl for me. That’s it. Oh, you use that pretty mouth so good.”

Mari muffles her gratitude. All previous attitude has slipped out of the window. She couldn’t even think about being bratty. Her head was empty and filled with nothing but thoughts of gathering your cum.

One particular suckle makes you jolt and you pull Mari’s head in deeper. You wait to see if she’ll tap on your thigh, letting you know that she needs room to breathe. But Mari doesn’t. She hollows her cheeks and trains herself to take your decently sized cock better.

Your eyes roll back, your lip quivering as Mari pleasures you. “Yeah, I love looking at those pretty eyes while you suck my cock, baby. Such a pretty princess, aren’t you? Look at that adorable little face.”

“T-Thank you,” Mari whimpers. “Trying to be good for you, want to have your cock in my mouth a-all the time…”

“I know baby.” You pet Mari’s head like she’s a cuddly kitten. “Doing so good for me. You can take it, baby. I know my brave girl can handle it.”

Mari gasps. She’s hesitant to deepthroat you, but she senses that you’re reaching the edge. You’re both gonna die one day. Mind as well live on the edge.

Mari widens her mouth and unclenches her jaw. She takes you all the way to the base and doesn’t pull back as swiftly as previous times. Her eyes water and gagging sounds ensue. But she’s your brave girl, and she’s ready to tolerate another challenge life tosses her way.

“You’re taking me so good. You’re doing so good, baby. So proud of my sweet girl.”

Mari’s gotta keep going. You’re so close. She can feel it in her bones. Her own toes curl at your cock hitting the back of her throat.

“Oh fuck, fuck,” you purr, struggling to keep the volume of your voice down. You even forgot that other people were residing in this cabin along with you and Mari.

Mari redoubles her efforts.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum all over that pretty face. You’re so fucking irresistible. You have no idea what the hell you do to me, Mar.”

Mari chuckles. She adores getting you to a state where you’re drunk on lust and gratification. Before Mari can gain control of her breathing, you pull her off and spray her with white. Thick, hot fluid squirts onto Mari’s face. It covers almost every part except her eyes and some even slips into her mouth. Mari initially wrinkles her nose at the salty taste, but opens her mouth keenly when you scoop some cum off of her skin and press it to her lips.

“Good girl.” You nod your head. “Just suck it off my fingers, baby.”

Mari cleans your digits off, your hand caressing her hair with care.

“Atta girl. God, such a pretty sight, your face mostly splattered with my cum.”

“Don’t try to embarrass me!” Mari lightly punches your arm. “You’re the one that was completely lost a few seconds ago. Your face was all twisted in pleasure just from my mouth.”

“Oh, you’re so very descriptive, Mar. Maybe don’t get so cocky though because you’re next.”

“Good.” Mari’s smile stays arrogant. “It’s only right that you return the favor. Wouldn’t be a fair exchange if you didn’t help me.”

“Don’t talk so smart with me. You’re the one who’s gonna have dried cum on her face.”

“Shut up asshole,” Mari groans, undressing and pushing her own pants to the side.

There’s a wet patch on her underwear and you cherish the way Mari jumps when you press down on the spot. It’s like pushing a button on a teddy bear at the store to get it to make certain noises.

You slip Mari’s underwear down to her ankles and then off her feet. You notice the way she closes her legs, like she’s trying to hide something. But her arousal doesn’t lie. There’s wetness costing her inner thighs and shining on her pussy.

“Someone was excited.” You crawl closer so that your mouth can be centimeters away from her slick cunt.

“Don’t tease,” Mari pouts. “Need you down there…”

“You need me down there?” Your eyes twinkle. “Yeah, need me to make you feel good, baby? You want me to make that pretty pussy cum?”

Mari throbs, hard. She wasn’t expecting that line.

“Oh, you poor thing. Do you feel deprived, Mar? Does your little pussy feel neglected? Hm?”

“S-Stop it.” Mari crosses her arms, looking off to the side. “I…ugh, fuck you.”

You understood exactly how to rile your girl up. And Mari’s too focused on her mortification to notice you diving straight for her slit.

You spread her pussy out a little wider with your fingers, lapping at her entrance to warm her up.

“Baby,” Mari whines. “Baby, I…”

“It’s okay, Mar. You were right earlier. Your cute pussy needs some attention too.”

Mari sucks in her breath and gasps as your tongue starts swirling on her clit. A heat flash washes over her and she begins sweating. Her hands form into fists and she claws her nails into her own palms.

Mari always had a problem with sensitivity and cumming too fast. You swear one flick on her clit could send her into an earth shattering orgasm. You don’t recall ever having Mari last longer than ten minutes. It remained difficult to treat her fragile body like a glass sculpture.

“S-So good,” Mari squeaks. “I-It’s so good, baby. A-Ah, wait I-“

“It’s okay baby,” you soothe, still suckling on her nub. “It’s okay. It’s supposed to feel good. Let it feel good.”

“I don’t wanna cum so fast,” Mari sobs. “B-But, it feels really good. Please don’t stop, please, please.”

“I’m not stopping,” you reassure between licks and kisses. “My pretty girl deserves all the love she can get.

Mari’s eyes fill with tears. Her body thrusts into your mouth, overwhelming her further. Her lip can’t stop trembling and it’s nearly impossible for her to keep her noises of ecstasy at the right volume. You’re both surprised nobody’s woken up to witness the chaos yet.

“Just feel good, Mar.” Her pussy pulses against your face. You slide in a finger so your mouth has more room to talk her through it. “I know it’s a lot, but that just means you’re feeling incredible. It’s a good thing. I’m right here, baby.”

“Fuck, fuck. Y/N, I think I’m already…”

“So close already?” You decide you owed Mari a bit of good faith ridicule. “Yeahhh? You already want to cum? Poor thing can barely keep herself together.”

“I know, I know.” Mari shuts her eyes. “Please, please. I, fuck, I can’t take much more. Please, a-ah!”

Mari was melting underneath you like a snowman in the sun.

“Fuck, please, please. Please.”

“Is that the only word you know how to say now?” You chuckle mischievously. “Has my baby gone all dumb with her thoughts? All she can think about is her pussy getting slobbered on?”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Mari protests meekly, despite knowing she loves the condescending baby talk.

“Like what? You don’t like when I talk to you like a little puppy, Mar? Hm? You don’t like when I treat you like a squirmy little puppy?”

“Fuck, fuck!” Mari sobs. “Fuck, it’s too much. It’s too much, please!”

“Nooo, but you can take it for me, princess. Cause you’re a good girl and that’s what good girls do. They take my finger and my mouth, yeah?”

Mari cums right on your tongue. She rocks her hips against your face, riding out her orgasm. The pleasure consumes her so deeply that it turns into pain and overstimulated tears run down her cheeks. She cries and cries, babbling like a mess while she cums undone. Meanwhile, your mouth is still running, egging her on so she doesn’t waste this high she’s riding.

“That’s it Mari,” you coo. “That’s it. Such a good girl. Just keep cumming. Make sure you get it all out, okay?”

“I’m exhausted,” Mari pants. “F-Fuck.”

“God, my pretty angel is such a mess. Look at how soaked you are. I can still taste your juices in my mouth.”

“D-Don’t make me throb again,” Mari mewls.

“It’s so fun to watch you unravel though.” You grin wickedly. “I almost want you to go another round.”

Mari gulps. “A-Another one? But I’m already so sensitive.”

“That’s what makes it fun,” you purr.

You were sliding on the thin line of not wanting to coax Mari to the point of distress, but enjoying when your girl was spoiled.

But you see a glint of fear in Mari’s brown eyes, so you stop. You quickly swipe your hand across her pussy, cleaning up any remaining fluids that were sticking to her genitals. Then, you pull Mari in for an embrace and a kiss on the forehead.

Mari sits herself in your lap and snuggles against you like your body functioned as a pillow. She hums into your chest, still a shy mess. You rub Mari’s back and hold her as tight as you possibly can.

“Did so good today princess,” you praise. “You’re always such a good girl for me, my special girl.”

Mari lets out a cute yawn.

“Someone’s a little sleepy,” you comment. “I really did tire you out, did I?”

“Shut up,” Mari remakes. Still a fighting spirit, even in exhaustion.

[ghysry]

Hii! Idk if ur requests r open, I’m sorry if there not, but I had an idea :3

I’m kinda obsessed with Brisket Five…and all the diner fives. Srry if this makes u uncomfortable but maybe a smut with Brisket Five?? IF NOT just some nice fluff would be nice. Something like Brisket hasn’t seen us and we died in his time line or something-so he’s just all over reader <3 Ty!

ERMMM I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO WRITE SMUT I AM SO SORRY

Pairings: Diner Fives, all obsessed with you, kisses everywhere, BRISKET FIVE *lick emoji* x Reader

Tags: brisket five, diner fives, Five Hargreeves, Five x reader, Five Hargreeves x reader, smut, can't even say this is smut, I swear I tried my best bro, did I forget SMUT

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"Can't choose between us? Just choose all of us."

Well this certainly wasn't what you thought would happen after stepping into a random diner you found. You and Five had a fight about something stupid which led you to pettily step out of the subway and find yourself another place to go, which also proved your stupidity because only halfway off did you remember that it was a time subway and not a normal subway. Good god. Now you're here in the booth seat with your back on the cushion as you laid there and a Five that looks way cuter than the one you had a fight with kissing all over your face ranting about how much he's missed you.

"Mm..missed you, where have you," he kisses your right cheek, before trailing down to your jawline and pressing hefty kisses on your skin. "..been?" He had his legs on either side of you as you laid, making sure not to put too much weight on your body while one of his hands were messing with your hair and the other propping himself up. "Brisket Five are you done? Some of us want a turn, and I thought we agreed an hour per person?" Another Five in the background called out, folding his newspaper and rolling his eyes at the display of affection, knowing he himself would probably do something even worse, if not for all the people in the diner.

Brisket Five shrugged his shoulders, or tried his best to shrug his shoulders, before diving back in and pressing his nose on your neck, relishing in the familiar scent of your body. "Don't you ever die on me again.."

------------------------------------

Who knew so many of them would be into voyeurism?

"Fuck--huff...ugh," This Five was a lot more vocal than the others that came before him, and a lot needier too. His hands were touching all up on your body, squeezing your breasts and dipping down to bite at your skin while he was still pumping in and out of you.

Literally every Five needs you carnally, WHATTT WHO SAID THATTT

"Don't ruin them, it's my turn after you." While another Five is watching you go braindead over some cock, his hand on his crotch and pressing down on the bulge, hissing at how painfully hard he's gotten.

You cried so prettily while Brisket Five was deep inside you that he came twice in the span of thirty minutes. Literally can't help it, would cum ten times if he could, you're just so pretty.

You find it a weird turn on when some of them are so needy and untouched that they cum in minutes..which is almost all of them..WHOO WROTE THAT, THAT WASNT ME

Some of them huff and pant and whimper like dogs in heat. Confirmed.

"Missed you.." while Brisket Five is bottoming out inside you

Aftercare is literally HEAVENLY

Kisses all over your body, warm blanket for good measure, lots of "you did so well today", then being wiped clean by a wet towel

You're fed a whole lot of food after it's insane

Trust me. They'll do anything for you.