#half drunk and heartbroken au

[melancholyhigh]

CRUSH CULTURE.

ft. college au!leon x reader

synopsis. you fuck up at being leon’s wingman, ruining his chances of getting a valentine’s day fuck. he’s frustrated and takes his anger out on you.

tags. 2.8k words. smut. mean!leon, lowk angsty, reader is kinda pathetic, angry fuck, dry humping, cunnilingus, dom!leon, rough sex, unprotected p in v, degradation, name calling (bitch, whore etc.), happy ending (?).

note. i’m sorry for being so inactive and rarely being online. school sucks so bad. i hope you guys can accept this as a formal apology. (let’s ignore that this is 2 days late.)

masterlist. reblogs & comments are highly welcomed :3

You aren’t the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day. You're sick of seeing everyone fall in love, watching lovers exchange cheesy gifts and bashful smiles. You’re sick of people pretending they love each other more than they actually do. No, you’re sick of being left out.

You were a hopeless romantic, chasing love only for it to fall flat. You were obsessed with finding your other half, the person who would cherish you as much as you treasured them. You didn’t know if you loved love or just the idea of it, but it wouldn’t matter.

You’re only hopeless as you help the man you liked hook up with someone at a shitty college party.

It’s pathetic, truly, chatting up some sorority girls and putting a good name out for Leon while he stood beside you. You didn’t get why he couldn’t do it himself. He was handsome, albeit a bit awkward, but so were you. It’s why you two got along anyway. Leon was watching as you tried to get the drunk girl’s attention on him. Throughout the night, your wingman skills had only failed. They either did not pay attention to you or paid too much attention to you.

You were sick of it. You would have preferred staying in your dorm room and rewatching one of your favourite rom-coms. But you were only a fool, trying to help your friend out. It hurt more being there with him as he lamely tried to pick up girls in front of you. You didn’t know what was more pathetic, his terrible jokes or the state you were, absolutely heartbroken that he wouldn’t give you the time of day he’d give to random girls.

Maybe it’s faith’s cruel way of commentating on your desire for love by making you play cupid for the only person you seem to care about more than yourself.

You and Leon had something special, or you had hoped so. You met in your first year of college. You were both fucking awkward that you had to initiate the first conversation. Majoring in similar subjects, you both had gotten along well. You would even say you were best friends, but you knew deep down you always wanted more.

Ever since you first met, you found him enthralling. It only got worse as you got closer. Learning more about him seemed to solidify your pining for him. You were the only person he talked to, and vice versa. You confided in each other, maybe more than what close friends should, so it was only inevitable that he would share with you that he wanted to lose his virginity.

You had looked at him perplexed. Leon was pretty attractive, and maybe you were biased, but how had no one fucked him? You’ve seen the way girls look at him, blushing when he even glances at them for a second.

That is when Leon told you he planned on trying to hook up with some girl at the party, and he wanted your help because he knew he would fuck up somehow. You had humoured him. Nothing more romantic than taking a random girl home on Valentine’s Day and fucking her brains out.

–-

“It’s not that serious, Leon,” you groaned for the umpteenth time. You were both walking back to his apartment after unsuccessfully trying to hook him up with some sorority girl. He was grumbling behind you, pissed and sexually frustrated.

“It was your fault.” You roll your eyes at his statement. When you reach the door of his flat, you observe as he clumsily takes his keys out, trying to open the door. He finally manages to open the door, and you enter, taking your shoes off before settling on his couch.

You watch him beyond amused at his predicament as he paces back and forth in front of you.

“Why did you have to mention that? They were so into me before you fucked it up,” he huffs, stilling his movement to glare at you.

“C’mon, Leon. I’m sure they couldn’t give a fuck that you’re a nerd,” you said, repeating the same word you had let slip when you were praising your beloved best friend. You peered back up at him, acting casual as if his icy gaze didn’t have your heart beating wildly against your chest. You rarely saw him angry, and when he was, he never directed it to you.

“You ruined my chances at finally getting laid. I don’t know how to talk to these girls. You’re the only person I have.” He’s frustrated with you for fucking up whatever chance he finally had at popping his cherry. Even though logically it’s not your fault nor your duty to get his dick wet, he didn’t want to take responsibility right now.

“I think you’re overreacting,” you sighed, standing up and moving towards him. You try to put a comforting hand on Leon’s shoulder, and he shrugs your touch off him. You don’t take it to heart. He’s a few inches taller than you, head slightly tilted as he looks down at you.

“Yeah? Well, now I have no one to fuck tonight.”

“I can change that,” you quip, and you instantly freeze at your own statement. You part your lips lightly in shock as you observe Leon’s reaction. It was a freudian slip, and it seemed to be happening more often than you’d like.

He continues looking down at you with furrowed brows as he tries to comprehend what you said. He thinks this might affect your friendship if you even mean what you said. He was horny, being teased all night by pretty girls in skimpy dresses, only to be denied, fucking furious too.

“Really?” He responds, somehow stepping closer to you. His eyes flicker down to your lips, and you try to back up, only to be pushed against the wall by him. His stare is still cold, piercing through you. He’s still pissed at you.

“Are you still mad?” You mumbled, your back flat against the wall of his living room. You knew the answer. You just wanted him to say it. Maybe you found his mean side more attractive than you’d like to admit. It was so rare to see him like this — a usually composed man so broken.

“Yes, I’m still fucking angry. Do you want me or not?” He seethes. You squeeze your thighs together at the tone he uses. You were so pathetic, getting wet at him berating you, but any attention was good attention.

He notices your reaction, grinning to himself. “You backing down?”

You shake your head no in response.

“Beg for it then. Beg for me to fuck you. That’s what you want, right?” He says, mocking you. It’s as if he knows how deep your desire burns for him, how badly you’d do anything for him if it meant he noticed you. His hands grasp your face, his fingers squishing your cheeks together as he forces your head back against the wall so you look up at him.

“Please, Leon. Fuck me. ‘M all yours.” You plead through pursed lips. Your eyes are glossy, and he’s laughing at your desperate nature. He would have never expected his best friend to be a whiny mess within his grasp.

He lets go of your face before leaning down, capturing your lips into his for a needy kiss. Your eyes flutter shut, and a surprised gasp escapes you. Teeth clashing, you’re whimpering desperately against his lips as you entangle your fingers into his soft golden locks. His hands trail down to your hips, gripping them as he moves his body against yours.

You let out a soft moan, and he pulled apart from the passionate kiss. Both your lips are swollen and covered with your shared saliva. He continues to grope your body eagerly as he pushes you further into the wall. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear you.”

Biting your lip, you try not to let any moans slip free while he toys with your sensitive body through your clothes. He hooks one of your legs over his hip while he explores your body. He grinds his hardening cock against your crotch, and the action does little to quell the ache inside you.

Your back arches off the wall, your head tipping back as you try to buck your hips to his. Digging your nails into his shirt, he hisses slightly, but your movements don’t get past him.

“So fucking desperate,” he moans loudly.

He continues to rock his clothed erection against your cunt. The rough fabric of your pants provides enough friction through your damp underwear to your clit. Your hand clamps around your mouth shut, suppressing your whines as you near your climax.

Leon’s eyes close while he groans lowly at the pleasure coursing through him as he ruts against you. He wants so badly to feel your dripping cunt against his throbbing length. Just as you’re about to finish, he pulls away, panting, and the feeling in your core dissipates.

“I want to fuck you properly.” You’re unsure if he knew what he had just done, but with the smug look he’s giving you, you’re positive it’s on purpose.

You push yourself off the wall of his living room, and with trembling legs, you follow him to his bedroom. You were familiar with the area and used to the messy appearance while you two were either doing work or binging shows. But it’s different now, he’s going to fuck you dumb in it.

You both begin to rid yourself of your clothes once you’re inside. You’re fully nude, lying flat on Leon’s mattress, and your skin feels tacky with sweat as it clings to his soft sheets. Leon is only in his boxers, precum staining the fabric, as his strong palms spread your bent legs apart to admire your bare pussy.

You realise that this is most likely his first time seeing one other than in porn videos he jerks himself off to. He marvels at how wet you are, your folds glistening with your slick. Leaning down, he buries his face between your thighs, lapping at you.

His tongue teases your entrance before slowly moving to your clit. He alternates between sucking on your sensitive nub and lapping at it slowly. He looks like he’s concentrated as he focuses on pleasing your cunt, his brows furrowed and his nails digging into the flesh of your thighs.

You can’t help the moans and sighs that slip past your lips while he eats you out. The pleasure is nearly dizzying as you grip the sheets. Your hips are bucking against his tongue, and Leon groans as you use his face. He’s not so subtly grinding against the sheets, his cock painfully hard as he fails to relieve the sensation.

Tentatively, he slurps at you, drinking in your essence. The wet, sloppy noises your cunt makes are embarrassing, but he’s obsessed with it and your taste. It’s addictive. He sucks at your clit roughly, adoring the reaction you give him. Your tummy clenches as he pays attention to your throbbing bud. Your sounds are getting more frequent as your orgasm quickly approaches you.

When you finally come undone, your thighs are quivering around his head as he revels in your release. He parts from your cunt, his lips coated in your cum like lip gloss as he licks them clean. Trying to collect yourself, your chest heaves as you pant heavily.

Leon slips his boxers down, revealing his hard-on. His cock was flushed red and dripping with precum as he stroked it. It was average in length but quite thick and prettier than you had imagined. But you shouldn’t act surprised.

You let out a whimper when he slid the tip of his cock through your folds stained with your cum and his saliva. Your pussy was overstimulated, spasming as he teased your entrance with his head.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he groans, gripping your hip to steady himself. The heat of your cunt was welcoming as it tried to suck him inside you. His tip touches your overly sensitive clit. He was quickly losing his composure, desperate to fuck you open.

You both moan simultaneously when he fully enters his length inside of you. Your walls were sucking his cock deeping into you, filling you up to the brim with nothing but him.

You had not imagined your first time with Leon like this. You daydreamed of him taking you out on a cute date before undressing you and then fucking you slowly on a bed littered with rose petals. You did not anticipate that he’d split you open on his cock as a last resort taking his sexual frustration out on you. You can’t complain with how good he’s fucking you, even if it’s out of spite.

He begins thrusting his cock in and out of tight pussy, groaning. You feel each ridge and vein of his cock as he fucks the shape into you. You sometimes forget how well-built he is, usually concealed by his clothes, sweat dripping down his muscular frame.

“Your cock feels so fuckin’ good, Leon,” you gasped out loud, your nails digging into his biceps as he stretched you out of his fat cock.

“This was your plan, huh? You wanted me to fuck you, whore.” He says as he punctuates each word with a thrust.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as the tip of his cock presses against you deliciously. You did want him all to yourself, but you wouldn’t go as far as to sabotage him. You’re unable to answer him, too drunk on his cock bullying into that one spot inside of you.

“Answer me, bitch.” He huffs, gripping your jaw and positioning your face to his. He looks into your eyes only to note how they can barely stay open. His hips stutter at your fucked out expression. He was so fucking close, his abs flexing, only holding out so you can cum first.

“Y- Yeah, Leon. Want to you all for myself,” you stammer incoherently, tears collecting at your waterline as he pounds into your oversensitive cunt. Your walls grip around his cock sporadically as you near your climax.

“You like me too, then?” he mocks through clenched teeth. Your pussy hugs him tightly, and he thinks he might never want to leave your warm embrace.

“I’m so close,” you cry out, your body squirming in his hold. Your peak was rapidly approaching as he continued his assault on your pussy.

“Answer the question then you can come,” he whines, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, leaving marks as he nears his peak.

“Mhm! Yes, I’ve always fucking liked you, Leon.” You cried out, eager to expose all your secrets to him if it meant you came. As you climax, your pussy milks Leon’s cock as it gushes around him.

“Oh fuck. I’m gonna cum,” Leon moans, his voice breathy as his orgasm crashes after yours. He doesn’t know if it’s the weight of your confession or the whimpers that escape your throat that send butterflies in him as he spills into you. He kisses you one last time, moaning into you as he rides his high.

Pulling out, he collapses right next to you. You’re both panting, covered in cum and sweat. A wave of exhaustion overcomes you, and you hope he doesn’t bring up what you said amidst fucking. You’re content pretending it didn’t happen if it meant you wouldn’t get to face your fears.

“Thank you for uh,” Leon trails off, and it's like a switch flipped. He’s bashful at mentioning that he had just lost his virginity as if he wasn’t calling you a whore a few minutes ago. Turning to his side, you come nearly face-to-face with him once again.

“Mhm, you’re welcome, I think.” You’re still unsure how you feel about the situation. Finally, you had fucked him, but what significance did it hold to him? Your eyes flutter shut, sleep finally overcoming your wrecked body. You expected the same would happen to Leon, but you were wrong. Leon was in deep thought.

Leon calls your name, cutting your sleep short. You snap your eyes open, sitting up, you await his question with your arms crossed. He looked uneasy, but you’re too drained to question why.

“Did you mean what you said? That you liked me.” His voice is quiet as he gazes at your form.

“Uh, yeah,” you mumbled in response. What was even the point of lying anymore? His cum was dripping between your thighs. What is the worst he can do? You think you can already guess his response. Guilt was eating at you. He wouldn’t be in this position if you did what he wanted. You added, “Sorry for fucking up your night.”

It’s quiet, and you’re nervously trying to gauge his reaction until he breaks the silence.

“I think I found someone better,” he responds. You laugh at the mere absurdity of the entire situation.

“It took fucking me to find that out?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

[folkloresthings]

BECAUSE I LIKED A BOY / CL16.

in which the world’s favourite pop princess becomes tangled in the life of a certain formula one driver, flipping her entire world upside down.

( charles leclerc x singer!au )

track one: lonesome. track two: fast times. track three: nonsense. track four: opposite. track five: how many things. track six: bad for business.

✩⡱ warnings: cursing

despite being the one to have sent the message, you could only stare at the screen of your phone as it rang, charles’ name lighting up, a picture you’d taken of him filling the screen. just before it could ring off, you pressed the green button and held it to your ear. neither of you spoke for a moment, just soft breathing against the speaker.

“hi,” you whispered, breath held in your chest, wondering if he was really there. you didn’t even know if you wanted to speak to him. hell, you didn’t know how you were feeling — only that you were falling madly in love one minute, and heartbroken the next.

“hello, ma cherie,” charles’ unmistakable accent filled your senses, allowing that breath you were holding to be let out. even now, he was using that silly pet name that made you smile. frankly, the love you felt for him hadn’t really gone away, despite what he’d done. you’d only wished it had never happened, and life could go on.

“lewis came to see me. he explained what happened, but i want to hear it from you.” trying your best to keep your voice steady, your knuckles grip at the bedsheets under you. you could hear him sigh on the other side, a long breath.

“i— didn’t mean for any of this to happen. fuck. i was drunk, too drunk to realise what she was trying to do. i probably should have shut her down sooner, but i wasn’t thinking,” he told you quietly. his voice caught, and you knew then he was crying. half of your heart yearned to comfort him, the other to shake him firmly. “i went looking for you after, but lily told me you’d left. so i tried to catch up, but she kept fucking following me. i had to get security to do something about it.”

you swallowed hard, a hundred daggers lining your throat. what were you supposed to say? if you listened to your heart, you would forgive him in an instant. you’d book a flight to wherever he was racing that weekend and let him bundle you up in his arms, take you to bed and make you forget it all. but you’d been throat a lot. you had to be smart, strong — more than just a lovesick girl.

“i’ve been let down so many times, charles. and i was so blind, i didn’t think you would do it too,” you were both crying, his soft sniffles filling your speaker. “i can’t just… pretend this never happened.”

“you shouldn’t have to. but — i can’t lose you, y/n. shit, you’re the first good thing i’ve had in a long time.”

you choked on a sob, praying he hadn’t heard it. he was sweet, so awfully and cruelly sweet, and it wasn’t at all fair. despite his recent mistakes, he scored five stars every time.

“maybe we rushed into this,” you pondered, and you could practically hear him shaking his head. “i shouldn’t have let you think my heart was ready for all of this. after austin i… i should have waited a little while.”

“y/n…”

“maybe we just need a little time. to figure ourselves out.”

he sighed, knowing he shouldn’t battle you on this. no matter how he wanted to beg you on his knees and make everything better again. “three months.”

“what?” you replied.

“it��s three months until the grand prix final, the last race, and until your finished touring. i’ll leave you alone until then, but i’ll set aside a paddock pass for you there. if you want to trust me then, come. please.” his offer feels terribly gallant, respectful of your feelings, that it brings a smile onto your face.

“alright. three months.”

INSTAGRAM.

liked by niallhoran, lewishamilton, and 900,231 others

yourusername if i’m just writing happy songs, will anybody sing along?

view all 438,927 comments

joeyking who’s lady and who’s the tramp

⤷ yourusername i think we both know the answer to that

user tbh i preferred charles with charlotte than her

⤷ user no i’ve been waiting for someone to agree w me

landonorris setting the last picture as your contact pic rn

user team y/n or team charles take ur vote

⤷ user is this all you people have to talk about? shes her own person and was famous for years before she got involved with him

user tours almost over 🥲

⤷ yourusername 3 months 🥲🥲🥲

INSTAGRAM.

liked by yourusername, lovebotyn, and 12,332 others

ynnews the singular tour is almost over!!!! it’s been such a good few months, we’ve seen y/n go through so much but we’ve also watched her grow 🥺 so very proud of her. fingers crossed for new music & another tour soon!

view all 5,271 comments

user i wasn’t able to go to any of the shows but i have LOVED watching all of the videos of her performing

user the fact taylor, madison, maisie, gracie and olivia all flew to europe just to perform with her when she was in a bad place 😭

yourusername BABY 🫶🤍 this is so so sweet. but it’s you guys that have made this tour, coming out every night and singing along to every word. i love you all more than anything in this world.

⤷ user MOM I LOVE YOU

TWITTER.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by beyoncé, gigihadid, and 828,991 others

yourusername guys 🥺 we won all four nominated categories i could cry. but seriously, thank you all so much for your continued support and love. there’s so many people i could thank, but i won’t get round to them all. you know who you are. thank you ❤️

view all 682,927 comments

taylorswift there’s no one more deserving 🫶

adele 👑👑👑

user GRAMMY WINNER Y/N

harrystyles congrats love!!

user she made it 🥺🥺🥺

lewishamilton my girl !! roscoe says well done 🤍

honeymoon baby girl i’m so proud

user the universe giving her back what she deserves 🙌🙌🙌

IMESSAGE.

tagged: @leclercloml @vroomleclerc @gaviypedrisbride @ncentic @gentlemonsterjennie1 @ferrariloverr @baw-sixteen @rechtrecht @incoherenciass

[chocosvt]

HER | part six (m).

✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo can’t see this going well. at all.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 22.6k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, cocaine, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s! 

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

any smut or potentially triggering scenes are NOT MARKED bc the content is already quite mature, so just plz be aware of that! 

bolded and italicized text implies the characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts.

here it is... the FINAL part 😭 it seemed that a number of you were quite worried as to how i'd wrap this up, and i can finally give you the answer! :3 this has been an epic journey. thank yew for ur time 💕

more rambling continues at the very end. as per usual. again, a little bit more of an early upload! as a treat <3

⇢ part one | part two | part three | part four | part five ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

—SEPTEMBER 30TH.

The morning after was strange.

Early sunlight permeated through the living room’s white cloth curtains, dappling in water-like speckles against the glasses still held on his nose. For a moment, Wonwoo was frozen, as his mind made the shift from deep sleep to consciousness, though when he finally did awaken to find his blanket half-pushed off the recliner and the remnants of Chinese takeout left scattered across the coffee table, his lethargy started fading.

Vernon was gone.

Judging from the text on Wonwoo’s phone, the boy had quietly made his way out at around seven in the morning. It surprised Wonwoo to no end that Vernon could manage to sleep so little yet remain fully functional all the time. He seemed magic—or maybe it was something else that Wonwoo would be concerned to know about.

He spent some time cleaning off the coffee table.

Down the hall, his bedroom door remained closed.

When you finally did emerge, it was with the olive-green dress draped over your arm and the ivory heels in hand, which you proceeded to arrange on the small dining table by the kitchen.

Notably, however, there was something off about you, something that Wonwoo interpreted as nerves with an underlying awkwardness you didn’t typically, if at all, demonstrate. When he asked if you wanted breakfast and tea, your response was a tiny head shake and a poorly fit smile. Though, Wonwoo wasn’t going to paw at you.

He found that mornings always tended to be quite sobering, even if he hadn’t exactly drunk enough to make the room spin or swallowed some colourfully disguised pill on his tongue. Just the air was enough to rewire his head—that cooler, crisp air that he either loved or hated.

Undoubtedly, you had much to think about.

Wonwoo helped you get a hold of Princess using his phone, and the two of you watched television in silence while waiting for her to pick you up. He escorted you down through the pottery shop when it was time, and you sported very little shame, walking out onto the bright city sidewalk in just his t-shirt, clothes and shoes wrapped in your arms. Princess had this awfully perplexed look slapped onto her face while leaning over to nudge the car door open for you, and in that  moment, Wonwoo was scared of how it all appeared and what might transpire now that the giddiness and frivolity from the night before had ebbed away. He didn’t regret anything, though. Not at all.

But, in truth, what the fuck even were you two?

And what was supposed to happen now?

—OCTOBER 3RD.  

Since you had left his apartment in a daze that Saturday morning, Wonwoo hadn’t seen or heard from you. It was concerning him as time passed, he couldn’t deny it, but he also trusted you and wanted not to make you feel pressured into explaining yourself.

He was caught in a brisk walk along campus after leaving his early lecture, a warm coffee cup pressed against his lip that he had grabbed from the ground floor of SRX—they had been giving hot drinks away for free, and, consequently, it tasted like it. Nonetheless, the air was chillier by the day as autumn pushed its way in and decorated the walkway with dry leaves that rustled and crunched under his shoes. It was nice to have something hot in his hand.

He took a second to glance down at his phone.

Still, no messages from you, Wonwoo realized with a suckling sip of the very watery coffee, nearly tempted to text you himself—not anything pushy—just a simple reassurance that he was there for you if things weren’t going well.

Suddenly, however, Wonwoo had smacked into someone.

“Fuck—sorry,” he muttered, readjusting the computer bag slung over his shoulder and pushing up his circled glasses.

To Wonwoo’s complete and utter misery, he was unfortunately acquainted with the person he’d bumped shoulders, and now he was wishing that he had just kept walking like an impatient asshole.

Seokmin was standing before him, dressed in a similar-style woolen trench coat that his hands were stuffed into, the sun turning certain threads of his chocolate brown hair all shimmery. He hadn’t gotten back to Seokmin’s numerous texts ever since Wonwoo sent a brief, very purposefully vague message to the boy that night he ran out with you at the dinner party.

Now he was wondering if the shoulder bump was intentional.

“Wonwoo… uh, hey,” Seokmin stumbled.

Sniffling, Wonwoo let a second or two pass before answering.

He was still debating whether or not to walk away.

“What’s up?”

“You just get out of class, or?”

Wonwoo nodded. “Yeah—advanced stats.”

Seokmin flitted a barely-there smile, staring at his coffee cup.

“Is that the free stuff from SRX?”

“Indeed.”

“How does it taste?”

“Uh, watery… like shit, basically.”

Wonwoo knew—he fucking knew—that there was something buzzing on the tip of Seokmin’s tongue that he just couldn’t spit out. His absentminded expression and clear not-giving-a-damness about whether Wonwoo’s free coffee was actually good completely betrayed him. Not wanting to dawdle and get stuck in the mud of conversation, Wonwoo swallowed the lump in his throat, flashed his friend a tight-lipped smile, and pitched a goodbye, blandly wording it as, “I won’t keep you. Later.”

But Seokmin didn’t seem prepared to let that happen.

And Wonwoo’s eyes nearly rolled backward into his skull when the boy turned around and attempted to catch his attention again.

For some stupid, incomprehensible reason, Wonwoo stopped.

Maybe he knew the conversation needed to happen.

It only made him loathe the situation more.

“Yeah?”

Seokmin dragged a hand through his hair, brushing it up and down against the back of his head while he squinted at Wonwoo.

“I think… uh… if you’re not busy… I think there’s maybe some stuff we need to talk about. I don’t mean to like, catch you at a bad time or anything… do you wanna go sit at the picnic table over there?”

At Seokmin’s carefully suggested inquiry, Wonwoo followed the boy’s pointing finger toward the empty table placed on the large grass circle that the walkway wove around. With his grip hardening into the coffee cup, Wonwoo stopped to think despite knowing his answer.

“Okay… yeah.”

Wonwoo realized it had never felt this weird and stilted to sit down with Seokmin despite him being quite a reliable friend over the months, though Wonwoo was developing the sneaking feeling that his study buddy was about to deal an irreparable blow to their relationship. Seokmin’s folded hands were sitting atop the flecked, aged wood of the table, thumbs nervously twiddling, meanwhile Wonwoo remained silent to sip from his coffee that only became more and more tasteless.

Eventually, his friend seemed to find the words he needed.

“So, I don’t know if you’ve heard… but… Her and Mingyu are taking a break. They’re officially pressing the big pause button. I wasn’t there to witness the conversation, although I get the gist it was a pretty… uh, unpleasant talk,” Seokmin winced, bracing his teeth, “and… well, naturally, I learned that you were a big part of that talk, seeing how it looked and all—you and Her running out at the dinner party…”

He left what seemed like a purposeful pause, and Wonwoo assumed that he was supposed to feel pressured and jump to make a correction or provide an explanation, but he kept silent and rather expressionless. Ironically, Seokmin was the one to continue his spiel.

“Well, basically, there were some accusations thrown around as you can imagine. And I’m not sitting here to point a finger and question you to death about everything, but I just thought I’d give you the table—uh, literally—to explain what’s been happening.”

Wonwoo finally set aside his drink, then shifting off the strap to his computer bag, letting it fall down his shoulder. He didn’t make a huge, overwhelmed sigh even though his body was screaming for it, nor did he ponder abandoning the conversation despite the magnitude of everything Seokmin laid out for him.

Fuck—he hated being matured.

“I can’t speak on her feelings. But I like her.”

“Oh—you do?” Seokmin was astonishingly surprised.

Wonwoo shrugged. “Yeah.”

“So, then, does that mean—”

“Actually, sorry, I’m downplaying it like a coward,” Wonwoo interrupted, shaking his head, “I don’t just like her. I’m in love with her.”

It was then that Seokmin simply didn’t speak at all. His mouth had formed a hollowed shape, resembling something like a gulping fish, and Wonwoo capitalized on the silence to keep his thoughts fluent.

“I understand, okay? I understand why Mingyu is pissed. It takes two to tango, I get all that. And I know you probably want me to state my regret and all that so I don’t seem like such an asshole, but, honestly, I don’t really regret anything. Mingyu doesn’t care about her.”

Seokmin chuffed, rubbing at his chin. “Okay… I don’t know if I would go as far as to say that in particular. But you are admitting to it? I don’t know what it is you’ve done but you’ve done things with Her.”

“We’ve never had sex if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And—”

“We’ve never kissed, either… the only thing I was supposed to do was help her write that little love story. Which you set up, by the way. I didn’t know it would turn into this. I tried to get out of it.”

“I never thought she would stick it out.”

“I know.” Wonwoo sucked in his bottom lip, staring across the weathered wood at Seokmin. “You probably wanted her to drop it the second she mentioned it. I bet Mingyu thought the same.”

Seokmin scrunched up his face in disagreement. “That’s not necessarily true. She just fixates on stuff and then burns out after. She's always been like that, ever since I've known her. I figured the book would be no different. I thought it was something she needed to get out of her system, I didn’t think it would start rolling and—” he leaned forward into his palms for a moment, swallowing audibly. “Sorry, I just—I don’t get it, that’s all. I don’t get her fixations.”

“I think you’re just uncomfortable with her self-expression.”

“She—it’s not self-expression, though. Look, I know a pinch of what her story is about. It’s not about herself. It’s about Mingyu.”

“You think that just because she’s writing about someone else, there’s no pieces of herself in it? Her own feelings? Her own perspective? C’mon, Seokmin. You’re fucking smarter than that. You know what it's actually about.”

His friend’s eyes drifted away from him.  

Wonwoo then cleared his throat. “Look, you don’t really need all the details, Seokmin. Like I said, I don’t know exactly how she feels about me. I can surmise. I can say we’ve had moments that we shouldn’t. But—genuinely—you probably know more than I do and you’re lying to yourself if you can’t realize that Mingyu is just some advantageous prick who makes her miserable.”

“Well, I think that—I don’t know if it’s really—”

“He walked into an opportunity with her and he knew it. His whole fucking life and career was basically set up for him the second he met her family. He’s beyond lucky Her ever looked his way.”

“Jeez, Wonwoo. Honestly, it’s not like that.”

“How is it not?”

Seokmin ran a hand through his hair, appearing flustered and without a tongue to make sense. “Just—okay—I’ve been around them a lot. I know how it seems from an outsider’s view. They can argue and push buttons. Their relationship isn’t perfect, but whose is? Mingyu didn’t just walk into the family asking for this and that—he’s never asked for anything, no handouts. Everything that’s been ‘set up’ for him was because Her’s family wanted it. They know he’s a good guy.”

The scoff shot from Wonwoo’s mouth like an arrow. “I’m sorry but, what do they want for Her? Were we at the same dinner party? Did you see her nearly burst into tears? She has to live life in this rigid box, trying to conform to everyone else around her. Don’t you think she wants to live her own life? Be her own person?”

“Of course, but—”

“No—why is there even a ‘but’?”

“I don’t think you understand. Her has everything she needs.”

“You mean, what everyone thinks she needs.” Wonwoo tossed his hand up in the air, laughing, while also getting the strong impulse to ring out his friend’s neck. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. How can you be so close to her, but you don’t realize how unhappy she is? You know what I think? You’re part of it, Seokmin. You're always in her business, hovering, watching, sewing seeds of doubt, shooting down her interests—and you disguise it as help. No one in that house listens to her. They’ve told her who she should be instead of letting her figure it out for herself. How can you be so complicit in that? She gets no support from any of you, about the decisions in her life that actually matter. And Mingyu—honestly, he can go fuck himself. He’s just as complicit as you. He’s soul-sucking.”

“God—sh-she’s an adult.” Seokmin was exasperated, his cheeks reddening like two ripe apples. “She doesn’t have to visit her parents. She doesn’t have to date Mingyu. Nothing is forced on her. No one is dragging her there. I help because I know what she's capable of. I know the perfect life she can have. Her parents know, too. But she just gets sidetracked! She gets wrapped up in stuff that doesn't matter! If she hates everything, she can easily walk away.”

“But you guys have made that so impossible for her.”

“How?”

Wonwoo proceeded to clench his fist up so tight he thought his skin might bleed, the edge of his knuckles pressing down on the table.

“She doesn’t know who the fuck she is.”

Seokmin instantly paled. He looked whiter than a snowflake.

“That’s like clipping a bird’s wings and then asking why it can’t fly away. Knowing who you are is such a big part of life. It’s arguably the foundation. What the fuck do you want her to do? I don’t even—I honestly don’t even want to look at you, Seokmin. Let Mingyu beat me up if he wants to—let it happen a thousand times—” slinging the computer bag back over his shoulder, Wonwoo was rising from the picnic table while glaring down at the stiff, empty-faced Seokmin, who had suddenly morphed from a friend to a bitter stranger, “—I don’t care what he thinks. It’s not going to change how I feel about her, or make me stay away. I’ve seen who she can be and what she actually wants from life, and it's not some snotty, vapid, copy-and-paste hell that her parents are forcing on her. But neither of you seem to give a shit. You’re both completely undeserving.”

Stepping away from the bench, Wonwoo tensed his jaw as the sunlight splashed over him, breaking in between the skeletal trees and their resilient orange leaves. “Got everything you wanted to know? Go run it back to Mingyu. I’m sure that’s what you were gonna do anyway.”

The anger in his chest felt like it was going to crawl out from his mouth and squeeze Seokmin into a ball, therefore Wonwoo exercised his breathing while on a strict path back down the walkway.

Abandoning Seokmin did hurt him more than he had thought, knowing he just lost a friend from his already very limited circle, someone whom he clicked with so readily. At the same time, however, there was a lightness about it. As Wonwoo’s frustration seeped out during the walk back to his apartment, some of the weight pressed into his shoulders released itself like water evaporating from a blacktop.

He just wished he could be at your side more than anything.

There was obviously a reason for your silence.

[ Wonwoo | 11:28 am ]: I heard about the break.

[ Wonwoo | 11:28 am ]: I’m here if you need anything at all.

…

[ Her | 4:05 pm ]: you talked to seokmin?

[ Wonwoo | 4:07 pm ]: Yeah. Never again.

[ Her | 4:07 pm ]: mingyu is so mad

[ Wonwoo | 4:07 pm ]: I figure.

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: please avoid him if you can. i’m worried

[ Wonwoo | 4:08 pm ]: I’m not.

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: wonwoo he’s seriously pissed

[ Her | 4:08 pm ]: can’t you hang out with vernon some more

[ Wonwoo | 4:09 pm ]: Seriously?

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: yes

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: mingyu got into trouble with dots and had a real big scare. so he doesn’t like to mess much with him or his friends. he'll showboat but that's about it

[ Her | 4:09 pm ]: well ik dots died but u get the point

[ Wonwoo | 4:10 pm ]: Fair.

[ Wonwoo | 4:10 pm ]: But I can’t just pull Vernon around as my Mingyu repellent lol. Honestly, if he wants to rock me, idc.

[ Her | 4:10 pm ]: well I do care

[ Her | 4:10 pm ]: ugh

[ Her | 4:11 pm ]: life has been sucking so hard lately

[ Wonwoo | 4:11 pm ]: I want to come see you.

[ Her | 4:11 pm ]: I want that too. but I need more time, k?

[ Wonwoo | 4:12 pm ]: I know.

[ Wonwoo | 4:12 pm ]: Here if you need me.

—OCTOBER 18TH.

For the past two weeks, Wonwoo had been walking around with the looming possibility of getting jumped by your six-foot tall, rather muscley boyfriend, and he was thus very relieved to have made it this far without eating a fist to the face. Well, now Mingyu was an ex.

Maybe.

The pause in your relationship read like a gray area that Wonwoo had been treading the thinnest eggshells on, prompting him to wait and hear the truth from you directly whenever you felt steady enough to tell him. He wondered if today might be that day.

Placing another strawberry onto the cutting board, Wonwoo chopped his knife through the leafy green bit, removing the stem. The cleaned-up strawberry was then dropped into a bowl of fresh ones that you had been picking away at for the past few minutes or so.

Wonwoo smiled while grabbing another berry to cut.

“I feel like this bowl hasn’t gotten any fuller, for some reason.”

Your legs were swinging as you sat atop the small kitchen island while looking down at his every movement with the knife. Once he  dropped another cut strawberry into the bowl, you scooped it out.

“Just making sure they don’t go bad,” you responded, shrugging.

He raised an eyebrow at you. “The fruit you buy usually goes bad within the minute? Are you getting into a fist fight with it?”

You poked at his hip with your socked foot. “Well, you said you were cutting it for me. So can I eat it or not? I’m getting mixed signals.”

“No, of course you can eat it. I’m just teasing.”

“I don’t do too well with delayed gratification.”

Wonwoo smiled at you, proceeding to remove the last few strawberries from the basket to cleanly dissect their stems. He then turned around, tossing the cutting board and knife into the stainless-steel sink with a clatter. After washing his hands, he was back at the island, noticing that the bowl was now seated in your lap like a bag of movie theatre popcorn with just the perfect amount of butter and salt. For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t say anything—that focused look to your face as you ate the fruit he prepared was much too captivating. He wanted to catch one of your swinging legs, pull you right to the counter’s very edge and have you wrap yourself around him. He wanted everything with you.

In your earlier days together, Wonwoo used to be a lot more evasive about his staring (at least, that’s what he wanted to believe), but now he didn’t feel as required to be so painfully subtle and imperceptible about things. He let you snack until you were satisfied, the empty bowl then being exchanged with a damp rag to clean your fingers.

“So,” clearing his throat, Wonwoo braced his hands against the granite island and glanced at you from behind his glasses, scanning down the unbothered, relatively straight face you had, “everything going okay?”

Pressing your lips together, you nodded, making only an “mhm” sound that didn’t leave much to be interpreted.

Wonwoo saw the hands that plunged swiftly between your thighs, how you were quick to squeeze around them, like there existed something weighted and hidden.

He wanted to leave it up to your discretion—he really did.

“Okay, that’s good… just—uh, he’s not giving you a hard time, right? He’s not bothering you at all?” Wonwoo asked, adjusting the rim of the black beanie he’d thrown on to keep his messy hair tucked back. “I don’t mean to disinter anything. I’m only asking because I—”

“Because you care,” you finished his sentence quietly with a trusting and faint smile, “I know. Thank you. It is hard for me, though… I don’t know why this particular thing is so hard but it is.”

Wonwoo slid his hands together, moving them slow along the cold granite. “No… that’s understandable. I get it plenty.” Hell—he didn’t just get it—Wonwoo had miserably and insufferably lived it for damn near a year at that point. In fact, tomorrow would mark the day that he came home to this same apartment only to discover the interior stripped of all the traces, sentiments, and artifacts that breathed miraculous life into the girl he once thought to be his other half.

A whole fucking year without Jeanie.

How flipped things were. How oddly coincidental that he was now in the same space but with a new person to create everlasting memories. You had the most opposite personality and spark.

Wonwoo sighed. He got close to you, settling his hand atop your knee before gliding it underneath your thigh, gripping at you firmly and pulling you forward until he was bracketed in between your legs. Your response was smitten, and he couldn’t deny that he loved to practically see your heart beating under your chest in addition to sensing the warmth that flourished off your skin like you were sizzling in a pan.

Wonwoo set one hand down on the counter, right next to your hip, while the other tended to the side of your face, his fingers running behind your ear and down the slender path to your silk-smooth neck.

“Look…” he breathed out, finding your eyes that were now a bit watery and tinged with stinging emotion, “I know it’s hard. And I would never rush you into figuring things out… but I like you…” Wonwoo swallowed, letting his thumb play with your earring meanwhile his deep voice triggered the sharp, raised hairs spreading down your arms like an electric current, “I love spending time with you—even just being in the same room as you, getting to stare at you—but I just—when I don’t know what you are to Mingyu, I don’t know what to do with us.”

You drew in an immediate breath, then releasing a quiet laugh mixed with a runny sniffle. “I-It seems like you know…”

He pushed both his hands into the countertop, smiling at you.

“Well, I know what I want to do…” Wonwoo murmured, gazing so intimately into your eyes as the oceans he urged to drown in, “but you have to understand my reservations about it. That’s all.”

Bringing a pinky finger to your mouth to nibble on, you nodded.

Softly, he pinched the bare expanse of your waist. You gasped.

“Because I do, in fact, want you.”

You didn’t say anything, although Wonwoo noted that you were staring back into his gaze with so many hues of simple human emotion pulsating behind your eyes—there was frustration, possibly at yourself and everything you couldn’t yet communicate, and twinkles of impulse that matched rhythm with your heart. Then, employing unforeseen abruptness, your fingers were running down the back of his neck all ticklish and he felt the warmth from your breath feather his lips as you moved in closer, smirking at him, hazy like a sunrise pouring its light through a thick cover of morning fog.

“If you can be patient for just a little longer, you'll have all of me.”

Thankfully (or maybe not so thankfully judging from the pure adrenaline coursing through his veins in a hedonistic, addictive sort of way) there were a few knocks at his door.

Your eyes rolled. “Is that your landlord or something?”

Wonwoo took a step back, letting you slide off the countertop while he adjusted his glasses and brushed down his t-shirt. How were you suddenly so casual? One second you were chewing nervously on your finger with the timidness of a newborn doe and the next—back to your typical self. He watched you approach the door, tilting his head.

“Uh, maybe? She usually texts me, though.”

“Or Seokmin with a batch of chocolate apology brownies.”

He chuckled, folding his arms. “Doubt it.”

Really, Wonwoo had no idea who it could be. It possibly was his landlord who had perhaps forgotten her usual warning text, or maybe his younger, sometimes irresponsible neighbour across the hall who would specifically ask to borrow his scent-free laundry detergent every now and then. As long as it wasn’t Lady Liberty on the other side (in Vernon’s tried and true nicknaming spirit) then Wonwoo had no reason to care.

“Welp,” you made a balmy, popping sound with your lips, “only one way to find out. I think I can smell the chocolate.” But once the door was pulled open, that little joking smile fell from your face concerningly fast, as though someone had plucked it right off.

Fuck—Wonwoo thought right off the cuff—it was Lady Liberty.

Your head quirked ever so slightly. “Uh, hello…”

Whoever the person was, they were just outside the threshold of what Wonwoo could see from his spot in the kitchen—except, now he didn’t think it was Mingyu at all, since your tone seemed more confused than anything else.

For a moment, Wonwoo just stood where he was, not particularly understanding why he couldn’t even twitch a measly finger.

“Hi—I’m sorry, is this the—is this—does Wonwoo still live here?”

From across the room, you shifted him a glance.

There was a heavy pause before you answered.

“… Yeah.”

“O-Oh, well… um… I’m so sorry, but are you living here as well? Is he home? I don’t mean to bother or anything. I guess I came by on a whim. It’s a little hard to explain… I can always come back later.”

At that point, Wonwoo was making his way beside you.

That voice—that delicate wispy voice, lighter than a tuft of cotton adrift through the breeze under a salt blue sky—there was such a familiarity about it that he was getting dizzier by the second. Your jaw was distinctly clenched as Wonwoo stopped at your side.

He took one look into the hallway and damn near fainted.

“What the fuck…” Wonwoo whispered, his mouth suddenly stark of moisture as he lifted a hand to grab the door’s edge, “Jeanie?”

“Uh, hey, Wonwoo.”

Wait—never mind, never mind—he panicked. Maybe he did want it to be Mingyu. In fact, Wonwoo would have anticipated Bohyuk showing up outside his door, or his parents, or his girlfriend of two weeks back in sixth grade who broke up with him over a juice box before he could guess that his ex who disappeared without a trace would be there.

It sounded borderline insane, but Wonwoo almost wanted to poke her just to test if she was even real. She looked real. She sounded real. You didn’t seem to be staring into empty space while side-eyeing him worriedly, rather you had very much acknowledged her. Wonwoo’s grip fastened to the door, then realizing he was using it as a personal crutch to keep him upright as his legs slowly regained their rigidity and strength. He also realized that you likely had no idea who she was until her name had been distantly tugged from his lips by his instincts.

Jeanie splayed out her hands in a demonstration of submission.

“If it’s a bad time, I can come back later…”

Wonwoo noted that you had taken a step away from the door, although you continued to stare at Jeanie with a countenance that refused to spoil much—it seemed inquisitive and curious but still hardened—the moment was probably overwhelming you, too.

He gulped dryly, flicking his eyes back to her. “Uh, well, I wasn’t even—you’re like, the last person I would expect to see and—”

“It’s okay. I’ll leave.”

Jerking back to you, Wonwoo nearly gave himself whiplash.

“Her—you don’t need to—”

But you shook your head.

Grabbing the cream purse off the couch and slipping back into your comfortable, clean white tennis shoes, you seemed eager to go while simultaneously jaded at the circumstances.

“No, don’t worry about it,” you stopped in front of Wonwoo, adjusting the strap wove around your shoulder, “this seems important, so… I don’t want to stand in the way of anything… I’ll see you later, ‘kay?”

Then, you turned to Jeanie, sticking out your hand. “Nice to meet you.”

She looked to Wonwoo for a split second.

“Um, yeah, you as well…” Jeanie eventually accepted the handshake, sounding breathy with nerves, “sorry about all this.”

While making your way to the staircase, Wonwoo quickly stepped into the corridor and waved at you, feeling his chest tighten.

“I’ll call you, okay?”

You flashed a transient smile. He hated watching you leave.

Jeanie was watching you, too, hands politely folded at her abdomen, bunny rabbit teeth digging at the skin of her ruby-stained and calloused lips. She had always been a chronic lip-biter—anxiety, thrill, or stress, Wonwoo vividly remembered the blisters she absentmindedly inflicted unto herself from the bad habit, similar to the scars marking the cuticle of his thumb. After a year Jeanie looked different no doubt, but she also reflected an unchanged image through her conserved, fidgety behaviours. She was shy like a budding flower kept just short of the sun.

“Are you okay if I come in?” Jeanie mumbled, hardly able to maintain eye contact with Wonwoo for no more than a second or two.

He stepped back, beckoning indoors.

“Yeah… that’s fine, I guess.”

“Looks pretty nice in here…” she remarked soft-spokenly, taking a moment to marvel the space she once came home to every day, although she couldn’t seem more like a stranger to the apartment even if she tried—like a magazine cutout slapped onto a novel.

Wonwoo rubbed under his nose. “Well… I make due.”

Her hair used to be a symmetric, blunt length with her chin, but she had clearly grown it out over the months. The black tresses thrived in long and loose ribbons down her back, shinier than sea glass polished by rough waves. She was never one to wear much makeup either—trimming her eyebrows, glossing her lips, and flicking on some mascara was all she really ever cared to do, and Wonwoo remembered being in love with her simplicity.

Jeanie proceeded to walk behind the couch, squeezing the back in her hands. She was so tiny. That hadn’t changed much. He could only stand in one place, keeping still, examining her every movement and fighting against the trillions of voices clawing to his mind’s surface.

“Feels strange to be in here,” she laughed, running her fingers along the couch’s fabric, staring around the space, “I think it definitely has more of your touch now… it was nice to see Saskia again, too.”

“Yeah.”

She stopped on him. “You look well. Healthy.”

Wonwoo squinted at her. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t say it in a rude, impatient way. Genuinely, Wonwoo wasn’t angry with her, not like he might have been a few months ago.

But he was confused and feeling increasingly anxious. You were gone, probably on your way back home, though Wonwoo wished you hadn’t left at all, even if it were to make things sticky and awkward. Your presence in a room was the comfort he badly, painfully missed.

“Sure,” Jeanie cleared her throat, “I’ll explain. Care to sit?”

Together, they nestled onto the couch.

Wonwoo was kept to one end while Jeanie sat more in the middle, pulling at the long, flowy hem of her fern-patterned blue dress.

He tugged at the rim to his beanie, waiting for her to speak.

The girl gripped onto her knees, poised a soft, gentle look in his direction while taking in a breath. Their nerves seemed to be coalescing like different colours bleeding from freshly soaked paintbrushes. If anxiety were personified into butterflies, the room would start fluttering.

“I guess I thought it was time. Taking a shot in the dark, I know. I didn’t know if you would still be here, but I got lucky…” she clutched at her dress, fingers pulling into the airy material. “Wonwoo, it’s not like I don’t think about you, or wonder about you. I know what I did, how much it hurt… then I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come back to here, with you. But I processed it all and it became an itch I had to scratch.”

Puffing out through his nose, Wonwoo almost laughed.

“Yeah—you wanted to see if I, what? Threw myself off the building or persevered, becoming some big money writer?”

Jeanie blinked at him a few times, furrowing her neat, straight brow, with every hair gelled down perfectly in place.

Wonwoo shook his head, lifting out his hand.

“Okay, my bad. That sounded like such an asshole thing to say.”

“No, it’s okay. I get it.” Her cheeks flooded with a tide of rosy pink as she chuckled. “I-I just… well, you seem different now.”

He pushed up his glasses. “You think?”

“Yeah.”

“In a good or bad way?”

Jeanie clasped her hands together, thumbs tapping.

“Well, I guess you seem more... upfront, not as prevaricating. Maybe that’s how you’ve always been and I just never really saw it or you picked it up from someone else.”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Probably a bit of both.”

“I am sorry. I know it was all so… sudden. I know this is sudden. I thought about calling... my hands would just shake so much whenever I picked up the phone, getting all sweaty and stuff. It felt like something that I had to just do. And, well, once I was back in the area, I didn’t even want to lend myself time to dwell. I only came in yesterday.”

“You went back home, then?”

“I did.”

“I figured… well, I got the hint pretty clear when your mom sent me that email. It was only a sentence or two long, but it hurt like hell.”

“It’s what I asked her to send. It’s all I felt you needed to know.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

Jeanie sighed, “I feel warranted in what I did… even so, I-I think I owe you an apology. Because, well, you were and still are someone I regard highly. You were going through something pretty serious… I mean, it’s obvious you’re taking such better care of yourself.”

 “It definitely hasn’t been linear.”

Tucking some hair behind her ear, the girl smiled. “Well, what in life really is? It only feels that way when you’re going straight down.”

He hmphed, thinking. “… Yeah. Really though, don’t worry about it. An apology isn’t necessary. You’ve always been too gracious.”

“I-I guess… but, I think it is, since—”

“Jeanie, c’mon. It’s really not. I was dragging you down.”

“Wonwoo, I feel like—”

“I’m telling you—”

“Well, I’m telling you and it would mean a lot if you just let me speak and get this off my chest. Please. Then you can have the floor. Tell me to package it all back up. Whatever it is you have to say. But I spent our entire relationship just listening and trying to understand you and interpret all your vague signals when I should have been trying to understand myself, and what I wanted. I’m not the verbose type, I know that. Going off on longwinded tangents about my feelings has never been something that suits me but I’m here now and I owe it to the girl who just sucked it all up, all the time, trying to be this perfect girlfriend for you.”

He managed a long, introspective breath.

Fuck—he really did owe her that. He owed her so much more.

“… Okay,” Wonwoo nodded complicity, “you’re right.”

“Leaving was the very last thing I wanted. I swear it. I agonized over the choice every day. But you didn’t even notice. That’s when I knew it was more than bad, and whatever it was you were going through was just pulling you down so deep, like a whirlpool. It’s like… I would talk to you, and there was no one inside. When I felt like you needed space, I gave you space. When I felt like you had something hard to say, I would sit with you all day, trying to ease it out, waiting for you to say it.

When you seemed so angry at yourself and everything around you—I-I don’t know—I tried to be the best thing for you. But I was hitting wall after wall. Sometimes I wonder how much of it was my fault. If I had just been upfront about my feelings then maybe things would have been… well, you know, different. I guess I never did say much because it seemed like the last thing you needed to hear, like I would be adding to your already massive collection of burdens. You have to understand, I felt trapped, Wonwoo. Like I was in a glass box or something.

I was decaying from the inside out. If I didn’t leave, if I didn’t make that split second decision to phone up my mom and tell her everything that morning you left for work—then maybe we would have gotten even worse. Maybe we would have just drowned. I don’t know. I’m… glad, relieved, happier than ever, that I don’t know what might have happened. And now that it seems we’re both… whole… I feel like an apology is just a way for me to say that if I had the steel to speak for the both of us, maybe we could have spared so much pain in between.”

Jeanie’s doe eyes twinkled with tears. “I thought that being apart might heal us both… I-I did it ‘cause—in essence—I did it because I cared, Wonwoo. About you. So deeply. But I also needed to start caring about myself, too.”

The corners of his mouth flitted in an unbridled smile toward the girl, his gaze admiring how the evening sunlight warmed up her cool-toned skin and shimmered through her strong, healthy hair.

“I know,” Wonwoo finally answered. “I’ve known for a while.”

Jeanie stayed for about an hour longer, until the sky started darkening. Together, they filled each other in on the breakages in each other’s distant lives, like a spider reweaving a gash through its cobweb. He was pleased to learn that she was doing quite well for herself—now moved out from her family house and living with her younger sister, Jeanie held true to pursuing her ambition of managing the library she had always adored coming to during her childhood (he remembered it specifically as “the one with the bean bag corner and the giant toy crate with the giraffe.”)

Wonwoo felt he didn’t have much to say regarding himself, however, he had plenty to say about you.

Rubbing at a strand of her hair, Jeanie nodded. “Yeah, I remember Her. She—like—she did scare me a bit… I don’t know—she really seemed to know what she was doing. I was a little envious of that. And she had really great style. She could pull anything off. She came in looking for a textbook one time, but I made my co-worker help her instead. I think I was too nervous to talk to her.”

Wonwoo had his legs stretched out onto the coffee table, hands settled on his stomach. Itching at his eyebrow, he smiled. “I probably would have done the same, back then. Honestly though, she’s nothing like what she seems. I can promise you that.”

Jeanie was quiet for a moment, adjusting the legs tucked up underneath herself. “So… you two are… you’re dating?”

“No… it’s weird. I wish.”

“I recognized her when she opened the door. I was pretty confused since… of all the people that you could have over… she seemed like the most unlikely candidate. I-I mean, I’m not saying that you could never—I’m not saying that it could never happen—”

He tilted his head at Jeanie, grinning slyly. “No, just say it. You didn’t imagine I’d ever even be able to talk to someone like her.”

The girl’s face flushed. “Well, you’re quite the opposites.”

“In some ways.”

“I don’t think she’d like me.”

Wonwoo pursed his lip in disagreement. “That’s not true. To be fair, you’ve ever only got to see one side of her. She’s trying to figure shit out just as much as we are. You never really stop, I suppose.”

He felt Jeanie’s gaze still on him for a few seconds, her mouth twitching into a delicate, sincere smile made brighter by her eyes. “So… you figure she’d like me? Even if she knew all the details about us? How rough it all was?”

Wonwoo crossed his arms, staring back toward her confidently. “I figure she’d probably like you more than me, actually.”

8:28 pm

“Hey, thanks for picking up.”

“Oh, no big deal. You called me at a good time. I was just about to start my skincare and I would have needed to sit for fifteen minutes doing absolutely nothing in a slimy face mask.” 

“Sounds fun.”

“I’m guessing your conversation is over and done with.”

“Yeah. She only left like, five minutes ago.”

“And you didn’t want to sit alone in your bedroom contemplating the universe for an additional hour with all the blinds drawn? Woah. Wonwoo, I am impressed. Finger snaps.”

“Finger snaps.”

“So… am I allowed to know how the whole thing went or did you just call me to hear the sound of my voice?”

“Both. But mostly to hear your voice.”

“Okay. Enlighten me then.”

9:45 pm

“Anyway… yeah. The conversation went well. I still can’t believe she actually came back to see me. Like, what a mindfuck, you know?”

“That took a lot of courage from her part.”

“Yeah, it did. Makes me proud, though. To hear her actually speak her mind. She really was just trying to be the best possible person for me and the only thing that got her is heartbreak. She’s putting herself first, now. She’s spending a couple days in the city with her sister.”

“… Do you think that you’ll want to see her again?”

“I don’t know. Do I need to?”

“Do you?”

“No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, as much as it was a shock to see her again, there was great closure in it. If she had come to see me way sooner, no way would I have been open to it—I probably would have freaked the fuck out and had an anxiety attack or some shit—but I feel way better about everything now. I felt like I understood her choices, kinda like I was the one making them... but, you know, we’re evolved people at this point. We’ve veered onto two separate paths, neither one being greater than or less than the other… just different.”

“Right.”

“We just wished each other well.”

“No, that’s great. You put a bow on it. I just didn’t really know what the whole thing was gonna entail… so, yeah, I had gotten kinda worried… like—once I knew it was her—I thought she looked so perfect for you. You two just made immediate sense in my mind. She’s got such a sweet voice, and the kind, shy personality that everyone always adores. I think if you stuck her in a room with me, she’d hate my guts.”

“Ha—Jeanie hates no one’s guts. She’s got no room in her heart for that kind of stuff. You two are different for sure, but I think that’s what would make you interesting and attractive to each other.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t think you’d like her either. But I told her you’d probably like her more than me.”

“What! She actually thought that? I mean, maybe I seemed a little damp when I left, but that was just my mind on overdrive.”

“Need me to arrange a date between you two?”

“Ha—she did have a great perfume on. Maybe ask about that.”

“Well, I will if I see her.”

“She doesn’t know about the book you were writing for her, does she? I can’t believe that’s been sitting on your laptop all this time.”

“No, she doesn’t. I used to sit there and stare at it every day, but I don’t think I’ve even opened the damn document in months… since I met you, my mind has gradually moved away from it, I guess. I think now it’s more of an effort thing. All the time I put into it. It’s like, if I delete it, I’m deleting that time from my life… does that even make sense?”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying.”

“… Did you ever finish your book for Mingyu? I know you wanted it done before your anniversary in December. It seemed like you were on track to have it done quite early, with all that time you gave yourself.”

“I did finish it, actually.”

“No fucking way—that’s a big accomplishment.”

“Yeah. Now I’ve just gotta decide what to do with it.”

—NOVEMBER 3RD.

Wonwoo was fairly surprised that Princess had invited him to her birthday dinner at Terra Cotta. At one point, he wasn’t certain where he stood with your closest friend, even if his relationship with her presented itself as amicable on the surface—he always thought that maybe deep down, Princess really did despise him. Then Wonwoo wondered if you had nipped at the birthday girl into inviting him, although that didn’t seem like something in your character.

Through all his fretting, thumb-scraping, and late-night pondering in the shower, Wonwoo eventually came to the conclusion that was probably the simplest and most accurate: Princess just liked him.

A call from Vernon came through right as Wonwoo was getting into bed last week, to which the rambling boy had impetuously thrown out, “yeah, I got an invite to Her’s best friend’s birthday dinner or somethin’ like that—what was her name again? Penelope? The sexy dark skin girl with the braids? Anyway, I told her I’d love to go, but I’m gonna be out of town for a few days in November. Said I could hook her up with a couple MDMA bombs, though. Y’know, as a gift.”

Thus, that concluded the story of Wonwoo having to sit at a rather large and reserved candlelit table in an expensive, esteemed restaurant, surrounded by some friends and strangers alike, with a plastic baggie of hard drugs shoved into his pants pocket that he couldn’t stop worrying about. Vernon had wanted him to leave it with Princess when appropriate. Most people invited were going to the club later in the night—Room 319—which he figured could only be survived by going buckwild off ecstasy. As his knee continued to ricochet underneath the tablecloth, Wonwoo was soothed by your hand sliding over his thigh.

You gave him a solicitous glance, smiling with care. “Why don’t I just put it in my purse?” The offer was whispered amongst the conversation.

Wonwoo couldn’t help but flit his eyes around the table, ensuring no one was giving his general direction a lick of attention. The waiters and waitresses would pop from the blue every now and then with bottles that seemed glued to their hands, scouring for anyone who needed a top up on alcohol. His glass had been seldom touched for the past half-hour.

He sighed, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine.”

“Wonwoo,” you deadpanned at him.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh my God—just give me it. It’ll take me two seconds to dig it out from your pocket and shove it in my damn purse. Besides, I can’t enjoy myself when the anxiety is emanating off you in waves.”

His knee immediately stopped jerking. Wonwoo looked you straight in the eyes, the stiffness turning him into straw. “Is it really?”

“Yes!” You laughed quietly, your head hunkering down on his shoulder for a brief moment. “Now, give me it please. Pretty please.”

Sliding a hand into the smooth pocket on his pants, Wonwoo began fishing out the small plastic baggie while puffing, “fuck—alright.”

“Gosh,” he heard you mumble while discreetly taking the capsules from him, rustling them into your purse, “you could never be a drug dealer, could you? How are you even friends with Vernon? That dude probably walks around with sample sizes taped to his jacket.”

“It’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo was finally able to roll out his shoulders and relax—even give you a humorous little smirk, “I have a way better chance of escaping the drug dogs than he does. I’ll get a nice head start.”

His thigh was met with a slap before your hand pulled away. “I’m acting like I don’t know either of you.”

To be fair, Wonwoo couldn’t picture his bad-mouthed, fairly uncouth friend in a snotty establishment like Terra Cotta, especially considering his ideal places to eat were twenty-four-hour diners and cereal pantries belonging to girls whom he’d just slept with. The restaurant was no doubt beautiful, though it was definitely for the upper echelons who could not only afford it, but also act the pleasant, opulent guise.

At least the table that Princess reserved was a bit more separated from the other tables in the restaurant—it was close to a waterfall built into the wall, encompassed by all sorts of burnish-looking smooth stones.

Neither Seokmin or Mingyu were at the dinner—two absences that no one seemed to be questioning. To Wonwoo, that was a gigantic relief—he assumed you felt the same. Clara was there, seated further down the table, but Bells wasn’t. Seungcheol was an obvious guest, and besides you, he was the person that Wonwoo had spoken to the most since arriving at the restaurant—he’d even given Wonwoo the slip on his secret gift for his girlfriend, which was a two-week vacation to the Bahamas after the winter exam season.

Wonwoo was a little jealous.

He would love for you and him to vacation somewhere.

Maybe even take you back to South Korea.

“So, you guys,” Princess had started a conversation with you and Wonwoo from across the table, hands folded underneath her chin while she smiled kindly between you, “think you’ll come to the club after?”

You pouted at her, “we’re passing, babe. A million sorries.”

“Awe, that’s okay.” She reached across the pristine tablecloth to lay her hand over top yours. “You already took me out for my birthday, anyway. And let me vomit in your washroom for two hours.”

“Mmhm. You’d do the same for me.”

Princess giggled, her grin luminous and wholly genuine. “Oh, of course. I have already done it!”

“Well, you’ll have to tell me all about Room 319. The stories I’ve heard about that place—sounds like some shit from a movie.”

“Trust me, you’ll get the entire script in a bound book. I know the club thing isn’t for everyone—that’s why I did the dinner. And I’m doing cupcakes instead of cake! Remember those red velvet cupcakes we had that one night? And then that other night? Fuck—I couldn’t stop thinking about those damn things.”

“Oh, those were fucking delicious.”

“De-licious. Have you ever got to try one, Wonwoo?”

He swallowed, a bit jarred to be welcomed into their conversation that he had been happily listening to from the sidelines.

“I tried one. I liked it.”

Princess gasped at him. “Only liked? Be serious!”

“Well, ask me again later tonight. I wasn’t having it fresh.”

“I will be asking. How’s Vernon? I’m sad he couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, he’s fine. Sometimes he just mysteriously disappears from town for a couple days—I don’t ask because I don’t want to know. But, uh, he did leave me with a gift for you… if you didn’t already know.”

“Oh… oh! Right!” Princess straightened up, nodding. “Yeah, I remember. You can give it to me when we leave. Outside.”

“I have it actually,” you clarified, flickering a transient look at the tiny purse you had moved onto the table,  “when we take a girl’s trip to the washroom, you can have it. The dose is pretty high. I know I don’t have to worry about you and this stuff, but be careful, y’know?”

“Of course. Just make sure you hide the purse in your lap when the waiter comes back. They love offering to take bags and satchels and all that stuff to hang in the coat room.” After clearing her throat with a sip from her pink, frothy champagne, Princess curiously poked at you two. “So, how do you guys plan to spend the rest of your night?”

Wonwoo opted not to speak.

You grabbed your wine glass, swirling the aromatic alcohol around inside while shrugging. “Not sure. It’s chilly out. Hope you don’t freeze your tits off standing outside in the mile long line for the club.”

“That’s what this push-up is for. The padding’s so toasty warm.”

Laughing with Princess, you ended up snorting.

Seungcheol, who was sat beside his girlfriend and had been occupied in speaking to a friend Wonwoo forgot the name of, finally parted from his conversation, turning his head at the last second to hear the giggling.

“Push-up? What are you guys talking about?”

You shook your head. “Nothing—just her bra.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol mumbled, “what about her bra?”

Princess smiled. “Just that with all this padding it’s got, it’ll keep me nice and warm when I’m waiting outside. Perfectly insulated.”

Rubbing a thumb and index finger along his jaw, Seungcheol grinned all relaxed-like while Princess rolled her dark brown eyes at his comment, the gold accents in her inner corners glimmering.

“I bet my hands would be a lot more efficient. Nothing warmer than skin on skin as they say.”

She shoved his shoulder half-heartedly. “Who says that? Now, bedroom eyes away before I make you wear a bag over your head.”

“I don’t see a bag here.”

“As the birthday girl, I’m pretty sure I can request one.”

The dinner officially wrapped up around ten at night. Wonwoo was able to reaffirm with Princess that the red velvet cupcakes were indeed moist and delicious. As everyone stood right outside the restaurant in the nippy, cold November weather, giving hugs and farewells to those who weren’t clubbing, he made sure to wish Princess probably the twentieth happy birthday she’d heard that night. He waited for you to give her another speech about staying safe but still having fun, sprinkled with lots of “I love you’s” and inside jokes that Wonwoo wondered if he would ever understand, before you two left on your own.

Each time he spoke, his breath would come to life in a warm wisp from his mouth, meanwhile the streets lights reflected in the melted snow all over the sidewalk he aimlessly wandered down, with you sticking close to his side. It hadn’t been a heavy snow, at least.

“Be honest,” you said, glancing toward Wonwoo, “how relieved are you that we’re not going to the club? On a scale of one to ten.”

“Is ten the most relieved?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at you, completely unabashed. “Ten.”

Kissing your teeth, you nodded. “That’s what I expected.”

“So,” Wonwoo hummed, stopping beside you at the intersection while waiting for the crosswalk light to change, “what now?”

Your eyebrows raised. “Still want to do something?”

As the cars whipped past, throwing up brisk winds and exhaust into the twinkling city atmosphere, Wonwoo shrugged. “The night is young.”

“What's on your mind?”

“We’re not far from Centertown. It’s maybe a fifteen-minute walk or so at this point. There’s a bar there I want to try. The Honeymoon.”

He was glad you didn’t seem opposed.

“Sure. I’m down.”

Once the crosswalk was open and the floods of people started pressing forward, there was somebody who passed them—somebody who almost went completely unnoticed by Wonwoo until his memory reloaded and he suddenly found himself pausing to observe over his shoulder.

You pulled at his sleeve. “What?”

“Uh, nothing,” Wonwoo replied, wetting his dry lips while heeding your polite tug, “the woman that passed us—she’s dressed exactly like this prostitute that Vernon told me he saw last winter, hanging outside Room 319. She has the heels and everything.”

“What the fuck. Really?”

“Mmhm,” he laughed, “he called her Pink Heels Lady. To be honest, I thought he was lying… but I’m pretty sure that was her.”

“Spooky. Coincidence or fate, do you think?”

Wonwoo glanced at you, seeing the intrigued smile on your face.

“I don’t know, actually,” he responded after the question hovered around in his mind for an oddly long second, deciding to pick up your hand in is, “I assume it’s just the universe working its magic.”

Wonwoo was never particularly into bars, although he could tolerate them much more than a club despite their parallels. The seedy lighting, deafening music, and signature throw-up gutter in the street or alleyway right outside the building was crucial to both, he had realized.

The Honeymoon was a newer bar that had garnered some notable buzz. It was less like a pub, being slightly more formal with a touch of modernity that had landed it just below presumptuous, in Wonwoo’s opinion. At least the music wasn’t overbearing, nor was there intoxicated, flush-faced men hollering at sports teams on televisions that would never hear them. You decided to sit at the counter, sliding onto the heightened chairs and leaving your jackets draped over the low backs.

You bristled, shaking out your shoulders. “I’m cold.”

Wonwoo cupped his hands overtop your icy cheeks for a moment, allowing some of his warmth to seep into your skin.

“A drink will fix that right up.”

“How are your hands hotter than mine? You’re always freezing.”

He smiled at you, letting you have your face back. “I can warm them up at will to your benefit.” Wonwoo joked, bumping his knee against yours. “What do you think of the place?”

Your lip pursed as you glanced around, examining the bartenders filling up glasses with their silvery, shiny spouts, and then over your shoulder at the numerous other tables occupied by the city’s strangers. For a frigid November night, it was quite full.

“It’s nice. The lighting is pretty. Reminds me of Alley Cat.”

“Oh, yeah. Vernon took me there once to celebrate my exams being done, then he got into a fist fight with this university student over something I can’t remember—smashed a glass on the dude’s head.”

Predictably, your eyes rolled. “Only Vernon is getting into fist fights at Alley Cat.”

Wonwoo chuckled. “Well, now he can’t get into fist fights there at all—management banned him and the other guy. Apparently, they’ve got this back wall of people who’ve been kicked out and he’s on there.”

“Figures,” you sighed.

“Oh my gosh! Wonwoo? It’s you!”

At the sound of his name being excitedly called, Wonwoo was soon met with the surprised but cheerful expression coloured to Sierra’s freckled face. He hadn’t forgotten that she worked there, but he was clueless about her schedule. She looked very pretty, glowing in a halo almost, with her coarse, reddish-brown hair pulled back slick into a ponytail and a crisp, clean black uniform tailored to fit her perfectly.

Wonwoo grinned. “Hey there. I didn’t know you worked tonight.”

Sierra set one hand onto the lacquered wood counter while the other stuck to her hip. “I don’t usually. Fridays are game nights with my little sister. But there was a call-in. A little extra cash never hurt.” The girl’s big, round eyes then flitted to you. “Her, right? I don’t think we’ve ever met formally. I know you’re one smart cookie, though.”

“I’d like to think so,” you answered, smiling back at Sierra, “you were at the party, weren’t you? The one Seungcheol threw this summer?”

She nodded, “I was. I made a few drinks here and there.”

“I never got to taste one,” you frowned, pouting.

Throwing up her hands, Sierra was quick to exclaim with her typical charisma and sugar sweetness, “what! Preposterous! I think I’m pretty wicked at it. What are you thinking of having?”

“To be honest, I’m not looking for anything too fancy at the moment. In fifteen minutes from now, I won’t be able to promise the same. I’d like to start off with a rum and coke, if that’s alright. For now.”

Sierra grinned. “No, that’s perfect. What about you, Wonwoo?”

He shrugged. “I’ll have the same. For now.”

“Well, for now, I’ll start you guys off with two rum and cokes.”

Leaning his elbows onto the countertop, he threw her a question.

“How’s it going with Carmen?”

While she prepared the drinks, Sierra blossomed into a smile. “Oh, it’s going great. She’s genuinely a blast. We’re going to the movies next week—that horror one is coming out, about the swimming pool—we think it’s gonna suck but that’s what makes it fun.”

Once Sierra slid you the cold glass, you tilted your head at her while fixing your lips around the black straw. “Who’s Carmen?”

“My girlfriend.” Sierra answered. “We met here, actually.”

“Ugh, no way,” you swooned, pressing a cheek into your hand as the next drink was given to Wonwoo, “that’s so fucking adorable. Does she ever tell you how beautiful you look in that all-black uniform?”

Giggling, Sierra wiped down the countertop and flushed. “I’ve heard it many times. It’s honestly just a t-shirt and slacks!”

“Well, you’re making it work.”

“Please—my face is heating up! You’ve got quite the gorgeous dress on yourself, you know. I always wonder where you get all your clothes. Wonwoo, have you complimented her yet, tonight?”

Mixing the ice cubes together to hear the satisfying clinks using his straw, he answered easily. “It was the first thing out of my mouth.”

Sierra nodded in satisfaction. “Good! Well, I won’t hover. But if you need any refills or have any questions, you can try to flag me down—or ask Jamie! She’s just down there. She’s great at martinis. Later!”

Once Sierra had left to busy herself with tending to others waiting service at the counter, you looked to Wonwoo, lips downturned.

“Jeez, she’s so freaking nice. How come I don’t have that kind of natural charm? Not that I’m not charming. But hers is so… magnetic.”

“Everyone’s got their natural quirks.”

“Yeah, well, my natural quirk is that I’m probably going to down this in the next two minutes. And then have three more after that.”

Wonwoo rubbed a hand to your shoulder, smirking into the glass that he raised to his mouth. “Just focus on the one you have now.”

3 more rum and cokes (+ 1 martini) later.

“No, no—but then, it gets even worse! Because not only had she been lying straight to his face the entire time, so was his best friend! They were seeing each other for weeks and weeks—he had no idea. What gave it away though, was the perfume. He was always telling her not to wear heavy perfumes and stuff because it will leave a scent on the sheets, but she messed up—so they freaked it, she spends the night, and then the next day when he’s over, he goes into his friend’s room looking for a charger and smells the perfume on the sheets! He puts it together! And then, and then—”

You paused, picking up the wide-mouthed martini glass to take a sip in the midst of your long-winded and passionate adultery story that Wonwoo had been struggling to follow for the past blurred time interval, the names now completely lost on his ears. There was hardly anything left in your glass, which led to your frustrated grumble, followed by an attempt to flag down the bartender, Jamie.

However, Wonwoo swiftly caught your hand despite his own impaired state, lowering it back to the countertop.

“Okay, I think that’s enough.” He pushed forward the cup of water he requested for you. “The least you can be right now is hydrated.”

Although you weren’t happy about his thwarting, you did yield to the advice and drink some of the water. Wonwoo knew he should probably have some himself after his own splurge on the bar’s pricy concoctions, but he still felt that he was holding up quite well. Before Jamie could whisk by again, he made sure to ask for another cup.

“So, what happened next?” Wonwoo nudged your elbow while you stared off cluelessly, urging you to continue the story.

“What?”

“He smells her perfume on the bedsheets. Now what?”

However, you were suddenly slumping forward, forehead nestled into your hands. For a moment, you stayed like that without word, until Wonwoo couldn’t help his concern and touched at your bare shoulder.

“Not feeling well?”

You shook your head, whining out, “no, no. It’s not that.”

He frowned, scooting to the edge of his chair and securing his arm across your shoulders. His voice was softer and closer against your warm cheek as he attempted to gauge that sour, twisted expression past your concealing hands, wanting to understand your hiding.

“Well, am I allowed to know what’s bothering you?”

Again, you remained silent, biting your lip. There was such tenseness in your body that he could simply feel with just his arm.

Wonwoo leaned back, instead tugging at your wrist. “Can I at least see your face? Please?” You didn’t budge. “Her, you’re worrying me a bit, here. Do you need me take you home—”

“Okay, I have something to tell you.” Breaking abruptly from your husk, you were now staring straight and square at Wonwoo with distinct inebriation cloudy in your eyes, although there was something else too that compelled Wonwoo to bite his tongue and listen. “Honestly, I think I’ve held onto this long enough. And, I’ve wanted to confess this to you for a while now, but there was just so much debris in my life that I needed to sort through first. But you’re beyond important to me, and I just think that it’s time you finally know… so, can I tell you?”

“Um…”

Wonwoo’s throat was suddenly bone-dry and his pulse had spiked to the point where he could feel a vein along his neck start throbbing—he even pondered waving down the bartender for another drink to pacify his growing nerves.  

Ultimately, Wonwoo wouldn’t last that long. Pushing up his glasses, he nodded, noting that you hadn’t blinked once while you waited.

“Sure. Tell me.”

Your upper lip twitched.

“Mingyu’s been cheating on me, for two years.”

Wonwoo was quick to feel all his awareness become dull and drowned. He hardly registered his elbow shifting across the countertop, almost knocking over the glass of water onto the floor, nor did he realize the manner in which his mouth had subtly dropped open. You continued to stare at him with intensity, likely studying every tweak and fidget in his body language before swallowing deeply and choosing to continue the revelation.

He tightened up his jaw, trying to seem firm.

You looked ashamed of yourself as you admitted, “it’s been going on for two years, and I’ve known for about a year.”

“Really?” He answered, sounding mystified. “An entire year?”

“Give or take.”

Then, Wonwoo was shaking his head. His fist had clenched up tight, though it wasn’t the usual automated response that accompanied his anxiety—he found there was immediate distaste and anger swirling together like storm clouds in the pit of his stomach.

Your gaze was cast to the water glass on the countertop, which you moved away for no apparent reason, your expression emptied.

After a frail sigh, you continued, “do you remember that day I came into creative writing and got super upset at that guy for sitting in my seat? Remember how we talked about it at the nature museum, and I told you that I had a fight with Mingyu before going to class?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, that day, I tried bringing it up to him. And it totally didn’t go over how I thought it would. Mingyu denied it all… of course, I only had some vague but suspicious texts to go off of, which he explained his way out of pretty poorly. But I just accepted it for the sake of our relationship. And I never brought it up again until… you know.”

Wonwoo let a natural, stagnant silence fall in between you, meanwhile the encompassing atmosphere was kept flowing by the various conversations of those around you—seemingly happy—with plenty to drink as they kept warm from the bitter cold just outside.

He was biting his tongue, though he couldn’t hold the question any longer, piquing his, “do you know who he was cheating with?”

A huff shot straight through your nose.

“I know…” you mumbled, “and you know her, too.”

Suddenly, a name popped to his mouth without thought.

“Bells.”

When you didn’t confirm nor deny, opting to stare off to the side to conceal the emotion springing forth, Wonwoo knew it was solid truth.

“Fuck…” he cursed, grazing his hand across the smooth leg that was folded over your knee, “I’m so sorry… I’m at a loss for words.”

You could only sigh while a glossy film developed in your eyes.

“I mean, I’ve been through all the stages already—grief, denial, acceptance—whatever the other ones are—so I don’t know why I’m still getting so choked up about it. I obviously didn’t want to believe it… I mean, who the fuck does? Especially when you truly do have feelings for that person.” Shaking your head and sniffling, you exasperatedly flicked out a hand. “Her and her stupid sparkles. That was when I really started putting it together. Oh, I’m going out to play poker, babe! And the next day, I’m wearing his sweater, and I realize there’s these fucking little bits of glitter on it, inside it—it was like a fucking beacon that was just screaming at me—hey! Your asshole boyfriend is cheating!”

That was something Wonwoo had noticed himself, after Bells had bumped into him at the party—the girl’s adoration for sparkly clothing and makeup essentially left behind a glaring trail of glimmery breadcrumbs. Wonwoo had found them on his clothes once he took them off and could really see the fabric underneath the light. The confession suddenly painted your actions that night in a new colour.

Rubbing against your temple, you explained further despite the struggle to speak over that clogged sound coming from your throat.

“It’s not like I’m stupid, either, even if right now, in this situation, I seem like it. I know what Bells is like… she’s spoiled rotten—always has been—and is used to getting whatever the fuck she wants. But, you see, that’s the thing! That’s the fucking thing! Seokmin, Clara, Bells, even Princess—I only met them because of the webs my parents have in their business world. I was never really allowed to find my own friends. It really just shows how much they had a say in my life… don’t misconstrue, I truly do love Princess and she’s by far the most normal, grounded person amongst them. She actually listens, and cares. But I was only allowed to befriend her ‘cause my parents know her parents.

Mingyu seemed like the one person I was actually able to connect with on my own… but he’s honestly changed so much. It’s like, my parents were able to get their little fangs in him and warp him. And now… I really don’t think he loves me at all… I think he loves my image, and what I represent, and the opportunities that come with me… but, I don’t think he actually, genuinely loves me like he used to... like, back then, he was so, so sweet. He was always fumbling over himself, nervous, trying his best. I mean, you've read about it! He used to want to be an architect, Wonwoo. A freaking architect! He sketched all the time. He has a closet drawer full of sketch books from when he was younger. But everything's different now. He doesn't care. He hates when I bring it up! He hates me!

And I don’t just think—I know it, Wonwoo. He resents me, but he won’t let go. Instead, he just sucks the life out of me, like he’s trying to get me to hate myself, too. And I do. I guess, as long as I hate myself, it makes me perfect in their eyes. I’ll just keep letting them mould me until I feel complete.”

Wonwoo didn’t know what to do.

Hell, he didn’t even know what to say except for the fact that you were right—as long as you always felt subpar, or lacking, or frustrated with your drought of true identity, it would lead you back to the reliance you had on the deceptive characters in your life—it was nothing but a miserable cycle designed to bog you down and snuff you out. At least your tearful eyes had dried up.

You looked at him fondly, with a gentle smile. “That’s what I like so much about you… even if you didn’t intend to—which I know you didn’t, judging from what I’ve heard about you trying to avoid writing with me—” (he bit his inner cheek coyly, casting a somewhat anxious hand through his hair), “—you helped me realize parts of myself that were always there, but only needed some nurturing. You actually encouraged me. Supported me. And—okay—I know I said that I hate myself—but since I’ve met you, I’ve been replacing it with an understanding of my situation. I’ve been kinder. I’ve been more of myself. I like to think what we have is a sort of symbiosis.”

Wonwoo nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“Do you think that I’m… stupid… for staying?”

Immediately, Wonwoo’s face furled in disagreement. “No, no. Absolutely not. Mingyu’s been with you for so long. He has an integral quality in your life. It would be difficult to uproot yourself just like that. No one’s a better judge of that situation than you.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

As you relaxed back into the bar chair, Wonwoo could practically see this heavy, dark mist levitate from you and dissipate into the air. He knew that feeling of relief and inner freedom very well, and there was almost nothing that could compare to it.

Wonwoo then sipped from his glass of water, continuing to watch the stiffness melt off you like ebbing spring snow. "So, what was his response like? To your accusations? Was he at least honest?"

"Yeah, I got it all out of him eventually," you revealed with a very cumbersome sigh. "But he was deflecting like crazy... I'd never seen him like that before... he was fumbling his words all over, like he used to when we were first dating. But it was different. It wasn't nerves, it was just blind anger. He said I was no better. I mean, he's convinced we've had sex, and he wouldn't accept my denial, no matter what."

"It's not black and white," Wonwoo said, squeezing your arm, "it seems to me like a natural consequence. You felt trapped and alone."

For a split second, Jeanie flashed in his mind. A sear of guilt snapped through him. Mingyu would have much reflecting to do.

Nodding your head, you looked to Wonwoo and graced him with the words he may or may not have been waiting months to hear: "it's all over now—Mingyu and I—I made that extremely clear. And I honestly don't care what anyone else has to say. My mom didn't want to believe it... she's been acting strange since. I don't blame her."

In response, he merely nodded, warming you up with his gentle eyes.

But then he was shifting forward in his seat, elbows settled to the counter. Although it was quite late and he felt exhausted from drinking, his curiosity about a particular matter was still sharp.

“So… I’m wondering… what's your reason for writing the book?”

You gulped. “I wanted a way of looking back on everything. Seeing if maybe I could find myself somewhere amongst all those memories. Maybe when I started losing Mingyu was when I started losing myself. Maybe that's when I realized I was losing myself. Maybe that's when I realized I never really knew myself to begin with.”

He shrugged, his face colouring with admiration for you.

“Well... have you found something?”

Your only means of response was a twinkle-eyed grin.

The walk back to your apartment wasn’t as dreadful as Wonwoo anticipated, mostly attributed to the alcohol soaking up in your stomachs, keeping your blood warm even in the face of a tough, harsh wind. Back when it wasn’t so late in the night and his lips had yet to touch his first rum and coke, Wonwoo thought he would take himself home after seeing you off first. But now it was almost midnight, and he had this impending feeling of vertigo while he walked, and he was therefore very limp to fight the offer that involved a comfortable stay at your place until morning.

Wonwoo wasn’t exactly sure where he deposited his coat or his shoes, or even his phone—instead he found himself sitting at the end of your bed, listening to the muffled sound of a running sink behind a closed door as you were busy in the washroom.

He leaned over, removing the glasses already slid down his nose and rubbing a palm into his eye until stars traversed the length of his vision. So, Lady Liberty was a cheater. For the past two years. It did bring Wonwoo to wonder what else Mingyu had said during your argument. Did he ever give a reason for cheating? Did he feel boxed into a life that wasn't the enriching utopia he surmised it might be, but he was toughing it out for the sake of success? Was he cheating because he was mad at you or mad at himself?

Or was he honestly just an asshole?

The Mingyu he was familiar with was shifty, and hardened, and image-obsessed, and now Wonwoo knew for a fact he wasn’t delusional for feeling the tension between you and him whenever you were together. God—he could practically cut all the thickness in the air using Seokmin’s nose and serve it like pieces of cake. But Mingyu hadn't always been like that according to your allegories. Deep down there could still be traces of the man you fell in love with, flickering like shiny little minnows beneath murky, clouded water.

But it was too late now.

Fitting his glasses back on, Wonwoo rolled back the sleeves to his crisp white dress shirt, proceeding to take a gander around your bedroom that he hadn’t revisited in quite some time.

The running sink in the washroom across the hall was finally turned off, although Wonwoo had stopped paying attention to the background noise in place of reading your every detail off the walls. In minuscule ways, the room had changed. There were missing photographs from the dresser, your makeup vanity drawers no longer left ajar in your likely last-minuting rushing to ensure everything was perfect. The closet seemed cleaned-out. Emptier than it once was.

“I thought you might fall asleep.”

He jumped slightly, realizing that you were in the bedroom now, setting down your heels in the corner before making a stride toward the closet where the dress over your arm was hung back up.

Wonwoo bit his lip. “I questioned it.”

You smiled, and within that moment he noticed the long t-shirt you were draped in was the dark blue, logoed math shirt, the one you’d picked after sprinting back to his apartment amidst a rain storm. He felt something in his chest swell and ache in response to how pretty you looked wearing it. Wonwoo knew he was staring, blushing, but he didn’t care. You had two of his t-shirts now. He hoped that collection might continue growing. He hoped that you wore them until his scent was naturally replaced by the strawberry sweetness of your own.

“Thinking about anything in particular?” You asked, arms folded.

Slapping a guilty little grin on his face, Wonwoo shrugged. “No.”

But then you started striding toward Wonwoo, uttering out something half-whispered that sounded a lot like “liar”, and now he truly wasn’t thinking about a damn thing, not even his own breath, as you proceeded to slide your arms around his neck and seat yourself in his lap. He was frozen. You hadn’t been this fucking close to him since you two had cuddled during Seungcheol’s party.

But this was worse—this was full-throttle intimacy with your penetrative, fluttering eyes eating up his soul while your bare thighs squeezed the sense out of him, trapping him, testing him.

“Scared?” You whispered, moving your face in closer.

Yes—he was horrified—he couldn’t even speak with you smiling at him so innocently despite the flames you were igniting.

Though, when he felt a wriggle from your hips that seemed to push against him in all the right places, Wonwoo’s hands were immediate on your waist, tight and stilling, and he swore there was a vulnerable, pliant spark in your eyes that he had never seen before. Maybe Wonwoo could have been more polite about the approach, but after waiting so, so long, he felt like a rocket ship rife with fuel.

He kissed you.

In one decision his lips were pressed to yours, and in a kiss that was full of friction and earnest want, he could only dig deeper. Your arms curled further around his neck, to which you slipped in a quick, sharp breath before pouring yourself back into him so suddenly, mouths moulding again and again, spit slickening, noses bumping. He would have paused to take off his glasses, though Wonwoo was in no place to leave your lips for even a second—especially when your playful tongue glided with his and the world around him melted like wax.

Maybe he was biased (or maybe it was love), but Wonwoo swore it had never felt this right to kiss someone. He knew it, somewhere outside himself, far out in the ever-expanding universe and every other version that belonged, that this moment felt destined to happened. Wonwoo had never particularly believed in fate.

But then he wouldn’t know how else to describe you.

His hands itching to touch more of your skin had gravitated to the thighs clenching at his hips. Your warmth and smoothness only made him greedier. As the kissing became messy in the desperation, he couldn’t help but slide his hands to your ass, immediately kneading his cold fingers into the flesh, pulling, squeezing, pushing you closer into him because he quite literally wanted you to engulf his body.

Then, you were gripping at the back of his hair. You had opened up his throat for your wet lips to continue exploring, and Wonwoo felt every suckle and teething bite draw him further from clarity.

Each kiss slithered lower, until you were gradually lifting from his lap and placing yourself onto the carpet floor. Wonwoo had leaned back to tightly fist the bedsheets behind him, although he would never waver his lusted eyes from the sight of you between his spread legs, on your knees, palming him overtop his dress pants while biting your swollen, glistening lip. He almost wanted the camcorder to capture it.

“How does it feel?” You hummed, staying focused on each pressured movement your hand applied to his prominent erection.

Wonwoo chuckled, clearing the huskiness in his throat, “like I’m gonna die.” His head tilted back. “Holy shit.”

Flashing nothing but a conniving, pleased smile, you tended to undoing his belt buckle. Wonwoo was burning up. As you pulled down the zipper to his pants and helped him shift down the waistband to his underwear an adequate distance, he couldn’t process anything but the fact that he might burst like an explosion of confetti the second your hand would touch him.

Except, you opted to sit back on your haunches.

Tilting your head, you smirked at him.

“I would like a demonstration, please.”

He almost choked. “A what?”

“A demonstration,” you repeated, shuffling closer in between his thighs and gazing up much too seraphically through your lashes, “won’t you show me how you touch yourself, Wonwoo? Please?”

For the life of him, he couldn’t produce one stupid fragment of a sentence, or even a word. God—it didn’t fucking help that you took reign and offered to get him started—your hand carefully reaching past his underwear, gripping onto him gently to spring his erection free. A shiver surged throughout his body at the sensation. Hotness spread like molten lava across his face as the result of your lascivious, teasing actions stood leaking and stiffer than wood right before your eyes, which were agleam with thrill and haze.

You seemed as though you were going to pounce on him.

But he could visibly see you swallow the temptation.

“Aww, you have the prettiest dick I’ve ever seen,” you giggled, wrapping a hand around him that was soft and warm, “would it make you feel better if I started you off, then? Gave you some help?”

Wonwoo’s fists were tangled so intensely into the bedsheets he was surprised the fabric hadn’t disintegrated. Holding his breath, he watched you lean forward until your mouth was hovering an agonizing distance over him, only to produce a line of spit that dripped onto his head. His jaw unhinged in a groan. Then you began working the saliva along his shaft, pumping a hand up and down, occasionally flickering your thumb over the sensitive tip only to remove the contact so casually, likely knowing it would rip him apart.

“Your turn.”

He took a second to push up his glasses and shake his head.

“M’not gonna last long, you know,” Wonwoo grunted, at last heeding your request and beginning to stroke himself for your viewing pleasure, “especially after that big display. You fucking tease.”

With an arm slid over his thigh and the drool collecting in your mouth, you couldn’t have looked anymore dazzled by the thirst you were experiencing, your eyes refusing to part from every tug delivered by his own hand. It was a spell, and you were unapologetically under it.

“Mmm, a tease?” You purred, smiling. “I was just trying to help.”

“Were you?” Wonwoo scoffed, pumping faster while continuing to twist up the bedsheets using his other hand. “Rubbing your fucking spit into my cock is tt-trying to help me? Is that what you think?”

“Mmhm,” you answered, straightening up as Wonwoo felt himself become tenser, felt the pressure in his abdomen climb.

He shuddered, a groan reverberating from somewhere deep in his chest. The sound of his fist wetly slapping up and down consumed the room and Wonwoo knew it was only a matter of seconds before he lost it. You were basking in every sound and movement.

“Fuck, fuck, I-I can't—”

Suddenly, you’d pushed Wonwoo’s hand away. His stomach flipped upside down. Before he could recognize the brief loss and regain of pleasure, your suckling, wet, hot mouth was already sliding down around his erection, your grip fastening to whatever you couldn’t quite reach. Wonwoo bit his lip so hard at the sensation that something coppery-warm was tasted on his tongue, although that was the least of his concerns when you were throating him with messy desperation. His hand rested on your scalp, nervous to push your head down too firmly, but once he did, you moaned out so erotically around him that Wonwoo fragmented.

His hips bucked straight into your face while his fingers had tightened at the back of your scalp, feeling every intense throb expand against your throat, spurt after spurt filthy in your mouth. But you were diligent and zealous and Wonwoo knew you were swallowing it all despite the few tears trickling onto his pelvis. His length didn’t leave the velvet, pillowy confines of your mouth until every bit was expertly milked out from him, though had Wonwoo let his hand drift off your hair in case you wanted a breath.

With a hiccup and a wipe against your chin, you were tasting the bedroom’s heavy air and exhaling ragged as Wonwoo marvelled you.

“Trying to take my soul with you or something?” He huffed, using his thumb to remove some leftovers from the side of your lips.

You caught his hand in an instant. “No—” you piped up, quick to close your mouth around the digit and suck off whatever he politely removed, laving your tongue like you were licking a popsicle, “—I want all of it.”

He thought he might crumble, hearing you mumble such obscene words while tracks of tears dried overtop your cheeks, your voice sounding somewhat hoarse from the labour of taking him whole.

You were climbing back onto Wonwoo’s lap almost blindly, his next breath taken away by a passionate kiss you pushed so fervently onto his lips. There was another tangling of tongues, saliva mixing together, but neither attempting to take control— though at this point Wonwoo would gladly oblige to throwing you on the bed and twisting off those frustrating panties he imagined were sticking to you. He could feel your arousal dampening through the baby pink cotton as his length twitched back to hardness underneath you.

“Wonwoo,” you whined breathily into his ear while grinding your hips against him in search of friction, “I’ve got to tell you something I did.” You bruised up his neck with more kisses. “Something bad.”

His eyes were shut, hands continuing to grope your ass. “Yeah?” He mumbled, feeling your tongue drag across a vein in his neck. “You did something bad? What could that be?”

Your hands drifted down his chest, yanking open the buttons on his dress shirt in satisfying pops. Warm, feathery breath hit his ear. “That day I stayed the night in your bedroom… alone…” you kissed him on his mouth, letting it linger and last, “I couldn’t help it.”

Wonwoo had gripped the side of your face, meanwhile he rubbed underneath the waistband to your tiny, thin underwear.

“Couldn’t help what?”

He flinched as your hand sunk down to grab his cock.

“I touched myself,” you confessed just an inch from his face, “I laid back against your pillows, spread my legs all wide… I had my fingers stuffed so deep inside myself, but it still didn’t feel like enough.” Again, you were softly stroking him. Wonwoo continued to uphold that unwavering, painfully honest gaze you were pinning him in. “Nd’ I came all over your t-shirt, Wonwoo. I played with myself until my fingers were cramping and my legs couldn’t stay open anymore.”

He gulped—heavy—like swallowing a chunk of lead. His tender thumb grazed along your cheek and rubbed over your puffy lips. “I wanted to fuck you so bad that night,” Wonwoo soothed your confession with another, which was already quite obvious, “I dreamt about it. I wanted to bury myself so fucking deep inside your gut.”

You shook your head, eyes teary. “Why didn’t you?” He felt the delicate stroking motion along his erection come to a pause.

Wonwoo cradled your cheek. “It would have fucked everything up.”

“But I wanted it,” you whimpered. “I’ve been wanting it for so long and you just left me there. I would have been quiet. You could have put me face down in the pillows and just used me all you wanted.”

“No,” Wonwoo argued, “I would never want to use you. I want us to be together in everything. I know you wanted it. But lust makes you think different. Just like it’s making you think different right now.”

He softly slotted his mouth with yours, exchanging a much slower, sweeter kiss that lit a glow in his belly. You puddled right into the contact, curling your arms back around his neck to hold him tighter.

Much lighter kisses dappled the edges of your lips.

Wonwoo could feel you start to smile.

“I figured something was off the next morning,” he said.

You chuckled, “I didn’t know how to face with you without thinking about it. I felt so dirty. But in the moment, I needed something.”

He nipped down your slender neck, letting his hot breath and reverberating, husky tone tickle your skin until your hairs stood up.

“How wet were you?” Wonwoo purred, smirking.

Immediately, your hips were pushing down on him. “Soaked,” you then whispered, “I was making such a mess. I tried so hard to be quiet. But part of me wanted you to hear.”

Wonwoo’s hands drifted up your t-shirt, gliding slow against your stomach, coming to reach the plump, sensitive breasts that he could only surmise were waiting for his attention. He cupped them in each palm, giving a tender squeeze and pull that pitched your breath into a squeak. Caressing your neck with more wet, open-mouthed kisses, he felt the absentminded grinding reignite the friction between you.

“Did you touch up here, too?”

His thumbs brushed your pert nipples. He felt you shiver.

“Y-Yes.”

Tsking his teeth, he pleasured them with slow, rubbing circles that you mewled in response to. “You’ve got the softest skin. I could touch you until I die, and it still wouldn't be enough.”

“Mmhm,” he heard you exhale shakily, “I touch myself at home, too. Put my pillow between my legs. Pretend I’m grinding against you. Then let my fingers take me again and again until it hurts.”

How dare you fucking say that to him—how dare you put such an intimate visual in his mind to haunt him like a ghost to hallowed grounds. How many times had you done it? How many times had you stood right in front of him, smiling so innocently, despite knowing damn well what you had done to yourself the night before.

Wonwoo pinched your nipples, watching you flinch.

“Does it hurt right now?”

You nodded.

“Where?” He lowered his voice, sinking his hand back down the creases in your tummy until it paused right on your mound, his eyes trained to your suddenly very desperate, misty look. “Down here?”

“Yes.”

Holding eye contact with you, Wonwoo trailed his hand further along your panties until his touch was situated right between your thighs, directly feeling the wet fabric, the radiating heat, the aroused pulsations. Your fingernails were pricks in his shoulders.

“Fuck, you are drenched, aren’t you?” Wonwoo commented, rubbing his hand against you through the cotton material, your hips soon chasing the overwhelming pleasure. “Can feel you throbbing against my hand, you know that? Bet it aches so fucking good, hm?”

He grinned hard at your eyebrows knitting together. While he massaged you with one hand, the other gripped your chin where he pushed a hot, uncoordinated kiss onto your whiny mouth.

“Lay across my lap,” Wonwoo whispered in between the hasty break for air, “let me play with you instead, make you cum. Please.”

To his delight, your compliance came easily.

It didn’t take long for you to splay yourself in the desired position, with Wonwoo pushing up the shirt to bunch at your waist while your bottom was perfectly presented in his lap. He massaged you, leaning down to mark a trail of kisses along your lower back, along your ass—spreading you wide to see the large, soaked patch glistening on those easily rippable underwear.

“Just open your thighs a bit more,” Wonwoo instructed, to which you quickly listened, “fuck—perfect—all this, only for me.” He pushed his thumb against you through the panties and you instantly squeaked.

“Right?” He urged. “Is this all just for me?”

“Mmhm—yes, yes. I fucking promise. Just for you.”

Wonwoo bit his lip to stop the size of the immediate smile from breaking across his face. Your hips wriggled up as his touch drifted away.

“I need more,” you groaned in frustration, “please.”

“More here?” Wonwoo pulled back on one side of your glute to help reveal the sensitive area, then rubbing his thumb against your clit.

Your entire body jerked, and he noticed your fingers dig into the bedsheets, clawing them up. He figured the wet friction between his thumb and your panties was frustratingly amplifying every little sensation in a dull but very cruel way. He continued his ministrations, adding some more pressure for you to squirm and moan at.

“Does it still hurt?” Wonwoo asked, letting his other hand slide up your bare waist, the skin beginning to sweat and turn even warmer.

“Please,” you groaned, attempting to adjust your hips against the stroking from his thumb, “I feel like m’gonna fucking die, Wonwoo.”

“Still need more, then?”

“Yes!”

Deciding to throw you a bone, Wonwoo grabbed those thin, pink panties in his hand and helped you slide the constricting fabric down and off your legs. Once he spread you nice and wide, let the cold air ghost the slicken, swollen skin, you had gasped. For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t speak—he only stared at you with all the stars in the universe collecting behind his eyes, glittering like a snow globe—at how beautiful and exposed and needy you looked.

He let his fingers slide ever so slowly along your clit, drawing up to your hole, then pushing back down to hear you whimper brokenly.

Wonwoo swallowed the dryness in his throat.

“Do you have any fucking idea how beautiful you are?” He complimented, his fingers soaking in your arousal. “I knew your cunt would look pretty, but this is more than that. God…” experimentally, Wonwoo shifted a finger gentle into your opening, giving the digit a wriggle and few shallow pumps. Immediately your intense warmth clenched down tight before loosening, engendering him to effortlessly press in two more long fingers. “There you go… good girl…” he mumbled his encouragement as you gripped the bedsheets and moaned a guttural sound, “taking in my fingers so fucking well—they slide in so easy… make such perfect, dirty noises whenever they fill up this gorgeous cunt.”

His thumb touched at your clit, lending it some attention that had you twisting and bucking back to receive even more pleasure.

“God, Wonwoo…” you gasped, sounding lost to the ecstasy while letting him take his time with mapping out your inner walls with curious strokes, “that feels so fucking good. You have no idea. Feels like m’gonna pour all over you.”

He grinned, further stimulating your swollen clit, maintaining the pattern as you propped up on your elbows, tugged at the bedspread, and released a mellifluous, shuddering moan from your throat.

“F-fuck ye-yess…” you whined as his fingers squelched deeper and his thumb continued its circles, “yes, yes, yes, keep doing that—oh-oh, fuck! M’gonna cum all over your fingers—m’gonna make a mess!”

“That’s all I want,” he breathed, his chest tightening at how much arousal was pooling sticky around his digits, “that’s all I’ve ever fucking wanted—make a mess all over me, like the pretty, desperate girl you are. Let me see it. Let me feel everything. Cum just for me.”

Your entire body proceeded to seize, Wonwoo’s fingers now struggling to pump, as this striking wave seemingly coursed through you and resulted in heavy fluids wetting his dress pants. It took a moment for you to power through the pleasure, though Wonwoo was at least able to maintain his stroking gestures against your clit until he noted the sharp, almost spastic twitches in your muscles.

“That’s a good girl,” Wonwoo hummed in satisfaction while he gingerly eased his fingers out and left your poor, throbbing bud alone.

He smoothed his hand down your back, offering you a moment to relax, breathe, and ride out the electricity.

“Fuck,” you wiped at the sweat on the back of your neck, chuckling at the discomfort, “I can feel it all between my legs.”

Wonwoo smirked. Hard. He bent forward to peck your temple, then brushed his lips against your stinging hot ear. "How about I clean that all up for you?" The velvety whisper caused your body to jitter.

"Clean me up how?" You turned your head, catching his eye.

There was a swap of positions. Wonwoo lowered himself to the bedroom floor, the carpet spongey against his knees, while you lay down on your back and draped your legs off the edge of the bed. But he was hungry for you, and greedier than a treasure hunter, and you went limp as he hitched your knees over his broad shoulders.

Being face to face with your intimate heat was like the kiss of life—new energy was taking over him—giving him desire unlike any other.

He didn't know if he wanted to keep staring at you, your soft skin messy with slick and twitching anticipatorly at his closeness, or if he should stop prolonging the moment and just bury everything into you. Adjusting his glasses, Wonwoo licked his bitten lips. You were in the midst of shuffling up to your elbows, likely wondering what the hell he doing, staring between your thighs for so long.

But as quickly as you squeaked his name, it was interrupted by an intense gasp a second later. You leaned all your weight onto a single elbow, tossing your head back, panting for dear life as Wonwoo striped his tongue long and flat against your heat. His hands gripped your hips, sculpting them over your bone while he tasted your arousal, all sticky and musky and delicious to the point of addiction.

"O-Oh my god, Wonwoo," you cried, letting your body collapse onto the bedsheets, limbs becoming jelly, "that feels fucking amazing."

He licked into you like he were trying to reach the centre of a sweet, colourful jawbreaker. Every pass from his tongue was firm, encompassing, smothering you in pleasure and painting you with spit. But you reacted best when he toyed his ministrations around your sensitive clit—your back would jolt off the bed, arched, as your thighs hugged him tight—Wonwoo heard your begging akin to a distant echo. He would even smile into you, glasses all foggy, chin running in wetness, as you preached his name dumbly, losing your mind. Wonwoo pressed his mouth hot against you, flicking his tongue to your overstimulated clit, focusing hard on his pattern.

"Fuck, fuck!" You shouted, writhing into the sheets. "Please, Wonwoo. Please, please, please—I'm—I'm gonna cum! Please, just—k-keep—"

There was a surge of something warm and liquid that Wonwoo wanted to drink like a peach's nectar. You were throbbing right under his tongue and he loved it to a point that felt utterly insane. He didn't want to stop even if the world was ending. His face plunged in deeper, his hands grafting into your hips harsher, completely ignorant to your fingers pulling at his hectic locks of hair. Wonwoo only wanted you and nothing else and he was going to drown in it.

But you were attempting to sit up, your sweaty body becoming better at escaping his eager, hungry licks that dug into your slit, and once he heard you wince particularly sharp, he knew he had to stop.

He sat back, removing his glasses and wiping off his chin. You slid a leg from his shoulder, using a foot to gently prod against his chest—a light scolding for perhaps enjoying you a little too much.

"Are you starved?" You laughed heavily, gulping down a breath.

Wonwoo fit the glasses back to his face. "For you? Yes." He then licked at his teeth and lips, still yearning to find traces of your arousal, only to realize you were shaking. "Shit—I'm sorry if I hurt you." Standing up, he cupped your face, bending down to kiss you gentle on the lips over and over. "I'm so fucking sorry. You taste amazing, that's all. And you're so beautiful. I couldn't fucking help it."

With a giggle, you tousled his hair. "No, I'm fine. I like a little pain." Your eyes were back to shining. Then, you caught his mouth, stealing another kiss. "But I’m even greedier than you—," pushing yourself up, you nipped at his lips, “—and I want that pretty, long cock inside me to hit all the right spots.” The exchange had you seated back in Wonwoo’s lap, where your bare, soaked pussy was free to brush against his straining and achingly hard length.

“Yeah?” Wonwoo smirked, welcoming your spit-smeared mouth.

Feeling your hips grind against him, you purred, “yeah.”

“I’ve got no protection,” Wonwoo admitted in between the make-out session, hardly able to pry your lips from one another as you slid backward on the bed with Wonwoo climbing over top.

Helping to shove off his dress shirt and slacks, discarding them to the floor, you shook your head. “Don’t need it.”

Returning the gesture, Wonwoo had you fully undressed. The entirety of your bare body on full display felt like something sacred—an artwork that had been crafted with unimaginable attentiveness to every single detail, no matter how miniscule. He couldn't liken it to anything else in his life but a distant memory from childhood—a grand mausoleum that he found himself inside with his older brother, the ceiling intricately chiselled with angelic, satin-like bodies.

Your words seemed distant. It took a second for him to remember.

“Don't need protection? Why?"

As your hands locked behind his neck, pulling him down close, you dug into his eyes with an emotional gaze. “Finish inside me.”

He stuttered, furrowing his brow, “seriously? You won’t—”

“No. I’m taking precautions, you know.” Brushing at his dampened, thick hair, you asked, “have you ever had unprotected sex?”

Wonwoo scoffed, surprised at the inquiry, “yeah. But—is that—you really want that? With me?” He stared down at you intensely.

“I only want it if you want it, too.”

He nodded, biting his lip, taking a moment to examine your perspiring face alongside the the rising and dipping of your chest.

“I want it,” Wonwoo reaffirmed, “I definitely want it.”

Truth be told, a splinter of nerves had lodged into his chest at the thought of having to perform to your anticipation—Wonwoo was never really sure if he would ever get intimate with you—and as his gaze again streamed your body, he felt overwhelmed. But then your fingertips were stroking down his bicep, seemingly drawing out the forthcoming anxiety from him like you were pulling out a thread of energy, and the easygoing smile he was met with tamed his heart.

Wonwoo eased closer toward you, allowing your expert touches to be the guide. Your hand had returned to his length for a few more thorough and especially lentamente tugs, prompting him to hiss into your neck while very flushed shades of pink crawled up his face.

He felt himself throb, wanting to simply collapse against you and climax at your hand for the second time. To make matters even more complicated, Wonwoo felt you shift slightly, and then the tip of his impatient cock was suddenly gliding all slippery like butter along your folds. Wonwoo’s arms started to shake.

You laid your palm gentle against his neck.

“How’s that feel?” You whispered in a trembling breath, meanwhile continuing the heavenly ministrations of tracing your clit with his length. “I-I think it feels quite nice—getting you all wet.”

“Amazing,” he answered, pressing his forehead to yours and pecking at your lips, “you want me to take it from here?”

Keeping silent, your grip drifted from his erection and you seemed satisfied to let the control sway now that Wonwoo was adjusted. Just before he aligned himself, however, he looked at you and laughed.

“Can you push up my glasses real quick?”

You chuckled, “seriously?”

“What’s wrong with wanting to be see you properly?”

“Nothing,” you flashed a tender smile, then using your finger to help position the glasses back up his nose, “there you go.”

Wonwoo proceeded to slide himself inside you at a slower pace that allowed him to bask in the intimate sensation—he made damn sure every little squeeze, flutter, and convulsion your heat cushioned him with was felt—though that made it considerably hard for him not to release in pathetic fashion, before he had even made a good, swift thrust. You were soaking up the moment just as much.

He didn’t want to advert his eyes from the pleasure cascading like ripples across your face for even a second. Once he was buried in still and deep, completely stuffing you to the hilt, your breath had fogged up his glasses.

“Fuck—s-sorry—” you squirmed through the apology, your hips occasionally canting against his in unbridled twitches, “—I can hardly fucking think right now. Do you know how much you’re throbbing?”

He choked out a hoarse laugh, “do you know how insanely good you feel to me? Feels like m’gonna fucking break into a million pieces. ”

“I want you to break me into a million pieces,” you whined so needily, looping your arms around his neck, “fuck me, Wonwoo. Please.”

He was positive you had told him that in a dream once.

As euphoric as you felt clenching around him, Wonwoo truly did want the sex to last. His thrusts into your heat weren’t frantically impatient, rather they grooved incredibly, purposefully deep—each stroke was thoughtful but hard, slow but timely, and judging from your high-pitched keens and the nails scraping against his shoulder blades, he knew you were appreciating the moment just the same.

Wonwoo grasped your sweaty hands in his, your fingers interlocking tight, in order to hold them against the sea of silky pillows above your head. With another especially daggering thrust that made his teeth clench and his abdomen flutter, you had jerked and cried out his name, followed by a breathless, “rr-right there!”

A leg wrapped around his hips, your ankle digging uncomfortably into his side while he continued to push his length into the spot that was making you howl. But it was getting increasingly difficult to continue the tempo—your leg was tightening around him like a boa constrictor and your warmth was clamping down with plain strength, almost as though your body was attempting to lock him inside.

He merely squeezed your hands harder, losing his breath. “You’re almost there, aren’t you?” Taking advantage of another thorough stroke, Wonwoo had the bedframe thudding the wall, his words hotly pressing into your ear. “You’re trying to keep me suctioned in.”

Your whimpers were falling apart like crumbling clay. Wonwoo tried to understand what it was you were mewling at him, something involving his name, how good it felt, that he should keep going, meanwhile tears were springing to your eyes and wetting your glimmery cheeks. Wonwoo bit his lip. He was throbbing wildly inside your heat, knowing you were only getting dumber and turning incoherent as he speared you so intimately on his cock.

Wonwoo wasn’t going to last much longer and neither were you. He was already feeling himself burst and break—the convulsion ripped through him like a landslide and now your leg was fully hooked around his hips, pinning him against you while he emptied himself disgustingly deep inside your warmth.

The sensation must have triggered your own orgasm, because his cock felt like it was practically being suffocated as you squeezed down on him. Wonwoo thought he might blackout when you whined his name into the dim bedroom humidity, strung in a loud, trembling lilt that cracked beautifully in the middle.

Your arms were winding back around his neck, pulling his face to yours, a kiss crushed onto his awaiting mouth.

“I need more,” you panted in between the kisses, “don’t feel full enough yet. Cum inside me again, Wonwoo. Please, take me again.”

“Again?” He smiled, his glasses bumping your nose. You were completely uncaring, only nipping at him harder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you chanted, “I’ve never been surer of anything in my fucking life.” Suddenly, you were wriggling underneath him, rolling onto your stomach, and repositioning yourself such that you were face-down-ass-up. With eyes twinkling bright in pure, carnal lust, you threw him a a yearning glance from over your shoulder. “Fuck me again, nice and deep like before." His heart shot into his throat. When you begged, it was like his world was shrinking into a bubble where only you and him existed. "Please—I need it before your cum starts leaking out. I need to be filled by you, Wonwoo. Please.” You looked like you might cry if he didn't oblige the plead.

And so he did, his fingers planting a firm grip on your strong hips.

As much as you were willing to take, he was willing to give, finding himself submerge further and further into the intoxicating nature of it all until he started to lose his mind—all he knew is that it was concerningly late at night, your bedsheets were sticky and ruined, and you had gone from being thrust into the pillows to slapping yourself down on his cock while Wonwoo hazily watched. He loved the sight of your sweat, your glowing light, your bouncing breasts and pleasure-drunk face far too much. At some point, you had slumped forward into him, spent to fucking hell.

With your chests were pressed together, his cock still throbbing and stuffed inside you, there was a moment of nothing but thick, laboured breathing and heartbeats synchronizing. He kissed your temple and wrapped his arms around you, proceeding to mumble something sweet and half-asleep that contained your name.

You had squeezed his length unforgivingly in response.

“Fuck—don’t get me hard again. I’m fucking exhausted.”

“I like when you use my name.”

He smiled into your cheek. “I can tell.”

Wonwoo had woken before you.

Mostly because the bedsheets had been gradually wrapped up and tugged away and progressively stolen from him during the night, letting the cool, morning air dust over him like spray from an ocean. You were a fidgety sleeper, he had realized, sometimes even a mumbler, although Wonwoo had never been able to discern what it was you were sluggishly declaring in your dreams.

He turned his head to you, saw the bare groove of your back, shapely like a flower petal, and your arm dug underneath the silk pillow, observing every breath your unconscious body took.

Then, Wonwoo was leaning over you, feeling his fingers sink into your fleshy waist while his lips touched a kiss against your warm cheek. He hoped you wouldn’t mind him using your washroom for a shower.

Afterward, Wonwoo retraced the apartment, finding his shoes a questionable distance apart—one stood square at the front door while the other was left in the hallway leading to your room. His winter jacket was tossed over the arm to the couch, meanwhile his phone involved a more in-depth search. For some reason, he’d left it atop a shelf beside the television, hidden by a clumsy stack of textbooks.

When he tapped the screen, it illuminated some text messages from Vernon that had been sent at around two in the morning—mostly inquiries about the birthday dinner and whether or not Wonwoo had bothered going to the famed and mysterious Room 319.

Though, he opted not to respond, realizing the details he wanted to share with his friend would likely require a sit-down discussion over burgers, fries, and sodas at Solar Pop. Making his way back to the bedroom, Wonwoo carefully creaked open the door to find you half-shoved onto an arm, making tired circles against your eye.

He smiled, coming to sit beside you, handing off the glass of water he poured for himself.

“Are you leaving?” Was the first question you blearily pieced together after accepting the water but not drinking anything from it.

Wonwoo shook his head. “No.”

You managed to sit up properly, the sheets settling around your hips while you continued holding onto the glass. For a moment, you seemed to just observe Wonwoo, your eyes still swollen from sleep.

“Where are you going, then?”

He furrowed his brow. “Nowhere,” Wonwoo laughed, pulling one leg up onto the bed. “I got up to shower. Went and found my things. Got a glass of water, which you’re now holding, by the way.”

You swallowed, looking down at your lap.

“Oh…” after a recollecting pause, you took a sip from it.

Wonwoo smiled, his eyes softening like fresh brown sugar, as he proceeded to unstick some matted hairs from the edge of your face.

“You’re a pretty big sheet stealer,” he said, continuing to spread his fingers about your features, removing fluffs and rubbing off bits of dried spit, “and you seem to like talking, even in your sleep.”

“Oh, yeah… I should have told you that.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. I liked not knowing.”

“Did you?” With a laugh and smile, you drank some more water.

“Yeah. Because it’s you, it makes me adore it even more.”

“I don’t always mumble. I swear. Only sometimes.”

Wonwoo didn’t care. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I guess I should shower, too. Then I’ll change the sheets and get new ones on.” You abruptly raised the blankets at your lap, lifting up a leg to examine something Wonwoo couldn’t see. “Yeah, I definitely need to change the sheets… oh! And take my pill. Fuck. I can’t forget.”

“I can help with the sheets.”

“Okay,” you said while leaning forward to pull open a drawer on your nightstand, revealing a thin, silver cartridge of pills, “thanks.”

After you had showered and gotten dressed in a clean spare t-shirt, you changed the dirtied sheets to your bed together.

Then you and Wonwoo spent some time together in the open, bright living room, lounging on the couch. Maybe you had kissed a few more times, and maybe his naturally cold hands had found their way underneath your loose t-shirt to curiously massage and press along your pretty chest, and maybe you had kissed a little more after that while the sun rays slid up your sensitive skin.

You twisted away from Wonwoo’s lips with a giggle.

“M’kay, that’s enough, or else I’ll need another shower.” You grabbed at Wonwoo’s hands that had been squeezing your breasts.

Although he didn’t want to stop, he listened, relaxing against the pillow he had stuffed between his spine and the arm of the couch, now throwing an elbow behind his head. You were leaning back against him, getting comfy between his legs, and for a few minutes or so, the two of you gazed out those large, floor-length glass windows into the awakening, snow-capped city.

He felt you stir against him.

“You know… sometimes you don’t always speak English.”

Wonwoo itched his eyebrow, chuckling, “what?”

“Last night, like, when I was riding you—” your head tilted back onto his shoulder, beaming him a smile, “—you would start switching languages. In between English and Korean. It was so cute.”

“Oh, yeah.” He adjusted his glasses, staring down at you while his cheeks became rosy. “I don’t know, it’s just something my brain does automatically. I don’t always realize I’m doing it.”

You grinned; eyes sparkling. “When it feels too good?”

Ruffling a hand through his hair, he simply smirked at you.

“Having a front seat view to the most beautiful girl in the world riding me just happens to be something that makes me feel really good.”

You pushed your head up to kiss him, followed by a sweet and brief whisper that he smiled at, “compliment appreciated.”

A few more quiet minutes passed. Wonwoo thought he could spend the entire day just sitting on the couch with you warm in his arms, watching the snow tumble down like wisps of tender willows.

“Wonwoo?”

“Mm?”

You got quiet.

Then, your weight against his chest was gone, and you had half-turned yourself around to look at him, seeming nervous.

He tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you answered, glancing down briefly before soaking him back into your agleam eyes. “I just want to apologize, actually.”

At that, Wonwoo stiffened. “Yeah? What for?”

With a sigh and another anxious moment to fiddle with the rolled-up cuff belonging to his wrinkled dress shirt, you were reserved.

“Ever since we fought, I can't help thinking about it. I mean, I’ve thought about what you said, and the fact you apologized, and explained yourself, and how you gave me time to process it all. You gave me so much grace, even when I felt like I hated you… but… I also said some hurtful things about you… I mean, back then I felt like you deserved it. And, I don’t know… maybe you did? Like, maybe we both needed to just be there, screaming at each other, digging our guts out, throwing up all this stuff to the surface because no one else has ever given us that freedom or made us feel like we could before. Anyway, I just feel like it’s only right that I say sorry, too.”

Scratching at his neck, Wonwoo swallowed. He never thought of it like that. “Uh, sure. If that’s what you feel you need to do. ”

“I’m sorry, Wonwoo. I really, truly am.”

He smiled, grasping at your hand and threading his fingers with yours. Pangs of regret were flooding your eyes, filling them up until they were undoubtedly teary and Wonwoo had to wipe it all away.

“It’s fine, I swear,” he whispered, moving in closer to you, brushing at your cheek as you sniffled. “Nothing has ever truly changed how I feel about you. You’re incredibly firm but sensitive, and have such fiery passion, and you’re curious about everything, and I know that it hurts so much to live without really knowing yourself. But I see you, and I feel like I know you. I never want to stop knowing you, alright?”

“Wonwoo?”

“Yeah?”

Your mouth pressed against his, and he tasted the salt from the tears that beaded down the slopes of your cheeks, warm with life.

“I love you.” He felt the whisper touch at his lips. “I really do.”

Wonwoo held onto your face like he was cradling a big pearl. “I love you, too.” Another kiss sealed the expression into felt, tangible emotion. “But honestly, you already knew that.”

Later in the day, you came up to Wonwoo as he ate lunch at the table, only after having disappeared into a distant office space further down the hallway. You dropped before him a clear, plastic duotang, which held a notably thick stack of papers that had quite a weight to it upon picking up. It only took a few flips into the papers for Wonwoo to realize that it was the completed book he used to proofread for you—a series of chronological memories between yourself and the boyfriend you had gradually drifted apart from.

True to your word, you had forged ahead and finished the book alone.

He was proud to hold the evidence.

Wonwoo asked what you planned to do with the book now that it was done. He even wondered if you might let him read some parts he never got to work on, though he understood if you preferred to keep the contents private. As he was in the middle of lifting a hot spoon to his mouth, Wonwoo suddenly paused at hearing your response.

“I think I’ll just shred it.”

You didn’t seem to care.

The decision came easier than pressing a button. There was only one copy of the book, apparently, and you had plans to turn all its pages into literary confetti. But that was a very you thing to do, Wonwoo had come to accept. Writing served many purposes, and it seemed that the purpose you had sought out was met. Somewhere, in all those paragraphs, sentences, letters, and ink, you found the fulfillment you had always ached for. At last, you struck a glimmer of promising gold after digging through all the haze and confusion.

“Sure,” he answered, “shred away.”

—8 MONTHS LATER. END OF JUNE.

“It looks so pathetic!”

“What?! No it doesn’t!”

Peeking up from the mason jar of earthy blue water he’d been swirling together using some dirtied paintbrushes, Wonwoo saw you seated across from him, talking to a very dismayed, upset twelve-year-old girl. Sierra’s little sister, Cora, had enrolled in his landlord’s ceramics class over the summer, and thus every Saturday evening she spent her time moulding unwilling chunks of grey clay alongside other similarly aged students. It was only Cora in the shop since she had been the last to get her teapot in the kiln, taking extra time with every minute detail.

Though, despite her care and attentive pace, Cora was still not pleased with the teapot, leading her to grumble and shake her head.

You were sitting beside her, a hand rubbing along the little girl’s back while she continued scrutinizing her creation. Ever since you moved into Wonwoo’s apartment back in May, Saskia had quite liked you more than her average tenant, and that somehow transformed into an offer to help her teach the summer ceramics class (with pay).

Wonwoo was always there to assist in the clean-up afterward—his favourite part was submerging all the greasy, bristly paintbrushes into a clean jar of water so that he could watch how their colours bled out in thin, swirling hues.

“No, no, no—it’s just bad.”

“I’m telling you. It’s not.”

Cora picked up the lid to the pot, then placed it back down. “There—look—it doesn’t even close properly. And the spout is not spouty enough… it’s too thick, I think. Hardly any tea will go through!”

“Well, I really like it.”

Tucking a tuft of poofy, rust-brown hair behind her ear, Cora gave you a suspecting and funny sort of look that made Wonwoo smile to himself. She was a very shy student, but she talked to you the most.

“You say that about everything I make,” Cora sighed.

“So what?”

“So…” she nibbled on her small lip, looking off to the side, “you have to say that, because you're nice. You’re like my mom. She says she loves everything I make. But then why don’t I ever love it?”

“She loves it because you made it, obviously. And she loves you. I think love changes how we look at things. Even the impractical.” Then, you picked up her teapot and moved it closer. “You know why I like this teapot? Because it shows you’re determined. I mean, look at all those bowls on the newspaper over there—you’re the only one who did the teapot! And you did it mostly by yourself. You wouldn’t even let me help you roll out the clay. So, that’s why I like it. Because I see you in it. And when you tackle it again, you’ll know what to do differently. Plus, you know you can ask me for help, right? You know I’ll always help you.”

The little girl’s freckled face suddenly became less twisted with judgement and frustration. She set her elbows onto the table, scratching at a Hello Kitty bandaid along the back of her hand, while you gave her hair a quick ruffle. Wonwoo started drying off the paintbrushes using paper towel before moving them into the cup labelled “clean” with a piece of tape.

“What should I do with this, then? If it won’t work,” Cora asked.

You shrugged. “I don’t know. But for now, just leave it with the other stuff. We’ll give it a nice glaze next time around. Make it even prettier. Then you can decide what to do with it—whether or not you want to keep it or smash it on the ground. It’s up to you, Cora.”

Wonwoo tilted his head. “Why don’t you turn it into a miniature flower pot or something? Fill it with soil and plant something in it?”

Cora raised her eyebrows. “I like that idea, actually.”

“Me too,” you said, shooting Wonwoo a sly wink that he smiled very stupidly at, “look at this guy over here. Lurking with his good ideas.”

By the time Sierra was available to pick up her sister, Wonwoo had officially finished cleaning all the paintbrushes and whittling tools, as well as replacing the tablecloth with a fresh one. The three of you stood at the base to the shop’s very small stoop, exchanging some general conversation while a sleepy Cora held onto her sister’s hand and leaned her seemingly heavy head against her side.

The sky was a tame yellow shade, not as bright as a buttercup, but something delicate of the like.

“Hey—I heard you guys are planning a vacation!” Sierra chirped, adjusting the car keys in her hand, “is that all true?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, flashing Wonwoo a soft smile, “uh, we decided that we’re gonna spend some time in South Korea. I haven’t visited his family at all. But, yeah. Gonna leave start of August and come back right before October. So, a pretty good chunk of time.”

“No way!” She exclaimed.

“We’ll see how it pans out,” Wonwoo commented, sliding his arm around your waist and digging his fingers into your hip. “But my brother won’t shut his mouth about meeting her. And my parents are obviously curious. Besides, there are some great places I want to show off.”

Sierra shook her head. “I’m jealous. And totally sure you guys will have a great experience together. We’ll miss you here, though.”

“Please do,” you laughed, and Sierra pinched your cheek.

She then looked down at her sister, who had her eyes shut.

“Okay, I’m gonna get this little dove home. Thank you so much for helping her at ceramics by the way. She talks about you all the time.”

“Really?” You touched at your face, seeming flustered. “Well, I love helping her out. She’s a sweet girl with a lot of will on her shoulders.” Lowering your voice, you moved in closer to Sierra. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a cute gift she can have while we’re gone.”

After parting ways with Sierra and Cora, you and Wonwoo returned upstairs, back into the apartment to prepare for supper.

Both of you were feeling particularly lazy, and the shiny red tomato he was supposed to chop ended up being ignored in place of eating ice cream straight from its tub.

You were the one who grabbed it—Wonwoo was only following suit as he picked up a spoon and curved some out.

Something else interesting about you that Wonwoo had learned since moving in together was that you didn’t really care to ever sit on a chair, even when you were eating. It was either the sofa, the floor, or the kitchen table, in which you would be holding onto your food even though he always thought how easier it could be if you did sit down properly. The quirk was fun, nonetheless, and Wonwoo had admittedly started looking at the kitchen table in a different light after he proceeded to give you oral on it one night. Consequently, it bloomed a very dangerous habit between the two of you.

A habit that might become drastically less accessible once you two jetted off to his native country for over a month, confined between his parent’s cozy home where he grew up and the two-story apartment his wealthy brother and sister-in-law owned in the glittering heart of South Korea’s Seoul. He was nervous. You were nervous. But at least you were together.

Over the months, your parents had gradually come to accept him as your boyfriend, even if they weren't exactly warmed up to the idea at the start. Wonwoo revisited your home a few times alongside you to help in the explanations of your story and future prospects, although he partially understood that Mingyu was like a precious sapphire to your family and having him out so suddenly was hard to stomach.

He spent years nestling himself a comfortable burrow and smoothing out the bumps to make a crafty façade that, particularly your mother, couldn't help but outwardly adore. Like a son. Like Seokmin, too.

Wonwoo thought Mingyu might give him trouble.

In truth, he'd scarcely seen him, unless transient glimpses of his towering, quickly bustling figure from across a university campus or city street were noteworthy. Obviously, he wasn't inside Mingyu's head and he really had no inclination as to what the boy might be thinking on the occasion he spotted you and Wonwoo hand-in-hand at the park, or sharing breakfast at the café along Sunnyside.

But if Mingyu maintained even half the feelings that Wonwoo did for you, then he was positive it hurt like fucking hell.

Of all people, Wonwoo supposed he himself knew best.

—AUGUST 1ST.

“Wonwoo!”

He closed his dresser drawer, almost slamming his fingers inside. Your voice echoed from the living room, sounding hectic.

“Yes? What’s up!”

“The taxi’s here!”

Fuck. He immediately thought. The time was flying by.

Wonwoo had made a gigantic list of what to pack, but over time he kept adding and taking things away from it. Now, it was early morning, soft rain and cracks of bursting light coming down outside, and he was doing a final clean-sweep of the bedroom as well as his poorly scribbled list to ensure everything he needed was with him.

Quickly approaching the window, Wonwoo glanced outside to see the cab parked at the curb. Fuck. Again. Vernon always said he would happily provide you two a ride to the airport, but then the boy was unsurprisingly wrapped back into some trouble, and Wonwoo hadn’t seen his best friend in over a week.

Graciously, however, Vernon had given him a heads up and a proper goodbye beforehand. He’d even left him a voicemail to listen to, which immediately jumped into Wonwoo’s brain at random as he scrambled around the bedroom in search of his phone.

“Just give me one more minute!” Wonwoo shouted.

There was a pause on your end, and then a sigh.

“Do you need help?”

“No—all good. I promise. Can you let the cab driver know?”

“I will.”

“Thank you!” Wonwoo sang, finding the phone blended into his bedsheets, then proceeding to open his inbox. “I love you!”

“I love you, too!” You shouted back. “Just hurry the fuck up!”

He let Vernon’s message play while also tossing his suitcase onto the bed, stuffing in a few more last-minute grabs with utter clumsiness.

“Heyyy, Glasses! How are things? I’m shooting you this cute little message at arounddd—oh! Looks like it’s two in the mornin’! It’s two in the fuckin’ mornin’ and I’m pulled up outside this dude’s house all ‘cause he can’t pay me back for my good, hard services. It’s nothin’ serious, though. Don’t get all uptight like usual. You know I’m good at handlin’ stuff and keepin’ my cool. Probably my better qualities. Anyway, I’m bored as fuck. I’ve spun this Lloyd CD about four times and I just can’t listen to that dude anymore. He can sing, though.

I am pissed you’re leavin’ me. And I’m pissed she’s leavin’ me, too. You guys are what I look forward to whenever I drive down into that shithole city. Well, I think just about every city’s a shithole city. In fact, the city I’m in now is probably more of a shithole… Seokmin texted me the other day—said he wants to talk—which is vague as fuck and to be honest, I’ve been ignorin’ it ‘cause I can’t get myself to give a god damn. But maybe I’ll hear him out. That guy was a cutie, wasn’t he? I still think you’re a bit cuter. And better at mini-put.

I’ll miss you a lot when you’re down there… it got me thinkin’ about the night when we first met. The New Year’s Eve party. You remember that pretty well, don’t’chya? I saw you come in with those guys—they didn’t look like your crowd at all—but then after a while you were alone. Wanderin’ around. It didn’t even seem like you knew anyone else was there. You had the blankest look on your face. Like you were stuck in a loop and you didn’t even know it. I don’t know that I felt pity or anything… hell, maybe I felt a little. I just talked to ‘ya ‘cause I wanted to know if you knew where you even were.

You knew you were at some stupid, loud, awful fuckin’ house party jammed with unfamiliar faces. You knew how much you hated bein’ there. But I don’t think you actually knew how you got there, or why, or what was supposed to happen next. It kinda drew me to you. I wanted to understand it. And you gave me the weirdest look, too, when I stopped you. But once I got you outside, away from all the bullshit, you loosened up just a bit and I realized I was talkin’ to this smart, well-rounded, thoughtful guy who was just a little lost in the weeds.

I know you didn’t really care about me like that. I was just some jumped-up weirdo who could give you mint weed at a sweet price. But I still liked you… I dunno… other people see you differently when they care a whole lot, don’t they? I guess they see things about you that others can’t, or they know exactly what you could be when others don’t. They see stuff even you can’t see. It’s like a superpower, I think… my best superpower is probably makin’ girls giggle. I’ve got a lot of charm, wouldn’t you agree? Ha—anyway—stay safe on your trip, tell Her that I’ll miss her a lot, too—oh! Oh!

Fuck! That’s it. That little fucker is comin’ outside—he can’t resist his two am darts on the porch. God bless you, nicotine! Okay, uh, guess this is me hangin’ up on you. Later, Wonwoo!”

At that point, everything Wonwoo needed was packed. But he’d taken the additional time to complete Vernon’s voicemail, now sitting on the edge of his bed while staring out into the early, glimmering rain shower and the water droplets collecting against his window.

Then, Wonwoo glanced down at the laptop he had open.

He hadn’t written in… months. Not even months—it had been over a year since Wonwoo wrote. And, somehow, it felt good not to write.

It felt necessary to step away from the craft.

Besides, writing would always be there. Just because he hadn’t filled up a document on his computer with harmoniously arranged words, or penned anything down in the journal he used to scribble poetry in, that didn’t make him not a writer. In fact, it could be crucial to know when to step away from something—when to let go of an invisible weight keeping one from progressing. While he hadn’t thought about it in months, it floated to the surface of his mind that there may be something he should let go.

The unfinished book. 01.

Wonwoo deleted it. Simple as that.

Shoving the laptop into his shoulder-sling bag, Wonwoo made sure to knab his journal from the nightstand before he left, just in case anything did excite him with a crack of inspiration as he embarked on his newest chapter with you at his side. Rolling his suitcase hurriedly behind him, Wonwoo rushed out onto the street, feeling the rain graze his hair and skin, while you were leaned against the cab, arms folded and teeth anxiously raking over your bottom lip.

He peppered the cab driver in apologies while he helped shove the suitcase into the trunk.

“Liar—” you grumbled after sliding into the cab, undoing the buttons on your coat, “—you said one minute, not one lifetime.”

“I know, I know,” Wonwoo laughed, removing his glasses to rub off the mist and dew, “but that voice mail from Vernon distracted me.”

“Let me do it,” you said, taking his glasses with a sigh, “we should be fine. I know we’ll make it on time… I guess I’m just on edge.”

He watched you massage at the lenses gently with a sleeve. The driver climbed back into the cab, now pulling away from the pottery shop and driving toward the beam of light that sliced through the dense clouds, like the sun was handling a giant blade.

“Everything’s gonna work out, I promise… and I already told you that we’ll be staying with Bohyuk first, right? Him and Nari?”

Handing the glasses back to Wonwoo, you nodded.

“Yeah… god—I hope he likes me.”

“Oh, he will. You guys are pretty similar, actually.”

The look you gave him warbled slightly.

“What if that’s a bad thing? Every time you tell me a story about your brother, it usually involves you loathing him for something.”

“Those stories took place years ago.”

“But the feelings are still there, aren’t they?”

Wonwoo settled his hand over top yours, giving your fingers a soothing squeeze. He knew you wanted to make the perfect first impression. After all, first impressions were not something that could be easily taken back or erased, unless the people you were meeting were quite forgiving. And Bohyuk was fortunately the forgiving type.

It was only time that Wonwoo exercise the quality as well.

Leaning in close to your face, Wonwoo gazed into your eyes, watching their frantic nature become still like the surface of a calm pond.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, alright?” He murmured.

Huffing out an intense, long breath, you nodded.

“Alright… can I have a kiss, please?”

Lifting his hand to graze against the side of your cheek, he paused to admire your beauty for a moment, only to properly cup your face and push his lips to yours—which tasted sweet and balmy—before feeling you push back firm. He proceeded to give you another soft kiss for good measure, one that cured you to smile all fluttery and coy against his mouth until he was inevitably smiling, too.

In fact, Wonwoo only ever found himself smiling that hard when he was with you.

—END.

heyyyy :] ramble incoming...

first and foremost, ABOVE ALL ELSE, i just want to say thank you! i know this was a very, very long fic for me to be uploading on tumblr. this site is not the most fanfic friendly (or creation friendly for that matter) so stomaching the fact that this needed to be split up into so many parts was like a dagger to the heart! for those who decided to buckle up and lock into this journey, i honestly thank you so much <3 life was not always kind in the process of writing this (hence the fact it took me 2 years, plus some extra) but i was so dedicated to seeing this story through! a lot of the frustration i was feeling toward myself was funnelled into wonwoo's character, so this is quite personal :3

nonetheless, i hope there's something, even a single thing, someone else can take away from the story as well! both wonwoo and her as characters introduce their own unique themes--wonwoo (at the core) is more so about learning to let go in order to progress, whereas her is about using creative tools to help guide the search for identity. i think that writing has helped me learn a lot about myself (even uncomfy, icky things) so i wanted that to be represented through her.

of course, these are not the only things they stand for! but these are the elements i based their characters on, to which other concepts sprouted from. i also loved the idea of pairing someone as lost and misguided and emotionally stunted as wonwoo with this girl who seems so bossy and firm. at first he doesn't like it, but that was really what he needed to accept some of the flaws holding him back. idk if you're familiar with the EXCUSE ME! HE ASKED FOR NO PICKLES! meme but that's what comes to mind when i think of them xD

additionally: special shout out to vernon. he became a much bigger part of this story than i originally intended. he is in some ways wonwoo's foil. vernon knows he's flawed but that's sorta his strength and what makes him genuine. he witnesses wonwoo's entire journey, so at times he also feels like our role, the "reader" and gives wonwoo some wisdomy parting words without rly knowing it (but that's part of his charm <3 i don't want vernon's emotional intelligence to be underrated, which is also an ode to the conversation wonu & her have back in the museum. wonwoo knows there are different types of intelligence and emotionally he is lackinggg).

also small s/o to seokmin. SORRY! HAD TO DO IT!

this has been my slowest slowburn! i wasn't sure how late they were going to kiss. but i didn't want to force anything. i wanted to add the moment when i felt it was surely right! also, if you haven't yet listened to the playlist and you're curious, i recommend listening to the very last song, writer, by ellie goulding. i've been listening to that song for many years, and one day it hit me how coincidentally her lyrics overlap with some of the fic's storyline!

i think it adds a nice final touch <3

LASTLY!

upon contemplation, i will be uploading this fic to ao3 in the same chaptered format it's been posted here! i realize the convenience to bookmarking on that site (and it also doesn't give people's phones a heart attack when trying to read something lengthy) so i hope that appeases some of you who wish to reread with more leisure! i'll be under the username @/uglypluto!

i'll upload the final chapter (this chapter) to ao3 probably between late sunday & early monday.

THANK YOU x100! 💕

[dragons-and-handcuffs]

Aegon Targaryen x Reader

Drunk and heartbroken Aegon crashes his ex's wedding

Modern AU

You never thought you'd be standing at the altar with another man. Not after the whirlwind that was Aegon Targaryen. He was everything your parents had warned you about—spoiled, reckless, a playboy with too much money and too little sense. But he was also the most thrilling, exhilarating thing to ever happen to you. Your relationship with Aegon was like a rollercoaster with no brakes: wild, dangerous, and utterly intoxicating. But it couldn't last, and you knew it. So, when your father introduced you to a proper suitor—a stable, successful man with a future—ending things with Aegon had seemed like the right decision. It was time to grow up, to move on.

Or so you thought.

Today was supposed to be the start of that new chapter. The day you married the man who was everything Aegon was not—reliable, respectable, safe. Your father approved, your family adored him, and you had convinced yourself that you were ready to settle down.

But as you stood at the altar, looking into the kind eyes of your soon-to-be husband, something inside you felt… off. Maybe it was just nerves, or maybe it was the weight of your past threatening to crush the perfect life you were trying to build.

The officiant cleared his throat, starting the ceremony. You tried to focus on the words, but your mind was a thousand miles away, tangled up in memories of Aegon.

And then, as if summoned by your very thoughts, the church doors burst open with a crash that echoed through the hall.

Every head turned in unison, and there he was: Aegon Targaryen, looking as disheveled as you'd ever seen him. His silver hair was a mess, his shirt half-buttoned, and a bottle of expensive alcohol dangled from his hand. He staggered into the aisle, blinking against the bright light and grinning like an idiot.

"Y/N!" he slurred, his voice carrying through the stunned silence. "Wait! Stop this madness!"

Your heart skipped a beat. "Aegon?"

Your groom’s expression hardened, his grip on your hands tightening protectively. The guests began to murmur, shocked whispers filling the church as Aegon made his way unsteadily down the aisle.

"Y/N, baby, what are you doing?" Aegon called out, swaying slightly as he walked. "This guy?" He pointed vaguely in the direction of your groom, his disdainful tone making it clear how little he thought of him. "He’s not the one for you! You’re making a huge mistake!"

You felt your cheeks flush with a mix of embarrassment and something else—an involuntary rush of adrenaline, like you used to feel when you and Aegon were sneaking around, doing things you shouldn’t.

"Aegon, you need to leave," you said, trying to sound firm, but your voice wavered, betraying you.

But Aegon was far beyond reason. "Leave? Leave? Why would I leave when the love of my life is about to marry the wrong guy?" He stumbled closer, his words growing more impassioned—and more incoherent. "I’m the one, Y/N. I’m the guy who knows how to make you feel alive! Remember? Remember how we used to be? God, those nights…"

Your eyes widened in horror as Aegon began recounting the more intimate details of your past together.

"We were crazy, Y/N! We had passion! Fire!" Aegon waved his arms dramatically, nearly toppling over in the process. "No one—no one!—can make you scream like I can! Like… remember that time at my dad’s beach house? Or that hotel in Dorne? You were so loud, I thought we’d get kicked out!" He grinned, clearly proud of himself, and the guests gasped in shock.

Your face burned red, not just from embarrassment but from the sheer audacity of it all. Your father looked like he might explode, and your poor groom—he was just standing there, mouth agape, trying to process the trainwreck unfolding in front of him.

"Aegon, stop it!" you hissed, your voice desperate as you tried to salvage what little dignity you had left.

But Aegon wasn’t finished. "No, you need to know!" he insisted, pointing at the groom again. "This guy—this guy will never satisfy you like I can! He doesn’t know you like I do. He’ll never make you feel the way I can. Y/N, we were made for each other, baby! You and me, we’re wild!"

The guests were either mortified or barely suppressing laughter. Your mother looked like she might faint, and your groom’s face was a mixture of outrage and disbelief. The officiant had no idea what to do, glancing between you and Aegon like he was hoping someone would call security.

Finally, two of the groomsmen stepped forward to drag Aegon out. "Get your hands off me!" Aegon protested, but he was too drunk to fight back. They each grabbed an arm and started hauling him toward the door.

Even as they dragged him away, Aegon kept yelling, his voice echoing through the church. "I’ll always love you, Y/N! I’ll be waiting for you! And when this whole mistake blows up in your face, I’ll be right there, ready to pick up the pieces! Ready to make you scream again!"

As they shoved him out the door, he managed one final shout. "This guy will never satisfy you! Never!"

And then, with a heavy thud, the doors closed, sealing Aegon outside.

The silence that followed was deafening. All eyes were on you, waiting to see how you would react. Your father looked ready to murder someone, your mother was clutching her pearls, and your groom—well, he looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. The chaos had passed, but your heart was still racing, and you couldn’t help but wonder if Aegon was right about one thing: there would never be another relationship like the one you had with him.

But you were committed to this new life, this new future. It was time to close that chapter for good.

You turned back to your groom, forcing a smile. "I’m so sorry about that."

He nodded, though the hurt was evident in his eyes. "Do you… do you still want to…?"

You looked at him, at the man who had offered you stability, security, and a life without the chaos that had defined your relationship with Aegon. He was a good man, and he deserved better than what had just happened. He deserved a wife who wasn’t secretly wondering if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.

But you pushed those doubts aside. This was your choice, and you had made it.

"Yes," you said, squeezing his hands. "Let’s finish this."

But as you repeated your vows, the memory of Aegon’s last words lingered in the back of your mind.

"I’ll be waiting for you…"

[zushimart]

fireworks. scara x gn!reader. modern au. a bit of angst (jealous!scara), but implied /pos ending. umm drinking (sort of drunk confession), vomiting, jealousy.

scara graced the party with his presence only at the aggressive encouragement (or what could have been called peer pressure) of childe – “a drink or two and maybe you’ll be able to tell them.”

“they don’t have to know,” scara had spat back, inadvertently admitting his feelings… something he’d skirted around telling childe even through a half-hour interrogation after he’d fallen flat and lifeless at the sight of you holding hands with a stranger.

while childe joked about what you and strange men could be doing behind closed doors, scara was trying to explain to him that he wasn’t heartbroken over 1800s-like chastity, but rather that you were on a date.

prompting childe to ask, “you’re into them?”

and he’d gone red, tongue tripping over itself in its silly excuses such as “it’s just concern” or “what if the guy’s a freak or a murderer or something?” and finally shutting up at the sight of childe’s upturned eyebrow.

but because his friend couldn’t help to make everyone’s business his own, scaramouche found himself at a house party on a saturday night on the promise that you were a) attending and b) still single (not that the latter had anything to do with his enthusiasm).

“just one,” he mumbles to childe over a plastic cup emptied a second later out of nervousness – his face twisting in disgust.

“have another,” childe shouts, having not heard him over the music, swapping their cups. scaramouche rolls his eyes, but tentatively takes another gulp, stomach warm.

and then he catches sight of you in the corner of the room, talking to a few familiar faces, but they’re all enemies to him in his childishness. he drinks the rest of his cup and asks for a refill. childe grins, thinking little of it, but four beers and two vodka shots in, he’s pulling the cup out of scara’s hands.

“hey, slow down –

scaramouche’s tongue feels too big for his mouth, “two or whatever drinks and i’ll be able to…” but he still can’t admit it in front of childe, “y’know,” he mumbles, shy. childe’s eyebrows come together in concern at the sight of him wistfully staring into the corner of the room where you stand and laugh with a few others; he wonders if he should stop him as he makes his way through the crowd towards you. childe nervously trails behind his friend like a chaperone.

“scara!” you greet him in surprise, “i didn’t know you were here.”

he bites his lip, skipping a hello and blurting out a “you look really… good… tonight.” he’s red in the face, hands clasped together in front of him.

you let the compliment roll off you in disbelief, offering a dismissive “woah, you’re drunk…” that morphs his face into one of deadpan disappointment.

“yeah,” childe laughs nervously, putting a hand on scara’s shoulder. “he’s a lightweight.”

“i thought he didn’t like to drink,” you say. childe shrugs and you recover for him, “here, scara, childe, these are some of my friends.”

scara can hear you talking, but the words have gone fuzzy in favor of staring into your eyes. he misses every mindless introduction, and ends up talking to you and only you about his week before finally someone interjects. it’s a respite, you think, before an unfiltered grimace of disgust scrunches scara’s nose – he talks over them, and an awkward silence despite the music descends upon them as he, with a voice insecure and vulnerable, admits, “you’ve been avoiding me recently,” he says. “but that can’t be true,” he laughs, “right?”

childe grows fidgety, staring at his friend with a gaze that could burn holes through his head. “woah,” childe blurts, stepping in front of scara who grumbles in protest, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about… you know… too much to drink…” he trails off, but your smile and cheer had left minutes ago. childe watches with a wince as you drag scaramouche away, fingers digging into his shoulder, to a semi-secluded space at the bottom of the stairs.

“what is wrong with you?” you ask, but you’re not looking at him –– your gaze is reserved for your friends throwing concerned looks in your direction. he doesn’t answer, eyebrows drawing together at your disinterest in the conversation despite being the one to initiate.

he steps in front of your line of sight, “nothing,” he lies. “just being myself. s’too much, isn’t it? just say that.”

“no. something’s up. something different. i’m not avoiding you,” you say, “do you actually feel that way?”

anger grows big in his chest. he wishes he could keep the words behind his teeth, but they spill out of his mouth, “you do avoid me,” he says a little louder than he means to, “you don’t tell me anything anymore. you’re going on dates with people i don’t know… doing things without me… other stuff…” he prattles off. yeah, that’s totally why i’m upset, he thinks to himself, lower lip quivering.

you’re blinking at him like he’s lost his mind. “what?”

“what?” he parrots back, embarrassed as tears begin to sting his eyes.

“i know this isn’t why you’re upset with me… like, why would i even have to tell you about my love life?” you sigh. “i was gonna tell you about the one date i’ve been on the next time we were together… it didn’t even go well, anyway,” you say, looking to floor, eyes tinged with a look of longing so familiar he feels the contents of his stomach swirl. “scara, what’s this really about?” you ask.

he wants you to look at him like that. like you want him. like you want him so bad it hurts. bile rises in his throat knowing that you’re thinking of someone else.

the sound of his heartbeat fills his ears and the stress of the night comes down on him like a falling piano. “my stomach,” he blurts, “sorry.” the next moment, he’s stumbling up the stairs as the world spins, leaving you to chase after him.

he leaves the bathroom door open as he vomits into the open toilet, gripping the seat like it’s his own. front row ticket, he thinks through the brain fog at the sight of your shoes in his peripheral.

“you drank too much,” you say, and it makes him mad.

“you think so?” he spits, only to hurl again. then, you’re on your knees beside him, rubbing soothing circles into his back. it’s then that he notices you closed the door behind you, trapping him in your own personal pocket universe – music muffled by thin walls, bass just barely shaking the floor. he pushes your reaching hand away from him and wipes his mouth with a sleeve, wondering, can i think straight?

“did childe do this? did he pressure you?”

he can’t think straight. fat tears finally well in his eyes and he cries in front of you for the first time. “it’s your fault,” he babbles like a kid.

“my fault?” you ask with a laugh, realizing a second too late as you lean over to flush the toilet that–– he’s serious.

“why can’t you look at me,” he hiccups, “only me. no one else.”

and a silence burdens the both of you, the room suddenly too small, too stuffy, too hot to think. you open your mouth to speak… once, twice, and finally, a third time: “dude, are you… jealous?” and if looks could kill, it would’ve been scaramouche, in the bathroom, with his eyes. his glare is piercing.

“i’m not jealous,” he blurts, “i don’t get jealous,” but the tears blurring his vision a second time tell a different story. he whimpers, “how could i be jealous?”

it takes a conscious effort to keep your jaw from dropping.

“what am i doing wrong?” he asks, looking up from behind his hands.

“do you… like me?” you ask under your breath as you stand up, butterflies swelling up your throat.

he’s queasy again at the sight of your retreat. “i’m sorry.” he bites his lip hard, eyes training on the grout that lines the grimey tiles.

“messy,” you mutter, grabbing him by the collar and forcing him up with you, “you’re so messy for telling me like this.”

“i didn’t tell you anything,” he snaps, voice shaking. he breaks from your grip and pushes past you to the sink, running cold water to splash on his face. drinking from the faucet like a dog, water drips onto his shirt. he wipes his mouth, takes a deep breath, and looks at himself in the mirror. “i want to go home.”

“ask me nicely and maybe i’ll take you.”

he turns his glare to you. “i’ll walk myself, then” he says.

“you’re so difficult,” you say, walking out of the bathroom first. he trails after you like a kitten, steps uncertain and arms drawn close to his body like he’s cold. you mouth ‘going home’ from across the room to childe who nods, watching as you pull out your keys and depart out the front door without saying goodbye to your friends.

he’s quiet in the front seat, putting on his seatbelt only when he’s told to. he’s quiet the entire ride home, refusing to respond to your teasing and quips. he’s quiet on the way up to his apartment, steps echoing in the stairwell. he pushes away your steadying hand on his waist and tries to close the door on you the moment he gets it open.

“i’m fine,” he mumbles, “i’m not a fucking baby.”

“you cry like one.” he looks at you with that same glare, and it’s almost comical the way his bottom lip begins to tremble. “call me tomorrow,” you say. “tell me if you were serious.”

he falls quiet again, holding the door and averting his eyes.

“okay?”

a second, two seconds, three seconds before he meets your gaze and mumbles, “okay,” before gently closing the door. he leaves you in the quiet, washed in the fluorescent light of the hallway, thinking of the sizzle of his explosivity and the following trail of smoke like the lingering smell of fireworks after a dazzling show.

[wooataes]

Pretty Coincidences (Part One)

Pairing: Yoon Jeonghan x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: Strangers to ??? AU, angst, mentions of cheating, mentions of plane crashes, swearing

Summary: Choosing to run away from your problems on an impromptu trip to Italy may be the best decision you’ve made in your life thus far.

A/N: a belated birthday fic for the beautiful Jeonghan and also a belated birthday fic for my fave Carat friend Zan 💜

Masterlist

Part Two?

To say you were heartbroken was an understatement.

You feel almost dead inside as you sit in the backseat of your Uber, unshed tears tempting you to break the flood gates. How the fuck did you get here, in an Uber on the way to Incheon Airport running away from your responsibilities and problems?

The answer was Geumjae.

Forty eight hours ago, you were happy. You were happy and in love with your seemingly loving boyfriend of four years, Geumjae, in the talks of buying an apartment together and Geumjae planning to pop the question to you this coming Christmas in front of both your families. That was, until, you decided to take the afternoon off from your office job, feeling unwell and in all honesty, wanted the comfort of your boyfriend and your bed.

Instead of finding your loving boyfriend making soup for you in your apartment, you were greeted to the sounds of aggressive lovemaking coming from your personal bedroom. That scumbag was using YOUR bed in YOUR apartment to sleep with other women?! No fucking way.

Now, you’re not a pushover or a pussy. On the contrary, you proved to yourself that you’re the opposite; storming into your bedroom and throwing out your new ex boyfriend and his flimsy little side-piece, who you vaguely recognized as your now ex-best friend, who was trying to stammer some sort of apology. You didn’t hear her as she spoke though, only throwing both him and her out of your apartment with nothing but the clothes on their backs, which at that moment, was none at all, leaving them to rush to his car as quick as possible without being seen, as you curled up on the living room floor in hysterics.

After a long night of tears, a whole tub of ice cream, half a bottle of wine and burnt clothes, photos and bedsheets, at the ripe time of 2:43am, you feel the sadness within you seep into a seething anger.

Screw this guy! You don’t need him! You can do a lot better and deserve someone who will love and treat you right! Who else can treat you better than yourself?

In a half-tipsy wine drunk state, you grab your laptop and start typing travel options in your search bar.

You had always dreamed of wanting to go on a trip to see Italy ever since you met Geumjae, and for four long draining years, your requests were always rebuffed with a ‘I can’t afford it’ or ‘why don’t we try local?’ Well screw that. You’re newly free and have the funds saved, as well as PTO from your job. After sending a long and misspelled message to your boss, you rise from your spot on the floor to march into your room to pack your bags.

Forty eight hours later, you were miserable, angry and betrayed by two of the closest people you know, but you also felt surprisingly free, as if a weight had been lifted off your chest as you stepped inside Incheon Airport to make your way to your flight to Italy.

You settle into your seat with a tired sigh. For once, you’re actually happy you got seated in an Emergency Exit row. You’re not as enclosed as the others which means more leg room, and instead of having two people beside you, you only have one. Double win. The less people you have to interact with, the better. You hope that the unlucky person who was destined to be sat beside you isn’t a talker; hopefully they are just as tired and done with the world as you.

You take a quick glance at your reflection from your front facing phone camera, wincing at the miserable girl you faced. Your hair is pulled back into a ponytail, several strands having found their way out of the loose hair tie securing your locks and falling over your shoulders haphazardly. You have massive bags under your eyes, which isn’t surprising since you have barely slept since you found your trash ex. You hope that you’ll be able to catch up on your sleep during the twelve hour flight to Italy.

After heaving another sleepy sigh, you lift your head to the side to see a hooded figure placing a bag into the overhead locker before sitting down carefully beside you and pulling his hood back to ruffle his fluffed up hair out of his eyes. Your cheeks tinge a dusty pink as you take in the mystery man’s handsome good looks, suddenly feeling self conscious at your appearance. After giving the gorgeous man a small smile in greeting, (which he returns without hesitation) you shrink slightly into your seat, your brain beginning to work overtime as you feel an overwhelming urge to apologize about your half assed looks. The man is in an almost identical outfit to yours, but you can’t help but resent your new seatmate at how much better he looks than you. Then again, he probably hasn’t had his heart ripped out of his chest and then stomped on by his ex-girlfriend within the last two days. You were so consumed in your own self deprecating thoughts you didn’t notice the pretty man looking at you expectantly.

“Sorry, did you say something?” You blink, eyes wide.

“That’s okay.” The man smiles. You blush. Dang, why did he have to be so pretty? “I was just asking if you had enough room there.” He gestures to the armrest between you both. “I can scoot over a little bit if you need.”

“O-oh.” You stutter, shaking your head quickly. “No, you’re fine, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” You nod, giving him a little smile. “I will apologize in advance though, I am 100% going to sleep for this flight.”

“Damn,” he sighs dramatically. You tilt your head in questioning. “You’re going to sleep and let me be the only one to have to save the plane and all these passengers if a disaster happens?”

You’re caught off guard as a giggle passes your lips, your smile growing as the man chuckles with you. You didn’t know how badly you needed to have a laugh.

“I do apologize,” you hum. “But getting my beauty rest is more important than the well-being of the plane.”

It’s the stranger’s turn to laugh along with you, and you feel relieved that the joke lands.

“Hmm, I’ll keep that in mind.” He nods thoughtfully. “Did you need to be woken from your beauty rest when the meals come by?”

You blink in surprise. How thoughtful. “Uhh.. if it’s no trouble?”

“None at all.” He’s surprisingly chirpy at this hour of the morning. “We are the backbone of this flight. We need to keep our strength up.” He winks at you and smiles as you laugh again.

“Fair point.” You nod gently as you fasten your seatbelt, the flight crew beginning to prepare you for takeoff.

You wait for a moment to see if Pretty Man will continue the conversation, but when he settles in and starts looking for movies on his tv, you let your eyes flutter shut, sleep taking over you before you even feel the plane take off.

You feel yourself being shaken gently an hour later as you stir, rubbing at your eyes with a little yawn. Pretty Man is smiling warmly at you.

“Hey.” He mumbles. “Sorry, they’re giving out breakfast.”

“S’fine.” You yawn again, smiling politely at the flight attendant as she passes your meal over. “Thanks for waking me, uhh..”

“Jeonghan.” Pretty Man - Jeonghan offers, and you nod with a little smile. “You’re welcome…”

“Y/N.”

Your eyes open slowly, yawning out as you start to take in your surroundings around you, the PA system announcing that the descent into Rome will begin within the hour. You sit up slightly and run at your eyes tiredly. Your eyelids still feel heavy, but after having slept for a solid 10 hours, only having been woken up from Jeonghan to eat in between with minimal conversation, you feel like you’ve rested enough.

“Did you manage to keep the plane in one piece while I slept?” You joke, Jeonghan chuckling in response.

“Only barely.” He sighed dramatically, hand on his chest. “I think you owe me for the next flight.”

“I think I do.” You humor him as he laughed.

“So, what brings you to Italy?” He asks after a moment of silence as you glance out the little window beside you.

“Mid-life crisis?” You offer with a laugh. Jeonghan only raises his eyebrows in concern. “Long story short,” you start fiddling with your fingers, nibbling your lip. “Just got out of a long term relationship and I’m long overdue for a holiday. So, I just packed up and left for Rome to forget about the real world for a while.” You wince, not even looking at Jeonghan to know that he’s giving you a look of pure pity.

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear that.” He frowns.

“Ah, it’s fine.” You shrug. It wasn’t. Not in the slightest. “Was probably for the best.” You’re lying, you know you are. “What about you?”

“Ah,” he rubs at the back of his neck. “A friend of mine offered for me to go on a trip here with him. He flew out a few days ago, so I’m meeting him here.”

“That sounds exciting.” You smile as he hums in agreement.

“Definitely.” He smiles back. “Well, I hope that Rome treats you well.”

You hope it does too. “You too.”

It could just be your excitement, but you truly think that the Italian air is just as healing to you as the place itself. After parting ways with Jeonghan and making your way to your hotel right in the middle of the bustling city of Rome, you think you can feel the cracks in your heart begin to heal, if only slightly.

You take in a deep breath as you walk along the pavement that runs through the city of Rome, taking in the sights of small local stalls selling jewelry and knickknacks, a content smile on your face. You’ve been here for only a day but you feel more like yourself than you have been for the last four tiring years. You adjust the strap of your handbag over your shoulder, fixing the sleeve of your flowy floral dress as you let the sunshine warm your body. Your phone has been left behind in the hotel room, having been blown up since you have landed in the foreign country from your ex. The messages were deleted as soon as they were received and the numbers have been swiftly blocked by you, only providing updates to your parents and your boss that you arrived safely and you will contact them if anything new happens.

You lift the disposable camera that sits around your neck by a strap up to your face, snapping a quick photo of a gelato stand on the corner, your smile growing as your stomach rumbles. You could use something sweet.

“Buongiorno,” you speak quietly, stepping up to the man behind the gelato stand. The man smiles back at you as you take a nervous breath. “Uhh… vorrei un gelato piccolo in cono, per favore.” You smile hopefully, hoping that you didn’t just accidentally insult him.

You release a breath as the man smiles happily at you, leaning down as he begins to take out a cone and ice cream scoop, making your gelato with precision.

“Grazie!” You beam as you pass him your money, taking the cone gratefully. You bow your head in thanks to further show your appreciation, and the man chuckles, bowing his head back.

As you turn, you let out a yelp as you run into a body behind you, almost causing you to drop your new cold treat. Luckily, you’re able to compose yourself quickly and bow your head just as fast.

“I’m so sorry!” You pause before your brain catches up. “U-uhh.. m-mi scusi!”

“Y/N? Is that you?” A soft voice responds, and you freeze.

You lift your head quickly to the owner of the voice, your eyes widening as you see an all too familiar face smiling excitedly at you. His chestnut brown hair is pushed back, his bright smile being just as blinding as when you first met him all those years ago in middle school, who went on to be your good friend for five years before life caught up with you and you naturally drifted apart.

“Seokmin? Lee Seokmin?” Your smile grows with him as he almost immediately scoops you up into his arms, spinning you around in circles. You squeal out a laugh, your free hand holding onto his shoulder. “Yah!”

“What the heck?!” He laughs with you, squeezing you tight once he places you back onto the ground. “What are you doing here?!”

“I could ask you the same thing!” You giggle happily.

“I’m on a trip with a hyung of mine! We both had some time off and wanted to go somewhere warmer.” He chirps, looking you over with a smile. “What about you? Where’s Geumjae?”

You freeze at the mention of his name, biting down on your lip. “Um.. I’m here alone, actually.” You attempt to smile, but it looks more like a grimace. “We broke up. Not too long ago actually and messy. So, I guess this is my way of coping.” You shrug.

“Oh no, I’m sorry I brought it up.” He pouts, rubbing your arm comfortingly. “So you’re here alone?”

“Yep.” You pop the P with a little smile. “But it’s only my second day here and I’m happier than I have been in the last four years, so that’s a plus.”

“I’m glad.” He smiles warmly at you as you nod.

“Dokyeom-ah!” A second voice enters the conversation. “What’s taking so long?”

You turn your head and take a step back with wide eyes as you come face to face with Pretty Man; Jeonghan. He looks more put together than you both did at the airport; now sporting a pair of black skinny jeans with a plain white t-shirt and a leather checkered jacket. He looks just as surprised as you do, taking in your outfit.

“Sorry hyung,” Seokmin smiles, his arm wrapping around your shoulders as you hold your cone now with both hands. “I ran into a friend from school! Hyung, this is-”

“Y/N. The one who left me to fend for myself to save the plane all on my own.” He sighs and places his hand on his chest.

“That was you?” Seokmin gasps.

“Yah!” You glare playfully. “You said it was okay!”

“I only said that to make you feel better about the fact that you willingly let me save us all.”

“It was one bout of turbulence.” You huff before Jeonghan smirks playfully at you. “I won’t keep you guys, you probably are waiting to get some gelato.”

“What? Are you sure?” Seokmin frowns. “You can tag along with us if you wanted, I’m sure hyung wouldn’t mind?”

“No, it’s okay, really.” You give him a little smile. Jeonghan frowns. He can see right through it.

“You’re just going to walk around by yourself?”

“You say that like I haven’t done it before, Min.” You laugh.

“I mean, yeah, you did it on campus but… you’re in a whole new country. I think I’d feel a lot better if you had at least one friend to keep you company.” He insists.

You hesitate, biting down on your lip. He does make a good point.

“How about this,” Seokmin offers. “You don’t have to spend every day with us. Why don’t we meet up once a day? I can take some great photos for your Instagram to show Geumjae that you’re thriving without him.”

“Geumjae?” Jeonghan tilts his head. Your face turns red.

“The Ex-boyfriend.” You hum, looking down.

“He never deserved you.” Seokmin rubs at your shoulders comfortingly as he sees the dismay on your face.

“Ah, thanks Min.” You smile. “I’ll take you up on that offer, only if it’s okay with you and Jeonghan. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You could never. You’re always welcome. Right, Hyung?”

“Of course.” Jeonghan nods with a smile at you.

“Thank you guys.”

“It’s no sweat, really! The more the merrier!” Seokmin beams. “We’re going to the Trevi tomorrow if you want to meet us there?”

“Sounds good.” You hum, waving your hand. “I’ll message you?”

“Sure.” He nods as you begin to walk away.

“See you then.”

As soon as you’re out of sight, Seokmin turns towards Jeonghan with raised eyebrows.

“Ohh Dokyeom-ah,” Seokmin mocks Jeonghan. He starts to blush. “I swear I made her laugh. She was just too cute.”

“Shut up.” He grumbles, glaring at the younger man.

“I can’t believe my school pal is the Cute Girl from your flight.”

“I said shut up.” He hissed. Seokmin just smirked at him with a giggle.

[kakashixhatakesxwhore]

Such Effort VI

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi x f!Reader

W/c: 5k (a vast departure from where we started)

Warnings: Talk of alcohol, a bit suggestive, swearing, Kakashi trying to talk about his feelings, long as fuck

Summary Post 🔮🔮 Masterlist

Previous Part

You fucking dolt.

Why'd you tell him that you're a virgin? That's the perfect way to scare a man away.

There was no saving you, your liquored tongue or your lapse of judgement. All you could do was wish those words back into your mouth, and for Kakashi's mind to be wiped of this night entirely.

"No shame in that," he hummed, though he had had a clear physical reaction to your confession. The way he tensed, how long he blinked, the stutter in his breath- cripes, you were so stupid, and he was trying to console you about it.

You shook your head and sped up your pace, though it was probably just to Kakashi's regular speed. "Au contraire; lots and lots."

"That's silly." Fuck, is he as drunk as me? You thought at the liberty in his cadence, Fujita's going to kill me. "So, is it that you never-"

"Man, who said that was a conversation point," you whinged immediately, hiding your face behind your hands. "I just... cripes, I guess you got your juicier detail, huh?"

Kakashi chuckled lowly, which relaxed you. You peeked at him from behind your fingers, which only made the deep rumble pick up to a proper laugh. Feeling like he was laughing at you, though not maliciously, you put your hands down and shoved him lightly on the shoulder. It barely budged him, but Kakashi swayed for your sake.

"Say something else," you commanded him with a grin. "I'm wallowing in embarrassment right now."

"Alright," Kakashi purred, taking a step closer to you as the two of you made your way down the main road. "What do you want to talk about, if not your virginity isn't-"

"Shut up, shut up!" Laughing, you grabbed Kakashi's bicep, and shook him with all your might. He laughed as he let you move him, head drifting back and forth. You huffed, holding onto him from the exertion of trying to shake the mountain of a man, "Anything but that..." Then you sighed, tightening your grip and leaning on him as you walked. "Let's talk about... fuck, let's talk about what you're doing in a pub, after I give you bedrest."

Dropping your grasp of his arm, you took a step to the side, creating a small chasm of space between you, and looked at Kakashi accusatorily. He, in all of his nonchalance, just snickered happily and leaned back as he walked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"You said you'd be there, so how could I resist?" He replied quaintly.

Rolling your eyes a little, you remarked, "I didn't invite you."

"I know, and it broke my heart," Kakashi grinned, not looking the least bit heartbroken. Then his smiley cadence faltered when he added, "Watching you dance with someone who wasn't me was... terrible, something I never want to see again."

"Can you dance, Kakashi?" You asked.

Kakashi lead you around the corner of his street, off the main road, and then took a step in front of you, turning to face you and block the way. He put out his hands and smirked, "Assuredly, better than Raido."

"Mm, I dunno," you hummed, taking Kakashi's hands lightly. "Raido and I have been dancing together for years - he knows my flow better than-"

"Yeah, but my flow compliments your flow, so everything pans out." 

There was no arguing with Kakashi as he brought your hands up, then down, taking a smooth step back as he did. The movement pulled you both in a dancer's bow, and you giggled at how seriously he was taking this.

Then, Kakashi drew both of you up and released your left hand, letting his right arm drop to encircle your waist and pull you close. Your breath hitched in your throat at the sudden proximity, being able to fully feel the radiating heat from Kakashi's body.

He looked down at you with kind, half-lidded eyes as he started to lead you in a very fast dance.

It wasn't what you were expecting.

His citrus scent beguiled you as he swayed you to an invisible beat. Still, Kakashi's sheer rhythm infected you; it made you smile so wide that your cheeks hurt, and had you feeling all hot and syrupy inside.

"This is not a three step," you laughed as he twirled you and pulled you close again.

Starting on a sequence of double-steps backward, so intricate that you had to look down at your feet as you copied him, Kakashi chuckled, "Can't keep up?"

"Watch it, grandad," you hissed, looking up for a second. "I'm just surprised a man of your age has such slick moves."

"A man of my age?" Kakashi laughed loudly, spinning you both in a circle in a three step that more closely resembled a six step. "Just you wait, girly- the second you're past twenty, I'll tell you how decrepit you are."

"Why I oughta- fuck-" Kakashi slung you away, then back into his arm, making you seethe, "You-"

"Yeah, alright," he grinned, squeezing your waist with his large, warm hands. You bit back a whimper, but Kakashi's ears were too sharp. Immediately, he groaned, "Fuckin' tell me Raido doesn't get that kind of reaction out of you."

All you could do was squeak a no as Kakashi began to twirl you, fast. Once, then twice, then thrice-

"Fuck, fuck, okay, okay, you're the best dancer ever, Kakashi," you cried out with a laugh, slipping your hand from his and collapsing to his chest, pushing him all the way to the nearest wall.

The world was spinning, and you were entirely aware of that fact in that moment.

"Kakashi?" He repeated. Your head snapped up, and eyebrows furrowed, but Kakashi just chuckled, shaking his head, "Mm-mm, no one by that name here."

"Oh, stop-"

"Serious," Kakashi purred, only making that syrupy feeling spread across your body.

Getting your bearings back, you figured, what the Hell, so you played along. You tried pulling away from Kakashi's chest, but he wrapped his arms around you, keeping you in place against the wall. Huffing and puffing, you squirmed, which only made Kakashi's chuckle return as his arms tightened.

"So, who are you?" You grumbled, trying to wiggle out of his hold. "I don't wanna just be out, on the street, with some guy-"

"Oh, baby, y'breakin' my heart tonight," he crooned. Fuck, his voice was so rich, so fucking delicious. Your mouth started to water, but Kakashi squeezed your hips, bringing you back to reality.

"'m sorry, pretty boy," you sighed. "That's the last thing I wanna do."

"And we're back in business." You raised your eyebrows, and Kakashi partially let go of you, only to start walking again with his arm slung over your shoulders. He leaned on you, and sighed happily, "My girl is mine, again, after all."

"I was never- nevermind."

"No, no, say what you were gonna say."

Your cheeks flamed red. You weren't going to make the same mistake of revealing yourself twice. Not so close in succession. "No, fuck you." 

As you said it, you ducked from under his arm and started to run away. You didn't get so much as five good steps in before Kakashi's other arm was hooked around your waist, pulling you back immediately. 

"Tell me." His tone was so friendly that you thought it almost didn't match the conversation. Sliding his arm around your waist, Kakashi rested his hand on your hip with a porcelain grip, as he hummed, "Or would you rather I go first?"

"Beg your pardon?" First? Okay, he really got you with that one, you hadn't the foggiest clue what he was talking about.

Sensing your utter confusion, Kakashi chuckled lowly, and looked at you. His eye found yours easily, capturing them, and giving them nothing else to see. Exhaling deeply, you felt a smile creep onto your face, and you did nothing to stop it.

"Okay, fine, but I've never done this before," Kakashi sighed. Something he's never done? Creator above only knew- "Okay, okay, I can't fuck this up, let me collect my thoughts here."

"You're starting to scare me, sweetheart," you admitted, though your smile didn't falter. 

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, then tore his gaze from you. Quietly, almost as if he didn't want you to hear him, Kakashi mumbled, "I'm scaring myself."

"Alright, then let me go first," you offered, not wanting Kakashi to put any undue strain on himself, though still not knowing what you were jumping the line for. Turning his head to look at you amusedly, Kakashi nodded toward you, eye glinting in the moonlight. Oh, yeah. First for what? 

You could do a cartwheel... or rhyme off the Hidden Villages of each Land, in alphabetical order... list ten carcinogens found in household items... was this a secret talent showcase, or something? You wished you had Gerald with you, then; he could jump into your sleeve and climb to your shoulder vertically, spin, do mazes made of books...

"Yeah, nevermind," you laughed lowly, shaking your head and looking away. "I don't know what's going on- I might've had a gin tonic too many."

"Gin?" He repeated, nose scrunching up.

You nodded vigorously, licking your lips. "Yes! Dry, not Old Tom, for sure."

"Eugh." Kakashi shuttered around you, making you laugh as he asked, "Everything alright in the home?"

"Cripes, no, which is why I have a bottle of Navy Strength on my dresser," you told him, wiping a faux tear from your eye. "And gin is not eugh, it's so yum."

"Whatever you say, crazy lady-"

"Hey, hey, you get to be pretty boy, and I'm slapped with crazy lady?" You quipped, seeing Kakashi's apartment complex coming up and feeling dread rising in your throat.

Holding you so tightly to him that you threw your arm around his waist, Kakashi hummed, "I'm sorry, my sweet, darling girl, light of my days."

"That's more like it, thank you." You weren't even the one who demanded the pet names in the first place, but they did make that syrupy feeling turn into a strange, full-body heartbeat, which you quite enjoyed. Melting into Kakashi's side, you asked absentmindedly, "Do you really like me that much?"

You just sounded so stupid- holy shit. What a beggar. A compliment-fisher. 

Before you could distract him from your stupidity, Kakashi stated, "I like you so much." You looked at him with a raised eyebrow and he sighed, "Like, so much. More than I can describe."

The Sunken Cost fallacy occurred to you, and you figured you were very much in the hole already; why not press on?

"Try it," you shrugged. Kakashi looked at you with a similarly quirked brow, which made you giggle, "Let the gods take the reins, and you'll surely come to come adequate description."

With a small smile blooming behind his mask, the silver haired man took a deep breath, then said, "Okay, fuck it, here goes."

Maybe, just maybe, he was operating under the same fallacy.

Abruptly, just before Kakashi's building, he moved the two of you to the edge of the sidewalk and came in front of you, taking your hands in his again, but this time not to dance. 

With another deep breath, Kakashi's revealed eye traced over your connected hands, then up your right arm. He moved across your chest, stopping at your mother's sparkling brooch, before trailing up your neck and over your face. 

Mercifully, his eye connected with yours, and a glint caught your attention. You could see a sheen of sweat collect on his temple, and your worry took over.

"What is wrong, sweet boy?" You asked, concern lacing your tone. Taking your left hand and bringing the back of it to the exposed, right side of his face, you clicked your tongue and remarked, "Tch. You're burning up."

"Nothing is wrong," he assured you, taking your hand back in his and bringing it down. "Everything is so right, and that's why I've been... pussified."

"Pussified?" You laughed. Kakashi's smile deepened impossibly and he looked down to your hands again. "The scariest shinobi, in all the land, has been pussified? What ever could have this power?"

"You think I'm scary?" Kakashi asked, sounding nervous and granting himself a brief glimpse of your face.

You smiled, shaking your head, "Nah, you don't scare me, not anymore."

Kakashi nodded a nod that had his hair bouncing. He looked back at your hands as his thumb traced over your knuckles. "Good," he mumbled. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I scared you."

"I've got quite the affect on you, huh?" You teased, knowing damn-well that he affected you so much more.

"Indeed, you do, you gorgeous woman," Kakashi answered, like it was obvious. Then, he sighed, "You affect me more than you know 'cause you're... so different... you're the kind of girl that fits in with my world, and I... I just... need you-" Then he started speaking so fast, he started to trip over his own tongue, "-I need to tell you how... how much I like you, and how much I wanna- want to love you, and hold you, 'n' kiss you, 'n'-"

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down." 

Fuck, you could've jumped for joy if Kakashi wasn't right in front of you.

"I'm sorry," he immediately said, squeezing your hands harshly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've-"

"Eh, eh, no take-backs," you interrupted. Kakashi's eye jumped to your face, full of a certain flavour of fright. You chuckled lowly, and smiled broadly, which did nothing to relax the silver haired shinobi in front of you. With a breath, you told him, "I... feel the same way."

Narrowing his eye, Kakashi leaned his head back and asked, "Do you, now?"

"Hey, I've been into you since you pulled me over, way back in October, so I don't wanna hear it-"

"You have?" He seemed genuinely shocked by that revelation.

You scoffed, "You say that like you don't own a mirror." Stretching your neck out a little, you added, "No, seriously, I was totally enamored with you-"

"Was?" 

"Am," you corrected begrudgingly. "Are you going to question every single thing I tell you, or are you going to kiss me? Because, it's looking like-"

In an instant, Kakashi let go of your hands. One of his hands cupped your cheek, while the other came to the bridge of his nose. He brought you close, and you could smell... tequila? Only for a split second, before he pulled the fabric from his face and pressed his lips to yours before you could admire him for even a breath.

Oh, definitely tequila. His lips were so fucking warm, and so fucking soft. You hummed into the kiss, unable to withhold it, and Kakashi's arm came around your waist, bring you infinitely closer as his tongue ran along your bottom lip.

A shiver ran up your spine, and you could feel fireworks within your chest. Your head started spinning, and you stopped being able to feel the ground beneath your feet.

You pulled away and immediately ducked your head into Kakashi's shoulder. You wanted to scream, and jump, and cry, all at the same time, and all for joy.

"That wasn't your first kiss, was it?" Kakashi asked, pulling you into a hug. All you could do was shake your head, feeling a swell of some strange, unnamable emotion. You'd mull it over later; for now, you pushed it aside as Kakashi sighed, "Ah, I could only be so lucky."

"So- so- so- so, what... what are we doing?" You asked, bringing your hand to your lips and feeling the lingering tingle of his.

Kakashi pulled you away from him, and smiled. You could see his lips pull up, and the way his smile lines defined his face. You could see his smile, and you never wanted to stop seeing his smile. As your eyes roamed his face, his revealed eye did the same to yours.

A little while passed, and you felt no need to move. Not until you got your answer, at least, and this was a great pastime.

With a shallow breath, Kakashi broke the silence, and said, "We're doing whatever you want to do."

"Terrible idea, I'm demanding as fuck," you joked warmly.

"I've never seen you demand a thing," Kakashi countered swiftly, the corner of his lip quirking as he spoke. "And if you've just been hiding that from me, I'll give you anything, everything - if you want things."

"I don't want things... just you."

"Then, you have me."

You narrowed your eyes, sucking on the inside of your cheek. Cautiously, you asked, "So... are we going steady, then?"

"Do you want to go steady?"

Fucking stars, man, you just wanted an answer. "Obviously, I do - do you?"

"Yeah," he hummed contently. "Exclusive, right?"

"Is that not the point of going steady?"

Putting his hands up in mock-defense, smiling broadly, Kakashi chuckled, "Just making sure Raido doesn't have a chance with my girl."

"None at all, and I fear you may have ruined my dancing with him," you replied with a laugh, feeling lighter than air as the circumstance set in. You were talking to your boyfriend, now. You were spoken for, now. 

"Oh, no," he quipped, feigning worry. "How ever will I live with myself, if my lover can't dance with other men?"

Feeling a bit shameful, you rolled your eyes and scoffed, "Bugger off."

"I was going to propose quite the opposite, actually." Cripes, why did he have to be so suave? Your attention was piqued, and Kakashi noticed, basking in your questioning gaze for a moment before he grinned, "We should pop up to my apartment, have a couple cookies, and get to know each other, outside of our files."

"How untoward," you teased.

Without his mask, you could see how clearly Kakashi displayed his emotions with his mouth. The smile fell from his lips in an instant, and he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Oh, take a joke, boyfriend," you laughed, hooking your arm around his and moving the two of you toward his complex. "Besides, just 'cause I'm a pure, naive, little virgin doesn't mean I have any objection to pre-marital acts... I just don't... haven't ever enjoyed the company of a man so much, before."

"Awe, are you saying I'm the Chosen One?" Kakashi cooed, at some point having put his mask back on, moving up the steps to his building's front door. 

"Well, if we were characters in some fantasy story, sure," you shrugged with a smile as you ran up the stairs. Reaching the top first, you pulled open the door and bowed deeply, motioning Kakashi into his own building like he was a daimyo. "My liege."

"The Hell are you doing?" He chuckled as he walked past you and stopped, waiting for you to join his side. 

You did, gently closing the door behind you as you answered, "Doesn't the Chosen One deserve kingly treatment for being the hero of the story?"

"Mm, he only ever gets it from the Lover at the very end of the tale, and we're only at the beginning."

"And what the Hell am I in the story, then? Fuckin' Igor?" Getting into the staircase, Kakashi laughed loudly, shaking his head and trying to tamp it down. The vibrations bounced around the walls so beautifully, letting Kakashi's melodic laugh last longer than he let it. With a sigh, you added, "Don't you think that's a crime, anyway? The Chosen One not getting an ounce of love until the end of the story?"

Kakashi shrugged as he climbed the stairs, "He wouldn't be much of a character, without any trial or tribulation."

"Yeah, but too much hardship turns the Chosen One into the Villain," you argued. Making it past the second floor, you huffed, "And too many fucking stairs turn this Igor into a shaking mess- how you do these stairs every day, I do not know."

Making it to a landing, Kakashi stopped and turned to you, waiting for you to join him on the landing. You were grateful for the break, until it turned out to not be a break.

Sweeping you into his arms, in a bridal hold, Kakashi started climbing the stairs again as if nothing had happened.

"Are you not... man, I'm heavy, you're gonna-"

"You're as heavy to me as a cat is to a bear, Lover," he told you, voice firm and unwavering. He didn't sound very taxed, or even a little winded. "If it weren't for my side, I'd be able to carry you with one arm, and a tuba in the other."

"Now you're just trying to impress me," you laughed, shifting your weight to the side you knew was unaffected.

Not denying you, Kakashi hummed, "Is it working?"

"Very much so, but I'll need to see some proof."

"You just let me know when you get your hands on a tuba, darling."

How did conversation flow so naturally between you and Kakashi? There were very few people you routinely talked to that seemed to be able to stand you, but he seemed to do much more than just tolerate you. It seemed to you that you had finally found someone who could you could play off of, and you were shocked by how easy it actually was to speak to him.

Slowly, but surely, the remaining hours of night bled into the early hours of morning, while the two of you sat on Kakashi's bed. His mask was left abandoned, around his neck, the second the two of you were in the privacy of Kakashi's apartment. Over the night, you two shared an innumerable amount of tea, and cleaned off the plate of sugar cookies that you had brought over earlier, while talking.

And talking. And talking. And talking.

Neither of you could stop the flow of conversation, even if you tried. There was always something to say. Your topics ranged, from the gossip you'd picked up from Genma's friends, to traumas, to completely theoretical, philosophical problems surrounding the undue bloodiness of the life of a ninja.

You divulged every inch of your backstory; your parents' deaths during the attack, and your consequential clinging to Genma; how you would throw up at the thought of harming someone else, but were given the goriest patients in your early apprenticeship, because you had the strongest stomach; even down to the one other boyfriend you'd ever had, Kamizuki Izumo. You were only fourteen, but you thought you really did like him. You didn't - not if liking someone was supposed to feel how you felt now, with Kakashi.

In turn, Kakashi pulled back all the redaction that you had been previous affronted with in his file. He told you about his mother, then his father, and all the shame. Then, he told you about his Genin team... and the events that surrounded them, which only piled more shame onto Kakashi's shoulders. The shame then became attached to his will to prove himself a valuable member of society within the Leaf, he told you, which pushed him into the ANBU. He told you about the Nine Tails attack, from the perspective of Lord Fourth's lead guard, and then the following guilt he held. He told you about his current position in the specialized force, but couldn't give you anything further.

"I'm sorry, it's just for-"

"Hey, man, I had to enter into an NDA with the medical corps, too, don't worry," you assured him, clutching you tea close enough to your face that the steam was making you sweat a little. "Confidentiality is such a fucking thing in this village; all anyone cares about are secrets."

"Too true," Kakashi agreed, dunking one of the final cookies into his tea. You wondered how the sencha would do with the biscuit, and watched Kakashi's reaction. He bit it, then scoffed, "Fuck, we should have been doing this the whole time."

"It's that good, huh?" You followed suit before Kakashi hummed his affirmation, dunking the last half of cookie into your tea and biting it. It fell apart in your mouth, and the bitter undercut of the tea really did work well with the fullness of the kinako powder. You nodded, "Can't believe I haven't tried that before."

"Well, there are a few things I can't believe you haven't tried," your boyfriend remarked with a teasing smirk. Before you could respond, Kakashi's air turned anxious and he asked, "Anyway... do you want to know about my... previous engagements, or...?"

"Honestly, no." Your answer seemed to relieve both of you, but Kakashi still raised a brow in question as he finished the cookie. With a small, bashful smile, you explained, "The idea of you being with someone else kinda makes me... sick? Nauseated, that's for sure."

"I hear that," Kakashi chuckled as you popped the last bit of your biscuit in your mouth. He drank the last bit of tea in his cup before leaning to put it on the ground, then asked, "Are you jealous, or is it something else?"

"Oh, fuckin' right I'm jealous," you admitted, sipping your tea. Kakashi laughed lowly, and you shrugged, "I want you so bad, and it's gutting to know that other people have had you already." Your nose twitched, and you couldn't stop yourself from adding, "Especially when one of those people is my best friend."

That wiped the smile right off of Kakashi's face. Even you could feel a small pang in your chest, feeling the weight of your words on your tongue. It finally occurred to you that Kasumi would find out about your evolved relationship to Kakashi, either by the grapevine, or your own mouth, and she would certainly not be a happy camper, either way - no matter how many promises of permission she made.

"I meant what I said at the izakaya, as mean as it was," Kakashi mumbled, making you purse your lips and look down at your tea cup. "Though I meant it more like... if I had known you were there, waiting for me... I would have waited for you."

"Waiting sucks, man, you wouldn't have fucked with it," you joked, to Kakashi's surprise. Still, after the initial shock wore off, his smile crept back into his face as you said, "But I'm glad I did... my first time would have been wasted on someone I didn't really like."

"You really like me?" Kakashi asked, in a test of the teasing variety.

You nodded and looked at him with a grin. "I really, really like you."

"Take that, double it; that's how much I like you."

"Not a chance, Lance Romance - you can't even conceptualize how much I like you."

"Peanuts," he dismissed with a grin. "You know the universe?"

Feigning a moment of ignorance, you tapped your chin and asked, "The infinite one?"

"That's the one," Kakashi nodded, reaching out to bop your nose with his index finger. "My like for you is bigger than the infinite universe, tenfold."

"What a sap," you chortled, finishing your cup of tea and setting it on the ground before you laid back, onto Kakashi's crossed legs. With your head in his lap, Kakashi tensed for a second, before settling more comfortably and brushing the hair out of your face. 

"So very sappy, for you," he hummed, fingers trailing down your cheek to cup your face on either side.

"Then how's about a kiss? My lips are awfully cold," you offered, still feeling a bit novel at all this.

Kakashi's fingers encircled the underside of your jaw as his eye traced your facial features slowly. He hummed, contemplating his answer, and taking his time. So much time that you got anxious, and started biting your lip.

With his index finger, Kakashi pulled your lip down and looked at the glistening of spit for a second before he leaned down without a word. You angled your head up to meet him, but you were in a strange position, so there wasn't much you could do.

It was an odd kiss, that felt almost funny, but still sent wild electric shocks through your body. It was the upside-down-factor, but that didn't stop you from giggling against Kakashi's lip. He pulled up with a smile, looking down at you in your joy. "Don't tell me you're laughing at me."

"'Course not," you grinned, sitting up to be on your knees. "It just felt weird to have your nose tickle my chin."

As his eye darted between your lips and eyes, you got Kakashi's message and leaning forward with a smile, for another kiss. Your lips met his so kindly that you almost groaned at the contact.

Pulling you onto his lap without breaking the kiss, Kakashi's arms encircled your hips loosely. You were tired, your liver was crying, and your pussy throbbed - so, when Kakashi shimmied you both into a more prone position on his bed, you were game for anything.

You pulled up as his kiss got a bit slower. And you looked at him. 

The yellow light from his light fixture gave his skin a wonderful glow, and you wondered for a moment if Kakashi spent any time in the sun. He was a man made for the night, you figured, the light in his eye held far too many stars to not be.

Without a word, you rose from his chest and padded over to the light. You pulled the chain till it clicked, then washed the room in darkness. 

Strips of the sunrise peered through the curtains, and you could hear mourning doves if you tried hard enough. The faint buzz of Kakashi's fridge and his soft breaths were the only sounds that filled the room, which left you the room to breathe. A feeling of peace came over you, being surrounded by Kakashi's fresh citrus scent.

"C'mon, sweetheart," Kakashi called softly from the bed. "How's about a cuddle? I'm feeling a chill."

So, with a small, contented smile, you strode over to the bed and climbed in beside Kakashi. He tucked you under his arm, and held you to his chest. Ripples of heat came off of him still, and you put your hand and head to his chest to see if his heart was beating irregularly.

"Relax," Kakashi mumbled, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "You'll be able to check me out properly in... three hours, so we better rest up now."

Turning your head up, you caught Kakashi's lips again. The kiss was lazy, and so very slow, but it felt so right, and soothing to both souls. It lingered, as you laid your head on his shoulder and Kakashi craned his neck, but, soon, the throws of sleep began to call to you both.

Gentle as a kiss, a tear drop, or a star's twinkle, you two drifted to sleep, wrapped in each other's embrace; finally, having left nothing unsaid.

A/n: how do we feel? did we fw this?

[jackyandjackster]

-BeWITCHed-

Undertale Au Ideas full of witches!

Feel free to use them or whatever!

(Yes they're incomplete strories i couldn't finish)

"Sold my soul for a friend!"

Story follows Ink as a witch who's been lonely for thousands of years, the world had been revolving through war and peace. Many people he used to love had died due to war, sickness, sadness or old age. Because of this he decided to seclude himself from any mortal, only a few select witches like himself can visit him. Years passed, he grew bored and lonely, other witches don't really visit since they have their own lives. Ink as the ever so bored and sad witch decided to get an old book she found before secluding himself and sold his soul to the devil for a companion! An immortal, never dying companion non other than Error the cat! This particular cat can talk, do magic, help Ink and other cool stuff! With no more sadness and grief bothering Ink's mind and a brand new companion at that, he became carefree and re explore the world once again!

Bonus info:

-Ink is short that many misunderstood him as a kid.

-Error loves spooking children and adults. He can become a literal shadow and most of the time possesses Ink's shadow so Ink can move for him.

"Headless witch"

Error was born in a family of witches. he was an immortal who lived in a small cottage in the middle of the forest, although small for outside it was a castle inside! Of course he can shift inside of the house to look like a regular cottage for lost strangers, he still prefers large space because of how messy he is and he tends to keep random trinkets he finds when visiting a human village.

He made friends and great memories but like all mortals do they die and wither away, he wasn't depicted nicely either on books or folklore and was often being 'hunt' down and getting burned in a stake. Grief, sadness and betrayal fill his soul, he created a 'memorial' for those he once loved, it grew over the years and it hurts to see but he can't help but visit every day and cry.

He became cold and stoic to mortals, he doesn't wanna get close to any mortals anymore. He doesn't wanna experience the sadness and betrayal all over again. But he couldn't help it, a lost mortal soon found their way to his cottage, he was so kind and friendly, Swap was him name, they became best friends over the years but due to old age Swap died, and the memorial had another addition. He was so heartbroken and sade that he couldn't stop crying! Strings of tears continued to flow over the years and having enough of it Error cut half of his skull of but those damned eyes won't stop crying either way!

He made a special room for the half skull in witch automatically makes the strings into a ball, something like a yarn winder. But soon the room was flooded with plenty of string balls and he grew very annoyed and decided to throw his half skull on the far away lands in which the witch of darkness reside, Nightmare. The witch was very annoyed of Error, as strings flooded the pit of darkness, the problem was sold when Error brought back his skull back and re used the winder. The witch of darkness grew curious of him over time and follows him and soon became friends with him.....(idk what goes next)

(Inspired by a donghua called "brainless witch)

"Get my annoying brother away from me!"

Witch of dreams, Dream lives with non other than the king of darkness and vampires, Nightmare his older brother. On the outside they have a stone cold and rough relationship. Nightmare a stoic, stone cold and terrifying king and Dream the cold and science/alchemist maniac who loves to experiment on mortals.

Although in reality, Nightmare is a drunk lord who gets clingy to Dream for no reason, and Dream loves experimenting woth alchemy to discover hidden and unknown things! For knowledge of course, Nightmare is annoying to say the least always drunk in his brother's lab, one of the reason why rumors started that Dream was experimenting on Nightmare everytime he catches him. Nightmare is also very very lucky for some reason, people often misunderstood him to the point he somehow became a king! Darkness overlord?! More like Drunkness Overlord!

Stealing alcohol on chapels because apparently it has 'divine' taste. Dream doesn't know if that's a god-damned pun or he's just fucking with him or he's serious. (┐⁠(⁠‘⁠～⁠`⁠;⁠)⁠┌)

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

I have awoken from sleep to be really silly and considered a PrisonTrio Anastasia movie AU

Quackity wants to Get Rich and Get Out Of Here. Sam wants to impress Ponk again after their failed relationship. Dream would really just like a family after a lifetime of loneliness. Together they are absolute disasters who can't be normal about each other for five minutes. Includes:

that cool dream/nightmare sequence features Sapnap and George, who were Dreams childhood friends and absolutely killed during the uprising because they wouldn't tell their captors where Dream escaped to. When Dream gets his memory back he Totally Has No Trauma About That.

yes Quackity was the servant boy who helped Dream escaped. No he doesn't have any feelings about that. Shut the fuck up.

Sam is the one who makes sure Dream doesn't get pulled off the boat, and he spends the rest of the night holding onto Dream and refusing to let go because What If Something Happens He Needs To Be On Watch

Dream really doesn't have any idea why Quackity and this pink haired guy are arguing but Quackity is obviously terrified, even if he's taking great pains to look unaffected. And yeah, Quackity is a pain in the ass, but Dream still cares about him dammit, so really it's only natural to step in between them.

Dream is the same height as Techno, Quackity realizes. Except whereas Techno is built like a truck, well muscled through years of training, Dream is half starved, spindly and lean, like a tree that should have died its first winter but just kept fucking going. He glares at Techno, and Techno is taken aback.

Dreams hair is Just Long Enough to make a small ponytail at the base of his neck, and he keeps it tied there. Quackity is strangely focused on it, keeps complaining that it looks stupid and that Dream should cut it. When he finally snaps and kisses Dream, he tugs it out of his tail and gets his fingers tangled in it, tugging every which way just to hear Dream moan.

Sam is Not jealous of Quackity and Dream dancing together. He is Not eager for the times they get to share a bed so he can cuddle them close and nuzzle them. He is totally focused on Ponk, what are you talking about?

Ponk and him have an actual talk that isn't anger or shouting or waking up to a cold bed and a letter in red ink, and Ponk reveals she's seeing someone else. They get their closure, but she's moved on, and she gives him a kiss on the forehead and asks him to do the same. She walks off to dance with Foolish at the ball, and Sam goes to search for the people he's been fixated on since they started this mess

Dream is obviously pissed Quackity lied to him and tried to trick an old lady into accepting a fake grandchild for money because yeah, fraud is cool and all, but the woman sounds obviously fucking heartbroken her kid is dead, and Quackity Does Not Want To Be Having This Conversation For So Many Reasons. Dream he's just a silly little tax evader :[ and he realized you were Actually The Prince, It's Real Don't Be Mad (Dream is still mad)

However with the power of Yelling At Old People and Other Illegal Activities, Quackity makes sure Dream still gets his family back and then goes to get really, really drunk about it because now he has to deal with No Dream No Money And Who Even Knows Where Sam Went (Probably back to Ponk, which just makes the horrible feelings worse and he is just drinking from the whole bottle at this point)

Dream… Doesn't actually want the whole being royalty part, he just really wanted to be surrounded by people he loved. Where are those people what happened to them (One is at a bar being pathetic and one is freaking out attempting to find said bar)

oh cool we're fighting Rasputin now

Sam drives a car into him, so he's dead now.

Dream and Sam and Quackity are very bad at talking about their feelings, but somehow they manage to choke out something coherent, and then they go to live at one of the Queen's summer homes, where they proceed to be very bad at feelings for the rest of their lives

[xenon-demon]

🔀 for steddie 💕

Thank you so much for the ask Janai!!!!!! Just so we all know I'm shuffling my big "Liked Songs" playlist for this ask game, so any song I've saved on Spotify since 2017 could come up lmao. For this ask I got Love Might Be Found (Volcano) by Montaigne! Oooooh man okay this is such a good song, it's about being in the earlier stages of a relationship and then having to leave them for some reason, so you're wishing for a reason to stay and see if things would've worked out (like a natural disaster closing the airports or smth).

The obvious Steddie AU for this (at least imo) is therefore a modern AU where Corroded Coffin has the opportunity to make it big and achieve their dreams of becoming a famous metal band, but doing so requires moving away from Indiana. Moving away from Steve (who at this point is friends-with-benefits with Eddie and they're both hopelessly pining). Steve, who doesn't want to be the reason Eddie gives up on his dreams, just lets him go and pretends he's not madly in love with Eddie, since he thinks (correctly) that Eddie loves him back and would refuse to leave Steve behind if they were boyfriends. Eddie is heartbroken that Steve's not trying harder to keep him, because he really thought they had the start of something good together. Cue a prolonged period of extreme angst and long-distance pining from both of them, Eddie writes at least four heartbroken ballads about how much he misses Steve, Steve follows CC's progress in the music industry religiously but refuses to admit that to anyone. (Robin knows, though. She always does).

EVENTUALLY they get their shit together when CC throw a launch party for their sophomore album, at which point they've blown up enough that they can afford to invite their friends from back home as well. It's actually Jeff who invites Steve, because you've got him fucked up if you think he's going to listen to Eddie moan about The One Who Got Away™ for another fucking second. Steve is very skeptical of the invite, because he hasn't heard from Eddie since a few months after they moved away, but eventually caves on the condition he can bring Robin. They spend almost the entire launch party staunchly not speaking to one another, which gets very awkward when some of Eddie's new friends from the music industry start asking questions about how they know each other (because they very obviously do). It only stops when Steve and Robin are having an emotional debrief in the men's bathroom (because Robin is not going to let a gendered bathroom sign keep her away from her platonic soulmate in his time of need - and also CC hired out a function room for a private event, so the only people even using the bathroom are from their event). Mid-breakdown, just as Steve's about to admit he still has feelings for Eddie all this time, they get interrupted by someone entering the bathroom. It's Eddie, because of course it is.

Eddie tries to play it off as needing a piss, but he's obviously come in here for a mental breakdown of his own. Robin takes one look at the absolutely stricken way he looks at Steve, like he's been stabbed right through the chest at the sight of him, and takes a risk. She says she's going to guard the bathroom door until they sort their shit out and leaves them alone in there together.

To her credit, she lasts almost half an hour at the bathroom door of death-glaring every drunk man who so much as looks her way. But then she hears a crashing noise, followed by the distinct sound of someone moaning coming from the bathroom behind her, and decides those bastards are on their own now.

Send me a 🔀 and a pairing, and I'll shuffle my playlist and give you an AU about that pairing based on the first song that comes up!

[ronkeyroo]

Know what I think is both sad and hilarious? If Verstael hadn't set Ardyn on the path of vengeance as well as absorb Infrit's memories.....he could have been a 2,000 year old hottie just roaming the world with the expression of "i'm so done with this shit". Just this cocktail of depression and a slight lack of empathy with a dash of "fuck off".

Like, "Oh, YOU think you go it bad?! Yes, tell me how you were literally backstabbed back your own brother who also killed your fiance and then turned everyone your ever helped against you to the point they threw rocks and crap at you before being dragged off onto an island where you were left in total isolation for CENTURIES only to be rescued by this short little blond shit speaking gibberish who won't stop poking and proding you in the name of science and war?"

"Ummmm....."

"That's what I thought." The proceeds to just down a bottle of wine before going out to sleep in his car.

He'd be that cynical uncle who has ptsd, depression, and conspiracy theories. Which is ultimately sad and just horrible but like...can you imagine the dialog with other people?!? 😂 Just this whole attitude of, "Oh we're in an apocalypse? Shiiit, drink up and smoke 'em it you got 'em. This is going to be one hell of a ride."

ANON YOU ARE SO RIGHT IT MIGHT AS WELL BE CANON holy FUCK.

Dude his past hurt and resonated with me so fucking much, im still heartbroken. He's been through such unjust shit,,i want to give him everything from the life that was stolen from him to therapy and self care and the meanest- heart cleansing bj for real

i CRINGED SO BADLY when Verst' found him, tortured and alone, after all those years, and literally used Ardyn's pain against him like that. Like If i were Ardyn, i'd still be hot on revenge even if i wasnt manipulated into it, especially after the unforgivable shit somnus pulled out of his ass, but verstael just threw gasoline in those wounds man. Motherfucker literally used him as a weapon for his own gain and I wish someone better was there to find him first...Imagine the POTENTIAL, muah, delicious.

This HC of Ardyn you shared with me is SO well fleshed out and accurate to his character that i can see it ANIMATED and HEAR IT IN HIS VOICE HGGHFNF. Like imagine that half drunk, half spiteful chug of wine at the end of his rant followed by a tipsy head tilt and a dissatisfied, squinting glare before turning away with a "hmph". UGH i love him. I love him in any way. I love him when he's trash jesus and when hes hobo man. Its awful that he suffers in like most of those AU's but i will love him through it all ANYWAYS.

THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS WONDERFUL BIT, I SHALL BE THINKING OF IT FOR TIME TO COME

[vantemei]

imagine a world where your soulmate's name is written on your wrist in their handwriting from the moment you're born. 

now imagine taehyung, a bright eyed boy in love with the idea of love. 

imagine him growing up and dreaming of the day he'll meet his soulmate and finally find peace in the presence of the person he'll spend his life with.

imagine how happy he is for his friends as they meet their soulmates, and when he gets to university and still hasn't met his, still effortlessly beams brightly as his best friend announces he's finally met the girl who's name has been on his arm his whole life.

imagine taehyung meeting a senior, a man named min yoongi who hands him an attendance sheet from right beside him in a lecture and effectively takes taehyung's breath away because right there in the last filled spot is a perfect copy of the name that's been on his wrist since before he can remember.

now imagine taehyung thinking of the best way to tell, the most romantic way for yoongi to find out that he's finally met his soulmate, because of course yoongi has been waiting his whole life for taehyung as well. he decides that he wants to know yoongi first, to let yoongi know him before revealing it, so he introduces himself as tae and nothing more; decides to make it a game between them for the older to guess his name. yoongi gets one guess a day and every monday, wednesday, and friday, he gets it wrong.

after that, after months of yoongi begrudgingly becoming ensnared in the intricate enigma that is taehyung; months of taehyung prying smiles, genuine laughs, and soft touches from the introverted and soft hearted senior, taehyung finally decides it's time. he's going to tell yoongi who he is because at this point he can barely stand withholding the knowledge. he's fallen in love, and finally, he can be loved back.

now don't imagine the way taehyung sits beside yoongi in his dorm room for an afternoon study session and works up the courage to ask about yoongi's soulmate.

don't think of the sudden clenching in taehyung's stomach at the way yoongi's face scrunches up in distaste, or the way taehyung's throat closes up as yoongi tells him that he never wants to meet his soulmate.

don't think of taehyung biting his tongue until he tastes blood and digs his fingers into the thick leather bracelet he's been wearing over his soulmark for the past few months to keep the secret safe.

don't think of the way he flinches, legs tensing and stomach dropping as yoongi slowly pulls away the sports band he always wears around his left wrist to show taehyung the scarred, jagged flesh and distorted lettering of what used to be the name of his soulmate.

"i was sick of people telling me that my future was already planned for me, that i had no say in my destiny. i guess i went about it in a pretty dramatic way, i could have just gotten a tattoo or scribbled it out in marker, but i was so sick of my parents shoving their ideals down my throat. telling me i had to be a certain way or do a certain thing so i would be perfect for my soulmate. i was never asked if i wanted one, i never had a choice."

don't think of the way taehyung tearing his trembling hand away from his wrist and instead takes a sip of water to clear his dry throat and grips it as tight as he can as he asks the only thing he can.

"but what if you met your soulmate? it's wrong, what they made you do...that they told you you had to be a certain way or act a certain way just so someone you didn't know yet would want you, but...if you met them, if they suddenly found you and told you they wanted to be with you - to at least try...would you?"

don't imagine the look of pained certainty on yoongi's face as he shakes his head or the way taehyung feels tears burn behind his eyes at the answer.

"no. i can honestly say, i think i resent my soulmate at this point. i know it's not their fault but i can't help but blame my soulmate - the whole idea of soulmates honestly - because if you have to live with such a big part of your life already decided for you then what's there to look forward to? really....i hope i never meet them, because if i did...i think i would hate them."

don't imagine taehyung smiling his big warm smile as he waves yoongi off, the older returning a smile just as warm and fond and so completely unaware of the impact of his words. don't imagine taehyung's shaking body sliding down the inside of his door and the burning, choked sobs that leave his throat. don't think of him biting his lips bloody to try and keep his cries trapped inside because how can he ever let them out now? how can he ever let anything out now? his soulmate hates him. more than that, the man he loves can't stand even the thought of him.

don't imagine yoongi's worried messages to taehyung after the younger misses his third day of classes that week. don't imagine his relieved smile when taehyung shows up on the fourth day with slight bags under his eyes and his usual warm presence, smiling and cracking jokes and apologizing for missing classes due to a sudden cold.

whatever you do, don't imagine yoongi peering curiously at the fresh bandage around taehyung's left wrist and asking what happened, relaxing at taehyung's soothing voice as he brushes it off.

"it's nothing hyung, don't worry. i got in a fight with a potato peeler and lost."

don't imagine two weeks later when taehyung takes the bandage off in the safety of his own bathroom revealing the fresh pink scar tissue, healing in a broken rectangle with no hint of thin black lettering left, and lets the tears run down his cheeks freely as he smiles at where the name he loves so much used to be. because if he can’t be with his soulmate, with yoongi, the least he can do is set him free.

[gamerwoo]

hansol: the lovers playlist

characters: hansol x female reader

genre/warnings: idol au, best friends to strangers, unrequited love, angst but reader’s trying her best, a little bit of not-angst (not necessarily fluff tho) at the end, reader and co go to a club, alcohol consumption, reader gets a liiiiiittle drunk

word count: 1,241

summary: everybody put up your hands; say i don't wanna be in love; i don't wanna be in love

tag list: @anissanightyoung @aceofvernons @mythicalamphitrite @caratluvie @minluvly @honeyylin @miki-chi @heemingyu @noraehey @awkwardnesshabitat @floweryjessy @woozarts​ (if you’d like to be added to the tag list, please fill out this form!!!)

a/n: things in bold are english and things in bold italics are song lyrics.

previous song | next song | back to playlist

“Okay, that’s enough.”

You peeled your eyes open and squinted against the light coming in from the door. You couldn’t even see who was in the doorway, but you already knew who it was.

“We ended schedules early and you came home and went to bed,” Mira huffed as she stomped over to you and ripped the covers off of you. “I completely understand that you’re heartbroken -- I seriously do. But you can’t let this ruin your life. You’ve been locking yourself in your room every chance you get for like, two and a half weeks.”

“What, do you want me to just get over it?” you grumbled before ripping the blanket back from Mira’s grasp. 

From the hallway, you heard someone whisper, “What’re they saying?”

It made you groan and roll your eyes before covering yourself up again.

“I know you can’t help how you feel,” Mira sighed, “but you need to at least try. You’re letting this get to you. In fact, you’ve been making it worse.”

“You need to feel worse to feel better,” you told her, your voice muffled by the blankets.

There was a pause, and you could just tell she was judging your words.

“Who the fuck told you that?” she asked.

Instead of answering her question, you grumbled, “Go away. And tell the ones outside to get lost, too.”

You said that last part loud enough for them to hear, and you heard one of them yell, “Hey!”

“_____, we just want to help get you out of this slump,” Jieun said as she entered your room. “We hate seeing you like this.”

“It’s affecting your job at this point,” Eunji added on. “No offense, but your performances have gone down.”

You moved the covers from your face to glare at your members, “No they haven’t.”

Eunji merely shrugged and looked away.

“Jieun told me there’s a club having like a, early 2000′s English music night,” Mira told you with a smile creeping on her face. “There’s no way throwbacks won’t cheer you up.”

It did sound a little enticing... But your mood was still low enough to make you want to not leave your room for the next millennium. 

“Thanks, but--”

“It wasn’t a choice,” she interrupted, trying to pull the blanket off again.

You held on, but then Eunji grabbed on, and Jieun grabbed on. You had to release the covers unless you wanted to end up on the floor with them.

“It was a statement,” Mira concluded with a smirk on her face. “Get in the shower before I put you in there and scrub you down myself.”

-

You, Mira, Jieun, Eunji, Haeun, and Ayako made your way into the club. You already recognized the song they were blasting -- Boys Like Girls was a band you hadn’t heard of in years. 

“This brings me back,” Mira sighed happily. She always talked about how she missed going to school in America. She said the bus was always ‘a lawless land’ and that the ‘vibes were unmatched’.

She wasn’t wrong.

As the six of you went up to the bar to order drinks, you turned to your members and asked, “Did you only come for me?”

You knew this was music they didn’t necessarily grow up on. You didn’t know if they’d even enjoy themselves if they didn’t know the majority of the songs that were going to be played. Honestly, you didn’t even know why there was a club in Korea having an early 2000′s America night. 

Haeun just grinned at you and said, “We wanna make sure you have a good time!”

But from the way you downed your first shot after cheers-ing with your friends, they could tell you were absolutely not having a good time so far. But you’d only just got there, so there was still time.

Your mind was on Hansol. Despite telling yourself you were going to get over him, you absolutely were not over him. Moving his stuff out of your room was a step toward the right direction, but you still felt stuck in the same sad ditch you had been laying in since that night.

You hadn’t spoken to him or any of his friends since then. You could make the excuse that you had a busy schedule lately, but you used to always make at least a little time. There was no doubt they’d notice and start asking questions -- or at least, Hansol would. His members probably understood you were upset. And while distancing yourself would help, it also didn’t at the same time. It made you feel more alone. But what were you supposed to do? Go cry to Joshua or Seungkwan about it?

But this was the first time you had left the dorm for non-schedule related reasons. You were drinking, you were with some of your members, and you felt clean and presentable. Should you be wasting this time being sad? Shouldn’t you try to pick yourself up and at least pretend to be okay for a few hours?

Fake it ‘til you make it, right?

So you bought a round of two shots for you and your members, downed those, and Eunji offered to get the first round of mixed drinks. Then the six of you made your way to the dancefloor.

The alcohol definitely helped. You felt looser. You felt less heartache. It wasn’t a good coping mechanism and you knew that, but it at least helped you try and have a good time for the first time in almost three weeks. You danced, you sang, and you felt...happy. It might’ve been artificial happiness from the alcohol but it was something.

When you heard a familiar drum beat accompanied with a guitar riff, you and Mira gave each other that look you give your best friend when a song you both love comes on. It was a song you used to request the DJ to play at middle school dances because you thought you were edgy, but also secretly because you never had a date to dances -- they never played it. It was a song that both you and Mira felt like would be therapy to you now.

“‘She's going out to forget they were together,’“ you and Mira sang to each other, smiles growing on your faces. “All that time he was taking her for granted; she wants to see if there's more; than he gave she's looking for.’“

When you thought of Hansol like this, it was okay. When you were hung up on your feelings for him, that was when it became a problem. But when you had an ‘I don’t give a fuck about him or his stupid girlfriend’ attitude -- that was a good thing. And it really showed from the way your members grinned and laughed with you.

“’Everybody,’“ everyone in the club seemed to shout before beginning to jump with their music, hands and drinks going into the air, “‘put up your hands; say I don't wanna be in love; I don't wanna be in love!’“

Was it cheesy? Yes. But was it therapeutic? Abso-fucking-lutely yes. Your heart needed this kind of cheesy. Your mind needed it. You just needed a break from being sad, even if it was a short break. Even if it was only for tonight.

For one night since the night of the ball, you felt like you were enjoying yourself.

[daydreaming-in-letters]

In a week

Prologue

07/14/2022

Pairing: Andrew (Hozier) x Clara (OFC)

Word Count: 1,957

Warnings: rpf, au, language, alcohol, infidelity, drunk sex, one night stand, no explicit mention of protection, poor try at using Irish slang words

Summary: Unsuccessful musician Andrew is heartbroken after finding out that his girlfriend is cheating on him. At the pub, he has a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger who seems to share his fate.

Masterpost

A/N: Ok, this one is important to me for so many different reasons and that's basically why I decided to share it here even though no one might be interested on this. The idea had been sitting in my notes for years and I'm being literal here. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted the main male character to be like and along came Andrew, slithering into my imagination as if this story had always been meant for him. His music, the poetry in his lyrics and him being such a sweet person in general were just perfect for this. I hope some of you will enjoy it. And if you happen to know a few of Hozier's songs, you might find a line or two that sound vaguely familiar.

Picture by andrew welch via Unsplash (cropped and text added)

If you like my story, you are very welcome to like, comment or reblog. No permission is given to copy, repost or share my work on other platforms.

Hozier - Like Real People Do

Andrew’s notebook

God, what a night. To be fair, it’s what’s to be expected of a Friday night, but this…this was…different. Somehow surreal, like the day that had preceded it. But let me start at the beginning.

I entered the “Shrike & Thorn” already half fluthered and almost an hour late. And even though Fred has gotten quite used to my moderate tardiness over the last years, I could see that he wasn’t the most amused about it this time. Still, he didn’t say a word, probably expecting what had finally happened after things hadn’t exactly been the smoothest between Catherine and myself lately. Little did he know what I had found out mere hours ago, reading that effing text of hers that definitely hadn’t been intended to end up on my phone. She had been quick to delete it, but what had once been seen couldn’t be unseen anymore. Calling her and setting her straight would have been the reasonable thing to do, I guess, but, well, I’ve never been good at acting reasonably when somebody had crushed my heart. The bottle of usque at hand, it had been much easier to drown my anger anyway. Somewhere between self-pity and despair, I must have passed out. It was only when the muffled voices from the pub downstairs slowly began to seep through the thick carpet my cheek rested against that I woke from the dead again. 

So, there I was, guitar in hand, wondering how I even managed to hit the right notes as the music kept on flowing straight from my miserable heart, sad love song after sad love song, until Fred lifted a pint of the black stuff to indicate it was time for a break. I knew it was his way of complimenting me off stage, but there was enough ethanol running through my veins to overlook this scandalous affront. The pint of gat might have helped smooth my ruffled feathers as well, and so I took the hint and made myself comfortable at the bar for a while.

My sense of time long lost to the sweet intoxication, I had no idea how much of it had already passed when our eyes first met. Foc, she was a fine thing, dark blonde hair veiling her shoulders, falling all the way down to her ample breasts. Even without lipstick, her lips shone as red as cherry wine and I could have sworn I had never seen eyes like hers before, grey with a tinge of green, sprinkled with tiny flecks of gold. 

But the darkness they held, I knew only too well. There was no need to ask what had brought her to this place, and I’m sure she could also see the inner demons I was so desperately trying to rinse down my throat with every gulp of the black liquid in my hands. There was something bewitching about her state of misery, like some dark magic that pulls you in and chains you to your sorrow until it has consumed you wholly. It had befallen me as well the moment those few words had flashed up on my display and the dark claw of desolation had wrapped around my heart in an iron grip. It wouldn’t leave us be, not tonight, but I felt less alone knowing we shared the same fate. 

“Fred,” I slurred, but I felt too cozy in my inebriation to care about the loss of reins, “one of the usual for me and one of whatever she is having.” I pointed towards the heap of shot glasses lined up in front of the sweet one. For a second I thought he might dismiss my order, but then he bit his tongue and did as I had asked of him, setting one glass down in front of me before he lined up the other one with the empty glasses in front of her. 

It would have been fine by me to raise my glass with her from afar, but she obviously had other plans and who was I to object when she rounded the counter, gravitating towards me until the distance between us was nothing but a mere memory anymore. 

“What shall we drink to?” Her voice was as warm as the colour of her eyes, and still I shuddered as the bitterness of her tone invaded my ears above the noise of the other guests. Maybe it was that very bitterness that coaxed the rancorous answer from my mouth.

“To love.”

“Yeah, to love.” Her glass hit mine with determination. “May it fuck off and never dare show its fallacious face again.”

With a final glance, an exchange of bitter smiles, my head tilted back and downed the oily liquid. It burned more than it usually did, but the warmth it spread soothed my soul instantly. Or was it the shortest glimpse of her throat I caught, milky skin left unguarded like a pristine blanket of the first winter snow? 

With a harsh clank her glass hit the wooden surface of the counter and pulled me back to the impossible grey of her eyes. 

“God, I needed that.”

Her fingers dove into her hair and pulled it back from her forehead, my gaze captured by the four letters that were inked into her wrist in elaborate flourishes. 

“So that didn’t work out too well for you, did it?” I teased with a sheepish grin on my lips.

She glanced down onto the word my fingers pointed at.

“No, not today.”

I could practically watch the spirits leave her body that the shot had seemed to have so wonderfully revived, and the acrimony they left on her face made me regret my foolish remark immediately.

“Well, technically, today isn’t over yet.”

I had no idea where that moronic annotation had come from, and even less what it was supposed to mean. Apparently she didn’t know what to do with it either, thoughts racing behind her dulled eyes. But then they illuminated with a thrill, sparking the same excitement in the pit of my stomach as her fingers weaved through mine.

“Let’s get out of here.”

In a last second of sanity, I looked back at my guitar that stood abandoned on the empty stage, then to Fred behind the counter who smiled knowingly upon my dumbfounded face, seeing me off with a wink and a wave while she dragged me towards the door.

Outside, the fresh night air hit me like a wrecking ball. I stumbled, my eyes closing as the world spun before them. Prepared for the harsh impact that was inevitable, I didn’t even flinch as my back hit the cold stone. It was only when her heated body pressed into mine that I checked my surroundings. Instead of the pavement, my back had made contact with the bricks that covered the house wall behind me, her fingers tightly clutching the collar of my leather jacket. 

“Don’t you dare black out on me, bard, not before…”

“Before what?” I barely managed to force out while her sweet breath invaded the almost non-existent space between us.

With a wild grin she pushed herself up on her tiptoes, pulling me down by my collar the rest of the way to answer my question. Her lips were even softer than they looked, and even though they held the fading bitterness of her strong medicine, they pulled me from the deep hollow of self-pity I had buried myself in. Life returned to my parched veins in a rush, restoring the power it took to meet her passion with the same urgency. 

She moaned against my lips when I pulled her closer, her mouth falling open to welcome me inside and I could feel the familiar fire awaken when our tongues met for a sinful dance. The meaning of time long lost to desire, she broke away with a gasp and the storm behind her bewitching orbs of grey left me with a shudder.

“Take me to your place or take me right here. I don’t care. Just do something about this.”

Her hand left my collar to wrap around mine and guide it right to the centre of scorching heat at the apex of her thighs. We moaned in unison as my fingers drew along her mound, hers ending in a needy plea not even the most pious of man could have resisted. 

As if it bent to our will, the world seemed to stop for a moment, only to accelerate beyond the sensible, and all I am left with are snippets of the fevered frenzy that ensued. Clothes paving the way from front door to bedroom, greedy fingers familiarising with my naked flesh, touching, probing, seeking to map out the spots that left me at her mercy, until I was nothing but a lump of clay she could shape and form to sate her desire. 

Heated lips followed in the wake of her hands, leaving trails of scorching flames wherever they went, set on consuming the last remains of doubt or decency, if ever such feelings had reigned me to begin with. And the second we became one, my mind refused to believe there would ever be any other way of existing but within her. Like a queen taking her rightful place on the throne for the first time, she claimed me, ruled me, completed me with her saturnalian ascendancy. I didn’t dare touch her, afraid to distract her on her way to salvation as much as in awe of her raw ferocity. 

It was only when she came, violent like a force of nature, shaking and trembling in the shocks of sweet redemption, that I snapped out of my trance and yielded to the avid voice inside my head, telling me to seize the night and chase my own desires. I’ll never forget the glow of her eyes in the low lamp light, her body buried underneath mine, hands pinned above her head while I filled every last bit of her. No words were spoken, all that was needed was the silent challenge in her smile and I was free. 

There was no gentleness in the delirium that befell me, my passion was boundless, rough and fast, fuelled by her soft whimpers and pleading eyes, begging me to take her, to use her until my hunger was sated. And I did. 

In the afterglow, we just lay in silence, side by side, in awe of the satiation our selfish transgression had granted us, pacifying our agony, if only for a blink of time until guilt would creep up on us. There is one thought I remember as clear as anything and even though it was born from the heat of the moment, it has stuck with me ever since. If this was what the original sin had felt like, who were we to condemn Adam and Eve for their inequity?

This morning, she was gone, leaving me with nothing but her sweet scent on my skin to prove that she had been more than a mere fever dream. And I fear even that will fade soon, so I needed to write this down, to conserve at least this tiny piece of us. Because as much as my conscience tells me to loathe our sinful deeds, I can’t bring myself to regret a single second of last night. Not even the massive hangover it left me with. I think I will actually enjoy the dull hammering until it slowly fades, like the only evidence of her. There’s not even a name I have to remember her by, my sweet one. Well, I guess there we have it, the one thing I do regret after all. 

Chapter 1

[kankuroplease]

Tattoo Au Sasuke headcanons?

Admittedly, he only took Kakashi up on the offer of being his apprentice because he was injured and Kakashi let him hide out there until Itachi and Shisui showed up for him.

The idea of him doing something not Yakuza related never crossed his mind until that moment. Family is everything and this is what his does.

He didn’t even know this was the same guy Naruto was always talking about in class like an idiot.

It just felt like he owed him something for covering for his ass. So once he was healed enough, he limped back into Kakashi’s shop

He had a major learning curve, but once he locked in on the techniques, he started doing better in his apprenticeship and the rest is history

He camps out in many places outside of his own apartment when he’s injured. This is because of Naruto’s naïveté. He really thinks Sasuke’s dad is just a business man and Sasuke letting him believe that fantasy of his. Makes the world a little less dark 💀

In fact, he asked Naruto and Sakura to move in with him after they graduated high school because their optimism was somewhat infectious.

Watching them act like children over video games and having random drunk nights before they crowd his room to tell the lamest ghost stories is heartwarming. Won’t tell them this

Heartbroken when felt Sakura and himself drifting apart. He let things end with the belief that if they’re meant to be, they’ll come back together. If not, he’ll still always be wishing her well.

Appreciates that she tried to cheer him up with the bird feeder thing but hasn’t told her he was leaving gifts for the crows and training them, that’s why they have so many now.

Doesn’t appreciate her poking her nose in business that can get her killed and keeps the place clean of his family business for that very reason.

Knows both Naruto and Sakura go in his room for various reasons even when they’ve been told not to and has a list of punishments waiting for when he finds a blonde or pink hair in his freakishly neat room.

Has a pet cat he raised from a kitten. It’s a stray he picked up after a job and nursed it back to health

He always buys fresh cat food and toys for it when he can.

Can’t pass it without giving it scratches

Hasn’t named it much to Naruto and Sakura’s dismay. Just calls it ‘cat’

Hates going to Itachi’s night clubs because there’s always a lot of unwanted attention on him.

Annoyed that Naruto’s sister has been showing up at these clubs and making a scene. He’ll yank her off stage and march her straight out the club by the arm and calls Sakura to come and get her. She’s lucky he doesn’t call her mother and half of his tempted to do it.

Very lucky he doesn’t feel like popping Naruto daydream bubble and telling him why she shouldn’t be at these clubs

He was shocked the first time he learned about Kakashi’s relationship. A threesome is one thing, he can even picture him in a vee. but a triad? KAKASHI? Guess that’s why he’s so tired all the time.

Especially because Obito is one of his partners. He didn’t get to work with Obito but he’s met him at meetings, and that was.. a lot.

Knew that first kkobirin baby was Obito’s from a quick glance when Kakashi brought her to the shop the first time. He just didn’t say anything because that’s not his business and Kakashi didn’t seem to care either way.

Also knows “hot biker” guy Yamato’s been seeing/keeping a secret from the shop is named Genma. Ran a full background check, he’s an alright guy. But again, he’s not going to tell anyone Yam’s business. If he wants to share his private life with the shop, he will.

Didn’t want to share hid space with Sai at first because he’s bad at “playing nice” with new people.

They actually ended up bonding over their shared awkwardness with new people, constantly having clients mix them up, and Sai’s quick wits but lack of awareness being amusing to Sasuke.

He’s not as talkative to his clients as the others are. They can talk all they want but they’re lucky if they get more than a grunt in response.

If he’s not doing tattoos, he’s over seeing the work of his subordinates.

Keeps his opinions to himself over the possible future boss of the Uchiha. Of course he thinks Itachi can do it, but so can Shisui. Also there’s no way Madara is being dethroned anytime soon.

Gets scolded by Tsunade frequently for popping stitches and coming to her to fix it. What happened to his med school roommate? She should be able to handle a few stitches by now. Ah, don’t want to worry her? Stop reopening your wounds 😤

Gets scolded by Hinata for not buttoning his shirt all the way up and showing his tattoos. Does he want everyone to know what he does and who he is.

Nvm he’s an Uchiha. They are very proud, have a lot of territory, control law enforcement and politicians. He doesn’t have to hide.

Shisui, Sasuke, and Hinata do go to a lot of the same events a lot as representatives and that how he knows about Hinata’s prospective fiancé. The guys try not to laugh when Hinata walks away or while Toneri is trying to impress her.

Of course it’s amusing when it’s not him, but when the hoards of singles at these events flock him, it’s a different story

Likes setting by the beach and watching the sunset when he wants to be alone.

Has dinner with Itachi every Saturday. It’s a small tradition they have and Sasuke’s always looking forward Itachi’s latest recipe and throwing knives afterwards. They talk about nothing and everything all at once 🖤

[in-ky]

An Old Scent [4] - Negan x Reader (A/B/O AU)

Summary: During summer break, you decide to come back home to visit your dad, Rick. Over the course of your stay, you realize that your dad's friend is pretty hot.

Warnings: literally just seduction and smut for this chapter lol, biting, ~aggressiveness~, pet names, fingering, penetration, edging?, breeding kink, soft aftercare negan :)

A/N: so this is the first smut i've ever written! i hope it's alright, some feedback would be awesome :) i hope you guys enjoyed my first story! 3k words

The next few days were a blur. Negan would come in, give me food, water, and a backrub, and then leave me to my own devices. I wanted to ask him for more, but for some reason I never did and he never tried anything. That wasn't to say he didn't want to. I could tell that my smell alone had an effect on him. That was obvious by the noticeable bulge he sported when he got up from by bedside and exited my room. Yet the alpha had an insane amount of self-control. So I got myself through my heat.

When my head finally cleared of the fever, the first thing I did was text Bee.

'All good now.'

'Thank the gods. So??? How was he? Am I going to be an aunt?'

'I wouldn't know. It didn't happen.'

'You guys didn't fuck? Jesus, you should get an award for the most disciplined omega on the planet.'

'I wouldn't go that far haha. I still want him more than anything.'

'Well, who says you have to be in heat for that to happen?'

'Fair point. Talk to you later, xo.'

I tossed the phone onto my mattress and crossed over to my dresser. Now that I wasn't a moaning mess, I had some semblance of self-control. Which meant that I could seduce Negan in a way that I wanted. In a way that would make him pounce and fuck me until we passed out. He had gone out to the store for a restock of the pantry so I had about thirty minutes to get myself together for him. I foraged through my underwear drawer until my fingers wrapped around a pair of black lace underwear and a matching bra. My lips curled wickedly. If this didn't get him riled up, I didn't know what would. I laid out the set on my bed and moved to my closet for the perfect outfit. I was still wearing Negan's shirt and boxers. They were admittedly very wrinkled and a bit stained from all the fluid that had been produced from my body in the past few days, but Negan didn't seem to mind. I reminded myself to follow up on his orders before I put my plan into motion. I flicked through the hung up clothes before settling on a cute black dress with a sparse sunflower pattern. It was low cut and showed off all of my goods. Perfectly. I put that safely next to my undergarments and headed out of my room.

Peeling off the clothes was harder than I thought. They were a bit crusty in some areas, particularly the crotch, and I almost felt bad for ruining Negan's clothes. Almost. I folded them as best I could given their condition and placed them reverently in the center of his bed. I found a piece of paper and scrawled a note over the middle. I folded the paper in half and put it on the pile of clothes. I nodded in satisfaction and headed into the bathroom for my shower to scrub off the remaining fluids that still clung to my skin.

~~~

My heart raced as I heard the front door click closed. I could tell by the footsteps that it was Negan. That and the fact that all I could smell was that goddamn smell. The scent that could drive me crazy with just one breath. A sudden doubt edged at my mind. What if he didn't want me. What if I was misreading the signals? I shook my head roughly, clearing the negative thoughts. Even if he did reject me, I could play it off to the endings of my heat...besides, I was leaving in a few days and I could wait to be heartbroken in Colorado.

My heart stopped it's assault on my chest cavity when I heard his heavy steps ascend the stairs. He cleared his throat and entered his room. I could hear a small growl escape his throat. He had found my present. I closed my eyes and imagined him suffocating himself in my smell, much like I had when I saw the clothes in the bathroom. I forced myself back to the present when I heard the crinkling of paper. He gave a little scoff of laughter and I heard him cross the hallway and twist my door open.

"Hey what did you wanna talk abou-oh." He trailed off and stiffened as his eyes caught my body. I was laying on my side, one hand propping up my head, the other draped over my round hip. The deep cut of the dress exposed my breasts as well as some of the bra to him. I saw him drag his tongue over his lip and it ignited a fire in the pit of my stomach. I pushed myself up and swung my legs over the side of my bed, rising to my feet and sauntering over to him. I watched him watch my hips sway with every movement.

"I just wanted to thank you," I purred, voice dripping with seduction "for taking such good care of me." His jaw tensed as I placed my hands on his chest, running my palms up to his shoulders and pushing off his leather jacket. "I really appreciate it."

"What are you doing?" He whispered. I could tell it was taking every ounce of control he had to not grab me by the throat and pin me up against the wall. Little did he know, that's exactly what I wanted.

"I wanted to return the favor," I said, blinking wide eyes up at him "Surely there's something I can do to show you how thankful I am, alpha." His eyes closed and a growl rumbled through his chest at the name. My hands trailed down his chest to his abdomen. But before I could reach his belt, Negan grabbed my wrists. I pouted at him.

"Careful, omega," He warned, eyes dark "don't start something you're not willing to finish." My frown turned into a sultry smile. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him where his ear connected to his jaw.

"Please, Negan," I whimpered in his ear. His grip on me tightened "Alpha, fuck me."

"Shit, doll, you don't have to ask me twice." Negan growled. His hands grabbed my waist and hoisted me up around his midsection, hurriedly capturing my lips in a bruising kiss. He thrust his tongue into my mouth as he walked us over to my bed. It was all a blur as I fell onto my back and he moved away from the kiss. He bit and sucked at the skin of my neck, attacking my pulse point in the best way possible.

"Alpha." I moaned, tugging at his shirt. He grunted against my neck and continued his trail of love bites until he met the collar of my dress. Negan growled in disappointment at the lack of skin and used his large hands to tear at the fabric. I gasped as the cool air of the room met my heated skin. He let out a feral groan as he drunk in the sight of me in the black lace set.

"I hope you didn't like that dress." He mumbled as he tossed it over his shoulder, returning to his suckling.

"It was too small." I gasped, finding my hands entangled in his hair. "Ugh, Negan!"

"Fuck, you're beautiful." He hummed, one of his fingers trailing down the middle of my stomach towards my rapidly pulsing core. I whimpered as he got closer, hoping that he would dip beneath the waistband, but he continued over it, cupping my sex over my panties. "And so damn wet. Shit, darling, is this all for me?" My eyes fluttered open to see a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. He was a bastard. But I was too aroused to care.

"Yes, alpha, all for you." I gasped, sitting up and tugging at the bottom of his shirt. I pushed it up his body and over his head. He lifted his arms and I pulled it off him.

"A little eager, are we?" He snickered.

"Negan, you don't know how fucking bad I need you," I whined "I was dying during my heat. I needed my alpha." I pulled him back on top of me, pressing my lips against his. My face was starting to burn because of his stubble, but it felt amazing.

"But I do fucking know, princess," He gasped between kisses, pulling away with one of my lips between his teeth. "It was so difficult not to flip you over and fuck you right then and there. I knew you wanted me, but I wanted to wait until you weren't some sex-crazed beast to admit that."

"Well I'm done now," I grinned, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling him close. He hissed as his clothed erection rubbed against my pussy. "So fuck me right here and now." I bit his ear lobe and peppered kisses along his jawline until I met his lips again. He chuckled against me, lips curling into a smile.

"Can-fucking-do 'mega."

He unhooked my bra and tossed it to the side, capturing one of my hardened nipples in his mouth. His tongue added with the scruffiness of his beard was enough to make me toss my head back in pleasure. A string of profanities left my lips as he moved to the next one, kneading the one that he just left. My insides were burning and I needed him lower. Thankfully, he began to kiss down my navel, leaving bites to mark his path. When he reached my panties he used a combination of his teeth and his fingers to drag them down my legs. Once they were gone, he kissed up my calves and my thighs, stopping in front of where I needed him most. He planted one of his hands on my hip and used two of his other fingers to spread my lower lips apart. I let out a moan at the action, bucking slightly into his touch.

"Stay put for me, doll," He ordered before giving my hip a kiss "I know you want my knot but I've gotta get you ready first." I just whimpered in response. He slowly entered his two long fingers into my aching cunt. I let out a heavy breath and grasped onto his shoulder, digging in my nails. He deftly curled his digits upward, hitting that sweet spot almost instantly. I cried out in surprised pleasure. I figured Negan was experienced but he knew where everything was. He scissored his fingers and I gasped at the stretch. It had been a while since I actually had something moving inside of me. I could only imagine what his cock would feel like. The thought made my walls clench around him. When he brought his thumb up to press gently on my clit, I dug my fingernails deeper into his skin. He worked the pad in circles, bringing me to an edge I was very willing to jump off.

"Fuck, Negan, I'm..." I huffed, eyes screwing in pleasure.

"Do it baby, cum for your alpha." At his permission, I let the tight band snap and my legs shook with the intense orgasm that crashed through my body. I breathed heavily and arched my back. When the intensity subsided, I collapsed back and brushed the hair back from my face. I felt Negan remove his fingers from my core and I opened my eyes to see him lapping up my juices that had dripped down his palm. Another spark of arousal was already beginning to form.

"Finally got my taste," He moaned, licking his lips in satisfaction "and shit, doll, you taste even better than you smell."

"Please, Negan," I whimpered.

"Please, what?" He cooed, crawling over me and pressing a kiss to my forehead "Use your words, omega."

"Please fuck me, alpha."

He ripped off his belt and unbuttoned his jeans, letting out a sigh of relief when he kicked the restraining fabric to the side. His hard cock was outlined against his boxers. He was right about needing to be prepared; he was huge, no doubt the biggest I had ever seen. A proud smile formed on his lips when he caught me ogling his goods.

"You ready for my dick?" He growled, tugging down his boxers and letting his cock spring free. It was angry, desperate for any sort of contact.

"Please," I gasped.

"Then present for your alpha." I rolled onto my elbows and knees, sticking my ass in the air and wiggling it in hopes that he would pay attention to my weeping slit. "Fuck you look so good." Negan grumbled, scooting closer to me. He ran the head of his cock up and down my entrance. I whimpered and pushed myself back eagerly. He gave me a slight hit on my ass cheek. "I'm in charge here, don't forget that."

"Y-Yes, sir." I said, fisting the sheets in my hands. Thankfully, Negan wasn't in a teasing mood and he slid himself into my pussy in one thrust.

"Fuuuuck," He hissed as he bottomed out, fingers gripping my hips harshly. I would have bruises everywhere tomorrow. But I didn't mind, it would be a reminder that this actually happened. "You're so goddamn tight. Shit." I clenched my walls around him and he let out a husky groan, causing me to smile. He wasn't completely in control. After I was adjusted to his size, I gave him a whimper as a signal to move. And he did. He pounded into me, hips ramming into my ass with every thrust. He fucked me like a wild animal and every time he buried himself inside me, his cock would hit that perfect spot. We moaned in sync with the sounds of skin slapping skin. One of Negan's fingers drifted down beneath himself and he furiously rubbed at my clit. The stimulation was enough to send me into another mind-boggling orgasm, but Negan shut that down quickly.

"Don't you fucking dare cum until I tell you to, understand me?" He growled, resting his head against my shoulder. I couldn't form words so I just nodded frantically. "I'm gonna pop my knot in you, omega. Gonna fill you up. Gonna breed you so good," He huffed between thrusts "You're gonna look so goddamn beautiful when you're round with my fucking pups. Then everyone will know you're mine." I moaned in agreement. I don't know what I moaned, but it was a combination of his name and a curse. A few thrusts later and I could tell that Negan was close. His breathing was heavier and his hips were staggering against mine and his knot was catching at the entrance of my pussy. "Cum with me, baby," He ordered "Let me feel you." With that I let go, letting my walls spasm around his thick cock. He came at the same time, spilling his seed deep within me. I milked him for every drop.

Out of instinct, I tossed my neck to the side, exposing my mating spot to the man above me. With a growl, Negan sunk his teeth into my skin, bonding us together. Fireworks shot through my body and I collapsed beneath him. Negan rolled us both over onto our sides, still inside of me. He lapped at the blood spotting at his bite mark. It took a few moments for us both to catch our breath, but Negan was the first to speak.

"I'm going to take such good care of you," He promised. It was the same tone that he had used at the dinner table when I asked him about the situation with his ex-fiancé. Sincere, vulnerable. "I might not be the best man, but I promise you I will always be there for you and whatever pups we might have. I've never felt like this before and I just...I don't want to fuck it up." I looked over my shoulder and saw worry in his eyes. I gave him a small peck on the nose.

"You won't fuck it up, Negan," I murmured, giving him a reassuring smile "Trust me, I won't let you." We both let out a soft laugh. "I trust you. You're my alpha. I know you'll be the best one you can be, and that's all I can ask for. You're lucky I'm a very patient person."

"Not in bed, you're not." He teased, giving me a wink. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "I don't want you to leave. You'll have to go back to Colorado soon. I don't know if I can handle my girl being so far away. Especially around other alpha assholes." I felt his grip tighten around me. I lifted a hand and stroked his arm.

"Don't worry about that yet," I sighed, closing my eyes. I would be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it either. But that wasn't the most pressing issue we had to face. "Let's figure out how we're going to tell Rick first." Negan groaned and wrinkled his nose.

"Can you not mention your dad when my dick's still inside you?" He grumbled. I let out a giggled and kissed his knuckles.

"Sorry," I hummed "just saying, I'm not sure how well he's going to take it."

"Well, he better take it like a fucking champ." Negan huffed "'cuz if he doesn't he's gonna fucking regret it."

"Negan," I warned gently "He's my dad. You're his friend. We're mated now. It's gonna be weird for him. You gotta respect that."

"You really do bring me down to earth don't you," He sighed, nuzzling my neck "I guess I underestimated how much I need you." I let out a yawn and rubbed my eyes with a groan.

"I didn't hurt you did I?" He asked, genuine concern lacing his words.

"No, I'm just tired," I giggled "I haven't been fucked that good before."

"Damn straight you haven't." He smirked. Negan gave my neck a kiss and pulled himself out of me. "You get some rest, I'll clean us up and then we can cuddle. When we wake up I'll make you anything you want, deal?"

"Deal."

Not how I expected my summer trip to go, but I'm very happy it ended like it did.