#marketing strategies that actually works

[wizardsix]

is it just me or is bioware spoiling way too much about the game . talking about gameplay improvements is one thing but revealing story and companion arcs seems very insecure to me bc now the mystery is gone when people play for the first time . seems like they're trying too hard to prove that their game isn't garbage after that first trailer but this is not how you do that

[ladywaterfall]

gonna learn some canva to better my chances of getting a new marketing job. to make it fun and Not Scary for myself I'm thinking of making little graphics themed around ponies I like, so i can get a little practice and post them here without feeling like they need to be the Best Thing Ever

[microsuedemouse]

(partially-solved?) mystery of the night:

in late 2020 I tweeted something about Summer Girl, a summer hit from a Canadian band called Stereos, that came out all the way back in… 2009 (oh my god).

I have no idea if this track got much international airtime, but I’m betting fellow Canadians remember it, because it was eeeeeverywhere for a while. I vaguely remember the band coming out with another song that did relatively well on pop radio not long after, but I don’t think I ever heard much about them after that. I certainly didn’t know they were still around.

…Until tonight, when at 1am, they suddenly liked that tweet and also followed me.

Hi??

This led me to their page, where I discovered that they’re putting out a new version of Summer Girl this week. (At least this explains why they were probably searching for mentions of their band + that particular song, bc I don’t see how else they found my nearly-four-year-old tweet.)

I… have to admit I’m kinda curious? The song was a bop, in the way that formulaic pop hits so often are, but it’s also pretty damn dated. It SOUNDS extremely 2009. (Still reeling from the discovery that fifteen years have passed, though.) I’m interested to see how they might have updated the sound to be more contemporary and (hopefully) more unique to the band.

[finexbright]

instead of listening to a banger of a no skip album, you all are out here having a discourse about something that's not even valid in this case. just listen to the album and enjoy how hard it slaps

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

[verstarppen]

hear me out….. okay reader is famous and meeting fans,, a fan is wearing a top with like charles or max or whoever’s face on it and reader spots it and is like “…who is that😮‍💨” and the fans tell her and shes like “please show me their instagram” and then she follows whoever the guy you choose on ig,,, but one of the fans was recording the whole interaction qnd the video goes viral as well as a screenshot of readers ig following their account <3333 you can ignore i just thought this would be a good giggle type fic and your fics are my fav for giggling <33333

summary; your comic book signing takes a turn when a fan walks in wearing a t-shirt with a poorly photoshopped "charles lechair" or wheover that is

pairing; charles leclerc x fem! comic book artist! reader [ no faceclaim ]

a/n; this is for my charlie girlies i see your comments ladies and they make me smile im lurking and im stalking when you least expect it; all art used in this is by my lord and saviour dan mora if i could eat his artsyle i would

liked by charles_leclerc and 430,010 others

ynlantern thank you everyone who stopped by for a print or a sticker @ comic_con ! and if you haven't, i'm here for the next 2 days

view all 100,333 comments

orangleclerc HE'S IN THE LIKES Y'ALL

kirbyvettel can someone pls explain what's going on orangleclerc I'll DM you the video baconforza HEY I WANT TO KNOW TOO lionkingseb ffs please someone explain

egggrosjean I've never cared about anything superhero related but this whole situation made me look into your work, and I have to say it's amazing!!! Keep up the good work

roboclaren HE FOLLOWED HER BACK LMAO

liked by charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1, ynlantern and 5,331,254 others

pierregasly He's great with kids and dogs

view all 1,699,314 comments

monte_carlos_55 STOP EMBARASSING HIM

verstoppen "My crush is coming act cool" My friends:

charles_leclerc What did I say

pierregasly I'm doing free promotion charles_leclerc You're talking a lot of shit for someone within bitch slap distance pierregasly Delete this, you're ruining my marketing strategy

scuderiaferrari It's true! He's actually a driver, strategist and team principal!

ynlantern isn't half of that your job? scuderiaferrari @ charles_leclerc Nevermind, we don't like her. charles_leclerc 😐

liked by charles_leclerc, pierregasly, carlossainz55 and 1,200,100 others

ynlantern i heard he solved world hunger or something

view all 800,121 comments

vertiddieenjoyer WAR IS OVER

ceruleanwilliams historians in 2294 trying to figure out what charles leclerc actually did and what the internet said he did to get him a date: 😰

pierregasly No need to thank me

honeyvettel the real main character

arthur_leclerc You did it. You crazy son of a bitch you did it.

charles_leclerc No swearing under her posts, please arthur_leclerc Yes, mom.

liked by ynlantern, carlossainz55, maxverstappen1 and 2,474,551 others

charles_leclerc Round 2 :)

view all 505,041 comments

scuderiaferrari That was fast

carlossainz55 Unlike our pitstops scuderiaferrari You're getting distracted charles_leclerc Wish I could get distracted out of SF-23

pic credits: instagram and pinterest

blog taglist: @coffeehurricanes @iifloweringnightsii @jsjcue @lanando4 @fastcarsandshit @christianpulisic10 @allygatcr  (it's been a week and im already crying screaming throwing up without f1 help me)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Here's a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical stuff you own) are trumped by corporations' metaphorical "intellectual property" claims.

That's a lot to unpack! Let's start with a quick primer on profits and rents. Capitalists invest money in buying equipment, then they pay workers wages to use that equipment to produce goods and services. Profit is the sum a capitalist takes home from this arrangement: money made from paying workers to do productive things.

Now, rents: "rent" is the money a rentier makes by owning a "factor of production": something the capitalist needs in order to make profits. Capitalists risk their capital to get profits, but rents are heavily insulated from risk.

For example: a coffee shop owner buys espresso machines, hires baristas, and rents a storefront. If they do well, the landlord can raise their rent, denying them profits and increasing rents. But! If a great new cafe opens across the street and the coffee shop owner goes broke, the landlord is in great shape, because they now have a vacant storefront they can rent, and they can charge extra for a prime location across the street from the hottest new coffee shop in town.

The "moral philosophers" that today's self-described capitalists claim to worship – Adam Smith, David Ricardo – hated rents. For them, profits were the moral way to get rich, because when capitalists chase profits, they necessarily chase the production of things that people want.

When rentiers chase rents, they do so at the expense of profits. Every dollar a capitalist pays in rent – licenses for IP, rent for a building, etc – is a dollar that can't be extracted in profit, and then reinvested in the production of more goods and services that society desires.

The "free markets" of Adam Smith weren't free from regulation, they were free from rents.

The moral philosophers' hatred of rents was really a hatred of feudalism. The industrial revolution wasn't merely (or even primarily) the triumph of new machines: rather, it was the triumph of profits over rent. For the industrial revolution to succeed, the feudal arrangement had to end. Capitalism is incompatible with hereditary lords receiving guaranteed rents from hereditary serfs who are legally obliged to work for them. Capitalism triumphed over feudalism when the serfs were turned off of the land (becoming the "free labor" who went to work in the textile mills) and the land itself was given over to sheep grazing (providing the wool for those same mills).

But that doesn't mean that the industrial revolution invented profits. Profits were to be found in feudal societies, wherever a wealthy person increased their wealth by investing in machines and hiring workers to use them. The thing that made feudalism feudal was how conflicts between rents and profits cashed out. For so long as the legal system elevated the claims of rentiers over the claims of capitalists, the society was feudal. Once the legal system gave priority to profit over rent, it became capitalist.

Capitalists hate capitalism. The engine of capitalism is insecurity. The successful capitalist is like the fastest gun in the old west: there's always a young gun out there looking to "disrupt" their fortune with a new invention, product, or organizational strategy that "creatively destroys" the successful businesses of the day and replaces them with new ones:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

That's a hard way to live, with your every success serving as a blinking KICK ME sign visible to every ambitious person in the world. Precarity makes people miserable and nuts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

So capitalists universally aspire to become rentiers and investors seek out companies that have a plan to extract rent. This is why Warren Buffett is so priapatic for companies with "moats and walls" – legal privileges and market structures that protect the business from competition and disruption:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-explains-moat-principle-164442359.html

Feudal rents were mostly derived from land, but even in the feudal era, the king was known to reward loyal lickspittles with rents over ideas. The "patents royal" were the legally protected right to decide who could make or do certain things: for example, you might have a patent royal over the production of silver ribbon, and anyone who wanted to make a silver ribbon would have to pay for your permission. If you chose to grant that permission exclusively to one manufacturer, then no one else could make it, and you could charge a license fee to the manufacturer that accounted for nearly all their profit.

Today, rentiers are also interested in land. Bill Gates is the country's number one landowner, and in many towns, private equity landlords are snappinig up every single family home that hits the market and converting it to a badly maintained slum:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

But the 21st Century's defining source of rent is "IP" – a controversial term that I use here to mean, "Any law or policy that allows a company to exert legal control over its competitors, critics and customers":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP is in irreconcilable conflict with real property rights. Think of HP selling you a printer and wanting to decide which ink you use, or John Deere selling you a tractor and wanting to tell you who can fix it. Or, for that matter, Apple selling you a phone and dictating which software you are allowed to install on it.

Think of Unity, a company that makes tools for video-game makers, demanding a royalty from every game that is eventually sold, calling this "shared success":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

Every time one of these conflicts ends with IP's triumph over real property rights, that is a notch in favor of calling the world we live in now "technofeudalist" rather than "technocapitalist":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Once you start to think of "IP" as "laws that let me control how other people use their real property," a lot of the seemingly incoherent fights over IP snap into place. This also goes a long way to explaining how otherwise sensible people can agree on expansions of IP to achieve some short-term goal, irrespective of the spillover harms from such a move. Hard cases make bad law, and hard IP cases make terrible law.

Five years ago, some anti-fascist counterdemonstrators hit on the clever idea of blaring top 40 music during neo-Nazi marches, on the theory that this would prevent Nazis from uploading videos of their marches to Youtube and other platforms, whose filters would block any footage that included copyrighted music:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

Thankfully, this didn't work, but not for lack of trying. And it might still work, if calls for beefing up video copyright filters are heeded. Cops all over the place are already blaring Taylor Swift songs and Disney tunes to prevent their interactions with the public from being uploaded:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

The same thinking that causes progressives to recklessly argue in favor of upload filters also causes them to demand that web scraping be treated as a copyright crime. They think they're creating a world where AI companies can't rip off their creation to train a model; they're actually creating a world where the Internet Archive can't capture JD Vance's embarrassing old podcast appearances or newspaper editorial boards' advocacy for positions they now recant:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

It's not that Nazi marches are good, or that scraping can't be bad – it's just that advocating for the use of IP to address either is a cure that's not just worse than the disease – it's also not a cure.

A problem can be real, and still not be solvable with IP. I have enormous sympathy for gamers who rail against cheaters who use aftermarket hacks to improve their aim, see through buildings, or command other unfair advantages.

If you want to tell a stranger how they must configure their PC or console, IP ("any law that lets you control your competitors, critics or customers") is an obvious answer. But – as with other attempts to solve real problems with IP – this is a cure that is both worse than the disease, and also not a cure after all.

Back in 2002, Blizzard sued some hobbyists over a program called "bnetd." Bnetd was a program that provided a game-server you could connect to with the Blizzard games that you'd bought. It was created as an alternative to Battlenet, Blizzard's notoriously unreliable game-server software that left gamers frustrated and furious due to frequent outages:

https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

To the public, Blizzard made several arguments against bnetd. They claimed that it encouraged piracy, because – unlike the official Battlenet servers – it didn't check whether the copies of Blizzard software that connected to it had a valid license key. Gamers didn't really care about that, but they did respond to another argument: that bnetd lacked the anti-cheat checking of Battlenet.

But that wasn't what Blizzard took to the court: in court, they argued that the hobbyists who made bnetd violated copyright law. Specifically, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans "circumvention of access controls to copyrighted works." Basically, Blizzard argued that bnetd's authors violated the law because they used debuggers to examine the software they'd paid for, while it ran on their own computers, to figure out how to make a game server of their own.

Blizzard didn't sue bnetd's authors for pirating Blizzard software (they didn't – they'd paid for their copies). They didn't sue them for abetting other gamers' piracy. They certainly didn't sue them for making a cheat-friendly game-server.

Blizzard sued them for analyzing software they'd paid for, while it was running on their own computers.

Imagine if Walmart – one of the biggest book-retailers in America – had a policy that said that you could only shelve the books you bought at Walmart on shelves that you also bought at Walmart. Now imagine that Walmart successfully argued that measuring the books you bought from them and using those measurements to create your own compatible book-case violated their IP rights!

This is an outrageous triumph of IP rights over real property rights, and yet gamers vocally backed Blizzard in the early noughts, because gamers hate cheaters and because IP law is (correctly) understood as "the law that lets a company tell you how you can use your own real, physical property." Hard cases make bad law, hard IP cases make batshit law.

It's more than 20 years since bnetd, and cheating continues to serve as a Trojan horse to smuggle in batshit new IP laws. In Germany, Sony is suing the cheat-device maker Datel:

https://torrentfreak.com/sonys-ancient-lawsuit-vs-cheat-device-heads-in-right-direction-sonys-defeat-240705/

Sony argues that the Datel device – which rewrites the contents of a player's device's RAM, at the direction of that player – infringes copyright. Sony claims that the values that its programs write to your device's RAM chips are copyrighted works that it has created, and that altering that copyrighted work makes an unauthorized derivative work, which infringes its copyright.

Yes, this is batshit, and thankfully, Sony has been thwarted in court to date, but it is steaming ahead to the EU's highest court. If it succeeds, then it will open up every tool that modifies your computer at your direction to this kind of claim.

How bad can it be? Well, get this: the German publishing giant Axel Springer (owned by a monomaniacal Trumpist and Israel hardliner who has ordered journalists in his US news outlets to go easy on both) is suing Eyeo, makers of Adblock Plus, on the grounds that changing HTML to block an ad creates a "derivative work" of Axel Springer's web-pages:

https://torrentfreak.com/ad-blocking-infringes-copyright-ancient-sony-cheat-lawsuit-may-prove-pivotal-240729/

Axel Springer's filings cite the Sony/Datel case, using it to argue that their IP rights trump your property rights, and that you can only configure your web-browser, running on your computer, which you own, in ways that it approves of.

Axel Springer's war on browsers is a particularly pernicious maneuver, because browsers are the best example we have of internet software that serves as a "user agent." "User agent" is an old-timey engineering synonym for "browser" that reflects the browser's role: to go out onto the web on your behalf and bring back things for you, which it displays in the way you prefer:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

Want to block flickering GIFs to forestall photosensitive epileptic servers? Ask your user agent to find and delete them. Want to shift colors into a gamut that accounts for your color-blindness? Ask your user-agent:

https://dankaminsky.com/2010/12/15/dankam/

Want to goose the font size and contrast so you can read the sadistic grey-on-white type that young designers use in the mistaken belief that black-on-white type is "hard on the eyes"? That's what Reader Mode is for:

https://frankgroeneveld.nl/2021/08/24/most-underused-browser-feature/

The foundation of any good digital relationship is a device that works for you, not for the people who own the servers you connect to. Even if they don't plan on screwing you over by directing your user agent to attack you on their behalf right now, the very existence of a facility in your technology that causes it to betray you, by design, is a moral hazard that inevitably results in your victimization:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

"IP" ("a law that lets me control how you use your own property") is a tempting solution to every problem, but ultimately, IP ends up magnifying the power of the already powerful, in contests where your only hope of victory is having a user agent whose only loyalty is to you.

The monotonic, dangerous expansion of IP reflects the growing victory of rents over profits – income from owning things, rather than income from doing things. Everyday people may argue for IP in the belief that it will solve their immediate problems – with AI, or Nazis, or in-game cheats – but ultimately, the expansion of a law that limits how you can use your property (including your capital) to uses that don't threaten neofeudalists will doom you to technoserfdom.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/#hard-cases-make-bad-copyright-law

[veethefreeelf]

Hate is a strong word - Y.JH

Summary: 

You were living out your dream working in an ideal company with great colleagues and friends, except one. Yoon Jeonghan has been your nemesis from the moment the both of you stepped into this company. Sometimes you wonder if you’re living your dream or stuck in a nightmare.

Wordcount: 15k

Warnings: lots of snarky, petty dialogue; jealous jeonghan; jealous reader; vaginal fingering; oral f. receiving; vaginal penetration (protected & unprotected); some shoving of panties in mouths; lots and lots of praising; tie being used as a gag/leash; spanking; cumshot; pussy slapping

Requested: yes, by @shuahasmyheartffs

P.S - Italic is for thoughts mainly from the characters’ perspective and quotes. Bold is for text messages/calls/voice messages between characters

After you graduated college, you were hoping to join the company of your dreams. You worked so hard for so many years and you were even able to do a summer internship at this company during your college years. 

At the time, the team lead of the marketing department really took you in and expressed how they would love for you to contact them after you graduated to see if they had any openings for you to join them.

This had been your proudest moment, up until the day you actually joined the company. By then, the former team lead of the marketing department had moved up but you know they still helped in the hiring process to make sure you secured the position available. He had also told you at the time that in the worst case scenario, you could start in the advertising department since they had an opening and move to the marketing department once you had the chance.

However, to your delight this wasn’t necessary. You passed all your tests and interviews and they loved your portfolio even if it was a short one since you had just graduated. 

You joined the team and started to get to know your colleagues. Everyone was amazing. Some had been in the company longer and others had recently joined like you but you got along with all of them amazingly well. You had always been a people person so this didn’t really surprise you. You also found out very early on that you would need to work closely with the advertising team so you should start getting to know them as well.

One of the senior members of the team - Soonyoung - (or as he preferred to be called: Hoshi) had warned you early on that the members of the advertising team were tough but you shouldn't have any problems with them at all. ‘Unless something horrible happened like the new person that would join would be the devil’ he had said and laughed. You laughed along with him. You would be just fine.

You both shouldn’t have laughed because indeed, the new person that joined that team was the devil. And, since the day you met him and he completely destroyed all of your ideas in an interdepartmental meeting, you vouched to destroy everything he loved. Okay, maybe not that. But, definitely destroy all of his ideas and make sure everyone knew what a gigantic asshole he was.

And here you are, five years later. Still hating each other and still making sure everyone knew. Always trying to one up each other and get the last say in everything. 

The only difference now is that you both are department team leads. You both got promoted at around the same time. Except you got promoted one day sooner and you would never let him live it down. 

Today was a very important day for you. The company had just gotten a very big account, and your team was in charge of the marketing strategies for this account. Of course, all marketing strategies and efforts need to be hand in hand with the advertising team, and this usually meant an interdepartmental meeting and your nemesis shooting down every single idea your team proposes. 

You were hoping that for this big account, he would be a bit less of an asshole. You were wrong. Every idea proposed by your team was shot down. 

‘Not enough budget. Too expensive to recruit developers and add those features. Just overall doesn’t make sense for their line of business’.

He found every excuse in the book. You had decided then, you weren’t going to give up until he was gone from this company. Or at least from this branch. You needed him out of your life before you committed murder.

You just didn’t get it. Their team was tough and you knew that, but to everyone else he was just so nice and available and open to new ideas. However, anything coming from your team, with your stamp of approval was immediately a target for him.

“If looks could kill, he sure would be dead as fuck wouldn’t he?” Hoshi asked you.

You were eating at the company’s cafeteria and you might have been chewing a little too hard and staring at the back of his head plotting ways to get rid of him.

“He’s just such a fucking asshole. And for what? What does he gain with this? Endless meetings with us until one of us breaks? It won’t be me this time. Absolutely not. He better be ready for a fucking fight” you told Hoshi and the rest of your team as they sat down.

“Your hate for each other is tearing both our teams apart” Sunny said mercilessly and you looked around the table. Everyone nodded in agreement.

“How is this my fault? He started this 5 years ago. Started hating on every word that left my mouth for no fucking reason. What am I supposed to do? He did it again today! And I just took it without saying a word. How are you guys blaming me for this?” you asked as you looked around the table.

“You could just be the bigger person? I’m sure if you stop acknowledging everything, he’ll give up” Hoshi said.

“Let’s not blame, Y/N. She has tried to calm things down between them. He just keeps adding fuel to the fire. He’s clearly doing it on purpose” Seokmin had told everyone.

“See? Not my fault. I’ve tried. He will just keep doing this until one of us quits or moves to a different branch. It won’t be me though, don’t you worry” you said as you continued to angrily eat your lunch.

“But he is so hot, though. You should just fuck him. I bet that will calm him down” Clara, the remaining member of your team, spoke up.

“He is the devil. I would rather die than fuck him” you answered without hesitation.

“Oh come on. I can’t believe you haven’t thought about it. Look at him. EVERYONE wants to fuck him. Every human at this company has tried and failed. Except one. Lucky bitch from IT” Clara added.

“I can’t believe Hana bagged him. He had to be drunk. He does not fuck around from what I heard. Not his thing at all. He’s apparently a hopeless romantic waiting to find the one. Very unfortunate for most of us” Sunny added.

“Guys, I will vomit. Please, stop talking about the devil that haunts my nightmares that way. And also, no gossiping, come on. Hana gets enough attention” you told everyone on your team.

“Hey, Y/L/N. You’ve really been off your game since your promotion but today was definitely a new low for you”

You knew who was by your table talking shit. Bold of him to do so while you were holding a knife. Hoshi took the knife from your hand and you stared at him.

“What? We like you as our team lead, we can’t lose you to a crime of passion” he told you and Jeonghan laughed.

“Crime of passion, Y/L/N? Have you been harboring a crush for me? I’m flattered” Jeonghan spoke again.

“The only time your name and crush exist in the same thought inside my brain is when I fantasize about crushing all your hopes and dreams before the day I die, Yoon” you said as you started to angrily clean up your tray. 

You couldn’t even eat at peace here. It wasn't enough for him to torture you during meetings. He always found a way to find you around the building and push your buttons beyond explanation.

“So you are fantasizing about me. Wow. Very forward, Y/L/N” he said and smirked.

“Hmm… Is that what you desperately want, Yoon? Me, fantasizing about you? Alone, in my bedroom, just thinking about you?” you said as you got up and got ridiculously close to him. You could’ve swore you saw a flash of surprise in his eyes and that he gulped at your statement.

“Pretty fucking pathetic, Yoon. And also, never, in your wildest fucking dreams but you are more than welcome to stay delusional” you said as you backed away. 

You picked up your tray and finally left. 

“You could stop being such an asshole to her. To our team, I mean” Seokmin said to Jeonghan after you left.

“Be better at your jobs and I won’t have to be” Jeonghan told your team and left as well.

“I should’ve let her have the knife” Hoshi said after he left.

“I’m telling you, they need to fuck. Everything will calm down once they get it out of their system” Clara said and everyone groaned.

You got to your office and you needed to calm down. You just didn’t get it. Why couldn’t he just leave you alone. It’s one thing to professionally disagree with someone because you have valid and rational reasons to. But it’s a completely different story to target one person and shoot all their ideas down. Valid or not. This no longer feels like just a professional rivalry, it feels personal as well.

Maybe your team was right. Except Clara. She was fucking wrong. Sure, when he first joined you thought he had been the most beautiful human you had ever seen in your entire life, but as soon as he started speaking up and hating on you, that notion was long gone. He wasn’t hot enough for you to ever forgive him. ‘Right?’ you asked yourself and immediately shot that down ‘Yeah. You hate him. Absolutely never going to happen’.

Clara was wrong. Maybe everyone else was right about you being the bigger person. Maybe if you stopped talking back to him in and out of meetings, he would give up and move on to a different target. 

As you were contemplating your next move and if you were strong enough to be the bigger person, there was a knock at your office door.

“Come in” you had said after sitting down on your office chair.

“Hey, sorry. Do you have a minute?”

Seungcheol. Jeonghan’s partner in crime. He was a very tough cookie but you had always gotten along with him. He was reasonable and knew to acknowledge when your team was right and they were wrong.

“Go ahead. Be quick, please. Thanks to your team lead I will be spending the rest of the afternoon in brainstorming sessions since nothing is good enough for that prick” you said as you rubbed your temples.

A migraine. Of course. Because this day hasn’t sucked hard enough.

“About that… Maybe hold off on the brainstorming. I quite liked some of your team's ideas and I believe they are well within the client’s budget and needs. I’ll be talking to Jeonghan this afternoon to show him he’s wrong” he told you after he sat down across from you.

You raised your eyebrow.

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’, Y/N? I told you. Your team’s ideas were good. So I wanted you to know that so you can pass that on to the team. I also want you to understand we are not your enemies. I mean our departments are supposed to work together but it somehow seems we keep diverging more and more every day” he sighed.

“And whose fault is that?” you asked.

“I know he has been insufferable lately. But you have to admit, you do enjoy riling him up too. You’ve also made your share of bad decisions and comments because of your rivalry”

“It seems both our teams are suffering” you added to his comment.

You get it. The both of you probably have been ruining a perfectly good job and work environment for both your teams. You wanted it to end. You just didn’t know how to do that. Every time you wanted to try, he would make an absolutely ridiculous comment and you just couldn’t help yourself. You had to answer. He couldn’t win.

“I’ve tried, Seungcheol. You know I have. Even today, at the meeting, I could’ve answered him but I chose not to. It doesn’t matter. Answering, not answering. If I don’t engage with his comments during a meeting, he will find me somehow around this building and make sure to torture me. I don’t know what he wants from me” you said sincerely and he laughed. He laughed loudly. You were more and more confused by the minute.

“Really, Y/N? You really don’t know?” he asked, still laughing.

“I don’t have a crystal ball, Seungcheol. If I did something that offended him when we both started working here, I’m sorry, but I have no fucking clue what that is and it’s been five years. Whatever it was, he should’ve let it go a long time ago” you answered him and he seemed to understand. ‘You really didn’t know’ he thought to himself.

“Well, either way it’s not up to me to bring it up. I just want peace. Both of our teams need peace. So maybe keep that in mind next time you want to answer one of his snarky comments, just saying” he told you as he got up to leave.

“Thank you, Seungcheol. You should’ve been the one promoted, not him” you added before he was out of your office.

“We both know that’s not true. He may be an asshole, but he’s brilliant” he said and left your office.

At least this time, Seungcheol came to deliver good news.

After he left your office, you had a call with your team and explained there wouldn’t be any brainstorming sessions for this account until you hear the advertising team's final verdict on the previous meeting. Everyone was relieved, maybe this would be the beginning of the end of this war. 

You got home absolutely exhausted. Mentally and physically. You didn’t want to cook or clean or do anything. You got a bath ready and decided you were going to order food. Fuck it. You deserved it after this shitshow of a day. 

After your bath and dinner, you just wanted to rest. You went to the couch and turned on ‘New Girl’. You needed something silly to make your soul a little happier today. You had suffered enough. Or so you thought.

Your phone dinged, signaling a text message and you had a bad feeling before you even looked down at the phone on your coffee table. You picked up your phone from the coffee table and of course. It was a text message from ‘The Devil’. Why couldn’t he leave you alone, even after work?!

“You must be really proud about today. Talking to Seungcheol behind my back. I’m not going back on any of my decisions so good luck”

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Is this man serious? This is exactly why you can’t stop responding to his shit. He always manages to piss you off beyond reason. Beyond any restraint possible.

“You got it all wrong. Seungcheol came to me. Apparently, you are unreasonable and wrong. None of that is my fault. And, I will win as usual because you are wrong. As usual” you replied.

This would be your only reply of the night. That’s it. Whatever he says next, you will not engage. You can’t. You need to think about both of your teams and you have to stop being selfish and stop this war.

“I’ll take this up the chain if I have to. My team shouldn’t pay for your team’s incompetence” he added. 

And there goes all your restraint. You can take a lot of insults from him but you won’t let him step all over your team.

“My team is far more competent than you. That’s the reason I got promoted first. The only reason you got promoted after me was the fact that your boss can’t stand having a woman in charge of a team and he knew you would be his best bet at having me leave this branch or quit. Now stop texting me outside of work and delete my phone number. I did not give you this number and don’t want you to have it. Thank you.”

That wasn’t too bad. You replied and defended your team but you didn’t add fuel to the fire. It short and concise and to the point and you fucking hope he listens and stops contacting you.

And he did, at least for tonight, he stopped replying. You never found out how he got your personal phone number but ever since he did, he loved texting you once in a while to make sure you weren’t happy outside of work. Apparently, he wanted you to feel miserable all around. He always had some additional comment he forgot to add during work hours and wanted to make sure you were going to bed thinking about it.

You hated him. You never liked saying you hated anyone. It’s such a strong feeling but you were pretty fucking sure this was pure hatred.

He ruined your day at work, and now he had ruined your night of rest and sitcom binging at home. You were so pissed you decided to go to bed and hope tomorrow is a better day.

Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t a better day at all. Jeonghan kept his promise. As soon as he got to work, he went to his boss to make sure his decisions were final. Your boss then started to get involved and for the rest of the week it had been constant meetings and battles regarding this one account. Not only that, but Jeonghan had even been worse this whole week to you and your team. He was on a brand new level of assholeness. You just wanted the week to end. You wanted Friday to come so you could go to the company quarter party and get hammered.

Finally, on Friday, they had come to an agreement that one of the ideas from your team was going to go forward but your team would need to come up with new ones as the other options were vetoed. You didn’t know what to feel. It still felt like a loss and the more he smirked, the worse you felt. You couldn’t not say anything so when your boss asked for agreement on your side, you were very clear on your response.

“We will do it. However, you should know these two people across from us will be the reason we might lose this account and multiple ones in the future” you told your boss and as you turned to Jeonghan’s boss, you continued.

“You can put that on the record and give me a disciplinary warning. I will not stay silent while my team’s work keeps being put in question by people far dumber than any of us simply because the team lead is a woman. You should both be ashamed of the decisions you have made professionally based on your personal hate of me” you finished.

Jeonghan wasn’t smirking anymore. He was staring at the ground like a child that had just been disciplined by their mother or a teacher. You felt proud. You left and went straight to your office. You knew there would be consequences to your words but you can’t deal with this anymore. You are reaching a boiling point with that man and his sexist boss. 

You were pacing around your office trying to calm yourself down. This day was almost over. You were going to enjoy tonight. You wouldn’t let them win and ruin everything. You were going to have a great time with your team and no one was going to stop that from happening. You started to smile thinking about the goofballs in your team and how you were going to have an amazing time when there was a knock at your door. ‘Here we go’ you thought. Your boss was about to rip you a new one.

“Come in”

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Jeonghan walked through your office door and you both just stared at each other silently. You didn’t know why he was here but you didn’t care.

“Get out” you said as you walked around your desk to your chair.

“I know things haven’t been ideal but I just wanted to say I don’t hate you. I never have” he said and you laughed while you sat down.

“Well, I hate you, Yoon Jeonghan. Always have. From the very first day you decided to start testing me. Now that that’s settled, please, get out of my office” you said and started packing up your things for the day.

“Hate is a strong word, Y/N”

“Indeed. And you have no idea how much I dislike that word. How much I dislike using it. But, you did that. Congrats. You broke me and managed to make me hate you. Hope it was worth it” you said as you started to walk out of your office.

But just before you left, you had one more thing to add.

“It’s sad really. If you weren’t this way, I truly believe we could’ve made a great team” you told him and then left.

After you got home, you started getting ready for the company’s quarter party and you decided you weren’t going to let this stop you or your team from continuing to do a great job. 

Tonight would be sort of a team building exercise for the five of you. The company liked throwing these parties every quarter and it reminded you a bit of the Dundies in The Office. They also gave silly awards but instead of a trophy, you got a fridge magnet and a chance to donate $25 to a charity of your choosing. It was pretty cool.

Besides, the company usually rented the same hotel ballroom and had an open bar and a DJ after the awards. Everything was free and it truly helped employees unwind and relax after each quarter. You were proud to be a part of this. 

You usually don’t choose to drink too much at these parties since word gets around pretty fast of any embarrassing moments that may have happened after most people had left. Tonight would be different though. You and your team deserved to get hammered and dance until they kicked you out of the hotel.

Once you told your team that, they couldn’t be happier. It’s like they had forgotten everything that has happened in the last few weeks. You were thankful for that. You wanted to feel that way too.

You and Clara took an Uber to the party together and Hoshi, Seokmin and Sunny also did the same. None of you ever wanted to arrive first and be alone at these parties so you usually split up into groups and went together.

The trio arrived first at the party, went to the table marked for your team and moved over to the bar immediately. 

When you and Clara got there, you noticed them at the bar and decided to join them before going to your table and setting your belongings down.

“Starting early, are we?” you asked and laughed along with Clara.

“Hey! It’s the boss! And duh, of course, you said to go wild tonight so we need to start early” Seokmin told you as he sipped his cider.

“Besides, once you see who is the other team sharing the table with us, you’re going to wish you had started drinking earlier, Y/N” Hoshi added and their little trio started laughing. Of course you had to share a table with him. But you won’t let him get to you. Not tonight. You turned to the bartender.

“Whiskey & Coke please, no ice. Thank you”

“Oof, you really meant to go wild. Starting pretty strong, Y/N. Careful or you might do something stupid tonight” Sunny said with a teasing tone and you all laughed together.

After you all had your drinks, you started to move towards the table so you could sit down and hang out as a team. You wanted to take advantage of the fact that the advertising team hadn’t arrived yet.

“Okay so about that ‘doing something stupid tonight’” Clara started to add to Sunny’s previous remarks.

Hoshi and Seokmin started shaking their heads disapprovingly before she even continued her sentence.

“You should fuck Jackson from the IT department, Y/N” Sunny said and everyone whipped around to look at her. Usually, Clara is your problem child. No one quite knew how to react to what she just said.

“What? Don’t look at me like that. You know he wants to fuck you come on. Also, I heard from Cass in HR that he also has a huge--”

“Sunny!” you stopped her before she had a chance to finish her sentence. You and our team couldn’t stop laughing. Who knew Sunny had it in her. You really have to watch out for the quiet ones. They will always surprise you.

“Oh come on, Sunny. If Y/N is fucking anyone with a big cock tonight she might as well hate fuck Jeonghan” Clara added and you just gulped down your drink. She wasn’t going to give up on this idea, It was going to be a long night.

“And how do you know that for a fact? Just because Hana said it, doesn’t mean it’s true” Hoshi started adding fuel to the fire.

“Why would Hana lie about that? And why the fuck would she follow Jeonghan around like a lost puppy if he hadn’t been amazing like she keeps advertising? She was not lying and you should find out for yourself, Y/N” Clara answered.

Everyone looked at you.

“What? I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response” you said and Clara laughed.

“Hmm… Sounds like maybe you’re interested in finding out… Or are you just jealous that Hana got to him first?” Clara asked and they all started laughing and agreeing with her. You loved them all but sometimes you wanted to kill them.

“Sounds like she is both jealous and interested in finding out” someone whispered in your ear from behind you.

All your team members stopped laughing and went silent. They knew better than to laugh at what Jeonghan just said, no matter how funny it was. Jeonghan walked around from behind you with Seungcheol and they both sat down across from your team at the table.

“I already told you, Yoon. No matter how many times you dream about it, it’s never going to happen” you said and started getting up to get another drink. You need a lot more alcohol to get through tonight.

“We’ll see” he said as you were walking away.

There will be no more peace tonight at that table. And you know once your team gets enough drinks in them, it’s going to get even messier. Funny thing is both your teams get along great with each other. You and Jeonghan seem to be the only ones ruining all the fun.

When you got to the bar, you decided to just get a coke. Dinner was to come, followed by the awards and there will be a lot of wine. You need to pace yourself. You don’t want to end up completely drunk. Definitely not at that table.

Surprisingly, dinner went over smoothly. Everyone was talking and having fun with each other. Clara kept throwing in some comments about you and Jeonghan and everyone seemed to enjoy it so all you did in those moments was roll your eyes. The only two people not interacting with each other were you and Jeonghan.

The awards started and it was always quite fun. People gave great speeches and they roasted themselves and their colleagues and bosses. You always had a blast. You had won a few of these before but not recently so you were surprised when you were called in to receive the ‘Warrior of the Branch’ award. ‘Clever’ you thought to yourself.

You went over to get handed your fridge magnet by your boss and she winked at you as she handed it to you.

“Well, I would say this is a surprise but it isn’t. Even today I got a disciplinary warning for defending myself and my team so it makes sense. There’s only one person I need to thank for this because he is the reason I wake up every morning, look in the mirror and tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn’t commit murder that day. I gotta tell you, most days I don’t care about those reasons and so thank you Hoshi, for taking the knife out of my hands, forcibly” you paused as everyone laughed with you.

“So, thank you Jeonghan. I never thought any good would come from hating you, but I’m sure the charity I choose tonight will think otherwise” you ended your speech. Everyone clapped and you started heading back to your seat. You noticed Jeonghan was no longer at your table. Were you too harsh?

“You could cut him some slack, Y/N” Wonwoo from Jeonghan’s team spoke up and everyone went silent.

“He doesn’t cut me any slack, why should I cut him some?” you asked in response and left the table.

You didn’t know where Jeonghan went and you didn’t know if he left the table because of your speech but how is this fair? You always get treated like the bad guy when he is the one that started all of this. He is the one that tortures you on a daily basis. But somehow, whenever he gets upset, it all gets turned around on you. 

You needed to hide for now. You wanted to be alone. You were sick of all of this. To be honest, you don’t know how much more you can take before you transfer branches or even quit altogether. 

You went to the usual place in this hotel you go to hide whenever you start to feel overwhelmed at these parties. There was a small room on the side of the ballroom that was also rented out to your company. It was used to store all the awards and company belongings before the awards started and your boss has always given you the key to the room after they’ve emptied it out. She knew you often need time and space to yourself away from everyone. She was one of the reasons you haven’t given up on this job just yet.

You unlocked the room and walked through the door. You didn’t turn the lights on, no need. You locked the door behind you and moved to the window. It was a beautiful, huge window that had a nice sofa in front of it. You loved sitting there and staring outside in silence. This window was facing the garden that surrounded the back portion of the hotel and you loved to sit there and just look at the trees in peace.

“No fair. I thought I was the only one that had the key to this room after they were done using it” Jeonghan spoke up from across the room. He was sitting in a lounge chair and the moonlight was allowing you to see his face. He looked upset. 

“It appears life isn’t fair for either of us. I love being alone here, yet here you are” you said and turned back to the window.

For a while there was only silence. All you could hear in this room was both of you breathing. You were staring out the window. He was staring at you. You were sure of it. You could feel his eyes on you. It wasn’t uncomfortable. You just never knew what he wanted and you were too tired to try to figure it out at this moment.

“I really can’t stand hearing you say you hate me, you know that?” he asked you.

You turned to look at him again and scoffed.

“How is that my problem? You did this to yourself” you said and turned back to the window.

You really hoped this was it. That he wasn’t going to talk to you anymore. You didn’t mind sharing this space in silence.

“Why do you always have to answer me with such disdain? I understand I’ve been hard on you and your team but you’re taking this a bit too far don’t you think?” he asked you as he got up from his chair and started to walk over to you.

And here it was. The reason why you could never keep quiet and not answer him. He always seemed to be completely detached from reality. He’s the one torturing you, yet he thinks he’s the victim. Typical.

“You’ve been hard on me and my team?? You’ve been a nightmare, Jeonghan. At work and outside of it. You actively seek me out to torture me whenever you get the chance but somehow I’m to blame?” you got up from the sofa and started raising your voice at him. You two were standing a little too close to each other.

“You’ve spent years trying to destroy everything I’m trying to build for myself, for no apparent reason and you act surprised when you hear me say that I hate you? How can I not? You’ve pushed me this far, it’s your fault and I’ll keep saying it no matter how upset you pretend to be: I hate--”

He kissed you. You couldn't finish your sentence. He kissed you hard. He grabbed you by the neck with one hand and held your body close to his with the other and he kept kissing you. And you let him. 

Not only did you let him kiss you but you kissed him back just as hard. Your hands were on the collar of his shirt and you were both just a tangled mess. Trying to devour each other. All the anger you both had accumulated over the years led up to this moment. Neither of you could think. Neither of you could stop. 

He started walking you back to the sofa you had just been sitting on, and once you reached it, he started lowering you down on it. He was on top of you, kissing you and you couldn’t help but to place your legs around his waist and pull him closer. When you both started to moan into each others’ mouths, he pulled away from you.

“Tell me to stop. Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll leave right now. We’ll pretend this never happened” he told you sincerely.

You could tell he meant it. He was giving you a chance to back out of this. To stop this before you crossed the ultimate line with him. And as hard as it was to admit, you didn’t want him to stop. 

You couldn’t remember the last time anyone kissed you and touched you like this. Now that you think about it, you don’t think anyone has kissed you and touched you this way before. Full of passion and lust. 

“Don’t stop” you answered him.

He silently nodded and lowered himself to kiss you again. He started moving his hands down your body. Touching you everywhere. As if he was trying to memorize the shape of you in case this was just a dream or in case he would never get the chance to touch you like this again. He moved down and started to kiss down your neck, moving to your cleavage next as one of his hands was moving towards your clothed pussy.

“Fuck, you’re so wet. You’re gonna kill me one of these days, I swear, angel” he said once his hand reached your panties and he started massaging your clit over your now ruined underwear. 

He was right, you were dripping. You wanted this so bad. You wanted him. Especially now that he was saying all the right things. He pulled away from you and moved down your body.

“I really wish I could take my fucking time with you but you had to let me fuck you for the first time here” Jeonghan said disapprovingly and you sighed.

He lowered his face to your pussy and started to leave open mouthed kisses to your clothed core. He was driving you insane. You started to moan. You needed him to stop taking his time.

“Fuck, angel… You’re a loud one, aren’t you? I should’ve known from your smart mouth. Let’s find a way to keep you quiet, hmm?” he said as he started to take your panties off.

“Be a good girl and open up, angel” he told you after taking your panties off and tapping your lips twice with his fingers. 

Fuck, why did you love being praised so much? And how the fuck did he know this was exactly the way you like it? It doesn’t matter. You did what he asked and opened your mouth. He pushed your panties into your mouth and whispered ‘good girl’ to you while he pulled back to move back down to your pussy.

He collected your juices on his fingers and started to suck them while looking into your eyes. You moaned into your panties and your breathing was starting to get erratic. He gave you a short laugh and moved down to latch on to your clit. He started sucking on it aggressively while his fingers moved around your hole. Just teasing you. He was going to be the death of you. 

You wiggled your hips and he laughed again. He wanted to take his time with you but the loudness in the room next to you reminded him that he needed to hurry if he wanted to be inside of you tonight. So he gave in to what both of you desperately wanted. He started eating you out like it was his last day on earth. His mouth was on your clit and two of his fingers finally got inside of you.

He set a fast pace from the start and you could tell he was responding and adjusting his movements every time you moaned a little too loud. He wanted to understand what could make you cum the fastest. He wanted to learn what made you more and more desperate and he quickly found the answers he was looking for.

His fingers found your g-spot and he kept making sure he hit it every single time. Same thing for his tongue and mouth on your clit. As soon as he found the rhythm that made you scream into your panties, he kept at it.

He wanted to make you feel pleasure like you never had before and he was going to make sure this wasn’t going to be a one time thing. He was going to find out everything about you and your body and guarantee you would want him back in your arms after tonight.

After just a few moments of hitting the right spots and keeping at the right pace, you started getting louder and louder and he wished he could hear you more clearly. You were so close. No one had ever made you cum this fast in your life and you didn’t want to fight it or hold back. One of your hands went to your tits to massage them and the other went to his hair. He started to moan into your pussy and once his free hand grabbed your thigh so fucking hard it could leave bruises behind, you finally came into his mouth. 

You were loud when you came. Jeonghan started looking towards the door to make sure no one heard you too. He was begging inside his head for you two to not be interrupted now. Not now, that he was so close to getting inside of you.

Once he realized no one heard you two and now that you were coming down from your high, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He threw his jacket on the floor, unzipped his pants and started to lower them and his boxers to his knees. 

You finally opened your eyes after your high and looked at Jeonghan. He was getting a condom out of his wallet and you could see his half naked bottom half now.

Hana had not been lying. He was big. Almost too big. You didn’t know how he was going to fit inside of you, but fuck it if you weren’t going to try your best. He caught you staring and he started smirking.

“It’s gonna fit. You’re a good little angel so you’re gonna take me in just right, don’t worry” he told you as he rolled down the condom onto his cock.

Fuck, you could’ve cum right there on the spot after what he said. All you could do was nod and he smiled at you.

He lowered himself on top of you and he started guiding is cock into your hole. You were so wet, there was no resistance. He started to slowly rock into you and pushed more and more of his cock into you. After his third big stroke, he finally pushed all the way into you and bottomed out. You moaned so loudly into your panties. You had never felt anything like this before. You were so fucking full. You couldn’t stop clenching around him. And he was already just as wrecked as you. You could tell by the way he moaned into your neck.

After a few moments, you were ready. You needed him to move, so you moved your hips a bit to signal him.

“Not yet, angel. Please, you have to stop squeezing me like that or I’ll be very embarrassed very soon and this is definitely not the way I want this to end” he told you and you smiled. You did your best to stop squeezing his cock and you began touching his hair as you wrapped yourself even more around him. 

Once he was ready, he finally started to move. He pulled back a bit from you and held your hips in place as he pushed into you with long and hard strokes. He again made sure to find your g-spot as soon as he could and once he did, he sped up his movements. He began the abuse on your g-spot. Fast and hard. He was gonna make you cum like this and so quickly again.

You were holding each other as his pace got faster and harder and you kept your eyes locked in on each other. He kept cussing and whispering praises as you both got closer and closer.

Once he started to feel you squeezing him more and more, he knew you were close and he knew he was right behind you. He bit his lips to lower the volume of his moans and you kept moaning into your panties just as loud as you did before. One of his hands moved from your hips to rub your clit and just that touch sent you over the edge again. As you squeezed him, he came into the condom and moaned into your ear.

After you both came down from your highs, you took your panties out of your mouth and you both just laid there with each other in complete silence as your breaths evened out. All you could hear was the noise from the other room where the award portion of the night seemed to have stopped and the DJ set had started.

He raised his head from your neck, looked into your eyes and kissed you. Not as hard as he had when this all began. It was soft, almost gentle. You could tell he wanted to cherish this moment which you both knew might never happen again. Little did he know, you also wanted to cherish this just as much.

After that kiss, he got up, threw the condom away and got dressed. You cleaned yourself up with some tissue paper that was on the desk and tried to look presentable again. As you took your panties to put them on, he stopped you.

“I’m keeping them, angel” he said as he took the panties from your hand and put them in his jacket pocket. You don’t know why but you didn’t protest. You let him take them. 

“I’ll leave first. Make sure to wait a bit, just in case” he told you and you laughed.

“Even if I went out there with you, there would be no way anyone would think we just snuck out to fuck” you told him and he nodded with a smile on his face.

You waited for about 20 minutes after he left to go back into the ballroom where everyone was now getting hammered and dancing like it was their last night on earth.

You needed a drink. Or several. ‘What the fuck just happened?’ you asked yourself. You just fucked someone you have been hating for five years. Maybe hate was a strong word after all.

“You’re back! Where the fuck were you?” an already drunk Hoshi asked you.

“Sorry, was pissed off but then I remembered I made you guys a promise so I came back” you told him and he smiled. 

“Catch up then. You are several drinks behind and Clara has been asking for her dancing twin” Hoshi added before he started to dance away from you and back to the dancefloor. If you were going to live up to Clara’s loving nickname, you would need to catch up indeed. There is no way you were about to make a fool out of yourself in front of your colleagues sober.

The rest of the night went as expected. Everyone on your team got way too drunk and you ended up just a bit buzzed and babysitting them all. It was okay though. They needed this more than you at this point and that was very clear. At the end of the night, you practically had to drag them all into their Ubers. You got help from Seungcheol and Jeonghan who were also very drunk but trying to be as helpful as possible. 

The weekend went by fast. And next thing you know it’s Monday again. You were nervous going into work for the first time in years. You didn’t know what to expect from Jeonghan. Would he ignore you? Would the usual behavior stop? Would he tell everyone and embarrass you? You had no idea. You didn’t think he was that cruel but you never knew what was going on inside his head. He was always so hard to read and in this situation it might bite you in the ass.

To your surprise, the next two weeks passed by without any incidents. Jeonghan had apologized to you in front of both of your teams and told everyone he would be more patient and cooperative in finding solutions that worked for everyone. At first, everyone was shocked and a bit suspicious at the whole situation. They were all asking you what happened and what changed and you didn’t know what to say. You told them about what you had said to your boss and to his boss in the last meeting you four had had and they all agreed he probably saw the error of his ways then.

You knew better. You knew what had happened between the two of you after that meeting. You want to know if that’s what made him change but you haven’t had the opportunity to ask him yet. And, you were also nervous to ask him.

Now that your teams were closer, you actually started to have lunch together at the company’s cafeteria. It was weird at first. But now everyone is over that initial weirdness and you actually enjoy having lunch with all of them. Jeonghan’s team is funny. You already knew Seungcheol and Wonwoo well, but now you got to know Silvia and Joshua more. They were absolute sweethearts and you felt bad you hadn’t gotten to know them better earlier. 

Jeonghan had never brought it up with you. Whatever happened between the two of you. You would never admit it to him but you were disappointed. You were hoping this wasn’t going to be a one time thing. Especially now that he has become a great colleague and partner at work. You see him in a whole different light now and you wished he felt the same way. But you were stubborn. You were definitely not going to tell him.

Today, during lunch time, Clara decided to be Clara and show her true colors for the first time in front of Jeonghan and his team.

“Hey, Y/N, did you ever fuck, Jackson at the quarter party? There was some suggestion of that and you did disappear for a while…” she said and everyone whipped their heads to look at her.

Jeonghan’s team was shocked and staring at Clara. Jeonghan however, was staring at you and you alone. He looked angry.

“Clara, please stop being yourself in front of the other team. They don’t know you’re clinically insane” you said as you scolded her.

“What? It was a fair question. He has always wanted to get into your pants and he’s hot. If you haven’t already, you should go for it” she added and Hoshi laughed.

“Clara how can you know so much around the office but not know the reason why Jackson wanted to bone Y/N” Hoshi said and you groaned and made a disgusted face.

“Even I know there was a bet within the IT team to fuck Y/N” Sunny added and Clara looked disgusted.

“Okay. I was wrong. Never listen to me again, Y/N” she said and you laughed.

“It’s funny that you think I would ever listen to you when it comes to people I would fuck” you said and they all laughed. Except Jeonghan. He was not amused by this conversation at all and he seemed to get in a worse mood when Jackson decided to walk up to your tables.

“It’s so nice to see my favorite teams finally together. What a happy ending for everyone” Jackson said and everyone greeted him and nodded in agreement. He then turned to you and you could swear you felt Jeonghan move his chair closer to yours.

“Hey, Y/N. I have tickets for the premiere of the movie you mentioned you wanted to see a while back and wanted to ask if you would like to join me Thursday night?” Jackson asked and everyone went silent. You could cut the tension with a knife.

“No, thanks, Jackson. But have a great time, I heard the movie is amazing” you said politely as you began clearing your tray and got up to leave. Jackson and both teams were looking at each other awkwardly before Jackson spoke up.

“That could’ve gone better… Anyway, have a good day guys” 

“I don’t get what is so hard about understanding a simple no. He’s heard it so many times from her yet he won’t stop annoying her” Seokmin said as everyone started clearing out.

Everyone left to continue their work day. You were in your office prepping for the interdepartmental meeting later today between your team and Jeonghan. Even if he has been nicer lately, you always want to make sure you leave him no room to say no.

Today, it would be Seokmin presenting his ideas for a new account your company got and it was his first time presenting solo. You needed it to go well so that Seokmin gained the confidence to do this more often. But, because the universe hates you, the presentation did not go well at all. Jeonghan had chosen to be insufferable again and go back to his old ways. He kept vetoing all of Seokmin’s plans left and right with the most ridiculous of reasons and you reached your boiling point when he started interrupting Seokmin before he could explain his reasoning as well.

“What the fuck is wrong with you today? Are you back on your bullshit? If so, I would appreciate it if my team gets the memo next time” you asked Jeonghan and everyone went silent. Here we go again.

“Don’t start with me, Y/N. This wasn’t a good presentation. Most of his ideas are flawed and not reasonable at all for this client. Go back, review and come back to us” Jeonghan told you as he got up to leave.

“You’re forgetting you’re not our boss, Jeonghan. We don’t work for your team. We work with your team. You are the one that needs to go back, review the content and come up with a reasonable and logical explanation on why you want to veto all of this. Have fun” you told him as you signaled to your team to get up and leave with you.

“That’s it? No fight? Just sending me back to review things? Can’t handle me anymore, Y/N? I should’ve known… Last time, you barely handled what I gave you” he said teasingly and you stopped in your tracks. You walked towards Jeonghan and both your teams moved away from the both of you. They knew better than to get involved. 

You knew that last comment wasn’t about the last meeting you had and the last time you fought. It was about that night. He was smirking now. You needed to wipe that smirk off his face. 

“Oh I handled it perfectly well. In fact, if I remember correctly, I handled it so well that someone was ready to tap out very prematurely… How embarrassing…” you told him and he was no longer smirking. Perfect.

“Are we still talking about work?” Hoshi whispered to Joshua.

“I fucking hope so” Joshua said out loud and it snapped you out of staring at Jeonghan. You started to move towards your team and leave the meeting room.

“Like I said, review and come back to us. With data. No more of this theoretical bullshit or ‘I’ll take this up the chain if I have to’” you said as you mocked him from what he had once told you.

That felt good. Your team started to laugh and cheer on Seokmin after you left the meeting room. Before everyone went back to their desk on the floor, you decided to have a word with Seokmin. You didn’t want him to overthink this.

“Seokmin, can we have a word in my office, please?” you asked him and he nodded and smiled at you. You both walked to your office and sat down on the corner couch you had.

“Don’t take this personally, and don’t you dare think you did a bad job. If your ideas had not been good, I wouldn’t have let you present them. None of the team members would have. He’s probably having a bad day and wanted to take it out on you. Don’t worry about it, yeah?” you asked him and he nodded.

“I just don’t want to disappoint anyone. I know I’m the only one that hasn’t done this by myself and I don’t want to disappoint the team” he said with a sad smile.

“You could never disappoint any of us. Their team will review and we will reach a good compromise. I’m sure most of your plans for this account will come through. Let him get over himself” you said and you both laughed.

“Thank you” he added and you hugged each other.

After Seokmin left your office, you rushed to get your reports done to leave on time. You had an exhausting day and both Jackson and Jeonghan had decided to piss you off today. You needed your bed desperately. Your boss needed the final reports today and you had spent most of your time helping Seokmin prep. You were very late and you didn’t know if you would be able to finish them on time. But, no matter how tired you were, you were too proud to not do your job properly. 

You sent your boss a message letting her know you wouldn’t be able to deliver the reports before 6PM but that you would finish them tonight. You also told her since it was poor time management on your side, you would do the overtime without any additional pay needed. Maybe not the smartest decision but it’s your decision to make. Your boss agreed with the promise you wouldn’t stay too late. She was incredible.

6PM came around and everyone had either left the office or was about to and you were jealous. You had a headache and needed a break. You were halfway through and you decided a power nap was needed. ‘This is why you got that couch’ you thought.

You took a 30 minute nap and got back to work. You ordered dinner and ate at your desk while you finished your reports. By 9PM you were done. Finally. You can go home to your shower and bed. You couldn’t wait.

Except the universe was never kind to you and someone was knocking at your office door. You hoped it was the cleaning crew kicking you out so you told them to come in.

“Working late? Thought I was the only one left here” Jeonghan said as he walked into your office and locked the door behind him. He was leaning on your desk with his arms crossed as you started getting your purse and jacket to leave.

“That’s what happens when you’re an asshole. You get to stay late and review your mistakes. Good news is you must have made a lot of extra money with the overtime hours you rack up” you told him and you signaled him to move to the door.

“You’re not leaving yet. Come here” he told you and it surprised you. 

You didn’t particularly like being told what to do, and never by him. This time it felt different though. The air felt like it did the night of the party. Since the party he hadn’t tried anything with you at all. You assumed this was never going to happen again. That he got what he wanted and that was it. So why was he standing here now, asking you to move closer to him?

He sighed and uncrossed his arms to place them on your desk.

“Come closer, angel. Don’t fight me, you know you want to be closer to me just as much as I want to be closer to you right now” Jeonghan said and you audibly gulped. Fuck… Why does he have to call you angel and why do you like it so much? You were doomed at this rate.

You took your jacket off and placed it and your purse on the hanger close to the door. You walked towards him until you were close enough to feel his breath on you.

“You’ve been staying away from me since that night. So why now, Jeonghan?” you asked him. You wanted to know what was on his mind. Why he hadn’t tried getting closer to you until today.

“I assumed it was a one time thing. I thought you were gonna regret it and tell me it was a mistake. I didn’t want to hear that. Ignorance is bliss, I guess” he answered and you nodded.

“So why tonight? What made you take the chance of getting turned down?” you asked teasingly.

“I don’t like Jackson. At lunch, that whole scene made me… Angry. After our meeting I had time to think. Your snarky comment about our night together and your brutal rejection of Jackson made it clear for me. If you were going to reject me, you would’ve done it at the party” he told you as he pushed a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“Bold of you to assume that just because I let you fuck me that night, I wouldn’t reject you now” 

“Do it then, Y/N. Tell me to fuck off. I will leave and never bother you again”

You stayed silent.

He nodded and began to move away from you. You grabbed his hand to stop him from leaving.

He turned around, stepped closer to you and kissed you. It was just like that first kiss at the party. He was grabbing your neck and your hip and pulling you impossibly close to him and you were pulling him just as close to you.

“The cleaning crew is going to be here soon. Why do you only let me fuck you like this? In a hurry? You’re unfair, angel” 

“It’s your fault too. Of all the days and times to come here and fuck me and you chose right now” 

“Don’t worry, now that I know you’ll let me keep fucking you, we’ll have plenty of time to make up for it, angel” he said as he moved you both towards your desk.

When you reached your desk, he turned you around so your back was against his chest. He moved your hair out of the way and dove in to kiss your neck. You were already beginning to moan. It had been too long since he fucked you. You should’ve told him you wanted more right after that night. He bent you over your desk and started to rub his clothed hard cock against your ass. He took his tie off and kept rubbing himself on you.

“You can’t be loud again, angel. Not tonight” he told you as he moved his tie to your lips. He was going to gag you with his tie. Fuck, you were already dripping and ruining your panties.

You nodded and he placed the tie between your lips. You felt him tighten the tie around the back of your head. Like a leash. You moaned and he laughed. He loved to see you fall apart like this, with the simplest of actions. 

He unbuttoned your pants and pulled all your bottom half clothing down in one swift motion. He spanked you and kept rubbing his hard cock against your bare ass. He held your hip with one hand and moved to rub circles on your clit with the other.

“I love how you're always dripping for me. It makes it hard to believe you when you say you hate me, angel” he said and laughed.

All you could do was moan. He was alternating between rubbing circles on your clit and fingering you. He was spreading your juices everywhere. He wanted to get you as wet as possible but he seemed to be avoiding making you cum right away. Like he wanted to save it. You wiggled your hips. You wanted to cum. He laughed again.

“I’m just getting you ready to take me, angel. You’re cumming on my cock tonight”

After a few minutes of torture, you heard him unzip his pants and move around. You could only assume he was getting naked and getting a condom from the sounds you were hearing.

“You ready, angel?” he asked as he massaged your ass. 

You could feel his cock on your ass now. You were too eager but you couldn’t help yourself. You nodded and said a muffled  ‘please’. Just like you, he couldn’t wait anymore. It had been too long since the last time this happened. He placed his cock against your hole and started to push in impossibly slow.

He kept doing shallow strokes, pushing a bit more of his cock in each time. You had no idea how he was this patient but you couldn’t wait anymore. On one of his shallow strokes you pushed back hard until he bottomed out and you both moaned loudly. Your moan had been muffled but his was not. Fuck, you didn’t want to get caught like this. He spanked you, hard.

“You wanna get caught, hmm? Bad fucking angel…”

You kept squeezing him and trying to move but he was holding you still.

“Fuck, it had been way too long. Have we learned our lesson, angel? You’re gonna let me fuck you whenever we want from now on, right?” he asked and you nodded immediately. He leaned in to whisper in your ear.

“Good girl. I’m going to go hard now. Better fucking handle it like you said today hmm? If you need me to stop, tap your desk twice with both hands”

You nodded again and before you were done nodding he started to fuck you hard. You were surprised your desk wasn’t moving at all from the force of his strokes. You started to move back and match his pace and you both started panting fast. You knew much like last time, neither of you would last long. 

He pulled on the makeshift leash to pull back your head and increased his pace. You were getting so close. You just needed a bit more. He moved his hand from your hip to your clit and started rubbing it furiously. You got louder and louder and kept squeezing him tighter and tighter.

“Is my good angel going to cum on my cock? Do it, I need to feel you cum around me again” 

And as soon as he finished his sentence, you came with a cry of his name against the tie. He kept fucking you through your high and you kept squeezing his cock.

He kept whispering ‘fuck’ and ‘good girl’ under his breath. You knew he was getting closer and you started pushing back on him harder and harder. You wanted to push him over the edge. You wanted him to feel the way you feel right now. In perfect bliss. And a few moments later, he came as he leaned over you. He laid his whole body against yours as you both evened out your breaths.

You both got dressed and took turns using the bathroom in your office to clean yourselves. As you were getting ready to leave, you yawned so loud and he laughed at you.

“Don’t you dare make a cocky comment, Jeonghan”

“I won’t but let me take you home, please”

“And let you have my address? You already have my phone number and that’s enough”

He stopped smiling and started to leave as well.

“Hey, I’m joking. That’s what we do, right?” you asked him. You didn’t want him to leave like this.

“Sometimes your words hurt, Y/N. I know I’ve fucked up a lot but I never wanted you to hate me and think this low of me”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful of what I say from now on. Promise. But I don’t want to lose the snarky back and forth between us” 

He smiled. He only wished you would have told him you never have hated him as well.

That night you let him give you a ride home. You were too tired to drive. It was nice. During that car ride you found out he has a beautiful singing voice. You also found out a few more things about him during your conversation. He likes legos and has a pet rock. He, Seungcheol and Joshua are like brothers. And, he loves pranks. This last one you could’ve guessed easily.

You also told him about yourself. You love reading and camping. You also like legos and have a few sets built in your office at home. You scare easily and have to deal with your team constantly jump scaring you because it’s hilarious to see you suffer, apparently.

It was a good drive. When you said your goodbyes, he told you he would text you more and you should do the same. He wanted to get to know you and he wanted to meet up in places he could fuck you slowly and have you be as loud as possible. You smacked his arm after this last comment but you agreed. He was a good guy overall and you were interested in continuing this… Whatever this was. 

For the next month, you met up with him regularly. Usually after work and at his place. He had bent you over his desk and your desk a few times after a heated argument in a meeting but you tried fucking each other in more private places. He loved hearing you scream his name and you loved having him desperate for you. In this month, he had also found out what a tease you were. You enjoyed riling him up and making him wait before he could fuck you. It was a dangerous game but you both loved it this way.

No one at work seemed to notice anything and you didn’t know if Seungcheol and Joshua knew given how close they were to Jeonghan but if they knew, they had been very discreet about it. Jackson kept trying to ask you out and Hana kept following Jeonghan around like a puppy as usual. You had to say this last part wasn’t your favorite. You knew he wasn’t interested but still. She had fucked him before you. And that pissed you off. Jeonghan knows it too and he loves teasing you about it.

One line you haven’t crossed with Jeonghan yet was having him in your apartment. You didn’t know why but you were trying to avoid having him there. It was your space, you loved living there. You were proud of having been able to buy it all on your own. What if one day this ended terribly and then you were stuck with memories of him around that place? You didn’t want to ever be sad inside of that apartment so you tried keeping him away.

Jeonghan wasn’t dumb though. He knew you were trying to keep him away from your apartment. He tried being understanding but he was getting tired of it. This wasn’t fair. You had been in his apartment multiple times. He had fucked you in almost all available surfaces in his apartment and he wanted to do the same in yours. So he did the most Jeonghan thing possible. He texted you asking if you were free and once you said yes he showed up at your door. 

“This is why I didn’t want you to have my address. How did you find out my apartment number?” you asked as you let him in your apartment.

“The same way I got your phone number. A magician never reveals his secrets though” he answered as he took his jacket and shoes off.

You were looking at him moving around your apartment. He was looking at every picture frame, every detail, every room and you just followed him silently through your apartment.

“So this is what you were hiding from me? It’s very you” he said smiling as you both moved towards your bedroom.

“If you knew I was hiding it from you, why would you come here uninvited?” you asked teasingly.

“I don’t like secrets. And you’ve been to my apartment multiple times. It was only fair”

“I should be angry at you, Jeonghan”

You asked him as you moved closer to him.

“But you aren’t angry at all. Isn’t that right, angel?” 

You nodded with a pout on your face and he laughed as he moved your hair away from your face. He kissed you and you started unbuttoning his pants. Between kisses, you undressed each other until you were both completely naked. You kissed down his body until you were on your knees in front of him. You grabbed his cock and started to stroke it. He moved both his hands to your hair and intertwined them. Before he could say anything, you started to lick and suck his tip and he moaned.

“Don’t be a tease tonight, angel”

You batted your eyelashes at him innocently but you did what he asked and you started to suck him off just how he liked it. After a month of meeting up, you had gotten pretty good at fitting as much of his cock down your throat as possible. You were both very fucking proud of it. 

With your hands, you stroked whatever you couldn’t fit in your mouth and throat and massaged his balls. That always got him so close. You wanted him to cum more than once tonight. You knew he could. You had talked about it before but he had always held off on it. He came here tonight without your permission, so you were going to make him cum at least twice, you had decided. He pulled you off of him by your hair before you could continue your plan and he raised an eyebrow at you.

“What are you playing at, angel?”

“Want to make you feel good, Jeonghan. Isn’t that why we’re doing this?” you answered him in your most innocent voice but you knew he wasn’t buying it. Before he could protest, you kissed him, deeply.

“Wanna ride you” you whispered against his lips and he groaned before moving away from you towards the bed.

You got a condom and threw it on the bed. He was sitting and leaning on the headboard. After he put the condom on, he signaled you to come over to him and you crawled to him. He whispered ‘good girl’ against your lips and kissed you again. You could never get enough of his kisses. He always kissed you with such passion. Like he could lose you at any moment.

You turned your back to him and placed your legs on either side of him. He hummed and placed both hands on your ass cheeks to massage them.

“Reverse tonight? I wanted to see your pretty face, angel”

You hummed and started to rub your pussy up and down on his cock. You knew he would forget all about looking at your face if you just kept pushing him. And you were right. He held your hips and pulled you closer to his cock. He aligned his cock with your hole and you didn’t wait any longer. You started bouncing on his cock without any warning. By now, you were more than used to his size and even if it stung a little bit you wanted to push him tonight. You were going to get what you wanted. You kept up an agonizing pace, bouncing hard and fast and you could hear his pants and grunts getting louder and louder. He placed both hands on your hips and tried to change your pace.

“Slow down, let me enjoy this, angel”

You shook your head no and kept going. His hands tried resisting your movements at first but after a few more bounces he gave up and let you speed up again. You started to touch your clit to get you to cum faster. You knew having you cum on his cock always made him cum as well. You were getting closer and you could tell he was too by the way he was squeezing your ass with both his hands and by the sounds he was making. He calls you angel all the time but he’s the one that sounds like an angel even in the most depraved of moments.

You kept rubbing your clit until you came. He came right after you into the condom with a grunt of your name. After you both started to come down from your highs, you felt good enough to keep going. He was still hard and once he tried moving underneath you, you stopped him by bouncing on his cock again. You started your rhythm back up, merciless and you heard him whine. You had never heard him make that noise before and you needed to hear it again. You weren’t going to stop. He was going to cum inside you again. You were going to make sure of it.

After your initial bounces, he spanked you hard.

“I knew you were up to something. Want to get more of my cum, hmm? One load is not good enough for you angel?” he asked between moans and you kept going. Harder. Faster. And he snapped.

He pushed you off of him and on all fours. He took the condom off, threw it on the ground and slapped your pussy hard. You moaned his name. 

“You want another one? Better fucking take it all then”

He pushed his cock into you completely. Your elbows gave out on you and he took the chance to push your head down on the mattress with his hand as he started to fuck you hard. 

Usually you would need more to cum, but his dominant aura, the way he pushed you down on the mattress and the way he’s fucking you raw are just enough and you cum again. This time your hands are grabbing the bed sheets desperately and you are whining and moaning. That was fucking intense and Jeonghan didn’t stop.

He kept fucking you hard. His moans and grunts get louder and louder. He pulled out and started stroking his cock with his free hand. After a couple of strokes he came on your back. You could feel rope after rope of cum just painting your back and you couldn’t stop smiling. You both laid there exhausted for a bit before he got up and cleaned you up. 

“I’m guessing that’s what you wanted to achieve tonight” he said as he laid next to you on the bed again.

“Hmm… That’s what you get for coming here uninvited”

“If that’s your way of trying to keep me away from here, you’re doing a piss poor job at it, angel” he said and you both laughed.

You didn’t know why, but after that night things felt different. All lines had been crossed between you. Before it had felt like there was a separation between whatever was going on with you and Jeonghan and the rest of your life. But after that night everything felt intertwined. You didn’t know how to feel about it. So you decided maybe some time apart would be best for the two of you.

You didn’t want to tell him this. If there was one thing you had learned about Jeonghan in the time you spent together was that he could be quite sensitive and misinterpret your words. You didn’t want that to happen so you simply replied to him saying you were tired or busy and couldn’t meet up. He seemed to understand. You had successfully avoided him but you hadn’t sorted out your feelings yet. But it didn’t matter. Tonight was your team building monthly dinner and you were going to focus on them only. 

You were running late and your team started texting you non-stop. You had to reassure them you were on your way. You were usually never late so you understood where their concerns were coming from. 

Your Uber stopped in front of the restaurant and in the rush of getting out of it and joining your team, you ran into a couple getting into the restaurant. You apologized without even getting a proper look at them and start to go into the restaurant but a familiar voice calls you back.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” Hana said excitedly.

You looked at her and the person next to her and you had to blink a few times to make sure you were actually seeing this. You didn’t say a word. Hana started looking between you and Jeonghan and cleared her throat. You finally looked back at her.

“We're having our team dinner here” you said dryly. 

“We would join you but we are on a date! Have a great team dinner and say hi to everyone for us” she said excitedly and all you could do was nod.

The three of you silently walked into the restaurant and you spotted your team right away. You walked over to the table and tried your best to pretend whatever you just saw didn’t bother you. This wasn’t the time or the place. Whatever you felt had to be sorted much later on.

You weren’t at your best during this team dinner and your team could tell. They didn’t say anything because they knew you were trying your best. You still joined your team for bowling and tried having as much fun as possible. 

You didn’t know what happened to Jeonghan and Hana. You couldn’t see their table from yours and you didn’t see them leave before you did. You were… Confused. You never established anything. You never said you were exclusive. You never said you were going to date other people but it somehow felt like he had lied to you. He always told you he wasn’t interested in Hana. Why did he lie? And how long had they been dating? Was he fucking you while dating her? You honestly didn’t know if you wanted to find out. You knew it was time to end whatever had been happening between the two of you. You were surprised Jeonghan hadn’t messaged you or tried to contact you at all. But maybe that was for the best.

You weren’t much of a believer in getting signs from the universe, but after not talking to Jeonghan at all for the past week about the restaurant incident, you got what would be considered by many, a sign. 

Your boss called you into her office and made you an offer. The branch four hours away from yours had been struggling to find a good team lead and a good manager for their marketing department. While she explained to you, you couldn’t move up to department manager just yet, you would have the opportunity to do so in the future if you joined them now at the team lead level. You both knew your boss wasn’t going to go anywhere any time soon. She was the manager of the marketing department and she had just been promoted when you were. If you wanted to move up to manager soon, your best option would be to accept this offer. However, you wouldn’t accept it without speaking to your team first.

Long story short, your team was pissed. Hoshi yelled at you for the first time in his life and both Clara and Sunny cried. Seokmin seemed to be holding it together pretty well, surprisingly. 

“I know this isn’t ideal… But it’s a great opportunity for me. And, it doesn’t mean I’m staying there permanently. I have to try though, you know that” you said as you tried to calm Hoshi down.

“You better not like your team over there more than us” Seokmin said with a sad smile.

“Never. We’re the dream team” you reassured him. 

It took you a while but you were able to calm Hoshi down. You promised you would visit as much as possible and offered your place for them to stay when they visit you as well. 

One thing you had asked your team and your boss was to not let anyone know you were leaving. You planned on telling everyone on your last day. You have always hated goodbyes. And this one was going to hurt. You met a lot of great people here and you had a lot of adventures and stories you will cherish for the rest of your life, but it was time to move on. 

It had been two weeks since you accepted the offer and today was your last day at this branch. Your team had been moping around for these two weeks and everyone wanted to know why. It has been fun watching them make up lies to cover for you. It was your last team prank in a sense to this branch. In these two weeks, you and Jeonghan hadn’t spoken at all. No texts, no calls, no meeting up. He didn’t say anything and you didn’t ask.

At the end of the day, everyone gathered in the conference room at the request of your boss. No one knew why except you, your team and her. You knew a lot of them would be angry at you. You had gotten pretty close with Jeonghan’s team, particularly with Seungcheol and Joshua and they would probably never forgive you for not saying anything sooner. Especially Seungcheol. 

“Hey everyone. I know it’s the end of the day and everyone wants to go home and relax but bare with me for a few moments” your boss told everyone and everyone went silent.

“I know most of you are wondering why this meeting was booked on your calendars two weeks ago and what this meeting is about. Apologies for the secrecy, but the subject of this meeting asked me and her team to stay quiet about it until today” she continued and looked over at you. At this point, everyone on your team had tears running down their face and you were holding back tears of your own.

“Unbeknownst to most of you, today was the last day working at this branch of one of our best employees and someone I can honestly call a cherished friend. I wish I could say more but I don’t want to start crying like the rest of your team so please, say a few words, Y/N” she said as she looked over at you. You heard a few gasps and confused looks as you got up to say goodbye to all your colleagues.

“Hi everyone. So, a couple of weeks ago I got offered an opportunity at a different branch. An opportunity that will open several different doors for me professionally and I chose to accept it” you said as you looked at your team. You couldn’t look at anyone else.

“I asked my team and my amazing boss to keep this between us because honestly, I hate goodbyes. I didn’t want to spend the two weeks I had left here with sad goodbyes. I know it was selfish of me so I humbly stand here asking for your forgiveness” you continued and your team laughed with you.

“I had an amazing time working at this branch. I’ve grown so much professionally and personally. I made enemies that later became… Not enemies. I thought I hated some of you but I never did. Let’s call it a strong dislike” you said and laughed.

“I’m thankful for each and every one of you, no matter what. To my team and to my boss, you guys know everything already so just want to say thank you again. Now get out of here and enjoy your night. I have a four hour drive to make, so don’t try and persuade me to go for drinks!” you finished your speech and your team got up to hug you. 

Everyone started to say goodbye to you and you found out you were right. Joshua and Seungcheol were angry at you to say the least. Especially Seungcheol. But you made them forgive you before you had to leave. 

You never saw Jeonghan. You didn’t know if he hadn’t been in the meeting at all or if he had left once you were done with your speech. You were disappointed. You wanted to say goodbye at least. He had been a big part of your time here, more in the last few months but I guess he didn’t think the same if he wasn't even going to say a quick goodbye to you.

After your office was packed, you and your team went back to your place to help you load everything into your car for you to leave. You had a few boxes you were going to ship to you or wait for someone to visit to bring them to you but overall, you managed to successfully pack most of your favorite belongings and you were ready to leave.

You were going to miss this apartment. Other than your career, it had been your biggest achievement. You had been able to buy it and make it your own. You weren’t getting rid of it for now. Not unless you needed the money desperately. You were moving into your uncle’s apartment that was vacated recently so you wouldn't be paying rent at your new place and you could afford to keep your beloved apartment.

Hoshi loved that idea, it comforted him knowing you wanted to return to this apartment eventually and hopefully to the branch and your team. 

As you were loading things into your car, you got a text from Jeonghan.

“I’m sorry. You deserve better. I hope one day you can forgive me and we can talk. About everything. I couldn’t say goodbye. Not to you. Drive safe and good luck on this new adventure, angel”

You didn’t know you had started crying until the tears hit the screen of your phone.

You didn’t hate Jeonghan. You never did. He made your life hell for a long time but he also managed to bring heaven to you in the last months you spent together. You didn’t blame him for the way things ended. You never talked about your relationship and whatever was going on between the two of you. You had both failed each other.

Maybe one day you would meet again and you would talk about everything. Maybe even have a happy ending together.

Or maybe you will never meet again and this was just another chapter in your life.

Either way, you were content. You weren’t sad or disappointed anymore.

You didn’t get permanent closure in a lot of things but you were ready for this new adventure and his text made you feel better about the decision you made. 

You did this for you and your career, it was never about him. Your time together had simply ended at the same time this opportunity presented itself and you both knew that.

For now, you were just another girl that had been in his life for a while and that was moving away looking for a better career opportunity. 

And he was just another guy that had been in your life for a while creating chaos in the worst and the best way and that was staying behind.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Hey guys! I hope you guys enjoy this one. It took me a while to finish it but I’m really proud of it 😇💕 I know it’s super long but I realized I might not ever be able to write short fics, specially when it comes to Hannie 😭 The request asked for a cliffhanger ending so I hope I stayed true to that. If you liked this fic and/or if you want a more permanent resolution to this couple, please let me know in the comments and such 💕 Thank you for supporting me! CHEERS 🥂

PS: You can find part 2 here

[junseoing]

Apparently top media is putting up10 members in another competition show. boys this ur sign. Leave your flop company PLEASEEE.

[emberuby]

heartthrobs (i don't belong to anyone else) | s.jy + p.sh

pairing: manager! jake x actress! reader x actor! sunghoon

summary: jake seems to lose his patience as you keep being shipped with your series costar, park sunghoon. an argument between the two leads to a night to prove who you truly belong to.

warnings: smut, established relationship (with jake), jealousy, possessiveness, threesome, unprotected sex, face sitting, oral (both f and m rec), vaginal sex, rough sex, degradation, creampie, dom! jake, dom/kind of switch! sunghoon, sub! reader, some jakehoon action.

note: this is sort of a spin-off of the queen's guard? but not really bc u don't need to read it to understand this, it's more of a mention. also, this is my first threesome/poly fic ahhh hope it's okay. like always, feedback is greatly encouraged and if you have any questions let me know. ^^

wc: 5.2k

“So what was it like filming all those sex scenes?” the interviewer asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. 

The crowd erupted in excited noises, now that the panel was discussing what they had all come to hear. The panel was a long white table, and sitting on it were the rising stars of the hit historical romance series, ‘The Queen’s Guard’. 

Lately, everyone in the world seemed to be obsessed with Park Sunghoon and you. You two played the main characters of the show, and your chemistry was so strong that people began mixing reality with fiction, thinking you two worked amazingly as a real-life couple when in actuality, you were already in a long-term relationship. 

You laughed awkwardly, looking over at Sunghoon for help in replying, but unlike you, Sunghoon always seemed to like these kinds of questions. He was definitely guilty of playing into your PR performances where you two pretended to be utterly enamoured with each other. 

You raised your microphone to your lips, “Well actually, filming those scenes is much less glamorous than they seem on screen. It’s quite mechanical; it gets sweaty and hot and very awkward. Sorry to burst your bubble everyone, but it’s not really the environment to get turned on in.” A couple of people laughed at your answer, including the interviewer.

“Speak for yourself. I think it’s quite sexy filming with you,” Sunghoon smirked at you. This caused screeches and cheers to come from the room. You rolled your eyes at him, as though to tell him to tone it down on the flirting. Sunghoon always flirted with you so obviously it was almost too much to handle. You looked over at the edge of the stage to see your boyfriend sitting there, face stoic and still, not showing any signs of emotion. 

You knew it bothered Jake how much people shipped you with your co-star, even if he tried not to show it. You tried to not care too much, given it was a part of your job, but you always felt a bit guilty when you had to act this way for the camera. 

The team behind the current press tour toldyou and Sunghoon to play along into the bit and act as though the time you spent together while filming has made you two fall in love. It was indeed a great marketing strategy, but Jake was possessive and liked for people to know you were his. 

Surely he was not happy with the new wave of people convinced that your real boyfriend was Park Sunghoon.

You spoke up again, “Hoon is only joking. Honestly, I think we both have gotten used to filming sex scenes, but especially in the beginning, it was very awkward. Do you guys recall the scene in season one? It was in my bed chambers with—”

You didn’t even have to finish your sentence before the crowd erupted in excitement, knowing exactly what you were going on about. You were of course talking about the scene in the previous season where your character loses her virginity to Sunghoon’s. It was incredibly intimate and a fan-favourite scene due to the chemistry and sexuality. It was a great payoff to a rather slow and burning build-up. 

“If I may add something,” Sunghoon spoke into his mic, making everyone go still. “That was actually the second scene we ever filmed together.”

“No kidding!” the interviewer gasped into her mic, “So you guys stepped foot on set and immediately just started taking your clothes off?” 

Sunghoon threw his head back to laugh, and you covered your face with your palm to hide your flustered expression. God, this was embarrassing. 

“It was a very awkward scene to film,” you said. “You can imagine, we weren’t very familiar with the set and the story yet, but I believe the director chose to film it so early on to see how our chemistry worked together. I suppose we did well because we weren’t replaced by other actors.” 

Sunghoon chuckled at your remark. “We make a great pair, her and I,” he said cheekily, and you knew for sure that clip would run wild on social media after people got their hands on it. Sunghoon was always a PR machine. 

You looked back again at your boyfriend. Jake was seething as he sat restlessly on the backstage of the panel. There you were, looking beautiful as ever, answering the ever-so-annoying questions and playing pretend lovers with Sunghoon.

Jake never disliked the fact that you were an actor. His jealousy never stemmed from the fact that you had to kiss and pretend to have sex with your co-stars, he knew that was your job and he respected it. 

‘The Queen’s Guard’ was actually quite a guilty pleasure for him. He would sometimes turn on an episode when you weren’t around, especially because of your disdain for watching projects you were featured in. 

He quite liked the show. How could he say he didn’t enjoy watching you getting railed in a historical setting? You always looked so sexy in your tight corsets that made your breasts press up against your chest and your gilded historical gowns. Not to mention all the close-up shots of your ass and thighs when you would ride Sunghoon’s character that always managed to give him a hard-on. 

He supposed the story was also interesting.

Ever since your new rise to fame and the success of the show, he knew that a whole new wave of people would be obsessing over you. It was a given when you looked that beautiful and sexy, but at the end of the day, he was the one you came home to, and he was the one who made you see stars while bouncing on his cock every night.

The problem for Jake was the parading of your and Sunghoon’s potential relationship. Everyone online seemed to love you two together and wanted you to get together, and he hated that. 

Come on, people. It literally says right there on your Wikipedia page, ‘Partner: Sim Jaeyun’ since four years ago. Not Park Sunghoon, nor anyone else. How much more clear could it be?

For fuck’s sake, he’s Sunghoon's manager and he was the reason he even got the role in the series, and this is how he repays him? By making fuck eyes at his girlfriend and flirting with her on camera for the whole world to see? 

He knew that Sunghoon had developed an attraction to you during the filming of the series, that was obvious enough. You may have not realised it because of how loyal and devoted you were to Jake, but this was more than a PR performance for Sunghoon. The bastard so obviously wanted to fuck you and it made him look ridiculous. 

“Just before we wrap up this panel,” the interview chimed, “could you two give us some insight into the third season? I heard some talk around the town that filming will begin soon.”

“Yes, that’s correct. We will be off to Scotland in a few weeks to shoot the upcoming season. We really can’t reveal much, but what is it that you would like to know?” Sunghoon spoke up, raising his eyebrows in curiosity.

You shook your head, knowing that Sunghoon just opened a can of worms with that question. 

The interviewer smiled mischievously as she said, “On a scale of one to ten, how steamy is this next season about to be?” People in the room began cheering in anticipation.

“Thirteen,” Sunghoon said confidently. There were whistles and exclaims heard throughout the room, and it truly felt like the crowd erupted in excitement. You giggled at all their reactions, but he wasn’t even remotely wrong; the next few seasons were about to be intense. “I swear I’m not exaggerating. I got the chance to read the script recently and had to change my pants like three times.”

You covered your face with your palms at his crude comment, shocked by its implications. No wonder people loved Sunghoon so much, he really played into the bit. 

The interview ended shortly thereafter, and before you could stand up to get off your seat, Sunghoon came up to you and held out his hand for you to take. You blushed, knowing that everyone in the room was watching your interaction. You placed your hand into his palm and you two walked off together side by side. 

As you walked off the stage, you didn’t fail to notice the way Jake’s jaw was clenched and he was throwing daggers at your and Sunghoon’s intertwined hands. You swiftly let go of Sunghoon’s hand and began walking up to your boyfriend. 

God, he looked so hot when he was jealous. You tried to lean up to give him a peck on his cheeks, but he grabbed you by the waist and pressed his lips onto yours. You were startled as you felt his tongue plunge into your cavern, and you were mortified as you accidentally let a whimper slip past your tongue.

The backstage was mostly empty except for Sunghoon and a few staff walking around minding their business, but you weren’t used to Jake doing such public displays of affection. He slipped his hand down to your skirt, taking a handful of your ass, and before your mind could trail off and forget where you were, you pushed Jake off you. Your breathing was shaky as you tried to compose yourself, your panties already getting wet from a mere kiss. 

Perhaps you got excited at the thought of getting so intimate with Jake in front of others, especially Sunghoon. You shook your head to snap out of your thoughts. You shouldn’t have been thinking of other men that way. 

“Might as well piss on her to claim your territory,” Sunghoon remarked with a controlled smirk. God, Jake would do anything to slap that smile off his face. 

“Well, she is my territory, so maybe you two need to cut back on the camera flirting,” Jake said with a frustrated tone. One of his arms was still wrapped around your waist, wanting to clearly show Sunghoon who you really belonged to.

“That’s quite dramatic of you,” Sunghoon said, taking a step closer to you. “You know what this industry is like, Jake. It’s all for show.” 

“I think I can tell when a guy is trying to fuck my girlfriend,” Jake said, letting out a sigh of frustration. 

“Jake,” you said warningly, placing a hand on his chest. “You need to relax. Like Sunghoon said, this is just PR. He doesn’t seem me that way—”

“No, I do want to fuck her,” Sunghoon said with a knowing grin. You could feel Jake’s hand tighten around your waist and you snapped your head at Sunghoon in shock. That was forward of him. “But just ‘cause I want to doesn’t mean I’ll act on it, so you can calm yourself.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Park. I gave you this job, your career is in my hands,” Jake sneered. 

“Are you saying that if I keep flirting with your girlfriend, you’ll have me blacklisted?” Sunghoon asked, not seeming threatened by him in the slightest. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying this petty brawl. 

Jake didn’t say anything. Instead, his focus was now on you. You looked up at him with an annoyed expression, but he couldn’t believe that you were stupid enough to not realise that your own coworker was attracted to you. 

“Practically everyone who watches the show wants to fuck Y/N, it’s not like I’m the only one. And yet you only get bothered about me, I wonder why that is,” Sunghoon pretended to ponder. “Is it because you view me as a threat?”

“In your dreams,” Jake sneered.

“I definitely have had dreams about the three of us, in case you’re asking.” 

You gasped. Surely you three shouldn’t be having this conversation so out in the open like this. 

Jake walked up closer to Sunghoon. The look in Jake’s eyes was a mix of anger but also curiosity. Although he was possessive to a fault, something about the thought of making Sunghoon watch while he fucked you open was enticing. 

Maybe he would even let Sunghoon fuck you a bit, but only to prove to you how much superior Jake was at pleasuring you. If he couldn’t make the world understand that you were his, perhaps he could make Sunghoon understand how obsessed you were with Jake.

He could already imagine it in his head, the astonished look on Sunghoon’s face as you cried and withered as Jake’s cock plummeted inside you, not being able to handle his sheer size and the meticulous way in which he fucked into you. 

“You think you can fuck her better than me?” Jake chuckled, amused at the thought.

Sunghoon’s eyes shined, knowing where this conversation was heading. “I think she’d enjoy herself plenty.”

“Deal. I’ll make you watch as I fuck her open in front of you, and then you’ll understand why she’ll always choose me.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Sunghoon spat. 

Jake rolled his eyes, holding himself back from hitting the egotistic man in front of him. He turned around to look at you questioningly. “What do you think princess?” he asked. 

Your eyes drifted back between the two men towering over you. You’ve always loved Jake so much that it was hard to imagine another man in your life, let alone your bedroom. That being said, now that Jake and Sunghoon were staring at you like this as if you were prey and they were your predators, you felt a wetness begin to form in between your legs at the anticipation. “I-I,” you stuttered, “I think…”

“Say the word, Y/N, and I’ll leave you two alone,” Sunghoon said reassuringly. As much as he wanted to get into bed with his hot manager and even hotter co-star, he didn’t consider himself a home wrecker. 

Jake cupped your chin. “I can tell by the look on your face you want it,” he said. He was all too familiar with your body language and knew by the glint in your eyes that you were interested in this, even if you weren’t before. 

You cleared your throat, trying to gain back your confidence so as to not look too nervous about this whole arrangement. You looked up to Sunghoon, your faces now a mere inches away from each other and said, “Let’s do it. See you tonight in our hotel room.” 

Jake and you were sitting in the back of your Uber, driving back to your hotel room from the bar. He didn’t have much to drink, but the flush on his cheeks gave away how tipsy he was. You couldn’t help but admire how beautiful he looked.

While you were busy staring, Jake’s head was leaning down towards his phone as he was scrolling through his social media. He knew he was being stupid and dramatic, but he couldn’t help but look up your and Sunghoon’s names on Twitter, only to find some of the most annoying posts he could imagine. 

After the show’s fanbase got their hands on the clips of the panel, they ran wild with it.

‘The way Sunghoon looks at her 🥹’ 

‘I can’t wait for Sunghoon and Y/N to recreate the tower scene in S3. It’s going to be so fucking hot 😩’

‘I just know that Y/N’s man is losing it rn’

That last tweet couldn’t be more right. Jake’s mind was reeling as he read the tweets and watched the edits, all shipping you and Sunghoon together. It was like he was falling down a rabbit hole of misery. Before he could click on one more edit of you and Sunghoon together, he felt his phone being snatched away from his grasp.

“You’re being ridiculous, Jake,” you said sternly, although unable to hide a small smile from how adorable your boyfriend was. 

“They know that you have a boyfriend, isn’t that crazy? Maybe if they thought you were single I’d get it, but come on,” he groaned, shoving his face into his palms. 

You began rubbing his back, “I don’t belong to anyone else.”

He looked over at you with loving eyes. “I know, princess. I just wish everyone knew that.”

You scooted closer to him and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You don’t need to prove anything because I fucking love you.”

Jake clicked his tongue and grabbed you by the wrist, bringing your palm down to his crotch. You could feel how hard he got already. “Does it seem like I don’t want to do this? It honestly really turns me on to think of showing that asshole how well you take my cock.”

“Oh yeah?” you smirked. “What if he ends up fucking me better than you?” 

“Tread lightly, Y/N. No man on this earth can make you as wet as me. Nobody will ever make you scream, clench or cum like I can. I’ve ruined your body for anyone else,” he said through gritted teeth. 

You clenched your thighs together to relieve your arousal, and Jake smirked at the sight. 

You began trailing your hands towards his zipper, trying to free him of his trousers, until he swiftly stopped you. “Jake, I want your cock in my mouth,” you whined, giving him the doe eyes that usually worked in getting him to do anything you wanted.

Unfortunately, the eyes didn’t seem to work on him as he shook his head and said, “As much as I want to, princess, save it for later. We’re almost there.” 

When you two finally arrived back at your hotel, it was like you were both shaking in anticipation. You kept wondering what it would be like to be fucked by Jake while another man watched, and Jake was excited at the prospect of showing Sunghoon exactly why you were his.

After you swiped the key card and entered your room, you almost screamed as you saw a figure standing in front of the kitchen table.

“Sunghoon?!” you exclaimed, your mouth gaping open. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Sunghoon had a mug of tea in his hands and looked at you confused. “You told me to come here,” he said matter-of-factly. “Did you already forget?”

“Let me rephrase: how did you get in here? Did you ask the front office? God, that’s so creepy—”

“I gave him an extra key card,” Jake said from behind you. “It was supposed to be for emergencies, so yeah this is pretty fucking creepy.”

“This is an emergency. My balls have been blue all day while I waited for this, so come on, get going,” he said, waving his hands towards the bed. 

You were left astonished, while Jake just grabbed you by the waist and pulled you through the room. He sat you down on the lush mattress, and there you were, looking up towards Jake and Sunghoon while they eyed you like you were their last meal. 

God, tonight would be the death of you. 

“Your dress is beautiful,” Sunghoon said, his eyes glinting. 

You smiled at him warmly, “Thank you—”

“Take it off,” he demanded. The dominating tone sent blood rushing to your cunt, and your mouth was left agape as you continued staring at him. 

He cupped you by the chin, tipping your face upwards. His voice was cold and annoyed when he said, “Did I tell you to freeze and stare? I said take it off.”

Fuck. Holy fuck.

Jake smirked to himself, knowing how much you loved being pushed around during sex. “Come on, princess. Give us a show,” Jake chimed. 

You slowly stood up and looked down at your black mini-dress. It was made of silk and didn’t have any straps. Jake loved you in strapless dresses as he got a clearer view of your cleavage, and it was so easy to slip it off you when he wanted to fuck you quickly in public. 

You reached behind your back to try to unzip your dress but had trouble reaching the pull tab. Jake could see you struggling, so he walked behind you to help you take it off. He slowly unzipped it, savouring the way the silk fabric pooled down your body. 

He finally pulled it down to the floor, and now you were completely bare and open to the two men’s taking. Sunghoon gawked as he noted that you weren’t wearing a bra or a pair of panties underneath your dress.

“You fucking slut,” he whispered, “what if you got caught? What if you flashed some bastard and he got to see your pretty little pussy?”

“I bet she’d like that,” Jake said from behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and trailing his hands down to your glistening cunt. He used two fingers to begin swirling around on your clit, which caused electricity to travel up your spine.

“N-No!” you moaned.

“No?”

“I only want you to see my pussy. Only you two,” you managed to say while your mind was already running wild at the intimate touch. 

Jake latched his mouth onto your neck, sucking on the sweet spot right above your shoulder. You let out a sigh, which quickly turned into a groan as Sunghoon leaned down to begin sucking on the other side of your neck. The feeling of two pairs of lips was foreign but a very much welcome feeling. It felt like your mind was about to explode at the pleasure erupting in your body. 

Sunghoon split from your skin for a moment to catch his breath and looked up at Jake with enticing eyes. “You’re quite handsome up close,” he said through a mischievous grin. 

Jake rolled his eyes. Given how long Jake had been Sunghoon’s manager, he knew how flirty the man was around everyone, men and women alike. It no longer fazed him when he said things like this.��

Sunghoon leaned towards Jake, his eyes asking permission to take their staring contest to the next step. You watched carefully as their faces began coming closer together, excited at the thought of them kissing each other. 

Jake nodded, and Sunghoon swiftly latched his lips onto Jake’s. Jake’s fingers were still inside your pussy, and at the same time that Sunghoon sucked on his bottom lip, Jake slipped his fingers deeper inside you, making you whine in pleasure. Jake sighed into the kiss.

Given his line of work, Sunghoon was very much used to kissing and making out with other men. Just last year he landed the role of a bisexual vampire, who also happened to be a bit of a whore. That’s all to say, he had plenty of practice with the lips of other guys, and it came like second nature to him now that Jake’s was on his.

You reached behind you to grip Jake’s biceps to help steady you. Jake was getting harder as he could feel your slick begin spilling down his fingers. 

When Sunghoon let go of the kiss, the smile on his face was like that of someone who won an award. He looked so proud of himself, you almost felt amused. 

“Get on the bed, Sunghoon,” Jake said demandingly. Sunghoon did as he was told, laying himself comfortable on the mattress, his head resting up against the silk pillows. God, he was such a brat.

Jake picked you up by the waist and laid you beside Sunghoon on the bed. He pressed one more kiss to your cheek before telling you, “Get on top of him. I want you to sit on his face.”

You raised your eyebrows in shock. Didn’t he want to make Sunghoon watch while he fucked you? Perhaps he changed his mind after that kiss. You supposed Sunghoon really did have a way with his lips and tongue. 

You shakily began straddling his chest and manoeuvring yourself closer to the bed frame. Now there it was, his face had a clear view of your pussy. It was as though his eyes were shaped like hearts as he stared at your cunt, already wet and puffy from the fingering it got from Jake. He needed to devour it immediately. 

Sunghoon grabbed your hips roughly, pulling you down to latch his mouth around your nub. You let out a yelp at the shock of contact. This wasn’t a position you were all too familiar with, and the way Sunghoon’s tongue lapped around your hole was making your thighs quiver. 

“Fuck!” you moaned, throwing your head back.

Jake had to hold back from just jerking himself off at the sight of you like this, so beautiful with your body flowing with pleasure. 

You could feel yourself reaching your climax, and the sensation was all too strong. You began to try to lift yourself above his head, trying to get away from his tongue, before you felt a palm harshly strike you in the ass, causing you to yelp out. 

At first, you thought it was Sunghoon, but both of his hands were still wrapped around your hips. No, this was Jake wanting to punish you for trying to get away from what he told you to do. He landed his palm on you one more time before saying, “If you try that again I will tie you up and eat you out until you’ve cum enough times that you can barely think. Sit on him, properly this time.”

You felt tears begin to well up in your eyes at the mixture of pain and pleasure, then felt Jake’s hands be placed on top of Sunghoon’s. You whined as you felt Jake push you down harder onto Sunghoon’s face. You were left breathless at the feeling of his wet mouth and his nose on your clit. 

“He’s going to suffocate!” you said worriedly. Jake was exerting a lot of pressure on your hips, and you were terrified that Sunghoon being enveloped in your thighs and pussy would make it hard for him to breathe. 

Sunghoon raised your hips up ever so slightly to say, “If I died with you cumming on my lips, I’d die a happy man. Don’t worry your pretty head.”

Just like that, he continued the assault on your pussy and you could literally feel his devious smirk on your cunt. You tried to be more involved then, rocking your hips back and forth as he thrust his tongue into your cavern. 

Fuck, you swear you were seeing stars. 

“Jakey…I’m going to cum. I’m coming.”

“Cum on his lips, princess,” Jake whispered behind you. “Let yourself go.”

At his instruction, you cried out in pleasure as you felt a fire ignite in the low of your abdomen. Your vision faded to white as you released, and both Jake and Sunghoon held you steady as you let the orgasm wash over you. 

Sunghoon may have continued eating you out for a while longer, causing a bit of overstimulation. You continued crying out in pleasure before Jake pulled you off of Sunghoon, and gently laid you down with your back on the mattress. 

Your breath was shaky and you already looked fuck out, streaks of wet mascara running down your warm cheeks. Jake loved it when you looked like this. 

Jake quickly plunged his hardened cock inside you, not even giving you a proper moment to take a break. There you were back again, legs spread wide for him, ready to take whatever he gave you.

Even with the preparation that Sunghoon gave your pussy, you still squirmed at the way your walls stretched to accommodate him. At first, he tried to slowly sink his cock into you. He then felt his tip touch your cervix. His hips were pressed against yours and he couldn’t bring himself to go any deeper.

He began rocking himself into you, making your walls clench tighter around him at the pleasure of his cock rubbing on your walls. The way his tip slammed inside of you so deep was making you drool. 

You looked over to see Sunghoon join Jake in taking off his trousers and moving over closer to your head, his cock a mere inches away from your face. You opened your mouth wide to let him push himself inside. He groaned at the feeling of your wet mouth wrapped around his cock, even if it was only the tip. 

You were losing track of where you were and what you were doing, as your mind was becoming hazy at the feeling of Jake’s cock drilling so deep inside you, as well as the struggle you had trying to take Sunghoon’s in your mouth. 

“Fuck, baby. Just like that. You look so gorgeous with my cock down your throat,” Sunghoon hissed. 

It was hard to breathe through your nose given how exhausting it was taking two cocks at the same time, but you managed to push through and sucked Sunghoon deeper into your cavern, loving the way his dick felt inside you.

Maybe you were just as insane as Sunghoon because the thought of dying like this, with two cocks shoved inside your holes and overstimulated beyond repair, did not sound like such a bad way to go. 

“Isn’t she just beautiful?” Jake said, caressing your waist to comfort you, as though his cock slamming inside you wasn’t the main reason why your body was shaking so much. Your eyes burned as you felt more tears trail down your face, and Jake reached up to brush them off. 

Jake and you came at around the same time. He spilt his seed deep inside you, loving the way your cunt clenched around him and milked him over every last drop. His cum felt so warm inside your hole, it was almost comforting. 

“Inside or on her face?” Sunghoon asked, feeling himself reach his tipping point. He was going to cum at any moment.

Jake smirked up at him, “My dirty girl likes to swallow, doesn’t she?”

You tried to nod your head, but even that was too exhausting so you let out a muffled noise of agreement. You felt his cum spill inside your throat, and you swallowed as much of it as you could before he pulled out and let some of it spill on your chest and face.

Your eyes were pink and shiny as you looked up at Sunghoon. Surely, you didn’t have the voice to say anything, but you hoped that your pleading eyes were enough to signal to him that you wanted him to come closer to you. 

And there you laid. Jake was behind you, his softening cock still deep inside you as he tried his best to keep his load from spilling out. Sunghoon was in front of you, facing you as the side of his head was lying on the silk pillows. 

All he could do now was just admire how beautiful the two of you were, and think about all the other things he would do with you for the next few hours, perhaps even the next time you three got together. 

Now that Sunghoon got a taste of Jake and you, he wasn’t sure if he could ever let go.

[adrienneleclerc]

Missing Journal

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Hispanic/Latina! Reader

Summary: Charles reads Y/N’s journal and finds out she has a crush on an F1 driver.

Warning: the usual spellings and grammatical errors, inaccuracies of pretty much anything involving F1

A/N: kinda based off season 1 episode 3 of Austin and Ally. However, instead of reading the journal about Y/N’s crush and thinking it’s about him when it’s actually someone else, Charles would read it and think it’s about someone else when in reality it’s about him. Does that’s make sense? Cool. Also, i always put Hispanic/Latina because I don't know what you prefer to be called and because this does exclude Spain, Haiti, Brazil, and other Latin American countries that don't speak Spanish.

Y/N and Charles have been friends for a long time, but so have Y/N and Lando. Y/N moved from the states to Monaco and became neighbors with Charles, ultimately becoming friends, but she also participated in Junior Karting with Lando, befriending Lando and Max Fewtrell.

It is safe to say Y/N has been friends with the three of them for a very long time and she is so grateful because she always felt like she didn't belong since she isn't European like them. But she has Logan as well, even if they aren't super close. She splits time between Charles and Lando. If Lando thinks McLaren is going to do soemthing interesting, he invites Y/N to Woking. Something interesting happening at Ferrari? Charles is bringing Y/N to Maranello. Y/N loves travelling (the Sagittarius in me) so it works out perfectly.

One day, Y/N's apartment was flooded because of poor plumbing and Charles offered her a place to stay. When her apartment was clear, both of them decided it was better if they were roommates since she was the better cook and that brings us to today.

Y/N was sleeping in her room peacefully when she felt someone shake her awake and she saw Charles standing over her.

"If you are going to kill me, can i at least eat first?" Y/N asked sleepily.

"Y/N, wake up, they changed our flight to Imola." Charles said and Y/N sat up in her bed.

"What do you mean they changed our flight? Don't we fly priavte?" Y/N asked.

"Yes, but Fred wants us to be in Imola earlier so we have more time to go over strategies so get dressed, sweetie, we need to go to the runway." Charles said. Y/N's heart fluttered at Charles's nickname for her. She tries to think nothing of it because he is a Libra after all, he is very affectionate towards her and Carlos as well. She got out of bed.

"Okay fine, but get out." Y/N said, pushing Charles out of her room to get dressed. She packed a dufflebag with 5/6 outfits, pajamas, anything she really needed for a 5 or 6 day trip more or less.

"Whatever you say, love, I'll buy us something to eat on the way there." Charles said outside her door. The last thing Y/N packed was her journal, she likes writing down everything about her travels since she writes travel articles for Hello Monaco (don't know if there is a traveling section, lets pretend). But she also writes about her love life or lackthereof. Y/N washed her face and got dressed in her comfortable clothes. When she left her room, she sw Charles on the couch with his small luggage.

"Alright, lets go. Are we stopping by the bakery?" Y/N asked.

"Of course. I'll wait outside while you order the pastries, I'll give you money." Charles said.

"Thanks, lets go." They left the apartment and got into Charles's car. Charles parked outside the bakery and Y/N got out of the car, ordered pastries, getting herself a warm cookie croissant (THEY ARE SO GOOD, my mom needs to buy more from the market) and whatever Charles gets. She gets back in the car and Charles starts driving away.

"Can you feed me, honey?" Charles asked. Y/N broke off a piece of the pain au chocolat and fed it to Charles, his tongue and lips touching her two fingers holding the piece of pastry. She felt butterflies in her stomach and decided to just hold the oain au chocolat and have him bite it but... "No, no, i can't drive like that, just feed me like you did before." Charles said and thats exactly what Y/N did.

Now of course Charles knew it wasn't necessary for Y/N to feed him like that, but he loves the intimacy of this gesture. So having her feed him like they were boyfriend and girlfriend even though they are not was great thing in Charles's book. Especially considering his feelings for the Hispanic/Latina queen by his side. Y/N finished feeding Charles the pastry and licked her fingers that were covered in chocolate because no one wastes chocolate here. They were playing music in his car, just vibing, singing along, Y/N finished her cookie croissant, and they were just talking until they made it to the airport runway where their private jet was, with Carlos waiting by the jet.

"Por fin! Por qué se demoraron tanto?" Carlos asked.

"Güey, relájate, teníamos hambre, queríamos comer en el camino." Y/N said, getting her dufflebug out of Charles's car, Charles gets his suitcase out too.

"I don't like it when you call me güey." Carlos said.

"I picked up Mexican slang from Pato that time he was in Woking with Lando. I miss Pato, i gotta text him." Y/N said, entering the jet with Charles and Carlos trailing behind. She sits down. "I'll never get used to this, I grew up lower middle class."

"Well your friends are F1 drivers and we invite you everywhere." Charles said.

"And I thank you for that, honestly. My boss loves my hotel reviews, thanks for paying for my room by the way." Y/N said.

"Of course, it's no big deal." Charles said.

"What i don't get is why we have to fly if the drive is just 5 and a half hours." Y/N said.

"But by plane it is an hour." Carlos said. "That mean we have more time to relax, work on strategies, go clubbing." Carlos says.

"We are not clubbing before media day." Charles warned him.

"Fine, que pesado." Carlos said and Y/N giggled.

The flight itself was bearable, Y/N fell asleep and Charles was watching her with a smile on his face.

"You should tell her you like her, mate. Because this" Carlos says gesturing to what Charles was doing. "Its getting creepy and concerning."

"When the moment is right i will tell her." Charles said.

"Okay then." Carlos said, putting his headphones.

When the jet landed, a chauffer took them from the airport to their hotel. When they arrived at the hotel lobby, Y/N saw Lando and Oscar on the couch, Lando was on his phone while Oscar talked to Logan.

"Lando!" Y/N shouted, running to where Lando was.

"Y/N!" Lando exclaimed, standing up from the couch to hug his best girl friend. "How was your flight? Are you hungry?"

"Nah, I'm fine, I had a cookie croissant before the flight so i should be good." Y/N said.

"Nonsense, you should have a proper breakfast. Osc, you wanna go out for breakfast?" Lando asked the Australian.

"Yeah sure." Oscar said. "Lets get our keys and we'll head out." As soon as everyone got their keys, they went to their rooms which are all on the same floor, WAGS obviously roomed with their partners, Y/N had her own room and she place her dufflebag there. She knocked on Lando's door and he opened up.

"Should i change." Y/N asked.

"Nah, you're fine. You ready to go Osc?" Lando asked Oscar, who was talking to Logan

"Yeah, lets go, catch you later, Logan." Oscar said goodbye.

"I'll talk to you later my fellow American!" Y/N exclaimed as she left with Lando and Oscar. Charles was observing their interaction.

"Jealous?" Carlos asked right behind Charles startling him.

"You scared me, mate. But i am not jealous." Charles said.

"You might want to unclench your fist then." Carlos tapped on Charles's fist and he releases.

On their free day, Y/N was writing down the name of the restaurant/cafe they went to, reviewed the food, the atmosphere, how much the food was.

"Y/N, do you have to review everything?" Lando asked.

"Yes, how was your food?" Y/N asked.

"It was good." Lando said.

"Do you think it is worth the price?" Y/N asked.

"I say yes but I think if you were wokring class, definitely not." Lando said.

"Thank you. What about you, Osc?" Y/N asked.

"I mean I've had better in Monza, but its still good." Oscar replied and Y/N wrote it down.

"You gentlemen have been great help." Y/N said.

"Will you be in the Ferrari hospitality this time or will you be coming over to McLaren?" Lando asked.

"I can't say yet. I'll probably arrive at the paddock with Charles, hang around his hospitality halfway during the break inbetween free practices and then go over to you before the second free parctice starts." Y/N said.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. You coming to media day or are you going to be sightseeing?" Oscar asked.

"The hospitality gives me free food so I'm going to media day because i don't like sightseeing by myself." Y/N said.

"You just want me to pay." Lando said.

"You have the money to pay for me! I don't see the problem." Y/N said.

"She’s been like this since I joined F1.” Lando told Oscar.

“I do the same with Charles, don’t start.” Y/N said.

(This scene was written before I found out what happened in Imola)

It was media day and Y/N was repping McLaren at the paddock, it made Charles feel a certain way.

“Stopping staring.” Carlos said.

“I can’t help it, they’re acting like a couple and I don’t like it.” Charles said.

“At least she’s not wearing his number.” Carlos tried to cheer him up, Charles was going to answer him when Y/N came up to him.

“Have you guys seen my journal?” Y/N asked.

“How does it look like?” Charles asked.

“It’s a mini blue notebook with my name in rhinestones, my friend decorated it for me.” Y/N said,

“We haven’t seen it, love.” Charles said.

“Fuck, what am I going to do?” Y/N asked worriedly.

“Relax, it’s just a book.” Carlos said.

“It is NOT just a book, it is my diary and work journal all rolled into one, i write ALL my personal stuff in there, if anyone else reads it, I WILL DIE.” Y/N said.

“Maybe you should start taking notes on your phone.” Carlos said.

“Like I’m going to listen to a colonizer.” Y/N snapped. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it. I mean you do come from colonizers but i should call you that, it’s not your fault.”

“Ya relájate. We’ll look for it.” Carlos said.

“Thank you! I was basically in every hospitality today so I gotta ask around.” Y/N mentioned.

“Why were you in every hospitality?” Charles asked.

“Well i run an F1 TikTok account too so I was just hospitalities. I hope no one has read it.” Y/N said before running off.

“Do you think she’s overreacting?” Carlos asked.

“Her mom said she was born a drama Queen.” Charles said shrugging. “I’m gonna go talk with Max.” Charles said, leaving Carlos, Charles entered the Red Bull hospitality.

“Hey Charles, where’s Y/N? I found her notebook.” Max said,

“That’s great! Where did you find it?” Charles asked.

“She left it on the couch when she was talking to Checo. Do you know why she was going mental about this?” Max asked, giving the notebook to Charles.

“Apparently there’s a lot of personal stuff written in here.” Charles said and that’s when he got an idea.

“No.” Max said immediately.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Charles said.

“You are not reading it.” Max said.

“Why not?” Charles asked.

“Because Y/N would probably murder you.” Max said.

“What Y/N doesn’t know, won’t kill me.” Charles said opening Y/N's journal.

"You act as if you were married. Well, what does it say?" Max asked, looking over Charles's shoulder to read what it says.

"Apparently Y/N has a crush on someone on the grid." Charles says. He kept reading. "And that guy is not me, looks like she has a crush on Lando." Charles sighed, closing the book.

"I haven't finished reading it." Max says, taking Y/N's journal to keep reading. "Okay, she could be talking about anyone, it doesn't necessarily mean she likes Lando." Max said, reading over the journal entry.

"Really? 'We've known each other since we were kids', Lando and Y/N have done karting together. 'I could easily get lost in his eyes, his accent is adorable, we spend so much time together and the gestures he does with me are so intimate, it's almost as if we are already togther but we are not', who else could it be, Max?" Charles asked.

"Okay well everyone on the grid has an accent to Y/N except of Logan. I have seen Lando lead Y/N places with his hand on her lower back. Maybe you are right, Y/N has a crush on Lando." Max said.

"Oh well, I lost my chance, let me just give Y/N her journal, I'll see tomorrow before free practice." Charles said.

"I thought we were going to play videoames later tonight." Max said.

"Not anymore mate, I have to talk to Pierre and pout about losing the love of my life to a child." Charles said.

"He's only 2 years younger than you." Max said.

"He is a child!" Charles shouted before leaving the Red Bull hospitality with Y/N's journal in hand. We was walking around the paddock when he spotted Y/N on the phone.

"Si mami, estoy comiendo bien, te lo juro. Mami, luego te marco, mi amigo Charles quiere hablar conmigo, te quiero mucho, bye." Y/N hung up the phone and put it in her bag. "What's up?"

"Oh I found your journal." Charles handed Y/N the journal and she took it happily.

"Thank you so much, you're the best, where did you find it?" Y/N asked.

"Oh in Red Bull, Max found it on the couch." Charles said.

"I'll thank him when i see him. Are you doing anything tonight? I wanted to visit the Aryton Senna statue and since I know you're a fan.." Y/N was cut off by Charles

"Sorry, I'll be with Pierre since Kika couldn't come." Charles said

"Oh, well maybe after free practice tomorrow?" Y/N asked hopefully.

"I don't think so, I'll talk to you tomorrow, Y/N." Charles said leaving Y/N in the paddock and she walked to the McLaren hospitality where Lando and Oscar were playing Uno with some of the mechanics.

"Hey, Y/N, when we finish this round, we'll leave." Lando said.

"Yeah, thats fine." Y/N said and she sat on the couch. Once the game was over, Lando drove her back to the hotel.

"Did you find your journal?" Lando asked.

"I did, Charles and Max found it." Y/N said.

"Then how come you don't sound thrilled that you have your journal back?" Lando asked.

"Because Charles was acting weird, like he said he didn't want to see the Aryton Senna statue." Y/N said.

"But Leclerc is a big fan of him." Lando commented.

"Thats what i said!" Y/N exclaimed.

"Leave him, maybe tomorrow will be better." Lando commented.

Unfortunately, that was not the case, her Friday and Saturday were spent in the McLaren hospitality, she was now watching qualifying on the TV (Q3) and she saw something awful happen, Lando and Charles were fighting for P3, their wheels were touching and everything and it got so bad that now Charles’s front wing and Lando’s rear wing were damaged when Q3 finished. Y/N ran to Lando’s garage to see what happened.

“Bro, what the hell were you two doing?” Y/N asked.

“You should be asking that to Leclerc, I don’t know what is wrong with him, he’s been on my tail for all of quali.” Lando said.

“Don’t worry, I will.” Y/N said storming the Ferrari hospitality and she spotted Carlos. “Cabrón, where’s the other cabrón?”

“He’s in the driver room.” Carlos answered and Y/N bursted into the driver room, Charles was shirtless.

“What the hell, Y/N?!?” Charles asked, putting his shirt back on and Y/N locks the door.

“We need to talk.” Y/N said.

“There is nothing to talk about.” Charles said.

“The hell there is! You’ve been acting weird since Thursday, you haven’t invited me to the Ferrari hospitality, you didn’t want to come with me to see the Aryton Senna statue, it’s like you changed when…” that’s when Y/N realizes what must have happened. “You read my journal!” Y/N yelled, she picked up a pillow and started hitting him. “How fucking dare you!”

“How dare I? How dare you?” Charles asked, blocking her hits.

“Excuse me?” Y/N asked, halting her action,

“You heard me! I Can’t believe you like Lando. Lando? He is so immature!” Charles shouted.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Y/N asked.

“Your journal entry! ‘we spend so much time together and the gestures he does with me are so intimate, it's almost as if we are already togther but we are not’, you spend so much time with Lando, who else could you be writing about?” Charles asked and Y/N just stared at him.

“Mas menso no puedes ser! It’s you, Charles! I like you, you ridiculously oblivious moron!” Y/N exclaimed and now it was Charles’s turn to stare.

“You like me?” Charles asked shyly.

“I love you! We were neighbors, we are roommates, we spend so much time together that I developed feelings for you. Now please say something.” Y/N said,

“I like you too. When I thought you liked Lando i went crazy.” Charles admitted.

“That’s why you were acting like that in quali! Lando was kinda mad,” Y/N said,

“Yeah, sorry about that. But now that I know you like me…you coming to the Ferrari hospitality?” Charles asked.

“Of course I will.” Y/N said.

It was the Grand Prix and Y/N was in the garage with the red headphones one watching from the monitors.

It was a tough race but Charles made P1 and Y/N couldn’t be any prouder. When Charles “parked” the car at his spot, he saw Y/N standing with Free and the rest of the team so he got out from the car and kissed Y/N. They pulled away and smiled.

“Sorry, I got caught up in the moment.” Charles said, laughing.

“Does this mean we’re dating.” Y/N asked all giggly after her first kiss with Charles.

“Of course we’re dating, Mon ange. You are my girl, and now we are paddock official.” Charles said.

“So when are you taking me out on our first date?” Y/N asked.

“As soon as I’m done with the post race interview.” Charles said, kissing her one last time.

The End

It took forever to write but I hope y’all like it, thanks for your patience!

[centrally-unplanned]

To talk about monopoly & antitrust, I want to start off with your first day in Econ 101, when you learn "how prices work". The toy model that nearly everyone learns as one of the first things ever is that classic supply-and-demand graph of price and quantity; you know it, I don't need to show it. And in relation to how firms set price in a market, the explanation you get is something like:

"In a world with perfect information, zero transaction costs, rational agents, and no barriers to entry, new firms and/or increased output will enter the market until marginal price equals marginal cost"

This (seemingly) portrays a model where new companies "entering the market" is how prices go down. Like say there are Firms A, B, and C, engaging in oligopolistic pricing for a normal good; what happens is some new Firm X (with the same production costs) emerges with the sole business strategy of "offer prices lower than them because they are skimming" and it drives everyone's prices down in a race to the bottom. That, in a sense, competition between identical firms drives the price equilibrium.

That isn't very true, not in practice and not even theoretically; the 101 stuff just sort of biases you to see it that way. Firm X above is being rational in one way but silly in others; why would it enter a market where its competitors are making healthy profits just to fuck that up, knowing it has no advantage they can't immediately replicate in response? And pay all the fixed costs other firms have already paid to make that 0.1% profit? In real life firms almost never do this, they compete over (actual or perceived) advantage or market segmentation. And it also means that - if all firms are truly the same in a market - cooperating on price, far from being aberrant behavior, is the natural thing to do. Why would I look at my rival firm and lower my price to "undercut" them, knowing that they 100% can just lower it too? We both lose, immediately. In practice, companies often set their prices by looking at the prices of competing firms and matching them!

Many things actually drive the price equilibrium of course, but one of the biggest - and most useful for our purposes - is the substitution effect. If companies defacto cooperate on prices all the time, why is the price not infinity? Well because if you are selling steaks and set the price to infinity, I'm not gonna buy it! I can just buy chicken, for me it's pretty much the same. And chicken is cheaper to make than steak. As a chicken firm, I totally can set my price under your steak and you can never, ever match it; that is a real advantage, one from asymmetries of production. The price of steak is driven by the need to compete with chicken much more than it is driven by the need to compete with "other steaks". And so on down a chain of a million desires and costs and needs.

So to wrap this around to antitrust, there is a common idea out there that monopolistic pricing is increasing from the past because if I look at different industries, so many of them today are consolidated into 2-3 big firms. Your grocery stores are all Giant or Safeway or w/e it is in your city, if you are buying a TV Samsung & LG are half the entire US market. How could these companies not collude on price? Of course they do, and they don't need explicit agreements that would violate extant FTC regulations to do it; they can just softly communicate and feel out cooperation. So you gotta break them up and change the rules so they can't do that.

The trap is thinking this is any different if it was 10 firms - it really isn't! Maybe marginally, sure, and if it was 2000 firms yeah okay the sheer chaos would probably create some price churn; but in the past prices were not driven down by the diversity of firms making price cooperation impossible. The long history of guilds, business associations, chambers of commerce, and so on shows that they had plenty of avenues for cooperation - and often did straight-up set prices. Meanwhile, when Wal-Mart, Target, Aldi, and others all cut prices at around the same time, they are not mainly competing with each other. If they were they would just mutually agree to not do that, without even saying anything! How stupid do you think they are? That isn't hard to do. Instead they are competing with Amazon; with boutique local stores; with restaurants; with the changing price of labor; with shifting consumer sentiment and expectations. The industry concentration doesn't matter.

Until it does of course! Because what is the substitution good for oil? They exist of course, but they ain't cheap; people will still buy gas at gigantic ranges of prices. Here, the fundamental structure of the market is monopolistic - and also a geopolitical clusterfuck, but let's not get into that. Producers openly rig prices sometimes, and antitrust actively regulates against it, and it is a hot mess of governments and companies and all that. Are people who hold patents engaging in monopoly pricing? Obviously, that is the point of patents! It is by design; but there are tons of arguments to be made around creeping exploitation of the IP system. Sometimes hundreds of firms in a dominant market niche will offer complex, bundled products where the price of each piece of obfuscated and the value is subjective, but consensus is you can't not buy the product or you will be screwed and since you can't tell what the product even is, let alone how valuable it is, you can't object when they set the price - I hear these are called "universities", but they go by other names in other sectors.

All of the above are something like "monopolies", which maybe are getting worse over time, but they are monopolies for different, product-specific reasons. I think there is a good deal of FTC work and other reforms that could be done in the US to identify areas where this kind of rent extraction is happening. But what it doesn't look like is opposing blanket industry consolidation. And in fact the correlation is honestly pretty weak. Because identical firm competition does not drive the price equilibrium.

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Mihoyo is ignoring Boycotters and aiming for Return Players instead!

Mihoyo's marketing strategy is extremely obvious after that livestream and it's really demoralizing to see so many fall for it. Every X.0 update they add a bunch of QoL features fans have been asking for for years. (Pick your own 5 star, artifact recycling, picking artifact sub stats) Their aim is to get fans that have dropped off during previous patches to come back.

They have been ignoring those "boycotting" because they anticipate the return players to out number the boycotting ones. Also if you are still logging and playing daily you aren't boycotting in their eyes. Playtime and daily login numbers are what they care about when it comes to f2p players. Unless you are a whale going from 1,000s of dollars a patch to zero dollars you "going f2p" isn't going to hurt their bottom line. They want a large number of active users along with a few whales.

If you still care about showing Mihoyo you care about their colorism you can NOT download and play 5.0 day one. You need to actually boycott by giving mihoyo low player numbers for a X.0 patch.

We still haven't seen 3 of Natlan's tribes yet! They changed an NPC's skin tone already. We can still push them to correct with the other tribes! BUT YOU HAVE TO BOYCOTT!

If 5.0 has higher login numbers than Sumeru Mihoyo will feel like they have no reason to listen to the boycotters because they regained fans from other areas or pulled in new players. I'm not saying you have to Quit genshin forever. Just hold off on playing the Natlan update for a few weeks. Watch a youtuber's play through of the Archon quest if you can't wait for the story.

And please convince your friends who have seen the 5.0 news but haven't been keeping up with Genshin to wait before coming back. Plenty of players stopped playing after 4.3 because that's when the Fontaine Archon Quest ended. Those players need to be informed of the white washing and convinced to not come back for 5.0. Those are the players Mihoyo is "listening to feed back" from with it comes to the QoL updates. Why do you think people who haven't logged in in over 45 days are getting another 10 free pulls? Because those are the players they are aiming for. If those players say no we aren't coming back to pull for white washed characters Mihoyo is more likely to listen to the criticism.

Candace wasn't in the Sumeru trailers and Sethos was added after we left Sumeru. There is still time for them to add POC playable characters to Natlan. We still haven't seen Vanessa's tribe. PLEASE KEEP PUSHING! IT IS WORKING SO DON'T STOP NOW!

[dduane]

Buenas tardes:

I’m writing you this ask with fear that it might seem weird but, do you have any advice about starting to publish books nowadays? I have seen some Amazon auto publishing in kindle, but I’m not sure how trustworthy that is, with all that AI going around. Nor what other options might be.

Thank you so much for your time, I loved your Star Trek novels

A

P.S.I apologise for the broken English, it is not my first language

First of all: your English is fine—don't worry about it. :) (And thanks for the nice words about the Trek books! I very much appreciate them.)

About getting into self-publishing in general: There are a lot of pathways into it, and some that (for various reasons of ethics) may rightly be seen as superior. But Amazon does seem to some folks as the most accessible "way in" for people who don't have a lot of money to invest in their startup. For the moment, therefore, let's stick with that.

There's no question that starting selfpub at the Zon is a lot more dodgy than it used to be. But I think your odds of success—and don't forget, there are a lot of metrics for "success"—are as good as any other real person's.

It's also worth noting in passing that Amazon now requires you to specify whether or not your submission contains any AI. (And naturally, AI-using scammers and other people eager to game the system are going to lie about this.)

For the moment, never mind the AI. Your job as a new Amazon-based writer is mainly to write some books, publish them, and then market the hell out of them, any way you can, while you write some more. It may seem daunting, but there are well-traveled pathways to start doing this.

Adding a break here, because this is likely to run a bit long. Warning: contains work, work and more work, without any ironclad guarantee of success; also incredible oversimplification of a long and complex process. (But I'm already working on three books at the moment, so forgive me for not escalating this into a fourth.) :)

Very briefly, here's a nod toward general strategy. (And forgive me for glossing over, here, the admittedly huge effort and commitment required for conceiving and writing just one book, let alone a series of them. Or numerous series of them. Self-publishing involves gigantic amounts of hard work... but I think you've already suspected that.)

Having talked to people who've worked exclusively in Amazon and have (or had) no previous publishing credential, they've emphasized to me the importance, when you're getting started, of having at least a few books ready to go when you're ready to start publishing. Meaning that you can't write just one and fling it out there into the cold cruel world on its own. Readers who immediately look for more of your work and don't find it are likely to dismiss you, and it, as not worth a second look... mostly because the Algorithm has trained them to.

So let's pretend you've got a series of books to publish—and this can be open-ended or not: at this point it doesn't matter. Let's say that, to launch yourself and your work, you've written three books (ideally no shorter than 50,000 words, and between 60-80K is thought to be better). The idea is that those will be plenty to start with, and enough to let your readers decide whether they like what you're doing. (Writing them will also serve as useful proof of concept that you can actually write novels, if you don't already have any proof already.)

The strategy that's been described to me is for you, at this point, to release those three books into Amazon a week (or two or three) apart. Then, when they're all out there, you publish to Kindle Unlimited, as a "free sample", a shorter work in that series—ideally some kind of prequel—containing links to the three main novels.

Then you keep repeating this kind of pattern as often as is comfortable for you, while carefully studying the analysis of results Amazon will provide for you so that you can see what seems to be working best and/or what's not working at all.

Now comes the question of how best to support those novels (and the ones that will follow them). Leaving aside the complex question of how and when and where to advertise (and how to afford it!), you need a way to make it easy for readers and other interested parties to reassure themselves, if they need it, that you're a real person: and that you are in fact a writer who's serious about their business and in it for the long haul. For this you need at least two things:

A website

A social media presence

The website can be handled a number of different ways... though I'd suggest you avoid build-your-own-site-easy platforms like Wix if you can: they don't seem to be terribly good at the customer support end, and I'm not convinced that they're any cheaper in the long run than buying your own domain name, buying hosting for it, and posting a WordPress site in that online space. But at the very least, you need a site where you can talk a little about yourself, and mostly about your books, and publish links to their locations on Amazon.

The social media presence can be in one or two places, or lots, depending on how much energy you have to spend on this part of the effort. The main advice I can offer you here, both from my own experience and others', is to absolutely NOT have your entire social media presence—especially in the shortest-form types of social media like Twitter and Bluesky—be about pushing your own work. There seem to be few things that will turn people off you faster. And also, these days maybe such an approach would make people likelier to mistake you for AI. Let people see who you are, and at intervals let them know that you write, too.

(sitting back and looking at all this) If all this sounds like a ton of work? Make no mistake, it really is. It can get exhausting. But this is just one of the areas where your passion and determination as a writer will be tested over the long haul.

It might have been simpler, back in The Day, to just write and let your publisher get on with all the stuff that surrounded bringing a book out. But there was also a whole lot less control for the writer, in that older paradigm. The newer one offers you a lot more control... and a lot more work, which may or may not yield a lot more profit. All you can do is give it a shot and see how it works out for you.

In any case, however you decide to proceed: I wish you good luck on the journey!

[cherrycrushes]

only on camera - headcanons

(separate) alastor, lucifer, vox, angel, striker x camgirl!reader.

a/n: starting to get into making headcanons! lowk fun. also slight maturity warning

alastor

✮ you guys probably met upon his arrival at the hotel

✮ you being angel's close friend because your line of work

✮ he didn't know what a camgirl was until a very awkward conversation explaining what your job was to him

✮ he was shocked to say the least

✮ to imagine people would pay just to see you touching yourself was definitely an odd thing for him

✮ he definetely acted weird around you

✮ but throughout multiple conversations, he realized you were much smarter than he thought, despite your occupation

✮ you had to explain to him certain marketing strategies you did just to lure people into subscribing and paying for you

✮ he respected the hustle, but definetely left you alone when working

✮ after doing a live stream, he would provide aftercare

✮ giving you water and food after

✮ he's actually very sweet about it!

lucifer

✮ i'd like to think being a camgirl was only your part-time job

✮ your main job being a mechanic

✮ he was at your shop, waiting for you to fix a mechanical duck he made but couldn't fix

✮ and attempted to make awkward small talk!

✮ when you told him what you did, he chuckled awkwardly

✮ he was supportive!!

✮ and when you two had started dating, the sugar baby accusations came in

✮ it only slightly affected your relationship, having to clear up the rumors

✮ to combat them, you showed the press how much you made on your own

✮ just to prove to them you had enough sugar, and there wasn't any need for a rich man

✮ you were the rich man

✮ lucifer only fell harder for you at this attitude

✮ the public eating it up as more pda showed from the two of you

✮ him proudly showing you off

vox

✮ he probably watched your work and reached out to you

✮ he defo jacked off to it but whatever!

✮ he reached out to you seeing the amount of viewers you had each stream

✮ you being on the leader-board for one of the top camgirls

✮ he promised you eternal fame for your soul

✮ you were much smarter than that, and you turned him down

✮ this only made him want you more (eugh men)

✮ but you made a deal with HIM, promising him to be the face of some of his products if he gave you more subscribers

✮ he gave in, and started falling in love with your business demeanor

✮ he secretly joined in some of your streams, his face not showing

angel

✮ he defo met you through valentino

✮ but you guys connected through sharing similar experiences

✮ helping each other fend off creeps whenever going out

✮ especially helping each other if he had to film and you had to stream

✮ i'd imagine your relationship would have little to no sex at all

✮ just pure fluff and cuddles :))

✮ eventually Valentino would invite you to film with angel

✮ more likely, he would force you to film with angel

✮ to which you had to agree to (or angel would have to face the consequences)

✮ angel would say it was fine and you didn't have to

✮ but you did it for him

✮ being as soft as possible

✮ angel remembers the experience as one of his best on set, even if the film had less views as the others

✮ lots and lots of aftercare!!

striker

✮ he probably didn't know what it was until he asked

✮ and when he did find out, he teased you mercilessly

✮ but you endured it, only snapping when he called you something of a slut

✮ oooo heavy enemies to lovers vibes here

✮ ygs going band for band LMFAO

✮ he falls in love with your feisty personality

✮ always having a comeback when he mentioned something about your job

✮ you guys surprisingly have a lot in common

✮ him killing people for money, you fucking yourself for money

✮ definitely a lot in common!

✮ actually helping you film a stream that had bondage in it

✮ people noticing more streams with a gun kink theme around it hehe