#now he has two other love rivals

[sanyu-thewitch05]

OOOHHH, MALLEUS, THIS IS EMBARRASSING FOR YOU!

[itwoodbeprefect]

flashbacks to dialogue that happened less than a minute ago are annoying and a little insulting for obvious reasons, unless it's in bad buddy episode 5 [2/4] and pat is having entirely serious sepia toned flashbacks to fifty seconds ago while almost shoving a set of drumsticks he hasn't even paid for yet up his nose. then it's brilliant and world changing

[scara-writes]

paramour

Yandere!Cheating Duke X Duchess! Reader X Yandere!Lover Servant

I just want to write a reader who has the same/more power as/to the yandere(s).

The setting is still in the fantasy/manhwa world, medivial, any setting as long it's not modern.

CW: two yandere, rivals, cheating, consent smut, infidelity.

I'm making the darling a little more forward(?), daring, more power or that can go against a yandere. Atleast, that's what the darling thinks. Also, this is not polished like my other stories.[ Forgive me, I'm not good with smuts! I also love y'all comments and your ask/request(will answer them soon!). The Yandere Emperor and Yandere Crown Prince son really outnumbered the yandere Omega. Y'all are crazy for that!]

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

"Mistress." He murmured. His arms hadn't let go off your waist. It was the first thing your eyes landed on when the sunlight came in to greet a new day from the window balcony. You closed your eyes again to find your way back to sleep again.

Your hands went to trace his back full of scar last night from your nails. You hummed when he gave you a pepper kisses on your exposed skin.

"Morning." He gave you one last kiss on your lips before snuggling between your chest. His arms hadn't move around your waist since last night."Mmmh..morning..." You muttered looking away—eyes still close—from the sun when it kissed your face.

"Do you want me to call the maids to serve you breakfast?" His sweet voice lull to sleep more. You whispered no. Last night, this man gave you something akin to that of heaven, something your husband never gave you.

Last night, you made love with this man. The same man you rescued from the human trafficking, kidnapping commoner from the outskirts of the kingdom. Now, indebted by your kindness he devout himself to you with his life.

You groaned, feeling your body is aching all over. This goes not unnoticed by your lover."Did I hurt you to bad?" He asked. His earth orbs are gleaming with shine and now getting filled with tears. "I-I'm sorry, I was rough with you mistress." His voice full of regret and loathe on himself.

You opened your eyes, ruffling his curly brown hair before stroking it. Staring down at his eyes. "No. You did good." You smiled at him, cupping his face, before kissing him in the lips. He whimpered,deepening his into yours.

The intoxication of alcohol must have taken over you. Drowning yourself from alcohol after your husband didn't arrive on the scheduled date, you waited for him for a whole day to arrive. Alone in the gazebo, Everett was the one who went to your weeping figure. That was a month ago. Everett offered himself to shower you with his love. At first you feel reluctant about this, you will never be the type of person to use someone just so you can feel yourself happy. Everett didn't care about it whether you use him or not. He wanted to prove himself that you are worth to be love. This man made your heart flutter in a way that your husband once gave you before the marriage.

"I-I love what happened last night, my mistress." He whispered bashfully, his pretty swollen lower lip,you bitten hard last night, went to reach his eyes giving you a wide smile. The sun kissed his tan face adding a charming look. His neck has full of bites and bruises from you. His cheeks become a little darker shade from blushing, he must have reminisced something last night.

Now, you made him your lover. Though not completely in love with Everett. You also shower him with items or materials that most commoners would love to have but it doesn't seem like this man is materialistic. He just wants you.

You didn't hide Everett to your husband.

What's the use of hiding your fling to Theodore when he was the first one to cheat on this marriage?

Despite being loyal to that man you loved. He had the audacity to tell you that you shouldn't pry on his private his life after you confronted him with a newly hired maid going out. "Our marriage contract states that the two parties should not meddle one another's private life else this contract shall be annuled."

So all of his flexing his love for you was nothing but a hoax? A show? A lure for you to agree to marry him?

Though, your marriage with him was for the politcial marriage. You once fell in love with Theodore. The same man who gave you flowers everytime you two date, the same man who kissed in your cheeks after he walk you home, the same man who always writes poems about his devotion to you. Did he pursuade you to continue this marriage by making you love him so that the two duchy became one? It may seem like you wanted this marriage at first. You didn't, your family wanted it and they have asked you—no annoyingly, they plead you to marry him, because your parents and his parents signed a contract that their children will reunite the two duchy.

"Your ladyship, the duke asked for your audience to join him in the breakfast." Your butler from the other side of your room, outside the door, knocked and speaks after. You frown upon hearing it, looking at the closed door, what does he want?

You feel strange about your husband nowadays. He had been asking for your presence this past few days. Never once he called for you after your wedding with him.

You clicked your tongue and turn to look at your lover. You saw Everett's face was frowning too. "Fine, tell him I'll be there." You announced to the butler. You look back at the man leaning his weight on you. You tap the curly haired lover to let you go from his hold yet he didn't budge after moving yourself to sit up instead you heard yourself going 'oomfh!' and find your lips were on his again. You groaned while he moaned weakly. He pushed you down on the bed, his lips never leaving yours until you were out of breath. A string of saliva trailed between your mouths. Everett was smiling before diving his lips into your skin, to one of your chest, fondling the other. You feel a little ticklish and panting at his stimulation. "Eve—! Wait! Ah..." Your voices went unheard, The male's mewling sucking on to your flesh like thirsty man who hadn't had a drink.

Your hand went to tug his hair as you moaned out his name. "Shi—Eve... Oh! S-stop... Ah.."

His other hand goes to put one of legs above his back and parted the other leg, accessing himself between you even more."m-mistress!"

You groaned when you felt him grind between you. He looked at you with a pleading eyes, he look like he will cry again, the tears filling up yo the side from his eyes. "M-mistress." He whined his mouth was already in another mound. You feel his hardness between. "p-please? I'll be good! Please... huff..I'll make y-you feel good!"

Your eyes are hazy from the pleasure. "You want.. hah... it?" His eyes getting filled again with tears. You tug him by the hair not enough to hurt him. You landed your lips on his ears. Panting and breathless when you felt his hands is still fondling your body. "You got..ngh... to earn it, pretty boy." You murmurs made him whimpered. "You have to be my good boy... Are you my good boy?"

He nod, a tear fell down to his cheeks, he leaned down to your lips, murmuring, i-am-your-good-boys, thank-yous and I-love-yous.

The room filled with noises that could make anyone flustered and uncomfortable. You didn't realize from your high you are feeling that the butler is coughing uncomfortably behind the door excusing himself as he will inform the duke what you told him earlier.

You went down the stairs with a difficulty, aching between your thighs. You can't find any dress to cover the one hickey on your neck, Everett apologize and helped you cover it with a foundation but it failed horribly from covering seeing that the foundation wasn't blend well and you do not want your maids do it for you. Not when you found out that almost all of them had already been with your husband. You were planning to replace them sooner.

You stopped at the closed door leading to the dinning room. The butler from earlier straightened his posture, clearing his throat after he saw you. He announced your presence behind the door opening the door for you."My lord, your ladyship is here."

You walked in after thanking one of the male servant for pushing the seat for you once you sit across the lord of the household, your husband, the Duke.

The breakfast before you was served cold. If you have arrived earlier you could have eaten warm. You glance at your husband, surprised that his plate has not been finished and it looked like he didn't touched it. You noticed his eyes is trained on to you since you came in, yet his eyes isn't on you but to your neck and the way you walk earlier.

His grey eyes seemed to be narrowing, he scoffed. "You're late."

You glance away, picking one of the utensil, stabbing the meat, landing it to your mouth chewing it. You gulped it down before taking another bite. The marinated pork seems to be delicious even if the breakfast a little no warm.

"It seems you are enjoying with your toy a little too much." He added, there was anger rising beneath his voice.

Oh, the egg is a little bland but it is still edible nonetheless.

"There are more new reports about your speculated infidelity to the public. Do you know that?"

You looked at him after eating the last piece of the sunny side egg, smiling: finally acknowledging hus presence."Yeah, what about it? It's not like it will ruin our marriage. After all, you had a numerous of headlines about your 'rumored' infidelity too. Did our contractwas nulled after that? It didn't right?"

"(Y/n)."

"Yes, husband?"

His eyes widened a little before going back on giving you death gaze. "Kick that slave away. I don't like him." He demanded. Though he wasn't shouting. You frowned, how dare he?

"Why would I? It's my decision whether I choose to throw him out or not." L

"I do not want him near my property." He complained, gritting his teeth at the last word.

"This is my property as well!" You sternly answered back. Not leaving another room for an argument.

There was silence between the room.

"... I... don't want him near you." You heard him. You blinked at the sudden word that blurted in his mouth.

You scoff standing up, "I think I had my fill..." You starts walking back to where you enter the room.

"(Y/n)." Theodore called you. You didn't observe the way his eyes longed for you. You were focus on the anger within you. "Are we forgetting something, Theodore?" You questioned.

He pondered, those orb you used to love held a confusion.

"Meddling into your partner's private life will annul this marriage... Wasn't that written in our contract?" You bitterly told him. "Sounds familiar right? Do not dare demand me to throw away Everett." You added.

Finally waiting for this moment for this to happen. Guess he will get to taste his own medicine.

"... As long as we do our part in this household we will act as husband and wife. Is not that what you told me?"

"..."

"Now then, I will excuse myself. I have no longer desire to finish my breakfast here." With that, you leave him there.

When you reach the door, opening it, you were surprise to see Everett waiting outside. "What are you doing here?" You asked him. Your frowned face was replaced with a confusion look before giving him a small smile. The man infront of you return your smile with a small grin, placing one of his arm on your waist."W-well, I feel bored and alone in my own room. So I found myself waiting here w-with the butler. Besides I saw you walking wobbly earlier and I-I am concerned that you might have even more difficulty walking... So f-forgive me for not staying put." The look concern on his face adding the pout from his lips made him look cute.

"What are you a puppy?"You poke his nose giggling as you walk away with him, your eyes went back to talk to the butler. Telling him you want to continue your breakfast at your garden, asking him to make it for a two people. The butler bowing to your order before going to the kitchen area to order the maid.

Your husband on the other hand, loath with rage and jealousy mixing under his eyes. His eyes narrowed especially when the slave you brought in leaned on top of your head kissing at the crown part of your head, leaning to your ear to whisper something akin to sweet talks. The arm around your waist went rub your back.

If only you glance again on Everett's face. You would have caught him giving your husband a smug smirk.

[guzhufuren]

A Guide to Some of the Best Queer Asian Shows

The guide includes a show’s basic summary; main genres/tropes/themes and official streaming links (additional info on how to watch at the end of this post)! You can find some content warnings in the reply section of this post. Shows are listed by countries, numbered by the order I recommend watching in, not by rating. All shows have happy endings unless specified otherwise. The list will hopefully be updated regularly (last updated on 04/04/2024, 98 queer shows in total).

Most shows are about mlm, I specify with coloured notes those that are focused on wlw, polyamory, aromantism/asexuality, etc.

Tumblr does not allow large texts or more than 30 images per post at the moment, so you can click on every country’s list to expand them and view them fully in a separate post. You can access this guide in a google doc here.

Thailand 🇹🇭 (full list here)

1. KinnPorsche mafia boss/bodyguard; action; kidnapper/kidnapee side couple

Kinn, a son of a prominent mafia head, is ambushed by an enemy, and meets Porsche, a bartender who comes to his rescue for a price, thus beginning their reluctant relationship as boss and bodyguard, which soon turns into something more.

iQIYI

2. Bed Friend friends with benefits; office setting; trauma

King and Uea work in the same office. After a company outing ends in a drunken hook-up between them, Uea and King agree to keep seeing each other on a strictly physical basis. With no strings attached, will these two be able to keep things between them simple and carefree or will their emotions eventually get the better of them?

Uncut 18+ on iQIYI or GagaOOLala or cut on YouTube

3. The Sign reincarnated lovers; fantasy; thai mythology; police

The story of the love between Phaya and Tharn who used to be mythological creatures Naga and Garuda in their past lives, and were forced apart. But fate intervened, and two men were reincarnated in new bodies. Now, they work together as partners in the Special Investigations Unit to uncover violent crimes and supernatural mysteries while their love is tested by mystical forces and past enemies.

YouTube

4. I Feel You Linger In The Air period drama; time travel; bittersweet

Jom, an architect overseeing the renovation of a rundown villa, continuously dreams of a man he's never met. When a twist of fate transports Jom to Chiang Mai in the 1920s, he assumes the role of a servant to the affluent young master Yai, the mysterious man from his dreams.

GagaOOLala or YouTube

5. You're My Sky sports; university setting; coming of age

Thorn, a young basketball player follows his senior Fah to university as a result of the promise they’d made — to become national basketball champions. However, to his dismay, he finds that Fah has already given up on basketball. --- Aai has to work in pairs throughout the semester with San, 1 year footballer; in order to receive a scholarship to study in Japan, Ai must be willing to do everything to get an A grade. --- Track running requires the compatibility of the team members to be very high. Vee, who became the new racquet 4, has to speed up training to fit in with the team as quickly as possible, especially with Dome, spending extra time together to train. Is love actually a major obstacle on the path of being an athlete?

Viki

> more tv shows from Thailand

GMMTV Thailand 🇹🇭 (full list here)

1. My School President high school setting; secret crush; school president/rebel musician

Gun is the head of his high school music club. Tinn is a school president and Gun's long-term rival. The Principal wants to disband some of the school’s “useless” after-school clubs, especially the music club. Per school rules, the student council president is the one who has the power to dissolve clubs. Gun is now at Tinn’s mercy, so he attempts to do whatever he can to persuade his rival not to cancel the music club. Little does he know, Tinn actually has a secret crush on him. Could romance brew as Gun makes a desperate attempt to secure the future of his band?

Viki (MSP) & YouTube (Our Skyy special 33-40) & YouTube (special)

2. Moonlight Chicken adult romance; age gap; deaf character

Jim is an ordinary guy running a chicken rice diner. One night, he meets Wen when he stays past closing drunk. Brought together by fate that night, intangible feelings arise. Neither can stop thinking about the other despite Jim's efforts to remain unattached. Jim also takes care of his nephew Li Ming, who is falling in love with Heart, a deaf teenager who is practically kept under house arrest by his affluent parents.

YouTube

3. Not Me revolution; freedom fighters; secret twins

When his twin Black is viciously attacked and subsequently left hospitalised in unconsciousness, White is unable to endure the harm done to his brother in silence. He learns Black was a part of a gang of anti-capitalist freedom fighters, and it was one of them who betrayed him. White disguises himself as Black to discover which one of them betrayed him and put him in a coma.

YouTube

4. 23.5 wlw; high school setting; secret admirer

Ongsa moves to a new school and meets Sun, a cute popular girl who she immediately falls for. However, she decides to approach Sun in instagram dms under the pseudonym Earth, leading Sun to believe she's talking to a guy. But Ongsa does not want to lose the opportunity to talk to Sun, so she decides to keep the fact that she is a girl a secret and continue talking as Earth.

YouTube

> more tv shows from GMMTV Thailand

Japan 🇯🇵 (full list here)

1. Cherry Magic!   mind reading; secret crush; office setting

By still being a vіrgin at 30, Adachi gains a magical power – the ability to read other people's minds by touching them. At first, he’s overwhelmed by his new ability, and it’s not proving to be helpful to him. But that all changes when he accidentally touches their office’s most perfect guy Kurosawa, who he learns has romantic feelings for him.

WeTV (Cherry Magic) & no international streaming of Cherry Magic The Movie is available to my knowledge, so watch on bilibili or KissKH

2. Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up!)   misunderstanding; high school setting

Aoki has a crush on Hashimoto, the girl in the seat next to him in class. But he despairs when he borrows her eraser and sees she's written the name of another boy — Ida — on it. To make matters more confusing, Ida sees Aoki holding that very eraser and thinks Aoki has a crush on him!

Viki

3. Our Dining Table food; child character

Salaryman Yutaka finds it difficult to share meals with other people. However, his life starts to change when one day, his cooking attracts the attention of a young boy named Tane and his older brother Minoru. The two brothers are impressed by Yutaka's cooking skill and invite him to their house to cook together. Yutaka's dreary life begins to change, and soon he finds himself looking forward to the meals he shares with the Ueda siblings together, as well as developing a taste for romantic feelings.

GagaOOLala

4. She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat wlw; neighbours; self-discovery; food

Nomoto loves to cook, but tends to make too much food and has no one to share it with. Luckily for her, turns out her neighbor Kasuga has a big enough appetite for the both of them.

No international streaming available, translated to english by Furritsubs, S1 & S2, watching instructions provided, please support translator on kofi.

5. Takara-kun to Amagi-kun high school setting; relationship exploration

Takara is a good-looking popular guy in class, while Amagi is a simple but bright and pure fellow classmate. The two begin to date in secret after Amagi's blurted out confession.

Viki or GagaOOLala

> more tv shows from Japan

China 🇨🇳 (full list here)

Most chinese shows are adapted from explicitly queer novels, the shows are undeniably and obviously queer, but nevertheless the queer romance part is censured. The only exception is number 4 on the list, it is not censored.

1. The Untamed period drama; fantasy

An epic fantasy led by a problem child who comes back from the dead 16 years later in order to fix the broken world he left behind — and finally unite with his soulmate.

YouTube

2. Word of Honor period drama; fantasy

The leader of assassin organisation Zhou Zishu quits his position in pursuit of freedom with drastic measures. In his travels, he meets Wen Kexing, the leader of Ghost Valley who wants nothing but revenge. The two become entangled in various machinations within the martial arts world, and eventually become soulmates instrumental in each other's redemption.

YouTube & Special Episode on Tumblr or DailyMotion

3. Couple of Mirrors wlw; period drama; socialite/assassin

You Yi is a kind-hearted socialite and a successful author. Her perfect life is turned upside-down when she discovers a betrayal by the two most trusted people in her life. With no one left to turn to, she finds refuge in the friendship and support of Yan Wei, a lonely female killer disguised as the owner of a photo studio.

YouTube. the show doesn’t have a happy ending, but it can be a happy ending for you if you stop watching at episode 12 timestamp 28:02.

4. Stay With Me enemies to lovers; high school setting; unconventional families; slow burn

Su Yu is a high school student who lives with his single poor father. Su Yu gets a new classmate Wu Bi. The two clash right from the start, and after getting off on the wrong foot, their explosive relationship takes a turn.

YouTube or GagaOOLala. the show doesn’t have a happy ending, but it can be a happy ending for you if you stop watching at episode 24 timestamp 05:00. OR watch the full thing and look at this post after

5. The Spirealm inside of a video game; mystery; fantasy; horror-ish; hopeful ending

A game designer Lin Qiushi is transported inside of a game he recently played, and now he must go through 12 horrifying survivor game doors to survive in the real world. Inside his first door he meets Ruan Nanzhu, a mysterious man who offers him to team up.

The show was taken down from streaming, download files here and subtitles here.

Various WLW mini web-dramas here.

Various WLW short films here.

South Korea 🇰🇷 (full list here)

1. Love for Love's Sake inside of a video game; high school setting; healing

At the age of 29 Tae Myungha finds himself transported into a fictional video game, and now 19 years old, he meets Cha Yeowoon, who is in the darkest moment of his life. And a translucent window appears where he receives a mission — to make Cha Yeowoon happy.

iQIYI (better subtitles) or GagaOOLala

2. Semantic Error enemies to lovers; university setting

A serious programmer and a rebellious artist clash over a school project. Their animosity keeps escalating to new extremes, defined by petty pranks and feisty arguments.

Viki

3. Love Tractor farm setting; farmer/city musician

Sunyeol, a city man with zero ability to survive in the countryside, comes to his grandfather's rural home. In front of him appears Yechan, a passionate and kind young farmer. While learning about rural life and assisting with farming tasks, Sunyeol gradually finds himself drawn to Yechan's warm and straightforward nature, while Yechan helplessly falls for Sunyeol.

iQIYI

4. Our Dating Sim high school friends to lovers; office setting

After 7 years, Lee Wan meets his first love, Shin Kitae, in a gaming company. When they were best friends in high school, Lee Wan was in love with Kitae. But he ran away and disappeared after confessing his feelings to Kitae after graduation. When the two of them begin working on a new dating simulation game and get more immersed in the project, old feelings are rekindled.

Viki or GagaOOLala

5. She Makes My Heart Flutter wlw; bar setting; niece and aunt dynamic

The extroverted Gang Seol is hired by her aunt Jung at her only-women bar. Even though they are both lesbians, they seem to be worlds apart and have very different love stories.

YouTube

> more tv shows from South Korea

Taiwan 🇹🇼 (full list here)

1. History3: Trapped mafia boss/policeman

The story of a police officer who becomes trapped in the underworld, as he develops feelings for a gang leader.

YouTube or Viki

2. Kiseki: Dear to Me mafia; age gap

Bai Zongyi, an exemplary high school student with dreams of becoming a doctor, is one day unexpectedly drawn into the world of a charismatic and mischievous gangster Fan Zerui, who blackmails him into taking him in and treating his wounds. Just as their love story begins to unfold, Fan Ze Rui's criminal life catches up with him. On the other hand, Chen Yi and Ai Di are two orphans who grew up in the gang together. Ai Di has always loved Chen Yi, but Chen Yi only notices their boss.

Viki or GagaOOLala or YouTube

3. My Tooth Your Love dentist/chef; trauma healing

Bai Lang is a successful bistro owner with an severe fear of visiting the dentist... until a toothache forces him to come face to face with the handsome yet cold dentist Jin Xunan.

Viki

4. Anti Reset android/human

When Chu Yi Ping, an emotionless man, dislocates his hand in an accident at school, his uncle gives him Ever 9 as a caretaker, an experimental intelligent robot that his company is secretly testing.

Viki or iQIYI or GagaOOLala

5. History2: Crossing the Line sports; high school setting

When an injury sidelines a high school senior from the volleyball team, he develops feelings for a recruit.

YouTube or Viki

> more tv shows from Taiwan

Philippines 🇵🇭

1. Sleep With Me wlw; radio; disabled character in a wheelchair

A science textbook writer with a sleep disorder meets a wheelchair-using radio host who runs the midnight shift. This chance encounter at the radio station quickly sparks their interest in each other.

GagaOOLala

---

You can watch many shows for free on YouTube, and watch others on the streaming websites by setting VPN to one of the countries in the list. In other cases I recommend paying for subscriptions to show appreciation and support of content in order to get more of it in the future, but if you can’t, watch on KissKH (better quality), Dramacool or get files from MkvDrama. Enjoy!  🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[tired-biscuit]

okay but imagine werewolf best friend kiba who has wanted and loved you for years. who has pined and craved and fucked a pair of your underwear and chased off so many 'rivals' behind your back.

imagine going away for college and reconnecting. maybe you go camping. maybe you trigger his rut earlier because he's wanted you for so fucking long that it can't be contained. him at the entrance, unzipping it, crawling over you, waking you up with his head between your legs and begging for you to 'help him out'. for 'just the tip'

but it ends up with him knotting and breeding you and you wake up with his mark on your shoulder and he's already pawing at you again

Finding peace in the spontaneous wild (that is you)

18+ MDNI, fem!reader/werewolf!bsf!kiba

premise: when an accidental encounter with your former childhood best friend leads you to agree to a one-night camping trip consisting of just you two, you discover that there’s more to your friendship than initially meets the eye.

cw: monsterfucking (he's mostly in his human form, though), knotting, creampie, implied breeding, mounting, size difference, omegaverse themes.

college/modern AU. friends to lovers, one bed trope (kind of, they’re sharing sleeping bags in the same tent), unestablished mating bond, mutual pining, lots of bickering and misunderstandings; they get into one big fight (kiba and reader are polar opposites personality-wise and tend to agree to disagree), usage of sweetheart and bunny as pet names for reader. i think that's everything?

wc: 26.2k

find part two here!

———

You run into Kiba at the grocery store, around two weeks after returning home from college.

It’s completely coincidental; neither of you expects it to happen. You catch him standing next to the fruit section, picking the best-looking oranges out of the bunch with slightly pinched eyebrows and narrowed eyes, and before you can even ready yourself to approach him, he already beats you to it.

He blinds you with his grin despite the distance between you as you raise your hand to wave him over. A single dimple that you were already expecting appears in his right cheek. His smile is toothy and friendly; nostalgic. It throws you back to a much simpler time.

After all, you’ve known each other for years — you and Kiba go way back. Back to when your only concern had been what cartoons to watch, and the urgency to come back home well before it got dark outside was a rule set in stone. 

Back then, the world seemed to be splashed with brighter, more vibrant colours than it is now. A sugar rush was the best thing to ever happen to you before you came crashing down twice as hard, and your mother had called you downstairs for breakfast every single morning before ruffling your hair and rushing off to work. 

Now, you’re happy if you get the chance to FaceTime with her once or twice a week while you’re away at college. Your hair certainly doesn’t get ruffled anymore and you make breakfast yourself.

Even the trees in your neighborhood have changed, no longer appearing as tall as they used to be because, well, back then you were the smaller one. The sidewalk on your street was sizzling hot with summer heat, but now it's getting worse each year, and your feet aren’t bare anymore as you walk on it; no longer trekking the familiar route that would lead you to the house of the very boy, who now stands before you in the middle of the grocery store instead of leaning against the open doorway of his childhood home, impatiently waiting to pull you inside.

You used to spend nearly every single day with him. Going on adventures with your bikes — you with your helmet on, him without — until your legs were aching from pedaling so much had become a daily thing of sorts. Constantly coming up with new ways to entertain your never-satisfied, highly imaginative kid brains was a favoured pastime. Wearing scrapes of all shapes and sizes on your knees and palms like they were badges of honor was a thing to be expected. 

But that’s all gone now.

Because now, you’re both adults. Juggling jobs and degrees — well, at least one of you is, not that you’re surprised in any way that Kiba hasn’t chosen to try his hand at college — and all that other crap that consists of time-consuming responsibilities that can be quite pesky and bothersome, but make your lives easier to live nonetheless. 

It feels like an aeon has passed as a result. Like your childhood had been whisked away from you by neither of you ever realizing it until it was far too late. So, you’ve drifted apart. It tends to happen. 

Come to think of it, when was the last time you’d seen your trusted partner in crime? Three years ago? Or has it been four already? You’re unsure.

All you know is that it’s been long. Too long. College feels like it’s been nothing but a rather confusing blur, to say the least.

But so does Kiba.

And so do you.

You’ve both become utterly indecipherable in each other’s eyes. Like foggy glass on a rainy morning.

So you use a couple of moments to merely look at each other because of it; to wipe the condensation off the glass with the sleeves of your phantom sweaters. Him, with those goddamn oranges that he’s still holding in his too-big hands, and you, with your shopping cart that you forgot back at the end of aisle 7 twice already. 

You stare and stare and stare, all until your burning curiosity finally gets the best of you, and you can’t help but invite him to approach you with a not at all subtle aim to appease it. 

Kiba visibly perks up when you wave him over. He shoves the oranges into a reusable bag that his mom had always nagged him about using, and walks over with that confident stride you’d always envied him for having. 

And then all of a sudden he’s right there, in the flesh. Looking the same as he’d always looked, but also not at all.

It’s weird. His smile is the same but the face that surrounds it has changed. Finding yourself in his presence again after a period that you’d describe nothing short of a small eternity, you realize that even if the grin of your childhood best friend is an exact replica of his old one, everything else has either faded away or been replaced by something new.

And new means foreign.

Because as you tip your head slightly upwards to initiate proper eye contact this time, you realize that Kiba has gotten taller. Way taller. Even with his posture relaxed, he towers above you with no effort; something he didn’t get to do back when you’d been nothing but a pair of runts, practically conjoined at the hip.

And that’s not all there is to it. Besides his impressive height, Kiba has also become broader in the shoulders and longer in the legs since you’ve last seen him. He has a sleeve of insanely intricate tattoos covering nearly the entirety of his left arm; it reaches up to the short sleeve of his light-grey tee and probably up to his shoulder. He’s also lost most of his baby fat, and thus now owns a face more defined than you ever recall it being. 

His mop of hair is mostly hidden by the faded baseball cap that he must have put on to fight the summer heat that’s raging outside, however there are still a couple of rogue curls peeking out at the sides and at the nape of his neck. The brim has softened from how old the cap is, not as bent downwards at the corners as it surely used to be ages ago, but at least it still gets the job done. 

He’s always had a habit of being lazy whenever it came to getting haircuts. It seems like some things did manage to stay the same, after all.

You investigate further. As far as differences go, the edge of Kiba’s jawline is sharp instead of round, and his cheeks look smooth to the touch. He’s clean-shaven; the embarrassing peach fuzz days, which you used to tease him about for months on end, have ended. 

He’s a grown man. A pretty darn healthy, vigorous one, it seems.

And speaking of being healthy, you remember a time when he wasn’t.

———

You’re fourteen again and find yourself back in a rather familiar bedroom.

The air inside the room smells warm, like wood and your second home. The sounds of the house are just the way you remember them being. 

There’s someone talking downstairs. Furniture cracks and snaps as it settles in even if it’s old and has had more than enough time to do so already. Dog claws ceaselessly click against the floor. The TV is on. You can hear the weather forecast for tomorrow if you strain your ears hard enough. 

And then there’s the shallow breathing.

Oh, yeah. Right. 

Kiba’s sick. 

Your smile wavers as you keep sitting on the edge of the bed, his bed, that you’d fallen asleep in a rather embarrassing amount of times back when your legs were shorter and it hadn’t been considered awkward or improper just because your best friend belongs to the opposite sex.

The sheets are a tacky design of light blue and white and the mattress is old, but sturdy enough to not cause any worry of having to buy a new one just yet. It supports both his and your own weight fairly well, however it won’t be able to do so for much longer, you think.

You turn your head towards the window. It’s fall and it’s raining outside — the heavy raindrops rattle against the glass every so often whenever the wind catches them, making you stare out at the foggy grayness that sluggishly spirals on the other side.

You’ve left your boots downstairs. In the hallway, where Tsume, Kiba’s mother, had greeted you and ushered you inside the moment you’d come knocking on her front door, looking soaking wet to the bone. Besides your boots, your bright yellow raincoat resides there as well, probably dripping from the hanger onto the floor, making a puddle you’ll have to feverishly apologize for later.

With your train of thought coming to a halt, you eventually grow tired of watching the nearby woods that reside next to the Inuzuka household. So you shift your gaze again. 

This time, you focus on the room itself. There are posters taped to the walls, the majority of them depicting movies and rock bands that you’ve never really fancied yourself all that much. The desk is littered with clutter, most of it school-related but you’re able to spot a couple of comics in there as well. The alarm clock on the nightstand is digital; it shows the time. 

3:27 PM.

It’s a Thursday afternoon, but it’s also the fourth day that Kiba hasn’t come to school. The seat in the classroom that he usually sits in remains empty — you know that because you keep it reserved for him by placing your backpack on it each morning. He’s been absent ever since the pain in his limbs and the unyielding fever had become too much for even him to handle; the boy who just loves to brag about never getting sick. 

All right, you’ve got to cut him some slack because in some way, he isn’t even actually sick? His growth spurt — and his entire puberty experience overall, if you could even call it that — is the thing that has taken such a toll on him, not actual illness.

And in some way, it has taken a toll on you, too. Seeing him ache hurts you just the same, even if your bones aren’t the ones that are currently growing much too fast, much too soon.

So here you are, bringing him copies of the notes that you’ve been religiously taking in class for the fourth day in a row. Keeping him company. Wiping the sweat off his forehead with a rag soaked in water, like a good best friend. Over and over again. Without stop.

His dark brown hair is damp from all the water and sweat, it sticks to his temples. He’s burning up, to the point that his face is flushed pink instead of tan, but he’s still shivering all over underneath the covers. 

Your heart hurts as you watch him endure such profound agony; it makes your chest squeeze tight. He’s clearly fallen ill in some shape or form and is in obvious pain, but no matter what you tell him, he simply refuses to go to the doctor’s office.

Truth be told, you feel rather surprised that his mom hasn’t dragged him there herself yet. Taking into account that she’s usually completely unfazed by his overwhelmingly stubborn nature, you’d expected her to not be taking any shit from her son whatsoever and would be firmly setting her foot down when it came to anything concerning his health. Granted, while he did inherit most of his obstinate qualities from her side of the family, the fact that—

“Stop worryin’ so much.”

You blink in surprise. “Mm?”

“I said stop worryin’.”

The feeble request that Kiba makes sounds firmer this time. It makes you look up from the rag you’ve been subconsciously clutching in your hands with a near death grip for the last five minutes or so. 

The slightly tingly feeling that dances within them now is somewhat hard to ignore. Especially at the tips of your fingers.

So you rest your hands on your lap, rubbing your palms up and down your jeans just to have something to do now that they’re empty. By the time you finally will yourself to turn your head, Kiba is already looking at you from the confines of the cozy prison that is his bed. 

His eyes are nearly half shut, eyelids heavy with lead-weighted exhaustion, but his expression is riddled with an emotion you’re not mature enough yet to fully decipher, much less understand.

Not that you’d ever tell him that, but you'd always considered him as the emotionally smarter one of your little duo; even with his awfully short temper taken into consideration. 

After all, while you excelled in academics, Kiba sought different places to thrive and prosper in. It didn’t take a genius to see that he’s practically been made to communicate with others; that he’s a proper people person. Shaped by people to be loved by people.

And the people do tend to love him. They really do.

Now that you think about it, that may also be the reason as to why he has way more friends than you. Why he can usually turn most situations to his favour, while you normally struggle to avoid the worst of outcomes. Why he knows how to read you like an open book Every. Single. Time, while you just play a never-ending guessing game of what’s happening inside that thick skull of his.

You’re an odd pair together. He’s nothing like you and you’re nothing like him. It’s no wonder that some don’t believe you’re actual friends at first, however Kiba has always been fast to prove them wrong. For some unknown reason, he’s attached you to himself and has been pulling you along for the ride ever since the day he first saw you. It’s been like that ever since.

Meanwhile, you’re just happy that you have someone to spend time with. Being so introverted proves to be quite a nuisance whenever it comes to meeting new people and acquiring friends, so he’s pretty much all you’ve got.

And that makes you care for him even more.

“How on earth am I supposed to ‘not worry’,” you begin to say quietly, making air quotes, “when my best friend has been practically chained to his bed for the last four days?”

Immediately, Kiba brushes you off with a flick of the wrist, gesturing that he thinks you’re overreacting. It pisses you off greatly, especially when he says, “Oh, please… I’m fine. You just worry too much.”

“Are you, though?” you ask. “Fine?”

“Are you?”

You exhale through your nose as you attempt to relax and wiggle your fingers, trying to appease him or convince him otherwise, you don’t know. 

The truth is, you want to tell him that no, you’re not fine. You want to tell him that you are worried sick for him because he is sick and won’t admit it. You want to tell him that you love him, that you care about him. Not in that kind of way, of course — goodness, no! — but in a way a young teenage girl who doesn’t know any better can love her best friend.

But instead, all you do is stay quiet because being considerate of others is your go-to. Besides, his headache is as bad enough as it is already. Who are you to make it worse by troubling him with your nonsense?

Unfortunately for you, Kiba doesn’t buy your rather bad portrayal of calm. All he does is sigh at it.

Continuously.

“What? What are you sighing for so much?” you instantly snap at the sound and aura of exasperation he emits, now. Your tone is razor sharp, much sharper than it needs to be, but you just can’t help yourself. Being so different from you, he can be outright infuriating sometimes.

“Nothin’,” he answers back, and yet he can’t resist giving you that look that definitely means there is something. “It’s nothin’, bunny.”

Your tone falls flat at the nickname he’s given you because of your rather timid personality, “Liar.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

He grunts, sighing again. “Oh, c’mon—”

“What?” you quip again. “You told me not to worry, so here I am; not worrying! I’m doing just like you’ve said.” 

The small wrinkle that’s etched itself between your brows deepens as the words rush out of you in one great swoop. It’s clear to you both that you don’t really mean them, but it looks like there’s definitely no sign of you admitting them coming any time soon.

“Fine, whatever.” Kiba almost sounds like he’s grumbling as he says, “You’re not worrying. There. Happy?”

You scoff. “No? Yes? I don’t know if I’m happy!”

He manages a weak smile at your indecisiveness, a mere quirk of an upper lip that’s not nearly as lively as it normally would be if he weren’t so sick. Your body tenses as he shuffles closer to the edge of the bed where you reside and nuzzles his face deeper into the pillow, wiping the sweat off his cheek right into the bedding this time around.

His voice comes across as muffled from the way he’s still hiding his face from view when he says, “I can practically see your brain catching on fire from all that worry that you’re apparently ‘not’ feeling, ya know.”

You can’t stop your eyes from rolling back as far as they’ll go. They just do it completely on their own accord whenever you’re with him, it seems. “And how can you possibly—”

He points at you with one tired hand and winces at how terribly heavy his arm feels with the action. It’s unpleasant and draining, but he wants to prove a point. So he keeps it nice and steady as he says, “Look, there’s smoke comin’ outta your ears already! You better chill out, or that lil’ pea brain of yours is gonna get burnt to a crisp or somethin’.”

He hisses like he’s just burnt himself after he teases you, drawing yet another scoff out of you. 

A pout graces your lips as you glare at him from underneath your lashes; ever the unexpected drama queen. “Well, at least I have a brain to burn, unlike yourself.”

His eyes settle on you again. “What’s that supposed t’mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, dummy,” you say. “I can bet you five bucks that there’s nothing but hay stored inside that freakishly big head of yours!”

“I—” He bristles at your comment before his eyes open wide and he scowls. “Shut up! My head ain’t big!”

Your expression mirrors his own, now. “No, you shut up!”

“You can’t talk to me like that; I’m sick!”

“So you finally admit that you’re actually sick, huh?”

“No, wait, that’s not what I meant—”

“Nu-uh, you said it so you meant it!”

Everything is quiet as you lean forward to point and dig an accusatory finger into his chest. He tenses but relaxes in a beat of a moment as the remaining pads of your fingers join in and graze the soft cotton of his worn t-shirt. Swipe to the right, then slightly upwards, the flat of your palm rests above the place where his heart lies.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump! 

His heartbeat is fast. Strong. Like a song that makes you want to scream the lyrics to instead of singing them so that you can feel it better inside the marrow of your bones.

But you don’t feel like listening right now.

“Hey, what’re you—”

He squirms and lets out a small noise of surprise when you suddenly jab him in the ribs.

Exchanging a quick look of betrayal with your best friend as he slaps your hand away, you feel your lips start to quiver. It’s not long before you both succumb and break into a fit of quiet laughter. The tension gradually dissipates with every chuckle and snicker, right along with your worries. At least for a little while, that is.

Kiba’s laugh cracks midway. You’re unsure if it’s because of the fact that he’s not feeling well or because his voice is just getting deeper with age, however you’re still giggling by the time he clears his throat and reaches over to place his hand on top of your own.

Your eyes instinctively flit towards the contact. It’s not anything new, you’ve held hands with him before — god knows you’ve gotten fake-married on at least three different occasions throughout your childhood, and with three different flavoured ring pops, at that — but as you now gaze at the blunt crescents of his nails, you can’t for the life of you remember his hand ever being this hot to the touch.

It’s concerning.

“Dude,” you whisper, your voice slowly dropping from playful to wary. “I don’t want to nag you about it anymore since I know you don’t like it, but I seriously think that you should go see a doctor… You’re burning up and it’s probably—”

You twitch as Kiba gives your hand a gentle, albeit unexpected squeeze to make you look up at him again. 

Just like your voice, his expression has switched from his previously boyish one, to a much more somber kind that, truth be told, you’re not used to seeing on his face all that much.

It makes your sentence, well, rambling, gradually fade into silence as you finally indulge him for once by keeping your mouth shut. He used to think you were quiet back when he’d met you. Now he knows that you just have to get comfortable in order to start speaking.

Shadows from the swaying branches outside dance across the side of his face that he hasn’t got buried in the pillow. Looking like he’s contemplating something heavy, Kiba swallows the saliva that’s gathered in his mouth whilst he runs his thumb along your knuckles.

The brief attempt at soothing you manages to bring a smidge of peace to the otherwise growing hurricane of emotions that’s steadily whirling somewhere inside your ribcage, however it’s over much too soon to actually make any difference.

Your look of concern only worsens as a result. Concentrating hard, you manage to repress the sudden urge to start biting your nails and tugging on the sleeves of your cream-coloured sweater that you’ve put on this morning.

“I’m just worried about you, is all,” you admit what he already knows, so quietly that you doubt if he can even hear it. “I just want you to get better.”

“I know,” is all he says. He can smell it on you.

“Then why won’t you—” You squeeze your eyes shut, groaning with irritation. “Gosh, why won’t you just do something about it, then?”

“Because I have to tell you something first,” he trails off somewhat reluctantly, and for once, he sounds like he’s actually being completely serious. “You just… you gotta promise me that you won’t tell anybody.”

Your reply comes quicker than one sequence of his heartbeat, “I promise. Besides, who would I tell anyway?”

“I mean it,” he says. You watch as he shakes his head slowly, sighing for real this time, not just to annoy you. “You seriously can’t tell anybody; not even your mom or Sakura or Ino. Especially Ino, for that matter.”

Offence bubbles within your chest way too fast at the merest hint of distrust. Since when did he start thinking you were one to yap out every little thing he tells you? 

“And I really mean it, too,” you fuss, brow wrinkling. “Jeez, Kiba; if I promise you that I’m not going to tell, then I’m really not going to tell! I’m not that close with Ino and Sakura anyway.”

Kiba blinks, seemingly surprised by how heatedly invested you’ve gotten into learning his secret. But also by how close you’ve managed to squeeze yourself next to him with the upset feelings to overwhelm you, briefly forgetting the lengthy speech about how he should go see a doctor. How you wait, evidently impatient and with bated breath, just so that you’d be able to hear every word he has to say.

He’s been seeing you in a different kind of light as of late. So perhaps it’s time that he shed some of it on himself now.

He’s always been one to love the spotlight, after all.

———

“Well, well, well… do my eyes deceive me, or have you finally gotten taller, wolf boy?”

The short laugh Kiba lets out at your innocent taunt doesn’t crack like it did back when you were fourteen. Instead, it’s deep and hearty; it reverberates deep inside his chest, sounding like a voice a storm would possess if it had the ability to speak the human tongue.

“Still insisting on that ol’ nickname?” he asks as he rests one hand on his hip.

“Of course,” you reply, chuckling. It’s hard to take him seriously when he looks like a nearly perfect replica of his mother in that exact moment; standing so disapprovingly, red shopping basket in hand. “I mean, who would I be if I did not make fun of you every chance I get?”

“Well, I dunno,” he mumbles whilst his eyes flick up towards the ceiling, seemingly searching for something. And then he looks at you again, but this time with that infuriating half-smile that you can’t say you’ve missed as he says, “A decent fuckin’ person for a change? Maybe?”

It’s light-hearted, what he says. Fun and provocative, just like he is. Like he’s always been.

So you bite.

“Oh, Kiba, Kiba, Kiba,” you purr, angling your head to one side playfully whilst clicking your tongue against your teeth. Your hand presses against his chest, the action so familiar it’s become muscle memory by now even after years of not initiating it. “When has being decent ever been fun to someone like you, mm?”

And there it is. The strong heartbeat corresponding to the soft lilt that appears in your voice when his name leaves your lips. Just like it’s always done whenever your only goal was to fluster him for ‘funsies’.

However, the interaction that was once so familiar to you is not quite as recognizable this time around.

Because now, it invites his gaze to settle back onto your face rather than pushing it away into the corner of the room. 

So he stares at you now. Leers. 

You try your best to ignore the way your muscles instinctively stiffen at the sight of the prolonged slits that slowly switch places with his pupils. Try your best to pay no mind to the way your pulse suddenly accelerates, pumping blood and forcing all of your senses to become overwhelmingly acute.

It’s done so fast that it makes you feel sort of dizzy. He stands straighter and every single hair on your body stands to attention in return. Goosebumps cover your skin the same moment as it starts feeling like it’s being pulled taut over your bones. You try to blame the sensation of a chill creeping up the back of your neck on the store’s AC but you know better.

The people who surround you don’t matter anymore. This summer’s hit song that annoyingly keeps on playing on repeat over the speakers above your heads has turned to white noise. 

It’s just him and you and you and him. Past, present, future.

And fuck, his irises are no longer brown. They’re darker; golden, almost unnaturally yellow. The colour gets eaten up fast as the pupils expand and shrink continuously. He zeroes in on you, on your mouth, on the curve of your face, on the bare side of your neck that you’ve got exposed with your ponytail and the tilt of your head. 

It’s been years since he’s last looked at you like that; that one time before you ran off to college, when you took it a step too far with the innocent flirting and you’ve almost come too close for comfort. 

But unlike before, he simply refuses to tear his eyes off of you this time. Refuses to relent. Refuses to blush and turn away in that sheepish way that is so uncharacteristic for an exceptionally, sometimes annoyingly bold person like him and that reminds you more of yourself.

His odd persistence causes him to pin you down with a single look, making you freeze on the spot.

Just like a predator would do to potential prey.

But that’s silly. You’re not prey! You’re his best friend, or well, you used to be once in a time long past. So keeping that in mind, you force yourself to quickly shake the eerie feeling off of your suddenly tense body as if it’s a heavy winter’s coat you’ve foolishly donned on, and ease the sudden tightness that tries so hard to take up residency within your chest, now.

But despite all of the attempts at self-soothing, as well as the countless comforting, reassuring mantras that you keep on playing on a loop inside your head in the same way you do a newly-discovered song on Spotify, you don’t really know what he’s like anymore, now do you? 

You haven’t seen him in years, after all. Haven’t spoken to him in ages. You left him all alone, left him to his own devices after he’d given you the same look he’s giving you now.

What if he’s managed to become more wolf than human with all that alone time?

The question makes your head want to hurt, so it’s no wonder that your voice comes out somewhat small-sounding when you finally gather yourself just enough to murmur, “You’re doing the thing again.”

And his sounds just a smidge on edge, just a smidge too sharp as he takes a step closer and mutters, “Thing? What thing?”

“You’ve got, uh… y’know…” You swallow audibly and try not to pay attention to the way his gaze slides down to your throat because of it; to the way it softly bobs as the sticky spit travels down, down, down. You swear that you can see the corners of his lips kick up at the sight of it. “You’ve got nightmare eyes.”

“Huh?” It takes him a second to realize what you mean. To remember one of the old codes you’ve come up with using whenever you’re in public, amongst people who certainly don’t know what he truly is. 

And then, at long last, the intensity in his expression ceases and brightens up as the realization dawns upon him. It’s like a lightbulb turning on with the flick of a switch. 

“Oh. Shit. Fuck, umm,” he curses like a sailor whenever he’s caught off-guard. It makes you relax just the tiniest bit as he finally musters a genuine, “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even… notice.”

You watch as he proceeds to rub his eyes with one hand, all whilst you exhale a long puff of air that you’d almost forgotten you were holding in the first place. 

He looks at you again, genuinely confused and apologetic, and this time with pupils back to their regular circular shape. It causes some primal sort of relief that reaches the very core of your psyche to wash over you.

You’re free to move again. 

“It’s— Hah, it’s fine,” you manage weakly. “Besides a pretty awkward start to a conversation, it’s no biggie, really.”

“Fine? It definitely ain’t fine,” he retorts immediately. “You wouldn’t be lookin’ like you’re scared shitless right now if it were fine.”

“Me? Scared of you? Oh, please!” You huff, crossing your arms over your chest even if your limbs feel very wobbly and soft like jelly all of a sudden. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He blinks again, his look a slightly incredulous one. “Don’t tell me you forgot?”

The bridge of your nose scrunches up in mild confusion as you ask, “Forgot what?”

Kiba grumbles this time, pointing to his own nose, “Uh, the fact that I can literally smell the fear on ya…?”

Oh. Oh! He’s right, you somehow did manage to forget that; forget his ability to smell how someone is feeling just from the way their hormone levels change the very base of their scent and the sweat they exude as a result. Or whatever the science behind it is.

Jesus fucking Christ. Him and his stupid wolf genes. What’s next, him pinpointing the day when your next period is due?

As if that hasn’t happened before.

“Wha—...? Of course not! Tsch.” You try to play it off with a click of a tongue that doesn’t manage to convince either of you. “What I don’t remember, however, is giving you permission to sniff me like some sleazy creep.”

“Oh, fuck off,” he bristles immediately at the remark. “You know damn well what I meant.”

You nod. “Yes, that you’re a sleazy creep.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asks. “Stop breathing around your presence?”

“I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

He gives you a pointed glare. “It also wouldn’t hurt to try shutting the fuck up every once in a while, and yet here you are.”

“Wow, I can’t believe I’ve also managed to forget what a prick you are.”

“Right back atcha.”

You both share a short laugh at your little faux quarrel, the tension slowly relenting. The entire interaction is familiar. 

His shoulders relax, your heartbeat slows down to something a bit more normal. He doesn’t point it out just for the sake of not starting yet another petty argument.

“But seriously, don’t worry about it.” You pause at some point, stifling another brittle chuckle that bubbles up your throat. “I know you can’t control your weird, spooky eyes, okay? And besides, I’m used to them anyway! Well, kind of… I guess I’m used to them…? Gosh, I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Is it because you’re nervous?

“Still,” he chides, sighing. “It’s been years and I should’ve learned how to fix it by now. It’s just—” He takes a breath. Ponders as various excuses and half-truths start bouncing off the walls inside his head. “It’s just that I dunno how to control it whenever you’re… umm...”

You give him a second, but when he doesn’t say anything else, you bite the bullet to ask, “Whenever I’m what?”

“Ah, nothin’,” he mumbles whilst scratching his cheek. You narrow your eyes as he fixes the brim of his cap. As he tugs on the collar of his thin t-shirt with its stupidly oversized Nike logo. He’s fidgeting all over the place, especially when he feels the need to add, “It’s nothin’.”

It feels like life is repeating itself all over again.

Your curiosity makes you lean further into his space just like you had a habit of doing back when you were kids. Only this time, he doesn’t take your hand. He doesn’t stroke your knuckles one by one, but rather pushes back, creating more space between your bodies.

Well, that’s new.

“C’mon.” Your tone falls slightly flat because of the sudden disappointment that reaches way deeper than you’d expected it to as you ask, “Whenever I’m what?”

He sounds surprisingly stern as he says, “I told you… it’s nothing.”

A long pause ensues. And then all he gets from you is an, “Okay.”

Awkwardness lingers in the air once again. It makes you both uncomfortable because neither of you is really used to the sudden quiet. You’ve gone through so much, so many experiences together and now it’s come to… this? Walking on eggshells around each other until the end of time just because of that one event in the past and now this one?

Fuck no. As if you’re going to let that happen.

So you plaster a smile onto your face, one that doesn’t really reach your eyes just yet as you say, “Just so you know, you’re acting hella weird right now.”

“Well what did you expect, bunny?” He shrugs and you try to act like you don’t notice the way his t-shirt tightens at all the right places with it. Goodness, he’s changed so much in just a couple of years, you can hardly believe it. “I mean, I bump into you after literal years of no contact whatsoever, and when I finally do, all you do is argue with me and call me a, what was it again, ‘sleazy creep’?”

It’s hard not to giggle at the air quotes he feels the need to show you with the two words. It makes your face lighten up as you say, “Stop calling me that.”

“What, bunny?” He smirks, now. Smirks! “Sure. But only after you stop calling me all of your stupid nicknames.”

You muse like a cat. “Why of course, Jacob.”

His expression turns blank in an instant, the smirk gone as quickly as it came. “Seriously?”

“What? It’s just a name, isn’t it?”

“Just so you know, I still regret the day you made me watch Twilight with you.”

“Oh, shush. You loved it, and besides; it was on theme!”

You feel your grin growing into a genuine one as he scoffs and grunts something under his breath in reply. He’s clearly annoyed with all your bullshit.

“Mm?” You blink, the corners of your lips twitching upward, persisting. “What was that?”

“Nothin’.”

“No, no, none of that again. Out with it; I want to hear what you said.”

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes, the honey that swirls in them as dazzling as ever. So syrupy sweet, his irises are an utter delight even under the unflattering fluorescent lights of the store. “I said that you’re still as insufferable as you used to be back when we were kids.”

The chuckle you let out now is one of pure amusement. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” he says as he pops the P. “A goddamn pain in my ass since day one.”

You quirk a brow. “Am I really, now?”

“Who else but you?”

It’s always been you.

His words spark a sensation of genuine fondness to swell so deep within your ribcage that you’re somewhat unsure of what to do with it. 

Confused, you push it to the side. Sweep it under the rug and allow it to join the already big pile of all the other unrequited feelings you’ve never dared to express. It’s easier to purposefully keep your eyes squeezed tightly shut.

You can’t see when you’re already blind.

“Any-ways,” you sing-song, extending your hand towards him. “It was good seeing you again. We should grab a coffee sometime, if you’re up for it?”

Instead of replying and shaking your hand, Kiba looks down at your polite gesture and nearly starts to frown at the sight of it.

“What?” you ask as the slight wrinkle between his brows continues to deepen. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.” He hesitates a bit then, swallowing hard. It makes his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “I’ve just missed you, is all. This town fucking sucks ass when my girl’s not in it, ya know? And this whole handshake thing you’re doing is weird.”

Fuck. His honesty, the way he calls you his girl, the too-warm look in his too-warm eyes, fucking everything in that wretched moment makes you start feeling dizzy and causes sweat to gather in a layer so thick right on the flat of your awkwardly twitchy palms, one of which you’re still extending towards him.

What you wouldn’t give for a pair of pockets to stuff them into right now.

Because to be completely honest, you’re outright baffled by the reaction that your body throws at you with full force, now. He’s called you the same two words a million times before, alone or in front of other people — it never really mattered. To him, you were always his girl. It was that simple.

And while that did manage to stir up some emotions within you that you weren’t ready to acknowledge yet even back then, you always managed to play it off like it was no big deal. 

But those feelings have gotten stronger now, despite the distance. They’ve gotten potent. To the point where they’re almost deadly.

And they’re also sneaky, like a shadow grazing your back and breathing right at the spot where your neck connects to your shoulder. They gradually build up with each passing second of silence that hangs between you. They take their time to build up on momentum; like an avalanche or an upcoming tsunami. 

And for a moment, just for the shortest of moments, you swear that Kiba can tell.

But luckily for you, he seems to be oblivious about it, or is at least playing it off like he is. And that’s good! The least he can do after cooking up this mess, is save you the embarrassment that you most certainly don’t wish to live through, thank you very much! 

So you do the next best thing that is currently at your disposal. 

You object to his genuine affection like an idiot. 

“Whaaat? You missing me?” Internally cringing at how high your voice is getting in pitch, you’re almost positive that it must hurt his sensitive wolf hearing. However, much to your dismay, you just can’t fucking stop acting weird for some reason. “Pfsh… Didn’t anyone tell you that lying isn’t nice, Inuzuka?”

For fuck’s sake, you’re acting like he’s holding you at gunpoint.

“Uh… Okay? Hah…?” He gives you a look filled to the brim with doubt, his dark brows faintly scrunching together again. “Well, you wanna know what else ain’t nice?”

All you can do is nod. You’re on the verge of killing yourself right here and now.

“Well, how ‘bout,” he pretends to ponder, rubbing his chin. “Oh! How ‘bout forgetting all about your best friend the moment you start attending some fancy, goody two shoes college halfway across the country. Yeah.”

It’s your turn to offer him your best unimpressed stare this time. Your heart feels like it’s stuck inside your throat, pulse rattling behind your teeth. 

You can’t really tell if he’s joking or not. His tone may be light, sure, but you aren’t able to read him as well as you used to back in the day, and even then it was pretty bad.

He’s gotten… complicated.

Much like your entire friendship has.

You can still remember the almost kiss that never happened back at his place that caused this entire flurry of very, very confusing emotions to start in the first place, or at least present themselves at the surface. Right on the night before you’d packed your bags and ran off to the other side of the country, nearly fully ghosting him on the spot. Your best friend.

“C’mon, man,” you mumble, “don’t be like that.” The guilt is bad enough as it is.

“Like what?” he asks. As is regret.

“Don’t hold a grudge like you always do. I’ve come home loads of times between semesters; during the holidays especially,” you hesitantly retort, frowning. “And besides, it’s not like you weren’t gone all the time either. I saw your posts about all the backpacking and all those roadtrips and whatnot... With Tamaki.” 

The mention of his ex-girlfriend catches him off guard. He blinks, flicking his gaze towards the stacked shelves that suddenly seem to become like the most interesting thing in the world.

Goddammit, you’d almost kissed him while— while—

Still, despite all of that, you wait for him to say something first. Patiently, impatiently; you don’t even know anymore.

“I called,” he lamely offers at long last.

“Well, I texted,” you reply in a heartbeat.

“Barely,” he corrects. “You barely texted.”

Your expression falls somber in an instant. Of course he’d paint you as the bad guy as effortlessly as it is to breathe. It’s what cancers are known for. Especially cancer men.

“Well,” you stumble, shrugging. “What did you want me to do, Kiba? I-I mean, you had a girlfriend.”

“So?” 

He doesn’t even ask how you know that they’ve broken up. But to be fair, when you stop posting couple photos on your stories and feed and suddenly unfollow each other, it’s a pretty obvious tell.

“So? So?” You stare at him, taken aback. “I seriously doubt Tamaki would’ve been happy to see some random chick blowing up your phone constantly.”

“But you’re not some random chick. You were my best friend… you still are,” he says and Jesus on a fucking cross, the way he says the words makes him sound so fucking hurt. 

“I know,” is all you can offer. The weight that suddenly sits on your shoulders makes you want to slump. That, or either curling yourself into a ball.

The feeling only gets worse when he says, “We were supposed to go on those trips together.”

“I know,” you repeat. “I’m sorry.”

He fixes the brim of his cap again. “Are ya, though? Sorry?” 

“Yes! Of course I am!” You scowl so hard that it makes the bridge of your nose scrunch up in annoyance. “If I could do something about it, I would. Trust me.”

He looks at you; really looks at you. Up and down. And then he says, “Then do it.”

“Do what?” you ask dumbly.

“Go on a trip with me,” he explains. “Today.”

“Today?”

“Did I fuckin’ stutter?”

You stare at him. He stares right back, gaze unmoving. 

Fucking hell, he’s actually serious about this.

“But I’m… I’m not really a backpacking kind of girl,” you try meekly. 

Just the mere idea of going somewhere remote with him completely alone is making you feel warm all over. You need to get yourself out of this mess ASAP!

“No worries,” he replies faster than a heartbeat. “We can always go camping.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Camping?”

“Yeah. For one night,” he says. “I know a really good spot that I go to all the time.”

“But I–” You fumble once more, looking down at the pretty nail polish on your toes. “I don’t even have the proper clothes for it. Like those fancy gym clothes.”

“Heh.” You attempt to ignore the way his chuckle makes your heart want to jump. Especially as he leans in slightly to say, “All you need is a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. Oh, or maybe those grey leggings that you always liked to wear and that make your ass look great… Do you still have those?”

He snickers like a child when you punch him in the shoulder.

“And what about the hiking boots, you perv?” you ask, brushing off his lewd comment with heat creeping up your neck. 

“What about ‘em?”

“I don’t have those either.”

“Christ, we’re not going that far, bunny.” He laughs, looking at you in disbelief. “A pair of sneakers will do. You’re talking and planning like I’m gonna take you all the way up to the mountains like I’m some fuckin’ dragon or some shit.”

Your eyes surely must be getting tired from rolling back so much. “Hilarious.”

He waits on your answer with a smile; the one that shows that wretched dimple in his cheek and that makes him look entirely innocent despite the oddly sharp canine teeth. 

Goddammit, you want to kill him because of how cute he is. However, you’re still feeling slightly unsure about the entire thing. 

Evidently reluctant, you ask, “Just one night?”

“Just one night,” he confirms, nodding vehemently.

“And there isn’t going to be a full moon or anything… of that sort?”

He chuckles at the hidden question. “I wouldn’t really be out here shopping for groceries if there was a chance for that to happen, now would I?”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s true,” you trail off. You glance up at him, not fully convinced yet. “Do you promise that you’ll take care of everything?”

“‘Course,” he says.

“Say it, then.”

“Say what?”

“That you promise.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously!”

He sighs at how persistful you are. As if he’s any better! “Fine. I promise that I’ll take care of everything.” 

Even you.

Seconds pass. One second, two, three. Staring at him with both of your brows tightly knit together, you can literally feel his excitement transferring itself to you through some invisible link between you which you’ve never quite managed to sever. You suppose his emotions are just that contagious.

“Well?” he inquires, all giddy-like. “What d’you say?”

“Well,” you trail off, kissing your teeth. “I suppose… a single night can’t really hurt?”

“Fuck, yes!” he exclaims and before you know it, you’re being pulled into a bear hug you didn’t even realize how much you’ve missed until you’re caught in it all over again.

Your cheek smushes against his chest. Muscle memory kicks in once more; persuading your arms to move on their own accord, letting them wrap around the familiar place a little above his waist that doesn’t feel as familiar anymore. 

He smells good, like amber, the very heart of a forest and all things wild. It’s earthy, rich, inhumanly strong. It fills your nose, titillates your senses and makes lush greenery and spices start to take root inside your lungs. 

Every breath makes you dizzier and it’s hard to keep your composure as a result; especially when there’s a sequence of powerful thump, thump, thumps pounding right against your ear, now.

His heartbeat is so fast. It’s like he has two.

You’re silent as you listen to the quick rhythm of his heart. And for a change, so is he. Feeling unsure how much time is passing, you continue to cling onto your best friend in the middle of the empty aisle, reawakening all the memories, warming your body with his heat even if it’s hot enough outside to fry an egg on the concrete. 

The soles of your colourful flip-flops will surely stick to the sidewalk when you walk back home to gather your things and explain your unexpected trip to your parents.

“Kiba—” The last part of his name melds into a giggle from the way he squeezes you so tight that your spine pleasantly cracks in all the places that have been feeling way too stiff from the all-nighters you had to pull during exam week, and progresses into a quiet squeal for help by the time he swings you from side to side like an excited boy would his favourite toy.

“Ugh, m’sorry!” He laughs as he releases you, letting you plant your feet back onto the white tiles where they belong. “I just had to get that outta my goddamn system. It’s been building up for years.” 

“It’s okay,” you say, punching his shoulder again, this time playfully. “I always knew you were secretly a softy.”

The tips of his ears turn pink at that. The blush is not strong enough to be noticed by you, but he feels the warmth, feels the subtle prickling along the back of his neck.

Why is it so intense?

It makes his voice drop lower as he mutters a flustered, “As if.”

“What, I really did!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever… But all jokes aside, I really am glad that you’re back,” he admits before you can beat him to it. He pulls back just enough to look you directly in the eyes and smiles. “I really did miss you a whole lot, bunny.”

It’s hard to be vulnerable and admit that you’ve missed him too, so you keep quiet as you plaster your best smile onto your lips again and reach up to jokingly flick the tip of his nose.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

Perhaps it’ll distract him from the fact that unlike him, you’re as cowardly as they get.

———

“Hey, I meant to ask… How come you didn’t bring Akamaru with you today?”

Some time after bumping into you in the grocery store, Kiba stills for a second at the innocent question you present before him whilst walking the narrow forest path that is supposed to be leading you to your destination.

In the late afternoon hours, the forest feels like it’s alive. There are birds chirping amongst the branches of the trees above your heads and warm sunlight filters through the leaves. A nearby stream keeps busy by smoothing down the rocks inside it. Everything thrives during the summer.

Even the air smells better; like it’s been thoroughly ridden of your town’s signature scent. But despite the fact that you’ve reached the point of summer when dog days are approaching fast, every inhale you take now feels fresh and satisfyingly cool instead of sticky whilst it travels down your airway.

It’s nice to be able to breathe again. 

And as for Kiba, well, he wishes he could say the same.

Following closely behind you, the young werewolf realizes that he is finding it harder and harder to concentrate the further progress you make on your hike. And while there may be plenty of reasons for his lack of focus at the moment, taking the fact that you’ve still got a lot of catching up to do into account, the main one is also the one that concerns him the most.

You just smell so fucking delicious to him, it’s insane.

He wants to devour you.

And how couldn’t he want that? There are phantom strawberries weaved into your hair and clothes from the matching shampoo and body wash set that you must have showered with before leaving your house. Sunscreen sits on your skin, turning the fruity notes even more summery than they already are.

If he walks close enough, he can even smell the sweat that slowly gathers on the back of your neck as you ascend the gradual slope of the hill that he’s planning to set up camp on.

So yeah, it’s hard to stay away, when all your scent does is lure him in. Hard to keep in-check, when you’re practically calling out to him, inviting him to come closer. He’s missed the way you smell so much.

God, if only he could just shove his nose into the crook of your neck and—

“Kiba?”

“Huh?” 

The man in question blinks now, looking up only to find you standing several meters ahead of him; hands glued to your hips and brow quirked. He didn’t even realize that he’d come to a full stop while thinking about certain scenarios he’d rather not say out loud for the sake of your well-being.

“Sorry,” he says before he awkwardly clears his throat and quickens his pace to reach you again. “What did you say? I kinda got sidetracked for a bit there.”

“By what?” You part your lips wider, huffing whilst trying to gather your breath. He looks like he hasn’t even broken a sweat while you’re literally feeling like your lungs are about to collapse any second now. To make matters even worse, he’s also skilfully avoided the pesky tree root that almost made you trip earlier without even as much as glancing at it. 

“You know what, never mind that,” you say, shaking your head. “I just asked why you didn’t bring Akamaru with us today?”

“Oh, umm… Well, ya know; he’s gotten pretty old by now so he can’t really make the trek as effortlessly as he used to,” he starts to explain and you don’t miss the hint of melancholy that overcomes his voice ever so slightly now. “Nowadays I just leave him at my mom’s whenever I go hiking.”

“Oh,” you mutter while wrapping your fingers around the straps of your old backpack which you’ve dug up from the back of your sibling’s closet. Your grip tightens a bit as you add, “I’m sorry about that. I know how much you care about that dog.”

“I mean, it’s not like he’s dead or anything, hah,” he says, his chuckle kind of bitter. “He’s just a senior dog now, doing senior things. Nothing wrong with that, don’tcha think?”

“True,” you mumble, feeling guilty that you’d even asked the question in the first place. I mean, of course his puppy would be old by now. He's had him ever since he was seven, for crying out loud!

“So, anyway,” you say as you turn around to continue your way up the hill you’re practically yearning to reach the top of now, “you just go hiking alone, then? Since Akamaru stays at your mom’s?”

“Mostly, yeah,” he replies as he follows suit. You try not to pay attention to how attentive you are to his presence all of a sudden. “Before, it was usually just me and Tam, but now that—”

You pretend not to notice the way he cuts himself off mid-sentence the moment he accidentally mentions his ex-girlfriend’s name. Pretend that hearing it doesn’t make your chest feel a bit too tight all of a sudden, and not from lack of air or your rather poorly prowess in physical fitness.

“Uh,” he fumbles.

“Don’t you get scared, though?” you continue as if nothing has happened, helping him out. “Hiking all alone?”

If he’s grateful for your assistance, he doesn’t show it, because now he sounds genuinely confused as he says, “What is there to be scared of, exactly?”

His question makes you come to an abrupt stop. You turn your head to the side so that you can look at him over your shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘what is there to be scared of’? It’s a forest, Kiba.”

“So?” he replies, sounding even more confused.

“Are you being for real right now?” The blatantly puzzled look that settles onto his face puzzles you just as greatly in return, now. 

Especially when he says, “I’m not entirely sure how you want me to answer that.”

“Well, I don’t know,” you say. “What if there’s, like… a bear, or something?”

He snorts at your idea, making you feel like you’re stupid for even suggesting a thing like that in the first place. 

“What?” you fuss, glaring at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just that there aren’t any bears in these woods, dummy,” he answers, the last word kind despite if it’s usually meant as something derogatory.

You scoff, rolling your eyes for the millionth time today. “And how would you know that, oh, wise, all-knowing one?”

Kiba pauses as he smirks, rather resting his gaze onto a spot somewhere amongst the tree line instead of you. You catch the slight flutter of a muscle in his cheek as he grits his teeth and exhales.

His voice is low, but confident as he finally says, “Because around these parts, sweetheart, I’m the biggest predator. And luckily for us, bears tend to keep to themselves instead of picking fights with something that is much, much bigger than them.”

You’re not entirely sure if you want to know how big he can actually get, nor how far he’s actually able to see with those wolf eyes of his as he keeps on looking off into the greenery. His expression is one of the most complacent ones you’ve seen in a long while. 

Still, you manage just enough bravery to swallow the thick saliva that’s now started to gather inside your mouth so that you can ask, “So you’re saying that you can take a bear in a fight? Like an actual living, breathing bear?”

“I mean,” he drawls, shrugging in such a nonchalant way that it only pisses you off further, “it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Your eyes open wide as your heart drops to your fucking ass. “What?! Are you serious?”

“No, I’m joking.”

Dead silence meets him from your side at his bad take on a prank. And Kiba — foolish, brainless Kiba — can’t help but start laughing at the look of pure, unhinged fury that starts to twist your features now. It makes your nostrils outright flare like a bull’s that’s been irked for far too long.

He gets startled when you start stomping towards him, though.

“I’m sorry—” He begins walking backwards to cause more distance between himself and the wrath that is you, laughter still escaping his lips. “I didn’t think that you’d actually—”

You’re too angry at him to notice how good his balance actually is. He doesn’t trip once despite the fact that he’s blindly walking backwards on uneven terrain; much less loses his footing or actually falls over.

His abnormally honed sense of stability only drives you more mad. By the time you finally catch up to him and shove him by pressing both hands against his chest, the startled little yelp he lets out in response is barely satisfying.

“Hey, don’t do that; I’ll fall!”

“Good, because that’s what I was hoping for!”

“Oh, c’mon… Hey!” He comes to a stop, grabbing you by the wrist when you try to strike him for a second time. “I told you I was sorry, didn’t I?”

“Sorry? Sorry? Oh, go fuck yourself, you absolute dick,” you snap at his half-assed apology and are practically gritting your teeth whilst trying not to pay mind to how his touch practically sears your skin. “I hope a bear actually does come into these woods just so it can maul you into a million tiny little pieces!”

“Aha… I’d like to see it try.” His eyes burn like a furnace when he says that. It’s even worse when he yanks on your wrist and pulls you closer, as if to prove a point.

The fire within subdues your own flames in an instant. It makes you lose your edge.

“You— You— Ugh!” The slight upturn of your nose almost comes across as snobbish as you whip your head away from him in one sharp movement and shove him again with your free hand, causing his grip to break free, but not because you want it to. “Go away.”

Watching you with profound amusement, Kiba thinks all your worrying is to die for.

Nothing’s really changed, now has it?

And as a result, the smile in his voice is almost unbearably audible as he hurries after you the moment you start walking again. Your pace has become much faster than it was before, but he has no trouble whatsoever in catching up. 

He’s right behind you as he says, “I was just fucking with you a lil’ bit, can you blame me?” 

“Oh, yeah,” you retort coldly, still not looking at him. “I most definitely can.”

“Christ, don’t be like that, bunny,” he says, nudging you in the shoulder with the help of his palm. 

The touch, mostly platonic and what you’d consider meant to be purely reassuring in nature, nevertheless causes your entire body to end up becoming overly tense instead. This is the second time that goosebumps outright tighten your skin as his fingers slide down and graze your shoulder blade, as well as one of the backpack’s straps before letting go. 

It’s hard to walk the path like a normal person, when every time he touches you feels like he’s leaving you burning in his wake.

“Are we cool now?” he asks when you don’t bother replying. You simply can’t.

“No, we’re not ‘cool’, you moron. Fuck you,” you answer when he nudges you for a second time, still fuming. Better yet, you’re the exact opposite from cool.

“Mm,” he hums, seemingly deep in thought. You think that he’s finally going to leave you alone, however, much to your dismay, not even a minute of quiet passes before he’s opening his mouth again, asking, “Wanna tell me why you’re so mad?”

“Gee, I wonder; maybe because you’ve got me losing my shit in the middle of the goddamn woods?” You scowl at him before pointing your gaze back onto the ground so that you can avoid falling onto your ass at the worst moment. “I mean honestly, how stupid can you get to even ask me that?”

“Well—”

“Don’t answer that!”

“Okay. Okay.” Kiba forces himself to stop the slight, upward curl of his lips at your agitated tone. This is not a laughing matter; or at least that is what he keeps telling himself for your sake. “What do you want me to do, then?”

“I want you to go away,” you repeat, exasperated at how he’s obviously fighting every urge to laugh at your bitter attitude. 

As is expected, he pays you no mind and instead keeps following after you like he’s a dog tied to a leash that your hand holds. You can hear his footsteps trailing closely behind. “And where am I supposed to go, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble, frowning. “Just go!”

“But I don’t wanna.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit that you don’t give a shit.”

“Fine!” You huff, a certain kind of tightness in your expression when you look at him. “Fine. I’ll go, then!”

“And where are you gonna go, huh? There isn’t a single inch of these woods that I don’t know like the back of my hand.” He looks at you, his eyes glimmering with a subtle yellow shade instead of their usual brown. “I’ll just track you down like I always do.”

With the expectant, borderline mischievous look he dares you with now, he reminds you of an overexcited puppy. 

Damn him. You’re not sure if you’re irked or envious by how unpredictable and free-spirited he is.

It only makes you angrier.

“I don’t know, Kiba,” you fuss, looking away and pinching the bridge of your nose to save yourself from getting flustered all over again. “Probably somewhere far away from you, because to be completely honest, you’re annoying the utter, living crap outta me right now, okay?”

He stares at you for a couple of seconds, paying mind to the way your voice cracks midway. You’re clearly upset, frustrated, perhaps even overwhelmed by the way he keeps one-upping you with every sentence.

It prompts him to walk closer to where you stand. To lean into your space, carefully reach out and pry your hands away from your face so that he can give you that same look that he’d given you all those years ago when he’d been sick and you were swinging by his house every single day after school. 

The one that’s completely, utterly riddled with an emotion you cannot bring yourself to understand even to this day.

“God, what do you want now?” you ask, your gaze still persistently avoidant.

“I want to apologize,” he says, this time completely serious. When you look up, he continues, “I know that I can be… a lot to handle at times, and—” 

You purse your lips, mumbling under your breath, “Yeah, well, a lot is an understatement when it comes to you.”

He chuckles, huffing a laugh. “Okay, smartass; shush. I wasn’t done talkin’ yet.”

You glower at the way he shushes you, but otherwise keep silent.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I also know that it drives you up the wall when I’m a lot, so… yeah. I’ll tone it down, but you also gotta stop worrying so damn much, okay? It ain’t good for ya.”

“What do you mean by that?” you ask.

“What I mean is that you’re just always actin’ so goddamn uptight, bunny; I can sense it! So just… try and relax for once, yeah? Allow yourself to enjoy something that’s a lil’ bit spontaneous. Go fuckin’ crazy, go wild; all that good shit, ya know?” he says, and all of a sudden he’s resting both big palms on your shoulders, shaking you gently as if trying to rid you of your nerves. “Deal?”

“I wasn’t… worrying.” Your heartbeat quickens at the doubtful look he gives you next. “But yeah. Yeah, okay. Deal. Going crazy, going wild; woo…”

You’re soap-sliver thin. Transparent. Ever the complicator. That ‘woo’ was pitiful.

But it’s a start.

“Attagirl, there she is,” he says as he ruffles your hair and fixes his backpack back into place. It encourages you to do the same with your own while he slips by you and walks a couple steps ahead, letting you breathe again. “Now let’s go. We’re almost there, but I wanna get the tent ready before the sun gets the chance to set.”

“Tent?” you mumble, following after him. “As in… singular?”

“Yeah?” This time it’s his turn to look at you over his shoulder. “What, did you think that I was gonna carry two of ‘em on my back? We’re sharing; it’s easier.”

Thump, thump, thump!

“Oh. Um.” You swallow hard as you rub the spot where your heart lies with a sweaty hand. “Okay.”

He’s quiet for a second. And then he asks, “Does that make you uncomfortable…? ‘Cause at the end of the day, I can always sleep outside. I just thought it’d be—”

“No, we’re good,” you say, cutting him off. “I don’t mind.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t slept together before,” you say. And nearly choke on your own words. “Wait! Wait, I-I meant like, you know, like back when we were younger.”

Thump, thump, thump, thump!

God, you’re thankful that he’s walking ahead of you so that he can’t see you experiencing your meltdown.

Kiba seems to ignore your little hiccup, because all he says now is, “Positive?”

You take a deep breath. Exhale. Clear your head just enough to ask, “What’s with all the questions all of a sudden…?”

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, his posture straight. “I just wanna make sure you’re cool with it.”

“Yeah, well all it’s doing is making me feel nervous again.”

“Oh, shit; okay, okay!” He turns to look at you again, his eyes wide. “We’re relaxing, we’re chilling… Look at the pretty nature, look at the trees! So zen, right? Real ‘live, laugh, love’ type of shit right here, yes, ma’am!”

Eventually, his rambling makes timid laughter echo throughout the forest.

What an idiot.

———

Ever since you’ve set up camp and settled on the small clearing on top of the hill, you’ve learned three things.

One, the stars are a beautiful sight that stretches far and beyond the inky sky when there’s not as much light pollution present to dim them out. 

Two, your best friend is a master when it comes to putting up a tent and starting a campfire.

And three, he can also whip up some really, I mean really mean s’mores.

That last one is why you’re practically humming whilst you sit by the fire that night; dressed in your favourite hoodie and continuously licking droplets of melted chocolate off your fingertips with utmost delight.

With his dark irises adorned with dancing orange flames, Kiba’s eyes can best be described as blazing when he looks up at you.

“Whath?” you mumble, mouth full of marshmallows.

“Easy there, tiger,” he taunts. “Leave some for the rest of us, will ya?”

“Leave me alone,” you answer just as lightheartedly when you swallow. Finally willing yourself to relax, your voice sounds muffled because of how you pop the tip of your thumb out of your overly-sweet mouth, “As if you didn’t eat like six of them already.”

“I ate six ‘cause I’m a big fella with an even bigger appetite,” he counters immediately. “What’s your excuse?”

“Well, if you must know,” you brush him off with a rather sassy flick of the wrist. “I’m ovulating right now and it makes me hungrier than usual.”

Just as you’ve expected, Kiba splutters and nearly drops the bottle he’d just been drinking water out of. A series of coughing and choking noises ensue that make it very hard to hide your satisfaction.

By the time he manages to collect himself, you’re still musing. “You okay there, Inuzuka?”

“Christ,” he says, his voice so hoarse that it forces him to clear his throat for a second time around. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing like always. “It’s just that you don’t have to be so upfront about it.”

“Um, okay…? I was just joking, you know... Didn’t think you’d take it as seriously as you did.” Your upper lip quivers as you let out a quiet, almost self-deprecating laugh at the look of guardedness that crosses his face when you speak the words. 

It’s almost like he’s conflicted about how to act around you all of a sudden. 

And it’s also the reason why you can’t help but ask, “What’s the big deal, though? Does it gross you out or something?”

“No. Gosh, no,” he immediately says and for a second you swear that there’s a blush tinging his already sun-kissed cheeks when he turns to look at the fire instead of you. 

He seems to be struggling with finding the right thing to say as he runs his hands up and down his knees and brings them closer to his chest. “You know I’m not like that. It’s just that… well, I don’t wanna think about it, is all. About you, in that kind of way, I mean.”

He can’t risk it because he can still remember the scent of it from way back when he was seventeen. Can still remember how dangerously good it smelled it to him.

God, you were so alluring to him. You still are.

“Oh.” Ouch. You don’t realize that you take his words the wrong way, so they sting you in the place where your heart supposedly lies. Nevertheless, you still manage to smile like the brave girl you’re trying to be as you say, “Well, luckily for you; you won’t have to, because I haven’t ovulated in like three years or so, hah.”

He perks up as his eyes shift back to you. “What’s that supposed t’mean?”

You shake your head, wishing to move on from the conversation but this time he strangely persists, pestering you to give him an answer even if he’d been the one acting weird about it earlier.

So you finally oblige, “Well, uh, I’m on birth control.”

He tilts his head to the side like a dog. “Why?”

Your brow furrows. “What do you mean ‘why’?”

He looks at you like you’re dumb. “Why are you on birth control?”

“Because I don’t want to get pregnant while having sex…?” you trail off. “Isn’t that supposed to be obvious?”

His eyes widen, dark brows shooting up so high that they could touch his hairline. “You’re fucking someone?”

Now is your turn to be taken aback. “I-I mean… I used to, yeah.”

Displeasure turns Kiba’s stomach into a pit of despair. He realizes that he’s not very fond of the idea of someone touching you like that. “When? And who?”

“I’m not telling you that!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to talk to you about my sex life!”

“Why not?” he repeats, still oddly intrigued, almost nosy. “I can tell you all ‘bout mine if you tell me ‘bout yours.”

“Hell no.” You whip your head forward, glaring into the fire whilst grabbing the nearby stick that you used to roast — or should you say burn — your marshmallows with before. Poking the embers with it, the frown that’s on your lips only deepens now as you watch the sparks dance up into the night sky. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass on listening to you talk about all your failed sexual conquests.”

He chuckles with what you think is amusement, but the sound is oddly strained. “What makes you think that they’re failed ones?”

You purse your lips. “Well, you’ve broken up with Tamaki, didn’t you?”

“I broke up with Tam for other reasons,” he mutters, his smile wavering for a slight second. “The sex had nothin’ to do with it.”

You don’t want to tread these waters and besides, it’s better to keep things light. So you sit straighter as you stick your tongue out at him, taunting, “Or maybe it’s just your insanely small dick that’s to blame, did you ever think about that?” 

“Oh, yeah, bet. It’s definitely small, all right.” Kiba huffs a laugh at your jab. And then he leans slightly closer; not too close, but just enough for the proximity to feel slightly more intimate than platonic. 

His pupils are so big that they remind you of two vortexes as he whispers, “Wanna take a look just to make sure?”

Sinful thrill erupts within your gut at the closeness and his rather sly comment. It shakes you to your core even if you don’t want it to. So with your train of thought becoming all fucked up and wacky all of a sudden, you turn away from facing him, feeling the heat from the fire kiss your already much too-warm cheeks.

With your voice merely above a murmur, you sound like you’re almost out of breath as you utter, “You’re so gross.”

“Eh,” he shrugs and crosses his arms behind his head as he pushes further back against the log you’re both leaning against with the provided comfort of your backpacks. “You’re used to it.”

“What I am,” you say, side-eyeing him, “is traumatized.”

“Oh, boohoo.” He pretends to pout, closing his eyes, “Big bad Kiba keeps on bullying me. Poor, poor me.”

You giggle, poking the embers again. “Remember back when Sasuke used to bully you in elementary?”

“Tsch.” You watch as he clicks his tongue, his eyes still closed. “That Uchiha twink definitely did not bully me.”

“He kept on saying how your teeth were too big to properly fit inside your mouth.”

“Mhmmm,” Kiba drawls, crossing one ankle over the other. His eyelids flutter open slightly, the orange glow from the fire further complimenting his tan skin and dark hair. “And then, if memory serves right, I bit him for it.”

“And then you bit him for it, yes,” you echo, stifling another giggle. It makes your shoulders shake as you tug on the sleeves of your oversized hoodie. “Oh my gosh, remember how pissed Mr. Umino got at you for that?”

“I think I got like two weeks of detention for it,” he drawls. “It was worth it though... I never liked Sasuke all that much for some reason.”

“No, I think it was more like three weeks than it was two? Because I remember having to walk back home from school all alone every day and thinking how it was taking ages.”

“Yeah?” He turns slightly so that he can look at you from the corner of his eye. “You actually remember that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” you ask.

“Uh,” he blinks, his expression turning blank. “‘Cause instead of paying attention to the pain and suffering of your best friend, you were probably way too busy actin’ annoyingly obsessed with Sasuke, just like every other girl was doing in our year?”

“What?” Your eyebrows knit together at this newly-acquired information. “I wasn’t obsessed with him!”

Kiba turns to give you a look that outright spells bullshit.

“Come on,” you glance at him, head hanging low. “Don’t gimme that look.”

“What look?” he answers, still giving you that exact look.

“The one that makes me feel like I’m lying.”

The corners of his lips quirk upward. “But you are lying.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Ugh.” You scoff, playing with the strings on your hoodie. “Fine, maybe I did have a little crush on him. You can’t really blame me for it, though! Sasuke was, like… devastatingly pretty, okay?”

“So that’s your type, huh?” he asks, his foot dancing along the rhythm of a silent song you probably don’t know. “Pretty boys? Sorry, devastatingly pretty boys?”

“I don’t have a type,” you counter, ignoring his jab.

“Sure you do.”

“I seriously don’t.”

“Everyone has a type, though.”

“Not me.”

Kiba falls silent for a moment as he stares into the fire. You pass the time by watching the flames dance across his cheekbones; along the dangerously sharp line that is his jaw. His eyelashes are thick and long, and the curve of his nose is delicate and slightly upturned at the end.

He looks like he’s still deep in thought by the time he finally says, “Well, maybe you just haven’t found it yet. Your type, I mean.”

“Yeah,” you reply, unable to stop staring at his side profile. “Maybe.”

Or maybe, just maybe, your type is right in front of your nose.

———

What you also learn after stomping out the campfire and clambering inside the tent that night, is that even though you’ve slept in the same bed countless of times before, the entire ordeal is much different now that your best friend has gotten bigger.

Because instead of laying beside you like he used to do back in the day when you were kids, Kiba somehow ends up fully surrounding you this time.

He’s everywhere all at once, his presence and that warm amber scent filling every last inch of the small tent you’re both currently residing in. Being so close to him, practically wrapped in his embrace and with your back firmly pressed against his chest, feels oddly familiar even if it’s currently being executed for the sole purpose of keeping you warm throughout the night.

But it’s not quite the same, now that you’re adults, now is it? 

It’s almost… inappropriate. In some way at least.

“Should’ve brought warmer clothes with ya, bunny,” he mumbles at some point, his face so close that you can feel the warmth of his breath brushing the back of your neck. “You’re practically shiverin’.”

His drawl — even more prominent now that you think he’s half-asleep — makes your blood want to boil, and not out of anger. He talks to you like he’s trying to get into your panties, but you know that that’s not the case. 

He’s made it pretty fucking clear that he wants nothing to do with you with the whole ‘being too upfront’ situation earlier, after all.

So you take a deep breath to calm yourself — and hopefully whisk the confusing thoughts away that are doing more harm than good — before you murmur, “Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

He chuckles as he gives your stomach a single stroke, the sound lazy and laid-back just like the movement is. “Mm… I believe it’s mine.”

“No shit.” You sigh as you curl yourself tighter and shift even closer to his chest that is providing you with all this heavenly warmth you simply can’t get enough of. “God, I can’t believe that I’ve let you talk me into going camping in just my leggings and an old hoodie… I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

“Hey, now,” he objects, “you can trust me. I just forgot that regular humans can’t handle the cold as well as I can.”

“If I could trust you, I wouldn’t be freezing my ass off in the middle of the woods right now, Kiba!” You whine, annoyed. “Ugh, you’re always so reckless and never stop to think things through. Nothing’s changed.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” he mutters into the dark, lips a firm line of seriousness. He always finds you so cute whenever you get pissy and say his name like that, but something with your sentence doesn’t sit right with him this time. “But I’m trying to fix it, aren’t I?”

“Well, so far you’re not doing that good of a job,” you pout in answer. “I’m still cold.”

Silence settles between you for a couple of moments. The only sound you can hear, or should you rather say feel, is the strong beating of his heart as it drums against your spine.

It turns a bit erratic by the time he says, “I’ve got an idea.”

You roll over to look at him. “What kind of idea?”

“Hear me out,” he says. “How about you take off your—”

Nearly choking on your own saliva, you try to ignore the way his quickening pulse makes your tummy tighten as you rush to cut him off with a high-pitched, “No!”

“Just hear me out, will ya?” Kiba’s voice fades into nothing as he rests his chin on the top of your head. He’s mumbling as he says, “If you get undressed, it’ll be easier to—”

“Nope! Nope, nope, nope,” you squeak out, quickly shaking your head, making him pull back slightly. “Absolutely not.”

“But you didn’t even let me finish!”

“And I don’t need to, because I know exactly where this is going,” you chide, brow furrowing so prominently that there’s a small v etching itself into your forehead, now. “I am not getting naked with you under the pretense of sharing body heat.”

No way in hell are you about to fall for one of his jokes again. They just leave you hanging in the end, looking desperate.

“Oh, c’mon; why not?” he says, voice so genuinely curious that it almost makes him sound innocent and free from any intent to scheme whatsoever. His fingers dig deeper into your hoodie as he adds, “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t already seen all your bits and pieces before.”

You push away from him so that you can face him instead, supporting yourself with the help of your palms. The inside of the tent is dark, so dark that you can barely see the outline of him, but you just know that he’s smiling; the little shit.

“Those bits and pieces, as you’ve so kindly called them, have changed a lot since we’ve last shared a kiddie pool, Ki,” you mumble, feeling heat growing up your neck and down your middle. It takes all the effort in the world to not let it slip to that tingly place between your legs, especially because there’s a calm rumble of a laugh thundering inside his chest, now.

“It’ll warm you up faster,” he pushes. “That’s all I want, I swear.”

“No thanks,” you refuse, fighting the urge to not shrivel up and simply die from embarrassment. “I’m perfectly content with waiting for your wolfy heat to reach me through the many, many layers of our clothes.”

“You sure?” he asks. “‘Cause it’s gonna be a long night.”

“Yep.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“Yes!” You squeeze his arm, digging your nails into his dark green hoodie as if in warning before you turn your back towards him again and shuffle closer. “Now shut up and go to sleep already.”

“‘Kay,” he relents at long last, sighing. “Suit yourself.”

“I sure plan to, thank you very much!”

“Aha.”

He’s uncharacteristically quiet as he settles back into the folds of your unzipped sleeping bags that you’ve overlapped just so that you can be conjoined together into a mess of limbs. And as a result, the silence to follow is so heavy. It succeeds in making you jittery as hell, as if the chill didn’t help with that already.

“Stop moving around so much, I’m tryin’ to sleep,” he fusses by the time it’s your third time switching positions and pushing further up against him. Unlike before, he sounds like he’s actually agitated now.

“I can’t help it if I’m cold,” you whine, rubbing your feet against his calves. 

The feeling of your socks gaining friction against his sweatpants is nice for you from the way it steadily creates warmth, however for Kiba it’s an annoyance that seemingly has no end.

It’s the reason as to why his tone comes across as an irked hiss when he says, “Yeah, well, that’s not my problem, now is it?” 

“But it is,” you reply, still running the soles of your feet up and down his legs. “You were the one who kept on saying that a hoodie would be just fine to wear.”

“No, I– Can you stop doing that already?!” He grunts, poking you in the side and causing you to jump. “You know damn well how much the whole feet thing pisses me off.”

“Well, wanna know what pisses me off?”

“What?”

“Being so cold that my teeth are practically chattering.”

“All right, that’s it.”

Your breathing staggers in the back of your throat as you watch him sit up so that he can start taking his hoodie off. He reaches for the back of it, strong back flexing as he pulls it over his head and throws it into one corner that’s to your left.

The white t-shirt he wears underneath gets tugged along, riding up his spine slightly. And goddammit, it’s hard not to ogle at him; hard not to leer at all the tight, defined lines of muscle paired with the contrasting smoothness of tan skin, at how his dark hair tickles the nape of his neck now that it’s all ruffled. 

But maybe if you’re sneaky with it, he won’t be able to tell? And besides, it’s pretty dark anyway and—

“Stop staring,” he says like he’s reading your mind. “There’s drool drippin’ at the corner of your mouth already.”

You gulp in response to being caught by his exceptional night vision. The sound is loud and embarrassing as it travels down your throat, at least that’s what you’re thinking. 

“I wasn’t— God, you’re so pretentious,” you manage to let out. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing, you prick.”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting undressed,” he replies casually as he repeats the same set of movements and takes his T-shirt off as well. “And judging by how much you’re complaining about the cold, I suggest you do the same before you freeze to death.”

You bite into the inside of your cheek to stop your upper lip from trembling with stress. “I already told you that I’m not doing that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Something changes inside him at your denial. It makes him sound more tense as he says, “Can you please stop making a fuss for once and just do it?”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“No, Kiba.”

“Fine, then freeze,” he quips, suddenly snappier than usual. His blood feels like it’s simmering. Wait, has it always been this hot in here?

Upset, cold and sticky, flashes throughout your chest at his seemingly careless words. “Okay, maybe I will.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

You glare at each other, fire and ice present in a single look.

“For fuck’s sake,” he says, trying to tame the persistent flutter of a muscle in his cheek that just won’t go away now. “Why do you gotta be so stubborn all the time? It’s like you’re actively searching for reasons to fight with me every chance you get.”

“That’s not true. You just don’t like it when I don’t comply with what you want,” you spit back, narrowing your eyes. “You’re the stubborn one.”

Another beat of silence passes between you and he uses it to inhale a deep breath and exhale it out just as slowly. It looks like he’s trying to calm himself, fighting every urge not to snap at you again.

“I’m just looking out for you,” he counters finally, his features unbearably tight. “I want what’s best for you, that’s all.”

“Oh, please.” You force out a laugh that doesn’t come from the heart. “As if you know what’s best for me.”

“And you do?” He looks at you, brows raised in challenge. “‘Cause how the hell is getting sick just because you’re too big of a pussy to take your shirt off the thing that’s best for you?”

Your toes start to curl with irritation under the layer of the sleeping bag you’re still tucked into. “I’d rather be a pussy any day, than an obsessively controlling alpha asshole who can’t take a no for an answer.” 

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from the control freak herself,” he says, nearly copying the same bitter laugh you’ve let out earlier. “You’re talking as if you don’t start acting batshit crazy whenever a single thing doesn’t go the way you imagined it to go.”

How on earth did this turn into an actual argument so out of the blue? Is he actually that irritated that you refuse to undress? Or is there something else to blame for all of this?

Either way, things are escalating fast.

Your face feels hot from all the mixed emotions you’re experiencing as you draw your blade and stick it into the place where you know it hurts him the most because he’s done the same to you, “I might be a control freak… You’re just a freak.” 

“You wanna talk to me about being a freak?” He laughs again, quieter this time but the sound is cold and sharp as ice. “‘Cause how can you call me that, if back when I met you, no one could even stand the sight of you!” 

He sucks in one breath, two, three before he continues, unable to stop, “No one could even talk to you. Do you remember that? Not until I stepped in, at least. So call me a freak all you want if it makes you feel any better, princess, but at the end of the day, I was still the one who put you out there while all you did was feel sorry for yourself.”

“You didn’t do shit!” The anger that drops upon your unsuspecting mind is like a thick, red fog. It makes your voice rise higher as you say, “All you’ve been doing for all these years, is breathing down my neck!”

“It’s not like I fucking chose to do that, goddammit!” Kiba snaps, voice suddenly gruff, heart pounding. His pulse feels like it’s racketing behind his teeth as he grits them so hard it makes his jaw hurt. “I mean, do you actually think that I want to spend the rest of my life wondering where the fuck you are and what you’re doing, when you can’t even put in the effort to text me back? Do you think that I want to keep being your friend, when you don’t even—”

“I didn’t ask you to!” You push forward, getting all up into his face as hurt sears the inside of your chest, making it heavy. “I didn’t ask you to be my friend, I didn’t ask you to keep trying to stay in touch, I didn’t ask you to keep monitoring me like some fucking psycho! I didn’t ask you to do any of those things.”

“You not asking for it is not the fucking issue, all right!” His face contorts into a look of prominent displeasure, the bridge of his nose scrunching. It’s clear how much you’re pissing him off; it’s making him say things he otherwise wouldn’t.

“Then tell me what the issue is!” You inhale, your own breathing quick and unfulfilling from how emotional you’re getting. It feels like you can’t suck enough air into your lungs no matter how hard you try. “Enlighten me, Kiba, please! Because quite frankly, I have no freaking clue what you’re going on about right now.”

“The issue,” he finally says, eyes bleary with fury and disdain, “is that I’m stuck with you. And guess what, you get to leave. I can’t. You get to fuck off to the other side of the goddamn country completely unfazed after every summer, and I can’t despite trying, because I’m feeling every mile of distance that separates me from you and it makes me fucking sick!” 

The words are like a waterfall to spill from his mouth, he can’t stop them. “You get to meet new people, you get to befriend them and sleep with them and love them, all while every. Single. One of my relationships falls apart because I’m stuck thinking about you, and only you. I mean Jesus fucking Christ, I’m thinking about you whenever I go to sleep, when I go to the gym, when I go to work… I was even thinking about you every time I fucked my girlfriend, who is now my ex, thanks to you!”

He ceases, breathing hard through his nose now, opening his mouth to say something, then thinking better of it.

Meanwhile, every single muscle in your body goes weak, almost numb. His stare is feverish and remains glued to your face; it makes you feel like you’ll drop dead any second now despite the fact that your stomach is doing cartwheels and high-pitched white noise progressively fills your ears. 

If there wasn’t a humongous lump jammed inside your throat, you’d perhaps be able to tell how dry your mouth has turned all of a sudden. 

But you don’t. So it’s no wonder why your voice cracks as you at long last look at your childhood best friend, the person you’ve always trusted the most, and ask, “So, you’re in love with me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Hah,” he snorts, the sound completely unenthusiastic. “I wish it was that simple.” 

“Then what else is there?”

“I’m bonded to ya, sweetheart.” His stare hardens. “You’re my mate. Always have been, always will be. Congrats.”

Thump, thump, thump!

“Mate?” Your heart nearly breaks your ribcage in half from how intensely it starts to pound at the word. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means… It means that I’ve longed for you ever since the first day I saw you, okay? God.” He groans, running his hand down his cheek, then the side of his neck. His skin has become so slick with sweat that it causes his fingers to glide. “And it means that I’ll still long for you no matter what you do, or how far away you go, or who you end up with... You’re a part of me. And I can’t do shit about it.”

His words make your head swim. It’s hard to concentrate because of it, the rising nausea only making things worse, but you still manage enough willpower to ask, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t—...” He inhales a long breath again, only one this time. And pulls a face you can’t read. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured by it… Like you were obligated to be with me or something, just ‘cause I was having a bad time.”

“So instead you decided to be my friend for all these years? So that I could have my chance at freedom and you’d still have a reason to be near me?” Disappointment flashes throughout your brain like lightning. You feel played. “Does that mean that our entire friendship was, like… just some ploy to help you get closer to me or whatever?”

“Fuck no.” His shoulders slump as he practically succumbs to the weight of his own body. The world feels like it’s spinning all of a sudden. “The bond had nothing to do with that; well, maybe at the start, but definitely not afterwards. I was your friend because you were actually cool to hang out with, despite being kind of a dork. Even if you were my mate, you were still smart, and nice, and… and…”

And it’s only then, when you close the gap between yourself and him to catch him, that you realize how high his body temperature has gotten. How his skin feels like it’s blazing underneath the tips of your fingers when you press your hand to his chest on pure instinct. How the blush that tints his cheeks is stark red; intense enough to even reach the tips of his ears and the base of his neck.

His blood has always run hot, you know that. But never like this.

Never like this.

It’s even worse than back when he was ‘sick’.

“Shit… Are you feeling okay? You’re burning up all of a sudden. Like, even more than usual.” Your voice trembles on the words as you speak, low and worried. It’s like the entire argument is forgotten in a blink of an eye just because you’re sensing that something isn’t right with him.

“No.” Much to your surprise, Kiba gives you a hard smile when you look up into his face. It’s covered with a thick coat of sweat again even if he had wiped it away just minutes before. “I’m not okay.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think…” He pauses, letting out a pained sound that’s almost like a mix between a grunt and a whimper when you cup his face with your hands. “I think that I’m slipping into rut.”

“Rut?” You blink when he takes your hands into his own and hurriedly pries them away from his face, your eyelashes batting against your cheeks. The sudden rush of adrenaline that courses your veins when he starts to let you go makes you feel like you’re hollow inside.

So you cling onto his hands. If anything, they’re keeping you warm.

He breathes in again, every breath strained. “You need to stop touching me. It’s making it worse.”

Your brain feels like it’s turned to mush all of a sudden. All you can do is do as he says and whisper, “Oh. Y-yes, okay. Okay.”

“Fuck.” He scrubs his hand over his face for what must be the third time now, continuously wiping the liquid salt that just won’t stop oozing out of his pores. “Fuck. This is so fucked.”

Your eyes feel like they’re bulging from how concerned you are. His constant swearing isn’t helping the situation. “What is?”

“This whole night. Everything.” He looks away, clearly ashamed. Parts his lips so that he can breathe through his mouth instead of his nose, but it just makes him taste you on the flat of his tongue instead. Drool seeps as a result. “I wasn’t even supposed to go into rut for the next couple of weeks at least, maybe even a month from now... I think your scent might have triggered it.” 

After all, you’re sweet as summer honey. Honey made just for him.

And being this sweet, it’s no wonder that he’d subconsciously lured you out into the forest and away from other people under the pretense of catching up. No wonder that he had pinned you down with a single look in the middle of a grocery store as soon as you showed even the slightest hint of requited feelings. That he’d been getting impatient, had been getting jealous at the mention of other partners, had even nearly tried manipulating you into getting naked with him — something he’d never thought he’d sink so low to, for fuck’s sake.

All while the rut just stacked one symptom on top of the other.

This entire trip, every single one of his actions, every word, every look had been mere preying. Mere circling whilst getting ready to go in for the kill. After all, you’ve been gone for years, leaving him stranded. Catching a mere whiff of your scent — of his mate’s scent — after such a long time had been like an awakening for the beast within; a push for it to take over.

And that beast is ready to come out now. It’ll claw a way out of him if need be. He didn’t even realize it until now. 

Utterly blinded by instinct, he’d been played for a fool by his own psyche.

“Kiba?” you whisper his name cautiously, pupils still big as saucers as you repeat, “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” He exhales shakily, ignoring your question. “I-I need to get away from you before I—”

“What? You can’t leave me here! What the fuck,” you stammer out, eyes opening even wider in the dark. Ignoring his warnings, you clutch onto him again because he’s simply your only pillar right now. Rut or no rut. Whatever that means.

“Well, I can’t stay here,” he snaps in answer and now you can hear the mumble appearing between each word. His already humanly-questionable incisors are growing elongated now, turning into fangs and changing his pattern of speech. “You have no fucking idea how aggressive I get if I don’t get what I want during a rut; what you saw earlier wasn’t even the half of it. And I can’t... I won’t let you see me like that. I don’t want you to think—”

“I won’t think anything of you, I promise! Just… just please don’t leave me here. Please,” you quickly blabber out even if you’re not sure who the words are meant for; you or him. “Just tell me what you need.”

“No way.” He’s practically panting, every breath still continuing to be laboured as he says, “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Just say it.”

“It’s so fucking embarrassing, though.”

“Goddammit, spit it out already!”

“I—” He falters, huffing, only stressing you out further until he finally says, “I need to cum.”

The white noise that had just eased a bit inside your ears immediately gets replaced by the deafening ringing of your pulse. Did you just hear that right? 

“H-Huh?” is all you can let out as a result.

“I need to cum to make the rut ease up,” he explains impatiently, voice breathless, hoarse. He looks at you, the vein in his neck bulging as his jaw clicks into place again. “Fucking hell… M’sorry, I’m so sorry… for everything. You don’t gotta do anything if you don’t wanna, I’d never force you but— fuck, it’s so fucking hot in here. I can’t breathe.”

The moment you see him start losing his composure again is the moment that you spring into action.

“Here, let’s just… take it easy for a bit.” You blink profusely, trying to gain control of the situation as you ease him onto the pile of sleeping bags. “Breathe in nice and slow, yeah?”

“No,” he grunts out, tensing again in an instant. “That makes it worse.”

“Oh, right. Right. Sorry.” 

Moments pass, all of them feeling like ages even if it’s only a second or two, perhaps three. You spend them all by watching him like a shark in water, not sounding quite like yourself as you force yourself to step out of your comfort zone for once and utter, “Let me help you.”

“What?”

“Let me help you with the whole… uh.” Your rare, spontaneous decision makes your head want to hurt from all the anxiety it’s causing. “Cumming part, I mean.”

“No.” His cheeks glow red as he swallows hard. “You seriously don’t gotta. Like I said, I’d never—”

“I know,” you cut in, giving him a look of what you hope looks like determination instead of pure anxiety. “I know you wouldn’t. Besides, there’s no need for that because I want to, okay?”

Kiba frowns, looking the most exasperated you’ve ever seen him be. It makes his voice unusually quiet and small as he whispers, “Why would you?”

“Want that?”

“Yes.”

“I want to because you’re my friend,” you say and it’s the truth. “And I don’t care what it is that we gotta do to make you feel all right again, I’ll always help you out because of that, okay?”

“But I’m a shitty friend. I don’t deserve you helping me out; I don’t deserve you,” he counters. “I mean, for fuck’s sake… Look at the shitshow that I dragged you into just now.”

“You made it sound like you didn’t know this would happen, though,” you argue back, growing more backbone with your tone. “Did I understand that right?”

His teeth sink into the inside of his cheek, instantly drawing blood from how sharper they are than they used to be. He hisses, licking the now aching spot, tasting iron. “Yes.”

“Okay, then let me help you,” you try again, unrecognized greed and the bond you can’t feel not as nearly as deep as him pushing you forward hand in hand. “Yeah?”

Kiba looks at you for a long while. His eyes have gotten so dark that they look like they could absorb you whole when he finally opens his mouth to say, “Yeah.” His eyelids flutter shut for a brief second as he shakes his head, as if chasing the doubt away. “Yeah, all right.”

With his approval acquired, the couple of seconds to follow are like a blur. You don’t know where the sudden burst of confidence comes from as you coax him to lay on his back, but you’re happy it’s there because it keeps your hands somewhat from shaking.

“Come to think of it, maybe we shouldn’t—” He stiffens, the words catching in his throat from the way his cock automatically starts to twitch in his sweats because of the way your unsure touch travels down his stomach, now.

His dark happy trail tickles the tips of your fingers, caramel skin still so hot that you’re surprised he’s still conscious and capable of forming thoughts. 

“It’s okay, shh,” you soothe him even if your heart feels like it’s climbed up your throat again when he immediately pushes himself up with the help of his elbows so that he can look at you. You’re both trying so hard to not stare at the obvious tent in his pants. “I’ll, um… I-I’ll take care of it, okay?”

Your best friend’s chest heaves with every fast breath. All he can do is nod, the discomfort obvious as he says, “Okay.”

God, he sounds so uncomfortable but desperate for it at the same time. You force yourself not to look at him as you kneel beside him, feeling sweat gathering on the nape of your neck. Just a little while ago you were cold. Now, you’re burning up from how quickly he’s warming up the small space.

“Will, like, a handjob be enough…?” This entire thing is insane. Surreal.

You’ve gone from zero to a hundred just because he’ll go off the rails otherwise.

“I, uh, I think so?” His fingers curl, fisting the smooth material of the sleeping bag. He clutches it so tightly that it makes his knuckles turn white as he adds, “I mean, that’s what I do when I’m alone.”

“You jerk off during a rut?” The image of him stroking himself makes your stomach tighten and your throat turn scratchy.

“So many times. Ugh.” Heat spreads throughout your body at the groan he lets out, but it also warms his face into an even deeper shade of red. Talking about these things might be embarrassing right now, but it eases the tension. So he continues, “Sometimes I even have to take a couple days off work just so I can keep fuckin’ my fist, hah.”

The look on your face makes him inhale a sharp breath through gritted teeth.

“Too much?” he asks, that same look of dread overtaking his features once more.

“No, no,” you reply hurriedly, running two now-trembling fingers along the waistband of his sweatpants. The way his toned stomach trembles in response turns your mouth painfully dry all over again. “I just… I thought you’d rather venture out to find somebody to sleep with during a time like that. So that you can, you know… make it pass quicker or something.”

“Oh. Well, I did try to do that. But it didn’t go so well,” he answers, staring at every movement your hand makes with heavy eyelids. “Here, lemme… help you out ‘cause we gotta speed things up a bit. I’m so sorry… God.”

Your breath hitches when his too-warm hand cups your smaller one and wraps it around the prominent bulge in his sweatpants without any sort of hesitance, but with palpable urgency instead. 

He curls your fingers around the ridge of his clothed cock until you can feel out the shape of it. And then he stills completely, giving you time to pull back if you change your mind about the entire thing despite that every cell of him wants to roar.

But you never do. 

No, instead all you do is succumb to the moment and start to stroke him the way he’s shown you — slowly at first.

“Fuck, okay… That’s it,” he whispers, broad shoulders tensing at the touch. His fingers twitch, tightening their grip on the sleeping bag.

The praise is like a flame and it licks your skin. Feeling how big he is getting under the cotton now, how fucking huge he’s growing, makes your saliva thick and your voice wobbly as you whisper, “Like that?”

“Mhmm, yeah.” He sighs before yet another curse spills past his parted lips. There’s drool gathering on the surface of his sharp fangs by the time he urges you on. When he swallows it, it’s audible. 

Somehow, it succeeds in making you feel better, more relaxed. The fact that he’s just as nervous as you are helps. 

So you let your lips quirk upwards briefly as you say, “Now you’re the one that’s got drool dripping from the corner of your mouth, huh?” 

“Yeah, sorry.” He huffs a laugh. “This whole thing is pretty new to me. Makes my body act all sorts of weird.”

You blink. “A handjob is new to you?”

He shakes his head, looking down at his lap with a blush so prominent that it makes his entire face tingle. “No, I meant like a mate’s touch.”

“Oh.” You offer him a nervous smile, readjusting yourself on your legs. “Well, um… enjoy it while it lasts, hah?”

Kiba doesn’t say anything in answer. Neither do you. Maybe he’s afraid of what this will mean for your friendship afterwards. Maybe you both are. But with each passing minute, you slowly ease yourself into your sinful ministrations. Your strokes turn less rigid, the hesitance replaced with cautious intent, but intent nevertheless.

The waistband of his sweatpants gradually slips lower and lower down his hips as you keep going. A glob of your saliva gets involved; transferring from your pursed lips, to your palm, to his cock that has finally been freed from the too-tight confines of his clothes and is now being spoiled by skin on skin contact.

Even if Kiba remains in his — mostly — human form, you soon learn that werewolf cock is vastly different from a human one. In the dark, you can’t see it quite well, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t feel the difference. 

It’s bigger, harder, hotter to the touch than any you’ve previously had. It throbs and practically leaks pre-cum, nearly making you think that you didn’t even have to spit into your palm in the first place. In fact, it’s so lubed up that there are wet, almost squishy noises by the time his hips start to buck upwards and he starts fucking your fist.

You’re hovering over him, your face merely inches away from his own from how close you’ve gotten during the entire ordeal. If you thought he was panting before, now he’s nearly hyperventilating as he rasps, “F-fuck, mm… faster. Go faster, bunny. It feels s’good.”

His voice has turned into a growl of some kind; it’s the lewdest you’ve ever heard him speak. Because even with all the dirty jokes, and the questionable looks, and the sometimes too-long hugs which you’ve exchanged throughout the years, Kiba has always, always been respectful of your boundaries and limits.

But he really pushes that limit, really steps on that already thin line when he suddenly rests his forehead against your own and asks, “Are you gonna let me kiss you?”

Your thoughts turn fuzzy in an instant at the request, as well as at the nearly non-existent proximity. This isn’t about helping him out anymore, this is about feelings. Feelings that you’re very much still trying to understand. 

And feelings are dangerous, when you know that being friends is best for you. After all, you’re so different from each other — polar opposites. But you feel the invisible link that connects you to him now a bit better than you did before, feel it tugging you towards him; closer and closer, even if you’re merely human. Every touch makes it stronger and alters your brain chemistry, alters the way you see him.

It feels like you’re gradually starting to share every breath, like your heartbeats are aligning and will keep on aligning all until they’ll start to beat as one. Like you’re fusing together; he’s becoming you at the same time you’re becoming him.

You have no clue how he’s managed to endure all of this for such a long time, surely feeling it at least ten times stronger than you do. And in a way, it’s scary. All these emotions are making you feel overwhelmed and the worst part is that they’re not nearly as deep yet as his are.

You stare at him. He stares right back with dark eyes full of what you think is good intention. 

Your lips quiver as you whisper, “Do you think kissing is a good idea?”

“It’s just a couple of kisses, bunny,” he answers way too fast, quietly whimpering when your thumb swipes over his sensitive cockhead, turning tacky because of the bead of pre-cum there. He’s so needy that he feels like it’s going to kill him. The rut has outright cooked his brain by now, and that makes him pushy — he’s warned you about it. “It’s not like it’s gonna change anything between us.”

You look at him again, still sceptic. Your grip around his cock tightens as you think. “I dunno...”

“C’mon. Please, please, please,” he urges, feeling even more hot and bothered and desperate at how godly it feels when you stroke his cock. Up and down, up and down, up and down — he’s going to go batshit crazy. “Didn’t you tell me that you were gonna be a bit more spontaneous tonight? Hmm?”

You stare at him from underneath your lashes, feeling just a little less doubtful from how he pleads for it. Despite being perplexed about the entire situation, his uncharacteristic rambling and babbling and the constant need to challenge you proves to be like a push forward that you need in order to press your lips against his own.

So you gather your courage and lean in. And of course, he meets you halfway in an instant — even faster than that. 

The kiss itself is messy when you connect. It’s more so a clash of teeth and swapping of runny saliva, than it is a loving peck. He craves for you so bad that before you can even take a breath in, he’s nudging your bottom lip with his tongue, trying to make you part your lips a fraction wider; to part just enough for him to slip his tongue inside.

You let out a little ‘mmph!’ sound at how intense he is with it and how he cups one side of your face with his hand, literally forcing you to open up for him by pressing his thumb underneath your jaw.

“Hey—”

And it’s the opening he’s been looking for. He pushes his tongue inside, gliding it over your front teeth, tasting the roof of your mouth, exploring it like he’ll never get another chance to do so again — perhaps he won’t, who knows? 

So he hits you like a tidal wave and kisses you like he’s planning to eat you — it’s riveting as much as it is intimidating. Spit gets swapped with each sloppy kiss that gets shared between you now, some of it bridging the small gap between your mouths whenever you push him back just enough to come back for air. His large canine teeth bump against your own normal-sized ones. The occasional click! is enough to make your blood run hot.

And surprisingly, in the midst of all this chaos, you realize that kissing him feels right. It’s by no means romantic or a profession of love, but it is natural and synchronized in its own peculiar way. Somehow, it even makes sense. Like parts are connecting, like the image is getting clearer, like puzzle pieces are falling into place.

All those feelings that you’ve shoved down and blinded yourself from for literal years are rushing to the surface now. You feel like you’re going to burst.

In a way, Kiba feels the same.

“I, ah… I think m’gonna cum soon... Kissing you feels so hot.” He groans when he feels you falter, body tensing at how low his voice has gotten. His cock is nearly pulsating in your palm by now and he has to remind you to continue by helping you out with his own hand. “Fuck, keep goin’, keep goin’. Don’t stop now; I didn’t tell ya to stop, did I?”

Flustered and incredibly overwhelmed by everything that is happening, you do as he says because following orders — even frantic, growly ones — is familiar and comforting as a result. 

You let him sloppily fuck your fist as you tighten the hold of your fingers and loosen your wrist so that he can get what he needs to bring himself to his finish. All while he’s practically shoving his tongue down your throat, kissing you with such a burning passion that it feels like you’ll be engulfed in flames and turned into ashes any second now.

Heat steadily builds up within Kiba’s stomach. Sweat pours out of every pore all over again, making his hair stick to his forehead. His toes curl, his balls tighten. His throat gets all scratchy and dry. His brow furrows so deeply that it gives him a headache as he squeezes his eyes shut and just feels.

“Yeah… Just a lil’— fuck, yes, yes…!”

You go faster. And when he finally does tip over the edge and cums, it’s insane. 

His movements spasm, broad shoulders tense up to the point of pain. And then he’s literally growling into your mouth; making your lips and the inside of your throat vibrate as he becomes undone.

Your heart stutters at the sound. And when you feel his warm, sticky seed steadily fill your hand, it begins to dance inside your chest.

After all, there’s a literal fuckload of it, perhaps even more. His release dribbles past your knuckles and soils his sweatpants. It gushes out of him, ropes of it, all tacky and cloudy white and potent. You’ve never seen a man produce so much cum, especially not because of you. 

The sight, no, the feel of it makes you rub your thighs together as you squeeze every last droplet out of him. Before you know it, there’s a tingly sensation growing in intensity between your legs. A certain kind of heat pooling at the apex of your thighs, a certain kind of stickiness that causes your underwear to cling to your most private part.

Unsure of the reason as to why his pleasure affects you so strongly, the presence of your sudden arousal takes you by surprise and thus only makes you even more nervous as your core temperature scales higher, higher, higher.

You flinch when he kisses the corner of your swollen, kiss-bruised lips. Your cheek. Your neck. And it’s in that spot, where the curve of your shoulder starts, that he finally rests his sweat-riddled forehead and croaks out a very exhausted and very grateful, “Thank you.”

Kiba sags before you can reply, resting a great part of his weight against you and nearly making you stumble backwards because of it. Despite all of the confusion that riddles your mind at that moment, you can’t help but simply hold your best friend upright, repeatedly weaving your clean fingers through his now-damp hair in meek attempt of soothing him.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, trying to ignore the way your stomach feels like it’s doing flips. Who knew you had such an effect on him? Or he on you? “You’re okay. I-I mean, you’re messy, but you’re okay.”

Long moments pass. It’s hard to tell in the dark how much time has passed exactly when your phone is nowhere to be seen, but judging by how your fingers are still tacky with his now mostly dried up release, it must have been a couple of minutes at least.

“God, I didn’t think there'd be so much cum, heh... My bad,” he grunts at some point, pulling you out of your thoughts with the way he rubs the sweat on his forehead into your hoodie. Before you can scold him for it, he’s already back to burying his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply and trying to tame his breaths. 

His exhales are warm and ticklish. They make you snicker as you try to push away from him, hiding the sensitive spot with the help of your chin. “What’re you doing?”

“Sniffin’ you,” he answers with a matter-of-fact tone, as if it’s the most normal thing for a person to do.

“Well, stop it! I already told you that it’s weird back at the store.”

“Ahh, but you smell so good.”

Another smile kicks the corners of your lips upward. You’ve always liked the little compliments he gives you. This time it’s no different. “Do I, now?”

“Mhmm,” he nearly purrs, nuzzling his nose even further into your neck until he’s got it practically smushed against your pulse point, causing it to wrinkle slightly at the bridge. “It’s sweeter than usual though, your scent. How are you feelin’?”

Ba-dum.

“Oh, you know,” you mumble, trying to ignore the way your heart skips a beat. Can he tell what you’re experiencing? “A bit overwhelmed by everything that’s happened just now, but I’m fine otherwise... I think.”

A little moment of silence ensues. You’re just about to tease him and ask if he’s done interrogating you when he rasps, “You’re sure? ‘Cause I can definitely smell something other than ‘fine’ and ‘overwhelmed’.”

He sounds different again. More gruff. More tense. More demanding of an answer. 

It makes you feel cornered all of a sudden.

Before you can move, he pulls back just enough to press the side of his face against your own as he waits for your answer; perhaps giving you the comfort of avoiding eye contact, perhaps just to feel more physical touch — you don’t know. 

So, you’re cheek to cheek, now. Chest to chest. Muscle to muscle. The distance between you is nearly non-existent as you each stare at opposite corners of the tent. 

His stubble scrapes your face. Wasn’t he clean-shaven just this morning? 

Your breath warms his shoulder as he utters, “Well?”

“Yeah,” you answer as the slight prickle in your cheek yanks you back from the haze that is your thought process. Your voice is once again as wobbly as your legs are getting. It’s hard to concentrate when he’s so close. “I’m sure.”

“‘Kay,” he trails off, still not convinced. “How ‘bout…” 

Slowly, ever so slowly, Kiba leans down to press his lips to your neck again and leaves another tender kiss there, sending shivers down your spine. “Now?”

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum!

You’re quiet, but your fingers tangle into his dark hair as you latch onto him for support in a mere instant, even you’re surprised by it. The way you can feel his sharp canines grazing your throat is exhilarating. Brain working purely on autopilot, you tug at the roots at the back of his head the same moment as your eyelids flutter shut. You simply can’t help yourself.

Perhaps this bond that he’s been telling you about isn’t something only he can experience, after all.

“And now…?” he utters so softly that you can barely hear him over the sound of your quickening pulse. His hand glides from between your shoulder blades, down to the small of your back and goddammit, his palm is so broad; it’s almost comical how big of a portion of you it manages to cover. “How do you feel now?” 

“Good. I feel… good,” is all you can answer with this time. Your voice sounds so small as his touch travels over the curve of your ass and rounds the corner by landing on the front of your thigh instead. 

You don’t fail to notice the way his calloused fingertips start to glide upwards now that they’re on your leg. The claws, that must have replaced his nails at some point when you weren’t paying that much attention, drag against the stretchy material of your leggings; playful, taunting. 

It’s all so slow. Deliberate.

The sudden burst of adrenaline that rushes through your veins and nestles deep inside your belly makes you fidgety, but he keeps you nice and steady by holding the side of your head with his other hand. 

Those claws are at your inner thigh now, only inching higher.

Higher, higher, higher.

And his lips are right next to your ear as he whispers a what you could only call an exceptionally needy, “Yeah?”

“Yea-ah!” A little gasp that’s more of a moan than anything else slips out from the way he unexpectedly cups your clothed pussy into the palm of his hand.

“Scent doesn’t lie, bunny,” he says, chuckling darkly. “You should keep that in mind when you’re around someone like me, y’know.”

Shit. You’re in for it now, aren’t you? His touch is scorching hot again even through the two layers of clothes that separates you from him.

It only spurs you into action, almost making you start to grind against him as you arch your back and press yourself closer.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum! 

Your heart feels like it’s on the verge of giving out.

“We should stop, K-Ki—” You don’t succeed in saying his name fully when he applies more pressure to make you reconsider. 

The heel of his palm presses right against your clit this time. Breathless and unsure if it’s done on purpose or merely by some lucky accident, you jolt, trying to squeeze your thighs together.

He catches you when you sag against him, much like you’ve previously done when he had been the one struggling to stay upright. And surprise, surprise — he’s hard all over again. Ready to go for round two, his cock starts poking your thigh whenever you move, leaving little splotches of sticky pre-cum there. 

It causes a second heatwave to hit you as filthy thoughts begin flooding your mind. Pussy dripping at the mere idea of him attempting to push that fat, monstrous cock inside you, you let out a little sound of panic when he presses his finger right on the spot where your tight little hole is hiding under the leggings.

“Oh, you liked that, huh?” You can’t see it, but he smirks into the dark; fangs glinting with the wolfish grin that’s gotten so conceited that it hurts. “Look at that… Lil’ bunny is getting all worked up from a bit of heavy petting.”

“Am not!” you stammer with feverish need, licking your lips as your nails dig into his scalp and you grab yet another fistful of his chestnut-coloured hair. “Stop teasing me… I-I’m just— Ugh…”

“I’ll stop if you let me take your clothes off already so that I can lick you and fuck you like you obviously wanna be fucked,” he says, rubbing tight little circles right into that little button that makes you feel like there is electricity running through your veins, not blood. “How does that sound? Or are you just gonna keep grindin’ that little pussy of yours into my hand for the rest of the night?”

Before you can answer, he slides up and down your slit, making your cunt eat up your underwear and leggings, shaping it out. Your knees buckle as you rest all of your weight against him, trusting him that he’ll hold you upright.

But the problem is that he doesn’t. Instead, Kiba uses the hand that he’s holding the side of your head with to help lay you down. 

Until you’re right underneath him.

And just like that, he’s on top of you, breathing in your scent with almost a sense of urgency whilst his hand still keeps on rubbing that overwhelmingly sensitive spot between your legs. Keeps on provoking it and keeps on making you so horny that you’re barely any better than a cat in heat.

With every stroke, he’s making you hot and bothered all over again. Making you buck your hips to the rhythm of his fingers. Making you sweat and whine and borderline sniffle as the upcoming tears of pent-up sexual frustration sting your waterline.

You’re about to go batshit crazy if he doesn’t do something other than pet you.

So it’s no wonder that you whimper and allow him to undress you one piece of clothing at a time, until you’ve got nothing else on but your colourful socks and your plain cotton panties are dangling from one ankle. That you let him kiss you down your neck and chest, until he’s nosing his way between your legs and licking you with that inhumanly coarse tongue to his heart’s content.

That you let him feast upon you like a man starved even if he is more monster than man; until your legs are trembling around his head and you’re seeing stars behind closed eyelids. That you let him devour your sweetness and inhale such deep, long breaths of its scent, despite that you’re feeling slightly embarrassed about it after telling him that you’re all ‘sweaty and gross’ down there after the hike, and he’s assured you at least a million times that he likes it even better that way.

And it’s no wonder that you let him spit onto your pussy as he kisses up your thigh and hovers above you, then, before he bends your legs so far back that your knees are nearly touching your ears. That you let him fold you into a mating press and align his cock with your sticky cunt at long last, his fat cockhead prodding at your tight hole that just won’t stop fluttering at even the slightest intrusion.

“Imma pound you s’good. Gonna make you cream on my cock, gonna do all of that nasty shit that I wanted to do to ya for s’long,” he babbles, his stare so ardent that it pierces right through your heart even if he’s not focused at all. The second wave of his rut has already contaminated all his thoughts and consumed him entirely. All he can think about is slamming you to your breaking point.

“Kiba, wa—…. wait,” you mewl, eyes wide open as you stare up at him. With his back hunched and his biceps flexing, every muscle and cord strained to withhold his weight, he’s gotten so big that he can barely fit inside the tent anymore. 

How in the hell is he gonna fit inside you?

“Please, I need it. Need it so, so, so bad, fuck,” he drawls almost like he isn’t completely present, his expression all dazed and stupid from how he keeps on staring between your legs. He nudges you again as he says the words, his cockhead catching against your sticky entrance once more, making you squirm. “Your cunt smells so fuckin’ sweet; it’s driving me nuts... I gotta push inside you, bunny, okay? Imma push in.”

You tremble in response, hips wiggling, legs opening a fraction wider to give him even more space because of how persistent he’s getting. When you look up at him through hooded eyelids, all you can see is how his slits for pupils dilate at the sight of the silvery string of arousal that clings to his cock now, connecting him to your cunt.

Your pussy is so wet — it’s practically drooling.

Consequently, it makes him drool, too. Saliva nearly drips down Kiba’s canines all over again.

“Just the tip, okay?” you whisper, trying to calm your heavy-pounding heart.

“Jus’ the tip, yeah,” he murmurs back with that fang-induced mumble, still so pussy drunk that he’s nearly brain-dead. His irises have turned yellow; they glow in the dark as he looks at you and says, “Jus’ the tip and nothin’ else.”

You stare at him with big, watery eyes. “You promise?”

Kiba huffs a laugh despite the fact that he looks like he’s barely keeping himself together. “‘Course I do, sweetheart.” 

Hearing him promise, you nod, and thus give him the approval that he’s been practically dying to get. “All right… But go slowly, okay? ‘Cause I’m scared.” 

“Slow, gotcha. Gonna go so slow that it won’t hurt one bit.” 

With a heartbeat that’s damn well working overtime by now, Kiba softly grunts when he finally presses into you, causing you to instantly flinch and wiggle your hips for a second time to try and accommodate him better.

“Keep still, will ya?” he chides, his patience leaving him for a quick second. “You’re twitchin’ all over the place like you’re an actual rabbit.”

“I’m trying! And shut it.” He keeps on pushing at your fussing, turning your voice higher in pitch as you say, “Shit, shit, shit… I said slowly!”

He grits his teeth, eyebrows drawing together in concentration that he doesn’t have. “This is slow.”

“Well, I-I think that you’re going way too fast.”

“Stop naggin’ me already and relax.”

“Excuse me?!”

Your mouth opens, but before you can even begin unleashing the storm that is your newly-formed fury, he leans down to press his lips against your own like the little shit he is.

Moments pass, he keeps kissing you as a means to distract you from the fact that he’s slowly filling you with his cock. And eventually, with some sweet-talking and plenty of combined effort, your pussy gives in when he adds just a little bit of force to the push, letting him break past that tight ring of muscle that your nerves must be causing.

You’re so tight that it makes the hair on the nape of his neck stand to attention when he finally slips inside, but you’re also so sloppy and dripping wet at the same time that he isn’t worried about it too much.

After all, from the way you push your head back now, pointing your chin upwards and exposing more of your neck that he feels the need to wrap his hand around and stroke it with the help of his thumb, you seem to be enjoying yourself just fine.

Nevertheless, concern — that he feels for you at all times — crosses his tight features. He’s barely holding it together, and here he is; looking out for you as he asks, “You doin’ okay?”

“Mhmm, yeah,” you utter, tensing when his touch moves from your neck down to your tits. 

He quirks a brow as he squeezes the fat of your breast and runs his thumb across your nipple this time, making you shudder. “But?”

You give him a pointed look. How can he always tell that there’s something hiding behind the reassurance? “But, you’re just so… big. Concerningly so. I’m worried about how I’m gonna take it all.”

He muses as he mocks the sound of your voice and says, “What happened to ‘just the tip, okay’?”

You huff, pouting. “Don’t make me keep it that way, you prick.”

“Okay, okay, m’sorry,” he says hurriedly, pressing what must be the hundredth kiss onto your lips. “I’ll be good, just don’t make me pull out, please.”

“What about you? Are you doing okay?” you ask, caressing his cheek with your palm. The way he instantly leans further into your touch makes your heart not only dance, but also sing. “I know this must be especially hard for you.”

“I’m fine,” he mumbles lamely, convincing neither of you. And then he sighs at the way you roll your eyes at him in answer. “I just… I want—”

“More?” you suggest.

A prominent blush sears his cheeks. Since when did he blush so much? He’s also sweating like crazy all over again as he says, “Yeah.”

“All right.” Carefully, you nod your head yes once more as you remind him, “I’ll give you more. But slowly, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. How he doesn’t puncture the rosy skin with the action, you don’t understand. “I’ll go nice n’ easy on ya. Cross my heart.”

Well, he’ll try at least.

And Kiba does try to go nice and easy, he really does. But it’s hard for him to keep his cool when the beast keeps on howling in his veins and the bond that chains him to you screams at him to brand every last inch of your skin and soul alike.

He’s nearly trembling all over by the time he sinks balls deep into you and his dark pubic hair kisses your clit.

But at long last, you’ve become one.

“Fuck.”

“That feels so—”

“Good. That feels so fuckin’ good, goddamn.”

“I-I’m so… full.”

“You’re welcome.”

“God, do you ever shut up?”

“What d’you think?” 

“I think—”

“Woah, look, I’m even makin’ your belly bulge a bit.”

“Ew, ew, ew! That’s so gross.”

“What? No, it ain’t. I actually think it’s kind of cool-lookin’.”

“Stop poking it!”

“Nu-uh.”

Your ankles cross at the middle of his back when he presses his hand to your tummy, colourful socks scraping tan skin. The way you clench around him when he digs his fingers into the bulge makes Kiba wish he had the ability to purr.

“Move,” you squeak out, breath hitching at how the tip of his cock has managed to snuggle right next to your goddamn cervix. “Need you to… move. It’s too much! Kiba, please.”

He tries not to show how happy he is to do as you tell him, but fails with the way his entire face literally lights up as he says, “Like this?”

“Yeah,” you answer quickly, savoring every last bit of friction he gives you now. The rhythm he’s chosen is surprisingly laggard, even if he looks like he’s just about to start bursting at the seams. “Y-yeah, like that.”

Kiba likes the way you sound when you’ve got something fucking into you at a steady pace, but it’s even better that that something is him. Now that he thinks about it, the tone is pretty similar to the one you used to have after every gym class back in high school.

God, did he like seeing those tight shorts on you every Wednesday. Good memories.

A proper moan — the first amongst many — suddenly leaves your mouth, coaxing him away from his trip down memory lane and urging him to make you keep talking, talking, talking as he asks, “You need me just as much as I need you, don’tcha?”

“Pfsh. I never said… that,” you drawl with a click of a tongue as your breathing picks up. Every time he draws his hips back and pushes them back into you feels like he’s reshaping your entire goddamn cunt. Not an unpleasant sensation necessarily, but it definitely takes some time getting used to. 

“‘Kay, but listen to all this noise you’re making now that I’ve stuffed your lil’ bunny cunt full,” he says, his eyes glowing with mischief and that sublime yellow colour. “Bet no other man could make you sound like that, huh?”

They’re lazy but deep, the thrusts. Filled with intent. With arrogance and urgency that hides just beneath the surface, waiting to pounce. They reach parts of you that you’ve never even thought could be touched. They make slick dribble down his balls, until it’s all dripping right onto the sleeping bags you’re fucking on top of.

It’s all so audible and loud. Messy. The occasional sound of skin slapping against skin. The wet squelching noises between you. The constant whimpering and his growling grunts, steadily growing in volume.

And you’re going slow.

“Yeah, well that’s ‘cause you’re no man, you dummy,” you bite back when you’re more familiar and comfortable with each other and the connection, trying to be witty even if it’s hard to keep your mind from breaking into shambles.

“Is that so?” He’s breathing hard, picking up his pace, going harder. “Then what am I?”

A dazed smile curls your lips. “You’re a dirty, dirty dog.”

Kiba could agree with that statement to some degree, perhaps. Even if he dislikes the particular term you’ve used.

After all, you have no idea how he’s gotten himself off with a pair of panties that he’d swiped from your drawer and wrapped around his fist back in senior year. Or how he’d turned embarrassingly hard after almost every hug and had to play it cool even if he was sweating bullets from trying to hide the raging boner in his pants. Or how he’s fantasized and fantasized and fantasized; only watching porn with actresses that shared similarities with you because nothing else seemed to work.

You don’t have a clue about any of that.

And he hopes it stays that way.

“Hah.” An almost mean snicker leaves his lips as he unexpectedly slams into you, making you squeal out a particularly nasty curse and causing your pussy to outright gush at the intrusion. “Careful, sweetheart. If you keep on saying things like that, I’ll be more than happy to treat ya like the dirty dog you say I am.”

“Will you, though?” you challenge playfully, stroking down his back with the heel of your foot.

He sneers as he answers, “I will if you keep on testin’ me.”

“But I thought you said that you’re bonded to me?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “So?”

“So, doesn’t that mean that you can’t hurt me?”

He blinks, surprised. “Who said anything ‘bout hurting you…? I’d just mount you.”

Your expression copies his own. “Mount… me?”

“Yeah,” he mutters, temperature suddenly flaring up at the thought. “You know… the same way animals fuck.”

Heat creeps up your neck at the crude way he explains it. “Oh.”

Kiba’s lips quirk upwards when he catches a whiff of the subtle change in your scent. You’re flustered at the idea, smelling even sweeter now that there are no clothes to buffer the prominent notes of arousal. “I take it that you wanna try it?”

Your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. A wave of sweat washes over you, toes curling. “What— No!”

“Oh, c’mon,” he pushes gently, helping you out. “Scent doesn’t lie, remember? You’ll like it, I promise.” 

“And if I don’t?” you ask.

He nudges your chin with the tip of his nose. “If you don’t, we’ll stop. Simple as that.”

“Okay, but can you stop?” You angle your head so that he can press a kiss to your cheek. “When you’re like this… under the influence of a rut. Can you stop?”

Silence hangs in the air as he pulls away to look at you, his expression suddenly somber despite the glaze of unbridled lust that still coats his unnatural eyes. 

“I’d never hurt you,” he finally says. “I’d rather die than hurt my mate, that’s why I was ready to leave before.”

Kiba’s voice is stone cold serious. The intensity he chooses to speak with so that he can get his point across causes butterflies to spring free inside your belly.

You can still feel them fluttering around by the time his clawed hands manhandle you into the position he wants. Laying on your stomach now, you let out a little noise of surprise when his weight presses you further down into the silky nylon of the sleeping bags the moment he tops you.

He’s heavy, taking the profound size difference into account, but you’re pleased to find out that it’s the kind of weight that comforts you instead of suffocating you. You feel warm. Safe.

“Can I…?” he trails off.

His exhale tickles the back of your neck, making the hairs there rise to attention as you shiver and say, “Well, that’s what I’m here for, aren’t I?”

“Oh, sorry, my bad,” he says. “I thought you were here for the s’mores.”

“Not funny— oh.”

Your back arches and your anger dissipates into nothing as soon as he begins to push inside you again, careful not to stuff you full too fast. After all, while it might be easier to fit him inside you this time thanks to your earlier endeavours, it still remains to be no small task.

He’s as careful and considerate as he’s able to be in the state that he’s in. He pushes gently, but pushes nonetheless. By the time he sinks into you to the hilt and pauses to give you a minute, you’re both panting like you’ve just ran a marathon.

“You doin’ okay, bunny?” he rasps, voice so low and growly that it really does make you think you’re getting fucked by an animal. Or a beast, if you’d have to specify it.

“Yep, mhmm…!” You squeak out, your voice so high-pitched that it must surely hurt or at least agitate his ultra-sensitive hearing. You’re happy that he can’t see the fucked out expression that sits on your face right now. “Doing a-okay.”

“Don’t try to run away, now,” he teases when you wiggle your hips, trying to readjust yourself. “Or else the hunting instinct is gonna kick in.”

“Not to worry,” you practically chirp, feeling your body slipping into a fever at the way his big, calloused palm presses into the small of your back. “I’m staying put.”

He chuckles at how submissive he’s made you sound, at how there’s a prominent sheen of sweat gathering on your spine. Gliding his finger down your dewy skin, Kiba catches himself wishing to lick you clean of salt, but at the same time he just knows that you’d cause a fuss about it if he’d even mention the mere idea of it.

So for the following minutes, he doesn’t speak.

And neither do you.

You can’t speak from how deep he’s pushed himself inside you, anyway. No, all you can do is moan and whimper uselessly as he then proceeds to fuck you, to make love to you, to break you apart just to reassemble you until you’re whole again; all in the position he likes best.

He makes you sweat. Makes you cry out to him as you allow yourself to get lost in deeply-rooted carnal pleasure and you need his help to bring you back to morality. At some point, his arm even ends up reaching underneath you and wrapping around your stomach just so he can hold your hips up when you try to crawl away despite telling him that you’re going to stay put earlier.

Judging by the way you’re reacting to him, Kiba guesses that he’ll have to carry you down the hill when morning comes. 

Meanwhile, you’re unsure if it’s the bond that’s making you feel this wild or the simple fact that he’s not entirely human. However, when you at long last feel yourself clenching around him, and when that tight, almost unbearable heat that’s inside your tummy finally spills free and spreads throughout your whole body, you realize that you don’t really care what the reason behind your sudden recklessness might be.

“Fuck. M’not gonna last long, sweetheart… No fuckin’ way that I’m gonna last when your cunt’s milkin’ me dry like that,” Kiba grunts out as he feels you gush and start creaming on his cock. There’s a ring of milky slick gathering at his base already — the sight and sound of it turns his thrusts jerky and irregular. 

“Don’t get scared of the knot now, okay?” His upper lip trembles as he swallows hard. “It’ll be there just for a minute, I swear.”

“Knot…? What’s a—Oh, my gosh, Kiba; I am going to fucking murder you!”

The sudden swelling you feel inside your pussy practically bullies its way up to your cervix as he hunches his back and gives you one last, final push. 

Your toes curl as the ‘knot’ — or whatever he calls it — plugs you, and also succeeds in making you entirely rigid in return. Every last inch of your body feels tingly from the foreign sensation as he lets out one final groan, that sounds more like a pained whimper than anything else, and simply fills you up to the brim with warm, thick, endless ropes of cum that paint your abused walls entirely white and simply refuse to spill out of you.

You stare off into the darkness, listening to his ragged breathing whilst trying to tame your own. Eventually, his cock softens enough for your cunt to not feel like it’s going to fucking explode from the fullness. And as soon as that happens, he drops down upon poor, unsuspecting you; feeling completely, utterly exhausted.

Your werewolf best friend is squishing you flat like a pancake and is spoiling you with messy kisses after fucking you like an animal in the middle of the woods. And you’re just… fine with that?

The realization makes you smile.

Maybe living your life on the edge for once and being a little bit spontaneous isn’t as bad as you think.

———

“I really hope that your pills can withstand all that werewolf cum I’ve just pumped into ya, ya know. ‘Cause otherwise we’re gonna be having an entire litter of pups.”

“For the love of god, can you please use your lowly developed frontal lobe for like a second of your miserable life, and just keep watch like I told you to?”

“This is pointless. There’s literally no one here besides us and a couple of deer.”

“Shush! I’m trying to pee and I can’t do that when you keep on running your big-ass mouth!”

“Words, words, words; I am saying so many words just so that you won’t be able to piss.”

“Shut up already!”

With his back turned towards you and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatpants, Kiba fights back a laugh as he listens to you relieve yourself in the nearby tall grass. 

After fucking you close to stupidity nearly three times in a row now — and mounting you twice during those three times — the young werewolf feels somewhat content with himself at long last. 

He’s fucked most of the rut out of his system by now. Besides that, you’ve also talked a lot, apologized to each other, and cleared up some misunderstandings. He’s even managed to place a hickey on that spot on your neck where your scent is the strongest and where, he hopes, you’ll let him place an actual bite mark someday.

But for now, you’re taking it slow. On Saturday, he’s taking you out to dinner at that little restaurant by the lake that you’ve always liked visiting with your parents. 

And who knows, maybe after you share dessert together, you might even go for a swim so that he has an excuse to take his shirt off in front of you and you get to make fun of him for it, or whatever.

So lost in his thoughts and all the planning he has yet to start pondering through, Kiba barely hears the rustle of your footsteps when you approach him from behind. 

He tenses, whipping his head in your direction only a millisecond before you manage to put away your travel sized packet of baby wipes that he teases you for constantly carrying around with you, and you place your hand on his shoulder.

Your eyebrows rise up towards your hairline in response to his visible startlement. “Did I just manage to sneak up on the so-called ‘apex predator’?”

“You wish,” he says as he absent-mindedly brushes you off. “I could smell ya from a mile away.”

You frown. “That’s so mean!”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he drawls, sighing. “It’s just that you smell like me, now… It stands out.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” You stick your tongue at him, looking up at him with your hands on your hips. In the moonlight, he’s even handsomer than usual in that weirdly rugged way that only he can pull off. “Can we go back inside the tent now? I’m exhausted after the entire...”

“Fuckfest?” he offers with a tricksy grin.

“Shut it!” you chide before you shove your phone’s flashlight right into his face as punishment.

Back inside the tent, you don’t have any sort of trouble with undressing yourself in front of your best friend this time. Your hoodie and t-shirt are tossed off, leggings following soon after — until you’re curling up against his strong chest in nothing else but your socks and underwear.

His body temperature isn’t nearly as hot as it was before, but the skin on skin contact provides you with enough warmth to be comfortable as you turn around to face him.

Kiba’s hair is mussed and his eyelids are already hooded with upcoming sleep when he lifts them just barely enough to look at you. The rut really has taken a toll on him; on the both of you alike.

“What is it now?” he mumbles lazily.

“Do you think,” you start, swallowing hard. “Do you think that we’re going to be okay?”

He smiles, the quirk of his lips faint. “I know we will.”

“And our friendship?” you ask, pressing your palm against his chest. “Do you think all of this is going to ruin it?”

“Nah, I think it’s goin’ to make it even better,” he says, fixing a loose strand of hair behind your ear before he settles back. He yawns, rubbing his eye as he mutters, “Besides, we’re gonna take it slow. Just like you’ve said.”

“And you’re fine with that?” you ask.

“‘Course I am,” he replies sleepily.

“Why?”

“Because you’re important to me,” he says. “So if you want to go slow, we’ll go as slow as goddamn snails if we have to.”

You let out a little laugh that sounds like wind chimes to him. “You’re so lame.”

Kiba grins, his heart fluttering at the sight of your smile. “Not as lame as you.”

And maybe, just maybe, going steady and experiencing peace for a change isn’t so bad either.

tags: @his-sweet-minx @rookie98writes @qichun @redskyvenus @simply-chillin-here @shanjisan

[vsimp]

bitter

pairing: kamisato ayato x f!reader

wc: 3k

genre: angst

summary: where you are in an arranged marriage with him and you rarely ever see him

warning: somewhat traditional housewife roles, negative thoughts

What a cruel fate it was, to fall in love with a man who neither loves or hates you.

To spend long, cold nights alone. A large, indifferent room divided by two separate futons.

You knew that your husband was a busy man. He worked all night, barely resting during the day, and every time you’ve caught glimpse of his office, there was always a huge mess laying around on his desk. But having been married to him for such a long time, you felt that the distance between you two grew longer and longer every day.

In the morning, you would greet him with the biggest smile you could muster. He would greet you back with the same gentle smile everyday. At this point, you knew what his real smile looked like. You don’t recall when the last time he’s ever given you one.

If Miss Ayaka and Thoma were busy, and you dined alone with your husband, the table would be silent. You didn’t know what to say, and he’d also be reading over papers while eating, so you were afraid to disturb him. If the two were present, or if there were any other guests, Ayato would be more active in the conversation, joking lightheartedly and appearing like he was actually enjoying himself.

This man did not treat you unkindly despite having these feelings that lurked in your chest. In fact, it was the opposite. He was a true gentleman every time you interacted with him. He would open the door for you while you two walked together. He would pull out the chair when you wanted to sit. He would hold your hand and escort you to any event, or if you were getting on/off a carriage.

But it was all superficial. It felt like he was forcing himself to do these actions for you. You couldn’t even tell what his intentions are for doing so. You couldn’t tell if he just disliked you, disliked this arranged marriage, or if he just wanted people to see what a loving husband he was, that everything was okay right now even though it really wasn’t.

From touchless nights to meaningless small talk, your heart ached at the thought of everything. You don’t ever recall the last time he’s kissed you on the lips in private. You don’t recall the last time he’s ever opened up to you about the depths of his heart, from the things that scared him the most, to the things that has made him truly happy.

And while you know that a relationship thrives off of communication, you couldn’t help but feel scared. You were scared that the man in front of you would grow even colder, shutting off the depths of his heart forever, pushing you away if you were to ever confront him. Maybe he’d even take it to an extreme and call off the marriage with you, telling you that he never loved you, as this was really only an arrangement between your two families. Maybe he was in love with someone else prior to this marriage, and he has only reserved his heart for them all of these years.

You have seen his darker sides. He doesn’t think that anyone has noticed, but you have. You were always watching him, after all.

A more mischievous side of him existed deep down in there, a certain sly foxiness that could even rival Guuji Yae herself. Sometimes, it would scare you to see that forced smile on his face as if what lingered in his mind were true thoughts darker than what he had initially led on.

But despite his flaws, despite the mask he constantly wore around, you loved him. You loved him so much it hurt. You loved how he cared for people despite them being complete strangers to him. You loved his gentle smile as he holds your hand so tenderly when you accidentally trip. How could a man be so kind, yet so cruel to your heart?

And even as you laid in bed most nights alone, shedding tears as if you were the dark side of the crystal moon longing for the light of the sun, you still loved him regardless.

You were in your futon all alone as of this moment, staring at the ceiling. The room was pitch black and silent, other than the occasional sounds of the residual droplets from the passing rain. Ayato would never let you rest in a room that was cold, so the temperature was heated comfortably, yet you couldn’t help but bundle yourself up under the covers even more.

It was cold without him. You didn’t even realize when the last time he had actually went to bed in this room you both allegedly shared.

But it didn’t matter anyways because his futon laid far away from yours.

Your own husband wouldn’t even come near you when you’re together in the same room. You didn’t know if he just wanted to be respectful as a formality between husband and wife, or if he is repulsed by being in the same vicinity as you, but it hurt regardless.

You sighed as you covered your face with the blanket, trying to get rid of these harboring thoughts. It was no use, no matter what you did, you couldn’t stop thinking about your relationship with him every single night. He is what plagues your mind at night, like a thorn lodged deep in a fingertip. It was only soon that you will be bleeding out your love for him.

How could you make a scene about all of this anyways? You've seen how hard he works. You knew that everything he did, it was for the sake of protecting his family and home. Who were you to complain about how busy he was? That was another reason why you continued to keep silent. You thought that your worries meant nothing compared to his own.

Your mind was racing a mile per minute, and you knew you weren't able to get any sleep like this. You got up and out of your futon as you decided to go for a stroll around the estate. The guards protected the outside and prevented from anybody from coming in. As long as you walked around inside, there should be no problem with you strolling the corridors, so long as you remained quiet.

Lighting up a candle, you started meandering through the halls, your footsteps nearly silent with no goal or destination in mind. You didn't even realize your feet had automatically taken you to the doors of his office, the same door that you have stared at many times, knowing that your husband was in there, but you had no reason or courage to open. You see the dimly lit light through the translucent paper sheets, and you knew that tonight was going to be another long night with no rest for him.

You sighed, not remembering the last time you had been in his office, and you were about to step away, but the door suddenly slides open rather violently. You flinch in shock because you didn’t expect for anything to happen, as he usually never notices your presence.

"Who is there?" He said in a serious tone, and you were finally greeted by the man who plagued your every thought and dreams. His hand laid on the hilt of his sword, almost as if he was ready to strike down any intruder who was lurking in the shadows. But instead of drawing his sword, he blinked a few times, realizing it was just you who stood there. He instantly let go of the sword and his expression relaxed a bit, although his eyebrows were furrowed slightly to show confusion. "Y/n? What are you doing here? It is almost 2am right now."

His presence stunned you for a second before you snapped out of the current awe-struck daze you were in. It had been quite a while since you've seen his face. He was rarely home anymore, but when he was, he would be holed up in his office. You only ever see him to greet him when he returned back home, and sometimes when he leaves, as he had a habit of sneaking out secretly every so often.

"Oh." You were flustered at this unexpected situation. "I had trouble sleeping, so I decided to go for a walk..."

"Is something troubling you?" He asked in concern. "If it is work-related with the household, then I know Ayaka would be happy to give you a hand.”

"It's not that..." You shook your head. You didn't want him to worry about you, so you tell him a small lie. "It's just one of those nights..."

"I see."

"Have you been faring well?" You then asked him.

He gave you a small, gentle smile, but you have seen this many times. It was one of the masks he wore when he wasn’t telling the truth.

"I've been doing alright," he replied. Anybody would've believed him, as he would never appear disheveled in front of anybody, but from the way his eyes had a slight dark tint underneath them and the mess that apparently was his desk with papers and pens strewn everywhere, you knew that he was far from so. "I was actually looking to take a break soon from my paperwork. Since you probably will be up for a little bit, would you care to join me?"

An invitation from him was rare, and you immediately jumped ship. You nodded. "Let me go prepare some tea."

"Oh, there's no need to do that."

"Nonsense," you gave him a reassuring smile, knowing what he was going to say. He was so considerate as always, not wanting to trouble you. "It will only be a few.”

You start to walk down the hall to head to the kitchen, but you were surprised to hear footsteps behind you. Before you knew it, Ayato was walking beside you, and you could hear your heart thumping in your chest.

"Ayato?" You questioned.

It was dim, as the candle was the only thing that lit the dark halls, so you can barely make out his expression.

"I'll tag along with you then." He said softly, as to not wake anybody else up. "It will be a good change of pace from being stuck in my office all night."

To you, he was so hard to read at times. If he was accompanying you, he surely must have his reasons, as he had never used any of his personal time on you before. He only accompanied you outside when he had a special meeting at an event that required for both spouses to arrive. Those were the only times when he was somewhat affectionate. That was why you were nervous when he decided to come along with you, thinking he had an ulterior motive like he usual does. But a small, small part of you hoped that it was something else; that he wanted to join you because he missed you and just wanted to idly chat.

You stepped into the kitchen and then lit a brighter lantern to illuminate the room using your own candle. But before you could do anything else, you watched as Ayato's hand pushed a portion of your hair aside. You couldn't help but feel your cheeks heat up at the action, your eyes making its way towards him now that you were able to see his face.

He wore a gentle smile on his face as he looked down at you tenderly. A rare expression indeed, you’ve only noted him to give this look to Ayaka. It made your heart hurt a little as it thumped away in your chest, feeling like you could soar to the moon and never come back.

"Your hair was getting close to the flames, so I didn't want it to burn,” he explained.

"Oh..." You didn't know what else you could say. "Thank you..."

With that, you started boiling the kettle of water, your body moving to find tea leaves. Ayato watches on without speaking a word, and you two drift into a somewhat lulling silence.

As you prepared your leaves, Ayato interrupted the silence no sooner than later.

“There’s another event that the Kanjou Commission is hosting,” he said. There it was. He needed you to attend another political event with him. You were once so naive to think that he would actually spend time with you just because he wanted to. You knew he hated small talk and would rather get straight to the point. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind attending it with me.”

Of course you didn’t mind, if it meant that you would be spending more time with him. But even if you did expect for this, you were still disappointed.

“Sure. When will it be?”

“In two months. They’re hosting a party event to discuss upcoming financial plans for the winter.”

You nodded, your hands a little rougher than usual as you crushed up the dried tea leaves in the mortar. Usually you would hide your emotions well, but it definitely showed in the way you pounded at the leaves.

If Ayato had noticed your switch in moods, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he went over to the cabinet to grab two cups for the tea.

“I appreciate it. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

Another blatant lie fueled only by courtesy. He always says this whenever you did a favor for him. If you were to truly ask for a favor, he would have Thoma somehow fulfill it, or he would say that he was too busy to do it himself, and that he would make it up later. He would send a gift, picked out by either Thoma or Ayaka of course, to later apologize for not fulfilling your promise.

And although it has only happened four or five times before you’d stop asking him for favors, knowing that he was too busy to fulfill them, it still left a bitter feeling within you.

You felt that it was selfish for you to feel this way. You knew that he had lost his parents at a young age, having to resume the role as the leader of the Yashiro Commission and head of the Kamisato Clan very early in life. You thought it wasn’t right for you to feel bitter about small things like this. Yet, as you glanced at the man in front of you, who barely looked at you and instead stared at the bright full moon outside, your heart ached at this solemn expression— one that loomed with fatigue and tiredness.

Maybe what you truly longed for was his happiness. Maybe you wanted to share that happiness with him, although you knew it would be a long shot. So long as he was the head of the Yashiro Commission, the leader of the Shuumatsuban, there will always be a distance between you two, as he prioritized things differently from any other typical person. Even though he was in the same room as you right now, as the moon peaked through the small window, the cicadas singing in the distance, he still looked as alone as ever. Like there was an unmeasurable length between you two, and you were too afraid to cross it, in fear that you would never be able to reach him.

The kettle soon starts to heat up, and you take it off the flame to start steeping the tea leaves. A few minutes of silence passed, and you wondered then if he was going to leave immediately after he finished his tea. It was still hot, so you had a couple more minutes left with him, right?

You poured the tea carefully in the cup and then proceeded to hand it over to him.

“It’s hot, so be careful.”

“Thank you,” he smiled at you and graciously accepted the tea. He picked it up to his lips, blowing it a few times as he inhaled the scent. “This smells like a different type of tea than the one you served at the event the other day.”

You remembered that event. You were attending a birthday party for an old couple who were close friends with the Kamisato’s. You brewed that tea with extra care, knowing that Ayato was going to drink it on that very occasion.

“It was truly delicious,” he complimented and you felt your heart soar at his words once more. “I know I never told you this, but it was one of my favorite hot teas.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I smiled, making note to remember that information. “This one that I brewed helps with stress and calms the mind.”

He took a sip once the tea is cooled down a bit more. “I can see how this one can have that effect. It’s a very mild, but calming flavor. It’s a good choice for you to brew this, since it will probably help you sleep.”

Actually, you had brewed it for him, so that he wouldn’t stress so much, but you held your tongue back. Instead, you took a sip of the hot tea, trying to match his pace so that you both could finish at the same time.

“I hope you like it,” you said.

“I do enjoy it quite a bit,” he replied with a small smile on his face. “I will take it to my office and savor it. I appreciate you willing to spend time with me.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“I hope you get some sleep soon, and try not to stay awake for too long,” your husband stated. “Please pardon me, I must return to my work.”

You forced out a smile in return, knowing that he had cut his time off with you short on purpose.

“Have a good night, Ayato.”

He gave a small nod as he walked out with the tea in his hand. You waited for the door to fully shut before you leaned on the counter with your back pressed to it.

He didn't even wait to finish the tea before he left. He just went straight to the point, pushing you aside as if your feelings had never mattered to him in the first place.

Your hands gripped the ceramic tea cup tightly. It felt like if you had held it tight enough, it would shatter and break, scalding your skin like the way your husband did just now.

Your tears dripped into the tea, the salty solution messing with the delicate taste of the drink as you sipped it, not wanting anything to go to waste. What was once a calming, smooth taste was now bitter.

So, so bitter.

It was another cruel, lonely night that awaited you.

[autisticsonic]

My take on a Sonadow fankid! She actually existed for a while now, but the trend gave me motivation to finally draw her!

Most sonadow fankids are purplish and tube-grown, so I decided to make her neither!

Background for the story under cut, in case it gets long!

So in this AU, stories from the more recent games happen when Sonic and Shadow are at most around 20 years old. Back then Sonic was rambunctious and reckless as we know him to be, and Shadow was a depressed, traumatized emo kid. While at first they were rivals as depicted in the games.

Over the years tho, just like their friends, the two matured. They started getting along a lot more, and became official friends, which eventually lead to dating. They both were afraid of getting serious though, so they took things slow and casual. Due to some of their unresolved issues, they couldn't get any closer. But not for much longer.

Some of it has been brought on by a Particular Event, and some of it due to restructuring how they go about saving the world, but things changed. As Forces has shown, putting so much responsibility on One Guy isn't wise. Sonic felt so quilty for failing, but it never should've been his job alone, so they created an organization, to share the load more evenly!

The org became global, with local groups of heroes being recruited all around, meaning that now the characters we know and love now had more time to take care of their personal lives.

While for some the change hasn't been much, Sonic, and to a lesser extent, Shadow, struggled quite a lot. Many of things happened in between, but eventually both of them grew to quite enjoy the domestic life.

They moved in together, and started taking things to the next level, now that both have done some healing and therapy. They found that they get along quite great. After a bit longer, they decided to start a family :)

Shadow came up with the name. He wanted to honor his sister's memory, but Mar-Mar was also a symbol of all his progress. He did go to therapy to make sure that he can handle them sharing a name, to see if it's a good idea, and well, it was!

She's now 4 and very loved, and her dads love each other very much as well. For a certain Sonic though, things won't go so great.

[weasleyreidstyles]

on a night like tonight

wrote this for @thatdammchickennugget's hogmarch challenge using the dialogue prompt!! just a fluffy (debatable) one shot for my favourite slytherin boy🫠🫠🫠

prompt 2: "are you speaking parceltongue or am i really drunk?"

pairing: mattheo riddle x fem!slytherin reader (although its not that important to the one shot, honestly)

warning(s): slightly suggestive (towards the end), alcohol consumption

~∞~ i love writing for mattheo😫 idk how i feel about this one but i enjoyed writing either way lol. and yes i titled this after a niall song (im still not over the fact that i saw him in the flesh like a whole week ago!??!?!) also happy international women's day to all of you sexy, beautiful women xxxx

The Slytherin common room was ripe with activity. The Quidditch team had beaten Gryffindor by an utter landslide (250-110), so it was only appropriate for them to throw a huge party to celebrate. The team were in the middle of the room, surrounded by their most loyal band of lovestruck followers, as they drowned in all sorts of alcoholic beverages.

Spheres of magical light littered the high ceiling, glittering like stars and creating an eerily green glow as they reflected off of the murky waters of the Black Lake. The seating areas had been cleared, and in place was a makeshift dancefloor of sorts, filled to the brim with students dancing, singing and laughing to whatever music was playing on a stereo that Blaise had brought in from his Ravenclaw friends.

You were stood against a wall beside Pansy, who was busy glaring at the girl who had draped herself against Theo's arm as he laughed heartily at something Enzo had said. Your best friend was seething with jealousy, but she was far too stubborn to do anything about her feelings for your Italian friend.

The two of them had been dancing around their feelings for months; it was downright infuriating.

"I don't understand why you won't do something about it, Pans!" You say to her loudly, so that your voice could be heard over the earshattering bass music. "I'm getting sick of the back and forth between the two of you!"

Pansy finally takes her eyes off of the floppy haired brunette, who is now whispering in the ear of the girl, with a suggestive smirk on his face. "I'd say the same for you." She scoffs and you turn to her with furrowed brows.

"Oh don't act dumb." Pansy says with a laugh as she turns towards you fully, the drink in her hand sloshing over the rim of the cup as she does. "I see the way you look at Matt. You're very obvious. Both of you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about." You say reluctantly, taking a lengthy sip of your firewhiskey to avoid her knowing look.

Had your affections for your friend really been so blatant?

And did he really return them?

You turn towards the middle of the room and the liquid in your cup is suddenly drained to empty as you watch Mattheo dance closely behind a pretty Hufflepuff girl.

You and Pansy return to your mutual solitude, letting your friends revel in their win against their greatest rival, while simultaneously becoming more and more drunk, the more you watch as Theo and Mattheo obliviously break your hearts some more.

~∞~

It's much later into the night, and the party has not died down. In fact, it only seems to have gotten busier as more and more people from the other houses joined in on the debauchery.

You are so drunk. Practically stumbling along behind Pansy as she drags you to and from the dance floor to get more drinks. The two of you are dancing on each other, her hips grinding against your's to the beat of the music as you both giggle tipsily. You're unaware of your surroundings and have surely pissed off many other partiers with your drunken moves. But it doesn't bother either of you, content to enjoy each other's company, until there is a presence behind you that has Pansy smirking cheekily at you.

You narrow your eyes at her, vision hazy as you feel hands cradle your waist, almost possessively. Looking up, you come face to face with the underside of Mattheo's sharp jaw as he says something to Pansy that you don't comprehend. Whatever he says has her disappearing into the crowd, leaving you to his mercy.

"Hello, Princess." He mumbles lowly, mouth brushing against the soft shell of your ear, causing a shiver to run down the length of your spine.

"Matty! Hi." You say, voice slightly slurred and you grimace at how drunk you sound. He only smirks before he's gently spinning you to face him.

"Haven't seen you since the start of the match. 'S been ages." He replies, voice raspy from how much he'd shouted and cheered during and after the match.

"It's not been that long." You say with a teasing smile as you take in his appearance. In place of the emerald quidditch robes he'd been sporting that afternoon, he's wearing a dark, black t-shirt which stretches tightly across his torso, emphasising his Beater physique and a pair of dark trousers drapes over strong legs. Your observation is slow and purposeful and the smirk on his face widens even further as you admire him more openly then you ever have before.

He's chuckling to himself and then says something that you can barely hear over the loud music that reverberates through the room. But the cadence of his voice and the way they almost seem to have been hissed out in a way you do not understand, makes you tilt your head to the side as he smiles.

"What did you just say?" You ask him, or rather shout so that he can hear you. He copies you with a tilt of his head as he looks down at you with his captivating onyx eyes.

He repeats it again, his hands tightening against your waist when you stumble slightly as someone jostles you in an attempt to get past, smirking when your face scrunches in confusion.

"Are you speaking parceltongue or am i really drunk?" You ask, your hands coming to rest against his firm chest when you were pushed into him.

"Gods, Princess. How much have you had to drink?" He asks with gleaming eyes. It's the mischief in them that has you opening your mouth in feined outrage.

"You were speaking parceltongue!" You accuse and he lets out a laugh as you lightly whack his chest. "What did you say!?"

"Now why would I tell you that?" He replies, his face leaning closer to your's. You can smell the alcohol on his hot breath, mingling with your own and you can feel every breath he takes as it fans across your face.

"Because I'm your best friend?" You say with a smirk as you unconsciously wrap your arms around his neck, leaning on your tip toes slightly so that you can be at eye level with him. The move has your hips brushing against his. You swear his eyes darken as you do.

"Theo's my best friend." He says in a tone of faux obviousness, mischief laced in his rough voice.

"But I'm your favourite, right? If you admit it, I promise that Teddy will never know. It can be our little secret, Matty." You tease and he's laughing again, before he says something else in that strange, reptilian voice, eyes flicking from you eyes to your lips.

You've always been my favourite, darling.

The ways his eyes sparkle, despite the harshness of the sounds against his tongue have you acting upon instinct as you surge forward and press your lips to his. It's as magical as you've always imagined, despite it being tainted by your twin inebriation. But you'll take what you can get.

Because Mattheo Riddle is finally kissing you and you reckon you could fall into a abyss of happiness as his pillowly lips caress your's with loving grace.

~∞~

The next morning, you wake up in an unfamiliar, yet familiar dorm room and Enzo is smirking at you with glee. A tanned, muscular arm is draped across your middle and you're using the other as a makeshift pillow. Your face warms as you recognise the large, veiny hand that stretches across your stomach.

"Fun night?" Your friend asks with a snicker and you flip him off in response. He leaves the room after he's done teasing you, his loud laughter echoing in the corridor. You move to stand but an arm tightens around the skin of your waist.

"Where do you think you're going, Princess?" Mattheo mumbles, his voice low and raspy from sleep.

"Well good morning, sunshine." You reply, a smile spreading across your face as you turn to face him, to find that he is already staring at you, with adoration in his onyx eyes.

"Am I still dreaming, or are you really in my bed right now?" He asks as you trace a finger lightly over his naked chest.

"Oh it's very real. And I'm sure Enzo has already told the others what he just discovered." You reply with a giddy laugh.

"About bloody time, don't you think?" Mattheo's question is muffled against the skin of your neck as he nuzzles his face there. You smile in response, giggling as pieces of his curly hair brush against your soft skin.

"I'd still like to know what you said last night." You say but he doesn't give you the answer. Instead, he rolls the two of you so that you lie beneath his toned body, strong arms caging you in.

"That's my little secret, Princess." He mumbles as he presses languid kisses down your neck and chest, travelling lower until your rendered a moaning mess beneath him.

[saintobio]

sincerely yours. (9)

↳ gojou satoru/reader

when a twist of fate led their marriage to the path of a quintessential tragic romance, two past lovers go through another series of experiences on love, heartbreak, identity, illness, and trauma along the road to a happily ever after. 

genre. heavy angst, amnesia, modern au, 18+ 

tags/warnings. profanity, usage of alcohol, mentions of cheating, implied suicide attempt, toxic relationship, explicit smut

series masterlist -> episode ten

Satoru had a major problem. 

And it was his self-control. His lack of self-control was the reason he had engaged himself in an adulterous relationship back when he was married. His lack of self-control was the reason why you had become the recipient of his unreasonable anger in the early stages of your marriage. His lack of self-control was the reason why, out of all the women in the world, he was now sleeping with a friend of yours. For God’s sake, his lack of self-control was probably the reason why you were also pushed to your limits, choosing to cut your marital ties with him and leaving only the scraps of his role as a parent to Sachiro.

Back when he was attending his weekly therapy sessions, his therapist told him that part of what he needed to learn was to control his impulses, resist temptations, and actively exercise his willpower. They were easier to achieve then than now, since he was the loneliest man at the time with no friends, no wife, no son, and no bustling company to run. His decisions remained untainted, his temptations unchallenged, his emotions uninfluenced—a solitary journey at its finest. He was all by himself. How come? It was because he was sent by his mom to Osaka to temporarily seclude him from his harrowing memories in Tokyo, compelling him to sever ties with the outside world and immerse solely in personal convalescence. Reflecting now, it felt no different than being sent to a psychiatric hospital.

He could say it worked at the time. He learned how to keep his emotions at bay. He learned how to control his thoughts, throwing away the bad and keeping only the good. He was a new man by the time he returned to Tokyo, prepared as ever to take on his role as the Chairman of the Gojou Group, ready to once again try and live a normal life. But the moment news had spread about his ex-wife's marriage to his business rival, all the self-control he had painstakingly cultivated seemed to have evaporated in an instant.

Everything also went downhill after that. 

He wasn’t going to list down all of the things that happened nor the impact it had on him since you yourself were a witness to them. But if he was going to look at the way your return has changed the trajectory of his life 3 years after you first left, he would still at a hundred percent put all the blame on his shoulders. None of this domino effect would end up like this if he had been a faithful and loving husband in the first place. The pressure from his father was not the only root of all this, the branches also extended to his corporate greed which ultimately ruined his chance at a fruitful marriage with you. 

But at least, the chaos should have settled by now. You chose to move forward and he decided to respect your decision by finding his way to another. This should free you both from the emotional torture that had you imprisoned in each other's cage for the longest time. He would still be there for you as the father of your child, but otherwise, he was happy that you had Toji Zen’in by your side to fill in the marital gaps that he had failed to complete. 

A heavy sigh escaped his lips. The warm water fell on his body in rivulets, soaking him completely so early in the morning as he decided to take a long shower. For how long? He couldn’t tell. He could stay there for hours if need be. He had to let his mind wander on its own, with a hand pressed against the wall, and another stroking his white hair back. Despite accepting the fact that Toji now owned your love and affection… well, wasn’t that son of a gun too lucky? Did he even realize that the woman he would marry was once Satoru’s entire universe? 

Ah, but who cares? Satoru scoffed inwardly, leaning his head back to let the water hit his face. He had Akemi, so why did it matter if you had Toji? He wasn’t bitter. He was just trying to reason with himself that you deserved to be with someone you really, truthfully loved. And he deserved that, too. Maybe not now, but at the perfect time, he could relive the life of a married man after learning from his mistakes the hard way. A much better one. A married man who would never in his life betray, hurt, or ruin his partner. A doting husband who would offer his whole life just to make her happy. He promised to himself that Akemi should have that kind of man from him. 

Though, he could ask himself, how far was he from achieving that? He did practice his self-control last night when joined you in the pool—his face, inches away from you. Hand gripping your hip. Eye-to-eye. Skin-to-skin. Your warm breath fanning his cheek. Just another step forward and your lips would touch. But he didn’t let that happen. He mustered all of his power to pull back from the gravity that was drawing him closer to you. Still, he couldn’t deny that you looked absolutely gorgeous last night. As the moonlight illuminated your face, he could swear that the stars also sparkled on your eyes. They must be from the tears you were desperately holding back, but either way, you were still so goddamn beautiful. He almost couldn’t keep his eyes off you last night and had to distract himself from looking at your lips, your collarbone, your chest, your curves…

“Fuck.” 

Talk about self-control. 

Satoru had none of that right now. His body reacted involuntarily to the thought of you last night. The sensual thought of you. The what-ifs.

What if he had wrapped your legs around his waist and enveloped your lips into a passionate kiss? 

He took a deep breath, still holding onto the wall as his other hand traveled to his growing member. 

What if he had carried you all the way into the living room and laid you naked on the couch? 

Closing his eyes, his hand started moving on its own, stroking his hardened cock and feeling every ridge as he pleasured himself. 

What if you had let him devour you? Let him roll his tongue on your entrance and taste your sweet, sweet flesh? 

Gojou let out a moan. A quiet yet desperate moan when he continued to jerk himself off faster and rougher. Damn it. He had to keep it low and he better not be heard committing such a sin in the bathroom. Although, he was confident that you were still sound asleep next to Sachiro in your bedroom, so he didn't think you would hear the noise he was making.

After all, it was shameless to know what was driving his feral thoughts right now. Thoughts of you letting him slide his tip along your entrance. Thoughts of him ramming his cock inside your tight cunt, being squeezed by your soft, velvet walls. Thoughts of your breasts bouncing wildly as he continued to hit your most sensitive spot. Fuck. Faster. He would have taken you on all fours, too. He would have let you ride his hardened shaft. He would have pressed you against the sofa and put your legs above his shoulders, letting you milk his cock with the tightness of your cunt. Satoru would release his warm seed into you in every position. He would shoot every drop of his cum straight to your womb, no doubt impregnating you for the second time around. He would absolutely love that. He would love seeing the residues of his wanton desire for you seeping out of your pussy. He would be at bliss watching your belly grow a few months after that, knowing that he had created yet another beautiful life inside of you. 

“Y/N…” 

Awakened by his senses, Satoru opened his eyes and saw the sticky white mess on his hand and on the wall. What the hell did he just do? More importantly, what the hell was he thinking of? 

No one should know about that. Not you, not even Akemi. He didn’t cheat on her, no. He didn’t do anything with you. That shouldn’t be counted as cheating. He didn’t even touch you. And he wasn't even officially dating Akemi.

No, no… 

Absolutely not.

Drowning into a pool of guilt, the first thing he did after that sinful shower session was to contact his supposed girlfriend not-girlfiend. And to make things even more awkward, you entered the kitchen in silence at the right time, carrying a sleepy Sachiro in your arms, unaware of the dilemma that was sending your ex-lover into a spiral.

“Morning,” he greeted almost inaudibly, clearing his throat and taking a sip of coffee afterwards. He had to think straight. 

“Morning,” was your simple and oblivious reply as you went about your daily morning routine. 

Gojou, on the other hand, was typing on his phone because Akemi wasn’t answering his FaceTime calls. He had completely forgotten to update her all day because he had been a little bit too occupied the moment he landed in America. She must be overthinking why he hadn’t reached out to her until now, and he felt extremely awful and responsible for that, but she couldn’t be fast asleep that early, right? It was 7:00 a.m. in New York, so that meant it was only 9:00 p.m. back home. 

He nervously rang her number once more, mumbling a ‘please answer’ as he watched her caller ID appear on the screen. 

“Dada,” called Sachiro, looking at him as his mother sat him on the high chair to prepare his breakfast. 

Still holding his phone, Satoru walked to his son and placed a gentle kiss on his tiny forehead. “Morning, Sachi. Did you sleep well?” 

The toddler nodded at him, drinking milk from the baby bottle that he was holding with both hands. His eyes were wide and blue—quite the same hues of blue that would remind you of a clear sky. Satoru couldn’t help but pinch his adorable son’s cheeks. 

And while you were busy picking out food from the pantry, Akemi finally answered his call after the fourth attempt and showed her beautiful, soft features on the screen. His eyes immediately lit up at the sight of her. “Hey, how are you?” 

He could tell she was still a bit distant and upset because of what happened two weeks ago, when she claimed to have heard him say your name during his sleep. He already made an excuse for it as he also didn’t know why he even did it in the first place, but Akemi was still understandably hurt. He couldn’t blame her. 

“I’m fine, how are you?” she tiredly asked, seemingly heading towards her bed. “I just got home from work, that's why I wasn’t answering.” 

He could see, in the corner of his eyes, that you were glancing at him but he didn’t return it. All of his focus was on Akemi, feeling bad that he hadn’t exactly been a good partner for her lately. Especially after the shit he just did in the shower this morning, but that was a secret that was meant to be buried. “Alright, did you have dinner already? It’s morning here so I’m having breakfast.”

She offered a small smile albeit the visible exhaustion on her eyes. “I did. How’s Sachiro doing?” 

“You wanna see him?” He walked closer to his son, showing him on the screen as his big blue eyes stared at the woman on the other end of the line. “Sachi, say hi to Auntie ‘Kemi.” 

“Hiii~” Sachiro happily greeted Akemi, while the latter cooed at the sight of his son. She spoke to him with a gentle and motherly tone, weaving warmth and love into her words. It made his heart full knowing that Akemi would wholeheartedly treat his child as her own, because if there was a slight possibility that she wouldn’t, she knew that Satoru would rather let her go. His child was still more important than any other woman. And so if his future partner couldn’t accept the fact that he had a child with his ex-wife, then they shouldn’t be in his life after all. The case was different with Akemi because she was already your friend and she had the chance to see Sachiro grow up before Gojou even knew his son existed at all. It was a bit complicated, but things turned out to be easier on the part of acceptance. 

The only problem was you. 

Because by the time the call ended, Satoru could tell that you weren’t in the best mood as you ate breakfast next to Sachiro in complete silence. Your eyebrows were curled into annoyance, and yet your eyes held sadness in them, an expression that had become difficult for him to fathom. Were you jealous of Akemi? He assumed you would say no, but your expressions showed otherwise. 

“Y/N,” he called for your attention, hoping that you would look into his eyes for a little bit. Yet, not a chance did you do. “What’s our agenda for today?” 

You seemed irritated, if anything. You refused to look at him as you gave a curt reply. “I communicated everything you needed to know via email. You should have checked it instead of letting Miwa do everything for you.”

Jeez. You were definitely angry. “Okay.” He cleared his throat once more. “I just asked in case there was a last minute change.” 

“There isn’t. I would have said so if there is.” 

“Right.”

Satoru didn’t know how to act in front of his ex-wife anymore. Now that he had seemed to ignite your pique, he chose not to say anything else further as you two finished your meals and cleaned up after yourselves. The only time he spoke again was when he offered to bathe Sachiro so that you could focus on yourself. 

You agreed. 

And he did his part. 

It was simple give-and-take. A transactional relationship, if you must. Nothing else would blossom from that except your responsibilities as parents for Sachiro. 

——

The New York trip was already as awkward as it was. And it only just started. 

To be fair, it wouldn’t have been as uncomfortable if only Gojou had not decided to make it so. He was the one that made the atmosphere unpleasant by trying to savor every inch of closeness he could get to your skin, only to pull away as if nothing happened. As if he didn’t care about how it made you feel. He even had the audacity to lecture you on how to go about being good parents and setting a good example to Sachiro. Then suddenly, the next morning, he would act like such a loyal and caring partner to Akemi. 

The thought of his loyalty made you scoff on the inside. He should be the absolute last one to be saying that. He should be the last one to profess how much of a loyal man he was trying to be to his new girl. 

Besides, even before this trip was arranged, you had already made it clear on your mind that the sole purpose of going to New York was for Sachiro's sake. Any interaction outside the need to be there for your son would be unnecessary. He wasn’t someone you still needed in your own personal life nor did he need you in his. Your past relationship no longer mattered in this situation and all that was left was for it to be forgotten. But even with your resistance to be anything more than a parent to your son, Satoru still respected you. He still showed, even in little ways, that he cared about your comfort throughout the trip. 

Five days had gone by, and everything you did in New York had been smooth sailing, all thanks to his grand number of connections across the USA. In a short amount of time, Sachiro’s surname had been legally changed, and everything else concerning his birth certificate had been corrected. The only issue left to address was your son’s nationality since Japan doesn’t permit dual citizenship and Sachiro would have to carry a Japanese citizenship and the Gojou name to be able to inherit his father’s assets and multinational conglomerate. You would leave that one up for Satoru to deal with, but everything else had been settled on your end. 

Although this trip wasn’t exactly a vacation, Gojou insisted that you two still take Sachiro out to explore the city he grew up in. And you did so by going to Central Park, telling your ex-husband stories of how you used to bring Sachiro there in a stroller when he was still a little baby and that plenty of strangers, both locals or tourists, would coo at him the minute they took a peek at his adorable face. You also took him to the Empire State Building to get the best view of the entire New York City, and Satoru being Satoru couldn’t leave without taking a family photo with you and your son, capturing the beautiful urban cityscape behind you. You could see it in his eyes that even though he was happy to be there, he was also melancholic at the same time. Almost three years of his son’s life were spent in this famous city, without him, and it was as though the bitter memories of those three years for him were haunting him back. Sadness was reflecting off of his crystal blue eyes as he took a minute staring at the view of the city, reminding you that you were the reason why he had missed out on his baby’s first memories. 

If guilt could literally eat you alive, you would have been devoured. 

“Ready to go, Sachi?” Satoru asked your son, tucking his phone away after having (seemingly) sent Akemi a text message, probably updating her of where he was and what he was doing. In fact, he had been texting and calling her every now and then, as if he was doing his best to reassure her that he wasn’t doing any funny business with you. Has Akemi always been a possessive partner? Even with your years of friendship with her, she had never acted that way in her past relationship. So, was she only like that to Satoru specifically? You wondered if she would go nuts had she heard Satoru tell you how badly he wanted to make more babies with you on your first night here. 

Sachiro nodded, clinging to your hand while reaching for his father’s. “Dada, hand pwease!” 

Satoru did offer his hand, but mirrored the surprise on your face when your son tried to link your fingers together, urging you to hold each other's hands like a couple. You didn’t want to get too offended by it, but your ex-husband was the first one to pull away. “I, uh, made a reservation for us in Carbone,” he said, unable to exchange eye-contact, “Yuuta will meet us there.” 

“Oh, he’s in New York?” you asked, pretending you didn’t notice how he acted allergic to your touch and redirected your attention to your son. “Did you hear that, Sachi? Uncle Yuuta will come and see you.” 

Your little one was oblivious to the world, too distracted by the throng of people surrounding the place that he didn’t even notice how his parents were uneasy with each other. To say that you didn’t feel bad for your son was a lie, because it actually broke your heart. Even if you and Satoru were working on co-parenting and making sure Sachiro wouldn’t feel the gravity of a broken household, you knew that when he reached the right age, all of this would still have an effect on him. One day, he would still be asking questions about his parents. Questions about why you separated, why your marriage failed, and why you had to move to New York while his father stayed behind. It hurt. Deep inside, it hurt so much to know that your only son wasn’t given the chance to have a complete family and it felt like a failure on your part as his parent. 

You were sure that was what Yuuta thought, too. As you met with him at a fancy restaurant in the city, you could see how his face lightened up seeing his nephew bonding with his parents as if it were a family vacation. He must have known what it was like to have a broken household. In fact, he had lived in a toxic one before, but he still grew up to be a mature and dignified young man who never let the horrors of his family’s actions affect his rational thinking. So if there was anyone in the world who would sympathize the most with Sachiro, it would be Yuuta.

“Sachi,” he spoke to your son fondly, wiping the sauce on the toddler’s chin. Yuuta chuckled as he watched the little boy's grimace after being given a small piece of broccoli. “You don’t like vegetables?” 

You fixed the bib on your son’s neck. “He does, but he’s very picky with it,” you tell Yuuta, glancing at Satoru who was busy speaking on the phone with Nanami about what appeared to be matters concerning the company. “Wonder where he got it from.” 

“Right.” Yuuta’s eyes turned into moon crescents as he smiled. “I remember nii-san being a little picky.” 

“You hear that Sachi?” you teased your son, who looked at you with his cute puppy eyes. You knew that if you had the ability to peak through his toddler mind, it would actually be full of fried chicken. The thought made you laugh. “Don’t be like daddy, okay? Sachi needs to have his veggies so he’ll be strong when he grows up.” 

“But…” Sachiro pointed to his father. “Dada is stwong.” 

Satoru chimed in at the conversation after having finished the call, “That’s right, Dada’s strong. Mommy could barely even handle me.” 

“Do you even know what we’re talking about?” You rolled your eyes, while Yuuta wanted to giggle, but chose to hold it back seeing the awkwardness of the situation.

Satoru shrugged and sat on his chair, eyeing the scrumptious dishes that were served to your table. He was acting like he hadn't been served more expensive meals before. “Have you tried the spicy rigatoni before? I heard it’s famous here.” 

You casually answered. “Yes. Toji used to bring me here every time he visited.” 

Look, you didn’t mean to overshare nor did you mean to make things even more awkward. You also didn’t mean to slap it in his face about how you were spending your years in New York with Toji. But Satoru, with his pride, took it resentfully. 

“Oh, really?” His words were the opposite of his voice. He was mirthless and full of unenthusiasm before changing the topic, redirecting his attention to his step-brother instead. “How’s Harvard?”

Yuuta eased the tension by making small talk, sharing details about his university life, and making sure he didn’t contribute to the growing tension. “I’m really just trying to survive this semester so I can go back home as soon as I graduate.” After taking a sip of his Cabernet Blend, he continued, “Like I promised, I’ll help you with the company.” 

You were happy, at least, to know that Satoru and Yuuta had fixed their relationship as step-brothers even after the whole incident with Nana, Eula, and their father. What used to be a relationship full of envy and competition finally became one that was full of mutual trust and support. Yuuta deserved that since he never once wished for his brother’s downfall, while Satoru also deserved to have a family member that had his back and helped him with the business without constantly fighting about inheritance. Because technically, Satoru was the sole heir of the Gojou family, and his dad only made it seem as though he would give it to Yuuta to make his own son comply with his orders. Satoru’s dad was controlling in that sense, and that was what led to all of this. 

But the present was more important. Things have changed and mistakes have been learned. It was all up to you on how you were going to manage your new life moving forward. 

Only, if only things were a little bit different on his side.

——

You had raised your son all by yourself for the last 3 years, so the presence of his father wasn’t really something you were used to for the longest time. How Sachiro acted around other people was solely a reflection of your teachings, discipline, and guidance as his mother. He didn’t really have a paternal figure up until now, and even if Toji was there to support your journey to motherhood, he never fully meddled with your mother-son relationship nor did he act like a replacement to Sachiro’s biological father. He loved him like his own, but respected the fact that the spot was reserved for Satoru. He knew that. He understood that, because he himself experienced raising a child alone without the presence of a mother. And if you asked him, he, too, would not want Megumi to replace the very love that he was supposed to have for his biological mom. Sure, Megumi could love and respect you, but Toji would still want him to save an unnegotiable spot for his mother in his heart. After all, she had birthed him. And in that same way, you had birthed Sachiro and created him with Satoru during your marriage. If there was anyone Sachiro should look up to, it had to be his father. 

And quite frankly, the father himself was doing an excellent job. 

But then again, remembering how hands-on Satoru was to you during your pregnancy, you never doubted that he would be a good parent. He may not be a perfect husband, but he loved his child with all of his heart and soul, and he would risk it all just to keep him happy. 

It was new to you how, throughout the trip, you didn’t have to take care of Sachiro alone. You and Satoru helped each other harmoniously, attending to your toddler’s needs and making sure he was being prioritized. You were glad. Truly. You were grateful to see that he wasn’t an absent father and that his words weren’t empty when he promised you that he would be a responsible dad to him. 

Though, at the back of your mind, you couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he welcomed another child in this world? A child that didn’t come from you? Deep inside, it hurt you to imagine him neglecting Sachiro on the side the minute he welcomed a new baby with Akemi. The reality was, the father would always prioritize the child of the current wife, not the child of the ex-wife. He would still support him, sure. But would he still pay the same level of attention that he was giving Sachiro now? You would probably break in half if Sachiro was thrown to the agonizing realm of feeling like an outsider in his own family because no child deserved that. If Satoru had that experience first-hand, he should not subject his own son to that same feeling.

You would be selfish to say this, but you wanted to seize the opportunity while Sachiro was still his only son. Hiding him from his father was your fault—you had gone through that a million times and you weren’t shy at holding yourself accountable through that mistake. However, you were already doing your best to make amends and make up for the years Sachiro had missed around his father. He was Satoru’s first and only child, and therefore he should never fight for his father’s affection. You weren’t sure what Satoru’s long term plans with Akemi were, but if they were considering having their own children someday, you would never allow your son to be pushed back at the bottom of the family tree.

Sachiro was the true first-born son of Satoru. He should never have to fight for his position in his father's eyes.

And so on the night of your flight back to Japan, when Satoru asked if he could take Sachiro with him for the rest of the week, you had no problems in saying yes. Your only wish right now was for them to spend as much time together as possible.

“Where are you taking him?” you did ask in spite of your leniency to send your son away, waiting inside the car as the pilot and crew prepared the private jet. “Please send me the full address. I need to know where he’s gonna stay and—”

“You’ll get the details from Miwa,” he casually said, rubbing Sachiro’s back as the little boy slept on his chest. He didn’t bother meeting your eyes as he talked. “I’m just taking him to my vacation home in Osaka.”

Osaka…

That was where his mother isolated him from the rest of the world when he was having terrible episodes. Episodes that worsened after he had found out that you ‘terminated’ his child and abandoned him for good. Shoko once said that they felt like Gojou disappeared from their lives while he was there, because nobody else could reach out to him. They couldn’t visit him nor could they contact him for a year or so until he was mentally ready to come back to Tokyo. 

You didn’t want to pry on matters that were sensitive to him, so you chose not to say anything concerning his decision to take Sachiro to Osaka. He must have wanted to reflect on his past experiences, allowing him to heal from them as it brought him to the incommutable life he had now—life knowing that Sachiro actually existed after everything that he was made to believe. 

“Please take good care of him, okay?” It was only a reminder, nothing else.

Satoru kept a straight face, nodding before he planted a kiss on his son’s forehead. “I got it from here.” 

After a minute of silence, you both got out of the car and you watched him carry the peaceful Sachiro in his arms. You left the sleeping toddler a tender kiss on the cheek before parting ways. “I love you, my baby.” Stroking his hair, you kissed his tiny nose. “Mommy will see you soon.” 

Satoru knew that you were staying behind. You had informed him of your plans before you even came here to the airport with him, explaining that Toji would be in Miami and that you had made arrangements to meet with your fiancé there. Satoru didn’t say anything much about it either, simply nodding his head at your decision and telling you to ‘do whatever’ because he was no longer a husband you should report your plans to. There was no hint of jealousy in his stance, but you couldn't miss the flicker of bitterness that did appear on his eyes for a millisecond. 

You didn’t even say goodbye to each other as you watched them board the plane. And he didn’t even bother looking back at you to tell you to take care of yourself. Not that you expected anything from him, but a quick goodbye would have been nice since you did spend the last couple of days together. Or perhaps, he was upset about the fact that you were staying behind to meet Toji? 

Either way, you were on your own now. 

It took some time for you to reach Toji in Miami. He had insisted on meeting you at the airport, but because he had to meet with a foreign investor, you headed straight to the hotel he was staying at. Funny enough, you couldn’t help but compare how different it was to stay in the same accommodation as your fiancé vs with your ex-husband and son. With Toji, nothing felt uncomfortable and sharing a room as a couple was as normal as it should be, but things did feel too formal and too forced. With Satoru, it felt awkward to share the same space with him, but since your son was there, it felt like home. It felt strangely close to home, like it was only right. That staying together as a family was what your heart wanted. 

Ever since Satoru went back to Japan with Sachiro, you had been feeling a wave of separation anxiety. Your mind was always left wandering towards them; how they were doing, where they were, what they had for dinner. You wondered if Sachiro was giving his father a headache. Smiling at the thought, perhaps he was giving Satoru a hard time changing his diapers. 

“Everything okay?” Toji, noticing your trance, put an arm around you as you two sat at the VIP lounge of the Miami Grand Prix. This was Toji’s scene. If Satoru was a fan of horseback riding and polo, Toji preferred big time F1 races. He even personally knew the racers, the type of cars they were driving, and everything a huge fan had to know. You weren’t all that familiar with these things, so it was a little hard to keep up with his lifestyle. 

“Y-Yeah, sorry,” you stammered, realizing how distracted you had been all this time. “What were you saying?” 

He drank from his glass of 30 year-old Macallan, downing the liquor like it was mere water. A cloud of disappointment settled over his features. “Not interesting to you, huh?” 

“No, I…” You made an effort to place a hand on his nape, giving him an apologetic peck on the lips. “I’m really sorry for zoning out. I was just… I guess I was just a little tired from New York.”

Toji placed a hand on your knee, sighing. “It’s fine. I was just trying to introduce the guys to you,” he said, scooting closer as he pointed to the racers. “You know that guy? Lewis Hamilton. He’s quite popular with the ladies,” then he moved his finger towards the other drivers, “And we got here for Ferrari, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, also fan favorites.” 

Your eyes suddenly caught sight of Gojou’s favorite car brand. “Um, how about McLaren? Who drives for them?” 

Unsure if Toji caught on or not, he did take a minute before feeding into your curiosity. “Norris and Piastri.” 

You wished you had any idea about F1 so that you could be as enthusiastic as Toji was at this event. He was at his happiest right now and you didn’t want to ruin it by being a boring, uncultured fiancé, because frankly, all these women around would have done a better job at entertaining him. Toji was very eye-candy and you couldn’t blame these models from glancing up at him, especially with how manly and suave he was, dressed like a picture perfect example of an old money businessman. The likes of him were the prey of these desperate influencers, willing to sell their bodies in exchange for a night with him. But truth be told, that was their way of living and you could never find it in yourself to insult them. You didn’t want to shame them for attempting to climb the social ladder because that was how they view money and success, or at least a faster ticket to it. 

As long as they didn’t try to make moves on your fiancé while you were around, you wouldn’t be so bothered by a few stares here and there. 

Neither was Toji. He must have experienced being stared at during these events plenty of times before, and he probably even sent women home crying because of rejection or worse, humiliation. Now that you think of it, how did Megumi feel when his father was being hit on while watching the Grand Prix? Most importantly, why was the teenage son absent at this current event? 

“Love, why didn’t you bring Megumi with you?” you inquired out of a sudden curiosity, knowing that Megumi was always present next to his father during F1 events. 

Toji took a sip of the hard liquor once more. “He didn’t wanna go. He was giving me the silent treatment before I left for the US.” 

Confusion further blanketed your eyes. “Did something happen back home?” 

He let out a deep breath, his face signaling that he was deep in dilemma. “The Zen’in elders want to set him up for an arranged marriage,” he revealed, much to your surprise, “They wanna make sure he’s not gonna end up like me, married to someone who wasn’t ‘qualified’ to be my wife.” 

At first you were confused if he was referring to you, but you realized that he was describing his late wife. Megumi’s own mother, the only woman Toji had ever loved by a mile. He fought everyone for her, even turned his back on his own family for her, but claimed that he also ultimately led her to her demise because the elders of his family harassed her until the day she died. It was a tragic love, perhaps even more tragic than yours, so you somehow understood why Toji was conflicted about Megumi’s personal life.

But you? You were strongly against it. “I don’t support arranged marriages, you know that,” you told him with conviction, sympathizing for the poor boy, “It’s not gonna end well. You know what happened to me…”

“I know.” Toji’s eyes were filled with regret. “I know, but there’s nothing I can do about it unless Megumi himself tells me he has someone he loves.” 

“Did you ask?” 

“He’s tight-lipped about it.” 

You sighed. “Well, he’s a teenager. They get pretty shy about these things.”

Forcing a marriage was never a good thing. You couldn’t understand why the concept even existed because it didn’t benefit anyone aside from the people around the married couple. That was why they called it a marriage of convenience. They were married for everyone’s sake but themselves; family name, status, business… You have had enough of it. If only you realized it from the very beginning, you never would have subjected yourself to a loveless marriage with Satoru. Even if your love did grow eventually, things still didn’t work out for the best, and now your life was a mess. A divorced couple co-parenting their only son? There was obviously no convenience gained in that false marriage.

Megumi would just be wasting years of his life tied to a person he didn’t love and so you were hoping that Toji would fight for his son’s right. Because if he truly understood you, he would not subject his son to the same suffering you went through. 

“I wish my wife was here,” mumbled Toji, forlornly, “She’d know how to handle these things better than I do.” 

Were you not there for him? You swallowed your pride, hiding the pain in your voice. “Right…” A smile was all that you could offer. “I’m sure she would.” 

——

Something was different about Toji and you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. 

It wasn’t his appearance, and neither was it the way he spoke to you. He was all the same except for one thing; the look in his eyes. 

He had told you this before. He said that the eyes carry the most truthful and raw emotion that you can see on someone. The presence of love would be visible in someone’s eyes just as you would see stars on a clear, night sky. The lack, however, would mean that the eyes are blank and empty like the dark void in the expanse of the universe. You didn’t have to be poetic to be able to discern the way his eyes communicated his most solemn feelings in spite of trying to show otherwise. 

He must have been tired. Being caught up in your back-and-forths with your ex-husband, having to put up with your pretentious co-parenting situation, and the never ending need to keep an open mind about your situation with the same man who had ruined you. When your heart was in pieces, wasn’t he the one who tried to fix it? Wasn’t he the one who remained by your side during your darkest times? 

Whether that may be true, whether he truly ever loved you, you could recognize the stark difference of the Toji that genuinely cared for you to the Toji that was only actively trying to be there for you. What had changed him all of a sudden? 

“Toji, you drank a little too much.” A weary sigh escaped your lips, pulling all your might to drag your fiancé to lie comfortably in your shared bed later that night. At least, on the way to the hotel room, you had his bodyguards to thank for. They were there to haul him while he was in his drunken stupor, letting you lead the way, and dumping him carefully to his bed because there was no way you would be able to carry such a muscular man all by yourself. Now that you were alone with him, you decided to care for him the same way you used to do when Gojou was coming home drunk at night. Starting with his shoes that you took off, his shirt that you unbuttoned, his pants that you unzipped. “Come on, love. I’ll get you changed.”

The verdant hues of his eyes weren’t present. They were hiding behind his lids, refusing to meet your gaze. But if anything, he did open his mouth to speak, “...You. You wanna know a secret?” 

Drunken words are sober thoughts, you reminded yourself. Of the numerous times Satoru had gotten drunk during the early stages of your marriage, it was how you found out that deep inside him, he did care for you. That in spite of his ill-tempered exterior, he was a man deprived of parental love and support. What would be the case for Toji, then? 

“Yeah?” You waited for his answer, slipping his shirt off and revealing his toned body. 

The scar on his mouth moved when he displayed a mirthless smile. He was as drunk as an alcoholic would be. “I don’t… think… I can love you the same way I loved my first wife.” 

Your heart paused. In fact, every heartbeat became heavy. You knew how he felt, but didn’t expect him to say that out loud. “I-Is that so…?”

“Absolutely,” he mumbled, chuckling inaudibly. He was at a point where he was too far gone to realize the magnitude of the words he was saying to you. “Even if you try your best, she was everything I wanted in life and the only woman I could ever offer my heart to. She’s irreplaceable, and I don’t feel guilty about it... because I know you’re still into Satoru, too.”

“That’s…” You held your breath, holding back the sudden tears that formed in your eyes. “That’s not true.” 

Toji wasn’t done yet, however. He still went on with his drunken speech like he was finally pouring out raw, yet hurtful words out of the bottle. “Who knows? You would’ve had him touch you back in New York if you didn’t have me. You would’ve had him impregnate you, have his second child with you, and guess what? He still won’t be loyal to you.”

The pain in your heart increased tenfold. Everything went still and every minute felt like a stab to your soul. Should you say something? Should you get angry at him? No, no you couldn’t. Your chest was tightening and you knew it was smart not to let such negative emotions overpower you. His words were just a little difficult to grasp because Toji never in his life had been callous with his words to you. The tears that fell from your eyes were from the betrayal that you felt after hearing the cruel words he had uttered. And yet, you tried to hold on to that thin string of hope that Toji’s words didn’t come from a place of truth. 

“That’s enough, Toji. Go to sleep.” You pulled away, swallowing the bitter taste of weakness in your voice. 

He hummed, unaware of the pain he had put you through. “The more I look at you, the more I realize how much I actually don’t want to spend my whole life with you,” he admitted, with little to no regard for your current feelings, “I can’t fill this emptiness by being with another empty soul. And if there’s one thing I’m most grateful for, it’s that I let you run away that day before I fulfilled my vows with you—”

“Enough!” You shot up from bed and wiped the flood of tears on your eyes. “Enough! I’ve heard everything you wanted me to hear, okay?! Enough!” you raised your voice in despair, almost begging for him to stop tearing your heart asunder. “I get it! I fucking get it… so enough. Please, Toji.” 

Drunken words are sober thoughts.

A drunk mind speaks a sober heart.

Alcohol is a truth serum. 

The revelation of Toji’s true feelings that night was a reminder to you that he was just like any other man. That you should have never put him in such a high regard, thinking that he would be the prince charming that would save the poor damsel in distress. Why? What would he benefit from someone like you? You only deluded yourself into thinking that a man like him would take a single mother so seriously. You were only meant to be a placeholder for his dead wife after all. 

A placeholder, certainly. Not even deserving to have the title of a wife.

——

There was a huge contrast between being with you and Sachiro in New York vs being with Akemi and Sachiro in Osaka. The difference? There was no awkward air between Akemi and him. They were free to do things as they will—no restrictions, no certain do’s and don’ts. They were happy to have each other’s company, minus the guilt nor the unease of being by each other’s side. If anything, Satoru bitterly assumed that you were having the time of your life in Miami with Toji. You were so keen to see the man back there before parting ways with your ex-husband and son like you were simply discarding them to the side. 

If so be it, then fine. Satoru had all the right to have his son all to himself while you were gone. Besides, Akemi was just one call away and she was everything he could ever ask for. She cared for Sachiro as if she was his own mother and Satoru couldn’t be more grateful that he didn’t need to work on building a bond between her and his son. 

In fact, Akemi very much knew how to win Sachiro’s heart. As they took his adorable son to Universal Studios that day, she was nothing short of a caring mother. She had acted as a guardian to his son throughout the rides, letting the toddler enjoy his time at all the wonderful attractions that the theme park had to offer. Not once did his son cry too, so that only meant that they were doing a great job at taking care of him. 

Of course, it was a different story in the afternoon. After having spent all of his energy during the day, Sachiro had become tired and hungry by dinner time. But he wasn’t such a difficult kid to tend to, so Satoru was proud that his son still wasn’t throwing a tantrum even after a whole day of not having you around. 

“We’re gonna get Sachi fried chicken,” he enticed the pouting toddler, kissing his forehead while Akemi carried him in her arms. “Is that what you want?” 

Sachiro nodded and wrapped his little arms around his auntie’s neck. “Chicken, dada.”

Akemi smiled at the child’s gesture, tempting her to also place a kiss on his cheek. “You’re so cute and well-behaved, Sachi.” 

“—Satoru?” 

At the familiar voice, all three of them turned to the woman standing behind like a deer caught in the headlines. She was tall for a woman, slender, and had long, auburn hair, rosy cheeks, and ivory skin. Next to her was a tattooed man with salmon pink hair, a piercing on his ear, and a very defensive stance. Ah… How timely. 

Sera and Sukuna. 

Satoru wasn’t sure if he should openly greet them, after all, they weren’t acquaintances. And it was only recent that he got his memories back, triggered by Sera's presence at the expo. Other than that, he had no business with the two of them. Sukuna wasn’t a business partner of his, so him and Satoru had no formal connection towards each other. As for Sera, she might be his ex-girlfriend, but they didn’t exactly have the healthiest relationship to begin with, so…

“Of all the places,” she mumbled, almost gaping at the sight of him. Her eyes then trailed off to Akemi and Sachiro, with which her expressions shifted to guilt. Did she recognize his son? Did she remember the horrible attempt she did to harm his child during his ex-wife’s pregnancy? The memory was flooding Satoru’s brain like a tsunami. Yeah, in that case, Sera should definitely be filled with guilt. She tried to kill this harmless child. 

He cleared his throat, now becoming protective over his son at the presence of his ex. “We gotta go—”

“I guess it’s true,” Sera spoke again, this time redirecting her attention to Akemi. “The rumors, I mean. It’s all just surprising to me considering how obsessive Satoru was to Y/N.” She paused, seemingly wanting to comment at her ex-boyfriend’s current relationship in a mocking way. She kept her eyes on Akemi only, while Satoru was left wondering why Sera was acting hostile towards her. What was her deal now? She wasn't in the position to be acting all entitled to Gojou anymore, but here she was, talking to Akemi like she had met her before. “Did you know? He sacrificed everything for her. No one else made him beg on his knees the same way Y/N did.”

He couldn’t even tell how Akemi felt while Sera was clearly taunting her with her words, but she still managed to smile and excuse herself, keeping Sachiro away from an environment that should only be between adults. It was ridiculous, surely. What was Sera thinking trying to subject his son around that kind of hostility? Balling his fists, Satoru turned to Sukuna and spoke to him man-to-man. “You’d better keep your woman entertained so she’ll stop meddling into other people’s business.” 

Sukuna, however, found the situation equally humorous. “Don’t worry. We both are entertained.” 

Making a spectacle of Satoru’s personal life? No wonder they ended up together. They were both pieces of shit. 

Before Satoru turned on his heels to follow Akemi, Sera still had one last thing to say to him. This time, she was more calm and less malicious—her eyes following Akemi’s trail before looking back at him, “Satoru, if you have truly grown as a man, you won’t do this to Y/N.”

——

Sachiro was fast asleep when they returned to the Gojou clan's vacation home. 

Meanwhile, since the night was young for the two adults in that house, Akemi and Satoru shared a passionate session in the living room downstairs, letting her ride him as he placed soft kisses on her collarbone. They tried to keep quiet, obviously, and all the lights were turned off, leaving only the moonlight illuminating their view. After a few more minutes into their lovemaking, they eventually met their climax and tried to catch each other’s breath, embracing her in his arms as she fell limp against him. 

“Satoru, I missed you a lot while you were gone.” 

“...Same.” 

Silence engulfed them for some time until she let out an exasperated sigh. It was clear in her facial expressions alone that she was pondering about the whole scene with Sera earlier. “That girl earlier, Sera, she—”

“Don’t mind her.” Gojou closed his eyes and leaned his head against the backrest. He knew he had to clear things up straightforwardly, leaving no room for any misunderstandings. “She just loves riling people up. It’s ironic she’s coming at Y/N’s defense now like she didn’t torment her back then. She’s not worth paying attention to.” 

“Okay.” Akemi pulled away, cupping his face and stroking his cheek. She also offered him an angelic smile while doing so. “But you don’t feel that way anymore, right? For Y/N?”

Satoru took a deep breath, but steadied the movements of his chest. He felt defensive all of a sudden. “No.” 

Her smile grew more relaxed as she pressed a light peck on his lips. “Right.” And for a while, they both stayed silent. His thoughts ran straight to you, while hers was quite on a different route. “Earlier when I put Sachiro to bed, he called me his mama.” 

His eyes widened. “Oh… he did?”

She answered with a nod. “I don’t know if he’s just half asleep calling for his real mommy, but… At that moment, it made me realize how much I want to have my own,” she hinted at him, wistfully staring at his blue eyes with her shining ones, “with you.”

——

You didn’t take the flight back to Tokyo. 

What you took was an immediate flight straight to Osaka where you knew your son and your ex-husband would be. You weren’t sure if it was due to the height of your emotions, but you surely let your impulse win the best of you this time. 

You just wanted to escape. It was for the first time in your life where you were dying to set yourself free from Toji’s presence, the very same person who you once likened to a buoy in an open sea. Now he was no longer that. He was far from that. He was an anchor pulling you down at the deepest part of the ocean. Needless to say, the pain was still fresh from your heart when you took the earliest flight back home after his drunken confession to you. 

Despite the many missed calls and texts and emails he had sent you, none of them were returned. None of them were seen, or read, or had been replied to. 

All you wanted to do was get to your son. Your son. Your only comfort from all the painful things that the world has thrown at you. If not for Sachiro, you would have long ended yourself. But because he was born in this world, because he relied on his mother for love and guidance, you had to be strong and you had to seek the comfort in your heart from him. 

They could all turn their backs on you, but never will your son do. 

And so, after a few back-and-forth emails with Miwa to confirm the address of Satoru’s residence in Osaka, you ignored the jetlag that was hitting your body and traveled straight to his place without a wink of decent sleep. Sachiro. Sachiro was all you ever thought of when you asked your driver to drop you off the park nearby the Gojou clan's residence as soon as you spotted your son's mop of white hair, him running across the small bridge and pointing towards a fish in the pond. Your son was happily calling all the fishes, gushing about them to Satoru who stood next to him. 

You didn’t even care at how you looked during that moment. You just wanted to get to your son and embrace him in your arms. He had been away from you for way too long and you had already grown pale and sick from the separation anxiety that engulfed your heart and mind. 

You had to have your son. You had to hold him.

“Sachi!” you called out, a smile present on your face as you made your desperate way towards the bridge. Your son looked at you the moment he had heard your voice, and was already skipping towards you with a bright smile on his face. “My baby!” 

Satoru’s face, on the other hand, turned pallid. His eyes were full of surprise, unable to believe that you were actually right in front of him. It was like he had seen a ghost. No, worse than a ghost. Why? Did he not expect you to come when he had let Miwa send the address to you? Were you not welcome to visit your own son? 

“Mamaaa!” Sachiro hugged you tightly, allowing you to attack his cute face with kisses all over.  

“Mommy missed you so much, my baby.” You could almost cry. As young as he was, he had no idea how much comfort he was bringing into your heart. Just to be able to see him, hold him, kiss him was enough for you to feel complete again. It was at your brokenness did you realize how much Sachiro could fix you whole.

“Y/N, I thought you…” Satoru paused, confusion seemed to be settling on his features as you looked up at him. “You’re supposed to be back by Monday.” 

For a moment, you were reminded of the reason you came home earlier than intended and it stung your heart to think about. “Change of plans.” 

A small scoff left his lips. “Don’t tell me you left Toji back there.”

I did, you wanted to say. Satoru had no single idea how true his words were, but that was none of his business and you had no plans of confiding in him about what had happened. You may be angry with Toji now, but you still respected him enough not to do terrible things behind his back. 

“I had to see my son,” you lied, although it wasn’t exactly one, and got up while holding your toddler’s hand. “Are you ready to go home with mommy, Sachi?” 

Reluctance clouded your son’s face, and he became more resolute at shaking his head the moment a woman’s voice called for him from afar. A woman, a very, painfully familiar woman came into view a few meters away from you. Standing there was your best friend, Akemi Hirai, looking at you with wide, mortified eyes as soon as she saw your presence. 

And in a snap, Sachiro ran to her. Your son ran straight to her, joyfully and excitedly as if she was his real mother. 

How many more heartbreaks do you have to go through? 

How many more tears do you have to hold back? 

“I…” Your hands were shaking. Your entire body was on the verge of breaking down. All this time, your son had been in this vacation home living like a happy little family with your ex-husband and best friend. 

Now, he even refused to go home with you. 

Gojou scanned through the look on your eyes as though he was reading your emotions, but you showed none of it. Not a single emotion could be seen on your face. Not an ounce of pain shown, despite seeing how your son immediately forgot about you and headed straight to another woman. How excited he was to spend more time with his dad and his new girlfriend. How, much to your discomfort, he refused to go back to Tokyo with you. You saw the future family Sachiro was about to have without you in the picture, and damn did it hit you like a truck. 

Why, why did everyone in your life choose others before you? 

“I’m sorry. I’ll bring him to your house Monday morning,” said your ex-husband in a soft, delicate voice, almost as if he was being careful with you. “We’ll take care of him.” 

You could simply nod, avoiding eye-contact with anyone in the vicinity except for Satoru. “Okay...” you struggled with words. Your entire body was shaking. The last thing you wanted was to sound like a selfish mother, but frankly, you were about to self-destruct. “Just keep him happy… that's all I ask.” 

Behind your mask of indifference, Satoru knew what right words had to be said. You needed reassurance, and that was exactly what he gave you. “I won’t ever take him away from you, Y/N. I promise.” 

You watched them walk away, leaving you alone with a look of sympathy that you didn’t need. Sympathy that you despised having received. This should serve as a wake up call to you that no one in this world would ever love you. That even your own child would, one day, abandon you. 

As tears fell from your eyes, you felt a certain pang on your chest that hurt worse than every other pain combined. “You know you’re not so good with promises, Satoru.” 

[bbyjackie]

𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐉𝐈'𝐒 𝐆𝐅 — ♡

one piece social media + dating feat: sanji

》 almost everyone wanted sanji's ver

♡ liked by sogekingg.usopp, FRAAANKY and 3.9k others

_ynln: hard launch

tagged: blackleg.sanji

theroronoa.zoro: what is he pondering so hard about 💀💀 (liked by nicorobin)

↳ blackleg.sanji: i was staring at a polaroid of the most beautiful, fantastic, gorgeous, jaw-dropping, mind consuming, pretty, lovely, enchanting, heart-throbbing, charming, attractive, cute, captivating, bewitching, stunning, irresistible, elegant, heavenly.. see more

↳ theroronoa.zoro: oh my god forget i asked

sogekingg.usopp: wdym your relo has BEEN hard launched since like four months ago 🤨🤨

↳ _ynln: sad 💔💔 i wanted to soft launch it but that was never possible

↳ theroronoa.zoro: i was trying to sleep and all i heard was screaming

↳ lovenami: real, if i was sanji i would be shocked too if i pulled yn ☝️

↳ blackleg.sanji: @theroronoa.zoro I HAD TO ANNOUNCE TO THE WORLD THAT MY DEAR YN SAID YES 💞💘💝💗

↳ sogekingg.usopp: y’all got NO faith in sanji 😭😭

p1rateking_luffy: what's hard launch?

♡ liked by theroronoa.zoro, ilovecottoncandychopper and 5.3k others

_ynln: he made me dinner, i might just cuff him rn 😪🤞

tagged: blackleg.sanji

p1rateking_luffy: OOOO IM COMING TO THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW 😄😄

↳ blackleg.sanji: don't even try, i locked the door

↳ p1rateking_luffy: LET ME IN!!1!1!!1

↳ theroronoa.zoro: LUFFY STOP BANGING ON THE DOOR I CAN HEAR YOU FROM THE GYM

↳ p1rateking_luffy: LET ME INNNN PLEASEEEEE

↳ _ynln: luffy omg wait im making you a plate 😭

↳ p1rateking_luffy: OOO THANKS YN

↳ p1rateking_luffy: btw whats a hard launch

_ynln: @blackleg.sanji you actually look so fine in this photo i might just have to delete it 😮‍💨😮‍💨🫵

↳ blackleg.sanji: ANYTHING YOU WANT MY LOVE 😍😍😍

blackleg.sanji: DO IT. I WOULD GLADLY MARRY YOU MY LOVE. IF THAT MEANS THAT I GET TO BE WITH YOU EVERY SECOND OF THE DAY I WILL GET ON MY KNEES RIGHT NOW. I WILL COOK FOR YOU FOR EVERY MEAL AND BUY YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT BEAUTIFUL GIRL 🧎🏼‍♂️🧎🏼‍♂️❣️❤️‍🔥💓💘💗💞💝💕

↳ _ynln: ok 😭

♡ liked by nicorobin, p1rateking_luffy and 13 others

priv.ynn: usopp is a real one for taking these photos ☝️☝️

tagged: blackleg.sanji

sogekingg.usopp: I AM THE CERTIFIED BEST WINGMAN 💪💪

blackleg.sanji: I WILL KEEP THESE PHOTOS IN MY WALLET AND PUT THEM NEXT TO MY PILLOW SO THAT WHEN I WAKE UP I AM REMINDED THAT I HAVE BEEN BLESSED I LOVE YOU MY YN 🥰🥰😘😚🤩

↳ theroronoa.zoro: yn blink twice if you need help

↳ lovenami: ngl yeah that was a bit concerning 😭😭 (liked by nicorobin, sogekingg.usopp)

↳ priv.ynn: EVIL AHHAHA

p1rateking_luffy: yn what's hard launch?

CAPTAIN.KIIIID: i hate happy people

ilovecottoncandychopper: i love that you guys love eachother ❣️

↳ nicorobin: agreed

↳ priv.ynn: AWW YOU GUYS <333

♡ liked by _ynln, S0U1K1NGBR00K and 7.4k others

lovenami: robin w us in spirit </3

tagged: _ynln

S0U1K1NGBR00K: May I see both your panties? 🤲

↳ lovenami: words cannot explain how much i DONT want that (liked by _ynln)

↳ blackleg.sanji: NO ONE DESERVES TO SEE SOMETHING SO INTIMATE OF YN'S OR NAMI'S I WILL FIGHT YOU 🤺🤺‼️

sogekingg.usopp: YOU GUYS SAID WE'D GO SEE BARBIE TOGETHER WTF ?!?

↳ _ynln: WE LITERALLY INVITED YOU BUT YOU WERE TOO BUSY MAKING FUNNY FACES WITH LUFFY 🤨🤨

↳ sogekingg.usopp: YOU SHOULDVE SLAPPED ME

↳ p1rateking_luffy: WAIT I WANTED TO SEE BARBIE TOO

↳ p1rateking_luffy: anyway what's hard launch?

↳ lovenami: luffy you can barely concentrate on a five minute video, we aren't taking you to the theatre for two hours 💀💀

↳ _ynln: yeah luf, love u but you're gonna be bouncing off walls by the 20 minute mark 😔😔

nicorobin: so pretty! (liked by _ynln, lovenami, blackleg.sanji)

↳ _ynln: MISSED U SM ROBIN 💔

↳ blackleg.sanji: I AGREE MY YN LOOKS SO GORGEOUS SHE RIVALS EVEN GODDESSES, I LOVE HER SM I WOULD FLOP OVER A PUDDLE BECAUSE DIRT DOES NOT EVEN DESERVE TO BE WITHIN HER VICINITY ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥💗💘‼️💝💕💞❣️💘🥰😍😘😚😮‍💨😍☝️🫵

↳ FRAAANKY: sanji im worried you're one more comment away from a restraining order

blackleg.sanji 2h

[blackleg.sanji] _ynln replied to your story: omg sanji stop im so in love with you 😔💞

[krkiiz]

take a chance with me . luke castellan x reader

you decide to confront luke about your current situationship with him.

luke castellan x f!reader , reader is the daughter of Athena , crack , misunderstandings , “what are we” , “i thought we’re already dating” , fluff with slight angst , overthinking , kisses , them being sappy , nicknames

note : can’t stop falling in love with this evil betrayer smh. inspired by niki’s song “take a chance with me” ! (IM SORRY IF THIS IS CRINGE this is my first time writing kiss scenes help 😭😭😭😭)

let me know your thoughts ! likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated <3

“It’s getting dark. Let me walk you back to your cabin, yeah?” The dark haired boy smiled at you.

Gods how you loved that smile of his.

It’s a tradition of yours. Him walking you back to your cabin after your outings. The two of you walk hand in hand as your near the Athena cabin.

You and Luke had been acquainted for quite some time. You both first met when you arrived in camp for the first time.

You were fifteen back then. Time passed by as fast Zeus’ lightning strikes as summers blurred after summers. In a blink of an eye, you guys were both eighteen now. Adults, no longer those carefree teenagers that relied on your counselors.

During those three years of friendship, you and Luke only got closer. It was hard to admit, and after an excruciating time of denial (and constant pestering from your half siblings including Annabeth), you finally surrendered and admitted the growing feelings you harbored for your close friend.

You’re too afraid to confess your feelings as you treasured your friendship with him deeply. You would gush about how sweet he is to Annabeth, rolling yourself on your bed as blood rushed to your cheeks at the thought of him.

Little did you know he was doing the exact same thing. Confiding to Annabeth about your recent encounters, eyes lit up rivaling the shine of Apollo himself as he thinks of you.

Poor girl. Annabeth was sick of it.

But this summer, you felt a shift in your dynamic with the curly haired boy. He would eat lunch with you more often, asking you to go on more hangouts, challenged you on more duels, battles. It felt different, closer.

You were not complaining, matter of fact you were quite glad. Maybe your feelings wasn’t just one sided after all.

But as time move forwards, the closer you two get, more couple-ey interaction commends. He would tuck your hand behind your ear as you both converse, intwining your hands when your in the same path, calling you nicknames.

The more your relationship with him progressed, the more it blurred the line between friends and more. At this point, you knew he had feelings for you as well, and he too was well aware of yours.

A bubble of thought soon started clouding your mind. What were you both now? Friends? Close friends? Lovers? You don’t remember Luke asking you to be his girlfriend.

What was the nature this relationship?

You feel his grip on yours loosening as you stopped near the grey building of Cabin 6. “This is it for you, princess.”

Words rolled of his tongue like honey and you felt like a honeybee, drawn to its sweetness.

Friends don’t call each other nicknames.

Luke placed a gentle hand on your cheek, drawing closer has he placed his lips on your temple, as if he was kissing your thoughts away. “What’s got you thinking so hard since we started walking, hm?”

Your cheeks lit up like campfire at his action, he smiled noticing your flushed state.

Cute

You look up to the curly haired boy, his fingers still pressed on your cheek. What are we, Luke?

What if Luke suddenly doesn’t want you anymore because of that question?

Were you too selfish by wanting more?

Was this not enough for you?

No it wasn’t. You want to draw a clear like between friends and more, and Luke and you were shoveling a deep hole in the middle of said line.

What if he fears commitment and disappears?

“Oh no, it’s nothing Luke.” You shook your head away from his grasp, pushing all your thoughts away. “It’s late, I should probably get in.”

But before you can turn away from him, Luke was quick to grab your hand, not letting you go any further. “No, Yn. Something is clearly bothering you. And I don’t want you to go to bed with an unpleasant feeling.”

He squeezed your held hands. “Please, Yn. Is it something I’ve done?”

You were quick to deny him. “It’s not, Luke. I don’t even know it’s just. I don’t know, confusing? I think complicated is the right word.”

The dark haired boy brought your intertwined hands to his lips, kissing your forearm softly. “It’s okay take your time, darling. I’m listening.”

You sighed seeing him caress your hand gently as he brushed his lips on the skin. “It’s about us, Luke.”

Dark hues make contact with your own. “What about us?”

“What are we Luke? I don’t even know anymore.” You retracted your hand from his grasp, frustration getting a hold on you. “Friends don’t hold hands while they walk, friends don’t kiss each other’s foreheads, or hands, or even call each other nicknames.”

You look up to see the confusion written clearly on his face. “What are we, Luke Castellan?” You asked once more.

There was a moment of silent and you dreaded it. Each passing second you can hear the rustling wind, chirps of birds, and the sound of your heart falling into your stomach.

Before he finally broke it. A wholehearted chuckle graced his lips, creasing his eyes.

You scrunched your eyebrows at his reaction. Clearly displeased. Were you some joke to him?

“Luke, this is serious, why are you laughing right now?”

He quickly straightened his composure after hearing your tone. “Ehem, wait sorry. You’re serious? Is this what you’ve been worrying about?”

“Well yeah. What’s so funny about it? Am I just some joke to you?”

“No no! Yn, wait.” He placed both of his hand above your shoulders. Eyes peered at yours before genuinely asking. “Haven’t we been dating for like two months now?”

What? Confusion warps your face.

“Yn, remember? Two months ago when I took you on a picnic by the lake? I asked if you wanted to be together and you agreed to it, remember?” He tried to recall your memory.

Then it snapped.

“Oh, that was a confession? I thought you meant it in a friendly way.” Luke mentally face palmed himself and you sheepishly giggled.

“Okay maybe I was too vague with my words so let’s redo it right now yeah?” You tilted your head at him.

The dark haired boy took both of your hands from your sides, lacing them into his. “Yn L/n, daughter of Athena, one of the best warriors I’ve ever seen, wisest and the most just ever, will you take the pleasure of being my girlfriend?”

You unwind your laced fingers, your hands moving, circling themselves around the nape of his neck as his hands are now placed on the sides your waist, drawing you closer. “Hm will I?” You teased him lightly.

“Please?”

“I guess you got yourself a girlfriend, Castellan.”

You laughed against his chest. And you can feel his ribcage expanding was he laughed along with you.

You tilt your head above, standing on the tips of your toes, as you pulled him even closer than before. Your noses touch at the proximity and you could feel his breath on yours. “Is this why you’ve never kissed me before?” you hear him whisper.

“Well I am doing it right now.” You pull him in, his lips crashing with your own. His grip on your waist tightened as your hands made its way to the softness of his curls. Eyes tightly shut as you both bask in the bliss of ecstasy before pulling apart.

He leaned his forehead against yours. Giving your lip a small peck as he craves for more of you. “I don’t know if this is not obvious yet but I like you, so so much, my Yn.”

You softly giggled. “I like you just as much, my prince.”

©️ sirena | krkiiz 2023

[seokgyuu]

What could be worse than a valentine’s day alone? Exactly, a valentine’s day spent with your academic rival, Jeon Wonwoo, stuck in the home eco’s kitchen because you were both sentenced to take over the cookie baking for this season’s day of love. 

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, smut, heart wrenching and tooth rotting fluff (wonwoo is down bad bad)

warnings: sexual content, smut warnings under cut! wonwoo is a little bit mean? but like not too mean? she’s also kinda mean. but they are in love! promise.

word count: 5k

a/n: hi everyone!! this is part of the cupids collab hosted by the wonderful @wongyuseokie for @svthub! this work is dedicated to the wonderful, the lovely, the hilarious @highvern! i hope you like it, babes!! sending you loads of love this valentine's day and thousands of kisses, mwah! i had loads of fun writing this and am happy to be a part of this collab, hehe. also thank you @ourdawnishotterthanourday for betaing, ily! <3

“I’m giving you one chance to get out of here,” you say, holding open the door. Wonwoo doesn’t move.  “Who says I’m the one who has to go? You’re obviously the worse baker.”  Oh, he is truly playing with you right now. You let the door fall shut, eyes squeezed as you stare at him. “Fine. Then it’ll be me and you, buddy.” “I guess so,” he pauses, eyebrow raising, “and I’m not your buddy.”

smut warnings: minimal degradation (usage of the word “slut”), praising, pet names (princess, sweetheart, darling, pretty girl) oral (f. receiving), begging, softdom!wonwoo, unprotected sex (you know the drill - wrap it before you tap it, folks!), creampie (get it… cream…pie? cookies & cre- ok i’m sorry).

There are approximately seven thousand three hundred and twenty eight places you would rather be than here. 

Nothing has helped you get out of this unfortunate situation. No pleading, no begging, not even wanting to send Seungkwan in your stead. Professor Yoon had been adamant in his decision to send you and him to this god forsaken home eco kitchen to bake the badge of cookies for the Valentine’s day sale. 

“It’s not even a real holiday!” you had whined to Seungkwan, “if it were, we wouldn’t even be at class in the first place!” 

All your best friend did was rub your back and tell you it was all gonna be fine, all while writing a text to Vernon on his phone in his other hand. He was used to your antics when it came to Jeon Wonwoo. Everyone was, at this point. Both of you had not made it hard to get used to - just by the amount of times you had decided to fight and dive right into rivalry when there was no reason to. Perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t even a bad idea to put you two in one room together for several hours with no one else. It could give you time to talk out your differences. Call for a truce. Screw the anger out of each other. Anything that would make Seungkwan’s life easier. 

That day comes sooner than you wanted it to, and while your hand lays on the handle of the car door, you feel the uneasiness inside you raise. 

“I can’t do this, Seungkwan. One of us is gonna end up dead.”

“Yeah, my money’s on Wonwoo. Please don’t disappoint me.” Seungkwan hums back, hands on the steering wheel and his eyebrows raised. You turn around, your mouth slightly agape before scoffing and opening the door.

“Pick me up at 4?” you ask and your best friend nods, waving at you once the door is closed. He truly hopes neither of you ends up dead (but if push comes to shove, obviously Wonwoo because then Vernon would owe him 5 bucks). 

Professor Yoon had told you that all necessities would be at the university and that you wouldn’t have to bring anything except for a good mood, something you didn’t dare to say was impossible in the given situation. 

You aren’t stupid (Wonwoo would beg to differ), you are well aware that your professor is trying to end whatever war you and Wonwoo have going on by pairing you up for this. And while you get the sentiment and might even appreciate it a little - you’re more than sure that nothing will ever come out of this - Wonwoo and you despise each other. It has been like this since your first semester and it most definitely wasn’t going to change over something as trivial as baking cookies together. 

The home eco’s kitchen is in the basement of the economics building and you are happy to notice you’re the first to arrive. Smiling to yourself, you fish the key to the room out of your bag and unlock the door, walking in and turning on the lights. 

The kitchen is spacious and modern, everything is made out of gray steel, with a few dark wood accents on the cupboards. You spot the boxes with ingredients on the island, and place your bag next to it before unpacking the things provided for you and Wonwoo. It becomes your mission to arrange the cookbook with the recipe in the center of the right side of the island, gathering all the needed ingredients around it in the order you would need it. Then, you search the cupboards for a big bowl, wooden spoon and a mixer. 

You have gathered almost everything except for the mixer, spotting it in one of the higher cupboards you most definitely can’t reach without some sort of help. Biting down on your lip and gnawing on it, you look around the room, coming up empty. There are chairs in the room next to the kitchen, but you don’t have the key for it. With a sigh, you stretch yourself as much as you possibly can, hand reaching for the kitchen gadget - with no luck. Just when you’re about to climb on top of the counter, you feel something shift behind you, a body suddenly pressed against yours and an arm reaching up to grab the mixer for you without any trouble at all. 

Wonwoo. Your body stiffens at his touch and only relaxes once he backs off, putting the mixer down next to the other stuff. Immediately you turn around, your eyes glaring at him.

“Someone decided to show up, after all.” You spit at him and he rolls his eyes. 

“I was forced, if you must know.” He says not even looking at you. His eyes are focused on the ingredients on the counter, his lips slowly drawing into a smug smile.

“Control freak much?” 

Your head burns and you scoff, walking over to the door and feeling his eyes on you as you move. 

“I’m giving you one chance to get out of here,” you say, holding open the door. Wonwoo doesn’t move. 

“Who says I’m the one who has to go? You’re obviously the worse baker.” 

Oh, he is truly playing with you right now. You let the door fall shut, eyes squeezed as you stare at him.

“Fine. Then it’ll be me and you, buddy.”

“I guess so,” he pauses, eyebrow raising, “and I’m not your buddy.”

For the most part the two of you are quiet. Mainly because you don’t have anything to say to each other. You split the ingredients evenly (either one of you starting with their own batch since there is a whole lot of cookies to bake) and begin working on opposite ends of the kitchen. You get through the first batch without so much as exchanging looks. You do your thing and he does his. Only, when you get the first batch out, you ask him to hand you the oven mittens, which he does without any fuss. You’re surprised but don’t say it. 

It’s when the both of you start to work on your second batches that things… change.

You hate to admit the tension in the room. In fact, you’ve been hating it since the first day you’ve met him. It’s a shame he’s so hot when he’s the absolute bane of your existence. Your friends (mainly Seungkwan, really) tease you about your obvious attraction to the man you call your archnemesis every chance they get, causing you to flip them off, or scoff, or just roll your eyes at how extremely wrong they are. If you could change it, you would! Finding him attractive whilst hating him truly is exhausting. 

Slowly, you let yourself turn around in hopes he doesn’t notice. Thankfully, he is entirely focused on sprinkling chocolate chips into the cookies - white chocolate chips. You let out a gasp and your wooden spoon falls onto the top of the counter you’re working on.

“That’s cheating!” You shout, pointing at the package of sweets that he so obviously brought himself. What a jerk!

Not even looking at you, Wonwoo chuckles at your words, placing the chocolate chips next to him and wiping his hands on the apron he had put on earlier. Then, he turns to you, hip leaning against the counter, arms crossed and his eyebrows raised as he smirks like the douchebag you know he is.

“Cheating, yeah?” He repeats, licking his lips, “not sure it counts as cheating when it was clear from the beginning I would make better cookies, sweetheart.”

His condescending way of talking to you has always succeeded in making your blood boil, just like right now. You scoff, shaking your head and cleaning your own hands with a kitchen towel to your left.

“You know, considering these are for the day of love it is quite ironic Professor Yoon paired me with you, the person I hate the most.” You present Wonwoo with a honey dripping smile that couldn’t be more fake. Wonwoo doesn’t waver though. He just continues to smirk, his eyebrows shooting up even more, and before you know it he starts walking towards you, a click of his tongue almost making you flinch.

“See, love and hate are like siblings. While on the surface they couldn’t be more different, in their core they are irritatingly similar,” his voice is deep and his eyes are right there on yours and somehow you feel like he has taken away your ability to breathe. What the hell is he doing?

“You were always fascinating to me, darling. Always so sure of your opinion, never wavering. That first day we met, do you remember? How you were on my ass for the rest of the day because Professor Cha liked my answer better than yours?”

“He did not!” You shoot back, surprised by your own whiny tone. Looking at Wonwoo’s face, the defined jawline and cheekbones, the round specs on top of his nose and the brown soft curls falling into his forehead, you immediately regret speaking up at all. There is something in his eyes now, something you have never seen before  - at least not on him. Something inside of him shifted, like a switch that had been flipped, and the way he looks at you makes all of your skin erupt in goosebumps. 

“Ah, so I imagined things?” Wonwoo only so much as whispers, his large frame coming even closer, “Are you saying I’m a liar, pretty girl?”

Pretty girl. What the fuck? Your eyes widen and you feel your throat closing up. Absolutely not, you could not freeze right now! He was testing you, seeing how far he could go before you actually fell for whatever he was trying to do. Gathering all your confidence, you bring your hands up to place them on his chest and softly push him away. It gives you extreme satisfaction when you see the surprise on his face.

“And if I am? What are you going to do about it, Wonwoo?” Your smile turns smug and the little vein on Wonwoo’s forehead pops out just slightly. About to retrieve your arms, you are met with his hands around your wrists and his body even closer to yours. 

To say he catches you by surprise would be an understatement. Your lower back is pressed against the counter, your hands in his grip and your lungs missing the necessary air to not get dizzy. Why does he smell so good? You catch yourself thinking thoughts you normally would try to suppress at any given time - especially when Wonwoo is right in front of you. This time, though, there is no escaping. Not with him so close, not with him staring right into your soul.

“I have learned one thing over the years we’ve known each other, Y/N,” he breathes, eyes not leaving your face, “you can be a real fucking brat.”

The gasp you want to let out gets stuck in your throat. Instead, something like a choke comes out, something that makes Wonwoo smirk and your legs weak.

“You really think you’re sly. Do you honestly believe I don’t know how attractive you find me? How you need to look away everytime I come in wearing tighter shirts or pants that hang low enough to see the waistband of my underwear? You always try to act like you hate me and, you know what, maybe you do, but what I said earlier isn’t wrong, darling, love and hate are like yin and yang - they can’t exist without the other.”

He has your wrists in a strong grip and his lower body is now pressed against yours, something you never realized you craved. Feeling his growing erection against you, knowing he is turned on by you, by the situation, you feel like your head is about to explode. 

“So, what if I tell you that maybe I don’t actually hate you, but I actually find you attractive as well? What if I tell you nine out of ten times I want to shut your annoying mouth up by shoving my cock right down your tight throat? Or how whenever you bend over your desk to tell someone something you, of course, know better than them, I want to take you just like that and make everyone see just how much of a desperate pretty slut you actually are?”

You’re done for. With every word he’s saying, you can feel yourself actually becoming what he says you are. Desperate. The heat between your legs has turned into liquid in your panties, has turned into your heart beating at triple speed. 

“Y-You can’t just say that!” You stutter, knowing full well he will just laugh at you. And he does. He laughs and he throws his head back and then he looks at you again, his eyes glinting with want that only gets emphasized by the hard cock pressing against you. 

“Oh, sweet, sweet baby. Of course, I can,” he hums, finally letting go of one of your wrists to carefully tug a strand of hair behind your ear, “you’re so beautiful, especially when you’re flustered.” 

He must be playing with you. It has to be one of his games. He wants you to give in, wants you to fall for this only to hold it over your head for the rest of your college life. His mixture of dominance and sweetness is about to give you whiplash, especially when he begins to caress your cheek and leans down, his breath hitting your cheek. 

“We need to finish those cookies, Wonwoo.” The words are whispered and almost inaudible, but he hears you and he smiles.

“We’re alone in this basement, sweetheart. We’ve got all day to finish those cookies.” His hand wanders down, finding its place on your hip. You shiver slightly, your gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips and when his nose bumps against yours, something tells you that maybe he is serious. 

When he kisses you, you figure that something is correct. What’s supposed to start soft turns into something deep, and hot, and uncontrolled, right off the bat. Kissing Wonwoo feels like the only thing you had ever missed out on in life and now you finally got the chance to take what belongs to you. His lips are soft and his tongue is warm, pressing against yours and entangling it in a dance of fire. Your hands are in his hair and his are on your hips and you’re sitting on top of the counter with all of your ingredients pushed to the side, your wooden spoon falling to the floor when Wonwoo lifts you up. 

As if on instinct, your legs wrap around him and you moan against his lips when his hands move up, groping your breasts through your shirt. He licks into your mouth, your fingers digging into his nape, nails dragging along his skin. 

If you could see into Wonwoo’s brain you might have gotten scared. Not because he’s thinking actual scary thoughts but because of how many times he has imagined this. You’re always there, somewhere in his brain, your smile, your eyes, your laugh. And when he’s alone and can’t sleep you’re there too, but this time it’s how he thinks you’d sound when he’s inside of you, when he sucks on your neck and squeezes your tits. There hasn’t been a day since he met you that he hadn’t thought about you. 

It’s a shame you immediately called him out to be your academic rival on that day because all Wonwoo wanted to do back then was to make you his girlfriend, basically falling in love with you at first sight. As cliché as it sounds, it’s even more cliché considering he just played along with you, acting like he hated you, riling you up during class in ways he would rather switch for moments like this one right now. 

Never had he imagined he’d get you alone, especially considering how good you are at avoiding him. But when Professor Yoon had asked him to bake the cookies for the Valentine’s day sale - he couldn’t help but suggest you as his partner. Hours would be spent together in a kitchen, hours you had to spend with him. 

He loves how right he was. How right he was about you giving in, about you finding him hot, about you wanting him. He loves the sounds you make when he begins kissing down your neck and when his hand wanders under your shirt and shoves away your bra to touch the breasts he had been dreaming about. He sucks marks onto your neck and feels himself grow harder with every passing second. There is nowhere on this earth he’d rather be than right here, between your legs. 

“Been dying to do this, you know?” He mumbles against your neck, licking up to your earlobe and twitching in his pants when he feels you shivering under his touch.

“R-Really?” You whimper back and Wonwoo nods, both hands moving to your cheeks, lips back on yours in a heated, passionate kiss. He thinks that nothing will ever feel as good as kissing you. 

“Yeah, baby, wanted to kiss you forever, fuck,” he moans when your fingers move underneath his shirt, when you touch his bare skin and all of him begins to burn.

“Wanted to touch you, taste you.” His words echo in your mind and you open your eyes, a horny daze in them that makes Wonwoo question his sanity. He moves down now, kissing your neck again and shoving your shirt up to kiss your stomach and breasts over your bra, nimble fingers opening the apron you had laced around your hips earlier. 

“Can I taste you, pretty girl?” He asks then and you think you nod, at least you want to nod, but your head is clouded and you feel like you’re about to pass out. When he moves to get the apron off of you, focussing on opening your pants next, you figure you did in the end. 

Having you half naked in front of him makes Wonwoo feel like he has reached the gates of heaven. Your pants are on the floor and your chest is heaving, eyes glossy as you watch Wonwoo move to the floor, his tall body still reaching the top of the counter when he kneels in front of you. He moves his arms, wrapping them around your thighs and pulling you closer, his nose tapping against your sensitive core the next second. With a gasp, your hands reach for his head of hair, grounding yourself in it as you stare down at the way he eyes your pussy as if he had never seen anything more delicious in his life. 

When he moves your panties to the side, his finger softly gliding over your folds, you feel yourself shiver once more. You let out another whimper, biting down on your lip that feels hot and a little bruised after the way Wonwoo had kissed you. 

“God, I can’t even tell you how many nights I’ve dreamt of this moment.” He kisses the inside of your thighs, making you moan quietly, fingers coating themselves in your juices, ready to please you. 

Watching him is messing with your head in the best way possible. The way he looks at you, so full of endearment and adoration. How he touches you as if you’d break if he touched you too vehemently. He lets his tongue glide over your skin, moving until it reaches your dripping cunt, licking over your lips, tasting you for the first time. The moan he lets out has you digging your nails into his scalp, mouth dropped as you continue to stare down, continue to watch Wonwoo, your archnemesis, begin to devour your pussy like a Michelin star dish. 

He starts off slow, licking over your folds, not touching your clit even once. If he died right now, he’d be content. Tasting you, hearing your sounds when you’re aroused, him being the cause of it - it’s almost all of his dreams coming true. His fingers move, one of them circling your entrance, your whines growing louder by the second. You want his fingers inside of you, you need them inside of you. Wiggling your hips against him, Wonwoo chuckles at your antics and finally moves his finger, inch by inch sinking into your needy hole, your eyes squeezing shut as you clench around him. 

“So, so eager, princess,” he mumbles against your pussy, another breathy laugh causing you to thrust forward, his finger now completely inside of you. And, fuck, do you feel wonderful. So much better than anything Wonwoo had experienced before, better than anything he could have imagined. Perhaps, he figures, it’s because it’s you. 

Next thing you know, Wonwoo’s lips are around your clit, sucking it into his mouth, tongue flicking against it and leaving you to moan his name time and time again. Your hips move against him and he lets you, his cock straining against his pants in desperate need for attention. But not yet, he isn’t done with you. First, you’d have to come undone on his tongue and his fingers, first you had to scream his name as you experienced complete and utter satisfaction. Wonwoo does everything in his power for that to happen. He adds another finger and fucks you open, his long fingers meeting your sweet spot with every thrust as if he had studied your body for hundreds of hours. His tongue does the work of a god, his lips kiss you like you had never known you needed to be kissed, especially down there. 

“D-Don’t stop! Oh, fuck, Wonwoo!” You cry out, your head thrown back as you focus on nothing but your pleasure, on how he feels on your pussy, how it all is too much and yet not enough. You think about what’s to come, about how he will fuck you next, will sink into you with his cock, will make you feel like you’re the most precious woman on this planet. Even more than he already does. Your high is nearing, it’s so close you can feel it right there in front of you, that tight knot in your stomach about to break free and give you one of the most intense orgasms of your life. 

“Cum for me, baby. Fuck, I want you to cum on my tongue.” Wonwoo’s words are like magic, like a spell that he puts on you. A lewd whine escapes your throat and you do as he wishes, cumming all over his tongue and fingers, your juices drenching his face. He lets you ride out your orgasm on his face, anticipation filling him when he finally parts from you. 

Immediately, you pull down to kiss him when he stands. Tasting yourself on his lips with your hands opening his apron and getting it off his tall frame with his help, you can’t wait to get even closer to him. You slip out of your panties with his lips steadily on yours, a faint sound in your ears when they hit the floor.

“Need you so bad, Wonwoo, please hurry,” you cry out and he laughs, kissing your neck and your cheek, his hands opening his belt, zipper and button, shoving his pants down only for you to gasp at the sheer size of his bulge. He grins, hands back on your face to make sure you’re looking at him.

“Naughty, aren’t you? My perfect, pretty slut,” he kisses your lips again and your eyes roll back, your pussy throbbing in want. And obviously he knows how much you want him - he wants you just the same. As he continues to kiss you, he moves to pull his briefs down, his hard erection springing free, angry tip red and smeared with pre, oh-so ready to sink into your warm embrace. You part from him, eyes now setting on his cock, your mouth watering at the sight. 

“Fuck, you’re big,” you say, swallowing down the saliva pooling in your mouth. Wonwoo only grins wider, his big hands finding purchase on your hips as he leans down again. 

“Beg a little for it, baby, and you might get it.” You shiver and bite down on your lip, your hands wandering over his still clothed torso and down to his cock, slowly wrapping your hand around it.

“Please, Wonwoo, please fuck me…,” is your whispered plead, and the man standing in between your legs groans against your neck, sucking yet another mark into your delicate skin before nodding and grabbing his cock out of your hand, lining it up perfectly with your entrance and slowly sinking in.

His forehead is leaned against yours when he bottoms out and his hands caress your head, coming to a stop on your nape. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he mumbles, kissing the tip of your nose and you smile, giving the tip of his nose a kiss back. Then, he parts from you and the look in his eyes changes from soft to dark. He does his first thrust, catching you off guard, a loud moan escaping you. Your hands grab onto his shoulders as he continues his thrusts, fucking you deep and hard, his eyes focused on your face that contours in absolute bliss. When he said you’re beautiful, he meant it. 

He is holding onto your hips again, pulling you as close to him as he can, his hips chasing yours, his cock in the deepest bits of your pussy, your gummy walls squeezing him for his pleasure. There is nothing you can do besides begging him to go faster, begging him to not ever stop and crying his name when he leans down to suck on your hard nipple over your shirt. 

“Wonwoo! Fuck!” You clench over and over again, stars dancing in front of your eyes accompanied by beautiful lights that slowly but surely turn into fireworks. With every thrust of his hips, you feel yourself coming closer to the edge again. You want him to fill you, want him to claim you as his, make you feel full of him and only him. Nails are digging into his shoulders, your head falling back against the kitchen cabinet, his groans and the beautiful sound of your name coming out of his mouth chasing you off the cliff and into the warm waters of yet another intense orgasm. 

“Don’t stop, don’t fucking stop, oh- Wonwoo!” It’s done, you are done, your climax hitting you hard and making you gush all over his length that is still so deeply buried inside your sensitive cunt. Wonwoo moans, feeling your pussy clench around him, squeeze him, beg him to cum, to decorate you in his shades of white. And he wants to, god, there is nothing he had ever wanted more. His breathing becomes labored and he leans forward, engulfing you in yet another heated kiss, one arm wrapped around you, the other letting its hand rest on your cheek, thumb caressing your chin as his tongue flicks against yours over and over, mixed with his breathless moans. 

When you squeeze him the next time, he erupts. He moans your name, hips becoming frantic as he shoots his load into you, spurts of white and hot cum filling your spent pussy, your and his combined releases dripping down your thighs even as he fucks his cum so, so deep into you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he pants against your mouth, continuing to kiss you right after, riding out his orgasm and only stopping when you’re both completely out of breath. 

It’s silent for a few moments, the only thing audible your almost synchronized breathing. Your hands are still on his shoulders, his hands are still on your waist and your cheek. His face is buried in the crook of your neck and he softly kisses your sweaty skin, nothing but pure happiness running through him at this point. He softly caresses your face as he leans back again, his eyes searching for yours. 

“Y/N,” he then breathes, a small and maybe even shy smile playing on his lips.

“Wonwoo,” you sigh back, pulling him into a hug that he accepts with a laugh, both his arms now fully wrapped around your body. He’s still inside of you and only leaves you when you part from the hug, more of his release now dripping out of your core. He doesn’t ask whether you’re on birth control because for all he cares he would love to have you pregnant with his child. The thought alone makes his head spin. 

“Well,” he begins, a smug smile on his face as he leans down to pick up your panties, “that definitely gives ‘cookies and cream’ a different meaning.” 

You stare at him, slightly bewildered, for around three seconds before you burst into laughter, grabbing your underwear from him and jumping back onto your shaky feet. “You’re horrible,” you say and shake your head and Wonwoo’s smile grows even wider.

“Maybe. But I promise you, sweetheart, I’ll never ever be horrible to you again.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that, Mr. Know-It-All,” you smile and give his cheek a peck that he reacts to by turning bright red. 

It is in that exact moment you realize Wonwoo was never your archnemesis. Nor has he ever been as much of an ass as you had made him out to be. Jeon Wonwoo is nothing but a loser who’s been in love with you since the very first day you met him, and perhaps you had always known. Perhaps you finally let yourself realize right now, the moment after he had cum inside of you and still blushes like a little kid when you kiss his cheek, that the only reason you had chosen him to be your rival was to run away from how much you knew you’d fall for him if you didn’t. 

“Come on, let’s do what we actually came here for.”

And for the rest of the day you and Wonwoo bake the cookies for the sale and talk about what your plans are for Valentine’s. To no surprise those plans immediately involve hanging out together. Maybe, you think, to give ‘cookies and cream’ that new meaning over and over again. 

[quokkawritesarchive]

Can you a skz x reader based off the lyrics "he like it when I bend over and arch my back he taps me on the shoulder and says "yeah I like that"

BEND OVER AND ARCH YOUR BACK — OT8.

pairing: reader(afab) x OT8 genre: smut, NSFW warnings: mostly just touching and teasing, seungmin’s has slapping, dirty talk and begging a/n: MY FIRST REQUEST YAY! tysm for requesting! i hope you’ll like what i turned the lyrics into. [also i think i should be banned from writing OT8, because some scenarios turn out to be 2x times bigger than the others]

CHAN

back hugs. oh, chan loves back hugs and no one could escape them, not even minho. and you, as his girlfriend, “suffered” the most. chan hugged your everywhere, no matter the location, the time and how appropriate the situation was.

your favorite thing was when he hugged you from behind while you were cooking. he came back from work, put his bag on the bar stool and came closer to you, giving you the warmest hug and inhaling your scent.

he said the softest “hi, baby” and you responded with “hi, how was your day?”.

you didn’t mind, when he stayed like that for some time, you were used to it. however, as soon as you leaned in a bit further to stir the soup in the pot, it brought your attention to something that’s been poking your ass for the past minutes. heatwave crashed into you as you realized he was hard and his bulge was poking into you, while his hands were still wrapped around your waist and face nuzzled in the crook of your neck.

you couldn’t resist the urge, but start slowly grinding your ass against him. low groan escaped his lips as the grip on your waist tightened.

“channie, are you hard?” dumb question. of course he was.

panting behind you increased. you arched your back more, leaning into the counter.

it tightened knot in your stomach. you heard chan swallow, as he lowered his hands and grabbed you by your hips, beginning to grind actively against you.

“yeah just like that, baby. i like that.” chan breathed out.

you giggled and turned the stove off. the dinner could wait.

MINHO

your dance partner minho was your true rival since you started dancing in the same studio. you two were passionate and hard working, best in the group even, so it was no surprise, that your dance teacher decided to put you two in a pair. it was back and forth all the time. as soon as you thought that minho changed and started acting normally towards you, he did something bitchy again. minho was the only person in the studio, who would do stupid shit at his grown age, like tying your shoelaces between each other while you aren’t looking, making you fall afterwards. you were used to it and you could handle every prank that he did on you.

what you couldn’t handle was the sexy choreo that your dance teacher loved to put. every time it just became more naughty and awkward for both of you.

this time it was one particular movement that you refused to do at first. standing in front of your dance partner, you had to roll your hips in circle movement, almost brushing against the crotch of your partner, while he holds you down by waist. awkward? too little word to describe your feeling.

you didn’t know if minho was feeling as awkward as you did, but he didn’t complain once, while you talked to the dance teacher several times about this move. the only response that you received was that you need to grow up and it’s just dancing, not fucking. of course.

“one-two-three-four!” dance teacher was counting down, while whole group was repeating that particular part of the choreo once again. “one-two-three-four!”

you circled your hips, feeling minho’s hands on your waist. he didn’t look at you once, while you were repeating this part for the past few minutes - you could see him looking to the side through the mirror.

“good! a couple more times and we’ll move to the next part! let’s repeat that with previous moves and add this at the end! with music now!”

everyone nodded. it was a relief being able to finally go through choreo with music.

“one-two-three-four!” counting began again, echoing through the walls of the studio.

you gave out your whole passion to the moves as you always did. you were precise with your hands and legs placements, not wanting to give in to minho in anything.

“now the hip part!” the voice of the teacher chanted again. “one-two-three-four!”

you rolled your hips at the count, maybe too passionately, cause you forgot that the distance between your ass and minho’s crotch was too little. it was the small sigh that reached your ears, making you stop your movements.

you made eyes contact with minho through the mirror, but he broke it almost immediately, looking away.

did you really just hear that or was it your imagination?

“cmon, girls! i want you to be passionate about this dance! look at y/n and minho, they always give their best, even if choreography seems “too sexy”, as you all say.”

right. too sexy.

“okay, let’s go through this once again, but now i wanna see a good hip movement, girls!” teacher clapped her hands and put the music back on.

it happened again.

as soon as you felt your hips slightly brush against minho’s crotch, or at least you thought it’s his crotch, you heard a quiet whimper. the fact that you could hear it through the blasting music made you aware that minho was not holding back. his grip on your waist tightened, as you saw him close his eyes through the mirror.

oh, he was having a boner for sure.

the realization made your pussy throb. you felt yourself getting wet, panties started to soak with your arousal.

without any thinking, driven by pure lust, you scooted closed to minho and brushed your hips against his bulge. the sigh that he let out tightened the knot in your stomach.

“you like me rubbing my pussy against you, huh?” you finally turned around at him and stood on tiptoe, whispering in his ear.

“yeah, i like that.” he responded, wrapping a hand around your hip tighter, smirk appearing in his lips.

CHANGBIN

you and your boyfriend changbin were gym nerds for a long time. gym was even the reason why you two met, so, of course, you didn’t change your habits even after getting together.

so there you were - doing some workout with one knee on the bench, lifting the dumbbell up to your hip. ass up in the air, broad shoulders and straight back on the display. rowing dumbbells up to your hip you were on your last set, while changbin stood behind you as your spotter.

“twenty seven- twenty eight- twenty nine- thirty-“ he was counting for you, as you stopped at the number.

“oof! okay, that was my last-“ you breathed out heavily, putting dumbbells down on the floor.

you were about to get up from the position, but all of a sudden felt changbin’s big hands on your waist, holding you down.

“babe?” you turned your head and looked at him in confusion.

smug expression on his face made you chuckle.

“stay like that for a second.” he responded, guiding his palms on your ass. “yeah, just like that.”

you were still in the middle of the gym, which was quite busy during this time of the day. you looked around, trying to spot any eyes on you, but no one was looking in your direction yet.

changbin’s hand movements sent shivers down your spine, as you felt yourself getting wet. he guided his middle and index fingers through your folds in quick motion, making you let out a moan, that you desperately tried to hide. he then took a step closer to you, and brushed his growing bulge against your ass.

“wanna go somewhere more private, baby?” he whispered in your ear.

HYUNJIN

you didn’t mind, when hyunjin disappeared in his studio for hours or even days, but it was different, when he asked you to pose for him.

“what kind of pose is that?” you complained.

“i have a vision. just stay like that, please.” his response made you roll your eyes.

the pose was… interesting indeed. leaning on the chair with one leg, you had your ass and back arching in the air. to say it was uncomfortable and terribly awkward staying in this pose for a long time.

“yeah i like that” hyunjin finally said, seemingly satisfied with your pose and went back to his chair and easel.

minutes have passed and you haven’t moved a bit - being a good girlfriend you were. hyunjin was looking at you from time to time, hiding a smirk on his lips, which didn’t stay hidden from you. but you decided not to comment on that and let him work. the sooner he finishes - sooner you will be able to get out from this pose and finally stretch your back. and it was starting to ache uncomfortably.

suddenly hyunjin stood up from his chair and approached you slowly, scanning every inch of your body with his dark brown eyes.

“what?” you asked, not being able to stay quiet any longer.

“nothing, baby.” hyunjin responded, while his palm went straight to your ass, soothing it gently.

you squirmed under his touch and arched your back harder, reaching for more contact. his fingers then went between your folds, massaging slightly through the layers of clothing. you moaned at the sensation, the sound echoed through the half-empty studio.

“please-“ you breathed out, jiggling your ass at hyunjin.

he chuckled. “alright, i will give you a reward, baby.”

JISUNG

“babe, where is your laundry? i am loading it now.” you approached jisung, while he was finishing his breakfast in the kitchen.

“should be in the baske-“ he choked out as soon as his eyes lock on your body. “what are you wearing?”

“it’s laundry day.” you shrugged. “i wanna wash everything at once.”

no wonder he choked. you were standing in front of him in nothing, but underwear on your bottom half and some old t-shirt that you stopped wearing once your boobs grew, when you turned fourteen. it complimented your features perfectly, framing the outline of your breasts. looked like they were about to rip the t-shirt apart.

jisung swallowed. “o-okay… well, i think my laundry should be in the basket. if not, then it’s on the second shelf in the wardrobe… do you need help?” he added, still scanning through your body.

oh, you looked delicious like this. he wished you’d walk around the house wearing clothes like these all the time. he also wished he could take you right now on the kitchen table. he’s already got hard, dick pulling the thin layer of fabric.

but he couldn’t do it right now. he knew you’d be mad, because you wanted to finish all chores around the house first. he must deal with his growing boner on his own.

“no, no, don’t worry. i will take care of everything.” with these words your silhouette disappeared into the darkness of the corridor again.

whistling some tunes you began to put everything in the washing machine. a couple of beeps and machine started spinning.

you were so focused on the task, that you didn’t catch the moment when jisung got behind you. leaning on the door frame, he was shamelessly scanning through your body features as you were still arching a bit towards the washing machine. your panties were showing so little and so much at the same time.

he didn’t give you any chance to react, just pushed you towards the washing machine and bent you over it. his hard dick lined up with your barely clothed pussy, sending shivers down your spine. you didn’t wanna admit it, but you became so wet almost immediately. his dick started poking right into your throbbing pussy and hands went to hold your waist tightly. he was pressing you into the watching machine with his whole body strength, the vibrations providing additional stimulation.

it was too much for your senses. his hands started guiding down your ass, making their way to your clothed pussy. but you were moaning already - clit was being stimulated so nicely by the vibrations coming from the watching machine.

“oh, jagi, you can’t be walking around the house like that.” jisung finally reached your clit with his fingers. “so wet for me already, huh?”

“don’t blame me. you are always the horny one. i just wanted to do some laundry, cause i knew you won’t do it.” you jokingly slapped his hand, while his fingers started drawing circles on your clit.

“okay, next time i will do laundry, while walking around in my underwear only.” he chuckled into your ear.

FELIX

oh, you were so desperate. the way you were ready to put your pride away for this man and forget about your bet.

it all started last week, when two of you made a bet of who’ll give in to have sex first. felix knew you wouldn’t last long, so obviously he agreed. and you were delusional as always.

so there you were - trying to keep you cool, suffering through each day. at first you thought you’ll be able to seduce him, but felix was too good at controlling his dick. he didn’t even bat an eye, when you started walking around the house half-naked or snuggling even closer to him during sleep. he could see you getting impatient - suffering through internal battle.

little did you know, he was suffering as well. he was just too good at hiding it. but, of course, your half-naked body had effect on him. every time you walked around the house in your pajama shorts had his dick twitch.

it was day fourteen since the bet started. you just came back from work, wearing your usual high-waisted pants and tucked-in shirt, that outlined your features perfectly. oh, your ass looked so good. felix caught himself on the thought that he can’t resist any longer. he needed to touch you right now.

“hi, baby!” you gave him a quick peck on the lips and headed to the bedroom to change your clothes.

what you didn’t notice was felix, who went after you almost immediately. like some pervert, he watched his own girlfriend getting undressed.

you unbuttoned your shirt and took off the bra, breasts jiggling as you bent down to pick something from the floor.

with a low groan felix rushed to you and cupped your asscheeks in his palms, squeezing them harshly.

you let out a small whisper. “babe?”

instead of replying, he squeezed your ass even more and gave it a quick smack, making you bend over even more.

his hands then went straight to your belt and in quick motion he took your pants off, revealing the soaking underwear.

the sight amazed him. you were wet too, which he honestly did not expect. he rushed his fingers through you clothed wet folds. your arousal soaked through the lingerie and left a stain on his long fingers. felix breathed out heavily.

“baby? does that mean you lost the bet?” you giggled.

“don’t get cocky. look how wet you are.” he forced his wet finger into your mouth, making you suck on them. “now get on the bed.”

SEUNGMIN

wanna know his favorite pose to fuck you? doggy style. who would have thought.

he loves, when you arch your back for him meeting his thrusts, as he brings you closer to your orgasm. this is usually accompanied by loud slaps on your ass. you moan eagerly, desperately, with his name escaping your lips.

“yeah, like just that, pup.” he slapped you again, making you clench your walls around him. “i like it when you moan my name.”

“p-please- faster-“ you cried out, making all your effort to meet up with his thrusts. you moved in synched motion, it was actually impressive.

“who said you can beg me?” annoyance in his voice and he slapped you again, now twice in a row. the red trace of his palm was already visible on your creamy skin.

he slowed down on purpose, so he could hear you cry out more. a smirk appeared on his lips.

“now you can beg, pup.” he palmed your ass waiting for your response.

there was no need to ask you twice. you were ready for it.

“please! please, make me cum! please, i want to cum! pleaseee- ah!”

he cut you off with increased pace. your moans were now uncontrollable, back arching even more and you rode his dick through your orgasm.

JEONGIN

another study evening with your best friend. in just two days you have to send out the first draft of your diploma and you are not even halfway through it. it’s currently a mess on the table - both yours and jeongin’s laptops next to each other, notebooks, textbooks and other study materials right behind in a pile.

“ugh… i need a break. i can’t do this anymore.” you sigh as you stand up from the chair, making your way out to the kitchen. “you want some tea?”

“yeah, sure.” jeongin responds still focused on his work. of course, his draft is almost finished, because unlike you, he started doing everything ahead of time.

you come back with two mugs of tea, placing it a little bit further on the table, so you won’t accidentally spill it on your laptops.

“hey, can you read through this? i think i’ve finished with last paragraph.” jeongin calls you for help. you approach him and stand right next to him, leaning on the table, elbows resting on the surface, ass up in the air.

his writing is perfect as always. you can’t deny it, you’ve got yourself lost in his trail of thoughts and read through a few paragraphs instead of one.

when you finished reading and turned your head at jeongin, you saw something that you were not expecting to see at all.

his eyes are glued to the sight of your ass in front of him. it is like a magnet, hypnotizing him. he looks so goofy, with a frozen look on his face, not even noticing that you caught him staring. who would have thought: your best friend, all time best student and the most nerdy guy you’ve even known is currently eating you with his eyes.

“like what you see?” you finally speak.

jeongin chokes out at your sentence, as he realizes he was staring the entire time. and he got caught staring.

“s-sorry-“ the tips of his ears turn crimson as he tries to look away, but you are quicker.

catching his chin with your hand, you force him to look into your eyes, as you sit yourself down on his lap.

“who would have thought you are such a pervert, jeongin.” you chuckle in his face as you lean closer to catch his lips in a passionate kiss.

i’ve made minho’s scenario into a full smut, check it out!

-> reblog to support me, if you enjoyed reading this and please let me know your thoughts in the comments! ♡

masterlist | taglist

[seneon]

Can you make Mash x female reader please.

That when Finn and the other want to know why Mash doesn't love lemon like she do to him. And they got answer from Mash that because he protect reader love

sink into each other ──── mash burnedead x fem! reader.

about. mash actually has a lover, and his friends are to find out about it very soon. | 560+ words. fluffy romantic.

notes. if mash don't want lemon i'll have her tyvm

mash burnedead does not return lemon irvine's feelings. how so and why? though the girl doesn't mind that he does not return her feelings back, she promised to always be by mash's side.

she might be oblivious that he does not like her back, but finn and dot could easily tell that mash is not someone of romantical feelings. lance is always suspicious of mash, his mind telling him that there is at least one female that he has had a crush on before. it is impossible that there is none.

to everyone else, they could tell that lemon's efforts of trying to open up mash's heart and at least rent a day or two is impossible. there was never a possibility in the first place. and they felt bad for the girl who tries her hardest to impress or seduce mash.

there was one odd day, where mash is oddly missing from classes. the last time anyone has ever seen him was finn, which mash was eating two cream puffs. he noticed there was a bento wrapped in a very beautiful wine red cloth.

so finn told his friends about the beautifully clothed bento box. and they started sharing suspicions with each other. but nothing came to mind. there was nothing that could date back to mash even owning a fancy piece of cloth. they didn't want to simply suspect him either.

that is, when lance's suspicions came true.

he was walking through the corridors beside the garden and caught a sight at the corner of his eyes. upon having high principals, his curiosity overtook him and he went to poke his nose into the scene.

shock immediately arise, lance's jaw dropping as far as they could. metaphorically, it dropped to the ground, eyes widened until they might fall out. right in front of him, was a scene of his beloved rival and friend wrapping his arms around a student who is dressed in lang's uniform.

when that student broke the hug, it shocked lance even more. with beautiful hair and beautiful eyes that stared into mash's honey ones. she smiled widely and adding more shock to the crown, mash smiled back, although tiny and barely visible. yet it was enough for lance to understand the scenario.

"w-whaaaaat..!" a voice beside lance said in pure shock too, as lance looked beside to find finn's jaw dropped to the ground. "that's what the fancy bento is for??"

lance looked at the two, noticing the girl's hands that held a bento, a box wrapped in cream puff cloth. then to mash, who held the said bento with fancy wrapping.

very soon, you and mash exchanged bento boxes. the burnedead then embraced you in a hug, allowing your body to sink into his. just like that, both bodies were sinking into each other as each second passed.

you are a mage from a prestigious family with two lines on your face. it would only make sense if you sensed two other mages watching you. so in the hug, you slowly slid your through mash's coat and shoot a little spell from your fingers at lance and finn.

"mash, your friends have come to find you."

there was no hiding your relationship with mash anymore. and mash's friends now understand why he doesn't return her feelings to lemon, for mash burnedead already has someone to lean on.

© SENEON 2024 ♰ do not repost, alter, or translate.

[rafeandonlyrafe]

flashing lights

words: 2.4k

warnings: 18+ only, brief smut, p in v sex, model!reader (a bit of influencer too but primarily a model), soft rafe, marriage, pregnancy

“so thats your new girl?” topper asks, eyes on you as you twirl to the music, long legs on show in the simple black dress.

“yeah, shes here for a month on vacation.” rafes also looking at you, unable to let his gaze stray, in case a man comes up and attempts to dance with you. you may not be an official item yet, considering you only met a couple days ago, but rafe is determined to spend the entire month that you’re here with you, and not let any other men pull your focus away.

“she looks so familiar.” the voice rings out before rafe even realizes that there's other people now sat in the circle of chairs and couches, too wrapped up in you.

the girl, who rafe recognizes from high school, begins to tap on her phone. “wait, shes a model.” “yeah, she told me.” rafe shrugs it off. he could have guessed your profession anyways, with how naturally stunning you are, and your height almost rivaling his, only a few inches shorter.

“no, like really famous model.” the girl turns her phone towards rafe, and he hates having to drag his eyes away from you to look at the screen, pulled open to a google search of your name.

“holy shit!” topper says for rafe, taking the phone from the girl as he clicks the first link to open up your instagram. “she has 20 MILLION followers, rafe.”

rafe glances from the phone to you as you turn to smile at him, still dancing to the music, glad to be free of all the attention and camera flashes. its why you chose the outer banks in the first place, somewhere more tucked away to take a month away from the spotlight.

“why are you so surprised, look at her.” rafe states before standing up, tired of letting you dance alone as he joins you on the makeshift dance floor, his hands coming to your waist as you give him a dazzling smile.

-- two years later --

camera lights flash and shouts ring out, but rafe is used to it now.

he smiles and waves, shocked that anyone would care about him, a nobody from north carolina, his only claim to fame is being your boyfriend, for a little over two years now.

rafe walks inside, having enough of the screaming and crowds as he takes in the area, chairs set up along a runway, a large prada sign on the white wall. your prestige has only grown since rafe began to date you, despite coming back to the outer banks several times to take a break and visit him. since rafe began to travel with you, you’ve gone from paris to milan to new york to london, gracing the covers of magazines and walking runways.

he tries to attend every show, taking on a pseudo-management role himself. your favorite part is dressing rafe in the mornings, having received clothing from so many brands, both mens and womens fit. rafe lets you choose, knowing you have the eye for fashion, and he loves to see how happy you get when he wears your outfit.

rafe walks through the seats until he finds the one with his name on it, front row. he sits down, scrolling on his phone as people begin to file in until the room is packed full.

he waits as the show begins, models walking down the runway. they don’t shine to him, not like you do when you step out, your face blank in the typical model expression as you strut down the runway, dressed in all denim with a pair of chunky sunglasses on your nose.

rafe is in awe every time he sees you work, whether its watching your fluid poses during a photoshoot or your long legs stomping down a runway.

he waits with bated breath for your second outfit, changing into a slouchy menswear-esque ensemble, only pulled in at your waist as the fabric swishes around your ankles.

he claps when everyone steps out for the final walk, but he doesn’t cheer for the designer, even if it is prada, as he makes eye contact with you, only ever a brief glance while you're walking the runway, knowing if you look for too long you will become entranced with his handsomeness.

rafe waits for you after the show along with some of the other family members or partners of the models, long after all the celebrities have gone, either to an afterparty or on to a different show.

“hey baby.” rafe smiles when you step out, hair still slicked up in a ponytail, face caked with makeup, but now in a pair of loose jeans and a plain white crop top.

“hi handsome.” you coo, pressing your lips against rafes. “did you like the show?” “i liked you in the show.” rafe says pointedly, making you blush. “are we going to the afterparty?” “nah.” you shake your head. “i have that carolina herrera show in the morning, and i want to spend some time with you.”

“i’ll never argue against spending alone time with you.” rafe says, slotting his arm around your waist as you exit the building, surprised when photographers are still waiting outside. you wave briefly before rushing towards the car, knowing the picture of you and rafe are bound to be spread all over instagram and pinterest before you even make it back to your hotel room.

--

“rafe, i’ve got a question.” you hum, stepping out onto the balcony, eyes looking to the ocean. you’re on a paid for vacation by a makeup brand, simply wanting a couple instagram story posts using their products in a get ready with me. you are supposed to be relaxing the rest of the time, but you crept onto your phone to read the latest email from your agent.

“what is it babe?” rafe asks as he pulls you down onto his lap, scantily dressed in only his swimsuit, not that you have worn much other than a bikini this whole trip.

“what would you think about me doing a lingerie photoshoot?” you haven’t accepted any jobs that would call for you to show off a lot of skin or be paired with a male model since you started dating rafe, lucky to be in a place to reject jobs.

“who is it for?” rafe asks.

“calvin klein. i wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t them.” you admit. you find their style of black and white classic photos far more tasteful than traditional lingerie pictures.

“as long as i can be there during the shoot.” rafe says. he’s taken the role of your advocate and protector during photoshoots, easily able to read your face and speak up for you if needed, considering sometimes the models voice gets drowned out.

“of course.” you nod. 

“then absolutely.” rafe pulls you in closer to his body. “i need a new lockscreen anyways.”

you roll your eyes but can’t help the laugh that bursts out of you as you turn towards the ocean, watching the waves roll onto the sand.

--

you step out behind the curtain, a tight fitting sports bra contrasting the loose jeans, slung open and zipper undone to show off your underwear as well as the calvin klein jeans.

you look over to rafe, who has his bottom lip pulled between his teeth as his eyes skate down your bare torso.

you most over to the white backdrop as the photographer begins to test the lighting, taking occasional snaps as things are adjusted.

the photoshoot is run just like any other and you’re finished faster than expected considering they’re solo shots and no change in location or background.

you keep the underwear and jeans on, simply throwing on a sweatshirt before getting into the taxi home with rafe, this time to your new york city apartment, having collected various homes and apartments around the world, depending on wherever you were doing business at the time. you consider the outer banks home though, returning every extended break with rafe.

“did you like the shoot?” you ask when you get home, rafe laying on bed while you tug the sweatshirt and jeans off, leaving you in just the calvin klein bra and panties.

“get over here.” rafe says, not caring about your question. he’s been desperate for you since you appeared from behind the curtain, not even trying to hide it as he watched the photoshoot, your eyes occasionally moving to him, giving him reassurance you were still good.

rafe makes you keep the underwear on, simply pulling it to the side once he’s got your back against the mattress to slide his cock deep inside of you. you push the sports bra up to let your breasts free, rafes palm instantly coming to cover your tit as he thrusts into you.

“i think you should do more shoots like that.” rafe says with a moan, cock pulsing inside of you.

--

“its nice to be back home.” you sigh, quickly applying some makeup, mostly just mascara and a glowy primer. 

“agreed.” rafe kisses your shoulder, watching over your shoulder as you finish and then adjust your white dress, having decided to take a couple pictures on the beach for you to post as well as just enjoy a walk on the sand.

“alright, i’m ready.” you hum as you slip on your sandals. you lace your fingers with rafes before stepping out the back door. “you look handsome by the way.”

the suns golden light illuminates his skin. his outfit is simple, closer to what he wore before the fame. a simple white button down, loose fitting and you are sure would look delicious unbuttoned, showing off his muscles.

“thank you baby.” rafe presses a kiss to your cheek, leading you down the beach until you come across a picnic set up. you glance around before realizing its for you.

“oh my god, its just like our first date!” you gush, stepping away from rafe to look at the spread.

“before we eat, i have a question to ask you.” you turn around to realize that rafe is on one knee, a velvet jewelry box in his hand.

“oh, rafe.” you press your hand to your mouth, tears already coming to your eyes as he opens the box, revealing a sparkling diamond ring. “will you marry me?”

--

“how am i supposed to look good next to a literal model?” rafe asks as he looks towards the camera, looking almost nervous for once in his life.

“we’ve taken pictures together before rafe.” you roll your eyes, adjusting your wedding dress. it’s actually four weeks after your wedding, but you wanted to get professional photos done with your new husband and asked one of your photographer friends who was more than willing to let you into their studio if they could post some of the photos on their instagram and website.

“mirror selfies and shit, this is more serious.” rafe says as you tug him over to the backdrop.

“you look so handsome, babe. don’t worry.” you smooth your hands over his shoulders. “just think back to our wedding day, we took so many pictures then.”

“i was too distracted by how excited i was to marry you.” rafe says, pressing a kiss to your bare shoulder, the oscar de larenta dress you ended up deciding on being off the shoulder. it was a simple dress, but the closer you got you realized how intricate the lace detail is. “you look just like you did on our wedding day though, baby. the makeup artists did a great job.”

“just tanner.” you joke, having gone on your honeymoon already.

you look as the photographer begins to set up their lens, before you turn to whisper to rafe. “you can’t tell?” you question, pressing your hand to your stomach. you know there’s no way you’d already begin to show, considering your baby is no bigger than a seed, but that doesn’t stop you from getting worried about your pregnancy being discovered early.

“not at all.” rafe shakes his head, but can’t hide the smirk that comes to his face, knowing your tummy will soon swell with his child, having made sure of it many times on the honeymoon.

--

“i was thinking about how we could announce the baby.” you tell rafe as you pad into the kitchen. he’s still making the decaf coffee you were absolutely craving, more syrup and milk than coffee.

“how?” he hums, glancing over at you as you lean against the counter, rubbing your stomach, bump now obvious as you’re over 6 months along. you have managed to keep it a secret so far, saying you were taking a break from modeling to focus on your new marriage. there is of course a lot of speculation that you are pregnant, but it is to be expected.

“calvin klein shoot. like before, except i’ve got a big ol’ bump.” you laugh as rafe finishes you coffee off with some whip cream before sliding the mug to you. “and you can be in it too.”

rafe rolls his eyes as you giggle. “come on! the girls love you, you’re so handsome.”

“i’m not a model.” rafe argues back, but he already knows he’s going to agree, he’d do anything for you, his pregnant wife.

“yeah, but you’re hot like a model.” you shrug, taking a sip of coffee.

“i think this is just an excuse to get me shirtless and in underwear.” rafe laughs, pressing a kiss to your upper lip, cleaning off the whip cream that sat on your cupids bow.

“yeah, and what about it?”

--

“you know theres some hormone to make women forget the pain of birth?” you hum to rafe, keeping your voice soft. “because if you remembered then no one would never do it again.”

“really?” rafe whispers, his voice also hushed as to not wake the sleeping newborn cuddled up in his arms, wrapped in a soft hospital banket.

“yeah.” you nod. “but i don’t wanna forget a moment of this.”

“im sure you wont baby.” rafe kisses your head as your tiny daughter squirms in his arms, letting out a yawn in her slumber. “i suppose i need to use a different name for you now that we’ve got an actual baby.”

you giggle, resting your head against rafes shoulder as you look down on your perfect little girl, already an adorable mixture of you and rafe.

taglist: @drewstarkeyslut @rafecamerongirl @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @jjmaybankisbae @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @babygorewhore @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog @outerbankspov @drewstarkeyswifehoe @cutielando @kamninaries @buckyswhxre @rafeinterlude @bellbottombaby @deeaardiary @rubixgsworld

[pucksandpower]

Hey Natalia, hope you’re doing good ❤️ Please could I request enemies to lovers with Max. You’re constantly at each other’s throats in front of everyone and Christian has had enough of your shit and demands to see you in the office. But when you continue to fight, he’s like nah I don’t wanna be involved, sort your shit out together and leaves. And you end up fucking on his desk and after you’re suddenly super friendly around eachother. Thank you lovely! xxx

Whiplash

Max Verstappen x Red Bull driver!Reader

Summary: You and Max discover that there is a thin line between lust and hate

Warnings: 18+ content

You storm into Christian’s office, scowling as Max follows right behind you. He slams the door shut and you both take a seat across from Christian, refusing to even look at each other.

“I’m sure you both know why I called you in here,” Christian says sternly. “The tension between you two has gone too far. It’s affecting the team and we can’t have that.”

You scoff and cross your arms. “Why don’t you talk to him about it then? I’m not the problem here.”

Max scowls. “Oh please, don’t pretend like you’re so innocent. You’ve been nothing but hostile towards me since the start of the season.”

“Only because you did the same!” You retort. “I was nothing but nice when I first joined the team. You’re the one with the attitude problem.”

“Enough!” Christian shouts, silencing you both. “I don’t care who started it. I’m ending it. We’re in the middle of a championship fight and I need my drivers to work together, not against each other.”

You sink lower in your chair, still refusing to look at Max. The animosity radiates off of him in waves.

“Now you’re going to stay in here until you work this out,” Christian says firmly. “I don’t care if it takes all night. Fix this mess or both of your seats are on the line.”

He heads for the door and you spring up from your chair. “You can’t be serious!”

“Deadly,” Christian replies before shutting the door. You hear the lock click into place from the outside.

You jiggle the handle and pound on the door. “Let us out!”

No response.

He’s really done it, that bastard. Locked you in a room alone with your most hated rival.

You take a deep breath before turning around. Max sits there glaring at you, jaw clenched. “This is ridiculous,” he mutters.

“For once we agree on something,” you snap.

His glare hardens. “Don’t pretend you’re blameless. You’ve been nasty since you got here.”

You storm over to him. “Because you decided to hate me from day one! I tried to be nice but you were so damn hostile. What’s your problem with me anyway?”

Max stands up abruptly, getting in your face. “My problem is you waltzing in here like you own the place when I’m the number one driver.”

You shove him in the chest. “Get over yourself! I earned my spot here.”

He shoves you back. “You don’t deserve to be here.”

Your blood boils as you stare him down. God he’s infuriating. And stubborn as hell. You doubt you’ll ever get him to admit any fault in this situation.

“Well I’m not going anywhere so I guess you’ll just have to get used to it,” you snap.

Max steps even closer, eyes blazing. Your noses nearly touch from how close he stands. “Is that so?” His voice comes out low, almost husky.

A shiver runs down your spine but you keep glaring at him. “Yeah, that’s so.”

You expect him to shoot back some nasty retort. Instead his eyes flick down to your lips for just a moment before meeting your heated gaze again.

Suddenly the energy shifts between you. The anger and tension remains but it transforms into something more primal. More dangerous.

Your breaths come heavier as electricity crackles in the nonexistent space left between you. Max’s pupils are blown wide, his chest rising and falling as rapidly as your own.

“I ...” Your voice comes out hoarse. “We should ...”

But neither of you make any move to step away. Without thinking your tongue darts out to wet your dry lips. Max tracks the movement with his intense stare.

“Fuck it,” he growls before crashing his mouth onto yours.

You gasp into the kiss and he takes advantage, deepening it. His hands grasp your hips roughly as he walks you backwards until your back hits the wall.

You barely process what’s happening. One second you were at each other’s throats, the next his body is pressing urgently against yours.

A moan escapes you when his lips move to your neck. He nips at the sensitive skin there and you thread your fingers into his hair.

“This is insane,” you pant out even as you tug him closer.

“I know,” Max breathes against your neck. His hands skim up your sides, pushing up your shirt. “I hate you.”

“I hate you more.” You crash your lips together again, tasting blood when you nip at him.

Max groans into your mouth as your tongues slide together. He hitches one of your legs around his hip, grinding against you.

You break the kiss to tip your head back, moaning at the feeling. Fuck, you despise this man, but right now you need him more than anything.

His hips keep up that delicious friction as he mouths at your collarbone. “I’m still going to beat you,” he rasps out.

You smirk, nails digging into his shoulders. “In your dreams.”

Max’s eyes darken at your taunt. Without warning, he grips your thighs and lifts you onto Christian’s desk. You gasp as he pushes between your legs, his growing arousal obvious.

“Careful what you wish for,” he murmurs before crushing his mouth to yours once more.

You moan into the frenzied kiss, tongues tangling as you tug at his hair. His hands slide up your thighs, fumbling with the button of your jeans to push them down around your ankles. You wrap your legs around him, pulling him against your heated core.

Even through the layers of clothing you can feel how hard he is. You rock your hips, desperate for more friction. Max groans and moves his lips to your neck, nipping down to your collarbone.

Your head tips back as his fingers dance up your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts. “God, I hate you so much,” you moan.

“I know.” His voice comes out rough, filled with lust.

Impatient, you reach for the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head, tossing it aside. Your eyes rake over his muscular chest and arms. Unable to resist, you lean in and scrape your teeth over his nipple.

Max hisses in a breath, hands clenching on your hips. “Fuck ...”

You grin, laving your tongue over the sensitive nub as your fingers move to his belt buckle. With shaky hands you get it open and reach into his boxers, fingers wrapping around his thick length.

He shudders against you. “Shit, Y/N ...”

You stroke him firmly, reveling in the moans and curses falling from his lips. His own hands move under your shirt, palming your breasts through your bra.

It’s not enough. You strip off your shirt and reach back to unclasp your bra. Max wastes no time dipping his head to capture one of your nipples between his lips.

“Oh god ...” you gasp, back arching into him. His teeth and tongue work over your sensitive peaks until you’re writhing beneath him.

The sound of voices outside the door makes you both freeze. Fuck. The race weekend is still going on around you. Anyone could walk by and hear what’s happening.

You meet Max’s heated gaze. “We should stop,” you pant out half-heartedly.

His eyes blaze with defiance and lust. “No fucking way.”

Before you can react he drops to his knees, grasping your hips to pull you towards the edge of the desk.

Max tugs strongly on your lacy underwear until it gives way at the seams, baring you to him. He pauses to appreciate the view, eyes roaming hungrily over your glistening folds.

“I’m still going to beat you tomorrow,” he rasps.

You tug on his hair impatiently. “Just get on with it before we get caught.”

With a wicked grin he dives in, mouth latching onto your throbbing clit. You cry out, quickly slapping a hand over your own mouth.

You fumble with his belt, desperate to feel him. Max groans as you wrap your hand around his length.

“Fuck, just like that,” he groans against your skin, increasing the rhythm of his tongue in response. The desk rocks dangerously beneath you but neither of you slow your ministrations.

You whimper his name, pleasure building steadily under his expert touch. The fingers of one hand twist in his hair while you keep your other hand moving up and down in measured strokes as you near the edge.

“Look at me,” Max commands raggedly. You open your eyes to meet his wild gaze. The connection between you crackles.

“Max ...” you gasp as your climax crashes over you. You slap a hand over your lips, muffling your cries.

As you float back down, Max withdraws his mouth. You keen at the loss but then he’s lining himself up at your entrance. Gripping your hip tightly, he pushes inside in one smooth motion.

You cling to his shoulders, nails digging in as you adjust around him. Max trembles with restraint, giving you a moment before he starts to move.

Then he sets a relentless pace, the desk slamming against the wall with each powerful snap of his hips. You wrap your legs around him, spurring him even deeper.

Max pounds into you relentlessly, wrenching desperate moans from your lips. You’re vaguely aware of picture frames and papers tumbling to the floor around you but the chaos only adds to the thrill.

You’re close, the pressure building deep inside. With a few more well-angled thrusts you topple over the edge, coming hard around him. Your breasts bounce as your back arches sharply off the desk.

“There you go, princess,” Max rasps. He continues driving into your spasming center until his rhythm turns choppy and erratic.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Max grits out. You clench around him, greedy for his release. His hips stutter and then he spills inside you with a guttural groan. The sensation pushes you over the edge again, your vision whiting out from the intensity.

Breathing raggedly, Max collapses on top of you, pinning you to the desk. You’re both slick with sweat and utterly spent, your heart rates slowly returning to normal. You run your fingers through his damp waves soothingly.

The room is silent save for your heavy breathing. As the haze of lust clears, the ramifications of what just happened settle over you.

You just slept with your sworn rival on your team principal’s desk.

After a long moment Max pulls out of you and steps back, tucking himself away. On shaky legs you slide off the desk, stumbling slightly as you find your feet, and rush to put on your clothes.

Max grabs his shirt off the floor and shrugs back into it. His hair is mussed wildly and his lips are kiss-swollen. You’re sure you look much the same.

You and Max spring apart at the sound of the lock clicking open. Christian strides back into his office, oblivious to the disheveled state that both of his drivers are in.

“Well, have you two worked out your differences?” He looks between you expectantly.

You smooth down your rumpled shirt and attempt to tuck your wild hair back into place. Your cheeks flame as you meet Christian’s gaze.

“I think we’ve come to an ... understanding,” Max says evenly, though you notice a hint of color in his cheeks as well.

Christian surveys his office, taking in the askew trophies and books scattered across the floor. You hold your breath, certain he’s going to put two and two together.

“It seems you had a disagreement about reorganizing my office during your chat,” Christian says wryly.

You nearly choke in surprise. Does he really not realize what just transpired on his desk? You chance a glance at Max and have to suppress a hysterical giggle at the disbelief on his face.

“I apologize for the mess, we got a bit ... heated,” you say, biting your lip to keep from laughing at the double meaning.

“Yes, clearly things escalated between you two.” Christian frowns at a photo of him and Dietrich Mateschitz now lying cracked on the floor. You resist the urge to shrink under his disappointed dad stare.

“However, the important thing is you’ve worked through this animosity once and for all, correct?” He looks between you expectantly.

You and Max nod in unison. “Water under the bridge,” Max assures him. You’re impressed by how steady he manages to keep his voice even as you can see the barely contained mirth dancing in his eyes.

“Excellent. I’ll inform the team that tensions are resolved and they can stop walking on eggshells around the both of you.” Christian claps his hands together, apparently satisfied. “Now get out of here and get ready for free practice.”

You and Max don’t need telling twice. As soon as the door shuts behind you, the laughter you’ve been holding in bubbles out.

“I can’t believe he actually bought that,” Max says between chuckles.

“We literally destroyed his office and he thinks we just had a minor spat,” you giggle, shaking your head incredulously.

Your laughter trails off as the reality of what happened sinks in. You just had crazy hot sex with Max Verstappen. Where do you go from here?

Before you can overthink it, Max presses a soft kiss to your lips. “Meet me at the hotel tonight? We should continue this conversation somewhere more private,” he murmurs suggestively.

You bite your lip but find yourself nodding. As complicated and ill-advised as this may be, you can’t find it in yourself to deny your attraction to Max now that you’ve given in to it.

“It’s a date,” you whisper back.

Max grins and steals another quick kiss before you part ways to get changed.