#professor de Blob

[regitrios]

color underground humanizations

pinky without her poncho..

[evil-city]

Day 52 of making low effort Des doodles until New World Of Steam releases

uwufies that old man AGAIN!!!

[raydianbluesandhues]

dB/dB2 Rambles #1

Welcome to the first of many rambles! --- The game itself consistently mentions the presence of "color energy", which is repurposed and used to make Blob's power-ups and can even be used in a negative light (ie the Hypno Ray). The question is: what exactly is color energy? It's supposedly what makes up Raydia and its inhabitants, from the smallest insect to the largest of Raydians. The trees, water, dirt, roots, and perhaps even the planet's core are created or contain this strange energy. Color energy, when used properly, can create beautiful things. Blob's power-ups (more specifically his rainbow power-up), and even the transform engine, are good examples of these. However, color energy is volatile. It is unpredictable and wild, and one wrong move can cause it to erupt and explode, or give you a result you weren't quite looking for.

Judging by the beams of light erupting from each major landmark in dB2, it's safe to assume that color energy can be split into different colors (ROYGBP and brown). In its purest form, perhaps it's white? Maybe it acts like a prism, where it can split off into these different colors, varying in color energy levels.

This shows in the sentient residents of the planet: Raydians. All Raydians, big and small, vary in shade and hue, their colors as vibrant as the bright beams of energy shining from the landmarks. Their colors are a different combination of color energy; no two Raydians are the same shade. You can have two green Raydians beside each other but you can quickly tell the difference. Perhaps one of them is more yellow than the other. Or maybe one of them is leaning toward a cool teal. Even though the combination of color energy makes them green, the levels of color energy are never truly 50/50. "Are you blue or purple? Are you yellow or orange" are common questions amongst the species. Sometimes some colors look so similar to each other because of the levels of energy within them. Do you remember those crayons that came in that 64 Crayola pack? Do you remember all of those colors? Red-violet, yellow-orange, red-orange, etc? You can get colors like that purely based on the levels of color energy. It makes them unique in a way.

But there is another question: how come Blob can't be yellow-green? Or blue-violet?

Well, just because we haven't seen him turn these colors in the games doesn't mean that he can't. Game-wise, the developers probably wanted to keep the game simple. Lore wise? Those were the only colors provided to him. With the right amount of paintbot mixing, he could be a nice yellow-green or blue-green. It just requires a lot of mixing on his part. It's like mixing a paint can.

[tastymarbar]

☆Welcome to the hyperfixation hellhole!☆

(shout out to one of my besties for the title lmao <3)

☆COMISSION LIST (open - 1/3 taken)

☆ KO-FI (for casual tips) ☆ Also on: Twitter (semi-active) | Comicfury (semi-active) ☆ Hamtoshi (Hidetoshi/femc) discord server!

☆ Art tag: #mar draws things ☆ Reblog tag: #mar reblogs ☆ Text post tag: #mar talks ☆ OC tag: #my ocs

About me!

About time I did one of these- Hi there! my name is Mar (female, they/them), i'm currently 23 and uhhh my favourite colour is blue :3

Gay/Ace || Autism and ADHD, i'm also kind of socially anxious frequently so if I don't respond to anything (or take a long time) it's probably because of one or more of these things, sorry in advance!

Feel free to send asks about anything, i'm usually always down to info dump about something XD

☆ Fandoms I'm in!

☆ Persona (3, 4 & 5) - CURRENT HYPERFIXATION, very active! >kenji tag: #mar kenji posting >p3p playthrough tag: #mar plays p3p ☆ Pokemon - Semi-active, mostly draws art for it here and there ☆ Mob Psycho 100 - not currently active, but will like relevant posts here and there ☆ Honkai Star Rail - I am frequently playing the game, but not very active in the fandom ☆ Professor Layton - not currently active, but will like relevant posts here and there [PL sideblog, inactive: bluehattedapprentice ] ☆ Pretty cure/Precure - lurking but actively watches the anime ☆ Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Ace Attorney, Kirby, Mario & Sonic the Hedgehog - lurking, but not currently active, will like posts here and there

☆ Other stuff that I like: (but i'm not really a part of and just quietly enjoy)

☆ Undertale, Deltarune, Gravity falls, Steven Universe, De Blob 1 & 2, Miitopia, Good Omens and then like... various anime that would extend this list greatly so I won't but feel free to ask me about it...

☆Comfort Characters!

☆Teddie/Kuma from Persona 4 ☆ Luke Triton from Professor Layton ☆ Mob/Kageyama Shigeo from Mob Psycho 100

☆Favourites that live rent free in my head:

*Note: comfort character also count to this list

☆ Joker (Persona 5) ☆ Kenji Tomochika (Persona 3) ☆ Herlock Sholmes (the great ace attorney chronicles ☆ Monoma Neito (My Hero Acadamia) ☆ Gengar and several other favourite pokemon, but mostly Gengar... (pokemon) ☆ Dimentio (Super Paper Mario) ☆ Daroach & King Dedede (Kirby)

[everystephoftheway]

camp cloudtop: chapter twenty-three

This can be found on ao3 as well.      

It was late into the night–or early into the morning depending on your preference of wording–and once again Percy found himself unable to sleep. Those dark circles under his eyes were not by choice; ever since the accident, he found it nearly impossible to get a full night’s sleep without some kind of aid, and since he was now working with children five days out of the week he didn’t think drinking himself into unconsciousness was the way to go. Instead, he simply endured the long hours; this time, with no Vex around, he remained in bed with his laptop, the bright light making him squint behind his glasses. 

He had been scrolling through forum after forum for the last two hours, trying his best to scrounge up any more information about Whitestone and the Briarwoods. Most of what he saw he already knew: Whitestone residents discussed the quick ascent the Briarwoods took in their city-state, wondering what their intentions were, where they came from. Many lamented the loss of the majority of the de Rolo family, and while some expressed pity and understanding for Percy and his sister and their decision to stay in Emon for the rest of their schooling, many called for new leaders, ones that didn’t run from their claim of leadership.

Percy rolled his eyes at the banality of it all, those who didn’t know what they were talking about talking anyway. It happened his whole life, gossip and rumors and assumptions. He had every intention of claiming his role as sovereign once he finished school, but he had zero intentions of telling the whole world that. It was none of their business. Besides, if he changed his mind it would be much easier to explain if he hadn’t announced it in the first place.

After a few more threads theorizing about Professor Anders and the group currently watching over Whitestone, Percy stopped at something significantly more interesting. The title of the thread simply read, “Is Lady Briarwood crazy?”, and when Percy clicked on the link, a distant but decently clear picture loaded on the first post. It was a picture of Delilah just outside the castle walls, stepping out of her carriage. A second picture zoomed in closer to her arms; while normally the woman wore long sleeves and equally long gloves, this picture showed her putting her gloves on, the skin on her forearm visible. Percy leaned in to try and get a closer look, zooming in on his screen, and found several symbols scribbled into her skin. Not onto. Into.

“What the fuck–” 

He immediately saved the photo to his computer and opened a photo editor, doing his best to get a sharper image. Once he couldn’t get it any better, he ran the photo into a search engine. The first few results were nothing but gibberish, but toward the bottom of the page he found a website not updated in years talking about an old figure he had never heard of.

“The Whispered One?” 

Even if there had been a chance he’d fall asleep prior to this, Percy threw that out of the window as he sat up, reached for his notebook, and started delving into whatever–or whoever–this Whispered One was.

X.X.X

Melodies from Scanlan’s lute reverberated out from the stage where he sat in front of a swarm of young kids, singing songs about farm animals and–if Keyleth heard correctly–poop covered farm land. She and Vax sat on the floor toward the back of the room, both of them with their legs crossed, piles of decorations and flyers in front of them. Pike and Grog were with them, their kids with Scanlan too; Pike was busy organizing flyers by neighborhood for people to pass out after work, while Grog was doing his best to cut out some stars out of yellow construction paper, but with office scissors in his big hands the stars came out looking more like deformed blobs.

“How are things going with Kash?” Vax looked up from the little flowers he was busy gluing together, dark eyes landing on Keyleth’s wide-eyed look of surprise.

“What?” She glanced over at Pike and Grog who tried very hard to act like they were minding their own business. “Oh. Things are fine,” she shrugged. “Nice.”

“That’s good. I hadn’t seen you two around each other the last couple days. I wanted to make sure you were alright.” 

Keyleth smiled softly at his care, her shoulders raising a bit as if she were a turtle trying to hide in her shell. “Thank you. Yeah, I’m okay. We…he had asked me to become official the other night. After we met at the diner.” 

There was a brief lift of surprise in Vax’s expression, but he was quick to school himself, his hands busy with some brown construction paper he seemed to be folding into a ring. “Oh. And did that not…?”

“I told him I wasn’t ready. There’s a lot going on, and I wasn’t sure–”

“You don’t have to justify your reasoning, Kiki. If you’re not ready then he should respect that.”

“He did. He does. But I think I hurt his feelings a little bit anyway.” 

Vax nodded. With the ring now glued together, he started gluing the little flowers around it. “Male pride is a funny thing. I’m sure he’ll come around, though. I doubt he wants to lose you.” He looked like he was going to continue, but Vax simply cleared his throat, smiled at her with an ease she wasn’t quite sure how he managed, and leaned forward to place the now completed flower crown gently upon her head.

“Oh.” She reached up to touch it ever so slightly, her smile blooming. “Thanks, Vax. It’s beautiful.” 

“Like I said,” he sat back on his hands. “I doubt he wants to lose you.”

“Hey, Vax!” Grog turned to Vax like an excited puppy. “Can I have one of those?” 

The group chuckled, and Vax leaned forward again, tapping Grog’s shoulder. “Sure, big man.”

[kitkatopinions]

I’m gobsmacked that people are still like “honestly I think Ironwood’s arc is super well done because if you look back at some of the things he did in the earlier seasons, not all of it was perfect and his character has flaws. Such art being made! His villainy is undeniable!” Like, my friends?? What??

First of all. No amount of foreshadowing no matter how excellently done can make a fall of villainy look well done if the actual fall itself is still rushed or badly written. I was introduced to the character of Kylo Ren through him being a massive unapologetic evil villain, but when the Last Jedi was like “yeah, Luke ‘saw darkness’ in the future of the young training jedi son of Leia and Han and almost murdered him... so he went on a massive murder spree and turned into a sith lord working for an evil Empire trying to subjugate everything” I was still sitting here feeling like that was really hard to believe. Ironwood went from being a struggling leader trying to save as many people as he could while being backed into a wall and was launched into a maniacally laughing evil for the sake of evil villain trying to bomb people over the course of two in-universe days. Over the course of just over one season that was jam packed full of too many characters fighting for the spotlight. And the writers didn’t let their characters ever sit with or deal with his ever-escalating villainy so that it feels like Oscar just kinda forgot that Ironwood shot him and Ruby never even knew. And nobody reacted to the villainy like it was actually surprising, or even kinda weird, not even Oz or Qrow. I could go on, but my point is that the complaint of rw/de posers is usually ‘this fall to villainy was so badly done that it was unbelievable’ and not ‘Ironwood had never done anything that might indicate a future fall to villainy.’

Second of all. This is a show where the characters are supposed to be more than two-dimensional characterless blobs of shallow nothing, right? They’re all supposed to have flaws! Any character who matters more to the story and has more screen time than Velvet the side character from seasons 1-3 should have both good traits and bad traits, should make mistakes, and have instances where they’re kinda fucking up. A character having flaws doesn’t make them evil. A character being stressed out doesn’t mean they’re definitely gonna be a villain. A character doing the wrong thing doesn’t mean they’re going to be fine with torture later. And the thing is, RW/BY as a show does have all of their main characters or B-listers have flaws, they just also refuse to acknowledge some of the flaws or refuse to give consequences to some characters and let them grow. So there’s this really weird idea in the fn/dm sometimes that seeing Ironwood do something wrong or display a flaw is ‘proof’ that his villainy was always just under the surface and therefore anyone who says it doesn’t make sense for him to try to murder children is just a stupid lying fake, when in reality, every single somewhat important RW/BY character from Ruby Rose herself to Professor Ooblek makes mistakes or has flaws. Take Weiss, for example. Weiss was a spoiled brat who was actively anti-Faunus, wanted to call the police on Blake, never apologized, accidentally attacked some lady at a party, fell into the Salem fight more or less on accident, has drawn her weapon on an ally for the crime of stepping forward and saying hey, put her own needs above the world-saving mission in the ‘steal a plane to get over the Atlas boarder’ plot, stuck her weapon in the face of an auraless teenage civilian for not immediately springing to the side without being asked upon seeing her in his doorway while she was a badge carrying law enforcement officer, and her entire motivation has been wanting the name of her billionaire family with a sketchy at best history to be reclaimed from the ‘bad apple’ non-blood-relation by her and she treated losing her status as a billionaire heiress like a massive blow to her morality and exchanges funny quips with her one faunus friend about how her family owns so much. And she was also, you know, involved in sitting around in a tearoom while people died around her, and trapping everyone in Atlas in Salem’s direct line of fire and putting Mantle and the world at risk at the same time. And she could easily be seen as the actual ‘Evil Queen’ of her own Snow White story with enough work, with her song Path to Isolation being about being a bitter and angry hard cold person who creates her own isolation after her losses and also the fact that she’s got White Witch from Narnia vibes on top of that. Weiss is a character with a lot of great potential to be a villain, all it would take is work and dedication and good writing and her fall to villainy could be super well done, heartbreaking, and convincing. And yet it would still be really out of character and freaking weird and bad writing if she started trying to kill Jaune next season and then randomly tried to destroy Vacuo, and said Ruby was an enemy she wished she’d tortured, and started maniacally laughing and shooting down Whitley when he tried to be like ‘what the fuck, Weiss.’ Like, I’d be right here on Tumblr talking about how horrible and badly done it was. Ironwood having flaws and making mistakes isn’t proof of evil, it doesn’t make what became of him automatically good.

Like guys, please stop saying this dumb thing.

[generalb]

@rowanoke @underestimated-heroine @splatoonmaster69 @mx-menace im directly @ ‘ing y’all because otherwise this poll will probably not see more than like 3 people that actually follow me, plus now you get to vote! If you want to

[ennmaximof4]

BLOB

Frederick Dukes

Mutante / Irmandade

• Aumento de Gravidade: A principal habilidade sobre-humana de Blob era tornar-se virtualmente imóvel à vontade, desde que ele estivesse em contato com o solo. Ele faz isso ligando-se à terra abaixo dele pela força de vontade, o que na verdade cria um aumento mono direcional da gravidade abaixo dele. Este campo de gravidade se estende por cerca de um metro e meio de raio a partir de seu centro de equilíbrio. Assim, se existe força suficiente para desenraizá-lo, ela ocupa o solo sob seus pés em uma área correspondente ao raio do campo. Por meio de intensa concentração, o Blob é capaz de estender o campo de gravidade abaixo dele por mais de um metro e meio.

√ Eventualmente, me ofereceram algumas opções - como um acordo 'Cara, você é bom, coroa, você é ruim'. eu escolhi caudas! - Dukes.

HISTÓRIA:

Fred Dukes, também conhecido como "Blob", é um mutante cujos poderes sobre-humanos latentes se manifestaram quando ele atingiu a puberdade. Suas principais fraquezas eram seu temperamento explosivo, falta de previsão, falta de inteligência e sua auto-estima facilmente manipulada. Pensando em si mesmo como nada mais do que, em suas próprias palavras, "uma aberração extraforte", o Blob usou seus poderes mutantes sobre-humanos como artista em um carnaval.

Os X-Men originais vieram ao carnaval em suas identidades cotidianas para convidá-lo a se encontrar com seu mentor, o professor Charles Xavier. Atraído pela bela jovem X-Men Jean Grey, o Blob aceitou, e foi com os X-Men para a Mansão de Xavier. Lá, Xavier pediu ao Blob para se juntar aos X-Men, mas o Blob recusou arrogantemente. Xavier então soube que tinha que usar seus poderes mentais para apagar o conhecimento do Blob sobre as verdadeiras identidades dos X-Men. Mas o Blob não tinha intenção de deixar isso acontecer e, após lutar contra os X-Men, escapou de volta para o carnaval.

O Blob aprendeu ao conhecer Xavier que ele próprio era um mutante poderoso sobre-humano. Acreditando-se superior às pessoas normais, o Blob dominou o carnaval. Sabendo que os X-Men o consideravam perigoso porque ele sabia quem eles realmente eram, o Blob decidiu atacá-los primeiro. Ele liderou os outros membros do carnaval em um ataque à mansão de Xavier. O Blob esperava roubar quaisquer descobertas científicas e armas especiais que os X-Men pudessem possuir e usá-las contra humanos comuns. No entanto, os X-Men derrotaram o Blob e seus aliados, e Xavier apagou suas memórias dos X-Men.

Mais tarde, Magneto tentou recrutar o Blob para sua Irmandade de Mutantes do Mal. Um golpe severo na cabeça restaurou a memória do Blob dos X-Men, e ele se juntou à Irmandade de Magneto em um ataque contra eles. No meio da batalha, Magneto lançou um poderoso torpedo contra os X-Men, sem se importar que o Blob estivesse no caminho. Torpedos atingiram o Blob, mas não o feriram gravemente. A Irmandade escapou, e o Blob, sentindo-se traído, jurou nunca mais confiar em ninguém e voltou ao seu trabalho com o carnaval.

Eventualmente, o Blob foi recrutado por Mystique para sua nova Irmandade de Mutantes do Mal. Embora o Blob continuasse a operar independentemente da organização de Mystique desde então, ele permaneceu como membro do grupo. Mystique logo percebeu a crescente atividade anti-mutante do governo dos Estados Unidos e ofereceu os serviços da Irmandade ao governo, renomeando o grupo como "Força da Liberdade". O Blob participou da primeira missão oficial da Freedom Force para o governo: a captura de Magneto, seu ex-líder na Irmandade original.

O Blob logo se juntou a outra versão da Irmandade dos Mutantes do Mal, liderada por seu antigo companheiro de equipe da Irmandade original, o Sapo. Esta equipe foi derrotada pela equipe de ataque mutante fora da lei chamada X-Force.

Enquanto estava no Starlite-Casino em Atlantic City, o Blob foi um dos milhares de mutantes a perder seus poderes devido ao feitiço da Feiticeira Escarlate. Sua pele não encolheu para compensar a perda de sua massa inchada, no entanto, dando-lhe enormes dobras de pele solta por todo o corpo e fazendo com que ele se tornasse suicida. De volta a Nova York, ele veio a conhecer, em um beco, Sally Floyd, que trabalhava no Ex-Mutant Diaries. Não querendo ser entrevistado, ele deu a ela a dica para investigar o Instituto Ravencroft.

Eventualmente, culpando o governo pelo Dia M, ele se juntou a outros ex-mutantes no grupo terrorista X-Cell. Depois de entrar em uma briga por engano com Rictor e Multiple Man e acertar um tiro barato em Rictor, ele roubou um carro. Com outro membro do X-Cell, Fatale. Depois de se livrar de suas dobras de pele em excesso de alguma forma e se reinventar como guru da perda de peso, ator e estrela de reality show Freddie Dukes, ele foi visto mais tarde com Magneto quando ele foi para o Alto Evolucionário para recuperar seus poderes.

Com seus poderes aparentemente restaurados pelo MGH produzido de Dazzler, ele se juntou a Mystique em suas tentativas de transformar Madripoor em um santuário mutante. Depois de ouvir que Magneto também estava na ilha, Blob o recebeu e o trouxe para conhecer Mystique. Para o choque de Blob, no entanto, Magneto reagiu violentamente ao plano, acreditando que Mystique e os outros eram traidores de suas espécies, em parte devido a permitir que o uso do hormônio do crescimento mutante corresse desenfreado nas ruas para financiar suas operações. Ele feriu gravemente Blob e a Irmandade, e saiu depois de fazer sua base desabar.

Quando a Senhorita Sinistra começou a fazer experiências com um vírus poderoso conhecido como Mothervine, ela sequestrou Blob e o testou nele. O corpo inconsciente de Fred foi deixado para trás pela Srta. Sinistra em seu laboratório para que os X-Men o encontrassem quando investigassem suas atividades. O Blob acordou logo depois que Anjo e Jimmy Hudson invadiram o laboratório e ele os atacou. Durante a luta ele manifestou uma mutação secundária causada por Mothervine, a habilidade de esticar seu corpo. No entanto, rapidamente ficou fora de controle e ele derreteu dolorosamente em uma bolha literal que desceu pelo ralo.

Na realidade criada por Nate Gray e Life Seed, um mundo onde todos na Terra eram mutantes e os relacionamentos eram fortemente desencorajados ou ilegais, Blob era o líder do Departamento X, a força policial encarregada de investigar e prender mutantes dissidentes. Ao contrário de sua personalidade dominante, a versão de Dukes dessa realidade era uma alma gentil e atenciosa, investindo no bem-estar de sua equipe e dos mutantes em geral. Ele também era um excelente padeiro.

No dia seguinte, Blob liderou o Departamento X em uma queima controlada de uma floresta próxima, a fim de dar aos X-Men uma catástrofe para administrar. Mais tarde naquela noite, enquanto trabalhavam sozinhos, Psylocke confrontou Blob com seu conhecimento de seus sentimentos por ela, oferecendo-se para apagá-los para ele e até mesmo implantar sentimentos moderados de nojo por ela.

Dias depois, o Departamento X investigou uma denúncia de uma festa adolescente dissidente em uma antiga biblioteca em ruínas. A equipe logo descobriu um grupo de adolescentes, que Moneta insistiu que eram de fato parte de um "perigoso culto retrógrado". Embora os adolescentes inicialmente tenham optado por fugir, alguns membros de seu grupo reuniram seus companheiros para lutar contra o Departamento X, inspirados pelo revolucionário Murshid En Sabah Nur.

Depois que Nate Gray devolveu todos os mutantes às suas identidades convencionais, Blob e Psylocke foram vistos em frente a um dos portais de volta ao seu universo natal.

Blob foi um dos muitos mutantes que se juntaram à nação mutante de Krakoa após sua criação. Ele foi visto ao lado de muitos outros krakoanos observando o cadáver de Charles Xavier após sua morte nas mãos de criminosos sobre-humanos anti-mutantes que se infiltraram nas defesas de Krakoa e mataram muitos de seus residentes, incluindo Xavier. Em Krakoa, Blob também atua como barman no Green Lagoon.

-> MOVIES:

[bansq]

Sorry if you already answered this before, but since Techno's the champion and Tommy's a bug catcher, what do Phil and Wilbur do in the Pokémon AU? /gen

i'm going to preface this with de-canonizing sbi family dynamic. here is a chart to help a bit:

wilbur is a pokemon professor, he specializes in pokemon habitats. it started small with regular habitats and regional forms, but eventually he became obsessed with finding out more about different realities and the creatures that habit them. when phil found out about how far wilbur's spiral had gone, he told wilbur to stop or he would inform the authorities about wilbur's research. hven get to take the challenge. he has 1/5 stars on yelp.

wilbur is a pokemon professor, he specializes in pokemon habitats. it started small with regular habitats and regional forms, but eventually it escalated and he became obsessed with finding out more about different dimensions and the creatures that inhabit them. when phil found out about how far wilbur's spiral had gone and how it had affected wilbur's mental health he told wilbur to stop or he would inform the authorities about his research, causing wilbur to stop. this of course greatly affected their relationship, and while phil is under the assumption they are finally mending their bond, wilbur is conducting his research in secret, getting funding from some very sus places.

in short: phil, under the impression that he is helping, made wilbur feel betrayed. wilbur was manipulated into helping criminal organisations so he gets to do his research and they get access to different realities. there's a sussy little blob guy with a smiley face who's very fascinated with legendary pokemon residing in other dimensions. wilbur, wanting to be close to his father, is now lying and helping a criminal organisation. phil stays ignorant and thinks everything is okay. they all need therapy.

[sagendipity]

the law of attraction: de minimis

a quackity x reader law school au

part one, chapter one

[PREV] | [NEXT]

.

The first myth about law school is that everyone is the same.

In movies, in TV shows, in books- everyone in law school is a certain type of person. Dangerously smart, hardworking to a fault, and absolutely cutthroat.

Now, that is true. To get this far, to get into a competitive law school and make it to your final year, you have to be all of the above. Smart, hardworking, and just a little cunning. It’s impossible to get a leg up unless you’re standing on someone else’s knee.

Or neck.

However, the fact that everyone here has to have a certain few traits in order to survive does not mean that they cannot have other traits.

Some are louder, exuberant, and competitive- the type to yell out the answer to a question before raising their hand, the type to go back and forth with the professor when they’re sure they’re right (and they’re not). There’s the introverts, the sly ones you never see coming, who you barely notice next to you all year until you glance over at the grade on their final and it’s a 110%, somehow.

Of course, there’s also the in-between. The respectable ones, the students that are just there to get through the classes they need and get a respectable job at a respectable law firm and make something nice out of their lives.

Or the hero type, the ones that are convinced they can fix any injustice they perceive in the world- the environmental lawyers, the criminal defense lawyers, the civil rights lawyers. They might be right, too, which is why it seems like a never-ending flow of them are pouring into the school at each orientation.

It’s not always as simple as that, of course. You, like many students, are a mix of a few types. You lie somewhere between the exuberant and introverted sides, not shy about answering questions in lectures, but not jumping the gun to cause discourse, either. A bit of a hero type, you must admit, but you do pride yourself on being reasonable when it comes to your life’s expectations. You don’t expect to become some William Kunstler. You work hard, you get shit done, and like law school has a tendency to do, it seems to become your whole entire life.

The type of person you never quite got a read on is Alex.

He’s been sitting next to you in your upper level criminal procedure class for the entire semester. A whole semester’s worth of lectures means you have plenty of time to observe and analyze the people in your classes- its not like there’s anything else to do when the professor is going over voir dire for the third hour that week.

You pegged the kid in the third row as a die-hard businessman. He’s not going into law to help people, he’s going into law to make the most profit off of the most vulnerable clients he can find. The girl in row six, however, is definitely the hero type, judging by her “save the oceans” stickers on her giant re-usable coffee cups.

Alex, though, you can’t read. He dresses down compared to the other students. They dress up to hide their shortcomings, like their fancy coats can stop them from feeling bad about their less-than-adequate qualifications for the internship they just applied for. Others just like to lean into the New York City aesthetic and dress like they’re already lawyers, even despite failing their last midterm. You fall into that category- you can’t help it, it’s a fun look- but hey, you definitely didn’t fail your midterm, and you’ve lived in New York your whole life, so you think you have the right to dress like that.

Alex dresses like he has nothing to hide. He dresses like the young, high-level professor who is always cracked out on Redbull and hasn’t graded a paper in his life; like the cute, fascinating barista at the local hipster coffee shop you can barely afford. He dresses like that one guy you’d see on the subway one day and never manage to forget because of how his eyes met yours for a split second.

To be fair, that is kind of how it’s gone. It’s not exactly like the two of you met on the subway, and you’ve definitely interacted more than just a passing glance, but goddammit is Alex stuck in your head.

You convince yourself it’s just because he’s such a mystery. It’s not because he has really sweet brown eyes, or the most charming, unruly hair you’ve seen this side of the Midwest. It’s not because he whispers a joke under his breath whenever your professor says something stupid, or because he bumps your ankles together and shares an amused glance with you when that one really annoying kid pipes up with an opinion no one wanted.

It’s just because you don’t know why he’s here, and you don’t know what he wants, and you don’t know how to read him.

It bugs you. It gets under your skin- not like an itch, more like a hum. He’s on the back of your mind constantly, like you’re trying to subconsciously figure out what’s up with him, but to this day you’ve had no success.

It’s not like you think about anything substantial in regards to him- every time your traitorous brain brings him up, you put it down quicker than it came up. Getting attached to people is dangerous in the best of circumstances, but getting attached to the absolute enigma of a guy in your criminal procedure class who you can’t even confidently say is named Alex would be equivalent to signing up for heartbreak.

“Don’t date law boys,” your roommate had lamented after she had done just that, laid across her rose-pink bedspread with a sleeve of crackers clutched in one hand and a tissue in the other. She had then blown her nose unattractively. “Lawyers have a reputation for being soulless for a reason. They’re only here for themselves. Fuck them.”

Despite that, you find yourself friends with Alex. As if you’d be able to resist the self-satisfied grins he flashes at you when the professor praises him for a particularly poignant answer, or the way he holds his hand out under the table for a high-five after you nail the answer to a cold call. You barely know anything about him, and yet, you know enough to decide he’s a good person.

“Alex”, whose name you’re only about 80% sure of- maybe it’s short for Alexander, but you thought you’d heard someone he was on the phone with call him Q, so maybe he’s a Quinn or a Quentin?

“Alex”, who shows up looking more comfortable than you’ve been in your entire life, and still manages to hold an air of confidence around him that you’d not be able to master even in your finest long coat and shirt.

“Alex”, who seems determined to wiggle his way into your heart in any way he can.

“Alex”, who you seem to be powerless to resist.

.

This growing attachment to Alex of yours is only strengthened with each lecture. You share this class three times a week, two hours each on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It’s a focus class, meaning that anyone who wants to go into criminal work should take this course. It’s challenging, it’s competitive, and it’s cutthroat.

And it’s only February.

A cold Monday morning in February, in fact, with the clock above your professor’s desk ticking obnoxiously as the big hand nears the 8. Outside, it’s downright miserable: windy and foggy. The outside of the paneled windows of the classroom are glazed in a sticky frost, reducing the figures of passing students to dull blobs as they hurry through the whipping wind to get to their classes.

The big doors at the back of the classroom close with a bang that reverberates throughout the lecture hall, cutting through the murmuring chatter of the students who are already here. Out of the corner of your eye you catch a flash of green- as you suspect, it’s Alex. He always takes the seat on the very end of the row, and you the one immediately to his right. You look up at him with what you hope is a casual smile, but the one he returns is so bright it could probably melt the frost off of the windows.

“Hey!” he says, too awake for 8 in the morning, and sets his binder down on the desk with a clatter. The whoosh of air rustles the paper of your notebook, which you smooth back down habitually. You watch Alex longer than you should, only tearing your gaze away after you notice the smattering of tiny snowflakes that have gathered atop the beanie he’s wearing.

You stifle a little laugh. This guy wears a beanie to law school.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he settles into his seat. He shrugs off his hunter green jacket, leaving him in just a gray hoodie, dotted with darker spots from melting snowflakes that’d been blown into him. He drops his outer jacket across his lap just as the room goes silent, your professor walking up to his desk.

As the last tails of conversations die off, you turn to Alex, unable to help yourself, “You have… snowflakes, on your head.”

He glances at you, a little huff of laughter escaping him as he brings up a hand to smooth over the beanie. The snowflakes are swiped off, melting on the heat of his hand- you wonder how it would feel held in yours, probably warm, he looks like he runs hot- and you pry your eyes away as he straightens out his beanie and tucks his hair up into the brim of it. He misses a strand, and the black swoop stands out sharply against the frost-paled skin of his face.

“Happy February,” your professor begins, his microphone crackling to life. “The month of love, is it not? Just two weeks until Valentines day.”

He swings his bag up onto the stool next to him, the sound echoing through the microphone. He turns to face the lecture hall, arms spread as if welcoming you all to a talk show.

“I’m about to ruin all of your Valentines Day plans. Welcome to the start of your final project: the mock trial.”

.

[theprincelyking]

Uncle Cass (Professor Caraway Redesign)

Here’s to more High guardian redesigns! This time we have Professor Caraway! The, to put it lightly, immortal post apocalyptic trans man, and a new de facto DAD! This post is going to be much longer and different because I’m going to describe him in the way he would describe himself! So there is going to be a lot of sass!

(Ahem)

I’ll bet your wondering just who in the fresh hell is this and why does he look like will burn everything to the ground? This is Ash Caraway. He’s pretty much a walking ‘human’ disaster for two reasons. The first one being that he unfortunately got the short end of the stick with his genetics. He doesn’t give a shit about being ugly, but let’s just say something was missing when he was being made in the hell’s kitchen of life. He ordered a hot dog but got the buns instead. So like a angry DIY expert hellbent on pissing off his family that insisted a hotdog bun was fine, he had to fix it up to his liking. He learned money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy you “Man in a Can” as he calls it.

To quote his experience: “God probably hates us now, so that’s probably why he decided I was going to bleed to death every couple times a year!”

Also he’s the sole survivor of the apocalypse's that wiped out humanity hundreds of years ago...Yeah that kinda sucks, being the only ‘human’ in a land of nothing. He...REALLY shouldn’t be alive at this point. Caraway survived the explosion and transformed into a creature much like another good chunk of those above ground, but unlike those that evolved into glorified D&D parties or just became the latest slime recipe (Nuclear radiation + Explosion + Human souls = Black slime!). He didn’t change all that much. He never grew old nor evolved. He’s just a boring old human.

But he does have strange abilities. Like how he’s able to get his limbs shattered or chopped up and yet they grow back like some sort of creepy gecko tail. At least he wont starve...Since he’s stuck here for the rest of his unending life. He unironically wears the ‘All my friends are dead shirt’ since pretty much no humans are around. Because for some reason, he’s immortal. No mater what he’s done or what the monsters have done, he can’t seem to die...

All he has left is a giant book, compiling all of human life he could document. He hopes to at least REMEMBER the good parts of human life, maybe then he would find hope in all those empty overgrown buildings and broken skeletons...Humanity’s never going to be restored, since no one HUMAN can survive up here. He’s come to accept that. All the humans that survived without transforming into either a creature or a blob died from their injuries or the poising. He only wants to preserve  human history. At least for himself...

Then he hears a laugh...More than one, he finds...Children? In brown protective gear, wearing helmets...No, he was just hallucinating again, right? Human children wouldn’t last a day up here...If they were though...

He would protect them with his immortal, unending life. Perhaps he should hold faith in humanity after all...

(TDLR; Trans man turns into an immortal human being hellbent on documenting humanity. He finds children from underground and becomes their de facto father)

[ubemango]

one time, in your room (m)

note: I wrote this after receiving such an enthusiastic response to my virgin!jk drabbles. I really can’t thank you guys enough for expressing interest in this story, it really helped jumpstart lunyua lol 😭😭🥰🥰!!!!!!! I’m happy she’s back:) I would be absolutely nowhere without it heheh. My thank yous are also due to Violet and my crème de la crème for helping me write this back in March--I love you both very, very much!!!!!! Enjoy :D

DISCLAIMER. there’s one scene based off a tweet that I can’t find the link to lol... it’s about getting fingered till u cry. You’ll know when you get there 😭

PAIRING. jeongguk/reader GENRE. romance, college au RATED. M WORD COUNT. 17.3k WARNINGS. alcohol, oral (f receiving), cum shot, fingering, sexting, phone sex/masturbation, face sitting, riding, talks about Babies, jk loving oc A Lot SUMMARY. There are papers to write, and virgins to daydream about. (You can think about Jeongguk’s dick later.)

                                          part 1: emergency tactics

It started five months in.

Jimin probably didn’t mean anything by it. There’s talk and then there’s inebriation, and Jimin slurred roughly between the two like the drunkard he is. But Jeongguk was still hurt and you didn’t know what to do.

“He called me a pussy then told me to fuck one instead,” Jeongguk said under the strobe lights, the plastic ones you buy at the dollar store and you know it’s Hoseok who got them because he’s frugal, not cheap. The couch was itchy under your skirt. “Am I—is it really that bad? Like am I doing this wrong? Am I taking too long, or—”

“No, oh my god. Babe,” you said, and the cooler in your hand found the floor before you cupped his face. He was pouting. “Doing things—like that—it’s—it shouldn’t be something you stress over, okay? Don’t listen to other people. I like you. And Jimin is a whore.”

Jeongguk snorted. You could still see the doubt in his eyes, though. Shiny because he’s tipsy, but that downward droop still there. “You’re the best,” he said as sincere as he could sound.

And he’d left it at that. He got way more drunk though, definitely influenced by his post-teen-pre-adult angst but what’s a 21-year-old supposed to do with ample service of alcohol and an aching heart? You’d left him to it and cleaned the vomit on his shirt after. It was an okay party.

It stayed okay for a bit, too. Jeongguk isn’t an insecure person, but his bouts of uncertainty were getting more and more frequent. Especially when all his friends were naturally horny and really fucking stupid.

“So you’ve been dating for almost eight months and you—still haven’t defiled him,” Jimin says, now absolutely sober and still absolutely dumb.

You can feel Jeongguk’s ears heat up. “Dude.”

Jimin ignores him and turns to you. “Aren’t you like—bored?”

“When will you stop talking,” Jeongguk murmurs through a bite of his burrito bowl.

“I’m not,” you answer Jimin, flipping through another page of a study on birth control. A convoluted piece of shit, as Taehyung put so eloquently, but he left a couple minutes ago for a study group. “And stop bullying him.”

“I’m just shocked,” Jimin continues. “How does someone so hot end up with someone even hotter and like—not immediately participate in procreation. This is a crime!”

“Look.” Your textbook flips closed. “I don’t know what your obsession is with this guy’s dick over here, but it’s mine to worry about.”

“I think you upset her,” Jeongguk says.

“I know what it’s like to be pressured into sex,” you say. You feel Jimin lock up. “Look—sorry, that was baggage and I’m stressed.” Jimin nods. “But seriously? It’s—he’s—Jeongguk’s fine the way he is, alright?”

You taper off. It’s silent save for the milling of other students in the quad, but the air is thick. Sliced through with your anger but you’d rather have this conversation in private, without Jimin and his probing. Unnerving Jeongguk was like lighting the fuse in you, and maybe it was the instinct to preserve whatever purity Jimin keeps insisting on but you’ve never seen your boyfriend so upset about something. It kind of hurt to see him like this.

You get back to taking notes when Jimin talks again. “I’ll go,” he says. “Jeongguk I—”

“It’s fine.” Doesn’t sound like it though because he’s tight-lipped. 

Jimin salutes and sidles away. A bubble of unfinished conversations swells around you.

“Thanks for—that, I guess,” he says.

Your highlighter squeaks against the paper. “Jeongguk.”

“M’yeah?”

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

Maybe that was a bad start because Jeongguk sputters. You think he squawks, too—and he’s definitely fidgeting, lots of cut-off noises in his throat as he tries to say anything coherent. You look at him and he finally takes a breath in. “I—”

“You’re worried.”

His face contorts in confusion. “About what?”

“I don’t know. But I can feel it.”

“Same wavelength,” he laughs. Empty but he knows you’re just trying to help.

“Look.” He doesn’t but that’s because you’ve turned back to your books. “We have sex when we have sex. And if someone tries to—bother you about it, you can tell them they can suck on my fat cock.”

You hear him chortle. “I’ll do that.”

The conversation ends. You study. You still feel Jeongguk fidgeting.

Now there’s three weeks left till the term is over.  

“My—brain. It’s exploding. There’s too much going on.”

Jeongguk’s desk is a cramped space—the only place you can prop your textbook up against is his sweatshirt wrapped into a wrinkly ball. Graciously taken from his hamper because he still hasn’t done his laundry. The chair creaks when you spin to look at him: a dejected blob of comfy clothes surrounded by looseleaf paper and sticky notes. “Break time?”

He slumps against his pillows, arms out like a sad toddler. “Break time.”

This probably means you’ll cuddle for the next three hours but there’s little to complain about when Jeongguk purrs into your hair once you settle into his chest. There’s a warmth to him you can’t get anywhere else. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Just working too hard.”

“Okay,” you murmur. Jeongguk’s breath evens out the way it does when he wants to stop thinking. You can hear the hum of the fridge outside. 

“Want this to be over.”

You trace your nail over his collarbone. “I know.” 

“When’s your awards ceremony?”

“In two weeks,” you say.

“Same time as our final game.”

You lean your head up when he sighs, watching his eyes flutter in the afternoon shade of his curtains. A calmer period right after a hectic schedule of school, because you have Professor Kwon to thank for her excessive meetings about tutorials and assignments. It never occurred to you that you might’ve been imposing when you showed up to Jeongguk’s dorm with your homework, but he’d been studying too. Same wavelength, he’d say.

“Jimin been bothering you lately?”

“No, thank god. Don’t think I could take anymore prodding.”

This is the first time you’ve asked since that afternoon in the quad, though now Jimin’s been less annoying whenever you see him with Jeongguk. You know he’s just itching for your boyfriend to finally get his dick wet. 

And you can’t blame him—that was his intention when he finally got Jeongguk to ask you out. Friendship with Jeongguk was a weird stretch of time, especially when he’d spent the entirety of it silently pining for you: involuntarily single, but so preoccupied with the care and keeping of your GPA you’d been blind to any advance. Not that he tried anything, though. 

He’d been in his second year, still getting used to the enormity of campus grounds as a scholarship-bound athlete. And on top of all his schoolwork he had to balance the fragility of having a crush on an upperclassman well on her way to PhD candidacy. It was a good thing he was cute, though, and Jimin had no qualms about embarrassing Jeongguk any chance he got when you were around. The blush when Jimin had pushed him to your desserts table at one of the indoor Farmers’ Markets still burns in the furthest love-lit corner in your mind.

“You remember when you asked me out?”

“God.” A too-late night in the library that prompted the chivalrous part in Jeongguk because he’d brought you to the bus stop too close for campus police to escort you. You’d been good friends for a while already, the hurdle of skirting around each other knocked down when Jeongguk finally got the guts to insert himself in the your friend circle. In that wet shelter, a quivering lip. The sure that now has you seven-and-a-half months down the line with arguably the best thing that’s happened to you since you started your college career, but you won’t tell him that. “Why are you bringing that up?”

“I don’t know. Just—feels like forever ago.”

“Sappy.”

“Maybe the stars are aligning,” you say.

“Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know, just. Sometimes when I lie down with you I feel like I have to—lay myself bare.”

“Then bare yourself.”

You pause. “I’d like to suck your dick.”

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna need you to elaborate,” Jeongguk says like he’s winded.

“Two weeks of me finishing assignments and you at hockey practice. You know. Take advantage of the time we have with each other.”

“Good point. But I have a counter offer.”

Jeongguk is always a giver. “Which is?”

“I eat you out instead.”

“You’re too good to me,” and this is the only response you can come up with without sounding too shocked. Or horny. Not that you’d ever shy away but Jeongguk had a way of burning you up from the inside. “You’re down for that?”

“Always,” he says, then rolls you over. All that muscle from his workouts barring you from even thinking about fighting him back so you let him push you till you’re comfortable. But this isn’t about you. Not at the moment, anyway. 

“Take your shirt off.” Jeongguk does this so quickly his face almost crashes into yours when he comes back down, gasping a laugh that he breathes into you when his mouth meets yours. A quick tangle of your legs around his waist has him lying over you with ease, caught in his cage of pressed-down elbows and intimacy. 

“Wanna—take care of you.” He trails his mouth down your neck, bed squeaking when his knees pad down. Lips tasting lower and now he lifts your shirt up to your chest, pressing wetness to your stomach and you’re quick to discard your clothing if only to see Jeongguk pause at the zipper of your jeans. “Can I—?”

You nod. 

His fingers don’t shake but he’s blinking fast, pulling on the waistline of the rough denim and shucking it past your feet, sighing when your panties come into view. A short-lived reverence when he leans down to mouth at your sex above the thin cotton and your legs spread wide for his arms to cling onto.

“Tell me—tell me what you like,” he says. A shy demand.

“Take my underwear off then I’ll tell you.”

There’s warmth lost when Jeongguk slides your panties down to one ankle but he’s over you in the second it takes for you to flick it off. No pause in his eagerness but now he lies in wait for your instructions. The way he pauses for you is so agonizingly hot you might combust.

“It’s—I like it when… I feel you lick at my…” God you sound fucked. But Jeongguk’s a wild card and takes it in stride, hands once again finding purchase around your thighs and you feel his hard tongue on you, a wet slide that has your stomach caving. It’s the natural twitch in your fingers that prompt you to keep a loose grip in his hair, other hand tight in the bed like your proxy anchor. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah…”

Jeongguk laves your core, pressing harder the higher he goes. Contingency he takes advantage of because you get louder. It’s the lick on your clit that has you sighing. “Oooh, you—use the… tip of your tongue. And lick right—there.”

He’s so pliant you feel like you’re throttling him. There’s a forward insistence of his head until you feel the flat of his tongue pressed fully against you, his neck rolling with every shift of your hips. In control of your pleasure and he makes it feel like this is what he was made to do. His fingers get tight. “You taste good,” he exhales right onto your sex and you nearly crush his head with your thighs.

“Oh my god.” Your breaths are lost. You might hide your face but that would mean losing sight of Jeongguk providing a service only he can spell out with his tongue. “Ah—”

There’s a little squeak further down the bed and you notice the small flutter of his groin caught in the warmth of him and the sheets. His lips close around your nub before you can say anything, slurping that has your gut wrangled, your fingers gripping his hair as you get lost in his love. Your eyes roll back. “Oh fuck, that—agh—”

He’s made you come before. And the familiar tone of your incoming bliss is something he can memorize—he probably already has judging by the train wreck of your throat and the sounds he pulls from you. A swindler of your orgasms but you’d gladly hand yourself over if it meant deceiving your pussy into its own demise.

“Fuck you’re—so sexy like this,” Jeongguk mumbles. You whine at his attention but now you’re running even hotter than ever.

You’re not even telling him what to do anymore but you know he knows it’s good, a message sent with every twitch of your sex into his mouth and now his fingers are splayed along your pelvis to keep you from bucking up. He doesn’t even need his fingers. It’s the hardened tongue, the little slashes on your clit as his head swings back and forth that have you squealing: “Yes, like that. Oh I’m cumming—fuck—!”

Jeongguk hums when you jerk your hips up, convulsions in all your sweetest parts and your throat is dry from all your moaning, the swell of your lungs so hard to keep up with but he always has you losing your breath. Spit collects in its warmth down your ass but it’s a lost thought when Jeongguk lathers you into your come-down, legs like jelly and he helps your knees together when you finally stop trembling. You don’t realize your eyes are closed until you feel his lips on your mouth, complaint of catching a break right behind your teeth when you kiss with what little strength remains in you. 

“That was. Really good,” you whisper. Jeongguk laughs. And he doesn’t say anything, just looks at you with his wet mouth and red cheeks. “Do you wanna cum?”

He looks like he’ll say no. A bitten lip instead of confirmation. “I—”

“Please, I want you to.” Like a switch turned on he lights up, head bobbing and now he’s shoving his jeans past his ass, underwear down too. “You wanna—come on my face?”

His eyes look like they’re leaking out of his face. A strangled noise escapes his throat. He probably thinks you’re on crack but it’s just in his nature for him to assume a dazed auto-pilot whenever you say shit so outlandish. “You—I—I-I—Can—?”

“You can cum—god you can cum anywhere. I’m yours. Remember?” Reaching behind, you feel for the clasp of your bra, flinging it off before you pull on Jeongguk by the dip of his back until his knees straddle your ribs. “Is this good?”

“Can—could you—spit… on it.” His voice dwindles like he’s caught between the threshold of dirty and pushing it. You don’t answer because your neck straining for the tip of his dick and down the rest of his shaft is all he needs for one. Jeongguk bucks into you. “Oh fuck—ngh—ah!”

If his grinding on the mattress was a ticking bomb, your tongue on his cock is the thirty seconds till detonation. And by the sounds of Jeongguk groaning into the mid-afternoon sun slipping through his curtains you know he’s almost there. “Lie down, lie down,” he instructs, hand replacing your mouth in a stroke so quick you’re scared he might get cum in your hair.

“Agh—fuck yeah I’m—”

A spurt of his cum stains your lip, then your cheek. You feel some on the tip of your nose too but Jeongguk points his dick down to your tits, spilling all his hot frustration on your even hotter skin and you might cum again from the visual of him looking so spent. “Wow.”

“Yeah, that—” Jeongguk swallows twice— “I… wow.”

His dick is getting soft. There’s sweat pooling where your body meets the sheets. “Wanna pass me tissues?”

“Oh fuck. Yeah, yeah—here, sorry.” Jeongguk makes soft passes with a wad of cotton over your chest, handing one to you for your face. “Do you—do you like it? When I… cum on you?”

“Yeah.” You think about making a weird comment about sipping on his juice but you’ll save it for later. You focus on not letting his spunk flake on your cheek. “It’s hot. Really.”

“Good,” he says. Flopping down after shooting the soiled tissue into the basket and now he seems exhausted. “Do you feel gross or is it just me.”

“Gross how?”

“Gross like I need a shower.”

You can’t deny him. “Wanna shower?”

“Yep,” he says with no hesitation, and he doesn’t let you say anything else when he grabs you by your wrists. Somehow, everything feels lighter.

Sometimes Jeongguk invites you out to practice. It’s boring and you don’t know a single rule about gameplay, but the presence of him despite being a ways away on the ice is still a comfort on its own. 

The arena is frigidly cold, and while you aren’t without distraction (re: Assignments) it’s still one you can barely get yourself to really focus on. You rub your face in frustration. You hear the sound of the hockey puck passed around in harsh slaps.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

“Jimin,” you acknowledge. He drops down next to you. “Here to spy on hockey ass too, huh.”

“That and Hoseok promised to get me dinner later.” You raise your eyebrow. “Did one of his assignments.”

“Forgot you were a chemistry genius.” Clicking your tongue, you watch the big 97 of Jeongguk’s jersey as he glides around behind the glass. He waves when he sees you looking. You’d greet him back but your hands are too perfect where they are in the heat of your sweater pockets so you wave your head in what you hope looks like excitement. 

“Been holding up okay?” You turn. Jimin’s eyes are a blaze of concern. “The other week, in the quad. You were pretty stressed.”

“Final paper.”

“Dissertation?”

“Working up to that,” you say.

“So you’re a scholar scholar.”

“Mm.” Your laptop screen blinks to black. “Something like that.” You hear Jimin snicker. He’s coiled up, stomach caved in a tiny laugh, eyes crinkled. Too amused. “What?”

“I’m just—” Jimin takes a breath in to stem his impending laughing fit— “so confused. Like, there’s Jeongguk who can eat eight cups of spicy ramen and literally bomb the bathroom with his shit—and then right next to him is Jane Goodall but with human babies.”

“He loves spicy ramen,” you comment.

“Yeah but do we like his stank? Nope. And you really just compared pronatalism to liking ramen. You know you’re out of his league.”

Jeongguk, completely oblivious to Jimin’s really weird anecdote, brings a fist up in cheers when he shoots the puck into the net. “Well. At the very least he’s cute.”

Jimin heeds with a hum to watch the play on ice. Seeing the team skate around with their broad-shoulders and thick helmets is an odd kind of relaxation. A team of huge men cutting the ice with knives on their feet but the sound is a swish satisfying enough for those kinds of videos that put you to sleep. Rough and gentle, just like Jeongguk. “I’m glad Jeongguk met you,” Jimin starts again.

“Mm. I think he has you to thank.” You boot up your laptop once more in the hopes you get inspired to type, but now Jimin has you distracted even more. 

“He just… used to be so quiet. And I’m gonna brag here but he’s got good friends. But meeting you was a game-changer.”

“Hm.”

“He was so passive.” You think to Jimin almost two years ago, pushing a slightly-smaller Jeongguk towards your table at the market. One look in your eye; pointing to the donut closest to him. Your finger touched his palm when you dropped the chocolate-glazed on it and he looked lost. “But now he’s just. Happy. All the time. It’s nice to see.”

There’s 97 again. Then Jeongguk turns and glides closer to the rail. He holds up ten fingers. Ten till over. You give a thumbs up. You feel yourself shivering but you’re not cold anymore. “Then I’m glad, too.”

“Good kid.” Jimin waves too, and Jeongguk skates off without looking at him. “Bitch! Anyway.” He leans back on his hands, feet perched on the row in front. “You guys… good now?”

And your screen fades to black again. “Oh god.”

“Sorry, fuck. Sometimes I think—no sometimes I don’t think. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, whatever.” You turn to Jimin looking very apologetic, keeping mum with his lips folded in. “It’s—he’s. A lot more eager, I have to say.”

“And are you okay with that?”

You hesitate. “I mean if we’re getting vulgar here—”

“Absolutely not, you are not telling me what he did with his dick.”

You raise your hands in surrender. You wouldn’t have told him anyway. It’s just nice to see a flustered Jimin, especially after what he’s subjected you and Jeongguk to. Good-natured but overtly so, and now you’re both blushing. “It’s been good.” 

Great. Now you’re thinking about Jeongguk and his cock again. Obviously it’s not unwelcome but riling you up is getting too easy.

“Then that’s good,” Jimin says. You hear the blow of the whistle. A congregation of fist bumps forms at the exit of the rink, and Jeongguk lets everyone pass him to get off. “Well I’m gonna go get ready for some free food. See you, yeah?”

He offers a high-five you hit hard. “Bye.”

“Oh. And good luck on your paper. You coming to the game by the way?” Jimin asks. He jumps off the bleachers, leaving you to stare at your honest attempt at getting work done. You close your laptop with a sad click. 

“I have an awards ceremony that day,” you explain. “I’ll try and catch it.”

“Don’t work too hard.” Just then, Jeongguk runs up behind Jimin not at all silently—his gym bag is ginormous—to catch him in a headlock. “Wha—”

“Why are you talking to my girlfriend,” Jeongguk interrogates. He’s probably wet with heat because Jimin scrunches his nose and shoves him off.

“You’re a pig, did you even shower.”

“Smell my armpits and you’ll get your answer.”

“Anyway,” Jimin groans. “I’m off.” He walks to the changing room in a swagger so calculated you’d yell at him for showing off his ass. But Jeongguk drags your attention away when he steps in front of the bleachers, leaning over until you greet him with a kiss.

“Hi,” Jeongguk says against your mouth.

You plug your nose for effect. “So you didn’t shower.”

“I rinsed! Don’t be mean.” He watches as you shove all your things into your bag, his hand poised for you to give it to him, and inside you falter at his generosity but you shoulder the strap and use his outstretched palm to help you up instead. “I wanted your bag, miss.”

“No, you already have a heavy one.”

“Let me carry it for you—” But you shut him up with a tiptoe and a peck to his open mouth. “Don’t distract me!”

You ignore him, grabbing his wrist and dragging him toward the exit. “Let’s go, I might miss my bus.”

Eight p.m. is a dead hour on campus grounds. You see only a handful of straggling students going back to res, even more going into the library building. The lamps guide your every step. Jeongguk’s fingers tangle in yours. “So you aren’t free at all the rest of the week right?”

“Yeah.” You try not to look at him because you know he’s pouting. “I didn’t get any work done thanks to your shouting.”

“That was Yoongi,” Jeongguk defends. “And sorry.”

You reach the bus shelter. “I’m kidding.” The neon sign overhead says your bus is due in three minutes. “I’m—I like going to your practice.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I like seeing my star hockey player tear it up on the ice,” you joke. Jeongguk laughs into your lips when he bends down lock them with his own. 

“Was it sexy enough for you?”

“Oh yeah. Got my pussy rumbling.”

He balks. “You’re so annoying.”

Two minutes. “It’s starting again.”

“What is?” In the dark light of the evening moon rising, you are reminded of this bus shelter seven months ago. A tower of nerves over you. If you think hard enough, you can still hear the shaky question he’d let dangle from his tongue, the one that has you here with him now. But now Jeongguk is nervous for different reasons. “Oh, like when you disappear on me for like five years.”

You see the light of the bus coming. You wrap Jeongguk in your arms. “Yeah. I’m only free next week.”

“Take it easy,” he says. Only one person gets off at the stop. “Just text me. Don’t need a repeat of last time.”

Last time—a month into your relationship. When you texted him every four days because of your midterms and he’d gotten so worried he genuinely wept when you showed up to his doorstep. It was a good thing you’d brought food too; not that you were expecting a cry fest but he’d felt better once he was filled with fried noodles and your affection. You concede to his request with a nod.

He lets you leave with one last kiss to your forehead. “See you,” you say. The air is alive with what you have to leave behind for the time being.

The week is rough. Professor Kwon asks you to submit marks sooner than you anticipate, so the need to get your paper done becomes a lot more urgent. One student hasn’t even handed in her assignment, which—fine. You don’t have any qualms about the zero you input. But the angry email with the threat to report you to an academic advisor the next day has you so on edge Namjoon agrees to grade half your assignments next time.

Jeongguk, somehow, eludes you too. Graduate school demands more tears than sweat and blood and while he tries his best to comfort you during your work-filled days, he’s been getting busier with hockey practice too. The added thought of starting to study for your exams is just another cake-topper. And it isn’t as if you’re going days without talking to Jeongguk, but it’s still a sting to the romantic part in you that misses him.

A week and a half before your big paper is due is a Tuesday. The girl who dissed you in your email doesn’t show up to tutorial. Everyone is dismissed for the evening. It’s good. 

Nothing beats the giddy jump in your step when you find a cubby in the library close enough to an outlet, though.

Then you get a text from Jeongguk.

[8:07 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I’m free the rest of the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me love u bich u really deprived me of touch for an entire week  [8:07 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Wya

He meets you at the library with sweaty bangs and indents on his cheek from his helmet. You briefly contemplate jumping him. The feeling is quelled with the reminder that the library doesn’t tolerate loud noises and Excessive Romantic Gestures, so you opt for:

“Sexy.” You’re up on your feet to give him a quick hug and he makes a disgruntled face before dropping a kiss to your mouth.

“You wet yet?”

You glare to hide the need to balk. You plop back down. “You ate pussy once, don’t think this gives you free points to get so cocky.”

He pauses. “Sorry?”

“Sit. And don’t—ask me that again.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jeongguk cowers into the seat next to you. “What’s my scholar up to tonight?”

“Researching about Western Europe and their refugee policies.”

He doesn’t look like he’s interested but he makes a contemplative noise. “Very… educated. But anyhow. I’ve been thinking.” Uh oh. “And I have something. It was a week-long thought process but I have it.”

Your pens roll along the wood of the desk. “Have what?”

“A plan.”

“For?”

“For how I’m gonna fuck you. Eventually, I mean.”

“I leave you for a week and this happens,” you answer, but he’s not fazed. You feel yourself melting. Something you learned about Jeongguk during the preliminary stages of your relationship was that he liked getting things right. And if that meant practicing until he was ready—well. There’s a part in you that fears for the livelihood of your vagina. “Babe. That’s—you know we don’t need some sort of… five-steps-to-success thing.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” He pouts like you have it all wrong. Maybe you do, but it doesn’t sound so convincing to your—to be frank—non-virgin ears. “Good practice.” 

You knew he would say that. “You have something in your noggin already, boy?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna elaborate?”

Jeongguk shrugs. “What do people normally establish before they start having sex?”

“Well I don’t have lice in my pubic hair if that’s what you wanna know,” you offer.

He scrunches his face. “Don’t—joke about that.”

“Sorry.” Jeongguk gives you an incredulous look because you both know you don’t mean it. “But you really wanna do this here?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, lay it on me.”

“Wait—really?” 

You’re starting to think you won’t get any work done for the night. Like all the nights you spend with Jeongguk and you realize the pattern now, so you might as well indulge in him. “Yeah, go pull on all your pornographic roots.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m not into getting tied up, first of all.” You flip a page in your textbook to feign nonchalance as Jeongguk wheezes.

“Stop that!” But he just takes a piece of paper and readies a fist to write. “You’re so crude.”

Now you really can’t focus. “Are you seriously going to write about my sexual preferences?”

“No, I’m writing a detailed observation about how to go about. You know.” He purses a lip in thought. “Navigating the ocean of your pussy and its desires.”

You didn’t think the library would be home to both of your sexual awakenings, but Jeongguk makes it hard to be shy when he’s this motivated. “Weird way of asking me if I’m into watersports.”

“Okay you have to take back asking me about my pornographic roots because it sounds like you’re the freakier one.”

“You like me being freaky?” 

He reddens. “Anyway!” (Silently, you revel in your power to tease.) “I was thinking. Since we can’t hang out too much the next week-ish, that we save all the good stuff for later.”

Good point. “Define good stuff.”

Jeongguk gets smaller. Eyes drilled into yours, he whispers, “Putting my penis inside you.”

“Okay now it’s getting weird.”

He drops his pencil in disbelief. “Only now? Tell me how any of this wasn’t weird in the first place.”

“You’re literally the one who took out a pencil to jot down my sexual preferences, don’t act like you’re innocent.” Now he has the decency to look sheepish. He doesn’t say anything. “Jeongguk. It’s fine to be nervous. But I don’t want you to feel like you need to do this.”

You might as well be talking to the wall but he nods anyway. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No! Just… you don’t owe anyone anything.” Something in you longs for him to understand that. You hate to make him nervous but Jeongguk is so adamant you almost want to wrap him in your arms from the sexually-inclined horde that came in the form of Park Jimin. “Remember that.”

He deflates with a sigh. “Then… can you come over tomorrow?” He’s squirming. “I’m done practice at seven.”

“If my advisor’s nice enough she’ll let me off at six,” you confirm.

Jeongguk takes a notebook out but makes no effort to open it. “And. I missed you. Just. Wanted to get that out there.”

There’s only so much texting can do, you get it. The pit of your stomach simmers with affection for the dumb boy sitting next to you, legs jumping the way they do when he’s nervous. “Love you.” And he smiles. Fuel for your listlessness. There are papers to write, and virgins to daydream about. Especially about the one who just propositioned you with absurdities. But now his pencil is out, and the moment is lost. 

You can think about Jeongguk’s dick later. For now, you settle in the quietude of his presence with yours.

It’s a colder day today.

“Hi!” Taehyung opens the door, bouncing in his pyjamas from the rush of freezing air. “Come, come. Please don’t ask me how I’ve been, I’m so tired of school and that’ll be my answer and I don’t want to talk about it.”

You swallow your pleasantries down. He’s a stressed Neuroscience major. “Fair,” you greet instead, toeing your boots off.

“Coming from somewhere?”

“Tutorial evaluation,” you say. Taehyung lets out a low whistle, closes the door behind you. He knows your shoulders are stiff because of Professor Kwon’s watchful gaze. Sitting at the back, ramrod straight with that black clipboard, taking down notes on your performance as a first-time TA. 

She’d let you go after with a smile, though. Let you know you did fine. You’d practically glided to residence when she’d given you the go to leave for the day. 

“I have a question for you,” Taehyung says. He sits on the couch, watches as you take off your snow-soiled scarf and jacket. “Has Jeongguk been more… fidgety lately?”

So he’s noticed too. “Yeah, I’ve—seen it. Why?”

“I don’t know, he sort of just—” Taehyung scoots over when you plop down next to him— “he came out of the room yesterday squealing, then ran around the living room for a bit then just. Went back into his room.”

Oh. So that’s what he was off to do when said he needed to get something after you linked him to your favourite porn accounts on Twitter.

“Maybe it’s just. I don’t know, pre-game jitters,” you lie. Taehyung’s giving you the look. Like he’s not satisfied with your answer and the only way to sate him is if you let him do one thing. “You can ask.”

“Did you fuck him yet?”

No reservations. As expected, because he’s just as nosy as Jimin and the rest of their friends annoyingly concerned with Jeongguk’s hesitation in the bedroom. “Nope.”

“Okay but like—can you fuck him already? I’m gonna be rolling in my grave by the time his penis passes the two-inch border of your personal space.”

You can’t keep in your snort. “Oh my god.”

“Just. We really don’t mean to be so standoffish but he just likes you so much it’s insane. Like I’ll see his phone light up and he will too. He’ll literally—he just glows. It’s kind of creepy actually but like. Cute creepy.”

The rush of praise runs through you. You don’t like to brag, but you really did snag the campus boy crush. You were popular enough with academia, but after the first time Jeongguk posted a picture of you two at the Christmas market, though—the entire student body went ballistic. It was the nascence of a fairy tale; movie romance budding in the grey concrete of campus grounds. 

No one saw it coming. And knowing that the one everyone has their eye on has its eyes on you—it’s a good kind of blow.

“He’s my baby,” you say, and Taehyung coos. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”

There’s a rattling of the door knob. The sight of a ragged Jeongguk stumbles in, gym bag dropped on the floor and he disappears down the hall with the call for a shower and a brief smile your way. “I’ll be five minutes, babe.”

That’s Taehyung’s cue. “Well—I’m off to study group. Take care of him, yeah?”

“You know it.” You offer a fist bump. Taehyung’s knuckles are bony on yours. 

The trek to Jeongguk’s room isn’t unfamiliar. You bounce back on his bed, willing yourself not to close your eyes because you know you’ll just crash. A headache prepares right behind your temple, as imminent as rumbling thunder. Something in you calls for Jeongguk to hurry the fuck up before you succumb to Stress and those horrible, horrible thoughts of due dates.

It doesn’t take that long. There’s the squeak of the shower handle turning off and the black of your closed eyes, the scurrying of an unseen body; the lifting of your shirt for a very heavy weight of a hockey player blowing raspberries into the skin of your stomach. Jeongguk chortles when you nearly break your back trying to dislodge him. “You’re—oh my god—hey stop!”

“Hi,” he says, laugh caught in his breath, “I’m clean.”

“I see that.” He’s in his pyjamas. You let him settle on your side. The lingering heat from his shower makes you clammy but you let him hold you tight. “How was practice?”

“It was nice.” This is code for: I wasn’t yelled at by Yoongi. “I’m excited for our game, I’m feelin’ good. Did you find out if you could make it?”

You were blessed by the gods, because not only were your days coinciding, they were also starting an hour within each other. You’d be at the podium with a flowery speech while Jeongguk tears the ice rink with his pretty skates. And if every award recipient’s was longer than a minute then you might miss the entire game. Two hours past Jeongguk most likely scoring the winning goal; an infinity lost to see your star in action. 

(And seeing Jeongguk play is really attractive.)

You settle with: “I’ll try my best.”

“Okay,” he says. The crown of his head digs into your neck. You feel his lips when he speaks. “How are you holding up?”

“Barely.”

“Did you get your paper done?”

“Barely.”

“So it’s done.”

“Let’s not talk about school,” you dismiss. He leaves the conversation to wither with a suction to your skin. Wet where he lines your neck with quick kisses and you soften into the sheets. “Is this your way of—executing your plan.”

“Hm?”

“You know—your—guide to putting your penis inside me.”

He leans up on his elbow. Unimpressed because his eyebrows are scrunched. “Funny.”

“You love me.”

“And what about it?” His eyes shine the way they do before he tells you he loves you too. “It isn’t even a plan it’s just—a buildup. To when my penis goes inside you. Like a countdown but with orgasms instead.” You snicker. He drags a light hand down your front, settling his palm right over your pussy. “Let me touch you.”

You forget how to breathe for a second. “Yeah—I’m—yeah. Please.”

“Sit up.” Jeongguk plants himself near the wall, not unlike the position he was in when you sucked his dick for the first time. Instead of the afternoon heat, you’re caught under the dying evening rays of sunset: not as hot but still you feel the spark in your belly when Jeongguk lifts your bum to settle you between his legs. His nails play with the button of your pants. “I wanna try something.”

“Sure.” And he helps you wiggle off your clothes, bottom bare to his graces. Doesn’t say anything, just lets his mouth meet yours slowly, tasting the day off your tongue, your worries behind his teeth. 

“Anyone ever fingered you so hard you cried?”

“You wanna make me cry?”

“Don’t say it like that.” Jeongguk nips at your lip. “But yeah, I guess.”

You’re wet. This is a fact you come to realize when you feel him spread your legs, feet planting in the mattress in an attempt to ground yourself.  “Okay,” you agree.

His mouth’s busy with yours, lips unyielding like he could do this all day. It’s almost picturesque, the way he has you: head turned over to meet him in his love, arms wrapped around your own. Yours for him to savour and he always tastes good.

He doesn’t wait anymore. Your clit throbs with the passes of his fingers, head falling back to rest on Jeongguk’s shoulder when he dips in the pool of your heat and drags it back up. Groaning when he spins tight circles like you taught him and your hands find his thighs. “Feels—good,” you utter. Already you’re gone but Jeongguk feeds into your pleasure with no qualms for your embarrassment.

“Can I—put in a finger?” He asks shyly, but playing with your slick like he’s known how to make you putty in his hands this whole time.

“Yeah. Please.” You welcome the insistence in your sex with the buck of your hips. Jeongguk curls his middle finger up, the heel of his hand smooth on your clit and you sigh, “Ooh, fuck yeah.”

He kisses your cheek. “Another one?”

“I can take it,” you say, and he has another finger in you, hooking into your nerves. You might moan but Jeongguk turns your head and molds his mouth into yours, stealing your breath with his tongue. He curves in a little too hard and you squeal. “Oh my god, too—much.”

“Sorry.” He adjusts, fingers straight again. “M’gonna go faster, if that’s okay.” You nod, restless, and then he adds: “And you can’t look away from me.”

“Yes please—”

You couldn’t look away even if you tried, because the hand not fucking you into oblivion catches your cheeks, locking you to Jeongguk’s gaze. It’s a fucked out one too, and now you notice his hard dick pressed up against your back. 

It’s a storm of thrusting: wet and more wet and now he abruptly pulls out, smears your slick on your clit in a rub so fast you would squeal louder if it weren’t for his lips swallowing your sounds. 

“Oh-h—!”

You burn. Jeongguk enters you again and your cunt feels swollen. Fucking all the deepest and dirtiest parts of you and you take it, yielding to the draw on your tight walls. The squelch gets louder. So do you. 

“Oh yeah—” And you don’t cry but the feeling of him inside is so overwhelming and all that you need and it’s there— “Fuck, y-eah. Gonna cum soon—”

“Give it to me.” Punctuated with a twist in your sex so rough you would have twitched him off but his legs cage you. Jeongguk smiles. “Come on babe—”

“Nnn—ha J-Jeongguk—” You grab his wrist, the one knocking his fingers so good though he doesn’t stop under the tight hold— “B-Baby—”

“I want it, I want it,” he chants into your mouth, like he’s eager for a release conducive to your early death just so he can say he did that. Awful cocky but you can’t dwell on it. “Just cum for me.”

“Fuck—” He makes you look at him when you do, eyes wide to his imploring ones. He has it in his fingers, a climax that wrangles the most obscene noises from your throat. Your hips grind up uncontrollably, clit a pulsing pain but his thumb rubs it all the same. Jeongguk doesn’t stop till you whine, “God, please—I can’t."

“You’re crying.”

“Am not.” But you feel the sting of heat in your eyes. Jeongguk rubs his nose with yours, wrapped in his arms and affection.

“Was it good though?”

“Was it good, he says.” You kiss him with no bite. “Loved it. Best ever.”

Jeongguk lights up, corners of his mouth lifted into a sated grin. “Woo,” he says. You’re about to ask if he wants one rubbed out but he continues speaking. “So plan’s going well if you wanted to know.”

“Shut up. Shut up!” You make a point of getting up with as much force as possible, disturbing the coils the mattress as Jeongguk laughs. “You’re so gross.”

“You love me.”

Your panties are sticky against you. You turn to see him staring at you already. “I love you.”

The room glows in the last few minutes of red, coated darker and darker. But the look Jeongguk gives you—maybe astonishment, maybe longing—casts a glow that blazes within. Like all he wants is for you to be here and you do too. He breaks the silence with a smile. “You’re the best, you know that?”

You climb back over him, unable to resist anymore. “So I’ve been told.”

“I mean it though.” He shifts so you’re lying down again, head on his chest. Warm again. “Sorry if I’m—pushing the agenda. And I know I say Jimin’s not getting to me and it’s true but it—makes me want you. All the time.”

You settle for the truth with a kiss to his sternum. “I have no free time after today though.” 

“That’s okay,” Jeongguk whispers. “Just love me now and you can always love me later.”

“I can do that,” you say. 

He lets you dig into his side even further. “Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about school?”

“Mm.” You know it’ll help to air your dirty laundry. But knowing Jeongguk has his own shit to deal with is enough for you to hesitate. “Nothing I—haven’t said before. Just stressed.”

“About your last assignment?”

“Mhm.”

“You’re smart. And for whatever reason, really into baby-making in foreign countries.” Jeongguk groans when you pinch him. “But I know you. And you’ll do well. Also it’s official that you’ll do well because you’re dating someone really good at what they do, and I was just inside your body so technically my energy transferred to you.”

“Very solid process.” 

His breathes warmth into your skin. “Believe me. You’re gonna be fine.”

And it’s not the end of the world, not being able to see him for a bit. You both know this. You hug him tighter to you regardless, like making his skin stick to yours was an actuality. You know he feels it too when his arm locks just a tiny bit harder. An unspoken longing for the mold of your body.

You’ll get there.

It’s been four days since you’ve seen Jeongguk, so Namjoon takes the responsibility of keeping you sane. He books a study room for three hours and meets you with a two cups of coffee and three extra pens just in case they run out while you mark your assignments together. He takes the stack of papers from you with a frown, and you work.

The paper is coming along well. You think you have a good five pages to go, but the amount of hounding Professor Kwon has done is scaring you into another late night-in. More and more marks are due, and Namjoon has his own work to deal with. You hate to burden him with your own but now you’re really feeling the Stress from school.

[6:01 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Hey what are you doing [6:02 PM] You: i’m doing work :(( [6:02 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Poo poo [6:02 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I’m bored [6:03 PM] You: 💩💩 [6:03 PM] You: sorry bout it !!!!!!! [6:04 PM] You: wait how can u be bored ur @ practice ?? if ur just…. doin practice [6:05 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: On break [6:05 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: And I miss you [6:06 PM] You: omg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [6:06 PM] You: my heart

Namjoon’s eyebrows are scrunched. “I can’t tell what this student is saying.”

“Read it out loud.” 

“I will argue that the legalization of crack cocaine will act as a beneficial potential towards the bettering of society. With the advent of legal marijuana usage in Canada—yeah.”

“That’s… an abuse of thesaurus privileges,” you comment.

He hums. “They’re young, let them live.”

Again, Jeongguk texts you.

[6:09 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: When are you free [6:10 PM] You: tonight [6:10 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I’m not 😩😩 What about Wednesday? [6:11 PM] You: i’m only free rn baby :( might have to wait till after friday [6:12 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 [6:12 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Damn [6:12 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I need to go now text me when you’re done k?????? Love you [6:13 PM] You: okay ! 💜

You hear Namjoon snapping at you. “You’re getting distracted.”

“Sorry.” Your pen twitches in your grip. This is your third cup of coffee. “Just—need a goddamn break.

You can sense Namjoon’s nerves grating too. “I get it.” He looks at his watch. “Well. We need to leave in five minutes.”

You graded almost all of your half of assignments. You let yourself breathe a sigh of accomplishment, clearing your work into your bag. “Thanks for helping me out.”

“Buy me lunch someday and we’ll call it even,” Namjoon says. He swipes the papers your way to collect. “And by the way—” he takes one last sip of his coffee— “I caught wind that one of the Commissioner-Generals is coming to the ceremony.”

You stare. “From which agency?” 

“No clue. But I just thought you should know.”

Of course he would. The one time you don’t clear your search history and now Namjoon is up your ass helping you find any potential global PhD programs. And it wasn’t unimaginable either, some higher-up coming to see the semester-end awards the department heads organized, and the student chair had a lot of say in it, current one being Kim Namjoon: a lobbyist, a smart guy, and Twitter-sort-of-famous for being really damn loud about inequality.

But they’re probably not recruiting me, you think. Best not to get your hopes up lest it go to a well-deserved head who apparently doesn’t get distracted by the potential of finally squeezing their boyfriend’s dick. 

Namjoon sighs. “Hey, isn’t the ceremony the same day as the game?”

“Yep,” you confirm. For a split second, an image of Jeongguk giggling pops up into your head.

“Do you think you’ll make it?”

You sling your bag over your shoulder, standing outside the door until Namjoon turns off all the lights. “I’m gonna try.”

The hallway to the main entrance of the Humanities wing is quiet. “Speaking of the game. Any intel about your current… predicament?”

“Jimin?”

“Jimin.”

“About Jeongguk?”

“About Jeongguk.”

“Fuck,” you murmur. And you thought he’d be kind enough to keep your secret, but Namjoon is to Jimin like a big is to a little except they’re both too posh to be in a frat. “Not really. And stay out of it.”

“I will,” he says. He opens the door, winter wind as brutal as ever. You think about Jeongguk walking you to the bus stop but he’s probably already back at his dorm. You shiver. “But if I catch you distracted on your phone again I might have to ask.”

You cower into embarrassment.“Sorry.” 

Namjoon waves you off. “Just get home safe, yeah?”

Getting home isn’t that bad; late enough for the absence of the rush hour crowd and you get to sit on the bus the rest of the ride. You all but book it to your place to escape the frost nipping at your cheeks and into the nest of your textbooks. Plans to demolish at least a tiny bit of your not-so-tiny pile of work come to a stand-still when you hear your phone vibrate.

[7:46 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Hey did u finish yet [7:46 PM] You: fuck sorry forgot to text [7:46 PM] You: yeah i did, i just got home [7:47 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: That’s good [7:47 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Do you have a lot of work to do tonight?? [7:48 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Please say no [7:48 PM] You: ….. [7:48 PM] You: why [7:48 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: The plan [7:50 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Still building [7:50 PM] You: should i be scared [7:51 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [7:51 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: But [7:51 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I know you wouldn’t like it if I didn’t ask, and I’m a good boy, so [7:52 PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Can I send you a picture of my dick?

A boot hangs limply from your toes from when you were trying to tug it off. Dumbly, you’re gaping. Gaping at this transition from shy Jeongguk to… whatever the fuck this was. The pulsing of your sex betrays your shock.

It’s not like things were changing fast, either. That moment in his bed—after he fucked you with his fingers—was the last time you’d been together. A solid evening of knotted arms and Jeongguk’s breath down your neck. He’d only let you go because your complaints to do homework got too loud for him to sleep properly, and you left him in his room like that: heavy-eyed and full of low murmurs for you to come back.

“You’ll miss me, right?” He’d asked. It sounded so innocent. Looked like it too when he stood next to you as you slipped on your shoes. The answer was easy.

“Duh.”

And it wasn’t like you weren’t affectionate. Sure, gaining the impulse to hug and squeeze him was one you had to work up to, but this came with new relationships, that novelty of being someone else’s: one that Jeongguk had no problems getting used to. Took you a little longer to warm up to his kisses in public but you’re here now. Here, slack-jawed at this distant intimacy. Feet mired in your shock, on the carpet of your front door.

You don’t remember feeling this desperate for Jeongguk before. 

[7:54 PM] You: i [7:54 PM] You: definitely wouldn’t be opposed

You lock your screen fast. Fling your shoes off, slap your jacket onto a hanger. You nearly bust your bedroom down in your hurry to get the fuck on the bed, like the rush of a late night with a stranger but Jeongguk is wholly familiar and isn’t even here to touch you. The ding of your phone is enough to keep you on your toes. You don’t swipe yet because already you’re sweating.

Aa…Jeongguk❣️: 1 Photo and 2 Messages

Should you take your clothes off? Or is he supposed to ask you to do that? Should you ask? What the fuck. This was too much.

You open it. It takes one second to download.

That’s his dick. Jeongguk’s dick, flash on, held up by the tips of his fingers at the base like he knows his angles. The tip is flushed with a wetness you’d lick right up if you were there just to feel the way he shivers under you.

[7:55PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Baby I’m so hard [7:55PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Wanna kiss you all over

You squeal. 

This was your boyfriend, mister-campus-hotboy, the one literally everyone got hard over and now he’s sending you his own personal dick pics. Maybe you do need to thank the high heavens one day because

What

The

Fuck is going on.

No matter. 

[7:57PM] You: i want u to [7:57PM] You: want u on top of me [7:57PM] You: with ur lips on my neck [7:58PM] You: getting me wet. u always make me. wet

You can’t wait anymore. Your shirt is off, bra tossed, back bare on your sheets. You shimmy out of your pants just as Jeongguk texts back.

[7:58PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Fcurck baby [7:59PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Can’t stop thinnking abt u [8:00PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: The way u sounded [8:00PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: When I was e ating u out [8:01PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: u tasted so good on m y tonguel fucckkkk [8:01PM] You: are u jacking off rn ??? [8:02PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Yess [8:02PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Touch urself [8:02PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Please?

Panties come off. It’s not a surprise when your finger is soaked in your arousal, teasing your clit and you sigh.

[8:02PM] You: fuck im so wet [8:03PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Yeah??? [8:03PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: What r u thinkgnin about [8:03PM] You: your mouth [8:04PM] You: on my tits [8:04PM] You: my cunt [8:04PM] You: u got me off sooo good [8:05PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Fuucckckk baby [8:05PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: You’re so hot ho ly shit [8:05PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Want u so bad [8:06PM] You: how??? [8:06PM] You: u already treat me so good [8:06PM] You: maybe i’’ll take care of u now hm? ?? [8:07PM] You: mymouth on ur dick [8:07PM] You: taste so good [8:08PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Shit

Everything was jumping out of your head so quick your one hand couldn’t keep up. The two fingers on your pussy dipped again, jolts of sweetness straight through your nerves when you rub yourself faster. Focusing on his texts was as easy as trying to stave your orgasm off, which… really wasn’t going too well, pelvis meeting the palm of your hand in a desperate kick.

[8:08PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Take your clothes off [8:09PM] You: past that

It takes him a minute.

[8:10PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Could you send a pic [8:10PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Pleas e

Oh. Okay.

You lean up on your elbow, push your chest against your bicep in the hopes that your cleavage could somewhat be evocative enough in the weak light of your phone. (You notice you forgot to turn the lights on.) The picture cuts off right above your nipples, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t do that just for the possibility of a desperate plea. You lie back down.

Sent.

[8:13PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: urruhguhgkehrdhfg [8:13PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Baby pleease I want more [8:14PM] You: of what ??? [8:14PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: FUck [8:15PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I want you [8:15PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: On top of me [8:15PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Grnding yuor pretty pussy on my dick [8:16PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: You’re wet ik ur wet

Of course he would. He knows your body better than ever before, and you might tease him but the throbbing you’re attending to is too much of a distraction.

[8:17PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Can you imagine that [8:17PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Teasig my cock into you [8:17PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: But I won’t putnit in yet [8:17PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Bc I want u squirming o n top of me [8:18PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Ik u don’t beg [8:19PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: But I would ask u anyway if u want me to sink u down on my cock

Oh my god. The soft sucking sound of your fingers inside your cunt isn’t enough to drag you out of this reverie. It just sinks you deeper into this bliss Jeongguk spells out for you so well. He has you like putty. Your knuckles curve you into a hopeless whimper.

[8:20PM] You: i want that [8:20PM] You: iwa nt that so bad pleas [8:21PM] You: let me feel your dick inside [8:21PM] You: u want that so bad baby [8:21PM] You: to feel me squeezing around u [8:21PM] You: im so tight and wwt [8:22PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Wanna hear u  [8:22PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Ft [8:22PM] You: just call

You don’t think you could handle seeing his dick now. Especially when the build in your pussy is this close to tipping you into a climax he probably wants to hear.

Your phone blares in the quiet. “Baby—”

“I’m so close,” Jeongguk says. He sounds like he’s panting. “Tell me you are too. Please—!” He cuts himself off with a gasp.

“Y-Yeah.” You burn in his desperation, curling into your cunt in the spot you know would have you keeling over. “Ngh—!”

“I wanna hear you. Wanna—hear you when I fuck you. So—good.”

“Oh fuck—”

“You want that too baby?”

You heave. “Yes!”

“Let me hear you cum. Please. I’m so fucking close—”

“Jeongguk!” You sputter, moaning loud, crying in the extremity. It zips through your core, has you reeling, legs shaking as you rub it out so hard you arch from your bed. You barely register Jeongguk’s own completion.

“Fuck I’m cumming—shit!” He groans, long, noisy on the line but the image of his cum onto his hands has your stomach clenching. Clobbered by his own doing and it’s almost endearing how fucked out he sounds. There’s a moment where you hear fumbling, a distant breath; shifts in the mattress probably. “Baby…”

Your phone lights up again. 

Aa…Jeongguk❣️: 1 Photo

You don’t hesitate this time. 

His dick is wet, probably with his spit, but now his entire first is closed around it, dregs of his cum pooling in the suction of his palm against the pink skin. The urge to put your mouth on him is so over-whelming you groan in frustration.

“Want it in my mouth,” you say.

“You’ll make me hard again,” Jeongguk murmurs with a laugh.

It’s just past 8:30. “So. What got you so hard that had you begging for me over the phone?”

“Hm.” You move until you’re under the covers. A makeshift warmth because you don’t have Jeongguk to cuddle you for post-sex softness. “I don’t know. Just missed you. Again. Sorry if you had work to do.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yeah I’m not.” You think you hear him in the washroom. The vent is loud. “Made a mess.”

“Not my fault.”

“Uh, it kinda was. Hoping for more nipple next time.”

“Now you’re asking for too much,” you sigh. There’s a sleepy pull in your head, dragging you through the waves of feelings that currently bombard your heart. “I miss you too. Hope you’re not working too hard.”

“I have a bruise on my ass! Oh my god I forgot to tell you. But Hoseok checked me so hard for no fucking reason and—boom. Landed right on my booty.”

You coo. “Aw. Want me to kiss it better?”

“Yes please, it’s on my fatter butt-cheek I think.”

It dies down again. “So what stage are we at for your build-up?”

“Close to the finale.”

You can’t stop yourself from smiling. There’s only three days left till your prospective hells come to a head. Then it’s back to loving Jeongguk but closer to him this time, not through the cracked screen of your phone. “Can’t wait.”

“Me too,” Jeongguk says. “Guess—I should leave you to your work?”

As much as you want to say no, the pile of essays on your desk is calling for your ass to get moving. It sends a quick ripple of nervous tension down your spine but the sooner you get it done the sooner it is to texting Jeongguk again. You know he’s impatient too. “Yeah. Might stay up.”

“Not too late, okay? You’re almost there. And make that tea I bought you, it’s supposed to help with your headaches.”

You’ll cry. “I love you.”

“Love you too. Text me when you’re gonna sleep.”

You’re probably ovulating because a tear really does slip over your cheek. The stickiness between your thighs rubs your skin when you finally get up, avoiding the offensive stack of work in your periphery when the hints of a new headache start to come up. 

Jeongguk probably knew you were heading straight into another painful night of working. There’s a tin of loose leaf tea sitting patiently for you in your cupboard. And maybe taking on the teaching position wasn’t such a good idea, but then again, dates where everything loomed over you were inevitable. School’s a bitch. But you have an attractive boy waiting for you to finish, and that’s what prompts you to face the music. One more time.

Three more nights. 

The first night is actually okay. You get a page and half done, and Namjoon checks in with a text in the evening to make sure you aren’t pulling your teeth out. Jeongguk has practice the whole day. 

During the second night, you forget to save one of the articles you cited, and you spend a frantic hour searching through all your sources to trace it back. It’s a painful process and you almost cry, but you text Jeongguk and he sends you a selfie of him sending you a thumbs up. Your phone lags trying to scroll through the gigantic box of of hearts he texts you. You find the article. It’s good.

Third night and you’re about ready to give up. Jeongguk and Namjoon are both out of commission because apparently the universe hates all of you and you’re all busy with your respective work. But you have a page to conquer, and the onus is on you to show up with nice skin tomorrow because the department likes to take pictures to post online. The tea Jeongguk got you steams as you type diligently.

One

More

Word

Andit’sdone.

“Oh god,” you whisper to yourself. You scroll through your paper, making sure all your citations are right. Page numbers there. No excessive use of the first-person, your professor’s name spelt correctly. Formatted correctly.

It’s done.

You bask in the harsh light of your desk lamp, weight lifted off your shoulders the instant you save your document to submit online.

The assignment page loads, and you hit the button.

The line of your phone rings twice.

“Hello?” Jeongguk groans. It’s three in the morning. “Babe? Are you okay?”

“I FINISHED I SUBMITTED IT IT’S IN!” You yell. A genuine rise in your throat that has Jeongguk whooping with as much energy as his sleep-ridden voice can allow on the other side of the line.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I wanna hop on your dick right now.”

Jeongguk just snickers. Your eyebrows raise, because for sure he would’ve been choking. But maybe it’s because he’s tired. “Don’t tempt me into a boner, it’s too early for this.”

“Fuck—sorry. You have your game. Okay I’ll hang up. I’m gonna—sleep. Try to. Okay I love you! Sorry bye!”

“Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You knock out the second your light is off and your head hits the pillow.

You asked Namjoon earlier in the day to call you awake because your ringtone is more annoying than your alarm. And even though the ceremony is later in the evening, you’re scared that you’ll sleep the entire day away. 

Jeongguk texts you before you’re up. A congratulatory message, and another saying that he’ll be at practice the whole day so he’ll try to text you at lunch. But the afternoon sun sees no text from him and you know it’s because he’s sweating his balls off on the hockey rink. Stubborn like you know he is but now you miss him again. 

One thing that sticks in your head the rest of the day: the thought of it being over. Because once you get your awards and hopefully get to see the end of the game, you get Jeongguk to yourself again. Two weeks of agonizing to get to this point all but crashes into your loins to spark a frighteningly hot fire, and now, once again, you’re left to fantasize about Jeongguk’s dick. You force yourself not to dwell on it too much, makeup a risk to your fidgeting and if the reason why you have an ugly picture up online is because you were longing for dick then—well. 

It’s Namjoon who greets you when you get to the conference hall downtown.

“You look good,” is all he says. 

You stick your tongue out at him. You had to redo your lipstick twice. “Shut up.”

He leads you to where he was sitting: the massive table stuck in the middle with the microphones sticking up along the perimeter. Maplewood and entirely unfitting for the green carpet, though Namjoon beats you before you can say anything mean. “If you look up front, that’s the Commissioner-General I was talking about.”

You look. She’s a petite woman, scarily thin, wearing a bright scarf. “Yoon Soomin,” you recognize.

“Correct.”

“Namjoon!” You hit his shoulder, and he winces with a grin. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Because I knew you’d get stressed!”

Well he’s goddamn right you’re stressed now. Yoon Soomin, Commissioner-General of one of the programs you had your eyes on for the past year now. Applications are open next week. You’ve had yours done for a solid six months, and now the head of the program is right here. In the flesh. Watching you about to get your award.

The chatter of all the other students is drowned out when the program head gets up for the commencement speech. “Good evening everyone. My name is Bae Joohyun. Thank you—”

Ding.

Namjoon kicks your shin. You silence your phone. It’s Jeongguk.

[7:39PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Hi babe hope u had a good day!!! Sorry I got distracted [7:40PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: But I know ur gna win like fifty awards so advanced congrats!!!!!!! Proud of ur big brain [7:40PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Love you [7:41PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I hope you make it later pls try ur hardest but if u can’t it’s okay but like I would really appreciate if you. Came [7:41PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: OJO [7:42PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Heh Taehyung said that looks like me 

There’s clapping. You don’t know why everyone’s clapping but you do it too.

[7:42PM] You: pls don’t break any limbs while i am here i won’t be fast enough [7:42PM] You: love u. play smart not hard. i’ll be there for ur final goal 🤪 [7:43PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: Anything for my scholar [7:43PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: You r so cute please come soon [7:44PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: I have to go now I LOVE You

“I will now invite the Student Chair Kim Namjoon forward to deliver a speech,” Professor Bae says.

No last text to Jeongguk because now you join the applause once more. Namjoon gets up with practiced ease, staggered steps of confidence because if anyone is going to get a PhD first, it’s him. And you know he applied for the program too.

It starts simple: “Thank you for coming today.” A celebratory gathering, gratitude for everyone’s hard work and commitment. A call for everyone to continue being ambassadors for the Humanities. Nothing you haven’t heard before. 

“I would also like to announce that the department has decided to award a special recipient tonight for their academic work and contribution to graduate research,” Namjoon continues. “The award will be presented by Yoon Soomin, Commissioner-General of the Anthropology for the Humanities Global Network. Please give your warmest applause to Doctor Yoon.”

Oh god. Your literal idol because she was just as interested in babies as you were and Jeongguk would for sure be goading you into a frenzy because of your shaking. But you clap as normally as normal clapping goes, and Doctor Yoon takes the mic.

“I’ll just head straight into it,” she says with a pretty smile. You catch Namjoon looking at you. He raises an amused eyebrow, and now you’re suspicious. “It is an honour to call upon ___, for their recent submission of pronatalist work based in Europe for the research study funded by the Global Network.” That’s—you. That’s you, and these are your legs moving on their own accord to the beat of the eager applause. You don’t look at Namjoon but you can hear him, because he’s clapping the loudest. “___ has been recognized before: for an outstanding submission in undergraduate research on cultural genocide, as well as active participation in the Anthropological department.”

Yoon Soomin extends a hand to you, as well as a pretty certificate gilded with bold letters in the form of your name. Again: all offered by Yoon Soomin. Again, you are shaking. 

“T—hank you,” you stammer, and her hand is soft in yours and you really just might cry but it’s probably because you’re exhausted. You’d slept for a solid ten hours but no amount of rest would have ever prepared you for her pretty voice congratulating you again. “I—It’s an honour.”

“Picture time,” Namjoon interrupts. He’s got his phone up. “Smile!”

“Congratulations again,” Doctor Yoon says. She grins like she knows something too, and the rest of the ceremony is static in your ears.

Like always, it’s repetition. A name called, award presented. Your name is exhausted three more times, and you’d cower under the attention but you worked too goddamn hard not get to this point. You think of Jeongguk, probably three to none even though it’s only been half an hour into the game. You and Namjoon are practically trembling when Professor Bae dismisses everyone.

Your jacket is on, purse about to swing over your shoulder when someone comes up to you.

“Hello.” Doctor Yoon again. “Oh—are you in a hurry?”

“Not at all,” you rush out. You can feel Namjoon vibrating too. “I—Thank you so much for presenting the award.”

“It was my pleasure. The overseas program application opens next week,” she advises, and you really might scream but you will yourself to stillness. “We don’t know where it’s based yet, but I hope that doesn’t discourage you from submitting your application.”

“Oh she’s been interested for years,” Namjoon offers. You elbow him. Doctor Yoon laughs. 

“I’m glad to hear that. Keep up the good work!”

You all but skirt around her with a quick thank you again! and make a mad dash out the building and to the underground train because Namjoon sucks and can’t drive on highways yet. “Good thing you didn’t wear heels because you’re so fucking slow.”

“Shut up,” you growl. The people on the sidewalk offer no space for you to slither through, and you grind you teeth with impatience. “And don’t give me shit when I beat you four to one.”

“Not everyone’s into babies like you are, genius.” You reach the closest subway entrance, a seedy staircase down into the dirty cement and your fare is paid with a drop of a coin; running for the departing train and you make it by the wisp of your hair. You sigh into an empty seat, Namjoon right next to you. “Time.”

It’s nearing 9:00. “Oh my god it’s almost done.”

“You’ll make it,” Namjoon says. The jostling ride is another twenty minutes, and you know it’s cutting it short but you promised Jeongguk. He’s so close. You’re out of breath. “So you’re free now, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You worked hard.”

You scrunch your face in embarrassment. “Thanks Joonie.”

“I mean it,” he says. “No one deserves this more than you. Yeah? Cut yourself some slack.”

“I know—it’s just—I couldn’t be there for Jeongguk as much as I could have—” And it’s all coming out now. There’s only one other person on this cart other than Namjoon so you let yourself have the moment, the breakdown. The awfulness of preoccupation and missing your boyfriend and too much work. You don’t want to cry but the screech of the metal tracks makes it easier to hide. “‘M so fucking tired.”

Namjoon pats your back when you heave. “Two more stops. Then you can curse the gods all you want.”

Good incentive, because once the doors slide open on your stop you book it up the escalator as fast as your fatigue can allow. Luckily campus is right around the corner, cars taking up all the space on the road. Probably all here for the final match of the year, your university against the one a city over, and the cheers are so loud you hear it from the two sidewalks over. “Let’s go let’s go!”

And you and Namjoon run again, down to the set of doors of the arena nestled into the corner of your school. The doors are heavyset but you yank them like you’ll die if you aren’t inside within the next twenty seconds, and it’s only now that you feel the buzz of your phone from a text.

[8:58 PM] Jimin Bimin: I’m on the east side with taehyung, third from the bottom bleacher, mostly in the middle. hurry!!!!!!

Namjoon’s no doubt just following the beeline you make because even you can’t feel where your legs are taking you. All you know is the rush of school pride and the deafening yells of the crowd, lost bits of popcorn on the floor scrunching against your shoes as you search for Jimin. You see Taehyung first: warpaint on his face and he waves you over quickly, scooting over with a pull on Jimin to make room for Namjoon too.

“You made it!” Jimin screams and it still sounds like a squeak with the roar of the people everywhere.

But you ignore this, laser-beaming the rink for that familiar 97. You catch Jeongguk closely following the puck, stick clenched tightly in his fists, legs quick in their glide as the offence. You feel everyone’s bated breath, hands grabbing Jimin’s arm—the other team’s members flying past Jeongguk, the raise of the wood, a slap to the puck—

The red blares. The crowd goes wild. 

“HE WON!” Jimin screams and so do you, the wave of excitement passing over you like fairy dust and now everyone’s cheering. You have no idea what went on. But now all the boys off the rink jump over the barrier to grab Jeongguk in a hard throttle, arms tangled around each other, chant lost on your ears but they look so happy. 

Somehow, a body breaks away from the huddle, and now they’re skating in your direction. 

Jeongguk waves. You smile. A wave back, and now you have each other again.

You wait outside the building, watching as the throngs disperse. Namjoon, Taehyung, and Jimin already said their goodbyes, last felicitations from them both and a promise for lunch from you somehow gets squeezed from the conversation too. The brick is hard against your back.

[9:30PM] Aa…Jeongguk❣️: WHERE ARE YOU [9:30PM] You: i’m outside already!!

A door bursts open. There’s an inhale, then you turn your head. Jeongguk drops his bag the second you charge for him, arms ready for your attack as you jump and wrap your legs around his waist, arms caught on his neck. You think you hear someone gasp but it’s all lost on you now. “Oh my god I love you,” he breathes, and you cry. “Babe—”

“I watched you,” you sniffle, and you frown when he laughs. “Watched you win.”

“I’m glad.”

You kiss him. “Missed you.”

Jeongguk looks like he might cry too. “Mine again?”

“Yours again.” And you mean it. 

“I would—I would invite you over to the after-party but I’m sleepy,” he says in between presses of his mouth, “and I ran out of contact solution the other day so I can’t invite you over and also Taehyung’s probably sleeping right now.”

“Then you come over.” You melt into his tongue, his feet staggering in your grind and he bites your lip.

“R-Really?” 

“Yeah, actually get some shut-eye.” He lets you off when you wriggle your ass against his hands, dragging him to the bus stop before he can put them back against your jeans or else you might really fuck him this time. “Because Taehyung snores too loud anyway.”

The ride to your apartment totals eight minutes because it’s late, and living on the edge of the suburbs means no one’s up this late anyhow. Jeongguk hadn’t even let you find a seat, balancing through red lights on his feet just to fly out the door when you’d reached your stop. You’ve already done too much running today but Jeongguk still rushes you up to your floor, and before you can get the key to your door he has you pressed up on it instead.

“Want you,” he says. Hard against your throat like he means it.

“God—let me—open my door and you have me,” you say through your teeth, gritted because the hallways echo and now Jeongguk has his thigh pressed up against you. “Babe let go—”

He does, but only with a lingering kiss promised by your burning attraction. You don’t fumble with the lock but you do stumble in from how quick you open the door, slamming shut in your haste and you hear his duffel bag meet the ground and now your back meets the hard metal again. “You have to stop shoving me into this thing oh my god.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jeongguk whispers. He’s kissing you again. Lifts you up with no warning and you yelp into his curious mouth, dick grinding into the rough of your pants. “Fuck I—”

“Did—you want to—”

“No—wait yes, yes—I just—” He doesn’t let up. You can feel his cock straining against his sweats, flimsy layers you could just shove down but his hips are glued to your own. “I can’t—cum. Right now. Too much. Wind—wound up.”

Your tailbone is starting to dig into the door. “Then let me down and let’s just—sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. One last kiss, nose meeting yours. “Still on my hockey grind.”

“Ew,” you snort. “Also don’t wear your pants to bed.”

“Oh.” He shoves his shoes off when you do. 

“I don’t like it when people wear their outside clothes on my sheets.”

“Oh.”

“But it’d be nice to wake up to your dick on my ass,” you add. Jeongguk makes a strangled noise, then carries you to bed.

“I’ll brush my teeth tomorrow,” is the last thing you remember him saying. 

The morning rushes in too soon. Your curtains aren’t closed and Jeongguk hogs the blanket, sprawled on your side of the bed no less. You weren’t kidding when you said you wanted to spoon but at least his cock is warm with something just as soft as your ass.

You settle in the calm. Jeongguk isn’t one to snore but his soft breaths are just as jarring, disbelief apparent when you realize this is the first time he’s ever slept-over at your place. As convenient as it is to live somewhere that only needed one bus ride, you’re on campus all the time; making sense meant taking up space in his res instead. But now the lump he occupies in your bed is something you think you could get used to.

(Even if he hogs the blanket.)

You’re still in your clothes from last night, but at least you had the decency to shuck off your jeans. And you’d gotten up well past Jeongguk-sleeping-hours to take off your makeup because it took you forever to pry his ridiculously strong arm off around you. You get up with a kiss to his mane of bedhead and a silent reminder to grab an extra toothbrush.

The next plan to execute on your list after washing the tired off: breakfast. And you know you don’t have eggs but you open the fridge like you’ll see the carton sitting there anyway.

You’re standing, coming to a blank for what feels like forever. You think briefly about ordering in, then remember the guilt of just grabbing groceries instead. The internal battle is cut short when you hear the creak of your bed, a long groan. Then, footsteps.

“You look sad,” Jeongguk croaks two seconds later.

You frown for effect. “I want eggs. And why are you up.”

“Come here, egghead.” Jeongguk is groggy. The sexy kind too, because his voice is a tenor that scratches the needier part in you, the one telling you to bury your face in his chest and you do just that. “I felt you move. Sorry I couldn’t wake you up with my dick against your butt.”

“S’ok. And go shower because you’re stinky.”

He lets you go. “Good morning,” he says for the first time. A domesticity you feel lightheaded from. “You should shower with me.”

“Unless you’re scared of detachable shower heads I think you’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be cocky,” he whines. “And you’re dirty too, you sweat a lot just like I do.”

That’s true. “But it’s not even a hair washing day.”

“Why are you resisting me, woman.” He brings two hands up, wiggling his fingers. “I’ll tickle you.”

“You will not—”

“I will tickle you and if you don’t shower with me I will cry.”

You huff. “Fine.” He leads you down the hall to the bathroom, satisfied in his quick win, back flexing when he takes his shirt off. “And I’m the cocky one.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says. You know he’s baiting but you don’t want to resist him anymore. “You need to turn the shower on because I don’t know how to.”

Getting naked is a different kind of intimate when you’re not in the bedroom. You know this because Jeongguk can’t even look your way when you’ve stripped, but you’re shivering like he’s staring.  You step into the tub before he can back out. He doesn’t come in till the water’s running.

You like it hot. Jeongguk—not so much by the looks of his hesitation, so you compromise with a slight shift of the knob and a switch in place so he’s under the pelt of water. He’s all hard muscle under your hands. “Hope you like cherry blossom.”

He doesn’t say anything. Grabbing the loofah you spurt your pink soap, lathering it on his chest first. Jeongguk just stares. “I really missed you,” he says.

You nod. Nodding fast to keep yourself from thinking too hard because then you might start getting soft. “Me too,” you croak out. “Want me to wash your hair?”

Jeongguk just brushes his lips against yours in answer. You’ve just reached over his shoulders to get the back of his neck but he forces you back into the tiles, back inundated with cold hardness and there’s no room for complaint when your tits press against Jeongguk’s skin like this. He groans a desperate sound into your pliant mouth. “I—I don’t wanna wait anymore.”

You pause. “For what?”

“I don’t—know—I—just having you here again. Makes me want to do everything.”

You are enveloped in mist and so much longing. “Let me finish then we’ll—go back.” You don’t know if you want to focus southward because one look at his dick and you’ll fall to your knees. “Turn around.”

He does. The glass of the divider fogs up in your intimacy. You give a half-hearted scrub along his skin, focusing on the grime you can’t see. Can’t think.

“Okay you know—I think we’re good,” you say, voice tight.

“Come here.” Jeongguk spins to find you again, a hard kiss into you and you feel his dick press up against your stomach. “Towels.”

“Turn off the shower.” You push open the door, shaking legs dripping onto the floor as you scramble to wrap yourself in warmth other than Jeongguk. He grabs the other one, quick passes over his skin before he drops it to the floor and nearly bowls you over to get you out into the bed room.

It’s bright. Jeongguk reads your mind. “Can I—shut the blinds?”

“Please.”

He goes to twist the plastic while you dry off the last remnants of water clinging to your skin, and before you know it Jeongguk has you lain flat across the tangled blankets, legs dangling from the side of the bed. “God I tried really hard to have a normal morning with you but I—just can’t anymore.” He kneels over you. “Please tell me you feel the same.”

You could go on about how quick the one-eighty was. From your thoughts about breakfast to this absolutely insatiable need for your boyfriend to insert whatever valid body part he could use into your pussy. But you and Jeongguk are never conventional, and going too fast is an illusion now. 

You have each other again, and no one’s counting the seconds anymore.

“Will you fuck me?” You ask.

“Yes,” he decides, and he unwraps the towel you’d clung onto before pressing downwards and caving into your lips. “I—have never wanted you so goddamn bad in my life, oh my god.”

“Good,” you choke on your breath because Jeongguk slips down your throat with his tongue and a pucker of his lips. “Ah—!”

A bloom of your slick runs through your cunt when he sucks hard on your skin, thumbs a shy presence on your breasts but they peak under the pressure. “You have the cutest tits,” he says. 

“Shut up.” You flare with embarrassment. “You can—be more rough.”

Jeongguk twists your nipples and you pant. “Like that?”

“Suck on them too. Make it—hurt.” His eyes flutter, determined in your command. Mouth a hot suction, laving you with his spit. His teeth graze in a bite and you moan. “Fuck—yeah. That’s so good…”

He stays like this: feeding into your sounds with sloppy grips of his tongue, suckling till your tits pop out his mouth and your hands find the nape of his neck in desperation. “Ugh—please—”

Jeongguk slurps on a nipple. “Get up there.”

You scramble up the bed, comfortably nestled in the centre and Jeongguk’s fingers go to spread your pussy,   cheeks heating in the sound of wet. He sighs.

“Do you want to cum now?”

You dip your head. “Please.”

He settles on his stomach, diving in to latch onto your clit, sucking that has your head thrown back further with every inch he covers with the jerk of his tongue. Honed in on the dangerous tip that could have you teetering over in a second and your hips pull back, but his hands take your bucking and locks you down to his attention. Too much so and now you wail. “Oh my g—od.”

Curses caught in the grit of your teeth because now he licks the stretch of your cunt like he’s thirsty. Jeongguk’s good at making you want more when you don’t know what means. “Gonna—use a finger.”

“Fuck, yeah. Yeah.” He curls in and up, a sweet crevice touched. Eyes rolling back as you puff. “Holy fu-uck yeah, finger it.”

“Wanna beg?” He suggests. Challenging.

“You’re asking me to?”

“I’m begging you to,” Jeongguk snickers.

“Then—” you settle up on your elbows, watching the minute thrusts into your cunt like a lazy cartoon— “please use another finger. And—make me cry this time.”

His eyes bulge in your confidence. Pulls out; now there’s two hard intrusions and it digs into a sweeter part inside, a touch that has you keening right into the pillow, drool smearing on the sheet. Clit sitting pretty on his wet tongue and you’d let him have it all day if he asked. Then Jeongguk thrusts in a drill so hard you vibrate. “O-O-Oh my fuuuuuuck—”

He curves into your loudness. “So fucking sexy,” he praises, rushing right through you and onto his fingers. “So wet—”

“Ugh—!” Your sobbing isn’t a tearful one but the scratch in your throat is smarting. Jeongguk swipes right over your nub. Leans up, fingers still a consistent presence and now his tongue is teasing yours, a muscle spasm more than anything and you can’t fucking breathe.

“Sit on my face,” he says.

“You—really?”

“I might cum.” Oh. He looks at you, eyes a wonder of pleasured agony. Probably because he’d been grinding into the sheets like last time but now you’re even more gone.

“Okay,” you gulp, and Jeongguk rolls over. Knees above his shoulders, using his elbows to slide along the mattress till you’re settled comfortably over his eager mouth. “You okay?”

“Fuck yeah.” He pulls on your thighs until his neck doesn’t strain up anymore, a stretch you can ignore if only to feel the traction of his rough love on your sensitivity. “This is—so hot.”

“Are you—pulling on pornographic roots right now?”

He hums into a suction. “Yeah.”

“What else have you thought about?” You can’t see his entire face from your view, but his forehead is scrunched. Thinking hard for you.

“Nothing—crazy,” he says. He kisses your leaking cunt. “Always wanna make you feel good. But it’d be hot if I choked you, yeah.”

“Oh—”

“Whatever you like,” Jeongguk decides. “I like whatever you like.”

“I would like it if you made me cry,” you contend.

He doesn’t say anything else. Jeongguk squeezes your ass, neck straining to get you dribbling on the tip of his tongue, pleasure pulled from the bottom of your stomach into moaning so loud you’re worried for the thinness of your walls. “Oh my god I’m close—don’t stop—”

Your pussy grinds right into it. His fingers are lax on your skin like he’s given up if it means you feed into your own demise. And you do: grating all your nerves from Jeongguk’s insistence into your sex and your hands tangle into his hair. “Oh fuck I’m—Jeongguk—!”

The feeling settles heavy in your pussy. Taken with a vehemence you’d praise forever and Jeongguk is nothing but passionate, a power translated through all his work and one he insists on when he paints your cunt like it’s his favourite thing to do. His hands tighten their grip on your ass, nearly falling over when his tongue slides like that—

“I’m cumming—oh my god I’m—fuck!”

Your eyes sting. It bursts—starting on Jeongguk’s tongue and spreading so fast you can’t tell up from down.  Moans wrenched from your chest and you can’t catch your breath, even when you push yourself off from Jeongguk because you can’t stop riding into it. “Ah—oh fuck.” You’re sniffling.

“Babe wait did I actually make you cry?”

“Yes you idiot, come here.” And Jeongguk crawls over you, kiss-ready, lips wet on yours. “Do you—is it—are you okay? Do you wanna try now?”

“Sure,” he says. “I just—might not last too long.”

“We take it slow,” you say. He nods. “Got condoms?”

Jeongguk looks sheepish but he nods again. “Please don’t ask me why I have them on me.”

“I’m asking why you have them on you.”

He groans. “Let me just—get them from my bag.” And he runs, hard penis and all, outside to the bag he’d left outside in your haste to the bed. He’s not even gone for two seconds before he has the string of foil in his hand. “Remember there was a party last night? Taehyung gave them to me just in case—you know. Something happened.”

“Good friend. Do you—have lube too?” 

Jeongguk pales. “No.”

“Come here,” you order instead, because you’re ridiculously wet anyhow. He gets closer, lying down when you push his chest down. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. Just wanna kiss you.”

He lets you. You stay in this moment, a precursor to a new era if you were being dramatic about it. But having him so soft and yielding under you like this makes you want to enjoy it, bit by bit. “I love you,” he says.

You mold into him. “I love you too.” Reaching over for one of the foils, you tear it as Jeongguk stares with a still chest. The condom rolls easily. “Okay?”

“Yep.”

Then you sit on top of him, your own breath caught in the butterflies jumbled in your stomach, a flit when his hands come to rest on your thighs. Nerves tangling with his and you feel the low tremors in his body. Your pussy glides along his dick lying pretty on his stomach. You tangle your hands with his. “Don’t be nervous,” you whisper.

Jeongguk gulps. “Just—kiss me again.”

You lean back down, his hands tightening yours when you meet him again. “Are you okay?”

His eyes are closed. “Yes—yes. You can put it in. Please.”

“Just—say the word and I’ll stop.”

He nods.

There’s a lump in your throat. You want it to be good for him. The griping all his friends did had done a great deal for your sex life, yeah. But the point of his comfort was crossed so many times you feared he’d back out by this time. And now he waits: waits for your go, on your own time, because the last thing he wanted to do was pressure you too. You know it in his attention, his quiet insistence on making you cum first. His patience for you to come back to him. Waiting so that you could get comfortable before he did, because he’s only ever comfortable when you are. 

You hold the base of his dick, tip straight below your core, positioned at the height of both your breaths.

You sink down.

It’s a scarcity, to feel this good from the get-go. A prodding that pinches a little stretches you right, Jeongguk’s length gloved in your heat, so much heat because he groans. “Oh my god.”

“Is that—okay?”

“Yes—”

His hands find your hips when your knees drop down even further. Slow, slow, slow; so wet because he makes you feel it—until you bottom out. Jeongguk shivers. “Tell me—when I can move.”

You watch his eyebrows scrunch up, teeth gritting when you shift to ease the weight on your legs. “I’m good. I’m good, please move, fuck.”

You do. You pick up to an easy pace, not straining yourself but enough for the tip of his dick to hit a spot in your gut that has you cooing. Your hands find his chest. “Ooh—fuck yeah.”

“Is it good—for you?” Jeongguk pants, bucking his hips when he watches your tits bounce. 

“Yeah. Feels so good…” You trail off, getting used to the feel of something so much thicker than his fingers. A burn you can’t say you haven’t missed, teasing your insides and you squeeze.

“Baby—that—fuck—” He’s sweating. His forehead shines, hair caught on his skin. His chest is a flushed, wet where your palms meet him because you’re getting a little winded now. But the little grunts he lets out every time you bounce is enough to keep you going. 

“Do you think—you can cum like this?”

His grin is sheepish. “N-No.”

You opt for a closer grind then. “How do you want me?”

“Your back,” he says, hesitant. “Let me—fuck you from the edge of the bed.”

You can do that. You lift up till his dick lies wet on his belly, sheets a mess under your bum when you let Jeongguk get up to move you the way he wants. He stands, one knee on the mattress as he spreads your legs, pussy served like it’s his to take. Makes a grab for his dick; jostles around a bit on your clit to see your hole tighten, stomach clenched. 

He presses in slow just to see you shiver. In control of your pleasure again, and you sigh into the sheets. 

“Oh my god.” You grasp the blankets, elbows strong to watch what you now know is the visual of Jeongguk fucking you. A little stilted in his rhythm, but only because he’s getting used to the feel of your pussy like this. 

You don’t care for the semantics of proper fucking. As long as his hips meet your ass in the beat you can only call nasty. The squelch of your arousal is loud. “Fuck—baby…”

“Yeah—feels so good.” Buried deep in your walls and maybe you could learn the ridges of his dick like this: lain here for him to use, cunt fit only for his pleasure. A position you’d gladly take everyday from now on because fuck if this isn’t heavenly. 

You know he feels it too when his chest picks up in his panting, dick a piston now and you mewl. 

“Yeah—faster, baby—like that—!”

“Shit—” Smearing your walls with your own slick, made for him to dirty. A push so vigorous you would be sliding if it weren’t for Jeongguk’s tight hands on you, and all you can do is take it. “Babe I’m close—”

And he bends down, kissing you with a pant into your mouth because he’s getting spent, efforts all going into your pleasure. He still thrusts. “Cum. Cum when you can, fuck.”

“What about—”

You shut him up with another press of your lips. “I’m fine.”

He leaves it at that. Jeongguk leans up again, adjusting one more time till he’s got both knees on the bed, cock a heady presence inside your sex and he gives it hard now. You’re trying not to squeeze so hard around him but it’s getting difficult; seeing him so focused, his eyes wild, sweat dripping on his shoulders. Sweltering in your heat and love and novelties—defiling him but in the best way possible. “I love you,” he chokes. “Oh my god I might—”

“Give it to me,” you whisper.

He does. Your pussy is still in Jeongguk’s indulgence, his whines escalating until he groans out: “I’m cumming—”

Jeongguk slams into you, a final push for your core and he croons into your neck. Streams of his pleasure in the form of a long sigh, his pulses inside. And maybe you’re dumb but you’re laughing and crying again, arms wrapping around his neck, swaying him back and forth as he calms down. 

“How was that?” You ask.

He’s crying, too. You wipe his under-eye when he takes one more kiss. “Best ever,” he says. “I’ll make you cum.”

“You don’t need to—” But his thumb is already on your clit, still wet from his doing and you force your hips to stillness— “Jeongguk no—”

“I wanna feel you cum around my dick,” he says, and the plea is enough for you to tighten and cry even more. It hurts, a nudge of pain but it’s already beginning to spread into pleasure—

“Jeongguk—”

You cum into his kiss, walls clenching into an orgasm so sweet your toes tingle. A ripple of pleasure running through all of you and he moans like he feels it too. 

Out of breath. It’s hot under his skin.

“So. Who do we tell first?”

Jeongguk laughs. “Maybe we can decide over breakfast.”

And you feel something, better than orgasmic bliss, the pleasure of a tryst: the simplicity of being in love. Jeongguk makes you feel like you can do anything.

“Eggs?” You ask.

His tongue is sweet. “Eggs.”

[raydianbluesandhues]

Hey. What is your favorite de Blob character?

( sorry for the wait!)

——

I think I’ve said this before but Pinky is probably my favorite (with Arty being a very close second)! I just enjoy her personality and how spunky she is compared to everyone else. She compliments Blob very well in terms of their personalities; Blob being the more chaotic good of the two and Pinky being the one to smack him with a rolled up newspaper if he gets too overzealous and rowdy, but she can also be silly with him. They’re so,,, sibling energy and I believe I talked about this in the Pinky headcanons post (which I might go more into depth on)

She’s also pink which is one of my favorite colors, which helps yknow

[razorcat26]

Chat Noir Weight Gain Story: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Professor Animate    

Ladybug and Chat Noir have to fight a new villain. How will Chat Noir manage to fight evil and fight off his desire to eat more.

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Relationship: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug                                                            

Characters:Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug)  

Tags: Weight Gain Force-Feeding Belly Rubs Stuffing 

All characters at 18+.

All characters are owned by their respective owners.

AO3

Their trip back to the city centre of Paris was fairly uneventful. Ladybug was just surprised at how agile Chat Noir was. He still managed to keep up with her, although every time he would land on top of a building, he would cause it to shake.

As the sun was beginning to rise, many Parisians were heading to work. Chat Noir would get the occasional glance from people on the street as they tried to figure out what that large black blob was, that was bouncing across the skyline. 

Moving past the Eiffel Tower they both landed of one of the cobblestone streets, which was surrounded by small corner stores and terrace homes. They started to hear screams coming from one of the boulevards. They both turn towards where the noise was coming from. In the distance they spot a large wall of people running towards them. They both jump out of the way of the crowd and land back on their feet. The heroes then saw in the distance what looked like normally inanimate objects roaming around, causing chaos. Cars without people, lamp posts, post boxes and buses without drivers were walking, hoping, and driving by themselves. They were bashing and crashing into everything they saw. They were all glowing green like they were under some kind of spell, thought Ladybug. While all Chat Noir was thinking of was how hungry he was starting to feel after his labour-intensive journey.  

Suddenly the objects start hurtling towards them but luckily both Ladybug and Chat Noir move out of the way from the out of control objects. The heroes then hop onto various signs and posts which were not affected by the mysterious green glow. The sign which Chat Noir landed started to bow from his weight. Ladybug then see a civilian trapped underneath a collapsed bus shelter. Using her quick thinking, she grabs out her yo-yo and lifts off the bus shelter to rescue a middle-aged woman who was trapped. The women then thanks the much skinnier hero and runs to safety.  

Just then a tall, thin man appears from around the side of a building.  He was wearing sharp pointed green glasses and was in a black and white striped suit. He had a long face with a clearly defined jaw line. He had a curly moustache and a sly grin on his face. “Well well well if it isn’t Ladybug and Chat Noir. I’m glad you’ve decided to show up to my lecture,” said the mysterious man. He did a double take when he glanced at the much larger Chat Noir, pointed, and said, “Wow… well it looks like this kitty has been having way too much milk,” laughs the man.

The heroes land back on the street pavement, ready to attack as Chat Noir growls, “I may have gained a little weight, but I can still move just as fast.”

Ladybug yells, “Who are you?”

“My name is Professor Animate and I’m here to teach you a lesson in physics,” he says as he pulls out a black fine tip pen from his dress shirt pocket. He then uses it as a wand, as a green beam of energy emerges from his pen and zaps one of the stationary cars. It begins glowing with a green aura as its engine begins to start up. It then races towards the two heroes.  Ladybug uses her yo-yo to lift her up to safety. While Chat Noir dives out of the way. His gut freely jiggling as he places his hand on his belly to try and steady it.

Ladybug then uses her yo-yo to strike the akumatised villain, but he manages to dodge her attack. Ladybug then helps Chat Noir to his feet as he places his hand on his gut and says, “Still trying to get used to this.”

Ladybug, blushes bright red as she says to herself, “C’mon, stay focused.”

The Professor observes the increased tension between the two and then turns towards a now quiet bakery. He then uses his pen and zaps the pastries and cakes which were on the display shelves. They begin glowing with a green aura and miraculously start to roll out of the bakery. Ladybug charges towards the Professor and goes in for another attack.

While this was happening, the pastries roll towards Chat Noir. He uses his staff to push them away. However, he accidently trips and lands on his large rear. He drops his staff, and it rolls away from him. The pastries begin to overwhelm the large hero as they force themselves into his mouth. All Chat Noir could do was munch down on the sweets as they continued to enter his mouth. He begins to feel full of the pastries as he was still stuffed from his trip to the factory. While chowing down on a cinnamon roll he thinks to himself that he should come here on his next bakery raid.  

“Enjoying your meal, fat Chat?”, laughs the Professor.

Ladybug, who was caught up with battling the akmatised villain, turns around to find her partner being force fed. “Don’t worry M’lady I got this. I’ve trained for thi…. mmmmffffh”, Chat Noir muffles a danish enters his mouth. Chat Noir lets out a burp after devouring the sweet. He then grabs the next danish and stuffs it in his mouth. Sweet after sweet and pastry after pastry he devours them all. He begins to feel uncomfortably stuffed from the mountain of food he demolished. His belly pushing further out, which causes his suit to rip even more. Chat Noir then rolls onto his side to reach his staff. He then uses it as a support to stand up.

“Hufff… Well that’s what you call fast food,” Chat Noir says patting his large belly.

“Hmmm, well you finished your meal earlier than expected you greedy cat. How about round two?”, Professor Animate replies.

“Not so fast mister. Lucky Charm!”, Ladybug yells as she swings her yo-yo into the air. A red and black spotted old school rotary phone appears above her head.

She then catches it and says, “Hmm… I think my grandmother has one of these, but how is this going to help me?”

She then looks around to see what she can use to defeat the villain. She turns around and sees a streetlight down the road, Chat Noir, and manhole cover light up. Ladybug then says, “I’ve got it,” as she summersaults over towards the stuffed and groggy Chat Noir and whispers her plan to him.  

Whilst still holding the rotary phone, Ladybug dashes over to pick up the manhole cover. She then equips it as if it were a shield. The Professor uses his pen to zap more sweets from the bakery. She then uses the manhole cover to deflect the Professors green beams. “Yes, I’m right… his attacks only work for objects he is mentally aiming for,” Ladybug says whilst the Professor growls.    

She then charges towards Professor Animate and yells, “Get into position Chat!”

Chat Noir then runs or more accurately wobbles, panting heavily with each step he takes. Ladybug then continued to push back the Professor, who appears to have a look of concern on his face. Ladybug’s eyes slightly peer above the manhole cover as she then swings the rotary phone like a boomerang. The handset cord catches the Professor’s arm while the handset swings around the nearby streetlight. His arm is then pulled back as the phone tightly wraps around the streetlight. Trying to free himself, Chat Noir who was still running, changes direction towards the villain. He then jumps and lands on the Professor, belly first. This then knocks him down as he is smothered by Chat Noir’s hefty bulk.

“Looks like this kitty has caught you. Also, I want to thank you for my breakfast. Too be honest I’m still pretty hungry, but unfortunately for you, you won’t be getting your just desserts,” Chat Noir says as he smiles and burps in the Professor’s face.  

Chat Noir then yells, “Cataclysm!” as his hand begins emitting black energy bubbles. The Professor tightens his grip on his pen as Chat Noir grabs it from him and it begins to disintegrate. The akuma flies out from the pen. Chat Noir then rolls off the Professor and he transforms back into the science professor from the nearby university.

“No more evil doing for you little akuma, time to de-evilise” says Ladybug as she captures the butterfly. “Bye bye little butterfly. Miraculous Ladybug!” yells Ladybug as she releases the butterfly and throws her yoyo into the air. With a woosh of magic, everything returns to normal.

She then helps up Chat Noir whose belly was still on full display for her to ogle at. “Well I must say your extra weight definitely helped take down that villain. Maybe Master Fu could train you in sumo wrestling,” Ladybug giggles.

“Yeah I’ve come to really enjoy being big,” Chat Noir replies, giving his belly a shake. “Maybe next time I won’t eat too much that I burst out of my suit,” he blushes.

“Not if I can help it,” Ladybug mumbles.

“What was that M’lady?”, Chat Noir asks.

“Ummm… not... It’s not a bad look,” Ladybug says as she blushes bright red.

Chat Noir smiles cheekily and says, “Well since you turned everything back to normal. I might make a trip to a bakery on my way home. Who knows maybe I’ll eat everything they have in store.”

Ladybug bites her lip and thinks to herself; she couldn’t believe she was attracted to Chat Noir.   

[whumplikeyoumeanit]

red

A/N: requested by @dropofmagic. I might write more of this in the future—it was pretty fun, and I kinda want to see where it goes. 

Warnings: injuries, captivity, violence

Summary: Harry Potter is missing, and Draco Malfoy is assigned a new Auror mission in France—little do they know it will bring them closer together than ever. 

Words: 3k

Harry didn't have his glasses on when they came for him.

He stopped to wipe away the rain from his lenses (a Muggle habit, he knew) when the first curse struck him in the middle of his spine. There wasn't enough time to fight back before he heard "Stupefy!" and everything went dark. He can still hear the way his glasses shattered when they hit the pavement, as well as the dread that sunk in as they fell.

Now, it's a blur. He's only been missing for a week (he keeps track by tying knots in his shoelace), and still he knows nothing. It's difficult to determine what his captors truly want, mostly because they speak French and Harry's blind as a bat. He's picked up a few French phrases just by knowing Bill and Fleur, but it's not enough to help him. They might as well be speaking Gobbledygook.

They haven't threatened or demanded ransom yet—the only thing they do is beat him until his head rings like a collection of church bells. His leg is broken from yesterday's beating, and he can't see it well enough to know how bad it is. All he knows is that it hurts like hell every time he moves. He's sure he's covered in bruises—each beating leaves him whimpering like a child, but he couldn't see the bruises if he tried. Aunt Petunia used to say he was legally blind (which, he found out later, was not another Dursley insult but actually the truth).

Merlin, he misses his glasses.

Escaping? Well, he's tried that, too, but without his wand, a mode of communicating, a way to see his exit, he's fucked. He's tried attacking the guards and unlocking the door but it's all impossible. It's been a week—seven days—and all he can do is bleed.

_______________________________

It's been two weeks since Harry Potter went missing, and Draco can't stop thinking about it. "Get your head out of the clouds, Malfoy," snaps his superior officer from beside him.

He blinks at her. "Sorry, Officier Boucher."

"Don't be sorry," she says, and he sits up straighter. "Pay attention. You're up next. And fix your face—you look like your mother just died. You should be happy—this is your first solo assignment, Officier. You're truly a part of Le Bureau des Aurors now, eh?"

"Oui," he says back, but his heart's not in it. His arms and legs feel heavy, weighed down by something he can't quite explain.

He knows she's frowning, but before he can compose himself, she taps her clipboard against his arm. "Don't worry, d'accord? You've been training for months. You have nothing to be nervous about."

It's not the new assignment he's worried about.

The Capitaine gives him an assignment up north—residents had been reporting sightings of low-level neo-Death Eater activity, as well as a possible abduction, so it's his job to head over there and shut it down before it can get out of hand. He can handle it—he's not worried about a few morons in black hoods—he's worried about Harry. They weren't friends, per say, never have been, but they have a connection, and something twists inside of him at the thought that he's missing. There are a lot of people out for Harry Potter's head, even after all of the good he's done, and Draco doesn't know what he would do if something…

He doesn't want to think about it.

Draco takes the train at Paris Montparnasse to Lezardrieux, where his new assignment was last spotted. He loves the train—the way he can blend in so easily with the Muggles, the way he can sit in peace with only the rumble of wheels against tracks beneath him. Besides, it gives him plenty of time to think. On his way, he researches his assignment—he took everything the Archives des Aurors had on them back in Place de Furstemberg where their headquarters were located. They don't have a lot on them, only on people who they've captured like them.. Neo-Death Eaters can't stand alone—they're too cowardly, he thinks bitterly—so they tend to congregate in large groups, refusing to voice their opinions in public now.

It's a five-hour train ride, and Draco can't research the whole time. He tilts his head against the window and tries to sleep. He's disguised as a Muggle, anyway, as the Death Eaters have planted themselves in a Muggle-heavy area to avoid detection, disguised by an enchantment that makes others see Muggle clothing instead of his Auror uniform.

The train drops him off a few miles from his destination, but he doesn't mind. It's too conspicuous to Apparate straight to it—with wizards like this, they've probably put up detection charms to sense any magical person coming for them. He explores the town—it's a small town, a mostly elderly population. Everyone keeps to themselves, fishing and shopping and staying in their homes, which is what makes his job so difficult—almost every house seems uninhabited, but he's not authorized to enter magical or Muggle homes without an explicit reason. Currently, he has nothing.

How is he supposed to find these bastards?

_______________________________

Harry hasn't had his glasses for three weeks now, and he's stopped trying to see anything. It's useless now, as the room they keep him in is so dark that he's barely able to see anything other than moving blobs anyway. There are twenty-one knots in his shoelaces; he grazes over each one with his fingers, counting. It's one thing he can do in this hellish room of nothing.

He's learned the routine. There's no daylight in this room, but he knows that when the light under the locked door flicks on for the first time after he wakes, it's mealtime. It takes around twenty seconds for one of his captors to stagger down the stairs—the heavy-footed one, usually—and unlock the door. He gets another minute to eat the sandwich they give him, drink the water bottle, and hand his garbage back to them before they get angry. Then he waits a few hours, until the light flicks on again, and they beat him until they seem satisfied and leave again. Then he tries to sleep, and it starts all over again.

He's tried, a few times, to lunge for the wand he knows they must carry, but he misses every time. Aunt Petunia was right—he truly is blind.

She used to take his glasses away when she was angry with him. Only good boys get glasses, she'd snap, holding out her hand. Give them to me, Potter. Now, or I'll take your pillow, too.

Please, he'd beg, don't take them, please, I'll go under the stairs, I'll be quiet, I'll be good, please—

She'd give him that glare, and he would start to cry, taking his glasses off. Don't be a baby—this is your own fault! If you hadn't botched Dudley's dinner then I wouldn't be taking them at all! Harry would cry and cry and cry. Without his glasses, the world was a blurry whale waiting to swallow him whole.

He feels like he's back at the Dursley's now, locked under the stairs, with only his shoelaces and his thoughts to keep him company. No pillow, no glasses, no freedom. At least dust doesn't rain from the ceiling. Was it his fault, maybe, that he got himself into this mess? He should've checked behind him when he'd stopped to clean his glasses, should've just let the rain drip down them, should've stayed a few more minutes at the Ministry before going home.

He wonders if anyone is even looking for him.

The lights under the door flick on, and Harry flinches so hard that his hand leaves his shoelace to brace himself so he doesn't fall. It's the heavy-footed one—Gérald, he thinks—and the man mumbles in French as he comes down the steps. Harry's heart slams against his ribs so hard that he can feel it in his head, pounding and pounding, as the footsteps come closer. He knows what time it is. "Please!" he cries out, just as the door opens, and naked fear runs down his spine. "P-please don't—just tell me—tell me what you want, please, I'll—" Gérald kicks him this time, his boot slamming into Harry's already abused ribs; he gasps for air, curling around his stomach and trying to crawl away.

Click. Flash.

Then it continues. Harry can feel the next kick coming— "Stop, stop! Please!" And this time it strikes him in the face, pain blinding him as it surges up his broken nose, rebreaking the bone where it had already begun to heal wrong. "What—do you—" He can't even draw a full breath before another kick crashes into him, and wetness runs down his face. He curls up as small as he can.

Click. Flash.

He hopes the smaller he is, the less pain he will feel, and he's so scared now, so goddamn scared, 'cause it hurts so much that this doesn't even feel like his body anymore— He can sense the man take out his wand, can feel Dark magic flood the air, and his fear multiplies into terror so violent that for a second he thinks he might piss himself. "N-no!"

Click. Flash.

Then the curses hit.

_______________________________

It's been four weeks since Harry Potter went missing, and Draco's still assigned undercover to this lonely little French town, unable to contact anyone in case the neo-Death Eaters overhear and flee. He misses him like he misses Hogwarts uniforms—every time he sees him, he knows exactly how the world works and what it means to him. They'd started talking after the Battle of Hogwarts was over, in September, when all of the students were invited back to a half-built school for free to spend a year safe and worry-free. Dead professors were replaced by worried parents, janitors and assistants replaced by shell-shocked survivors, orphaned students given permanent residence inside the castle.

As both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Tower were wrecked in the battle, houses moved together—Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Slytherin. He and Harry shared a dormitory with the incoming seventh years, Gryffindor and Slytherin alike. "Thank you," Draco said first, as they were unpacking their things. They hadn't spoken since he'd tossed him a wand during the battle.

Harry kept his head down and took a moment to answer. "For what?" he said finally.

"You know. Saving the world."

He shrugged and kept unpacking. "I wasn't alone, Draco."

They weren't friends. Not at all. But they became hesitant acquaintances—sharing a dormitory will do that to you. Harry stopped calling him Malfoy; he stopped calling him Potter. When Harry woke up screaming from his nightmares, Draco pushed a glass of water to him and waited for him to fall back asleep. When Draco received a Howler from his parents warning him never to come home, Harry was there to set it on fire.

As he walked to one of their classes—Reconstruction, the professors called it, but it was really just a course on how to rebuild after everything they'd lost—a few of the Hufflepuff girls approached him. They were young, maybe fourth years, and one of them was crying. "How could they let you in here," she cried, and her friend's pigtails shook, "after everything you've done?" Draco simply ducked his head and tried to keep walking, but they persisted.

"You're one of them!" spat another. Draco cleared his throat as if to say something, but nothing came out. His fists closed. He knew what he was, he knew what he'd done, but… His chest felt tight. He hated to be reminded of it.

"Can you let him through?" said someone new, and when Draco turned to look, it was Harry. He looked tired, as he always did these days, but irritated. "He's just trying to get to class."

The girls shared glances, as thought to argue with him, but no one wanted to debate with Harry Potter. They dispersed with a chorus of muttered jeers, one rubbing the back of the crying girl, and Harry touched the back of his elbow. "C'mon," he said, as though nothing had happened. "Let's go." As the crowds dissipated and the sunlight filtered in through the graying corridors, he said something so quiet that Draco had to strain to hear him. "They used to do that to me, too."

They weren't friends. Never. But they were there for each other as only survivors could be.

Now, Draco walks out of the small marketplace, dipping in between the Muggles as they busy themselves with their shopping, he tries not to think about Harry. The Ministry of Magic must be doing something to help its missing savior—besides, it isn't his problem. He has his new assignment now, and it's not his responsibility to—

He takes a step back. It's a minute detail, but it's there—blood spotting through the gloved hands of a man buying sandwiches a few feet away from him. "Merci," says the man to the cashier, and as he heads for the door with his paper bag, Draco follows him, casting a minor disillusionment charm on himself as he goes to make sure he goes undetected. He's not dressed like a wizard, but Draco's trained to spot the little things—the way the pocket of his jeans has the faded shape of a wand, the way he takes short glimpses at every person who comes near him, the way a hint of disgust weaves into his expression when a Muggle woman bumps into him. He must be one of them.

The man leads him back to a house at the edge of Lézardrieux; along the way, he notices the blood on his gloves and shoves his hand into his pocket with his shoulders hunched. It's one of the smaller homes: a red-brick gone brown with time in desperate need of some repair. He opens the door and slips inside like he's got something to hide—Draco wonders whose blood is on his hands. A Muggle, perhaps? A witch who disagreed with their cruel ways?

Draco sneaks inside without a problem, countering their protective enchantments and slipping inside. He can sense the Dark magic as soon as he enters (after years of being drenched in it, it's not difficult), and his disillusionment charm melts right off of him. It's everywhere—that, combined with the Death Eater masks strung up by the doorway, is enough to convict anyone. Doing a nonverbal revealing charm, he finds four people in the house: two upstairs, one in the room across from him, and one in the basement. He catches the first by surprise with a Body-Bind curse and casts another Levitation Charm so that his body doesn't hit the floor. He doesn't bother to brief his victim—he just stuns him and moves upstairs to finish them off. They're not difficult to fight—a couple minutes of dueling and they're on the ground, too.

Now, he moves into the basement, where the fourth figure is located. Possible abduction, the Capitaine told him before. He sets down the stairs. "Whoever's down there," he shouts in French, "come out now!" With no response, he unlocks the door with a quick swish of his wand. Ready to fight, he jabs his wand into the darkness and lights its tip.

There's a scream.

Before him is a young man with scraggly black hair and green eyes squinting at the bright light. He looks wild, worn ragged by weeks in captivity, and his pupils shrink to pinpricks at the light. His leg is twisted beneath him and his stubbled face is a mess of blood and tears. Bruises purple over his swollen skin. His shirt is half-torn off of his body, and he retreats into the fetal position, taking huge, rasping breaths as he tries to shield himself from Draco.

He knows that scream.

"Harry?"

The man only holds himself tighter, hands locked behind his head as though to protect himself from another strike. "Please, please…"

Draco doesn't have time for disbelief; drops to his knees beside his friend. The Bureau des Aurors taught him to assist the victims in the field, but not...this. he conjures a blanket and drapes it over him. "Harry, it's me—it's me, Draco." Crouching by him, he touches his shoulder, trying to jolt him back to reality. Harry lets out another small scream. "I'm here to rescue you—look at me, hey, look at me. I'm not gonna hurt you. It's me." Still touching Harry's arm, he grabs the two-way radio from his belt and speaks directly into it in French. "Bureau, I've got three aggressors and one victim down—gonna need medical assistance here—no option for Apparating. Quick."

When he puts the radio down, he gets to work, healing the injuries that he can, trying to get him lucid again. "It's Draco, it's me, c'mon Harry, stay with me..." He casts bandaging charms and is starting on the broken knee when he sees Harry half-sitting up, dazed eyes drifting into empty space. "M-Malfoy?"

Draco smiles, and touches both his shoulders, holding him upright as he sways, a little out of it. "Yeah, of course it's me, I thought we were done with the last name shit—now you gotta let me check you out—"

Before he can finish, Harry sags against him, throwing his arms around his neck, and he's crying. Crying. He can barely get a word out through his tears, but he says this: "Is this—are you really—really here?"

Draco hugs him back gingerly, not wanting to hurt him more, and something expands in his chest. "Yeah, it's me," he assures him, as the hug gets tighter.

"They—they're gonna—they—"

"No," he interrupts, "they're not. You're safe now, Harry. Promise."

Harry sobs into his shoulder, trembling hands clutching at his uniform, fingers moving over the cloth as if trying to determine if this is a dream. "Thank you," he chokes out. "Thank you."

Draco holds him tighter.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

ROGUE'S GALLERY OF DUSTY STAR SYSTEMS REVEALS EXOPLANET NURSERIES Astronomers this week released the largest collection of sharp, detailed images of debris disks around young stars, showcasing the great variety of shapes and sizes of stellar systems during their prime planet-forming years. Surprisingly, nearly all showed evidence of planets. The images were obtained over a period of four years by a precision instrument, the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), mounted on the 8-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile. The GPI uses a state-of-the-art adaptive optics system to remove atmospheric blur, providing the sharpest images to date of many of these disks. Ground-based instruments like GPI, which is being upgraded to conduct similar observations in the northern sky from the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, can be a way to screen stars with suspected debris disks to determine which are worth targeting by more powerful, but expensive, telescopes to find planets -- in particular, habitable planets. Several 20-, 30- and 40-meter telescopes, such as the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope, will come online in the next couple of decades, while the orbiting James Webb Space Telescope is expected to be launched in 2021. "It is often easier to detect the dust-filled disk than the planets, so you detect the dust first and then you know to point your James Webb Space Telescope or your Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at those systems, cutting down the number of stars you have to sift through to find these planets in the first place," said Tom Esposito, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Esposito is first author of a paper describing the results that appeared June 15 in The Astronomical Journal. Comet Belts Around Other Stars The debris disks in the images are the equivalent of the Kuiper Belt in our solar system, a frigid realm about 40 times farther from the sun than Earth -- beyond the orbit of Neptune -- and full of rocks, dust and ice that never became part of any planet in our solar system. Comets from the belt -- balls of ice and rock -- periodically sweep through the inner solar system, occasionally wreaking havoc on Earth, but also delivering life-related materials like water, carbon and oxygen. Of the 26 images of debris disks obtained by the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), 25 had "holes" around the central star that likely were created by planets sweeping up rocks and dust. Seven of the 26 were previously unknown; earlier images of the other 19 were not as sharp as those from GPI and often didn't have the resolution to detect an inner hole. The survey doubles the number of debris disks imaged at such high resolution. "One of the things we found is that these so-called disks are really rings with inner clearings," said Esposito, who is also a researcher at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "GPI had a clear view of the inner regions close to the star, whereas in the past, observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and older instruments from the ground couldn't see close enough to the star to see the hole around it." The GPI incorporates a coronagraph that blocks the light from the star, allowing it to see as close as one astronomical unit (AU) from the star, or the distance of the Earth from our sun: 93 million miles. The GPI targeted 104 stars that were unusually bright in infrared light, indicating they were surrounded by debris reflecting the light of the star or warmed by the star. The instrument recorded polarized near-infrared light scattered by small dust particles, about a thousandth of a millimeter (1 micron) in size, likely the result of collisions among larger rocks in a debris disk. "There has been no systematic survey of young debris disks nearly this large, looking with the same instrument, using the same observing modes and methods," Esposito said. "We detected these 26 debris disks with very consistent data quality, where we can really compare the observations, something that is unique in terms of debris disk surveys." The seven debris disks never before imaged in this manner were among 13 disks around stars moving together though the Milky Way, members of a group called the Scorpius-Centaurus stellar association, which is located between 100 and 140 parsecs from Earth, or some 400 light years. "It is like the perfect fishing spot; our success rate was much greater than anything else we have ever done," said Paul Kalas, a UC Berkeley adjunct professor of astronomy who is second author of the paper. Because all seven are around stars that were born in the same region at roughly the same time, "that group itself is a mini-laboratory where we can compare and contrast the architectures of many planetary nurseries developing simultaneously under a range of conditions, something that we really didn't have before," Esposito added. Of the 104 stars observed, 75 had no disk of a size or density that GPI could detect, though they may well be surrounded by debris left over from planet formation. Three other stars were observed to host disks belonging to the earlier "protoplanetary" phase of evolution. What Did Our Solar System Look Like in Its Infancy? The extent of the debris disks varied widely, but most ranged between 20 and 100 AU. These were around stars that ranged in age from tens of millions of years to a few hundred million years, a very dynamic period for the evolution of planets. Most were larger and brighter than the sun. The one star, HD 156623, that did not have a hole in the center of the debris disk was one of the youngest in the group, which fits with theories of how planets form. Initially, the protoplanetary disk should be relatively uniform, but as the system ages, planets form and sweep out the inner part of the disk. "When we look at younger circumstellar disks, like protoplanetary disks that are in an earlier phase of evolution, when planets are forming, or before planets have started to form, there is a lot of gas and dust in the areas where we find these holes in the older debris disks," Esposito said. "Something has removed that material over time, and one of the ways you can do that is with planets." Because polarized light from debris disks can theoretically tell astronomers the composition of the dust, Esposito is hoping to refine models to predict the composition -- in particular, to detect water, which is thought to be a condition for life. Studies like these could help answer a lingering question about our own solar system, Kalas said. "If you dial back the clock for our own solar system by 4.5 billion years, which one of these disks were we? Were we a narrow ring, or were we a fuzzy blob?" he said. "It would be great to know what we looked like back then to understand our own origins. That is the great unanswered question." More than 100 researchers have contributed to GPI and the GPI Exoplanet Survey, and more than 35 were involved with the debris disk survey. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (AST-1518332), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX15AC89G) and Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), a research coordination network sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate (NNX15AD95G). NSF's NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) operates the international Gemini Observatory, which is a facility of the US, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and South Korea. Other co-authors are Michael Fitzgerald of UCLA, Gaspard Duchêne, Eugene Chiang, Ian Czekala and James Graham of UC Berkeley, former UC Berkeley researchers Robert De Rosa, Megan Ansdell and Franck Marchis, former graduate students Marshall Perrin and Jason Wang, and former undergraduate students Pauline Arriaga, Justin Hom and Malena Rice.