#somebody please take away photoshop from me

[yourfriendlyengineer]

Somebody please take Photoshop away from me.

[inacatastrophicmind]

Somebody please take Photoshop away from me

[feliciadraws]

Somebody take photoshop away from me please

[scribbledghost]

Pairing: Minotaur!Whiskey x Reader (no Y/N, F!reader)

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,605

Warnings: cursing, angst at the end

“There’s no way. There’s no fuckin’ way.”

It was almost amusing, watching the ever-composed Mayor Darlene Hendrix pace about her office muttering to herself in disbelief. 

You’d finally told her about Jack’s existence, as well as some very brief details of how he’d come to be in the state he was. And as you’d expected, she didn't believe you at first. You showed her pictures of yourself and Jack together that you had on your phone, reminding her that you had no way of photoshopping such images. She’d hemmed and hawed and given a few more excuses for the photos that you’d debunked, then began her current activity of pacing and muttering.

“Why didn’t you tell us when you moved in?” she whispered loudly, not wanting anyone to hear despite both of you being alone behind a thick oak door. 

“No one would’ve believed me,” you said simply. “You would’ve all thought I was just the loony outsider in the woods.”

“You could’ve brought him into town with you!” she replied.

“Yeah?” you asked, a bemused smile on your face. “And how do you think people would’ve reacted to that?”

“I-” she started, then paused. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Still, I… this… what the fuck.”

It was comical, in a twisted way.

“You’re sure he’s not dangerous?” she finally asked.

“Absolutely,” you said honestly. “He’s never hurt me. He never would. The only time he gets even slightly intimidating is when something threatens our safety, that’s it. Jack would never hurt somebody just because. Think about it, Darlene - we’ve been here for almost two years. And not once has anyone in town seen hide nor hair of him. He’s never caused a fuss, never made any trouble. You can trust him, just like you trust me. He’s a good person, you just have to give him a chance.”

Darlene sat back down at her desk, folding her hands and resting her mouth on them as she stared down.

“You… you understand how batshit crazy this sounds, right?”

“Of course. Why do you think it took me so long to tell you?”

“That’s a good question,” she said, “why are you telling me this now?”

You sighed, preparing yourself to explain the other half of your predicament.

“Because I think we’re about to have a problem,” you replied.

“What… what kind of problem?” she asked seriously.

“It’s about Mason. Mason Stillwater?”

Darlene took a deep, relieved breath. Clearly she’d been expecting you to divulge something like Jack was slowly going feral and was about to become a threat.

“Yeah, what about him? I noticed the two of you were kinda tense this mornin’.”

“He’s… getting suspicious,” you explained. “Threatened to go out and have a look around my property whether I consented to it or not. I’m… I’m scared he’ll show up without warning. Jack won’t have time to hide. Then Mason will run back to town, crying ‘monster’, and then either half the town will show up to drive us out, or they’ll… or they’ll hurt Jack.”

Darlene fell quiet. 

“Please,” you implored her, leaning in closer, “our past together is a long story, one best left for another time, but I need you to understand that Jack and I… you couldn’t even imagine how much we’ve been through together. How much Jack alone has been through. We finally came here and found a place where we could be left in peace. A place where we felt like we belonged. Darlene, we’ve worked so hard to make a life for ourselves, I… please, I’m begging you, from the bottom of my heart, please don’t let someone like Mason Stillwater take that away from us.”

She stared at you for several excruciatingly long, tense moments. You could only hope your expression was as pleading and sincere as you wanted it to be.

“Okay,” she said, and you deflated. “...Okay. I… you’re right. Neither of you have ever caused any problem, even though I’m sure you’ve had plenty of opportunities to if you really wanted. If this is just some sort of elaborate prank, then fine. Egg on my face, I guess. But you’re… you’re not the type to lie. So… whaddya need from me?”

“Your trust is more than enough,” you said, “and you have my gratitude for it. I just… I just needed you to know, in case Mason comes in and tries to tell you he saw something. I needed to take his ammunition away from him, remove some of the leverage he has.”

Darlene nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, “yeah, I get it. Hard for him to try and blackmail you or cause trouble when I already know.”

“Exactly.”

She sighed, clearly still struggling to fully comprehend the situation. You gave her space, answering various questions when they came to her but otherwise not pushing the issue too much.

The two of you spent the next hour or so discussing various contingency plans with regards to Jack and Mason. Most of them hinged on Mason trespassing on your property and catching Jack unawares, then running back into town and sounding the alarm. Darlene confirmed your earlier assumption that Mason wasn’t the type to resort to violence immediately, but rather the type to turn the rest of the town against you both instead. 

“I doubt that man’s ever held a gun in his life,” Darlene mused. “Come’ta think of it, he’s probably never held anything but the silver spoon he was born with. It was like pullin’ teeth to get him to help clean up, and even then it seems like he’s only agreed so he could get under your skin.”

The revelation didn’t surprise you. But something still nagged at you.

“That’s the thing,” you said. “He’s… never given me problems before. Why is he starting now, I wonder?”

Darlene sighed, running her hands along her face.

“Honestly, the best I can figure is ‘cause he’s lookin’ for a way to control something. Anything. See, he… lost his father in all this. I mean, we all lost people, or at least know someone who lost someone. But Mason… his father was sorta his life compass, you know? Taught him everythin’ he knows. And when he lost him, I’m assuming some kind of switch went off in his brain. He feels so out of control without him, that he’s looking for anything he can to try and get some of that back. To find some reason behind it all. And it… looks like he’s settled on blaming you for it, and getting revenge to boot.”

“Misplaced grief?”

“Mhm,” she replied. “At least, that’s the best guess I have. It’s not like I’ve talked to him at length about all this or anything. I just know what he’s reported, and that’s that he lost his dad. The rest is just speculation.”

You looked out her office window to notice the sun dipping low in the sky.

“I should probably get home,” you said, standing from the chair, “to be honest, I’m… kind of worried. I haven’t seen Mason all day.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Darlene reassured you with a pat on your shoulder, “if he’d gone up and found somethin’, I’m sure the whole town would’a heard about it by now.”

You took her placations in stride, though your anxiety still nagged at you. She bade you farewell, a somewhat haunted look in her eye when she thought you couldn’t see as you left. You felt bad for her, felt guilty for dumping Jack’s existence on her in such circumstances. But you didn’t have a choice. You were simply grateful that she’d seemed to handle it so well, though in the back of your mind you knew that she’d probably be fishing out the bottle of alcohol she once told you she keeps beneath her nightstand when she got home later. Not that you could blame her, of course.

As you walked through town, the long shadows giving way to darkened skies, you could only hope she’d come to fully believe you and cover for you should Mason find something - or rather, someone - he wasn’t supposed to see.

You drove home slowly, taking care to keep an eye out for any animals nearby. They’d become more active since the infestation, no doubt spurred out into the open by the lack of human activity nearby. You also sighed in relief as you turned onto your hidden drive, noticing how you hadn’t passed any cars going the opposite direction on your way back.

That’s a good sign, you thought to yourself. Perhaps Darlene was right. Maybe Mason was just hiding himself away somewhere.

You pulled up in your drive, releasing a tense breath when you noticed no other cars were present. You felt light as you made your way inside, a weight lifted from your shoulders.

One that was immediately replaced when there was no sign of Jack and no lights turned on.

You silently made your way through the main room, into the bathroom, then finally into your bedroom before you called Jack’s name, turning various lights on as you went so you could see. As you called his name, you heard shuffling coming from the closet, a flat pane of wood emerging ahead of your Minotaur. 

“Is… is he gone?”

Your heart dropped.

“Is who gone?”

Jack looked around the space, his body language tense and anxious and upset as he continued to clutch the wooden shield in his hands. You didn’t need him to tell you outright for you to already know, and the thought alone made your blood boil.

Mason had been here.

[blood-suits-and-tears]

Marwan Kenzari as Mounir in Over Zonen (2012)

[nickarmstrcng]

THE ARMSTRONG BROTHERS

@jakeasstrong

[julielilac]

[theworstofdetroit]

[abrakazabka]

i found this on my computer,, why do i do these things..

[otp-holic]

Stucky Week: Angst

For @stucky-week angst... I present you with:

A lost, unshot scene where we find Bucky Barnes (The Winter Soldier) getting a glimpse of his past during a mission in 1962.

1. THE LOST SCRIPT

2. THE LOST STORYBOARD

3. THE LOST (ALREADY MADE) PROPS & CONCEPT SHOTS

4. OPENING THE SUITCASE: FROM SCRIPT TO CONCEPT ART

5. THE SCRIPT (full text) + My ramble

A festive and sunny day of 1962. Lots of people in a typical Sunday flea market in the city.

We see the WINTER SOLDIER in disguise watching a couple who is looking at old lamps across from him. The man is his new mission, so he is alert but laying low and mingling as he awaits the final order.

The couple takes a sudden turn and starts crossing the street and facing his way, so the WINTER SOLDIER turns toward the closest market stand hiding his face away from them.

The couple takes a sudden turn and starts crossing the street and facing his way, so the WINTER SOLDIER turns toward the closest market stand hiding his face away from them.

The couple takes a sudden turn and starts crossing the street and facing his way, so the WINTER SOLDIER turns toward the closest market stand hiding his face away from them.

This market stand is one of those places where they sell old pictures by the lot: full of faded photos, postcards with wet burry ink, and faces forgotten by time. But something there catches the WINTER SOLDIER‘s attention.

It’s an old suitcase. Brown stripes consumed by time framing a tag that says “SGR” in what were once shiny golden letters.

The WINTER SOLDIER is confused. Mission uncharacteristically going to the back of his mind, focus shifted to a distant recognition of something unknown.

PICTURES’STAND OWNER

(interrupting his thoughts)

They don’t do them like that anymore, uh? I believe it’s from the ’20s. A little worn on the edges but still good to go.

The WINTER SOLDIER looks at the man, confusion over his face.

PICTURES’STAND OWNER

You can open that if you want; but carefully, please, I think there’s stuff inside.

The WINTER SOLDIER says nothing but can feel himself nodding and reaching for the suitcase as if the actions were being performed by somebody else, while the PICTURES’STAND OWNER goes after another potential client.

He opens the suitcase and sees the inside: it’s filled with boxes, postcards, and pictures. An enclosed version of the stand it was lying on.

He scans the content and the feeling of recognition on those pictures lies heavily on his chest, distressing him.

He is distressed but also drawn to the handwriting on the envelopes and the faces of the young boys on the pictures that are all over the suitcase looking at him from below.

The WINTER SOLDIER is freezing. He doesn’t know who that people are, and yet...

He takes one picture in his hands: a dark haired boy (features very much like his) posing broodily somewhere that looks like an amusement park.

Something alien and unrecognizable keeps happening to the WINTER SOLDIER: He’s feeling his heart in his throat and the start of a cold sweat breaking in while a weird smell of burnt bacon and a distant voice whispering “Buck, you handsome jerk” keep sinking him more and more away from his surroundings; the need to have this picture for himself, to steal the whole suitcase full of smiling faces and run somewhere far away taking hold of him.

PICTURES’STAND OWNER

Are you ok, sir? You are a little white there. Want to take any of that… I believe it’s a bargain and…

The voice breaks the WINTER SOLDIER out of his state of mind.

Mind clearer, he knows the Winter Soldier doesn’t own things, the Winter Soldier doesn’t even own himself. The Winter Soldier doesn’t decide where to run.

What the Winter Soldier does is to follow orders, so he quickly scans the market in seach of his mission: The couple are further away that he would have liked but still easy to follow.

The WINTER SOLDIER takes one final look at the picture still in his gloved hand, recognition lost but confusion still in the back of his mind.

He leaves the picture on the suitcase and follows the couple.

My ramble and the happy ending I might explore: This has been on my "To Do" for a long time now and I don't think it's ever going to turn out the way I expected... so here it is. Decaffeinated but done. My heart suffers for poor Bucky but this scene would not leave me alone.

I'm obsessed with fanfics/art exploring what might have happened with Steve and Bucky's personal things while they were "un-alive".

My end for this particular piece is something along the lines of Becca finding it it in another Flea not long after this, and although she was shocked with some of the pictures/writings inside, she kept it because she loved the boys. Fast forward to Steve and Bucky being in the 21st century happy and together forever... and the suitcase somehow makes its way to them. I don't have the details figured out, and I want to explore all that, but in case I can't... YOU HAVE TO KNOW THIS HAS A HAPPY ENDING.

Also I will put all the manips on a separate post at some point, but right now I cannot stand the thought of facing my million unnamed photoshop layers trying to extract them 🤣

[mrsamaroevans]

NOT A THIRD CHANCE | MIGUEL GALINDO

Fandom: Mayans M.C.

Pairing: Miguel Galindo x Female Reader.

Words: 3,844.

Warnings: Spoilers of season 3 of Mayans MC. English is not my first language, so, sorry if there are grammar mistakes or if the redaction is poor.

A/N: I always try to keep this short and I end up writing more than 3k words :c Sorry! *GIF NOT MINE*

|| MY MASTERLIST ||

You knew him so well that you knew when he was lying and when he was telling the truth.

You already suspected it for weeks. All those trips to Mexico... he had never made as many as in the past months, and, it came to a point where he didn't hide the reasons for his trips from you, he no longer hid anything that had to do with the cartel, why would he have started doing it again?

But when those pictures arrived… you hadn't realized until then that you were praying for your suspicions not to be true. But there were no longer any doubts. You already had the facts and although it broke your heart, you took your things, you took your son, and you left the house without giving any prior sign.

Miguel hadn't even realized it and that was probably what hurt you the most. That first night you were away from home, he was away too. He was in México. The next afternoon when he arrived and didn't find you, that's when he started calling you but all he got was your voicemail. And then he saw the pictures you left on the bed and understood everything.

He had no idea where you could have gone. You stopped talking to your family a year ago, your best friend hadn't heard from you in days. Two days after thinking and looking at your statements for some signs, he knew where you went.

It was the only place you could have gone for support. You always told him that.

“Why did you disappear like that?” Was the first thing he asked when you opened the door “I was worried”

“In the arms of Palomo, sure” you nodded and crossed your arms in your chest as you leaned against the front door frame “What happened? She got tired of sharing?”

“Amor…”

“Don’t call me that” You interrupted him. Your voice came out more aggressive than you thought it would, but hearing him call you that way when he could have been calling another woman the same, caught you off guard and made you angry in just a second. “You have no right to call me that”

Miguel looked hurt and regretful, but you couldn't let that distract you. You couldn't fall that fast again.

“It’s not what you think,” he said and from the way he sounded, you knew he also thought it was a weak excuse.

“So it’s photoshopped? Really? That’s your defense?” You asked with a bitter laugh.

“Let me explain—”

“No… listen, Miguel, I’m too tired,” you said sighing. Your head was spinning around because, although you knew you had to face him sometime, you were not ready to do it so quickly “I’m so tired of your excuses. I’ve been hearing them for months, I’m done”

“Don’t say that… (Y/n), please let me fix it” he insisted, but you shook your head to cut him off.

“I talked to my lawyer,” You said and now the one who was taken by surprise was him “The papers will be home tomorrow, so please sign them”

“What?” Miguel shook his head, your request seemed to make him angry “No… I’m not gonna sign anything without trying to fix what I did first”

You were about to say something when a few steps coming from the kitchen made you look back.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Felipe said when he saw you two at the door. You have never been so grateful for an interruption before.

“It’s okay, Felipe, Miguel is leaving now,” you said turning back to the man in front of you. He knew exactly what you were doing, but he didn't want to leave, not yet. He still had a lot to say, but you didn't feel like listening anymore.

“I want to see my son” he demanded but you didn’t accept it.

“He’s taking a nap” you answered with a sharp tone “If you want to see him another time, I’m not gonna forbid you, but I’m not gonna let you interrupt his nap now”

The next times you spoke to him were through text messages. He was busy with the cartel and you had been very clear that you didn't want him to go to the Reyes' house other than to see Cristobal and whenever he had time it was already too late at night.

You were hardly ever alone. Ez went home with Emily whenever they could, Angel also went sometimes, and having gone to them had not only worked for you but for Felipe as well. Your son had more people who paid attention to him and played with him and he was very happy about it. His happiness was contagious, so nobody at home could be sad or worry whenever he was awake.

The days were easy to get through, but the nights? That was a completely different story.

Because, no matter how tired you were, you spent hours tossing and turning in bed thinking about everything. You couldn't help but remember the good times with Miguel and all those promises that he had made that now no longer existed. You were angry, hurt, and sad, you wanted to burn and break everything, but not even with all those feelings you could put aside the fact that, although your heart was broken, it still belonged to Miguel and you didn't know if one day that would change.

“Daddy!!!”

From the grass, you saw your husband getting close to where you were and saw how he received with a smile and open arms to your son who ran happily towards him. The laughter of your son when his father held him in his arms filled your heart and somehow, made it harder to keep with the decision you had made when you saw those pictures.

“Mi niño... How are you?” Miguel asked him with a big smile on his face “You good?”

“Yes” Cristobal nodded and your still husband turned to you. You were still sitting on the grass and when Miguel saw you trying to stand up, he came over and offered his hand to help you. “Don Felipe is amazing,” Cristobal said and Miguel took his attention back to him “And tío Ez and tío Angel too”

And even though Miguel was not that happy to hear those names, he nodded “I bet they are”

You heard a bike and your son got immediately excited. You had just more than two weeks staying at Felipe's house, but he already identified when Angel or Ez arrived home. He even identified the sound of Felipe's truck.

Cristobal moved in Miguel's arms for him to put him down, and he, without understanding, did so.

“Tío Angel is home,” Cristobal said jumping around and turning towards you. You knew what that look meant. He was asking your permission to go with Angel like every afternoon when he, his brother, or his father came home.

“Go,” you told him and smiled at his reaction. Cristobal ran towards the street and Miguel turned to you.

Cristobal never did that with him. Yes, the house was big enough so he would never hear the cars coming in, but, he didn’t even show that much excitement whenever he crossed the door of any room where he was.

“You think it's safe for him to go out alone?” Miguel asked you so you turned back to him and nodded.

“Angel's waiting for him,” You said nodding again. The Reyes already knew they had to wait outside until Cristobal got to them. They loved coming home to a swirl of excitement. “I thought you were going to México”

Angel walked into the backyard before Miguel could say anything. He had some bags in one of his hands and Cristobal’s little hand in the other one. Both men just nodded when their gazes met.

“Dinner's ready,” Angel said showing you the bags. You had asked him to stop by for some food before going home “Ez and Emily are helping pops, it won’t take them long...”

“You want to join us?” You asked Miguel and he immediately shook his. You already knew what his answer would be, if you had known he would accept, you wouldn’t have asked.

“No. I just came to see my son and talk to you” Miguel answered and you could notice his emphasis when he talked about Cristobal. Miguel knew how to hide his feelings, but you knew he was hating to see his son taking your ex's hand.

“Why don't you put the table?” You turned to Angel and he nodded, taking Cristobal inside the house when he understood you needed to talk to Miguel alone. “Did you sign the papers?” You asked once your son was far enough away so he couldn’t hear.

“I already told you I'm not going to sign anything,” he said irritated. His gaze was still in the door where Cristobal and Angel disappeared.

“Miguel, don't make this harder,” you asked, sighing tiredly. It was probably the fifth or sixth time you asked him to sign the divorce papers “If you're worried about not seeing Cristobal, I already told you not to worry”

“Amor... We need to talk this” he said  “We can't let everything we've built go just like that”

“Just like that?” You repeated while frowning “Why didn't you think about that before sleeping with her?” You rhetorically asked, “You’re asking me to not forget everything we’ve been through, but if you did, why couldn’t I?” Your eyes filled with tears. Even though you’ve been away for two weeks, it frustrated you to not be able to feel anything like he did whenever he went to México with Palomo “I honestly don’t know what did you need… sometimes I feel like I failed you in something”

“You didn’t,” he said immediately, taking a step towards you. You didn't step back because despite wanting to hate him for what he did, you couldn't help but want to feel him close.

“Then?” He asked, but he didn't answer. There were no more excuses that he could use “You know what’s funny? You used to be mad whenever Angel was around, you didn’t stand to hear his name. You were so worried about me cheating with him and the only one cheating was you”

“My mother died, I… I was out of my mind; I was hurt and—”

“I was too and I didn’t run into somebody else’s arms” your voice trembled so you had to clear your throat before continuing “All those times you said you didn’t want to be like your father… Well, you are”

“(Y/n)…” Miguel tried to get closer to you and when you took a step back, his eyes filled with tears now.

“You can come to see Cristobal as many times as you want, but don’t come to talk to me until you sign those papers,” you said putting more distance between the two of you and getting closer to the door “Cristobal! Come say bye to your dad!”

Miguel pressed his eyes with the palm of his hands and tried to look his best by the time Cristobal went out to say goodbye to him.

That night, Cristobal decided that he wanted Felipe to be the one to tuck him in and read him a bedstory, and he wasn't willing to take "no" for an answer. But Felipe didn't care. Happily, after the kid's bath, he went up to the room that had been Ez's to do what the boy had asked, leaving you and his youngest son alone in the living room.

“Since when you drink wine?” He asked you when you poured yourself another drink. You were in the living room, sitting on the couch in front of the television. Emily had left a few hours earlier “Angel said you were the reason why Bishop started to order more beer” he joked.

“Bulshit” You laughed and Ez did too “It’s not that bad, wanna try it?” You asked, offering him your glass, but Ez shook his head, giving a suspicious look at the liquid in your glass.

“Angel said that Galindo stopped by” Ez took his beer and gave it a sip, then leaned against the back of the couch and turned to look at you.

You chuckled “He came with more excuses” you shook your head without turning to him.

You were silent for a couple of minutes, minutes in which you almost finished the red liquid in your glass. You were so focused on not feeling or thinking anything that when Ez spoke again, you just barely got what he said.

“Remember what you told me when we saw each other again after I got out?” He asked with his gaze fixed on you. You smiled when that memory came to you. Meeting your best friend after 8 years of not seeing him was one of the best things that ever happened to you.

“I told you many things,” you said, knowing too well what he was referring to.

“You said that I made a mistake as everybody does,” He said it even so. You looked down when you heard those words. You said that after he told you how embarrassed he would have been if he had allowed you to see him while he was in prison. You had tried to make him feel better. You never believed that those words could be used against you, let alone make you feel worse than you already felt. “Nobody’s perfect”

You laughed lightly. You moved so he would be in front of you.

“You’re Hannah Montana now?” You asked making him laugh. He gave another sip of his beer and then sighed.

“You love him and he loves you…” He said. You knew how hard it was for him to admit it. He never liked the idea of you marrying Miguel “He made a mistake, just like me and so many people”

“So you think I should go back and pretend that nothing happened?” You raised one of your eyebrows as a small smile appeared on your face. It was probably the alcohol in your system, or probably just you wanting to pretend that the whole thing was not that important to you anymore.

“Pretend that nothing happened? No” Ez shook his head immediately.

“What do you think I should do then?”

“What I think is not important” your friend shrugged “It’s only your decision to make”

And yes. It was. But it was one of the hardest decisions you have ever had to make in your life.

The next days Miguel called you, completely ignoring the fact that you had asked him not to speak to you unless what he was going to tell you was that he had already signed the papers. He talked to Cristobal by video call when he couldn't go to see him, but for the last two days, he hadn't even sent a text. You only knew he got busy and had to do with job matters.

Until one day when you were with your son and Felipe at the butcher shop, Nestor called you. He sounded concerned when he told you that Miguel was a mess and that he felt that you would be the only one who could calm him down, so you agreed to go home when Felipe told you that he would watch your son.

On your way there, you were worried about what you might find when you arrived. Although Miguel always showed his true feelings to you, he rarely loses control, and you were worried about him because he was the father of your child and because even if you didn't want to, you still loved him.

“Nestor…” you said when you parked your car. Your husband's best friend was already waiting for you there “Where is he?”

“Office… he doesn’t look good” he informed you while you walked into the house “The office will need a makeover”

You sighed when you were already in front of his office door. You couldn't hear anything from there, he had probably calmed down a bit by now, but after what had happened with his mother, you quickly opened the door only to find him sitting on the couch with his gaze lost at some point in the room.

The office was a mess. There were books all over the floor, the pages of some were peeled off their covers. The desk lamp was broken and there was a mark on the nearby wall, that made you think he had thrown it at it. The few things on the desk —because many were scattered throughout the room— were messy and even one of the windows was broken.

“Hey…” you said when he didn't turn to you. He wasn't wearing his jacket and his dress shirt was disheveled.

“What are you doing here?” Miguel asked when he heard your voice. It was not exactly an invitation for you to get close, but you did it anyway, being careful to not step on anything in the way “Álvarez called you?”

“No… I needed more clothes for Cristobal” You lied. Thinking about it though, it wasn't entirely a lie. The one who called you was Nestor, not Álvarez “You good?” You asked when you sat next to him after moving some papers. When you were closer to him you noticed that there were tear trails on his cheeks.

“No” He answered, not turning to see you still “I’m not good” he repeated “My wife left with my son, my mother’s dead and I just found out that I knew a version of my mother that wasn’t her,” he said, closing his eyes and throwing his head back “And it was all my fault”

“What happened with your mother wasn’t your fault,” You told him because you knew he's been struggling with those thoughts since what happened.

“I could have done more” he muttered.

“Your mother made a decision and she would have found the way to do it whenever she wanted” Although those words probably wouldn't make him feel better, it was something he had to understand and accept sooner or later. “It’s not your fault”

Miguel nodded even though he didn't completely believe what you said.

“I found a picture of her in one of her books,” he said and turned to you for the first time to ask you: “Felipe knew her; you knew?”

You sighed and nodded “Yes”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, his eyes filled with tears.

“‘Cause she asked me no to”

Miguel sighed and sopped for a second before continuing. Your heart was already broken by the mistake he made, but it was breaking a bit more for seeing him in that state.

“I went to talk to him… he told me he was in love with her. He told me that my mom loved to dance, can you imagine? The woman I had to convince to dance with me in our wedding… loved to dance” he smiled and you did the same, the difference was that his tears began to fall before than yours “I didn’t know that” he shook his head looking down as his smile faded “Felipe said that she had to leave parts of her behind ‘cause they didn’t fit with being José Galindo’s wife” his face seemed to radiate hatred. You knew that Miguel and his father didn't have a close relationship, but you knew that he was fond of him and you had never seen him with that expression while talking about him. “I signed the papers,” he said and those words made your eyes start to fill with tears.

“Why did you change your mind?” You asked trying to make your voice come out as calm as possible.

“You have lost so many things since the day I met you” he winced “Your family, your friends, the club… your social circle went smaller” his voice trembled. He seemed more affected than you by that fact. You had never cared about losing friends or family because Miguel never really made you stopped seeing them. They had decided to walk away on their own “I don’t want you to become my mother…”

You got closer to him and grabbed his hand “You know that wasn’t the reason behind my decision, Miguel, you know it too well”

“Yes, I fucked it up” he nodded “But that’s what I mean… you gave me everything and more than you could. You sacrificed so many things, you’ve been there for me in the worst moments. You gave me my son… and I failed you”

Now, you two were already crying. You let him intertwine his fingers with yours.

“I love you and it hurt me to know that you maybe didn’t love me the same—” you confessed and you felt his hand lightly squeeze yours.

“It wasn’t the case…” he interrupted you right away “I love you the same as ever. It wasn’t your fault, it was all me” he sobbed “If I could go back in time and change it… I would”

You fell silent. That conversation you had with Ez about the mistakes that everyone makes went through your mind. That conversation had made you reconsider your decision, and you hadn't stopped thinking about it since that night.

Who were you kidding? You loved that man and as much as you wanted to follow your pride, deep down you didn't want to get away from him.

You let go of his hand and took the folder that you put away before. When you opened it, you realized that they were the divorce papers already signed by him. Your signature was already there too but it wasn't official yet. You would have to take them back to the lawyer so he could do the rest.

“Do you want to do this?” You asked turning to him. Miguel immediately shook his head.

“Te amo. I’m only doing it for you”

You looked down at the papers on your lap. You knew Miguel too well, you know when he was lying and when he was telling the truth. You were sure he was being honest. So you took the papers and tore them up, making Miguel look up at you.

You looked at him and saw the relief and thankfulness on his face.

“Don’t fuck it up again” you said, cupping his face in your hands as he shook his head.

“I won’t… I promise” Miguel took your hands, kissed them, and then hugged you tightly “Thank you” he muttered in your neck “Oh, God, I missed you so much” he cried as you ran your fingers through his hair.

“I mean it, Miguel,” you said, leaning back so you could see him in the eyes “Don’t fuck it up again”

“I know” he nodded “I swear I won’t”

You smiled and let him come closer so he could kiss you, sealing that promise you were sure he would keep.

|| MY MASTERLIST ||

[ratedbangtann]

Picture Perfect || KTH

As a plus size model, you're used to your fair share of ignorance and shaming. By now, it's water off a duck's back; you're a strong woman, hardened to it. But then there were those on the other end of the scale, who simply adored you and your body. Much like photographer, Kim Taehyung...

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Plus Size Reader (but please feel free to enjoy if you aren’t!) Word count: 7.8k Warnings: Fatphobia, derogatory terms, rude assholes, shy Tae (at first), slight manipulation (but opportunity to back out), taeconda, oral sex (m receiving), light spanking, BBW fetishizing, vaginal fingering, unprotected sex

A/N: Welcome to another plus size reader fic! If you don’t consider yourself to be plus size, don’t worry - feel free to enjoy it anyway! 

***************************************

“You’re joking, right?” the ignorant voice of the photographer bellowed through the studio. You stood with your arms folded over your chest, pissed off at the vile and sleazy guy in front of you. Your agent beside you positively seething too. She had got you this gig, and the brand owners were more than happy to have you involved. And yet this prick…

“Problem, Mr. Carter?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. This is a lingerie shoot,” he said, incredulous as if his point were obvious.

“Yes, it is,” she stated, clearly impatient.

“I’m not photographing… her in lingerie,” he looked toward you in disgust, nose scrunched and forehead creasing all the way up to his non-existent hairline.

“Got a problem with me, have you?” you piped up. Already today you had had your hair and make-up done, and you were in your first set under your bathrobe ready for the shoot. And now, this asshole was refusing to photograph you as if it were his shoot?

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. Don’t particularly wanna see some fat chick in a thong.”

Oh, how your blood boiled.

“Mr. Carter, is something the matter?” A gentleman you recognised to be the lingerie company’s co-CEO wandered over, with his business partner in tow. From what you could gather, they were a married couple; Cynthia designed the lines whilst Carlisle handled the business. They were a great team, and rapidly becoming some of the biggest names in the lingerie business.

“Sir, I’m sorry but I’m not photographing this. You must have a more attractive model…”

You’d dealt with pricks like this through your entire career; assholes who wrinkled their nose in disgust at your curves, your beautiful jiggly bits, your stretch marks, cellulite… You’d had to deal with being photoshopped to within an inch of your life and cut out of group shots completely. You’d been turned down for editorial spreads and commercials alike since day one. You’d grown a thick skin to it but it still pissed you off when someone was just as rude to you as this dickhead.

You loved your body, were proud of it. Sure, you were plus size. You weren’t skinny and slim or even simply just “thicc” but you were beautiful, and you’d made quite the name for yourself in the modelling world.

“I don’t see anything unattractive about Ms. _____,” Carlisle looked you up and down, turning back to Mr. Carter; Robert, you thought you heard someone say.

“I’m not photographing a fat girl!” he almost yelled, his fragile masculinity in tatters confronted by three women and a very in-tune and open minded man. You half expected him to stomp his foot like a child having a tantrum.

“Well then we’ll just have to find somebody who will, won’t we?” Carlisle smiled a sickly sweet smile at Robert. The kind that could rot your teeth.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his face turning red with rage.

“You’re fired, Mr. Carter. I suggest an attitude adjustment if you’d ever like to work in this town again,” Carlisle remained calm, gesturing to the door. The livid little man stormed out of the room, grabbing his kit along the way and slamming the door to the studio behind him, the few members of staff scattered around watching on in silence. “I’m so sorry about him. Ms. _____,” he turned to you, apologetic smile on his handsome face.

“That’s quite alright, he’s not my first ignorant asshole,” you smiled back.

“Shit, where the hell are we going to find a photographer at such short notice? _____ is already made up, we only rented the studio for the day and we could-“ Cynthia was panicking, rambling with her hands flinging about through the air as she paced back and forth.

“Honey, honey, relax… Let me make some calls. I know this guy, an old friend of mine. I’m sure he’s in town. Give me ten minutes,” he steadied her movements with his large hand on her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she took a deep breath. How cute.

Carlisle left the room, phone pressed to his ear as he tried to get hold of whoever he knew. Cynthia turned to you, then.

“I really am sorry for that guy… If I’d have known he was like that I wouldn’t have hired him,” she scratched the back of her neck.

“Don’t worry about it, Cynthia, I’ve had a lot worse. Right, Mia?” Your agent beside you nodded with an unsatisfactory grimace on her face, recalling the amount of times she’d had to find you other shoots after being cast aside.

“90 percent the male specimen, of course,” she grumbled. Ah, Mia; her opinions were nothing if not colourful. Cynthia chuckled though, nodding in understanding.

“Well we’re honoured to have you model for us, ____. The new line is inclusive of all sizes and shapes, some to accentuate parts of the body whilst others to help discourage insecurities. We could think of no one better to showcase our hard work,” she smiled so brightly, genuinely excited to have you on board.

“Thank you, it’s a pleasure! The sets are stunning, I’ve been a fan of your brand for a long time now.” The three of you stood chatting away for a little while, now with nothing to do until a photographer could be found.

“Honey, he’s on his way,” Carlisle stepped into the room with a smirk on his face. “I told you I could handle it.”

“And this is why I married you,” she laughs, pecking his lips as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Oh, how sweet… If only you had the time to find yourself a kind and affectionate man like that. Alas, your career didn’t allow time for much of a social life.

“He’s the other side of town so it could still be a little while, but what do you say we get some drinks from the Starbucks across the street and some lunch in the meantime?” Carlisle suggested. Well, that was one way to kill some time…

*****

“Ah, Taehyung! How are you, man?” Carlisle’s voice was loud and boisterous as he chewed on his muffin, standing up to greet whoever had just walked into the studio. You turned to look, but Carlisle was a tall and broad man, covering most of the photographer’s frame.

“Doing well, Carl, how are you?” He sounded excited, like he was happy to see his friend once again.

“Yeah, pretty good! Have you met the wife yet?”

“Can’t say I have…”

“Ah, you must. Come on over… Cynthia!” he called to her, her head perking up from the table and chairs you were sat at covered in Starbucks wrappers. “Taehyung, this is my wonderful wife and designer of all our products; Cynthia Blake.”

Carlisle had shown the young photographer over to your table, now standing at the head and looking down at Cynthia, who stood up to shake Taehyung’s hand. He seemed a relatively shy looking man, camera bag slung over his back, black beret in place on his head. His hair curled out from underneath it in wild tendrils, framing his golden face.

He looked more like he’d be interested in artistic photography of scenery and still-life objects, judging by his clothing. Wide-leg cream pants, a black plain t-shirt and a brown suede waistcoat didn’t quite scream fashion photography, but you’d learned not to judge someone so soon in your years in modelling.

“Kim Taehyung, miss. Pleased to meet you, finally. Carlisle has told me a lot about you,” he bowed his head as he shook her hand. And then he was being introduced to Mia and yourself.

“…and this is ____, our model for the day,” Cynthia proudly showed you off to him, still sat in your bathrobe with full hair and make-up.

Your eyes met, and suddenly you could see his face so much clearer. Those beautiful big round eyes, that’s you could now see were slightly different in shape; one double lid, one mono-lid. His jawline that curved delicately and sharpened at his chin, 5 o’clock shadow evident. The freckles that landed on the end of his nose and in the waterline of his eyes; gentle little beauty marks…

You hadn’t noticed his eyes widen. It was almost like recognition, like he knew you from a past life. But he kept his composure and mumbled a shy hello, quieter than when he’d greeted Cynthia.

“Hi, Taehyung was it?” you shook his hand, noting the long fingers adorned in many rings and just how soft his palm was in yours. You tried to shake the feeling of attraction that was bubbling away inside you but it was difficult; you weren’t sure you had ever seen a man so devastatingly handsome.

“Y-yeah… pleasure to meet you. You look… stunning,” he chuckled nervously and turned back to Carlisle. “I’ll just need a few minutes to set up and we can get started.”

“Yeah, take your time, Tae,” he grinned, showing him over to the backdrops and light fixtures.

“He likes you,” Mia nudged your side, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Oh, shut up, he’s just shy…”

“______, he basically undressed you with his eyes! You saw it too, right Cynthia?” she turned for backup. Cynthia sat back down with a smile on her face.

“Oh, I saw it.”

“How professional of you both,” you teased, shaking your head with laughter. “I’m going to ask make up to do a touch up. I think lunch may have ruined my lips.”

Ignoring their little jeers and smug comments, you headed off to the little room to the left, filled with the garments you would be modelling throughout the day and a little dresser for the make-up artist to work her magic on you.

*****

“Alright, _____ if I could have you sat on the stool in the middle there… perfect. Cynthia, what are we achieving with this set?” Taehyung asked, wanting to know how he should ask you to convey the white lingerie with pretty white fluffy parts dangling from various places.

“Innocence and purity. The set itself is called ‘purity’, so something like that?” she gave her directions, and you worked your magic.

Now that you had taken off your robe and were parading around in the flattering white set, you felt your confidence sky-rocketing as it always did during a shoot. Nothing made you feel more powerful than having all eyes on you; especially in some of the prettiest and most body-friendly lingerie you had ever seen.

“Beautiful,” Taehyung commented, crouching down to get the perfect shots and play around with the lighting a little. Cynthia and Carlisle stood to the side, watching each photo pop up on the laptop set up. “It’s nice to work with a professional, you seem to need very little direction,” he complimented.

“She’s been in this game long enough,” Mia answered for you, you staying completely composed as he snapped away, flash dazzling.

“If you could just stand up for me, we’ll get rid of the stool there to get a few more shots of the lingerie itself.” Taehyung fiddled with some settings on his camera, while a staff member removed the stool from the shot. “Fantastic, if you could face the camera for a few, and then turn, we’ll get every angle.”

It was amazing, really; Taehyung staying as professional as composed as he was. Because Mia and Cynthia had been right. He was into you, very much so. The second he saw you, he thought you were the most beautiful creature on God’s green earth. Watching you pose so innocently and with absolute picturesque tranquillity in the most beautiful underwear he could imagine was affecting him more than the artist inside him would like to admit.

He’d done hundreds of shoots over the years, including nude and lingerie shoots and never, ever had he had such a problem focussing as he did today. But then, none of those shoots were of you.

“Tae, I think that’s plenty for Purity. _____, would you mind getting changed again for me, love? The deep green set will look beautiful with your skin tone, I suggest that one next,” Cynthia called to you.

“Ah, Evergreen?” you asked.

“That’s the one!” she clapped excitedly, filled with utter glee seeing her collection finally being tried out on a model. It was all becoming real for her; her second line of lingerie would be hitting the shelves very soon.

You headed back into the little room to change, Evergreen being a little more revealing and sultrier than Purity had been. The bra was a stunning forest green lace with almost a half-corset attached – fantastic support and helped to smooth out insecurities in the back. The briefs were high waisted and made in the same lace, with suspender clips dangling from them. And of course, to match; a stunning set of black suspenders, heels and a mesh black robe to go over the top. Modest, but not modest enough.

When you walked back out, Taehyung audibly gasped. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, the blood travelling south. He averted his gaze, willing himself to calm down. Mia giggled to herself; aw, bless him, she thought.

“I knew it would look beautiful against your skin tone!” Cynthia clapped.

“Um, okay… can we have the stool back please, backdrop change, the ivy to drape over the back. _____, if you wouldn’t mind heading back over to the set and taking a seat,” Taehyung didn’t properly look up at you, giving you general directions and pretending to fiddle with his camera. And now you started to see it…

He was nervous.

The staff draped the ivy artistically over the backdrop, letting it hang down behind you to fit in with the evergreen vibe. You sat back down, getting into a slightly different position than before.

“What kind of look are we going for this time, Cyn?” you asked. This wasn’t going to be another innocent look.

“Um, more like a wood nymph, at one with nature, a little temptress perhaps?” she asked, whilst a hair stylist faffed with fitting little daisies into your hair.

Again, you did as instructed; dark, sultry eyes stared into the camera, as if tempting a human into the forest. You looked absolutely delectable, and it was causing huge issues for poor Taehyung. Well, one particularly huge issue. Thankfully for him, the way he crouched to take your photo hid it well. But it made life so much more difficult.

Mentally, he was cursing himself. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d worked with hundreds of models. Why were you the only one he’d ever…

In fact, for the rest of the shoot, the poor guy struggled. Each new set of lingerie posed new challenges, showing off your gorgeous body in new and different ways with different expressions and stories to accompany each one.

“Beautiful, truly! Wow. These photos will look stunning on the website!” Cynthia was positively beaming by the end. “That’s a wrap!”

Taehyung breathed a sigh of relief as he knelt down to start taking his camera apart, slotting the bits and pieces into each compartment of his bag. You simply stepped off the set, heading over to the laptop to flick through the photos.

Mia, however, was being her devious self. She had seen the photos, knew they were stunning. But she had also seen Taehyung’s reactions to each set, each pose. She knew about his big problem, and found it oh, so amusing to meddle.

“Taehyung, may I have a moment of your time?” she asked him, standing over him with a large smile on her face. Taehyung swallowed hard and nodded, standing upright to follow her over to the table at the back of the room where you’d earlier been sat drinking your Starbucks.

“I wondered if I may ask what kind of work you usually do? I know this was a favour for a friend of ours, but what is your style?” she asked him, pulling a chair for him to sit opposite her.

“Usually editorial fashion shoots, a lot of scenery and travel in my spare time though,” he smiled sweetly, a little more comfortable now that he no longer had his problem nor did he have to focus on you and your beautiful curves, the stunning lingerie, thinking of what he would do given the chance…

No, Tae. You’re drifting again. Focus, he told himself.

“I see, it’s just… _____ has been looking for just the right photographer to do some nude shots. Tasteful of course, we’re not talking playboy but…”

Tae’s blood ran cold. The flush in his cheeks must have drained, skin paling at the thought. Mia was still talking, but he could barely listen.

“I mean she’s been wanting to focus on a body positivity campaign for a while, but she hasn’t quite figured out who to trust to photograph her in just the right way, do you know what I mean?”

Tae cleared his throat, bringing himself back down to reality. “Uh yeah, sure…”

“Your shots today were stunning and I’m sure she agrees. I was thinking perhaps you could give those photos a go? You can be as artistic or as simple as you like with them, but I trust your judgement. Googled you to check out your other work too. Impressive, truly.” Mia was rambling on, but Tae could hardly take in a word of what she was saying.

“Th-thank you…” he mumbled, forcing a smile.

“So... are you interested?” she asked, “we can draw up a contract quite easily, _____ is very easy to work with.”

“S-sure… Yeah, okay. Sounds great,” he agreed, all whilst his head was screaming at him for being a moron. If he couldn’t control his damn hard on today, how on earth would he cope with full nudity? You were utterly bewitching. This couldn’t end well, surely?

“Fantastic! I’ve got some calls to make, would you mind letting her know you’re up for it?” she asked, pulling her phone from her back pocket and already standing up and sauntering out of the door to make her calls in the hall. Tae didn’t have a chance to object.

So instead, he got up to find you. You were no longer working your way through the photos, and the majority of the set had been cleared away. You were nowhere to be seen.

“Carlisle, where did _____ go?” he asked the couple who were packing things into cases.

“Oh, she’s in the back room, probably packing her things away, changing. Do you need something?” he asked.

“Her agent said she wanted another shoot with me, I just wanted a word about it,” he nodded with a tight lipped smile.

“Oh, well just go knock, honey. I’m sure she’d be happy to chat,” Cynthia smiled motioning toward the door you’d walked through only moments ago. With that, she slung a satchel over her shoulder and picked up a case of props and set pieces. “We’re off, we have so much to do. Really thought, Taehyung, thank you so, so much for helping out today.”

“Yeah, thanks man. Such short notice too, you really did us a favour. The photos are beautiful. I’ll drop your cheque over to wherever you’re staying, just text me the address. I’m sorry we can’t hang out this evening. You free Thursday?” Carlisle was busy picking up cases and trunks and bags to leave with as he spoke, but Tae knew just how genuine he was about meeting.

“Yeah, Thursday evening would be great, perhaps dinner if you’re both available?” he smiled sweetly.

“Absolutely, we’ll be in touch! Thanks so much, Tae! Bloody life saver,” Carlisle patted his back, scurrying out of the studio along with his wife and the rest of the staff that were left behind.

For a moment, Tae stood in the silence, letting himself breathe deep. He was readying himself to talk to you, to approach you after he’d spent nearly four hours photographing you in skimpy and gorgeous outfits. Christ, how was he ever going to do a nude photoshoot for you?

Professionalism. That’s all it took.

He sauntered over to the door you were hidden behind and knocked perhaps a little heavier than intended. He heard something clatter inside and a quiet “shit” as if you’d dropped something.

“Yep, come in!” you called when you’d picked the rail up. Thankfully you’d already packed the lingerie into a small case on the floor – freebies from Cynthia as extra payment – so it was just the empty rail that had tipped. The door clicked open and shut again and you turned, expecting to see Mia.

“Oh, sorry… I assumed you were dressed. I’ll come back,” Taehyung’s deep voice sounded so shocked to see you still in the lingerie set from the last photos; a pretty deep purple set; high waisted purple mesh thong with white daisies dotted all over and a pretty bralette with surprising support to match. Cynthia had called it Asters, a type of purple daisy to combine the two elements together.

“Wait, it’s fine. I mean, I’ve been wearing… not much else all afternoon,” you chuckled, unashamed. Tae couldn’t really argue with that. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, just… well your agent was talking to me, about a shoot you wanted to do. She said I should ask you about it?” he averted his gaze but stayed in the doorway. You were a little too close for his own comfort; the room you were in was no bigger than an average closet, and the dressing table took up most of it, let alone the rail.

“Oh, she did?” you asked, taking a seat on the stool in front of the table. “What shoot?”

He really couldn’t look you in the eye, let alone anywhere else. If his problem arose again, there was no way of hiding it. He did his best to direct his through process to professionalism once again.

“Yeah, some kind of artsy nude shoot, for a body positivity campaign?”

You watched in amusement as he looked everywhere in the tiny room other than at you. This is exactly what Mia had been talking about earlier. Halfway through the shoot, she’d handed you a bottle of water and told you to watch him; he couldn’t look you in the eye. He really was attracted to you. How cute.

The more you looked, the more you had noticed it. He blushed at the slightest eye contact, willing himself to calm the hell down with some deep breaths. And each time sent a tiny little thrill through you, so you played up to you, practically ‘making love to the camera’ as the old industry professionals used to say.

“Oh, that? Hmm, yeah. I don’t know about that anymore…” you lied. You knew exactly what you were doing, leading the horse to water but… would he drink?

“Oh… She said you were really excited about it, I just thought-“

“Yeah I don’t think people would like it. No one wants to see me naked,” you scoffed. Another lie. You had a huge online following who would love the positivity it spread, congratulate you on it, call you a queen and a goddess.

“I-I’m sure that’s not true,” he stuttered, eyes flicking up to meet yours just for a second. He blushed again and you had to do your very best not to giggle.

“I guess I just don’t feel too sexy, lately. Despite this,” you gestured to your attire, his gaze following your hand. Honestly, like a moth to a flame…

He realised what he’d done as his gaze reached your ample thighs and quickly readjusted his view, back up to a very interesting spot on the wall above your head.

“Well, um… I’m sorry you feel like that, you really are sexy,” he mumbled. Bingo.

“Do you think so?” you asked innocently, feigning disbelief.

“Y-yeah… I mean, your photos today came out really, um… beautiful.”

“Well, you’re just a good photographer,” you laughed softly, watching him so carefully.

“Photographers are only as good as their subjects, Miss _____,” he smiled at you then, sweet and unmenacing. This guy was too pure for his own good, surely. “Truthfully, you’re a beautiful woman. You had so much confidence on set today, I had no idea you weren’t feeling it…”

You smiled down at your hands in your lap, purposefully twiddling them before placing your palms flat on your thighs, rubbing them up and down slowly. His eyes followed them, his jaw hanging open just a little as he lost himself in thought.

Thoughts of how soft your thighs might feel under his touch, how goosebumps might raise at the feeling of his rings on the warm flesh. Thoughts of how soft and supple you would feel, how pretty and puffy you might be between them…

“D-do you think I should do the campaign?” you interrupted his train of thought.

“Definitely,” he said with such conviction. He hadn’t meant to; not really. But… here he was. And he stood his ground.

“And you’d be okay with that?” you asked, innocently.

“Of course, I’m interested in making art.” He tried to sound firm, confident but the little quiver of his bottom lip gave him away.

“Making art… with me?” Oh, you were really pushing him now. Was that a hint of seduction he heard in your tone? Or was he imagining things?

“S-sure…” he wavered. “I’d be honoured.” Why did he say that?! He mentally cursed himself.

“Honoured?” you giggled to yourself, “that’s sweet. I’m sure you’re quite the artist.” He shrugged, starting to feel a little claustrophobic in the small room with you, being so close and so pathetically entranced by the smallest things you did.

When you stood up, he practically tumbled backwards, back hitting the door with a thump.

“Oh, shoot… are you okay?” you asked, rushing forward to help him as he groaned at the sudden contact. But that didn’t help the situation at all, sending him into further panic at the now close proximity.

“F-fine, sorry…”

“Taehyung, you look nervous…” you softened your voice, stepping towards him with mostly concern on your face, but just a hint of playfulness. He dare not believe that’s what he saw though.

“I-I…” he stuttered, not knowing what to say and oh god, you were so close to him now. So close he could smell your perfume; something expensive, perhaps Chanel?

“What is it?” you pressed, but he was starting to lose his resolve. He had to say something, surely. Anything… Right now, he just looked like a bumbling moron.

“I-I just, um…”

“Tell me, maybe I can help…”

“Fuck, you just… you turn me on, okay? Fuck,” he cursed, looking away from you to stare into the top corner of the room, feeling ashamed of himself. He was better than this. A professional. What had you reduced him to?

You simply smirked, stepping even closer to him, until your chests were almost touching.

“I can see that…” you whispered, eyes drifting down. Low and behold, there was the outline of a rather big problem. Tae couldn’t even look, knowing exactly what you were referring to and feeling nothing but shame.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I swear I’m more professional than this, I just-“ You pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him and his eyes went wide, looking down at the digit with surprise.

“You turn me on too,” you smirk, biting down on your bottom lip, still painted from the shoot.

“I-I… I do?”

“Oh yes… Wanna know how much?” you asked cheekily, wrapping your fingers around his wrist, slowly guiding his hand but giving him plenty of opportunity to pull away should he want to. But he didn’t want to. Not at all.

You coaxed his fingertips to grade over the mesh of the lingerie, pressing them to your mound where a tiny little patch of wetness had seeped through the cotton lining inside and stained the material in a dewy wetness.

“Oh, shit…” he breathed, finally looking down at where his hand just barely touched you.

“And that’s just the outside,” you taunted, bottom lip pressed between your teeth. He looked down into your eyes for a moment, wondering if he should… But you answered the question for him, before he’d even had a chance to think it.

Hurriedly, you pressed your lips to his, noting immediately how soft they felt against your own and how hesitant they were in that first split second. But in the end his reaction was visceral, softened lips pushing against yours with all the pent up sexual tension he’d been harbouring for hours.

The hand you barely had a grasp on snaked around your waist, pulling you to him and colliding your full and soft body into his. He wanted to feel every inch of you, every part he’d been photographing all day. And you were going to let him.

When you didn’t immediately shove him away from you, he conceded to his own desires, letting himself become completely hazed with lust. He ran his tongue along your bottom lip, testing the waters before he went in to totally devour your mouth. Pressed against him this way, you could feel his body responding. Of course, he was already stiff beneath those cream trousers, but pushing against your thigh you could feel the size of him, mouth watering. You wondered if perhaps he might like to feel just what your mouth could do for him.

Wasting no more time, you pushed the suede waistcoat from his shoulders, slipping it off and throwing it haphazardly over the rail to your left. And not forgetting that adorable beret too, his hair flopping freely in beautiful curls that fell into his hooded eyes. His assault on your lips never faltered, his grip on your waist only loosening to remove the waistcoat.

You pulled barely millimetres away from his lips, hands gripping at his shirt to at least keep his chest pressed to yours as they both heaved with breathlessness.

“Wanna taste you…” you whispered, hot breath fanning over his lips. Your filthy words sent a thrill down his spine, and before he could utter another syllable your hands were dropping to his zipper, pulling it down and popping the button on his trousers. The loose fit fell down high thighs unaided, pooling at his feet to reveal a pair of light grey boxers, his cock straining marvellously against them.

Gently you ghosted your fingertips over his length, earning a shudder and a sharp intake of breath. “Shit,” he whispered, chasing your lips again with a frantic kiss, large hands holding onto your cheeks to stop you from evading him.

You pushed your hand into the waistband, wrapping your fingers around the base of his cock and feeling just how thick he was; your fingers couldn’t meet no matter how much you stretched them.

“_____, are you sure you want this?” he asked, doing his very best not to rut his hips into your hand.

“I’ve never slept with someone I worked with before, but absolutely. You’ve been driving me crazy, Taehyung…” you whined, slowly pumping your hand along his shaft, neglecting his tip. “Do you want me?” As silly question really, given your current state.

“So much,” he groaned, the pleasure of your fist starting to affect him. You giggled mischievously and dropped to your knees, leaving him staring down at you as you pulled his underwear down, freeing his dick with a triumphant bounce. He really was above average, and the idea of swallowing what you could was making you drool.

In no mood to waste time teasing, you enveloped the first few inches in warm wetness, suckling as if he were the sweetest lollipop despite the salty tang of pre-cum. Your tongue swirled around him a few times before lying flat under his shaft so you could lean further forward to take more of his length.

Above you, Tae was stunned into silence, heavy breaths all that wold pass his lips. He watched you like a hawk, terrified that should he look away, you and your wonderful mouth would disappear. His hands braced himself on the door behind him, keeping him upright as pleasure ripped through his body.

You took what you could into his throat before your gag reflex started to show itself, having to still use an entire fist around his base to completely envelope him. Your first twisted and pumped in rhythm with the way your head bobbed on his cock, every so often hollowing your cheeks to create a harsher drag that had him hissing between clenched teeth.

“A-ah, shit…” he cried, his head throwing back against the door with a thud and squeezing his eyes shut. “How are you this, good? Jesus…”

The giggle that his cock muffled sent a new wave of desire flooding through him. He didn’t even know that were possible, but somehow the more time you spent sucking, pumping and sheathing his cock in your mouth and throat, the more his grip on reality loosened and he found himself swimming in arousal.

It didn’t seem fair that he was getting such incredible head whilst you were sat before him, already soaking your panties and being devoid of any stimulation; where were his manners? If he was unable to be a professional right now, he would at least a gentleman.

Begrudgingly, he pushed at your shoulders, hands finding yours that gripped his thighs, nails digging into the flesh. He pulled you back to a standing position and threw himself at you, lips and teeth crashing against your own desperately.

“Hardly fair that I get all the attention here, is it sweat pea?” The pet name was so innocent in any other context, but here and now you heard it very differently. His tone was gravelling and darker than before, shrouded in animalistic need.

“Oh, I don’t mind. You did us a favour today, after all. Think of it as… extra payment?” You grinned, hands gripping the black t-shirt he still wore and eyes scanning the lips millimetres from yours you’d just been attached to.

“No need, love. Carlisle is paying a bonus. You owe me nothing at all.”

“Ah, well in that case perhaps you should just fuck me then, hm? Even the score a little…” you laughed, attaching yourself back to those beautiful lips for another heated kiss. The room around you felt even smaller this way, perhaps because the body heat radiating off the pair of you was making the tiny little room unbearably stuffy.

He pushed you backwards until your butt hit the edge of the dressing table, stool kicked underneath it. Taehyung never retracted his mouth from yours, not even when he started to fiddle with the straps of the bralette and pull them down your arms. With no clasps to undo, he simply pulled the material over your head, letting your stunning breasts free for him to grab with both hands, mouth dipping down to immediately suck at one of your nipples.

“Mmf, Taehyung…” you moaned, breathier than you’d expected but the feeling had stolen your breath away completely. Your past lovers had been so greedy with no real idea what they were doing, frantically attempting to hold as much of your as they could in their hands, but Taehyung had a purpose, like he was far more skilled and perhaps used to the company of a much larger girl. Every swirl of his tongue, every tactful squeeze of your breasts was used almost like a weapon against you.

In such close proximity you could feel his erection against your tummy, pressing against the softness. You wondered if he liked that; the way your extra pounds felt against his still-wet shaft. He seemed to enjoy your body the way it was, rolls and all, so perhaps the feeling of your chub on his aching cock was nothing short of heavenly.

Your suspicions were confirmed when his hips rocked against you, stomach rippling under his movements as he groaned against your nipple, biting down on the hardened nub just a little.

“You like that, huh? Like how my body feels against you?” you teased, stroking the curls out of his eyes with gentility. He just growled in response, sucking harder at your nipple to have you crying out. You took that as a yes. “Tae please… Need more,” you begged, the wetness between your thighs growing increasingly uncomfortable.

Without detaching his lips from your breast, he shoved a hand into your panties, fingers immediately coated in slick as he pressed two to your clit and began to swirl them in circles. Every single move felt calculated, but they couldn’t possibly be, with how fast things were moving and how quickly he responded to you. He must just be insanely skilled or intuitive. You weren’t sure you’d be able to let this man out of sight after today.

He kept up his ministrations for a little while before growing tired of waiting, impatience getting the better of him. His hands were on your waist and flipping you around quickly, forcing you to hold yourself up on your elbows while he made light work of slipping the high-waisted thong from your body.

The sight before him lit a fire in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn’t stop himself from lightly swatting at your exposed ass, marvelling the way it jiggled and bouncing at the slightest touch. For good measure, you wiggled your hips a little, cheeks rippling to the effect.

“Wow…” he sighed, hands roaming over your cheeks and letting one dip between your legs, parting them enough to slip two fingers through your folds and into your entrance. You groaned at the feeling, finally, finally, having something inside you. Sure, you’d prefer his cock, but he had to prep you. He was so large, you had to get used to something before he let himself bury deep inside you. And lord, the rings on his fingers felt heavenly.

“Fuck, you’re so tight…” he whispered, pushing a third finger into you and spreading you open.

“Tae, please. I’m ready, please…” you pleaded, pushing your hips back against his fingers as he curled them inside you. A jolt of electricity shot through your pelvis, forcing you forward again as Taehyung chuckled darkly behind you.

“Where’s that confidence gone, hm? Did you think you were in control?” he jeered, curling his fingers again and making your legs shake with pleasure. “Beg me again. Beg for my cock.”

You didn’t even hesitate.

“Please! Please, I need it. Need your cock, Tae. Please…” You tried to keep your voice down, aware there might still be people outside but only Taehyung knew the only person who hadn’t left yet was Mia. And she was making phone calls outside.

“You sound beautiful when you’re needy, love. But I have to admit, I don’t think I could wait much longer,” he confessed, now lining the tip of his cock with your entrance after pulling his fingers from you. You mewled a pathetic response, interrupted by the satisfying stretch of him pushing into you.

“Oh, my god…” you hummed, his hands gripping the flesh of your hips so tight he could leave bruises. He kept himself composed enough to slowly but surely bottom out, wanting nothing more than to smack his hips against yours. But he was a gentleman, and he would remain thoughtful enough to keep your comfortable.

You felt yourself falling deeper into the throws of bliss as he dragged himself out again slowly, only to push back a little faster and finding a rhythm that felt unbelievably good for both of you. Your spine tingled with elation, every deep thrust hitting just where you needed him to. His skill seemed to transcend not only from foreplay but to fucking you silly too.

“You’ve driven me… mmf… fucking crazy all day,” he muttered, articulated with a particularly hard thrust. In his head, Taehyung was counting his blessings and thanking his lucky stars that he could be balls deep in you right now. Had you never made any kind of move on him, his desires would have merely fizzled out. God bless your confidence.

He leaned over your back a little more, pistoning his hips as you pushed up to meet him, his lips trailing along your shoulder and neck. You couldn’t stop the soft moans escaping your lips, hand coming to rest on the back of his neck, to hold him against you and tangle in the ends of his curls as he kissed along the flesh.

“Every set of lingerie… fuck, it looked so good on you. You’re so beautiful, so fucking beautiful…” he mumbled between kisses, holding your hips still to slap his against you. The sounds filling the tiny room were some of the lewdest you had ever heard, absolutely hypnotic.

Having Taehyung looming over you this way, fucking himself so far into you and sloppily biting and sucking at your shoulder and neck, you could have sworn you were dreaming. It was too perfect, felt too damn good. Never had a man made you orgasm simply with penetration, but you could feel it building, his skill and his size playing huge parts in your undoing.

His thrusts never faltered, never once slowed. He changed his angle a few times, but never ceased his movements. And before long, you were on the brink of falling apart.

“T-Tae… Gonna cum…” you warned, turning your head to look him in the eye over your shoulder.

“Me too, baby… You feel so good, I can’t help it. Cum for me, yeah?” he panted, pushing your hair out of your face and reconnecting his lips to yours in a sultry, slow and passionate make out. You mewled at the contact, letting him invade all of your sense at once and finally, the coil that had been building in your abdomen wound too tight, and you snapped.

Your legs shuddered, your back arched and your loud moans were swallowed whole by his kiss. Pleasure burst through your entire body, every nerve ending lighting up like a firework and detonating at the exact same moment.

Your pussy clenched around him so hard that Tae struggled to keep his rhythm, simply being dragged back in by your walls instead but the fight was inconceivably good, pulling him to the edge too. He frantically chased that high, whimpering against your lips as he continued to kiss you, wanting nothing more than to feel as close to you as he could.

You came back down just in time for his release, able to savour the warmth that filled you as he came. He was sure he had never cum so hard let alone as much; the pair of you were very aware of the way his cock squelched now with each slide while he slowed his hips. You could feel the mix of your arousal and his cum starting to seep from where the two of you were still connected, sliding down your inner thighs.

His hips stopped rolling, and the both of you stayed very still for a moment, catching your breath and coming back to reality. His forehead rest on your shoulder while you held yourself up, turning to press a light kiss to his temple and nuzzle into the soft mop of curls. And then he was chuckling to himself, running his fingers down the length of your arm.

“What’s funny?” you grinned; his laugh was infectious.

“I just… I swear, I’m more professional than this.” You laughed again with him, a blush creeping onto your already flushed face.

“Me too, usually…” you sniggered. He kissed your shoulder again and straightened up, allowing you to turn around and perch on the edge of the dressing table. You fixed your hair out of your eyes while he pulled his underwear and trousers up from where they pooled around his ankles. He looked around the room to find the bathrobe you’d worn earlier that day, draping around your shoulders with care so you could cover yourself.

“I was kind of lying earlier… I do want to do that campaign, I was just-“

“Manipulating me? I figured…” he smirked, slipping back into his waistcoat and picking up his beret.

“Then why did you-?”

“Swept up in the moment, I suppose. And I didn’t actually catch on until your hands were on my dick,” he shrugged, earning a laugh from you. “All I knew was I wanted you, you were in lingerie and getting closer…” He laughed with you, fixing his beret to his head and tucking his curls back into it. A comfortable silence settled over you both, post-coital smiles stretched across your faces.

“So that campaign… Are you interested?” you asked, folding your arms over your covered chest. His face contorted into one of exaggerated thought, his finger tapping at his chin.

“A day with you alone in a studio, creating beautiful art whilst you’re completely nude… Hm, this is a hard decision,” he mocked. You swatted his arm playfully, both laughing together. You liked how comfortable you felt with him, how wide the smile on your face was. It was intriguing; perhaps you could see yourself enjoying his company in future, not just his sexual prowess.

He stepped toward you, wrapping an arm around your waist casually and drawing a soft line down your jaw with his finger.

“I was actually hoping that you might be free for a drink, or dinner sometime soon. But yes, I’ve be honoured to photograph you for your campaign.”

“Well then if I may be so bold; what are you doing once you leave this studio?” you asked, straightening his beret for him.

“A lonely pizza and a bottle of beer for one. But I think I may have just had a better offer…” his voice lowered to something akin to seductive again, the smirk returning to his face.

“I think you might have. Let me change into some actual clothes, maybe we can grab dinner?”

“Absolutely. Anywhere you choose,” he smiled, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet impromptu kiss. You sank into it, before pushing him back to head over to the little case you’d been packing, pulling out the casual dress you’d worn to the studio that morning. Taehyung made no move to leave the little dressing room, leaning his back against the door and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“You’re sticking around?” you asked.

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t want to miss the show…”

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Wedding Job

leverage 1.07

Nate: No. No, it's-it's not right. But, you know, uh, we're not detectives. And if you want to prove your husband's innocence, there are plenty of agencies I could recommend.

eliot and hardison share tired, annoyed looks and I felt that in my soul

- - - - - 

Teresa: I understand. Thank you. Where did my daughter go?

Hardison:I think she was with Parker.

(Parker is teaching the little girl how to pick locks)

Parker: Go! 

(they both begin to work on the locks, after a few seconds, the girl gets hers open)

Parker: 6 seconds! Give it up! Good job.

parker can be good with kids and it’s adorable

- - - - - 

Hardison: Just take the mob out of it.

Nate: What? Take the mob out of it?

Hardison: Hear me out. Isn't this just a breach of contract?

Eliot: These guys had a deal, right? And your boy, Ray, he lived up to his end, but Moscone didn't. And for that, there's not a court of law in this world this lady can go to.

Parker: Which is exactly the kind of case we take

the ot3 immediately jumping in to support sophie’s idea

- - - - - 

Hardison: We can't. That thing's a fortress, man. I clocked four armed guards, a Tikva security system. That thing's Israeli-Made. It's used to protect their military bases. It's unhackable. Oh, and then there's the FBI parked around the corner.

Parker: FBI? Where? (looking through camera lens)

Hardison: You see that crappy van that says "plumber"?

Sophie: Did you say "plumber"? That's their cover? Oh, that is so cute. It's like it's 1978 all over again

- - - - - 

Parker: I saw some rubber gloves. What do you do with those?

McSweeten: Oh, actually, we've just been kind of blowing them up and playing volleyball. But, uh, yeah, if we need to do any kind of investigation…

big boredom during quarantine mood

- - - - - 

eliot being proud of the one (1) thing he did on the computer 

- - - - - 

parker winked at mcsweeten that poor boy, I’d be smitten too

+

fic writers get on this, parker smells like jasmine

- - - - - 

Hardison: All you have to do is rip them on my flash drive and run.

[FBI Offices]

(Eliot closes the door)

Eliot: I don't have to type anything, right?

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: No, just plug it in. It does the rest.

Eliot: All right, 'cause you know I just learned the Photoshop thing you told me.

Hardison: I-I know. Baby steps.

[FBI Offices]

Eliot: So I just plug it in.

(Eliot forces open a set of cabinet doors and they open, revealing stacks of cassette tapes. He looks at the flash drive in his hand)

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: Now, audio files, they can take a little while to run, but, uh, the servers are pretty loud, so that should give you some cover.

[FBI Offices]

Eliot: It's tapes.

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: Wha-hold, wait. Did y-you just say "tapes"?

Eliot: I just said "tapes"!

Hardison: Cassette tapes?

[FBI Offices]

(Eliot picks up a cassette case and taps it with the flash drive)

Eliot: Your little thing, it's not gonna work.

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: But at least you ain't got to type nothing.

[FBI Offices]

Eliot: Hardison, how am I supposed to get out of the FBI offices with a boxful of surveillance tapes, huh?

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: Punch somebody.

[FBI Offices]

Eliot: Oh, I’m gonna punch somebody

- - - - - 

Nate: Can you break the codes?

Hardison: The codes? The codes to the Cayman Bank and Trust, where the Cali cartel and the African dictators keep all their dirty money? The ones that Moscone changes anytime he damn well pleases? Like, it's-c-come on. Dude, are you kidding me?

Nate: You know, you're-you're very negative lately. 

Eliot: Yeah. 

Nate: And the sass, it doesn't-doesn't help.

bruh lay off hardison

- - - - - 

[audio of mob family fighting playing off of hardison’s computer]

Sophie: It's a bit like an opera, isn't it?

Eliot: You mean 'cause I want to run away

- - - - - 

Nate: Sophie. Where are we at?

Sophie: Huh? I don't know, Nate. I think you need to ask yourself that question. You called me, remember? And now we're working together every day. I don't know what you want. And to ask me that dressed like a vicar? You're a very strange man.

Nate: No, no, no. I meant where are we at with finding the money?

Sophie: Oh.

chaotic sophienate 

- - - - - 

Nate: How are we doing? How's the search?

Eliot (chopping vegetables): I haven't started yet.

Nate: Okay, you know, I haven't gotten one answer I was looking for today. What is it that you're doing? What's going on?

Eliot: I'm cutting onion, deveining shrimp, uh, pan-searing some scallops. I've got 200 people I got to feed, all right? Back off.

Nate: Okay, okay. Hmm.

Eliot: What, you think the only thing I know how to do is bust heads?

Nate: No, well, yeah.

Eliot (demonstrating): Look, hold a knife like this, cuts through an onion. Hold a knife like this, cuts through, like, eight yakuza in 4 seconds. Screams, carnage. People are like knives. Everything is in context.

Heather (enters): Okay, hors d'oeuvres.

Eliot: Yes, ma'am. Stuffed mushrooms, pine nuts, kiss of basil, some sun-dried tomatoes, and the finishing touch, lemon juice. (gives her bite)

Heather (spits it out): Does this look like a food court? Does it? I want high-End food - High-End! What are you— (walks out)

(Eliot starts to go after her with the knife, Nate stops him)

Eliot: I know.

NEVER GET BETWEEN ELIOT AND HIS FOOD

also, eliot only becoming murderous when someone insults his food? iconic

- - - - - 

Sophie (to bridesmaid): You look lovely.

Cindy: You don't think it makes me look fat?

Parker: Oh, definitely. I mean, why do you think I had to let out the waist? To make you look less skinny?

Sophie: She... she didn't mean that.

Heather: Oh, suck it up, Cindy. You'll be fine.

if someone did this to me I would c r y and that’s the truth lmfao

- - - - - 

the ot3 eating pizza and laughing as nate verbally fucks himself over with sophie lmao

- - - - - 

Hardison: Yo. No way in hell I could ever imagine getting married. I mean, it's just - It's just a piece of paper.

(Eliot, eating an apple, looks at Hardison)

Hardison: I take it you've never been married.

Eliot: No.

Hardison: Ever come close?

Eliot: No.

Hardison: What was her name?

Eliot: It was a girl I grew up with. But anyway, she married somebody else, so...

Hardison: Hot-hot damn, what did you do?

Eliot: What did I do? I liberated Croatia. (leaves)

Hardison: Oh, see, now, me, I would have just got fat and started up a comic-Book shop. That's you and me right there.

relationship foreshadowing in s1 we love to see it

- - - - - 

Hardison: Now, I know that you're in charge of the bridesmaids' dresses, but why are you wearing one?

Parker: A bridesmaid's dress is like an all-access pass at a wedding. Plus, I kind of said something, and the maid of honor cried. And Sophie said I should make it up to her. 

Hardison: By looking much, much better in the same dress? Yeah, you let me know how that goes.

Parker: Hmm, you really think I look good?

Hardison (pinning flowers on her dress): And now you're perfect

they’re BABIES your honor

- - - - - 

(of course the trashy mom wears a sparkly white dress to her daughter’s wedding) 

- - - - - 

(Eliot walks up to the rest of the team)

Eliot: What is it? I got bacon on.

Parker: The Butcher is here.

Eliot: Does he have the baby lamb chops?

Hardison: No. The butcher of Kiev.

Nate: Think he'll recognize you?

[Flashback]

(flames surrounding them, the Butcher has Eliot by the neck and is trying to cut him with a meat cleaver. Eliot is barely holding him off)

Butcher: I kill you!

[Exterior House]

Eliot: Yeah, I think he'd remember me

I live for wacky eliot flashbacks

- - - - - 

Nate: You're staying? Sophie, Sophie, it's the Butcher of Kiev.

Hardison: Have you ever been to Kiev? The cake-maker of Kiev would whup all our ass. This is the butcher.

Sophie: Uh-Huh.

this isn’t that notable, but it’s funny

- - - - - 

parker smushed up against the glass door ,,, just imagine if anyone saw that lmao

- - - - - 

eliot using a frying pan to fight the butcher of kiev,,, iconique

- - - - - 

we need to start making a list of things that are Specifically Not Weapons™ that eliot uses as weapons:

for this episode, a frying pan, a whisk, an appetizer platter, the platter itself 

- - - - - 

Hardison (eating appetizer): This is pretty good, man.

Eliot: Thanks, man. I squeeze, like, fresh lemon juice on it.

Hardison: Cool. Cool.

(they follow Nate out of the kitchen)

eliot is so genuinely happy when someone finally appreciates his food, you can see it in his face ,,, he starts to love hardison just a little bit for that

- - - - - 

Nate: Did you clear out Moscone’s accounts?

Hardison: I left him five dollars for socks

we love the team being petty

- - - - - 

the girl immediately jumped into parker’s lap at the restaurant I’m soft

- - - - - 

soft chef eliot serving his -friends- family is everything 

- - - - - 

I understand that this was technically supposed to be the third episode, so this would have been their first meal as a family and I stan them so hard for it

[gukyi]

for you, anything | ksj

summary: in the popular online multiplayer game, kingdom, you are the top-ranked knight with money, fame, and power. in real life, you’re a graphic design geek who’s got a very unsubtle crush on her gorgeous coworker, kim seokjin. but when you’re suddenly dethroned from the first place spot in your game, you and your kingdom character embark on a journey to reclaim your title, and learn on the way that things are not always as they seem. 

{friends to lovers!au, enemies to lovers!au}

pairing: kim seokjin x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, fantasy word count: 21k warnings: alcohol mention, brief and non-graphic descriptions of violence, this is basically two fics in one so you get double the fun and double the word count!! a/n: once again, a massive, massive thank you to @aurawatercolor for commissioning me!! you can find her on twitter as well under @btspresso_!! she’s the genius behind this enemies to lovers and friends to lovers seokjin fic wrapped up into a nice package just in time for the holidays!! you ever seen a fic with e2l and f2l together? that’s right, i didn’t think so. enjoy!!!

check out the post-script drabble here!

♚ HERE ♚

“Oh, shit!”

From twelve feet away comes the sound of these three things in this order: fingers furiously mashing keyboard keys, wheels of an office chair swiveling angrily on the linoleum floor, and a war cry. All of which could either belong to a video game world championships in a big-city stadium or your simple, office of two-floors in a more-than-one-hundred-stories skyscraper based in graphic design and media for small start-up companies. 

“I can’t tell if Photoshop crashed again or if you’re playing that weird online multiplayer game again,” Yoongi grumbles from across the way, where he’s gnawing on a Clif bar in one hand as he mindlessly taps his mouse with the other. 

“Please,” Jimin says, carelessly waving a hand. “Don’t act like I haven’t caught you watching My Hero Academia multiple times this year while we were supposed to be doing work, you absolute piece of toast. But if you must know, I was in fact playing Kingdom.”

“I’m going to tell Namjoon,” Yoongi says with zero emphasis, because everybody knows that Namjoon’s got dirt on everybody in the office anyway (including Yoongi) and that if you try to expose somebody else to him, he’ll expose you back. It’s colleague culture. 

“And what’s Namjoon gonna do? He already knows you carry a flash drive of illegally-downloaded animes with you wherever you go,” Jimin retorts casually. He’s not wrong, and you can confirm that Yoongi indeed carts around a USB drive in the shape of a pineapple that has 64GB of anime. 

“What do I know?”

Namjoon comes trotting into view from the corridor that leads to the gender-neutral bathrooms with glasses hanging from the collar of his sweater vest, a clipboard with nothing attached to it in his right hand, and a steaming cup of jasmine tea (he hates coffee and declares this publicly at least three times a day) in his left. 

“You know that Yoongi—”

“Has been doing his work the whole time you were in the bathroom so you don’t need to worry about him,” Yoongi interrupts quickly. 

Namjoon shoots both Jimin and Yoongi a suspicious glare, but moves on. He’s got enough blackmail on the both of them to bury them into the next calendar year, but he’s wise, and he only uses it when absolutely necessary. “Just doing checkups on you guys before Boss Man calls me back into his office and gives me a pile of over one hundred hours of work I’m supposed to do in a forty-hour work week.” It’s been obvious from the moment you were hired that Namjoon does the most work out of anybody in this office, including your boss, and gets very, very little from it. 

“You don’t even have any paper attached to your clipboard,” Taehyung points out rather unhelpfully, from where he’s been drawing hearts on the cheeks of the Surprised Pikachu meme he’s taped up on the wall his desk is pushed up against. 

Namjoon looks down at his clipboard like it just spit mad fire at him, furrows his brows, and lets out a sigh equivalent to three years worth of pent-up aggression. “Shit.”

Jimin cackles from his computer. 

“Whatever, I’m still going to do checkups.” Namjoon takes the pen from behind his ear and writes himself a note, presumably to get paper for his clipboard later. “Jimin, you’re still working on that website layout for the art critic and photographer. Yoongi’s on coding for that search engine that we all know is never taking off but is still paying us. Taehyung’s on marketing because he’s got the most charming voice and Hoseok and Jungkook are on media production for the indie movie company. Y/N and Seokjin, you guys are on clientele and coding. Everybody good before I go get more paper?”

“Yes, Tiny but Large Boss Man,” Jimin says, and it’s enough of a confirmation to send Namjoon scurrying down the corridor again in search of paper as everyone else returns to their prior business. 

“Y/N?”

You turn around from the font website you’ve been browsing for about half an hour to find Seokjin standing behind you, an earpiece in his ear and that charming smile on his face. It’s the same smile he gave you on your first day on the job when he was introducing himself, same smile he gives when he meets clients in person, same smile he gives Namjoon whenever the man is about to have a breakdown. It’s a friendly, personable-but-universal kind of smile. The kind models need. The kind that Seokjin has mastered. 

“Hey, Seokjin,” you say, only just then coming to realize that Seokjin is much closer to you than his voice originally implied. You’ve rotated 180 degrees in your office chair and he is hardly a foot away from where your feet are. It’s a lot. Seokjin is always a lot. In the best sort of way. “Is anything the matter?”

“No, just wanted to check in and see how the project was going for that one guy that wanted a nice advertisement to put on Angie’s List,” Seokjin says, leaning down to look at what you’ve been doing. 

“Oh, well I’ve been browsing this font website for ages and I still can’t find a nice one for the sub-heading. All of these are too flashy or difficult to read,” you say, beginning to scroll as you and Seokjin both look for one that you like. 

“Hmm, I see what you mean,” his voice sounds like honey and if you had any less dignity you’d let the chills send shivers down your spine. Luckily, you know how to maintain your composure in an office setting. And you also know that Yoongi and Jungkook would never let you hear the end of it, ever. “Oh, how about that one?”

“This one? Rose Quartz?” You ask, pointing to it. 

“Yeah,” Seokjin says. “It has a nice flair that matches with the font for the business name, but it’s still easy to read. It would probably look really nice with a crisp shadow behind it, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you’re onto something,” you say, clicking to read the fair use and copyright. 

“Couldn’t have done it without all the hard work you’ve put into this,” Seokjin says, standing up and shooting you another one of his famous smiles. “You’re the best partner anybody in this tiny media production and design company could ask for.”

He leaves without bidding you farewell, but it’s enough to have you staring blankly at your computer, contemplating existence itself. Sometimes, a little part of you wonders if Seokjin only treats you like this and none of your other coworkers, but then you immediately remember that Seokjin is naturally charming and that he probably speaks to newborn babies in the same way.

Yoongi wheels over to your desk from where his is, smirk lacing his features as he chews on another, different-colored Clif bar. 

“Ever heard of a personal bubble?” You ask snarkily, because you already know why he’s over here, and so does he.

“Why aren’t you asking the same question to Seokjin, hmm?” Yoongi taunts. He’s know about your dumb crush on your coworker (of all people, your coworker! A fellow employee!) for months now. He isn’t being any more helpful whatsoever. 

“Go watch your pirated anime,” you grunt out, too overwhelmed with the way Seokjin smiles at you to really give Yoongi your full attention. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Sure, but I’m not Seokjin,” Yoongi says. Then he wheels away and you’re left staring at the Rose Quartz font, whose sample text reads: This was meant to be. 

At least Namjoon doesn’t know.

It’s midnight on a Tuesday, and you’re just about to turn off the lamp on your bedside table and get some well deserved weekday-night shut eye when your phone begins to blare, a disgustingly ugly picture of Jungkook’s face appearing on the screen.

You stare at your phone like it’s personally offending you (which, if Jungkook’s face is anything to go by, it definitely is) before you turn off your ringer and close your eyes. Jungkook can wait. Very seldom is he at the top of your list of priorities.

Barely five seconds after you’ve put your head on your pillow, your phone begins to vibrate, this time even angrier than the last. Aggravated and a little concerned—because Jungkook never, ever calls twice—you pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Y/N! Something crazy just happened!”

“I hope so, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me at midnight on a work night,” you grumble into the phone, monotonous voice a stark contrast to Jungkook’s easily excitable one.

“Have you been on Kingdom recently?!” Jungkook asks, and you practically see his eyes bulging out of his head in front of you. One of your youngest coworkers, it’s moments like these that remind you why he bears a striking resemblance to a university student—up late playing video games even on a work night—despite having a couple years in the workforce under his belt. He keeps telling you that he wants to go back to school and get a Masters in something, but he isn’t sure what yet. 

“No,” you tell him like it’s obvious, because it is. You typically begin to wind down your night around ten, which means that anything that’s happened on Kingdom in the past two hours you are thoroughly unaware of. “Can’t this wait? Kingdom’s fun and all, but I really do need to sleep.”

“But Y/N,” Jungkook says with a whine, insisting that you stay on the line, “someone beat you! You’re rank two, now.”

If Jungkook’s loud voice and jumpy attitude didn’t wake you before, you’re certainly wide awake now.

“What?” You ask, shocked. “Just now?”

“Yeah, like fifteen minutes ago! I don’t know what happened,” Jungkook says sadly, lost. “I was dueling with another knight when the horns and banners appeared on the screen and said there was a new top player. You’ve been dethroned!” He cries out like it’s him who’s lost their place. 

You’re fumbling out of bed, making a beeline for your desktop computer across your bedroom. Normally, you’d be ashamed about how high-school you’re behaving around a video game, but you’ve invested an embarrassing amount of time and energy into Kingdom, and you’ll be damned if you think someone else can outdo you. 

As you’re logging onto the game, Jungkook continues to wail into the phone. “I don’t even know who this person is, I feel like I’ve never seen them before! I mean, they must be really good since they practically appeared out of nowhere, but still! I’m a decent player so we must have crossed paths. Maybe I just don’t remember…”

Sure enough, the moment you open your screen the horns blare and the banners appear, congratulating a different player on achieving the top rank. You watch helplessly as the celebration fades on your computer before the leaderboard appears in the top left corner, your name a sad second place. 

“Who’s JK0901?” You shout into the phone, earning an exasperated sigh from Jungkook on the other end. You scowl at the name that’s knocked you off your pedestal, before narrowing your eyes to look at it more closely. “JK? Is that you, Jungkook? Are you just calling me to make fun of me for beating me? Don’t disrespect your elders, Jungkook.”

Jungkook gasps like he’s been accused of murder. For people that take Kingdom as seriously as you and Jungkook, it may as well be. “No! What the heck, Y/N, you know that my username is KookieMonster97, for God’s sake. Accusing me of being the best, how could you?”

“You should have just taken the compliment,” you frown into the phone, “Now all the girls are gonna know you aren’t, in fact, the number one Kingdom player.”

“Fuck, you’re right,” Jungkook mutters. “But it’s not me, I swear. You would have received a very different phone call from me if it was. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even told you and then ruined your day in the office tomorrow. So it’s not me.”

“I can’t tell if I’d be more or less angry if it was you,” you admit.

“Why, because I’d finally have something to hold over your head other than my unwavering youth?” Jungkook taunts. Definitely still a university student at heart. 

“No, because it means I’d have to hear the entire office praise you for a day, and I’d rather permanently pop my eardrums,” you tell him informatively. Jungkook has enough of a head. You actively try to not do anything to enlarge it unless he wholeheartedly deserves it. 

“I love our coworker chats, you know,” Jungkook says. “Whoever this person is though, I bet they’re receiving bucketloads of praise for knocking you off the top spot. You’ve had it for like, three months now, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” you tell him through gritted teeth. “I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into this game and look how it’s repaying me,” you grumble, staring down the Kingdom home screen. 

“JK0901 probably did a ritual sacrifice to beat you,” Jungkook supplies unhelpfully. 

You sigh. Whoever they are, they proved that they are just as good at Kingdom as you are, a veteran player with an embarrassing several years of experience under your belt. In fact, they proved that they’re better than you. 

♚ THERE ♚

It’s cloudy today, which means that more of the market stalls are out on the main street. You pass by them on your way to the castle, vendors calling out to you with promises of apples, jewelry, and perfumes. 

You’ve got money to burn and your responsibilities can wait a couple of minutes, so you indulge one of the stalls and purchase a couple of apples. One should give you a bit of energy now, and the rest can be roasted later for a better meal. 

“Miss Y/N, off to the palace?” The vendor asks. From how much you frequent this part of the kingdom, every artisan, farmer, and merchant alike knows your name. That, and the fact that you’ve amassed quite a group of followers from your daily knightly escapades. 

“Of course,” you respond happily, paying the merchant with a couple of silver coins and then some, just as a thanks. The extra money helps the farmers raise the quality of their crops and allows them to earn more for their efforts. It also boosts your standing amongst the townsfolk. “His Majesty requested my presence for further instructions on fortification, most likely. But I’m just honored to be recognized.”

“As you should!” The man responds dutifully. “You are our best knight, after all.”

“Please, you flatter me. When the work day is done, go home and feed your children well, alright?” You ask, giving a firm nod to the merchant before you’re on your way. As you stroll down the stone-paved path, other vendors call out to you, hoping that you, too, will indulge in their finest clothes and trinkets on your way to the castle. 

Maybe another day. 

You take a hearty bite of the apple as you head towards the palace, a satisfying crunch ringing through your ears as the townsfolk nod and bow to you. It’s easy to figure out that you’re the top-ranked knight in the kingdom, with badges of honor pinned to your torso, ink black armor clinging tightly to your body, and red sashes tied around the black ones on your wrist, signifying approval from the highest ranking military official in the kingdom: the king himself. 

The guards at the palace gates step aside as you nod to each other, bowing courteously. You repeat this process several more times as you slowly proceed towards the throne room, where the King (and maybe the Queen) are likely to be waiting for you. They had increased their security at every door frame after an attempted assassination several months ago, which you (with the help of other high-ranking knights and castle officials) discovered was a plot orchestrated by Their Majesty’s second-most-trusted advisor. 

Finally, you reach the golden arches that signify that you’ve arrived at the most expensive room in the entire palace (save for Her Majesty’s bathroom, which, though you have never been inside, is rumored to have a golden bathtub and sacred water from the River Blancheur, over two thousand miles away. But you cannot confirm nor deny.), threatening red doors slowly creaking open as the King and Queen come into view. 

They’re sitting on their thrones, as per usual, but they aren’t the only ones in the room like they normally are. Instead, there’s another knight, as equally decked out as you, standing before them, arms crossed behind their back. 

“We hope that you can wear these honors proudly and do your duties with pride,” the King says regally, deep, thick voice echoing throughout the room. 

“I will stop at nothing to ensure this kingdom’s greatness,” the knight says back, just as formal. The knight gives a long bow, red sashes around their wrist dangling towards the ground. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were being replaced. But of course, that’s not the case. 

“Oh, Y/N,” the Queen says happily, noticing your waiting right in front of the closed doors to the throne room. “Prudent, as always.”

“I aspire to please,” you say with a bow. The King gives you a warm smile, one you’re willing to bet that this other knight isn’t often on the receiving end of. 

“Your timing is impeccable,” the King says, ushering for you to come forward. You do so, taking calculated steps along the red carpet, woven nearly two centuries ago and maintained ever since. “We were just congratulating Sir JK on his recent accomplishments in the Black Forest.”

“Of course,” you say with a nod, refusing to turn to your left so you can stare down this Sir JK for yourself. “The military made groundbreaking strides for our kingdom there.”

“You are the first person to know this, other than him, of course, but we’ve decided to appoint him as the Head of the Royal Knights of the Kingdom of Kalar,” the King says proudly. 

It takes everything in your willpower not to let your mouth drop open. You blink rapidly, making sure that you aren’t in a daze nor still asleep. Sure enough, you’re wide awake and your ears and eyes seem to be working perfectly. The knight next to you is taking over the highest position a knight can hold in your kingdom, one that even you haven’t been given. 

You’ve been replaced. 

“What an incredible honor,” you say, body stiff. You can practically feel the ego of the knight next to you radiating off of him. It makes your nerves twitch. 

“I think so as well,” the King says proudly. He has, luckily, not picked up on your sudden mood change. “So, I’ve called you here to appoint you as his second-in-command.”

You bow graciously at his words, ensuring that, despite your bitter attitude, you are still thankful for this opportunity. Mostly. You are mostly thankful for this opportunity. 

“I’m honored and grateful, Your Majesties,” you say, head facing the carpet. “I would rather die than let down my kingdom.”

“You two are to work together closely,” the Queen advises, words that make your ears bleed. Oh, wonderful, now you have to work hand-in-hand with the person that stole your favor with the royal household right from underneath your feet? You can think of nothing more enjoyable. “Your cooperation alone will ensure the utmost safety and security of this kingdom.”

“We shall do better than our best,” the knight beside you says. His words make your eyes roll back into your head, but you’ve been a bigger brownnoser in your past. You can forgive that, even if the man next to you radiates an energy you’d rather not surround yourself with. 

“I’m pleased to hear it. Your training and work together begins now, so do not hesitate to get to know each other.”

You and him take one baited breath each before turning to each other. You both bow out of obligatory respect, which satisfies the King and Queen well enough. And as you come up, you catch a glimpse of each other’s eyes. His are dark, rounded pupils. They’re hiding something. 

You’re determined to figure out what it is. 

“Call me J,” the knight says the moment you’ve stepped foot outside of the palace. The setting sun shines dimly on the main road, and many of the vendors are beginning to pack up their belongings in order to head home. 

“Okay, J,” you say suspiciously. Everything about him unsettles you slightly. Perhaps it’s the fact that behind the armor and the mask and the badges, he’s extremely good-looking. Or maybe it’s the fact that he swiped the top-ranking knight position right from your fingertips. It must be that. “It’s baffling to me that we haven’t met yet. If you’ve been in such high favor with the King and Queen, then I must have seen you somewhere.” You wonder if he can hear the bitterness lacing your features. You sure hope that he can. 

“I guess our paths just never crossed,” J says, taking a bite out of a peach he just purchased from a farmer’s daughter, who was watching over the stall as her father haggled with another vendor. You watched as he winked to the girl as she gave him two peaches for the price of one. “I’m more on the ground than you are, am I not? You spend much of your time strategizing in the castle.”

“You don’t know what I do,” you huff out. He finishes the peach and wraps up the pip in a piece of cloth from his pocket before tucking it away. There is no place to dispose of it on the main street anyway. 

“Don’t I?” J says with a sly grin, one that makes you want to kick him in the shin and push him into the grass. “Everyone knows what you do, Y/N. You were the King and Queen’s favorite.”

The way he uses the past tense doesn’t go unnoticed by you. 

“But, as it seems, being on the battlefield outweighs directing it from above,” J says. He keeps his eyes off of you and his head held high while your gaze focuses in on him out of pure fury, just another way to hold his newfound superiority over your head. Five minutes next to him and he already seems to know how to push every single one of your buttons. 

“So it seems,” you say bitterly. 

“You and I really must get along, Y/N,” J says casually as you begin to stray from the hustle of the main street. Neither of you seem to have a particularly clear destination in mind, only a path that must be taken for the sake of the greater good. It’s only the prospect that if you do well enough, you’ll impress the King and Queen and regain your favor with them that’s keeping you from socking J in the face and dashing off, taking his second peach with you. “We’ll be spending lots of time together.”

“Doesn’t that sound like the bee’s knees,” you mutter to yourself. For the greater good. 

“Should it not?” J asks innocently. It makes you want to wipe that smirk right off of his face, that knowing tone in his voice. “I certainly don’t have a problem with you, Y/N. Do you happen to have one with me?”

He asks it because he knows that whatever you say will incriminate you. He knows that if you say no, you’re a goddamn liar, and that if you say yes, you’re weak. Weak because you’re admitting that you can’t handle spending time with him even though you have to. Weak because you’re showing him that he has power over you. 

“No, of course not,” you say, plastering the fakest smile on your face. Two can play at this game. “In fact, would it be alright if I had that other peach? I’m absolutely starving.” You can be civil. If he can, at least.

“Sure thing,” J says, unwrapping the peach from the woven napkin the farmer’s daughter gave him.

You reach out to take it from him, but in the blink of an eye his hand dangles it over your head, too far out of reach for you to grab without losing all of your dignity in the process. 

“What do we say, Y/N?” He asks sweetly, like a parent disciplining their child. God, everything he does absolutely aggravates you. 

You take a deep breath and close your eyes. Perhaps you aren’t on the front lines as often as he is, but you sure know how to fight. Maybe now is a good time to remind him that you received the same training he did. 

“Please?” You ask, just as saccharine. 

“As you request, Y/N,” J says with a bow, finally handing it over. 

If this is what the next several months have in store for you, you wonder if maybe sinking down to a lower ranking might be worth it after all, especially if it means you’ll never have to see him and his bouncy hair and dark eyes again. 

You take a bite into the peach. It’s sour. 

Just your luck. 

♚ HERE ♚

When you walk into work the next day, a hush falls over the room. 

It’s not even as if the entire office has been quiet so far this workday, not as if the clock struck nine o’clock and everyone decided to start a competition to see who could shut up for the longest amount of time. 

(For the record, if anyone were to win that competition, it would be Yoongi, who usually only speaks either 1) when spoken to or 2) to let someone know when they’re being dumb via insult. The first person to lose would be Namjoon, because his job description is to boss people around. And he’s awfully good at it.)

The elevator door dinged on the twenty-third floor and you could hear Hoseok’s loud gasps and Jungkook’s cackled laugh even through the glass door that separates your office from the rest of the companies that take up residence in this particular city skyscraper. And then, as your loafers tapped on the hard linoleum floor and the glass door creaked open, the entire office fell silent. 

Quickly, you wonder if you’ve forgotten someone's birthday or if anybody’s due for a celebration of some sort. But nobody’s come to mind and the lights aren’t off, which means that this isn’t the kind of sudden silence that precedes a surprise party. 

This is the kind of sudden silence that makes everybody go, “Oh shit.”

It feels like you’re walking on eggshells as you make your way over to your desk. You’re a couple minutes late due to oversleeping (for reasons that start with J and end with -ungkook) so everybody’s already here, and the office should be as boisterous and rowdy as always. And yet, something’s different. 

You’re left entirely in the dark in concern with what the reasoning is, so you just decide that you’d rather not be the one to break the tense quiet that’s befallen your office and settle down, logging into your work desktop and checking today’s assignments on Slack. 

Five minutes pass and you can’t help but think that, of the many, many days you’ve spent in this office with these people, this has got to be the most awkward by an overwhelmingly long shot. Not even the time Namjoon showed up with his hair dyed purple and traces of a sharpie drawing with a certain phallic design on his cheek was more awkward than this. 

It seems that even Namjoon’s picked up on the vibe of your workspace today, walking in and out without a word. He wheels in a portable whiteboard from one of your meeting rooms and writes down everybody’s assignments on the board in his handwriting, which makes his O’s look like D’s. 

Ten minutes in and this is the quietest your office has ever been in the history of mankind, probably. You’re almost convinced that genuinely no one will speak to each other until five o’clock, when Jimin’s end-of-work alarm goes off and you all pack up and go home, and that today’s workday is an exercise in meditation and peace, two things that are seldom available in your usual office environment. 

And then, out of nowhere, 

“Oh my God, I can’t take it anymore,” Hoseok says loudly, letting out a breath you didn’t even realize he had been holding. It’s highly unlikely that Hoseok spent the past ten minutes holding his breath because he wasn’t allowed to talk under your office’s societal norm of silence, but you honestly can’t put it past him. Speaking is essentially the equivalent of breathing to him. “I’ve been wanting to bother Jimin for not responding to my email from yesterday for the past five minutes. I don’t even know why we’re doing this, it’s clear that Y/N doesn’t care at all about what happened.”

“What don’t I care about?” You blurt out, equally as curious as everyone else also seems to release their baited breaths. 

Hoseok and Jimin immediately begin to argue about appropriate email-response time between coworkers and Yoongi rolls a couple of feet over from his own desk to enlighten you. 

“Jungkook told everyone that you had been docked from your top rank in Kingdom, and the whole office seems to have taken it very seriously,” Yoongi mutters into your ear, making you scrunch up your nose in exasperation. Is he kidding? 

“That’s why everyone was so quiet? Because they didn’t want to bring it up?” 

“I guess so, but I was just quiet because it was nice to have the whole office shut up for a few minutes in the morning,” Yoongi says with a shrug before wheeling back to his own desk, where an anime you vaguely recognize as Haikyuu!! is playing on his monitor. 

Immediately, you whip around to meet eyes with Jungkook, who looks like he’s been expecting your furious glare all morning. He smiles guiltily and can offer you literally nothing other than a mouthed sorry because you two are in a workplace environment where shouting is, generally, socially unacceptable. 

Despite your standing on the game, it’s easy to argue and even easier to prove that your coworkers care much more about Kingdom than you do. The loading screen of the castle in Monet’s art style is Hoseok’s desktop background. Jungkook has a little sword decoration next to his computer, and a couple of his pens are official Kingdom merch that you’re pretty sure he purchased from Hot Topic. Taehyung and Jimin play during their lunch break, the only time in the workday where shouting is socially acceptable, and the both of them came to last year’s Halloween party dressed as knights. Even Namjoon’s in on the game, though he rarely has time to play and usually has no idea what everyone else is referencing when they talk about Kingdom. 

Contrastingly, you enjoy the game but very seldom do you actually broadcast that affection in public. You need to have at least some semblance of personal dignity in this absolute free-for-all of a place of employment. 

So really, it’s no wonder that all of your coworkers acted like it was the end of the world when you got knocked from first place. To them, that would be like having a winning lottery ticket only to drop it onto train tracks and watch as the public transportation system has a field day with it. 

“We’re really sorry, Y/N,” Taehyung says as he comes over and hands you a Tootsie Roll from the stash he keeps in one of his desk drawers for bad days. Apparently, this is a bad day. “Jungkook told us and we didn’t want to put salt in the wound.”

Even if their methodology was weird and slightly unsettling, the sentiment was there. “Thanks guys,” you tell Taehyung with a smile, “but I think you guys took it harder than I did.”

“Of course we did!” Jungkook says with a cry. He is objectively the most torn up out of the lot of you. “We had the top player in Kingdom in our very office, and now what! You were famous, Y/N! Whoever that bozo is who took your place is gonna feel the wrath of Jeon Jungkook and company.”

“Who’s feeling the wrath of Jeon Jungkook and company?” Seokjin asks as he strolls into the office, even later than you. To be fair, it’s looking like he’s got a box of a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts, which is enough for anyone to forgive him, even your hard headed boss. “Is it Jimin? Did he steal your Post-Its again? I saw he had a new pack.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen for barely a second before they narrow in on Jimin, who is already skirting away to find Namjoon so he can use him as a human shield. Jimin has quite the history of taking Jungkook’s office supplies only for a second and then failing to return it. 

“No, but I’m gonna deal with him later,” Jungkook says, fishing through his office supplies on the hunt for his Post-it notes, which may or may not be currently in his possession. “We were just talking about how Y/N got knocked from the top spot in Kingdom by some asshat none of us have ever heard of, and now he’s going to feel the wrath. Of us. Specifically me, but also us.”

“What wrath?” Taehyung jokes. “You’re fresh out of college. You’re practically as intimidating as a baby bunny.”

Jungkook growls just for emphasis, and it only proves Taehyung’s point more. He’s always had a baby face.  

“Well, I brought doughnuts to cheer everyone up,” Seokjin says, opening the box to reveal a dozen doughnuts of varying kinds that is likely to be finished within the next thirty seconds. 

“Oh my God, Kim Seokjin, I love you,” Hoseok says before immediately taking one and a half and bouncing off. 

“Save the pink-frosted one for me, will you? It’s my favorite,” Seokjin requests. He’s not even monitoring the box, too busy putting all his stuff away and getting settled at his desk. He’s basically asking to be robbed. 

“Aw, I wanted that one,” you joke sadly, already going for the chocolate-frosted one with rainbow sprinkles. The box is nearly three-fourths empty. Even Namjoon’s materialized out of nowhere to take the glazed one to eat while he completes the next fifty-four things on his to-do list. 

“Then let’s split it,” Seokjin says without missing a beat. Your heart does the exact opposite. 

“Jimin, you wanna split one with me?” Taehyung asks. 

“Ew, gross, no way, I want a whole one to myself,” Jimin immediately rejects. 

“I’ll go and grab it,” Seokjin says, standing up to nab the doughnut for some evil being (by the name of Jimin) takes it for himself. He plucks it from the box and takes two napkins, too, walking over to your desk as he splits the doughnut in half. 

“For you,” he says casually, like it isn’t making your heart beat out of your chest. 

“Thank you, kind sir,” you say jokingly, taking the doughnut and placing it on the napkin he hands to you. 

“Tell me about this Kingdom thing? You got knocked from first place?” Seokjin asks, making conversation as he lingers by your desk. It’s obvious that nobody’s going to be getting any work done. 

“Yeah, but it’s really nothing special. Everyone was making a huge deal out of it, which you should be very glad you missed, because the first ten minutes of this workday were absolutely silent and it was awful in every way that something can be awful,” you tell him. 

Seokjin laughs, and it warms you from the inside out. “Then I’m glad that I came late,” he says with a chuckle. “I couldn’t imagine a day where Jimin and Taehyung were silent for more than two minutes.”

“I lived through it,” you say, smiling. “Anyway, everyone seems to have gotten over the fact that I’m no longer the top-ranked Kingdom player. I’m kind of down about it myself, just because I worked really hard, but whoever it is that took over, I’m glad for them. I mean, it’s just a game.”

“That it is,” Seokjin says. “How about a toast to your Kingdom-playing skills, and to whoever it is that beat you.”

“Cheers,” you say, holding out your half of the doughnut. 

“Cheers,” Seokjin echoes. 

The two of you clink doughnuts, and they squish together awkwardly. 

“You should bring doughnuts more often,” You muse.

“If it means we don’t have to work and can just talk like this, then I will,” Seokjin says as he takes a bite, already heading back over to his own desk. He waves goodbye with a smile, and only then do you finally indulge. 

Sweet. As always. 

♚ THERE ♚

When you were moved to the Military Tactics Unit, the King and Queen pulled you out of military training in favor of you spending more time working on strategies for the Kingdom’s armies rather than sparring with fellow Knights. It was a wise move on the part of Their Royal Highnesses, who feared losing you to a rebel group or warring kingdom, and you didn’t mind not having to engage in the physicality of training with those that would be spending more time on the battlefield. 

And at the time, you saw it as a much-needed break from hand-to-hand combat training for years on end when you hadn’t set foot on the front lines in months. But now, that decision has decided to come back and bite you where it hurts. 

Because as second-in-command to the Head of the Knights, you (and J, both luckily and unluckily) are tasked with the important duty of supervising the military training of the new recruits. This spells doom in various ways, some of which include (and are not limited to):

Having to spend more time with J. 

Having to spend more time with J without letting all of the recruits know you both vastly dislike each other. 

Having to spend more time with J in a scenario in which there is constant hand-to-hand combat. 

Having to spend more time with J without being able to make up an excuse about needing to attend to urgent military business in order to leave. 

Having to spend more time with J. 

Attempting to remember how to spar.

So, in essence, you’re screwed. 

This is the mindset with which you walk into your very first training session in over six months, a few minutes late, of course. Recently you’ve been attempting to calculate the maximum amount of time you can spend either being tardy or leaving early from events that involve J without you facing any repercussions. So far it’s been working out well. 

When you walk in the door, before you can greet any of the recruits or even offer J a slightly sarcastic wave, he says, “Look who’s finally shown up,” loud enough for all of the recruits to turn to look as you stroll in tardy. 

“I got held up by a vendor on the main road, my apologies,” you lie like a liar. It’s obvious that J does not believe you whatsoever, but it satisfies the recruits, who return to their business as usual. 

“Well, you’re just in time for warm-up,” J says, false positivity radiating throughout every single word. 

You walk up to where he stands at the front of the room, wearing much less of his official armor than he normally is. Right now, he stands in front of you in a plain tan cotton shirt and training pants, similar to the rest of the recruits. It’s really quite jarring, to see him dressed so differently from what he usually wears—dark armor and scarlet red sashes. It makes him seem… almost softer. 

“Thought you might have bailed on me,” J mutters into your ear as the recruits begin to stretch. 

“Have a little more faith in me, for God’s sake,” you grumble in return. You may not like him, but you aren’t about to abandon your responsibilities just because of a little bit of distaste. 

“Do you wanna take warm-up, or should I?” He offers, motioning to the recruits. They all look so nervous, so desperate to prove themselves on the first day of training. It reminds you of yourself, like you’re looking into a mirror and a time machine all at once. 

“You’re the boss,” you say, unabashedly letting the bitterness seep through your tone. “You choose.”

Unsurprisingly, J decides to let you handle the warm-up session, something that is just a precursor to the main event and therefore, not as important. He takes a couple of steps back and follows your instructions as you go through stretches and basic movements in combat, allowing all of the recruits to get a feel for what knighthood is really like in the Kingdom of Kalar. Warm-up was always your least favorite part during training, so boring in comparison to the sparring and hand-to-hand combat that you would engage in soon after. Sure, it was necessary, but when you were a wide-eyed, overeager trainee, you were willing to risk a pulled muscle if it meant you could beat someone up sooner. 

With this in mind, you wrap up the session in a fairly timely manner, letting the recruits do their own stretching after everything absolutely necessary has been covered. It also means that you can sit back and let J do most of the heavy lifting, which, while you’re bitter about him getting all of the attention, is better than having to do it yourself based solely upon memory. You remember combat well enough to handle yourself in the battlefield, but the technicalities of training have completely slipped your memory by now. 

J and everything else about him may leave a sour taste in your mouth, but you have to admit that he’s a good teacher and an even better morale booster. This must come from his experience out in the field, on the front lines, where raising his troops’ spirits came as a necessary quality to develop when times were tough. 

He speaks slowly, explains everything in enough detail to cover all of the bases without losing attention, and frequently opens up the floor for questions. And as per usual, the recruits already begin to cling to him like vines, desperate to soak up every ounce of knowledge that he doles out. 

J doesn’t need the ego boost, that’s for certain. 

“Now that I’ve gone through everything, I believe that the best way to learn how to spar is just to start doing it, even if you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re doing. Despite what you may think about me, experience is the best teacher,” he says with a smile, earning a laugh from the crowd. 

You roll your eyes. 

“Um, sir?” A timid recruit raises her hand, her body curled in on herself. You take one look at her, and know that she’ll come out of her shell soon enough. 

“Yes, a question?” J asks. 

“Would you mind giving a demonstration? Just so we can watch. So we, well, don’t injure ourselves or each other while we’re sparring.”

A demonstration? You blink, having awoken from the trance you had placed yourself in one J stepped up to take over the training session. Doesn’t a demonstration mean… well, you and him?

J seems to come to this realization at the same time that you do, and grins wildly, giddy. He knows exactly how much you’ll hate doing this, which is all the more reason to say yes. “Of course, we’d be happy to. Y/N?”

You hold in the sigh you’ve been wanting to let out for about five minutes now, taking a deep exhale as you turn to face J. You’ve been in close proximity to him before, but you are about to get a whole lot closer. 

“If you say so,” you say with a shrug, trying to keep this as lighthearted and casual as possible. Though, both of those things are likely to be tossed out the window now that you’re about to spar with your worst enemy. 

J grabs a mat from the side of the room to lay down on the floor in front of you, and the two of you step onto it. Instantly, you’re transported back to when you were still in training, bouncing up and down on your feet with your fists raised in front of you, ready to take on the next recruit. You had always been quite good at sparring, back then. 

Now is a completely different story. 

“Are you ready?” J asks as you face each other in front of a crowd of recruits, all of whom are watching you with hawk-like intensity. 

“Guess I can’t say ‘no’, can I?” You joke, though if J offers you a way out of this, you’d gladly take it, shame and dignity be damned. 

“Well then, do your worst.”

He’s an open target. You’ve never been given an opportunity to sock him in the face before now, and you’d absolutely love to take it, but this is a sparring session, not a revenge session. That can be saved for a later date. Instead, you bounce on your feet like a nervous, excitable recruit, and aim for his neck. 

He easily dodges, but you expected that, and counter his attack with your leg. It goes back and forth like this, as your muscle memory kicks in and you remember exactly what sparring was like back in your training sessions. For a few seconds in the middle of it, you genuinely think you and him are on a pretty level playing field. 

And then—

One punch gone wrong and he’s got you lifted up off of the ground and onto his back, having grabbed your wrist at the perfect time to hoist you over his shoulder. You gasp in shock, body not necessarily remembering this part, and then—

He slams the both of you down onto the mat, your back hitting the cushion with a thud as the breathe gets knocked from your lungs. You definitely haven’t done this part in a while. 

You know the recruits are all watching you intently, but you refuse to lose like this, even if this is normally the part where the person pinned underneath the other one surrenders. With both of your arms and all of your force, you attempt to shove J off of you by using your elbow to punch him in the chest. If you go down (which you most certainly will), you will go down with a fight. 

He sees your move coming from a mile away, and immediately pins both of your arms above your head with a simple swish of his hand. The other one is holding up his body by your head as you both stare at each other, breathing heavily. His leg sits in between both of yours, resting up against your thigh, and his head hovers a very dangerous less-than-three inches away from your own. If a particularly near-sighted person were to stumble upon the both of you, you’d be absolutely screwed. 

The both of you gaze into each other’s eyes for a second, the wind knocked out of you. You never quite realized what his face looks like up close. His cheeks are bright red. But it’s a second too long because the recruits have gone silent, refusing to applaud or do anything else to signal that the sparring match is over. 

And then, it feels like a million years pass as J slowly removes himself from on top of your body, standing up and dusting his hands off before leaning down and offering his hand to help you up. Too floored and absolutely speechless to reject his extended palm like you normally would, you grab onto his hand and let him hoist you up, unable to speak. 

“How was that for a demonstration?” J asks the recruits, who are all blinking like they’ve just witnessed something far too shocking for their liking. 

Another trainee, a boisterous young man who walked into today’s session with his energy fully up and his eyes on the prize, raises his hand. “Could you show us again?”

You and J take one look at each other. 

No. Way. 

♚ HERE ♚

Because your office is both tightly knit and also uncannily resembles a cast of grown adults playing various high school stereotypes in a Hallmark movie, every year you do Office Superlatives. Office superlatives are basically an excuse for everyone to come up with a way to insult each other 1) while getting paid to do so and 2) without facing any repercussions whatsoever. 

For three years in a row, your office has designated you as “Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Really Important”, a superlative that came about because on your very first day, you spilled your coffee on the one and only Kim Namjoon, who you then mistook as your boss, and thus ensued the most embarrassing one minute and thirteen seconds of your entire life in front of a bunch of colleagues you would have to see every weekday for the foreseeable future. 

Thankfully, you haven’t spilled your coffee on anyone important since then, even if you do regularly knock over your pencil cup and send every pastel-colored highlighter flying across the hardwood floor. It became such a frequent occurrence that, for April Fool’s Day last year, Taehyung and Jimin taped every single thing on your desk to your desk to see how long it would take you to notice. 

(It took you over three weeks, but that’s besides the point.)

“I know that the saying is ‘the customer is always right’, but this client I’m working with right now is literally wrong,” Taehyung says with a sigh. He collapses back in his office chair, mindlessly playing with the fur of the stuffed Pomeranian dog he keeps on his desk, staring down the email on his desktop. “Like, I’m not Squarespace or Wix. Either you pay me to design your website entirely, or you do it yourself. I’m not a drag-and-drop of a person, and I don’t get paid to be consulted on every font choice.”

“Didn’t you write on your resume that you can identify every standard Microsoft font without being told the name?” Yoongi asks with a frown from across the office. He’s making the most of his gigantic desktop computer, and has a tab open with One Punch Man right next to a Photoshop logo design he’s working on. 

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it,” Taehyung says with a frown. “I need someone who knows how to let people down easily.”

“Jimin?” Hoseok pipes up unhelpfully, earning an eraser to the face from Jimin, who is notorious for going on a bunch of first dates and very, very seldom going on a second one. You don’t even think that for the entire time you’ve known him, he’s ever gone a third date with someone. Ever. 

“Do not make fun of my lifestyle choices!” Jimin shouts out defensively. “I just like meeting new people.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok says like a white girl in a Disney Channel Original Movie, “and then never meeting them again.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Jimin tells him pointedly, already beginning to stand up from his office chair to attempt to further convince him that serial-first-dating isn’t all that bad. “Two weeks ago, I saw this guy that I had gone on a date with last year and he told me that his friend was starting up a small pet barbershop business and needed help with the graphic design for his company. Now I’m designing this guy’s logo and backsplash for his wall.” He says matter-of-factly. 

Hoseok frowns. “So, what I’m hearing is that you saw a guy you had gone on a date with last year, and what you got out of it, was more work.”

Jimin opens his mouth to say something else, but he flounders. Hoseok cackles to himself, shaking his head because Jimin’s just proved his point further. 

“I’ll ask Seokjin,” Taehyung says with a sigh. “He could tell me that I’ve lost my job and that I’m getting evicted from my apartment and I would thank him.”

Amen. 

“Hey, where is Seokjin?” Jungkook asks, spinning around in his office chair for the most efficient way to scan the entire office in search of the man. “He was just here watching One Punch Man with Yoongi.”

“I didn’t even notice he had gotten up,” Yoongi says, turning to the empty spot next to him where Seokjin once was. 

“I’ll go look for him, I need to grab something from the printer, anyway,” you volunteer, pushing your chair back, standing up, and avoiding the gazes of anybody in the office who happens to have knowledge of your not-so-secret secret crush. This means that you are staring down at the lines of the wooden planks in the floor as you walk over to the back hallway, because every single person in the room currently has at least… well… some insight. 

“He’s all yours, Y/N,” Taehyung wolf whistles, making you roll your eyes as you head down the hallway.  

Too busy counting the planks that make up the hardwood floor and hoping that you’ll maybe be able to identify Seokjin by the shoes he’s wearing rather than anything else, you don’t look at where you’re going as you make a beeline for the printing room. That is, you make a beeline for the printing room until you crash right into an unsuspecting colleague. 

“Oh, shit!” Said colleague cries out.

Oh God. 

You look up to find Seokjin standing in front of you, a nearly-empty cup of low-grade office coffee in his hand, and a growing brown stain on his pale blue dress shirt. One look on the floor and there’s a puddle of coffee gathered at your feet, wet splotches on your flats and his loafers. 

“Y/N, are you alright?” Seokjin asks, eyes wide and apologetic as he immediately searches for some place to put down his coffee to avoid any more casualties. He looks right at you, making you want to curl in on yourself, before his eyes train down to your torso.

Only then do you realize he’s not shamelessly staring at your chest, but rather at the massive brown stain on the front of your blouse, quickly seeping into the fabric, the scalding temperature of the coffee having gone right over your head the moment you realized who exactly it was that you crashed into. 

“Uh…” you stammer, brain crashing as everything that’s just happened in the past thirty seconds catches up to you all at once. 

“Oh my God, I’m such a mess,” Seokjin says, fumbling awkwardly as he finally finds a trash can to toss his sad lump of a coffee cup into.

No you’re not, you want to tell him, but the words don’t come out and you’re left standing there, looking sort of like you blame him for everything, when in reality, you just have no idea how to function in front of him. 

“Coffee stains,” Seokjin says, hands fishing through his seemingly bottomless pants pockets (he could probably fit an entire Nintendo Switch and its dock in there) until he pulls out this measly little thing that vaguely resembles your orange highlighter. “Here, I have a Tide To-Go pen.”

Before you can tell him that you can just deal with the stain and wash it in the privacy of your own home where you don’t look like a bumbling idiot, he grabs your hand and pulls you into the gender neutral bathroom nearby, locking the door as the light flickers on. 

“Here, do you need help?” Seokjin asks, holding out his Tide To-Go pen as he wets a paper towel made of entirely recycled materials and begins fruitlessly dabbing at his shirt. 

“I’m alright, really,” you insist, staring into the mirror and trying desperately to avoid the fact that Seokjin’s shirt becomes transparent when it’s wet. Maybe quitting your job and moving to another city doesn’t sound unappealing after all. “I can just get it out with OxiClean at my apartment, Seokjin, seriously.”

“Are you sure? That’s what the Tide To-Go pen is for,” Seokjin says, holding it out towards you again as a final attempt to get you to use it. 

“No offense, Seokjin, but I don’t know if the Tide To-Go pen is even going to make a dent in the stain on my shirt,” you chuckle, the only thing you can think of to get him to stop offering the thing to you. The Tide To-Go pen is meant for when you accidentally get a bit of ketchup onto your jeans as you move the french fry from your plate to your mouth. Not when you’ve got a giant coffee stain on the front of your shirt. 

“God, I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Seokjin says, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt to try and get a better grip on the fabric as he relentlessly scrubs at it. God help you. He may as well take the whole thing off at this point—though you really, really hope that he doesn’t. “I’m such a klutz.”

“No, it’s my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” you tell him. You still know that you passed by 107 wooden planks before you crashed into him, because that is what you do when you don’t want to look anyone in the eye. 

“Seriously, though, I had the cup of coffee. I feel really bad, I could pay to get it dry cleaned for you?” He offers, eyes wide and in search of some way to make it up to you. 

“No, no, that’s not necessary. I’m can handle a stain, Seokjin. I’m an adult. I live in my own apartment and everything,” you say firmly, refusing to accept anything else from him. God, if he paid for your dry-cleaning, you’d never be able to live that down. “Maybe I’ll finally stop being voted Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Important,” you joke, trying to make light of the fact that you’re standing in the tiny gender-neutral bathroom together, Seokjin’s practically got half of his transparent dress shirt unbuttoned, and you both have massive and very conspicuous brown stains on your tops. All wonderful, wonderful things. 

At this point, Seokjin stares down at his shirt and, quite frankly, just gives up, smoothing out his shirt as best as he can and tossing the poor, now-coffee-colored paper towel away. 

“I suppose it’s high time we give you a break for always knocking over that pencil cup of yours,” Seokjin jokes back as he opens the door, motioning for you to leave first. 

“We should invest in some Velcro for it,” you suggest, making Seokjin chuckle as he shuts the door behind him. 

“Uh… what the fuck?” 

The two of you are stopped in your tracks by a particularly suspicious Taehyung, who just witnessed the two of you walk out of the same bathroom with both of your clothes fairly askew. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” you immediately tell him, eyes wide. Count on him to get the wrong idea. 

“Okay,” Taehyung says, eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

“Taehyung, come on, I spilled coffee on the both of us,” Seokjin attempts, but Taehyung is absolutely not having it. 

“That’s what they all say,” he says cryptically, nodding as he heads to the printer room with his eyes still narrowed. He glares at the both of you until he rounds the corner, out of sight, and by then your cheeks have heated up so badly you think you might actually start sweating.

“Now the whole office is going to think we’re dating,” you say, somewhat jokingly but also somewhat seriously. There’s no way Taehyung’s going to be able to keep his mouth shut for any longer than the next five minutes. 

Seokjin laughs, looking at you and shrugging. “There are worse things, right?”

Are there?

♚ THERE ♚

“Oh, Y/N!”

You inhale. 

Of all of the places in the Kingdom that J has not yet infiltrated and ruined for you, the small cafe on the edge of the kingdom borders has to have been the last one. You discovered it while you were on night watch as a baby knight, a task given to those too dedicated to the job to release but not yet prepared enough to fight on the front lines. It’s a quiet place, open more hours of the day than closed, owned by an old lady with no other family to take care of the business. You’ve already promised her that after she passes, you will immediately begin funding the cafe yourself, too much money on your hands and not enough wonderful places like this to spend it on.

When days are loud and hectic, when the King and Queen and all of their military advisors are stressed and have been snapping at you all day, this is where you come. The old lady keeps her door open especially for you (at least that’s what she tells you), always with a steaming cup of jasmine tea and a wise old story to tell you. Sometimes, you’ll get to tell a story back, and you exchange words of wisdom from a knight at the highest ranking in the kingdom and an elder with many years of experience in the kingdom behind her. She always tells you, “keep your eyes wide and your heart open, because things can only enter it if you’re looking out for them.”

You’ve held those words close to your soul ever since the first time you heard them. 

But when your eyes are wide and staring down a certain knight in the kingdom who seems to have stumbled upon your one sacred place, you’re a little bothered, to say the least.

You exhale.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you say sourly, the scalding tea burning your tongue as you take a sip. 

“I’ve never seen this place before,” J admits helplessly, already bowing to the old lady who runs the place. He introduces himself handsomely, and much like everyone else bewitched by his good looks and unrealistically charismatic personality, she immediately warms up to him. 

“I wish it could stay that way,” you mumble to yourself, far too quiet for anyone except you and your tea to hear. “It’s far away,” you say to him as the lady ushers him to the seat next to yours, already promising him tea on the house. You sigh. “Wouldn’t expect you to go hunting for a nice tea place when there are so many wonderful places in the city.”

“I guess it’s nice to branch out,” J says with a shrug. “I have to say that I don’t really go out to cafes all that often. Too busy.”

“You know I understand how that goes,” you tell him honestly. For once, it’s something you can actually relate to. “But I think that it’s important to take a break from our duties and just relax. We don’t have much time to do that, you know.”

The lady brings over tea, and J insists he pay her for it despite her insistence for him not to. She shuffles off into the back before he can even get out some coins.

“Tell me, where can I leave this? I feel terrible not paying,” J asks you. It catches you off guard, really, mostly because he seems to be the kind of person who walks around the center square winking at every vendor in the hopes of receiving free merchandise. 

“Oh,” you say, embarrassingly speechless. “Well, I suppose I could take it and give it to her. If we left rather soon then we could simply leave it on the counter for her to find. It’s likely that she won’t come back out for a while, since I have company.”

“Am I your company, Y/N?” J asks, almost teasingly. It makes you want to chuck your cup of jasmine tea into his face. 

“Don’t think too much of it,” you advise him, a warning to tell him to knock it off. “We’re just here together.”

“Lucky us,” J says, holding up his cup of tea for a toast. You indulge him (begrudgingly so), letting your glasses clink together as you both finish a much needed warm drink on a chilly afternoon. 

Too soon, the respite of the cafe is broken by a knock at the door. You both turn to find a messenger waiting patiently outside the cafe, motioning for J to come and speak to him. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” J says, scooting back his chair and heading over, shutting the door behind him. 

The moment the door closes, the old lady reappears from the back of the room, collecting your finished cups as you both listen intently to the murmuring outside. 

“That young man mentioned that the two of you spend lots of time together,” the muses, cleaning the cups with a wet rag. She’s got a knowing look in her eye, like she’s picked up on something the both of you seem to have overlooked. 

“We’re both knights,” you correct. It’s important to you that she knows that you don’t spend time together out of personal preference. It’s merely obligation. “So we see each other quite often.”

“I’ve never seen him around before,” she says pointedly, “but he seems to know quite a lot about you.”

“Oh, not really,” you insist. How could he? You’ve barely known him a month. Still, it’s clear that the lady doesn’t believe you. 

“As you say,” she says, skeptical. 

You’re about to open your mouth and reject her notions further, but then the door opens up again, and J looks terribly apologetic as he walks inside, joining your side. “We’ve been called in.”

As per usual, the Kingdom appears with impeccable timing to ruin the rest of your afternoon. It has a striking tendency to do that. 

“For what?” You ask, exasperated. J doesn’t look much happier. 

“Criminal hearings,” J says, and the words make you you toss your head back and sigh. 

Criminal hearings and its many, many procedures are quite possibly your least favorite part of being a top-ranked royal knight. With your knowledge of the ins and outs of the military and the kingdom’s inner workings, as well as with you being an advisor to the generals and the King and Queen, you are often obligated to attend these, just in case there is a desperate need for the technicalities of military crimes that no one else can provide. It is, admittedly, extremely boring, since you can’t really offer any sort of insight or opinion on the actual criminal and their crime at hand. 

“Fine,” you say, suddenly much less energized than you were approximately thirty seconds ago. “I suppose that we’ll have to be on our way.”

“Ma’am,” J says, attracting the attention of the old lady behind the counter. He holds out some coins, palm facing up. “Please accept this from me. I couldn’t leave without paying you for your wonderful tea and service.”

“Oh, pish posh,” the lady says with a shake of her hand. “Any friend of Y/N’s is well-deserving of some tea. You both work very hard. You should take any opportunity that presents itself to relax, and enjoy being young.”

“Please,” J insists, placing the coins in her hand, “a token of my gratitude. We shall return soon, right Y/N?” He gives your shoulder a nudge, making you look up at him. Return? You’d be blessed if J forgot about this place entirely, though you know that he’s bound to come back soon. 

Perhaps there are worse things than losing your favorite cafe to him. Perhaps, you can simply learn to enjoy his company, instead. 

“Of course, how could I resist?” You say, waving goodbye to the lady at the counter. “We really must be going, but I shall see you soon.”

“Take care of yourselves, the both of you!” She sees you off with a smile and a wink directed right at you for a cause you aren’t too keen on picking up. Old ladies are always so vague. 

When you walk outside, you’re surprised to find yourselves alone. “Where’s the messenger guard?” You ask, looking around to see if he’s found a tree to take respite from the sun under. 

J laughs, warm and hearty. “I sent him off, told him we would be able to make it ourselves.”

“Oh, alright,” you say with a shrug, already beginning to trudge the familiar path towards the castle. 

You take six steps before realizing that J is neither next to you nor following you, still standing on the porch of the cafe as the sun makes his hair glimmer a dark caramel in the light. 

“Aren’t you coming?” You turn around to ask, an eyebrow raised as you tap your foot on the cobblestone road. 

“Have you ever skipped a criminal hearing before, Y/N?” J asks, and the very notion of bailing makes your eyes go wide. 

“Skipped?” You clarify. 

“That’s what I said,” J confirms. 

“No…” You trail off, feeling more and more like the try hard you once were while training, wide-eyed and eager to prove yourself. Standing in front of him, rocking back and forth on your toes and twiddling your fingers as he steps off of the porch, taking long strides to reach you, makes you feel so nervous. With every step he takes closer to you, your heart begins to beat faster, faster, faster. 

“Well,” J says, reaching out his hand to take hold of your own. “Would you like to start?”

When you were stationed on the Kingdom’s borders, you thought you had explored every nook and cranny of Kala. You had wandered through forests, across rivers, and into small edge villages with goods you had never even heard of before. You thought you had seen it all. 

Clearly, you were mistaken. 

J pulls you off of the cobblestone path and immediately takes you into the woods that surround the cafe, weaving past trees and ferns and grass alike. This time of year, the forest is ripe with greenery, right when summer is coming to an end but the leaves have yet to begin to fade to brown. Even without landmarks or a path to guide him, J seems to know exactly where the two of you are going, like he’s taken this road a million times before. And still, you had never seen him before this. 

It’s a wonder that the two of you missed each other for so long. 

“Where are we going, J?” You ask, laughing as the exhilaration of skipping your duties in favor of a fun day in the forest begins to flow through your veins. You’ve never done this before. 

“Just wait, you’ll see,” he says cryptically, taking you down a large hill. You must be out of the Kingdom borders by now, with how far you’ve been going, and yet, no one had ever thought to place guards in this area. 

Five more minutes of travelling and you’re near convinced that J is about to take you to some cave in the floor of the forest and murder you, when he tugs you up a hill to reveal—

It’s a clearing with grass so green you’d almost think it was enchanted. The leaves of the trees whisper to each other, voices flowing with the wind that breezes by each and every one, saying hello to the branches as they rustle. Tall grass and ferns grow on the edge of the forest, disguising the clearing to anyone who wouldn’t bother to keep looking, make their way through the overgrowth and into the oasis. 

Never in a million years would you have been able to find this place on your own. 

“What do you think?” J asks excitedly as he pulls you into the middle of the clearing, where the leaves of the trees have left an opening for the sun to shine through, a halo in the middle of the forest. 

“I—I’m speechless,” you say, eyes wandering from every piece of bark to every blade of grass. You’ve always loved your Kingdom and its beauty, from the extravagant castle to the little shacks on the border, but this is more than that. This isn’t just beauty—it’s magic. “How did you find this place?”

“Strayed from the pack during military training outside,” he says guiltily. Clearly, skipping out on responsibilities has become a habit of J’s. 

“Unbelievable,” you say, fingers tracing along the wildflowers growing close to the forest floor. You take a seat in the middle of it all, letting the sun stream through the leaves as the flowers open their petals at your touch. It’s as if every single living thing has been enchanted—like none of this could exist naturally. 

“Do you like it?” J asks, taking a seat on the stone next to you. He reaches down to run his fingers through the grass, letting the soft dirt gather on his skin. 

“I don’t think I have the words,” you tell him. You thought you had found a hidden respite from the hustle and bustle, but he has found not just a respite. He’s found a home. “Why would you show me this place?”

“What do you mean?” J asks. He finds a small yellow flower, a buttercup, and plucks it from the ground, twirling it between his fingers.

“I mean, why would you bring me here? Wouldn’t you want to keep this place all for yourself?” You inquire, curious. Certainly, that’s what you would do. 

J pauses for a moment, staring down at the buttercup in his hands. Wordlessly, he hands it to you, watches as your fingers touch his own, taking the buttercup from him. You twirl it between your fingers, and wonder what all of this means. 

“No,” he eventually answers. “Because a place like this deserves to be shared with the people that deserve to see it.”

♚ HERE ♚

[You have 5 unread messages]

Jungkook (5:53PM): Is it still acceptable to talk about Kingdom at company dinners? Jungkook (5:53PM): Is the ban that Yoongi instated last company dinner still going? Do you think he’ll be mad if I talk about how I just got a bunch of gold from solving the mystery of the time capsule?

Yoongi (5:55PM): If I have to sit through another company dinner where everyone is talking about Kingdom and nobody is talking about anime or my dog Holly I will lose it

Taehyung (5:57PM): You’re coming, right? You mentioned having a thing that ended pretty late this evening so you weren’t sure you’d make it

Seokjin (6:03PM): Excited to see you tonight! Promise I won’t spill anything on you tonight haha

Your office’s annual company dinner is the one and only opportunity you, as employees, get per year to talk about whatever you like in front of your colleagues, all while getting a meal paid for by your wonderfully unassuming, hardheaded boss. It is both a celebration of camaraderie and, of course, being employed, and a chance for your personal group to talk about Kingdom for two hours straight without repercussions. 

Needless to say, many of you are looking forward to it. 

To Jungkook (6:07PM): Yes, but only if we get to talk about how I’m still the best at the game out of everyone To Jungkook (6:07PM): Also, don’t forget to talk to Yoongi about My Hero Academia I know that you secretly love it

To Yoongi (6:08PM): Bring earplugs? Or maybe a manga book to get the conversation going?

To Taehyung (6:08PM): Yeah, I’ll be there To Taehyung (6:08PM): Probably be late though To Taehyung (6:09PM): Save me a seat!

To Seokjin (6:10PM): Not sure if I can promise the same thing! Fingers crossed we make it out tonight unscathed by scalding hot liquids

The company dinner starts at 6:30, which means that it really starts at 7:00 by the time everyone arrives, but even still, you’ll probably be late because you are actually doing last-minute laundry, and not attending a special event like you had told Taehyung. Sue you. Your clothes were dirty. 

Standing in the middle of your apartment wearing the slouchiest clothes you own, you wonder if it’s even worth going when you know that you will probably 1) be late and 2) have to endure two hours worth of Kingdom talk and other things that leave you thoroughly embarrassed, like your nonexistent love life. 

You’ve never skipped out on a company dinner before, but then again, never have all of your colleagues been so on top of you about your very insignificant, not at all soul-crushing, extremely minimal, super unimportant, tiny little infatuation with a certain coworker, so there’s that to consider. 

Not to mention the fact that your entire office genuinely believes that the two of you hooked up in the gender neutral bathroom during the middle of the workday, which is a circumstance so improbable you have no idea how Taehyung managed to convince everybody that that was actually what happened. It’s not as if your coworkers didn’t see the ridiculous brown stains on the front of your and Seokjin’s shirts, or didn’t smell the office coffee stench all over the both of you. 

So, for once in your life, you are genuinely considering just staying at home, finishing your laundry, and eating the frozen veggie burritos you bought from Costco two weeks ago. It sounds very tempting.

This thought is immediately combated by the fact that you usually have some of the most fun during the year at this company dinner, and a free meal at a nice, upscale restaurant is something that you would normally never pass up. But then again, Seokjin will be there and he will be dressed very nicely, and the rest of your coworkers will also be there, and they will be relentless. 

Jungkook (6:33PM): Tae said you’d be late but please come soon! We can’t talk about Kingdom without the best player present!!!! Jungkook (6:33PM): Oh no Namjoon sees me with my phone

And out of every possible text you could have received that night, that one is the one that convinces you to pull out the same dress you’ve worn to the company dinner (it’s not as if anyone else will remember) every other year, tug it on, and head out. Your Costco veggie burritos will have to wait for another stay-at-home night. 

You arrive fashionably late as always, walking into the restaurant and just asking for directions to where the “big group of loud office workers” is, a term easily identifiable by the scrambled hostess with fifteen different tables to seat all at once. She points you to the back room, where you can already hear Hoseok’s laughter from outside in the main dining area. 

“You guys are loud,” you say in lieu of a greeting, everyone letting out cries of “Y/N!” and “You made it!” as you look around for the last empty seat. 

“Here, saved you a spot right next to me,” Seokjin volunteers helpfully, motioning to the empty velvet chair next to him. In the seat next to that sits Taehyung, who is grinning guiltily, like he didn’t just dupe you into thinking he had saved you a seat next to him and someone else other than the person you were hoping not to embarrass yourself in front of. 

“Thinking of me when I’m not even here, how thoughtful,” you say, walking over and sending a glare Taehyung’s way as you take your seat, the glass at the top right corner of your placemat already filled. 

“How could we forget about you?” Seokjin reasons, and he says it so casually but it makes your heart flutter all the same. 

When Seokjin’s finally started talking to Hoseok and Jimin on his other side, the two of them attempting to explain the inner workings of Kingdom to him (to little avail, as per usual), you round on Taehyung, who is every bit the best wingman and the worst friend in the entire world. 

“How could you do this to me?” You hiss at him, trying not to attract the attention of the man sitting on the opposite side of you. 

“I said I had saved you a seat!” Taehyung says defensively, clearly enjoying himself way too much. 

“This was not what I had in mind,” you tell him pointedly. 

“Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have hidden it from you,” Taehyung says. He motions to Seokjin, who’s laughing at something that Jimin’s just said, eyes crinkled into half moons as the waiter places the cocktail he’s ordered down in front of him. “You know, it’s not so bad having a crush on him, right?”

“He is our coworker and way out of my league, of course it is,” you remind Taehyung. 

Taehyung shrugs you off with a wave of his hand. “Give yourself some credit, Y/N. You’re hot. Embrace it.”

“I will not, thank you very much. This conversation makes me want to hurl,” you say as normally as possible, blinking to show your discomfort to Taehyung. 

“You need to stop being so afraid of what might actually come out of this,” Taehyung says, a reassuring hand on your arm. “You never know what might happen.”

“What’s definitely going to happen is that I’m going to feel too cold from the vent above my head, and we’re going to switch seats,” you say. You immediately make to stand up, but Taehyung grabs onto your wrist and looks up at you like a child begging for candy in a supermarket. 

“Please, Y/N? Just give it a try, and if you hate it by the time the entree comes around, we can switch. Alright?” He asks, a simple compromise to get you to sit back down. 

You sigh. You suppose it wouldn’t hurt to shoot your shot, no matter how terrible your aim is. 

“I didn’t order any soup, so hopefully we can last through this dinner without ruining more of our clothes,” Seokjin says, an icebreaker to ease the obvious tension between the two of you. He breaks down your walls so easily, carves out a path in the side of it to waltz right through. 

“I don’t know,” you say sarcastically,” you better finish that cocktail soon or we might both be in big trouble.”

Seokjin chuckles, warm and full, and takes another sip of the fruity drink for good measure. “Don’t know how you keep getting crowned Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Important when I’m here, a walking coffee volcano.”

“When the superlatives roll around, I’ll petition the court and see if we can crown you instead,” you promise. 

“I’m honored. I’ll cherish that title for as long as I live,” Seokjin jokes, bowing to you just for good measure. “This is nice, you know.”

“What is?” You ask, peering down at the large group menu. Everything looks awfully delicious and awfully expensive, so you just go for a classic pasta dish and hope that Taehyung orders something different, so you can try each other’s. 

“Sitting next to you,” Seokjin says like it’s obvious, making you blink at your menu like it’s just offended your entire family ancestry. “I don’t think we’ve ever been paired up like this at a company dinner.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?” You ask hopefully. 

“It’s nice,” Seokjin says. “I feel like we don’t get to talk very much at work.”

“You said you’d bring more doughnuts,” you remind him. Seokjin has held up on his promise, actually, and since the first round of doughnuts, he’s brought on two more occasions to brighten up everybody’s day. 

“I think I need a better excuse than doughnuts,” Seokjin says to himself. “I can’t keep going to Dunkin’ right before work, pretty soon all of the workers will know me by name and that is a level that I’m not sure I’d like to reach yet.”

“Don’t feel bad,” you tell him, a hand instinctively coming to rest on his shoulder as comfort. “Some of the Costco employees recognize me even when I’m wearing my sunglasses inside.”

“You wear your sunglasses inside Costco?” Seokjin asks with a laugh. 

“Sometimes I just forget to take them off when I walk from my car into the store!” You say defensively. “It’s really bright in there, sue me.”

“No, no, I think it’s cute,” Seokjin assures you. “Maybe being recognized by the Dunkin’ employees won’t be that bad. At least they probably wouldn’t know who I was if I had my sunglasses on.”

“I’m being attacked, I’m pretty sure,” you say pointedly. 

“Only affectionately. You’re still ridiculously endearing.” Seokjin says with a chuckle, smiling at you as Jungkook calls your name to tell him something about Kingdom that he’s forgotten. But even as Seokjin gets tugged into another conversation and you get pulled into your own, your brain can’t help but replay the sound of his voice in your head, over and over. 

You’re still ridiculously endearing.

“Hey, Jungkook,” Jimin asks over a mouthful of complimentary bread with olive oil. “Did you ever figure out who knocked Y/N from the top spot in Kingdom?”

“No,” Jungkook cries out, suddenly thirsty for justice. “It makes me so mad that I don’t know who they are, especially since they’re getting all the in-game brand deals and Y/N gets nothing,” he says pointedly as he motions to you, clearly exasperated for a cause that wasn’t even his to begin with. 

“Jungkook, it’s not a big deal, it’s just a game,” you remind him, the table too wide to reach over and pat his hand comfortingly. “I still get a lot of things in second place.”

“What’s Jungkook talking about?” Seokjin asks, motioning to where Jungkook seems to be on a rampage as Jimin and Namjoon listen in. 

“Oh, Kingdom, like always,” you say fondly. “He’s determined to figure out the name of the person who dethroned me.”

“Is that so?” Seokjin asks with a laugh. “He’s got his work cut out for him. How many people play Kingdom?”

“Hundreds of thousands, probably,” you say. “Maybe millions.”

“Millions of people, and somehow we ended up with the second-best player in the game right at this table,” Seokjin says with a grin. “We should be honored.”

“It’s just a game,” you remind him, even though the sentiment is awfully sweet. “I think I much prefer the real world, don’t you?”

Seokjin smiles at you as the waiter comes around to offer him another cocktail. 

“Another one, sir?”

Seokjin looks down at the cocktail, then at your unstained clothes, and he shakes his head, laughing to himself. “No, I’m alright, thank you.” The waiter nods, taking his empty glass and moving onto another coworker. He looks at you, and his eyes are swimming in stars. “I think that I do, too.”

Dinner ends with Hoseok and Jungkook gobbling down everybody’s leftovers, your boss paying the bill without even glancing at the check, and you laughing alongside Seokjin, who keeps your end of the table entertained with fantastic stories about his past job at a luxury department store and less-than-fantastic dad jokes that he prides himself for coming up with on the spot. 

Taehyung had nudged you when the entrees had come around, motioning to the vent above your head, but you hadn’t even noticed the cold. 

“Ugh,” Jimin says with a groan as the group of you head outside once everyone is finished, the chilly night air hitting your skin as you open the door. “I hate that we could only schedule this for a Wednesday, because it means we have to come into work again tomorrow.”

“When else are we supposed to schedule it for?” Yoongi asks with a frown. “Did you even look at the When2Meet? Nobody had any free time for the rest of the month.”

“Well, if everyone’s cleared their schedules just for this dinner, anyone want to keep the celebration going at my apartment? I just bought a box of wine from Trader Joe’s,” Jimin asks. 

“On a Wednesday?” Yoongi says, nose scrunched up in disapproval. 

“Yeah, when else would you drink boxed Trader Joe’s wine?” Jimin responds like it’s obvious. 

Everyone begins to either disperse back to their cars or get Jimin’s address so they can get wine drunk on a Wednesday like you’re supposed to, leaving you and Seokjin out of the crowd. 

“Are you heading over to Jimin’s?” He asks you as you begin to walk towards your cars, taking a step every five seconds as you watch Jimin tell everybody his exact address, loudly and slowly enough for any burglars and axe-wielding murderers within a three-mile radius to also hear him. 

“No, I think I’ll just head home for the night,” you say, checking the time on your phone. It’s nearly ten, already. Where did the time go?

“Ah, then I guess I will, too,” Seokjin says. “Oh, here’s my car.”

“You parked close,” you comment. 

“I thought that I’d be late because I arrived at 6:45, but I was the second one here,” Seokjin tells you, making you laugh. 

“Sounds like our office, doesn’t it?”

“I guess. We’ll have to do this again sometime just to see how late everyone shows up,” Seokjin says. 

“Promise I’ll be early next time,” you say. 

“Next time, then?” Seokjin asks, already opening his car door and beginning to step inside. You stand on the sidewalk in front of him, watching as he pulls the door shut and waves to you through the windshield. A next time sounds awfully nice. 

“Next time.”

♚ THERE ♚

The King and Queen never do find out about your truancy, though you have to admit, you were never really worried about that in the first place. Not when J was grinning as he told you he had sent the messenger guard off, laughing as he dragged you through the forest, smiling as he twirled a buttercup between his fingers. He had done it before and he’ll do it again, and look where that’s gotten him. 

Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him. 

Still, despite your high ranks, the two of you can’t avoid your responsibilities forever. Eventually, you will always have to report back to the castle, get a new assignment, and start the cycle all over again. 

“At least they’re letting us go together,” J reasons as the two of you nod to the knights standing guard at the border of the kingdom, by the main forest that leads directly to a kingdom with whom your relationship isn’t all that strong. No wars have broken out between your two lands in years, but never has stability been one-hundred percent earned, which means that both kingdoms must be on high alert. You never know when a rebel group will attempt to invade the land. 

“Like I’d want to spend any more time with you,” you joke, giving J a nudge in the side as you stroll along the forest edge. In the middle of the day with the sun high above your heads, neither of you are particularly worried about being attacked. It would be foolish for an enemy group to do so, especially at a time when the kingdom’s guards are the most awake. 

“Am I really such awful company?” J asks, and he’s smiling but he asks in such a way, it’s almost as if he means it. The two of you have never been on the best of terms, but you’ve found yourself growing out of the competition-fueled rage you once always found yourself in whenever you were near him. No longer is regaining your first place your most important priority. Rather, it’s doing your job and doing it correctly, upholding the duties that the kingdom has entrusted you with, regardless of who’s by your side. 

(Though, even if you’d never admit it, J makes quite good company, most of the time.)

“No,” you insist, a hand reaching out to rub comfortingly at his forearm. “You aren’t.”

“You think so?” J says with a laugh, almost bitter. “I must say, you’ve never been that fond of me.”

“You may have charmed your way into the rest of the kingdom’s hearts, but I needed some convincing,” you remind him, reminiscent of how he would tease you constantly, dangle his promotion right above your head like a trophy you’d never be able to reach. 

“Did I do a good job, then?” J asks, hands in his pockets. It’s a quiet day, today. Even the birds have begun to murmur. 

“You did quite alright,” you say, nudging him. “Though I must say, I absolutely hate how all of the vendor’s daughters fawn all over you and give you free items like fruit, and jewelry. I’m never given that treatment.”

��You just don’t have my naturally charming, handsome, soft looks,” J says, posing in front of you as the two of you walk. The obnoxiousness of it all makes you almost want to chuck the apple you’re about to eat right at his face. 

“What do you mean? I can be charming,” you say with a pout. You pretend to flip your hair, just for emphasis. 

“You and I are different types of charming,” J says casually. “You’re strong. You speak loudly and clearly and you don’t ever flounder. You always know exactly what you want, and know the best way to get it. You aren’t afraid of anything, and are always willing to take on any challenge that comes your way. It’s… it’s different.”

And even if he thinks you never flounder, never stumble over your words or stutter, for once, you can’t think of anything to say. You’re walking along the forest’s edge with a knight you had convinced yourself that you would never befriend, and he’s just told you all of these wonderful things about yourself you never would have known he’d thought otherwise. 

J’s right. It is different. This is different. And you can hardly remember when it started to be like this. Only one day, it was just like this, and it never stopped. 

“Do you really think all of those things about me?” You ask, staring down at your boots as you walk along the dirt path, kicking small pebbles as you go. They go flying off into the grass, never to be seen again. But sometimes, you come across one you had kicked a few steps back, and you try again, earnestly hoping to see how far it will go with you by its side. 

“I mean, well…” J says, stumbling. “I don’t just think those things about you, you know? They’re facts, aren’t they? Those are things that, well, I suppose, everyone would think about you. Right?”

“You know what I think?” You ask, looking up at him. His dark hair shimmers in the light, like reflects of gold have been sprinkled amongst the ink black. “We are different types of charming. You’re charismatic and friendly, always willing to listen. You accept things graciously and are always grateful for what you receive. You pay people back whatever they’ve given you, even if it’s not the same item, even if it’s just the thought that counts. You always want to do better, and then you do. You work hard for each thing you get, and you never take it for granted.”

J grins down at you. “But you don’t actually think that, do you?”

“Nope,” you say, shaking your head. “Just facts.”

“Just facts,” he echoes. 

When did talking to him become so easy? When did it all start coming to you naturally?

“Did you ever hate me?” He asks you, curious. He knows, he must, that that’s not the case anymore. 

“No,” you admit, perhaps more to yourself than to him. “I think that I just hated that you were better than me. But… like you said, it’s different now. Now, I don’t care if you’re better than me. That sort of competition makes me a better soldier. You make me a better soldier.”

“Really?” J wonders, genuine. His eyes are wide in surprise, shocked at such a candid admission coming from you. To be honest, you’re surprised with yourself, as well. “I had no idea.”

“Keep it up, then. You know—”

A taut string let go. 

The wind stopping in its tracks. 

And an arrow headed right for your heart. 

“Oh my God!” You shout quickly, unable to do much except alert the man next to you that the two of you are in imminent danger. 

Before you can even blink, close your eyes and wait for the tip to pierce your heart, J is pushing you out of the way, sending you flying to the forest floor and he pulls his bow from his back, sending a steel arrow flying in the direction of the woods. You both wait there, only a second but it’s a second too long, until you hear a thud on the ground, a final breath, and then—

Silence. 

The moment you’re both positive the assailant is dead, J turns to you, eyes wide. “Y/N, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m alright,” you assure him, telling him (and yourself) over and over as he pulls you up from the ground. Your heart is racing and you can’t quite seem to catch your breath, but you’re alive and so is he, and that’s all that matters. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he immediately says. “As long as you are.”

You look behind him to find an arrow stuck in a tree, but what alarms you more is the sight of blood on the tip. Immediately, you turn back to J, only to find the side of his arm covered in blood, bleeding right through his armor.

“Oh my God, J, you’re hurt,” you cry out, fumbling for something to stop the flow.

“I’m alright, Y/N, really,” he insists, placing a hand on top of your own, rubbing the back of it with his thumb for good measure. “It’s just a graze. I’ll be fine.”

“We have to take you back to the kingdom,” you push, already beginning to head back towards the gate. 

“I’ve suffered worse injuries, Y/N, seriously,” he tells you, hoping to ease the pit of worry in your stomach. “I’m a top-ranked knight who prefers the battlefield over anything else. I’ve broken bones, gotten stabbed, and nearly died. This? It’s nothing. Really. Please, don’t worry.”

“We still have to get you back to the Kingdom and patch you up,” you insist firmly. “Even if you say you’re alright.”

“Whatever you say, Miss Y/N.” J goes with you obligingly, lets you walk him back to the kingdom gates. 

You urge him into the local medical practitioner, sit him down on the bench and watch as the doctor bandages his wound, reminds him not to engage in any strenuous activity while it’s healing. He sits patiently, glaring at you slightly and rolling his eyes any time the doctor speaks, which is fairly frequently. It’s clear only one of you wants to be here right now, and it’s the one of you without a scratch on your body. 

When the doctor leaves to tend to another patient, you get up from where you’re seated and sit down next to him on the bench, resting your head on his shoulder. 

Working for the Kingdom makes you stronger. Sitting in the cafe makes you think. But being with him, standing by his side, it makes you wonder. It makes your heart race and your mind clear. It makes you feel safe. 

“I think you saved my life,” you whisper softly, clutching onto him like a lifeline, like if you let go, one of you will drown. 

But that’s not the case. Neither of you will let go. Not without the other. Never without the other. 

“Really?” He asks. He already knows the answer. 

“No, I know you did,” you tell him. Things are different now, but maybe they’ve always been like this. You just never noticed. “Because in a heartbeat, I would do the same for you.”

♚ HERE ♚

“I have not seen Seokjin all day,” Jimin comments loudly one day, making everyone immediately turn to Seokjins’ desk, which looks practically untouched. His computer is asleep, his chair is pushed in, and his desktop is empty. The only thing that suggests that the man is even here in the first place is the messenger bag resting against the desk drawers, though it doesn’t look like it’s even been opened today. 

“Probably too busy avoiding you,” Yoongi deadpans, earning a “zing!” from Hoseok that makes you feel even more like you’re standing in the middle of a high school movie made by people who don’t know what high school is like. 

“Is he even in today?” 

“He is,” you pipe up. “His bag is here.”

“Of course you would know!” Taehyung teases, and he earns a highlighter to the face for his trouble. 

“He’s probably just trying to get his work done in a place that doesn’t consist of screaming and constant insults being hurled across the room,” Jimin says with a sigh, turning back to his work. It’s a fair statement, especially when the environment in your office is most often distracting, loud, and not at all an ideal work environment. It’s an absolute wonder that any of you manage to get your work done while you’re here. 

“Y/N, wanna go hunt him down?” Taehyung suggests, sending a wink your way as your eyes widen. 

“No, absolutely not, no way. I will not be tricked by you again,” you say, very reminiscent of the last time you went to go look for Seokjin and ended up with a coffee-stained shirt and a group of coworkers who thinks the two of you hooked up that one time. 

“If you say so…” Taehyung says, voice trailing off as he turns back to his work. 

But for once in your life, Seokjin’s absence is more noticeable than ever. He’s become a fixture in your everyday office life, always stopping by your desk with a second cup of low-grade office coffee for you (with a lid, of course), sending you emails complaining about Jimin and Hoseok when they’re being loud, asking you for help on every one of his difficult font decisions for logo designs, drafting emails to clients with you. It’s a sort of closeness that you never really had before—sure, you worked together and often got paired up for projects, but it’s different now. Like you jumped ship on being just colleagues but instead of drowning, you began to float.

Five more minutes pass and you pretty much resign yourself to getting back to your work, knowing that Seokjin’s probably just grabbed his laptop and found a place where he can work in peace and quiet without Hoseok’s shrill voice interrupting his thoughts. You’ll have to ask him what place he’s discovered. 

When there are four minutes left in the workweek and you are finally beginning to close out of the fifteen thousand tabs open on your Google Chrome window, the door busts open. 

It doesn’t actually bust open, so much as Seokjin comes flying through it and it slowly goes to rest on the padded door frame like it’s been designed to. His tie is loose around his neck like he’s been tugging on it all afternoon, his laptop is clenched carefully between his arm and his torso, and he’s got a flurry of papers freeballing it in a stack in his hands. 

“Oh my God, what tornado did you come from?” Jimin asks as Seokjin rushes over to his desk, cramming everything into his tiny messenger bag that definitely isn’t meant to fit a laptop and a stack of papers that thick. 

“Sehun just dumped an entire project on me that’s due on Sunday at noon with no warning, and now I have to pull together fragments of a crumbling magazine label before their final review on Sunday afternoon,” he says, terribly out of breath. He’s scrambling to gather his belongings, crashing into anything within a two-foot radius of him. 

“Dude, what the heck? I’m gonna tell Namjoon to kick Sehun’s ass,” Hoseok says with a frown, nose scrunched up. “Do you need help?”

“No, no, I’m alright, I can do it,” Seokjin insists, rubbing a hand through his hair as he leaves before the clock has even struck five. 

“Are you sure? You look like you want to jump out of the window,” Hoseok asks again, just for clarification. He’s not wrong. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Seokjin become so stressed in such a short period of time before. “At least let one of us help you get settled back into your apartment.”

To your right, Taehyung whispers into Jungkook’s ear, who then does this sort of weird hand movement to Hoseok, who nods understandingly. It looks suspiciously like they just plotted someone’s murder. 

“I can’t,” Jungkook says with an obnoxiously fake yawn, suddenly speaking much slower than usual, “I’m deadbeat tired.”

“Me neither,” Taehyung says, coughing in the way people do when they just want to get out of something. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

You whip your head around as everyone besides Yoongi comes up with an absolutely bullshit excuse not to accompany Seokjin to his apartment—Jimin says he has a date right after work and Hoseok says he needs to feed his puppy before he gets too hungry, leaving only you and a Yoongi that hasn’t been listening to the conversation whatsoever to vie for the spot. 

“Yoongi?” You ask, somewhat desperate not to be the one to accompany Seokjin to his apartment. You turn to your head to glare at Taehyung, who shamelessly coughs again when he meets your eyes, smiling guiltily. 

“Huh?” He asks, turning around. 

“Fine, you know what? I can come with,” you say with a sigh, already grabbing your belongings as Taehyung and Jungkook high-five next to you. 

“Oh, really? You’re a lifesaver, Y/N, you know that?” Seokjin says, and even when he’s stressed it’s like the weight has been lifted off of his shoulders once you volunteer, and you suppose that there are worse things that can happen than accompanying Seokjin to his apartment for ten minutes. 

Seokjin gives you the address of his place so that you can drive to it yourself, the both of you pulling into the parking garage underneath his apartment complex at the same time, waving to each other from adjacent parking spaces. 

“I really, really appreciate this, Y/N,” Seokjin says with a smile as he brings you into his apartment complex, nodding a friendly hello to the security officer in the lobby. “I know that it’s a Friday night and everything as well. You’d probably want to be doing something else.”

“Ah, yes, you know me, I frequent all of the clubs and bars in this city,” you say sarcastically as you walk into the elevator. Seokjin hits the button for the seventh floor and laughs. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. It was a dick move of Sehun to drop this on you when it’s due in, like, thirty-six hours.”

“Tell me about it,” Seokjin says, exasperated as he leans back against the steel walls of the elevator. “I thought I would just get to go home this Friday night, pull up Netflix, and have a one-man movie night, but now I have to spend the next thirty-six hours doing this.”

“Well, you know all of us are just looking out for you, wanted to make sure you didn’t injure yourself from stress before you got back to your apartment,” you say as the elevator door dings. Seokjin leads you down the hallway to his door, sticking his key in and jiggling it until the door pops open. 

Admittedly, you have never been in Seokjin’s apartment, but you it was like you had already painted a picture of it in your head from his personality traits alone. You thought it would be fairly minimalistic, clean and neat, not too many flashy colors or kitschy items but things like photographs and magnets to make it feel like an office and more like a home. Pictured it as a sort of very simple, modern home, like the ones that celebrities live in because they can afford to keep their belongings clean all the time, because Seokjin looks exactly like a celebrity, gorgeous and put-together. 

Instead, Seokjin’s apartment is almost a hodgepodge of everything he could think to find to decorate, a stack of photobooks on his coffee table, slouchy leather couches wrinkled from wear, various kitchen supplies splayed all over his countertops. It’s the kind of place you can imagine him being in, existing in. You can see him standing behind his kitchen island with all of the ingredients and supplies for this wonderful dish he’s making littered across the counters. You can see him curled up on the couch, leaning against the corner of it to find that perfect spot, watching television. 

There’s a difference between owning a place, and living in it. Living in it makes it feels like a home, like it’s real, and not just for show. 

“Wow, your place is—”

“It’s really messy right now, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t expecting guests,” Seokjin says, letting his messenger bag plop down on the ground as he scrambles to make his living space nicer for you. 

“No, I was going to say it’s lovely,” you tell him. “It feels exactly like you.”

“Does it?” Seokjin asks genuinely, a soft smile lacing his features. “Well then, thank you.”

You wait around in his apartment awkwardly, not really sure if stepping past the front of his couch is socially acceptable since you’re just “visiting” and he hasn’t officially invited you inside yet. The main objective of accompanying him to his apartment has already been accomplished: you made sure he got home safely and that he can do his work in peace. Finished. But even still, you’re hanging around, wondering when he’s going to kick you out for being a weird, unknown fixture in his home. 

“Um, would you like to stay for dinner? I made soup last night and I have way too much for me to eat on my own,” he offers, opening up his fridge and taking out an enormous pot. It clinks as it hits his countertop, the metal sound echoing throughout his apartment. 

“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” you say, taking this as your cue to remove yourself from the situation before you do anything else to make an absolute fool of yourself. 

“I insist, please,” Seokjin says, stopping you in your tracks. “I may have a whole project to finish by Sunday, but we should at least spend this Friday night together, right?”

You look down at your shoes before looking up at him, meeting his eyes from where he stands behind his counter island. 

“Then I will,” you say, removing your flats and padding over to where he stands, coming to a stop on the other side of the counter island. “But only if you let me help you with the project, too. It was asshole-y of Sehun to dump it all on you. At least let me handle some of the graphic aspects.”

“Y/N,” Seokjin says, reaching his hand out over the counter, “you have a deal.”

This deal mainly consists of you eating some of Seokjin’s homemade soup on his couches, your laptops on his coffee table and that ridiculously thick stack of papers spread out amongst you. Seokjin already has a fair bit of information about the project at hand, but he still has absolutely zero progress since he received the assignment four minutes before the end of the workweek. 

“So, basically, what we have to do is re-organize the magazine’s overall design and aesthetic before their final review on Sunday, because if they don’t appeal to the publisher, they’re getting tanked,” Seokjin says, paging through the papers in search of a sketch. 

“So we’re their last hope,” you summarize. 

Seokjin nods. “We’re their last hope.”

“Great,” you say, not at all enthused. “No pressure at all.”

“I know. I’m so relaxed right now,” Seokjin says, clearly not relaxed. 

“You know what’s making me relaxed? This soup,” you say, finishing the last of what’s in your bowl. “It’s delicious. I didn’t know you cooked.”

“It’s just a hobby of mine,” Seokjin says with a shrug. “I picked it up when I moved to college and didn’t know how to make anything except toast.”

“You’re a very fast learner, then,” you say. “I’d pay you to make all of my meals, honestly.”

“Would you like more? I have a ton, so we can eat it all if you’d like,” he asks, already standing up and reaching his hand out for your bowl. 

You hand it over, shaking your head as he makes his way back to his little kitchen, ladling more soup into both of your bowls. “You’re too nice, Seokjin. Seriously. How am I supposed to pay back this kindness?”

Seokjin lets out a warm chuckle as he warms up your next serving in the microwave. “Believe me, Y/N, volunteering to take on this project with me with a due date in less than thirty-six hours is more than enough. You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

“No,” you tell him. “I want to. You deserve someone who’s willing to help you with big things like this. You shouldn’t have to deal with it all on your own.”

Seokjin grins as he returns, handing you your bowl of soup as you get back to work. “I don’t deserve you, Y/N.”

What was supposed to be a couple of hours spent grinding out a project over a shared pot of soup turns into a night’s worth of work, scribbles on paper and the redoing of the same logo fifteen different times on your computer’s much slower, less-updated version of Photoshop. The application crashes on three different occasions, causing you to nearly slam it into the wall, but you just try to look on the bright side. Find the silver lining. Of which there are none. 

Seokjin doesn’t seem to be faring any better than you are. You’ve never seen the man under such pressure before, not in the office and certainly not while you’re out of the office. He’s tugged on a crewneck sweater over his dress shirt and paces around his apartment in bright pink slippers, brainstorming aloud as you bounce ideas off of each other in a panic. 

“What if we rebranded them?” Seokjin suggests wildly. When you turn to look at the digital clock underneath his television, it says 11:17PM. You’re surprised he hasn’t collapsed underneath the pile of work he’s got on his plate. 

“What do you mean? Do we even have the authorization to rebrand them?” You ask, pulling up a new tab on magazine marketing techniques. 

“The project description says requests for anything that will keep them afloat,” Seokjin says. He immediately opens an old photobook, buried underneath your laptops, sketches, and papers, flipping through before he sits down right next to you on his slouchy leather couch. “What if we gave them more of a minimalist kind of style? They’re trying to jump off of this super quirky, very basic Urban Outfitters kind of aesthetic, but I think it makes the magazine too young, you know?” Seokjin suggests. “We could do something more grown-up, attract their market audience.”

“Are we allowed to do that?” You ask, thoroughly interested. Maybe Seokjin’s onto something. 

“Who says we can’t?” Seokjin responds, and it’s good enough for you to hop on board. 

Sitting in his apartment like this, brainstorming different ideas and collaborating on logo designs, magazine layout, and website design together, you are more productive than you’ve been in a very, very long time. Even as the night stretches on into the early hours of the morning, as you watch the clock turn from 1:00AM to 2:00AM to 3:00AM, the two of you are wide awake, the only things illuminating his apartment being a floor lamp by his television and the blue light of your laptop screens. 

“It’s…” Seokjin yawns when it’s nearly four in the morning, pen slipping from his fingers, “so late.”

“I know,” you say back, feeling your eyelids beginning to sink. “I’m surprised we’ve even stayed up this long.”

“Haven’t been up this late since college,” Seokjin says, smiling hazily at past memories. “Always had code to finish for my class the next morning.”

“At least we get to sleep in now,” you joke. Even if you still have to finish putting together a brand new image for this magazine that’s about to go under, tomorrow is still a Saturday. 

“Thank God,” Seokjin says, resting his head on the back of the couch cushion, letting his eyes flutter shut. “I feel like we did a lot tonight.”

“We were very productive,” you agree.

He yawns. “We work well together, don’t you think?”

“Hmm?” You ask, leaning over to move your computer from your lap to the coffee table, exchanging it for a sketchpad to keep brainstorming. 

“I think,” Seokjin begins, and it must be just the sleepy haze his brain has entered rather than anything else that could spur him to express this, that makes him say, “that you and I make a perfect pair.”

You sit up straight at this, looking over at Seokjin as the pencil in between your fingers falls onto the sketchpad before rolling onto the floor. It looks like he’s fallen asleep, exhaustion finally overcoming him as all of the work he’s done catches up to him. In the dead of night, the only sound in the room is his soft breathing, chest rising and falling slowly as his mind begins to wander. You watch him, eyelids heavy, and think that he couldn’t have possibly thought that. No way would he say such a thing to you if he was perfectly cognizant, wide awake. After all, you’re the one with a crush on him, not the other way around. 

You lean back, pondering why a man like Seokjin would ever invite you into his home, offer you soup, and shower you with subtle compliments that couldn’t just be friends being friends, and before you know it, your eyes fall shut. 

It is nearly one in the afternoon by the time you wake up, the sunlight streaming in from the side of his apartment. It forces you to finally open your eyes, groaning as your blurry vision begins to clear. 

That is when you register these four things in this order:

This is Seokjin’s apartment.

This is Seokjin’s apartment, in which you worked on a project with him last night.

This is Seokjin’s apartment, and you fell asleep on his couch. 

This is Seokjin’s apartment, and he thinks that you’d make the perfect pair. 

You hear a clink from across the room, and turn to find Seokjin, still wearing the same thing he was wearing last night, standing in his kitchen, pouring two glasses of orange juice. 

“Morning,” Seokjin says. He pauses, then corrects himself. “Afternoon, actually.” He walks over to you, handing you a glass of orange juice as you rub your eyes, waking yourself up.

“How long have you been up?” You ask him, too tired to thank him out loud for the glass of orange juice. 

“About an hour,” he says, checking the time. “I didn’t want to wake you up. You looked so peaceful.”

“I feel awful, I didn’t mean to intrude on your apartment for, like, an entire night,” you say, rubbing your forehead as you try to smooth out your hair, make yourself look less like you fell asleep at four in the morning in your gorgeous crush’s apartment. 

“No, it’s alright, really,” Seokjin insists. “It was nice having company, for once. And I think we got a lot done.”

“I still feel bad, I didn’t mean to stay so long,” you say, looking around for your belongings as you try to gather your bearings. 

“It’s fine,” Seokjin reassures you, sitting down on the couch next to you as he begins to clean up the absolute mess of the coffee table. “But your phone has been ringing nonstop, so someone must have missed you.”

You fumble around for your phone before finding it having slid in between the couch cushions, pulling it up to see three missed calls from Taehyung and two missed calls from Jungkook, as well as a slew of texts from the both of them. 

“Oh, it’s just Taehyung and Jungkook,” you say with a shrug, deciding that now is not the time to bring them into the conversation. A quick scan of the texts gives you a rough summary of what you would have heard if you had answered their calls instead. 

Taehyung (9:35AM): Y/N Taehyung (9:35AM): HELLO Taehyung (9:35AM): ARE YOU ALIVE??? Taehyung (9:36AM): YOU NEVER SLEEP THIS LATE ARE YOU OKAY??? Taehyung (10:03AM): I WENT BY YOUR APARTMENT AND YOU DIDN’T ANSWER IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT Taehyung (10:04AM): TEXT ME 1 IF EVERYTHING IS OKAY AND 2 IF EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY Taehyung (10:05AM): LAST TIME I SAW YOU YOU WERE GOING HOME WITH SEOKJIN DID HE MURDER YOU??????? Taehyung (10:18AM): oh Taehyung (10:18AM): oh wait Taehyung (10:19AM): OHHHHHHHHH Taehyung (10:20AM): ;)

Jungkook (12:18PM): Kingdom just started a new event! Get online with me and let’s crush this thing pleaseeeee

“Just want me to play Kingdom with them,” you say, ignoring Taehyung’s text messages and pretending like they don’t exist.

“You really like that game, don’t you?” Seokjin asks. 

“Oh, they like it more than I do, really, I just try and keep the obsession to a minimum,” you say casually. 

“But they always talk about how good you are,” Seokjin adds. “You’re ranked second, aren’t you? That’s a big accomplishment.”

“Yeah, but it’s not that exciting. I mean, it’s just a game,” you shrug it off. 

“But you like it, which means that’s important,” Seokjin says. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of the things you like. They matter to you.”

“You think so?” You ask, smiling at him. 

“I know so. Tell me about Kingdom,” he urges, nudging your side. “Please? I’d love to know.”

And for once, you don’t just shrug it off and brand it as a game you play occasionally. You let yourself love that game, for all it’s done for you and your friends (even if you aren’t the best anymore) and your happiness, and you tell Seokjin about it. About how you started playing it when you were bored one day during work and saw a forum on it. How you got the rest of the office hooked on it as well, even if they were much more obnoxious about it than you are. How you go home after a long day of work and log on, letting yourself relax as you weave your way through the rankings and quests, finding solace in the familiarity of it all. You tell him why you love it, and why you probably won’t stop playing it for a long time, no matter what becomes of your ranking. 

“It was nice being ranked first, but I actually don’t mind whoever it is that’s taken over,” you tell Seokjin honestly. “Jungkook wants to hunt them down, but I think that, whoever they are, they deserve that spot. You know, I used to hate them because the top-ranked player gets all of the best rewards, but our characters have recently started to spend so much time together that I feel like they’d probably have fallen in love by now.” You chuckle to yourself. If life were a movie, everything would always work out perfectly.

“You do?” Seokjin asks, eyes wide. 

“Yeah, of course,” you say. “They spend so much time together. Who wouldn’t, right?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Seokjin says, smiling. “I also have something to tell you.”

You shake your head. “Don’t tell me you’re obsessed with anime, please. That is where I draw the line.”

“Don’t shame us,” Seokjin says, a hand on his heart like he’s been personally offended. Your eyes widen. “I’m kidding,” he says, laughing as you exhale, relieved. “I actually play Kingdom, too. I just wanted to ask you about it.”

“Seriously? All this time and you just pretended like you had no idea what it was?” you say in disbelief. He’s been hiding this from you for how long? God, the rest of your office is going to have a field day with this information. 

“I just wanted you to tell me about it,” Seokjin admits sheepishly. 

You shake your head. “You could have talked to me about other stuff, you know.”

“I know, but you never talked about Kingdom and I could always see how much you loved it. It was nice, listening to you tell me about it,” he says. 

“I’ve been betrayed,” you say dramatically, opening up your laptop to pull up the game. “What’s your ID? We can add each other.”

This is where Seokjin goes silent. “Actually, I think you might already know who I am. I’m above you in the rankings.”

Your mouth drops open. 

“You’re JK0901? Are you kidding me?” You ask, absolutely floored. All this time and you had no idea that Kim Seokjin was a Kingdom expert. “What does JK stand for? I was convinced it was Jungkook and he was just lying to my face, but in reality, it was you who was lying to me!”

Seokjin lets out a chuckle. “Jin Kim. I’m surprised you guys didn’t figure it out earlier.”

“I can’t believe this,” you say, practically speechless. “How long have you been playing?” 

“Not that long,” Seokjin shrugs. “I picked it up because I wanted to impress a girl I liked.”

“Really? All this effort for a girl you like?” You ask, still in disbelief. You suck up the way your heart is sinking at the thought of him liking another person, but then you remember that it wasn’t like you had ever made a move on him anyway. Smiling, you ask, “Will you at least humor me and tell me who it is?”

Then, Seokjin looks you dead in the eye, and says, “You.”

He doesn’t give you time to respond. Instead, he wraps a hand around your torso and pulls you into him, pressing his lips firmly on yours as you gasp into his mouth, body tensing up before you melt into his touch. 

It’s a quick kiss, nothing too crazy, but it overwhelms you nonetheless, leaves you gasping for air like you’ve been underwater this whole time and have finally surfaced. When you part, you look up into his eyes only to find that they’ve turned into crescents. He’s grinning down at you like he’s finally gotten it right. 

“You did all of that for me?” You ask. “How did you even know?”

Seokjin looks particularly guilty. “You’re not necessarily… that discreet, Y/N.”

You close your eyes, the heat already flaring in your cheeks. “Oh God, you knew?”

“It was fairly easy to figure out,” Seokjin admits. “But the good news is: I felt the same way. So, no harm done.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” you say, curling into his chest so you don’t have to look him in the eye. 

“You’re incredible, Y/N, you know that?” He asks, pulling you away from him just so he can get a better look at you. He’s standing in front of you, looking at you like this is what he’s been waiting for. Like all this time, he’s been waiting for you. “I’d do it all over again if it meant I could end up with you.”

“You would?” You ask, pulling him in for another kiss. There’s plenty more where those came from, but you’re already feeling greedy. Why wouldn’t you? If life was a movie, then wouldn’t this be the happy ending? 

“In a heartbeat.”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

[zwowow]

ask??? aight, 2 on the angst dialogue thingy but its em who’s saying it, buttttt kells replies with 19

up for the challenge??

2.  “It’s my fault, I didn’t listen to everyone saying this would be a mistake!”

19.  “Stop! Just stop it!”

Always up for a challenge, bebs! ;)

"Are you even gonna ask me what happened?" Colson towers over Em, but he feels so small. He wants Em to listen to him, needs Em to hear him, but Em thinks he's seen enough. But what he saw wasn't the truth, only a tiny portion of what really happened.

"Do I even want to fucking know?" Em's voice is pure ice, but his eyes are on fire. He's sitting in his recliner in the living room like a mad king on a throne. Colson dreads the moment when Em tells him to get the fuck out, enforcing the exile of a once loyal companion.

Swallow his pride and the lump in his throat, Colson falls to his knees in front of Em, "Please, listen to me." Begging is unlike him and it shows on Em's face, the impassivity breaks for one moment of shock, then slips easily back into place.

He looks at his boyfriend kneeling in front of him, exposed, and nods his head.

Colson starts his story, makes his case for what he'd done, and how it led to what he didn't do, but is being accused of. He wasn't right in everything he did, but Em has him all wrong.

"I wasn't drunk, but you know that feeling when you're around people that are, and everybody is having a good time so you feel good too? It was kind of like that." Em looks bored, but Colson persists. If he's ever going to understand, Em has to know the ecstasy he was feeling. That no thoughts, only fucking vibes type shit.

"I didn't really think about it when she started coming up on me. It's a fuckin club and I'm supposed to be actin single, right, why wouldn't I be on that?" Em makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat when Colson says the word single, but doesn't challenge him. Those were the rules they set up, the boundaries they had to keep in place so that only their close friends and family knew about them. Em knows this, and as much as they both hate it, acting like they are still single is a huge part of keeping them on lock.

Colson's knees start to hurt as he continues telling Em about the night, how this girl kept close to him, how she didn't let him out of her sight or grasp, how she held him possessively but didn't quite make a bold move. The looks of disgust on Em's face makes his own heat with shame. He ignores the pain in his knees and keeps going. It becomes a self imposed punishment. Especially because he can't say out loud how much he enjoyed having someone, anyone, on his arm, even if he wished it was Em. Em must pick up on the words unsaid because when Colson goes to grasp Em's knee for support, he jerks it away. He rests it back on his thigh instead.

"So at the end of the night, we're all tryna go home and this girl still won't leave me alone, and I felt kind of bad she'd wasted her night on someone who didn't want her, so I offer her a ride home. Em, believe me, I wasn't planning on doing anything." He wasn't, he'd swear on his life and everything he has, but Em finally snaps, unconvinced and unwilling to hear the rest because he knows where it's going. At least he thinks he does.

"I don't want to fucking hear this." He says as he stands up from the couch, almost knocking Kells down. Kells scrambles off his knees to follow Em where he's stalking into the kitchen. His guilt turns to shame and his shame turns to anger.

"I'm trying to tell you that nothing fucking happened! All fucking night nothing happened and those pictures that you saw, they're not what really went down!" He yells at Em's turned back. Tears prickle his eye but he doesn't shed them.

"So you weren't kissing her? Those fucking pictures are photoshopped? Must have been a pretty good fucking job then." Em whirls on him.

"I'm sorry!" Colson cries, it's not a denial, though. He can't deny that the pictures are real, only that they misconstrue the situation.

"No, you know what, don't apologize. It's my fault, I didn't listen to everyone saying this would be a mistake!" Colsons stomach drops to the floor and his heart races to meet it there. Em just keeps going. "I should have fucking known you'd do something like this. I guess that's my type though, right? Sluts. Fucking girls or dudes doesn't fucking matter, just always gotta have somebody that's gonna fuck me over, huh?"

"Stop! Just stop it!" The tears Colson had been trying hard not to let go fall freely now.

"Why should I? It's true, isn't it? You fucking cheated, didn't you?"

"I drove her home! That's it. She tried to kiss me in the car, that's where those pictures came from, but I stopped it. I told her I was seeing someone and that I really was just gonna give her a ride home. That's it. Why wouldn't you just let me fucking explain that?" Em's rage is oppressive. It fills up all the empty space in the room, takes root in your lungs and coats them in black fucking tar the more you're around it. But Colson, his rage, his anger at not being heard, of being misunderstood and demonized in a situation where he didn't do much wrong, is a rock sailing through the window, letting the air in.

When he's finished telling Em off, they can both breathe.

"You still let her kiss you." Em reminds him, but his voice is softer now, his cold voice now a melted puddle.

"I'm sorry." He did, he stopped it after only a moment, but it was long enough for their to be pictures, long enough for Em to see, long enough to break his heart, and for that he's sorry.

"I'm sorry too. I just get so... you know after what happened with Kim, cheating shit just makes me go crazy. I saw those pictures and I fucking lost it... but that wasn't okay. I should've listened. I'm sorry."

When they embrace it feels like it's been a lifetime of fight, though it's been less than a day. Colson realizes, while breathing Em in and trying to get over all the pain they'd caused each other, that it all could've been avoided if they were just out. Though he supposes, that's a fight for another day, right now, he just wants to hold Em and be held back.

[petite-madame]

Girl I saw your tweet on Twitter!! I hope you get some rest and relax 🥺🙏🏼 I hope you stay in good health and have a goodnight/day!

Hi anon ^^

The anon is referring to this Tweet:

LOL, don’t worry anon, it’s just me whining as usual xD Basically, I asked people on Twitter to vote for the character they’d like to see with tattoos (they had the choice between Tony, Spidey, Thor and Strange) and Thor won. Because I like to draw “simple” artworks, I decided to draw Thor in front of a mirror so you can see his chest AND his back and, I’m not gonna lie, the back tattoo is taking ages. It’s so complex that I had to draw it on a separate document but I’m happy about it so far so, I won’t complain (I mean, I’m complaining, but...moderately, juuuuust the right amount)

Anyway, I’m almost done and I’ll post my artwork tomorrow. And because I’m a moron, I started working at the same time, to let off some steam, on a Jaskier artwork where he sports a completely over the top costume (I saw a pic on Twitter and it inspired me immediately). And I want to draw Castiel at a diner to complete this series, and I want to draw Loki, Strange and Mysterio to complete this calendar and...AAaaaAaAaAah (somebody takes Photoshop away from me, please)

Thank you so much for your very kind message and don’t worry, it’s just me, whining as usual. ♥