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capslocked · 8 months

Text

KINKVEMBER DAY: 8

[prompt: phone sex]

male reader x shin ryujin

16k words

The phone rings one too many times, and Ryujin is in the middle of scrunching up the paper slip that Chaeryeong handed her earlier that afternoon when she hears your voice.

The sounds of her scrambling for the receiver and her head smacking against the headboard come through in pretty good quality.

That never gets old.

"Stimulating conversations," you offer smoothly, like it isn't a euphemism and instead some high-brow intellectual pursuit. "How can I help you?"

Ryujin is speechless for an unbearable five, ten seconds until she lets out the kind of low chuckle that probably sounds better than it looks. "Hi," she says, "hello, I, uh- I don't know how all of this works."

"Why don't we start with who you're looking to speak with tonight?" you ask.

Ryujin sighs. She runs a hand through her hair, looking at the messy tangle of clothes on her bedroom floor with mild resentment. She’ll take her chances, figuring a direct approach is the best route when she doesn't really know where any of the lines get drawn or who is allowed to say what and who isn't.

"Um. Okay. Who you got?"

"We have a large variety of operators to suit any taste," you explain kindly. She appreciates that. "Do you have someone specific in mind? A gender perhaps, to start?"

"Well," Ryujin starts, running her tongue along the edges of her teeth. Lia has this thing she constantly says, that there's always a thousand and one reasons not to do something, and Ryujin is the first person to make fun of her for it - but here she is, finally putting that adage to use.

"I was actually calling to, um," she exhales loudly. "A guy? I mean look - girls. Girls are great, but if you - mmm." She clears her throat. Because she knows how she wants to do this, and it's most definitely: "A man."

You wait for a second before replying, and Ryujin allows the stillness to expand over and fill out every corner of her bedroom before a bright, "Alrighty, well," comes filtering out her phone, tinny but as enticing as ever. "That would be me."

"Oh."

"Yeah," you reply, easy and unhurried. You sound exactly like the kind of person whose company people pay handsomely to be around; the professionalism is undeniable, but there's something to be said for your tone. The softness to the vowels, the almost imperceptible upward lilt to the words - Ryujin gets that, maybe.

You're pretty confident in the answer, but you ask anyway, "have you ever done anything like this?"

Ryujin opens her mouth and hesitates for a brief moment.

"Well," she muses. She's tried porn, she's tried her own fantasies, she's tried cranking up the hot water and touching herself with the head of the shower aimed somewhere she's told by other girls: it's there, free of charge. "I haven't."

"But you have a boyfriend," you state. "You have a man, who you enjoy things with?"

Ryujin laughs nervously. "It's...it's been a little while. Not recently. Sorry. I know you don't-"

"No, no, not at all, you're doing fine, it's just that you sound very attractive over the phone. Excuse the assumption."

Ryujin laughs and rakes her fingers through her fringe. She knows it's a line, but she laughs anyway. She could - if she was looking for the deranged fulfillment of it - pore through a billion comments on instagram, on twitter that call her a lot of things: gorgeous, beautiful, hot. The last comment she read before almost deleting her app entirely was someone who decided to textually imitate a dog barking to a picture Yeji had taken of her in a coffee shop. There's a novelty, she thinks, in being charmed by someone who has no idea who she is.

"You have good ears then," she says, smirking into the receiver. "So do you normally do, what, ask questions? I have no idea."

"Yeah, it helps me build a profile," you reply, "but if you had something else in mind-"

"No, please, shoot." She grabs the pillow from behind her back and flops against the mattress, staring up into the ceiling fan.

"Do you feel comfortable sharing your age with me?"

"Twenty," she answers without missing a beat, even though that isn't right. It's weirdly important to her, keeping it private, and she isn't sure why - but then you say something pleasant and complimentary about college and new experiences that she's unable to register, and you ask her for her name so quick she just blurts it out:

"Ryujin."

"Pretty."

"Fuck," Ryujin grins, immediately chewing on her knuckle to bite back a gasp. "Sorry. The name is cute or, whatever. Whatever. Sorry for the curse. God, I don't really have a filter - what about you? Do you have a name, Mr. Operator?"

"I do."

Ryujin lifts a leg up and puts it down again. She doesn't know if she should already have taken off her pajamas or if that's weird. Or if the fact that it doesn't bother her means this is more or less wholesome. She turns over onto her stomach, humming into the phone and now she doesn't know why she's thinking about your face. You could be- well, fuck, you could be anyone, but there's this gnawing compulsion to put something together.

You tell her your name and she scoffs for a second, before quieting down and returning you a, "pretty."

"Ryujin, tell me." There's probably a slightly too long pause from your end of the line before you get on with asking her, "when was your last orgasm?"

She drops the phone right in her face. It bounces off the bridge of her nose before landing in bedsheets beside her and her eyes are welling with tears while she scrambles blindly across her bed, cursing into the receiver and squirming. She pulls the phone to her ear and catches the last couple seconds of you reassuring her that it's okay, that it's completely fine if she's hung up or gone.

"Actually, I have," and she curls her fingers into a fist, "never came in my whole life."

You clear your throat to keep a less than professional sound from coming out. A quiet space she feels necessary to fill: “Not even once.”

"Really?"

"I know. And I've only recently realized that's, uh - er- a pretty un-normal thing." Ryujin makes a waving motion with her hand even though you can't see it, trailing off into silence and blushing furiously. "Sorry," she apologizes. She doesn't know what she’s apologizing for, but she does it again. "Sorry about that."

"I should be the one feeling sorry for you," you rib.

"Fucking tell me about it."

"Hey, this reminds me, would you be averse to the idea of touching yourself?"

The question stutters Ryujin in her tracks, and she doesn't even say no but a drawn-out "nngh" leaks out before she can stumble into something more intelligible. "Isn't that, like, what you're supposed to do on these calls?"

"Every call is different, Ryujin."

She chews on her lower lip, rolling it under her front teeth. You say her name like you know her, and it's throwing her for a loop. The comfort you have with the whole situation - asking her a million questions and not demanding answers, taking cues and reassurances in stride and turning everything into some sort of ploy for getting her naked. Fuck, she'll take a bit of a plunge:

"Should I be touching myself?"

"It's not my place to say."

"Okay, well that's kind of a frustrating answer."

"So you're saying you like being told what to do," you tell her, and you hear the sharp inhale in reply.

"If I knew what I liked, you think I'd be calling a sex hotline and hoping some stranger might take pity on me?"

You laugh out loud, and her response is the quickest, the cutest little, "seriously!" before she chuckles too.

"Ryujin?" you ask.

"Yeah?"

"Are you straight?"

She nearly chokes - because it's like you're able to just read her mind - and if you can do that then there's nothing you can't do, maybe. And here, excitement feels a lot like apprehension. She twists and curls in on herself, thighs rubbing together, the flat of her hand traveling across her stomach.

"I'm-"

"Because no one should have to pretend that they're interested in guys," you interrupt her and, god, for as much time as she's spent dwelling on that, she wishes it were that simple.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if she knew why she wanted to get her face between Yeji's thighs and drag her tongue all over her clit until that prettier-than-perfect face of hers cinches up in a pleasure that comes with just the right amount of agony - or if she knew why she didn't feel anything like remorse or guilt or envy when her boyfriend came around instead of wanting, you know, to get on her knees with her mouth around his cock too -

Fuck, it's all very complicated.

"Straight," she answers. She likes cock, as much as anyone realistically can, and she knows the body on a man can get her dripping and easy in all the right ways. So, she just swallows. Says, "straight enough."

"If you were to touch yourself, right now, and someone - say, a man - were telling you exactly what to do: what would spring to mind, if anything."

"Mmm. Is this you asking me to touch myself?"

"Again. That's up to you."

Your voice is light. Very pleasant. Very male, Ryujin realizes. She gulps.

"Can you, I mean," she says, running a hand down the length of her thigh, pressing down at the hollow.

"Ryujin,” you say, letting her mull over how it sounds in your mouth. “Take a breath for me, please."

Her exhale leaves her with a heavy push and she tries not to laugh. Nervous tic. She's getting goosebumps, but she feels warmer than before.

"We could say this isn't the first time, you and me, in some very broad and abstract sense. How does that make you feel?"

"Strange." She touches her outer thighs again and arches her back. "Kind of horny," she admits. And it is odd - your words, the things you say - and maybe it's her nerves because the experience is new, and so are you, and so are her feelings, all wrapped in one.

"Do you want to do something about that?"

There's silence between you for what seems like a very long time, your breathing quiet but apparent - a signal you haven't abandoned her in some state of vulnerability. Ryujin inhales deeply. She's shaking in her fingertips. The tension has her taut and waiting, and that's funny, really, because it's what she's been doing for years. The rubbing. The touching.

Her hips rock forward gently and she answers the unasked question with a sweetly husked, "uh-huh."

"What are you wearing?"

"Ah, really?" Ryujin laughs. Her fingers pause at her waistline. "That old, bad porn trope."

"I like hearing about people's clothes, is all," you excuse yourself lightly. "Helps me get a sense of things."

"Yeah, alright. Sweats. Baggy ones." Her lips fall apart. "Shirt."

"Is that all? Nothing sexy."

"What's sexy?"

"Sexy is…"

She listens to you mull it over, listening for a ruffling or two. "For a girl with a nice body - some body - some curves," you continue, and Ryujin has to drop another finger to the hot line of her thigh, her lower belly. "You need lace. Silk. You've gotta leave the best bits a little hidden, at least for a while longer."

"Wow. You sound a hell of a lot like you'd enjoy taking someone's pants off," she half-teases. "Do you make all your calls like this? One sordid fantasy at a time, huh?"

"Something like that," you reply. And then, as if reading her mind, "are you doing anything, right now?"

"I'm touching myself," she exhales. "Are you?"

"Ryujin, not yet. Please be patient."

She makes a face even though you can't see it or taunt her. That's an unfair request - you have an unfair request.

"Just, wait," you tell her. She's drawing lazy, winding circles across her thigh. "Let me show you something, will you do that for me?"

"But, what."

"Tell me everything. All the things you're thinking. Things you want to do."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

She blinks away her initial disbelief and reaches around for her lamp to switch it off. Until it's just the hallway light peeking in through the crack between her door and the door jamb and you, a stranger who won't be seeing her face or hearing her say anything stupid. She shakes out a few more breaths, shuffles against the sheets, and glides her fingertips past her belly button.

Her hand rises up her stomach in one decisive movement, until her fingers curl beneath the bottoms of her bra, trapped in its underwire. "I'm thinking - unh - about, ah. My friend?"

You're quiet and let the silence linger, until she seems like she might not find her way; so you repeat, "Go ahead."

"And a guy she used to like, fuck, she'd show up here, drunk on, ah. A weeknight. Somewhere, fuck, around midnight. Walk past me into the kitchen where we had the - the light. God." Her hips stutter and she grits out the rest through her teeth. "In the refrigerator. Ah, yeah, a midnight snack. Always looked way too fucking good for, um, oh, for a casual booty-call."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Yuna," she practically pants, and immediately realizes she shouldn't have said that either.

"Did you always know what was going on? Between Yuna and her-"

"Boy-toy, yes - it was so obvious, I always knew, yeah," she said, clumsily grabbing the sheets with one hand as she drifts further between the peaks. "Just - fuck - he'd be picking at, ah, something with chopsticks."

"In your kitchen?"

"My, uh, table. And I'd be working up the nerve to ask."

You sigh over the phone, "ask him what?"

"What it was, like, I knew she was only- shit." She keens high in her throat. "What it was like, fucking taking that cock of his, and bending Yuna's tight little, ah, ass over and, mm, railing her on the side of her fucking bed - and just pumping her full of cum just like that until- Jesus, she would walk around after and sometimes-"

You groan softly. This encouraging little sound.

"-fuck - sorry, I mean. Yeah, he, sometimes he'd make her walk around with his, ah, stuff inside. Down her fucking pants and, it's like, fucking disgusting, I swear-"

"And?" You breathe a heavy edged noise over the line.

Actually okay, so maybe this was more than she bargained for, maybe she bit off more than she can chew - maybe, she feels like her insides are collapsing; all the fire pooling around in her stomach and gathering into a melting sort of weightlessness.

"And it makes me feel fucking-"

"Fucking what."

"Why am I talking about this, why-"

"Talking to me? Fucking wet, Ryujin, answer the question."

She pants down at her phone and then turns her face into her forearm, rubbing and making sounds. She thinks about, oh, fucking Yuna and how she showed up to hang out once, with cum leaking down the crease of her inner thigh, smearing against her skin and down between her legs.

"Wet." She swallows. "How do I-"

"Say that you wish it was you," you tell her. "That you wanted that, to be fucked. To feel a cock inside."

Her head falls back. "That," she manages, "fucking, that."

You drawl so that the question might roll off, easy: "Is that the kind of girl you are? Told not to curse, not supposed to let anyone else play with you - you just need it, don't you? Do you need someone's cum? Just tell me."

"I think so, ah," and she stops moving her hand. "I think I'm gonna go now. This is fucking embarrassing, like. Okay, sorry."

"Don't hang up," you tell her, and the soft edge to it is one she really wants to indulge. "Don't," you repeat, a little louder.

You start talking, about the same sorts of things she's imagined herself: the sex and the sounds and what he can do to her. You build a slow and aching heat between her thighs that has her dripping through her underwear and grinding against her fingers. Telling her how she's the one that needs to be filled, needs a man who can wrap her legs around his waist, get to the deepest parts of her, the parts untouched and willing.

Ryujin gets that - she wonders, half out of it and stroking faster than she usually would be, how much of it has anything to do with who the voice is on the other end of the receiver, and how it could be what a desperate, pathetic, tired part of her has always wanted.

"Are you?" she asks, panting over the phone.

"Am I what?" you whisper back to her.

"Are you," and you hear how she inhales sharply through her nose, a desperate gasp leaving her lips on the exhale, "going to, um. Are you touching yourself right now?"

Your reply is immediate, and her eyes flutter and close the second you tell her exactly what she wants to hear:

"God, yes."

She drags her hand up the center of her body, runs her fingertips over her jaw and presses the heel of her wrist to her neck to feel her pulse slamming hard.

"I'm fucking throbbing, Ryujin; you sound gorgeous like this, like nothing I've ever heard, I'm stroking my cock just picturing you, please-"

"Tell me." She's mouthing into the center of her palm, saying the words, tasting salt and musk. "Fuck, ah," she babbles, "tell me what you would do with me."

"I'd get you on your knees," you tell her without hesitating for a beat.

"Fuck."

"I'd come up behind you and tell you not to be scared, baby. I wouldn't hurt you, I'd just touch you real gentle. Push my fingers past your tongue, slide a little down your throat."

"Uh huh," she moans, her head falling back and rolling, rocking against the mattress.

"Want you sucking on my fingers. Need your hands around my cock, or better, my balls, play with them. You're going to take those fingers - every finger I got, all five, yeah?- all ten of them," you joke, "and open up your tight cunt - like you are now, like such a good fucking girl-"

The girl fucking yelps. Just this honest sound of depravity; it's what she's paying you for. It's a silly line of bullshit, but it makes her bite hard and ache a little around her own knuckles and moan in her palm and dig her nails hard into her flesh. Her thumb fumbles across the top edge of her underwear and you pant again into her ear as if on cue, giving her a small bit of guidance that has her jolting in pleasure. She didn't know that was there, fuck, fuck-

"Like that, Ryujin. Breathe," and she does.

"Please," she whines, trying to find somewhere for her arm to settle, resting finally in her hair - setting the phone to speaker in a foolish moment of lapsed-judgment, just before it nearly clatters off the side of her bed.

Keep going - she's telling you over and over - keep going, and you’re picturing her there: eyes closed, legs spread wide, bent knees quivering and toes curling into the sheets. It doesn’t sound fake - you've heard a million of them, you've learned them in their different tones and accents and you can spot a faker a mile away. And the girl on the phone right now isn't pretending or thinking about whatever's happening somewhere else.

(You don't join in for everyone. You can't. It's an asinine consideration that you'd be rubbing your fist up and down your cock while it's sore and wanting - aching from the neglect or lack of rhythm. You have to remind yourself it's just a job, that the logistics just can't support such selflessness.

But then there's the very fucking premise.

That the girl on the other end of the line is inches from the goalposts, fingering her cunt and sighing into the throes of her first orgasm - first ever, because you did this, you brought her this far - you're the fucking culprit, and no matter how many girls, or boys-pretending-to-be-girls, how many people have gotten off with the help of your voice, your instruction, this one sets a different fucking precedent.

You're not lying when you say, "I'm rock fucking hard, Ryujin," or "there's precum all over my knuckles, baby."

Because there is, and the poor thing chokes out another desperate sound when you tell her.)

"I'm right there, ah, fuck, keep going-"

"I've got my hand around my shaft, just enough that I can fuck it, can't I? The head is getting slick - baby - and my palm is gliding nice and easy. Are you cumming, Ryujin? You better be, you better be cumming right now."

There's a heaving gasp and she calls out for you, babbling curses and "please" and "fuck" in alternating succession, with enough punctuation for you to have to let your lip slip under the hard bite of your front teeth. "Don't stop," she tells you, voice thready.

"You need this so bad."

"Yes," she gasps. "How would you-"

"How would I fuck you?" you finish her thought.

She waits a moment, sucking in shallow breaths and then replying weakly, "I really like... I like doggy."

"On your knees?"

"Yeah," she stammers, "I like when, like- ah, like, pulling my hair."

"Fuck, I love that," you say into her mewling. "Splayed out with your tits against a pillow and getting your pretty, little pussy pounded? I bet that'd feel so good, huh? Hands so rough on your hips, on your throat, squeezing your neck so you'll turn pink. Just to see you smile, I'd probably fucking let you take whatever you want."

You're met with a broken moan, a long string of syllables ending on a note that has your shoulders clenching and cock jumping in your grip.

Tense over the things you can't see: Ryujin biting down into the side of her hand, the other knocking painfully against the wooden side rail on her mattress, her thighs tightening and screaming and clamping around her wrist as she pulls weaker, wilder whimpers out of her chest each time her fingers drag across her slit and the sensitive curve of her swollen clit. She's dying, she thinks, she's going to fucking die - the in and out of her soaked pussy, through all that sticky, satiny skin, slick fingers diving in, twisting until there's nowhere for them to go.

No other recourse than to fuck in, fuck, fuck, like that, fucking god.

There's heavy silence on the line for god knows how long - well, you have to check the log. But for her, it feels like fucking forever. That was - that was it. It's so fucking mind-wracking how good it was, she can't quite wrap her brain around it. Nowhere near. She thinks she'll have a better idea after two rounds, definitely by four. She'll buy something, use the discount, go shopping - an orgasm just to make sure she's not bullshitting herself.

You clear your throat.

She moves sluggishly, away from the side and against the headboard - the heat still unbearably oppressive, her t-shirt clinging and sticking. "That," she stumbles through the afterglow.

"Do I need to apologize to you?" you ask lightly.

"What? Oh god, no - no way. No way. I just."

"Yes?"

"Like I didn't know it was this-"

"Did you just cum, Ryujin?"

She's laying there with the phone pressed to her brow. A hand palmed over her own racing pulse. The faint smell of her own cunt lingering around her face.

"I don't know," she tells you, and promptly hangs up.

The darkness in Ryujin's bedroom is punctuated only by the faint, hazy light streaming in from the hall, and her bedroom fan making its creaking little circles, as she waits in her post-nut-high for her breathing to normalize. Her mind is buzzing, and out of all this, she has a hell of a bill and a couple conclusions:

She's a coward and a pervert, but definitely, definitely bisexual.

Or, like. She's in some weird gray area between not liking whenever anyone buys her drinks, but also the girls at least let her dance a little close. That's a strange thing, isn't it? For how often her mouth does stupid shit - you think at least someone would figure it out for her.

But you, oh fuck. You-

She's fucking shaken up, for sure.

(It's a home office set-up, actually.

Your desk isn't organized; you're sure the photos on the wall are askew and the paint looks slightly worse for wear if you were to turn the lights on - which you never really do. There's an aging lamp tucked into the back corner, a bottle of scotch next to your handset that's closer to halfway empty than halfway full, and you can't stop imagining it.

Promise, This never happens.

You've got the name stuck to the roof of your mouth even though you know it's fake. Stuck with something so painfully abstract. Imagining this girl that is probably as brash and bawdy as her voice, or more exciting than either - maybe her hair is long enough to brush along her breasts. Or maybe it hangs just over her shoulders. God knows just how that would frame her features.

You can see it, really. You pump a handful of coconut oil into your palm and the details solidify so easily in your head: her pretty mouth, nose, the dimples in her cheeks - eyes glazed and sultry and gazing at you.

Smelling sweet, all the places you need, skin hot, clit swollen-

Just- fuck. Fuck.

Ryujin, huh, imagine that.

Ryujin.

And you jerk off right into the soft embrace of a tissue.)

A little more than a week later:

Ryujin's all wrapped up on the couch, with an arm cushioning her head and watching TV when there's a sudden commotion from the front door. Yuna - her friend, her very nice, very male friend who never shows up after midnight unless there's a promise of sex - comes bumbling into the room.

He has no regard for boundaries.

So,

Yuna starts to say, smug, from where the hallway becomes the living room, "Ryujin - look at us. Stuck on a Friday night. You gotta boyfriend or something?"

She's completely unfazed by this interaction. She's pretty sure he has his own key, so like, he should be used to it by now too.

"Kind of." She shuts off the TV to turn her attention towards the topic at hand. "Why?"

Yuna runs a hand through all her long, silky hair and gestures her cock-du-jour on over to the door of her room. "Waiting for a call, maybe." She waggles her eyebrows. "Are you any good, I mean, you never seem to..."

Annoying brat.

Ryujin smacks the back of her neck and interrupts, "you gonna fuck him? Go ahead and fuck him, Yuna." She checks the lock. The kitchen. Gets up and tries to ignore the heat flaring behind her ears.

"We could pretend," Yuna muses, tugging the waistband of Ryujin's shorts around her fingers before she's out of arm's reach. The elastic flips back into her waist with a dull snap.

"Dumb idea. That's a dumb, dumb idea," she reasons, because she knows Yuna has no self control. None, and it's showing; the second her shoulders sag forward and her eyes dart, craving, Ryujin steps back in. "Don't be stupid."

Yuna's lips are tilted, playful. Ryujin wants to smack that look right off her face. Like she fucking deserves any kind of victory just because she found out she can fuck anyone she wants while lacking the self-awareness to somehow be contented with anyone. She's not going to call her a slut - out of a matter of principle - but god, does she fucking want to.

"Gotta get ready, is what you should do," Ryujin mumbles under her breath.

"Fine." Yuna shrugs and pecks an annoying kiss to Ryujin's temple on her way to the shower, waving a hand over her head with a casual, "If you want something, you've only got a half-hour."

Ryujin pushes her hair out of her face and does what she does best: overanalyze and overthink the situation.

Whatever. Yuna won't give it up regardless, not in any way she'd actually be able to enjoy. Her cheeks go a little redder while she pretends to not be considering it.

God, a threesome in total functional harmony however: her working her mouth on Yeji (Ryujin doesn't know why she's thinking about Yeji, but she is), Yeji working her mouth on her boyfriend, her boyfriend working his mouth on her -

That'd be something, she thinks. Like one of those Escher diagrams, but one where everyone cums at the end.

The thought makes Ryujin wet enough to squeeze her thighs together and stand up a little straighter.

Then she hears the showerhead turn on, and she wonders just why, exactly, Yuna is such a spoiled asshole.

Turns out,

The universe just has this habit of providing Ryujin with what she wants right alongside everything she doesn't.

She’s stretched out in her sweats, sat up at the top of her bed again and touching herself beneath the sheet in a pointless attempt to contain the mess. Fucking horny - it's honestly unbelievable - and her left hand's making lecherous, slick noises until it's absolutely gross. Until Ryujin's gasping and panting and sweating from the nape of her neck and the back of her knees.

All because Yuna's the loudest little-fucking-whore of a roommate anyone has ever heard.

She's moaning like she's getting fucking plowed into the next life. And apparently, the cock she's got in her cunt is fucking huge if those little murmuring whimpers are anything to go on. She keeps begging the guy, coy, for a kiss while she's probably folded up like a lawn chair in there, getting railed, and the fact that the boy keeps obliging is as admirable as it is kind of insulting.

"Goddamn," she thinks out loud, because the walls are paper-fucking-thin. The apartments in the area are built in an earthquake-safe way, which in reality, means they can either withstand a magnitude 6.0 and come out without any severe structural damages - or that it's so cheaply constructed the building will go down like a matchbox house before it stands a chance against a tremor of any significance.

They're easier to replace that way she’s told. And Ryujin's apartment is definitely of the latter; she can hear everything.

The skin on skin, their bodies sliding together in the slippery sheets. Her mouth smacking wet around his tongue as he bucks forward and asks her to do a hundred filthy things, asking her where it feels best - that sort of thing, which gets her wound and agitated and frustrated, and fucking horny as fuck. Ryujin's bent-inward and panting when he really gets to work - the creaks and groans, their mingled pants and the constant thudding and swaying of the headboard smacking into the wall.

She doesn't even need to put her ear to the partition like she's sixteen years old all over again, hoping to catch her old brother going at it while her mom was out. Trying to figure out this whole sex thing - what all the fuss was about.

Just the way Ryujin sighs is nothing short of despondent. Slightly pitiful.

And every tight circle she's running over clit feels so fucking good, until she realizes the room goes real quiet for a bit. The stillness - no slapping, no movement, just wet, panted-breaths and muffled speech. She nearly asks aloud what's wrong - but she hears it: Yuna's hushed but totally undeniable,

"Been so long- don't, don't- hold up," she croons in these high, sing-song little huffs. "That - uhn, ah - that's my - that's my good spot, there, keep - yes, harder!"

Ryujin slams her eyes closed, dropping down onto the mattress and wishing she'd slipped her hands into her sweats sooner. Fuck. And as Yuna's back starts banging against the wall - so rhythmic and fucking thorough - Ryujin can feel the heat curling behind the backs of her knees, radiating along her calf and reaching into the smalls of her feet. Fuck. Fuck, she doesn't even get to watch.

Right there. So good, please, so fucking good, is what Ryujin can’t not hear coming right through the drywall.

She’s three knuckles deep in her pussy, all stretched out, and she's practically drooling - "spread me, baby. Hold the, fuck, spread my lips open. See me- unh. Ah - see me? Please, do it-" - the boy groaning about it as he fucks her, and then, Yuna, needling him with a quiet, breathy, "harder, can't you?"

The answer seems to make Yuna squirm and scream.

And Ryujin's nearly rolling - rocking, fucking humping her own fingers because it's starting to ache a little, a cramping in her wrist and arm and jaw that she's trying really hard to ignore, rubbing and fingering and fucking herself closer, the heels of her feet sinking hard against the sheets, throbbing and aching around the flicks of her knuckles, harder, faster - faster -

"Fucking hell-" she seethes and stops moving all at once - because god, Yuna is un-fucking-believable.

The absolute bitch, she's doing it again: squealing and cursing and calling his name into her orgasm and just basking, it sounds like, right in it. Because she always does this, every single fucking time, she acts like it's the best feeling in the fucking world and she fucking loves everything, and that shit just - Ryujin grits her teeth and grimaces and pulls her slick fingers from her body - that just ruins it.

All that build-up and for what?

Fuck, Yuna really has the nerve to go there too. She's talking about sucking her own damn cunt or some bullshit-

Yeah, it's not fucking fair, Ryujin concedes.

Or maybe she's being punished. She could live with that, but god. The unfairness of it all. She tries, for a half a minute, to let her throbbing stop being a goddamn nuisance. But the noises coming from the other room are making her crankier, more angry, more irate - and definitely hornier than she ever really intended, even though she knows Yuna is thoroughly distracted in there.

Ryujin sits up a little straighter. Squares her shoulders, steadies herself and fishes around in her pockets with her uncoordinated, cum-coated hands until she finds her wallet, a credit card, her cell -

And there's an aching, a sore pulse of neglect between her legs; that's all too much. A quick peek down confirms that, yep, she's practically dripped right out of her shorts and even gotten a dark spot in the front of them. How great is that.

Yuna is over there, all, "thank you - ah - can you please do me a favor and fuck my mouth with your big, big, huge, fucking cock-" and this guy, he sounds so patient, telling her how he wants to do exactly that, but he wants to fill her tiny pussy up first, fuck her here, fuck her there, fuck a baby right into her. Wants to get his cum all over her face, smear her mouth and her throat and her cheeks -

Ryujin inhales through her nose and holds, eyes falling closed in something between misery and anguish.

He's telling her, yeah, of course he'll fill up her throat - give her so much it's leaking out of her fucking nose - and Yuna sounds like she's moaning and garbling an objection to that last part - but it doesn't actually fucking matter.

"Geez," is Ryujin's quiet, little gasped-out response. He just fucking pounds her right back into place; her next orgasm. Fuck-

And there it is: the slew of moans that start back up and just keep on keeping on.

Shin Ryujin is going to lose her fucking mind.

Ryujin only lasts a handful more days before she calls again.

It’s another Wednesday night, if only to increase the odds that you’re working. Yeah, she could go with another guy, but another guy might not do everything you did, talking quietly and calmly - so composed while Ryujin was losing some part of her sanity to the thumb she pressed on her clit.

No, it has to be you.

That's what Ryujin makes herself say when the operator apologizes and explains you're busy.

"Will he be working much longer? Please, I, um-"

"If you give me your number," the operator tells her, "I can add him as a preferred associate. You'll get him next time instead of going to the line."

Ryujin pauses, finger held to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication isn't there, that maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some people do it already.

Oh god, this is kind of fucked up.

Maybe a little. Maybe.

Ryujin pauses, finger to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication, isn't there, or maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone you like-like for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some of things other people are undoubtedly doing with this service, Ryujin decides, and rattles off the digits so fast the operator asks for clarification.

"If your schedule doesn't open," the line says, "call back and leave a message with when."

Ryujin shrugs and says, "yeah, okay."

You make Ryujin sit through forty-five-fucking minutes of on-hold music - this barely audible synthetic noise that signals a connection is still there, truly a genre for no one - all before she just cuts the fucking line and lays down on the couch.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

Whatever.

(You are… going through the motions.

Some girl on the other line is barely holding it together; you can hear her thighs making slick noises. God. She sounds desperate, she's holding the phone all tight and saying your name. She's fucking babbling; it's not attractive, not while you're tilted back as far as your office chair will go and staring up in the ceiling.

You're bored, mostly.

"Please, please, I'm-"

"Going to cum, I know, princess." She asked you to call her that. "Mouth all open? Can't help it? Just need to lick it nice and fast?"

The answer comes all choppy: "I can't, ah, a-ah-nymore, no, I, can't, need-"

"Do you have any idea? How hard I'm fucking stroking my cock right now? Sitting right in my lap. Jerking it right for you," you say, and then she makes an embarrassingly wet noise, gasping through a choked whine, "so I'm ready to give you what you really fucking need."

"Yes," she chokes. "There - um, please, I just-"

"The biggest fucking load," you tell her. She has no idea, really, that you've got one hand on the receiver, the other just pinching the bridge of your nose - neither of which are you jerking the cum out of your cock and balls like a fucking hydrant as you’d described. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, and you keep your face turned to the side as she starts screaming. As it starts running into one noise that lasts forever - so unbearable that, this time, you consider going out to the bathroom to grab a glass of water and a handful of painkillers. "Need it deep. Let me pour it in, yeah?"

"Yes," she gasps again, heard on this distant frequency because, yes, yes, you've plugged your ear with a finger.

"That'll satisfy you. C'mon, now, princess - give it right up," you tell her, but your eyes are a little dull when her moan turns out all-gagging and twitchy and spasming through it, until finally:

"Ugh."

You wait a moment for the gasping and hitching to finish.

"Good girl," is your distant reply, followed by a polite, perfunctory, "call back anytime.")

Ryujin feels like she's in grade eleven again as she stares at her phone. Boys. Drama. Girls. The drama.

The overanalyzing, the wondering, the hesitating. Fuck. She wishes she knew a way to change this, because she doesn't feel particularly mature and is somehow reduced to this girl, this idiot sitting here all embarrassed and staring and moping about a thousand different calamities at once.

She's looking right at the lock screen: the wallpaper of her and Yeji and Chaeryeong out getting coffee on a random Sunday, all bundled up. Winter. Like three, four years ago, maybe.

Ryujin looks like shit, it's funny.

But Yeji -

How she can make the winter pallor look good is beyond Ryujin's understanding. It's unfair. All the things are. Her brain is back and forth and spinning, spinning like the hands on the old clock hung up on the wall in the kitchen. So stuck on what's not quite normal. Stuck on what doesn't fucking matter - who even fucking cares who the fuck she's attracted to?

She feels it between her legs.

Has been for like a month, or longer, without an outlet. Without anything to give her the hint that maybe she can get back to it - the right it.

She doesn't need to call, she tells herself. She's not some weirdo who's sitting on this for days just in the hopes that her boyfriend is having a bad week with work or whatever. It's only Wednesday, technically. Still way early. Just another few days, she reasons, another few hours - what does it matter?

Wednesday. She can feel the word settle inside of her.

Though only once her bottom lip is chewed to hell, does she pick up her phone and decide she will.

(You're in your bedroom this time around, finishing up your own weekday workout - on the bike, fifteen-second sprints - when your phone goes off. A simple dinging. Very unassuming.

The operator comes in with a cool, level, "line two, callback."

Then there's nothing but silence for a few beats.

You towel some of the sweat off your face. It's warm - your skin, flushed. Bouncing your phone in your palm. The same feeling that's been tugging at your throat for the past two weeks starts to flare and swell.

Not quite a hope, not quite expectation: just something close.

"Are they still there?"

The operator confirms. "Shall I put them through?")

Ryujin fumbles in her own rush of bravado, hands pressing against the fronts of her thighs in an unflattering, nervous little gesture as the connection clicks and picks up.

"This is him," comes your voice, a little husky and raspy from all the day-to-day talk, but even and easygoing and maybe - just maybe - something she can hang on to. Ryujin gives an acknowledging "Mmmn," like the phone call isn't causing her major inner-turmoil.

"Right, ah." You sound kind of, dare she say, nervous yourself. You clear your throat into the line and ask, "what brings you here, stranger?"

Ryujin pauses at this; the red in her ears reaches her fucking jaw. Stranger. Jesus christ, okay, okay-

She laughs. Stops immediately at how self-conscious she sounds. Clears her throat and tucks some of her hair back - settles herself into it like her life hangs in the balance. "I'm here to get my rocks off."

"It's not usually my place to say," you begin in earnest, "but if you're anything like me, and this is gonna sound completely off-the-cusp, but those two weeks really seem to build up, don't they?"

God.

She pulls her sock off her ankle. There's eczema on her heel, and it's the kind of thing she can imagine Yeji telling her to not scratch - that she's going to fuck up her skin. It's funny the stupid fucking things she can remember and all the things she forgets. Like just now, with your voice in her ear, a little unsure in a way that says you've got other, much more important things you should be doing. But you're here with her.

With Ryujin.

God. She might hate herself a little.

"Um," is how she finds her bearings. "Actually."

"It's a joke. Not that- I mean." She hears some rustling - assumes it's coming through the ear piece. There's an abrupt slamming on her side of the line and it seems like the worst kind of deja-fucking-vu. Her neighbors. She forgets it's even this late into the evening. That other people don't have to work so hard in their free-time.

"Maybe this isn't a good night," she says, not so much as thinking the words.

"What?" you ask. Then it dawns on you. "No, no. If you're there, I'm here." You clear your throat. "Besides, there's nobody I'd rather hear from than a woman so desperate she's signed onto my frequent flier's club."

She stops chewing the insides of her cheeks long enough to give you a tired, irritated sound. "Whatever."

And you nearly choke trying not to laugh.

"I don't, um-"

"What, do I have a nice voice?" You laugh quietly.

Under normal circumstances, that wry edge, the bit of try-hard-humor would have her rolling her fucking eyes clean out of their sockets. So when instead she opens her mouth and a fatal-fucked-flirty-feminine, stop, comes out, the vowel pulled long like a plea or a request - well, Ryujin's forehead drops against her bedspread in immediate regret.

You seem startled by it too, going quiet for a second.

"I-I'm-"

"Cute," you decide.

Her ears are red-hot and her cheeks have to be pinking and god, she hates this. That she's hearing this so soon, and it's making her brain hazy and soft and stuttering through, um's and yeah, well, um's. A part of her can't believe she's paying for this, and then, at the same time, she can't believe she's not actually putting cash down for more right this second.

Because it feels -

Like maybe -

Her shoulders rise. She wants this to be quick; she hates this feeling of embarrassment creeping its way in and grabbing onto her with both hands, like this weird, pseudo-affection. She's a grown fucking woman and here she is, letting all her guard down for someone she doesn't even fucking know.

You can feel the tension, hear it. Your lips purse. You try for something easy.

"Go on and give me the details, Ryujin."

Before you'd even picked up, she'd already half-undone her shirt, the flaps of the collar hanging loose with her hands gently petting her ribcage - so easily giving and pliant that there's a good portion of her, in spite of the doubt, in spite of what seems completely illogical about all this, that has her realizing maybe she wants this more than she can possibly understand.

God, she feels like a fucking fool.

"It's pretty boring."

"Not to me. I've spent the last few weeks talking to a bunch of assholes who don't appreciate what they got in the first place," you reply. She imagines you're a little playful about it. Wonders, momentarily, how good that smirk looks - if your eyebrows are lifting like you've been teasing her since day one. Fuck.

“Your operator is a total asshole too, by the way."

"Don't say that," is Ryujin's shy reply, practically moaned out. "You sound like someone I'd absolutely fucking hate, jesus, stop that."

"Just because you don't get on with someone, doesn't mean they can't get you off."

"Smooth, or something."

"I'm taking a break, relaxing a little, enjoying an overrated TV show or whatever this is - not really minding my business," you say, but your smile is so audible it's fucking offensive. And she's - she's maybe, definitely into that. Like the fucking embarrassment in this is turning her on. Ryujin puts the tip of her finger in the waist of her shorts, experimentally, gently, this small brush and press to her sensitive lower stomach. And it's true. All she hears is her own breathing in the receiver, a bit labored over the slightest, least indecent touch. It's amazing, how much her body can want even when her head can't seem to catch up.

"What do you like?" she asks. “You’re a person, working bits and all, something’s gotta get you all worked up and flustered, no?”

"Will you believe me if I tell you this is my absolute favorite?"

"Do you always dodge the question?"

"It's just like a courtesy," you clarify, "it's not personal."

"Now I sound like a desperate pervert."

"On the contrary," is your warm, buttery reply, and it is fucking aggravating just how well this works on her. "I think there are much better things people can say about you."

God, that - the thought, the possibility of something about her that has nothing to do with how 'thick' or 'thin' her thighs are, or the silhouette of her ass in safety shorts, or how her voice makes guys want to ask if they can take her home and fuck the answers from her, or any of that; it's kind of liberating, just a tiny bit. That it can be a good thing for some reason. God.

Ryujin rubs herself. "Yeah, well."

She wants it all the same and says nothing, shifting a little until her hips tilt slightly upwards, letting her pull at the drawstring of her shorts, loosening the grip. She's already kind of feeling woozy in all the best ways, soft and feminine in how she slides her hand underneath her shorts. Over panties first, with no clear idea if you can tell and honestly, too distracted to wonder about that, if she should care or not, too caught up with her fingertips over the raised seam in her underwear - where the fabric's wet from her.

A shush comes into the line when Ryujin swallows.

The ache between her legs grows louder.

"You still there, Ryujin?"

"Of course," and then, she finds a little more reassured finality: "fuck, yeah, fuck. Please, I..."

"Ryujin," you say with all the calm and control in the world, "talk to me."

(So - truthfully, honestly, factually - you are a total wreck.

You're sitting there in a heap of bedsheets and a cold sweat when Ryujin finally mutters into the silence, "thanks, for that, I, uh- that felt really good, exactly what I needed," and hangs up before you can ask about her day or comment on the weather or suggest calling back tomorrow.

She is just perfect, the way she lets a small "I..." slip when she's close. Perfect, how she groans her little broken, satisfied sigh of a yes, her last, fleeting exhale just a sweet, high, barely there please, her body tensing with every little shudder and moan and pant. How the pace goes fast and then slow - like she's gotta think it out a second, her own fingers bringing her closer and closer until there's nothing but a flurry of movement and ragged breaths - an enthusiastic little mmph noise - followed by Ryujin's wet and slick little laugh that sounds like relief.

Like you did something to help, like she needed you and wanted you.

There's cum sticking all up your torso and along your wrist, the inside of your thigh - everywhere you could manage, frankly - and, shit, it's not fair, you realize:

She can find you, whenever she needs you.

And you -

You're just sitting here. Nowhere near sure she'll even call again.)

There's a sizable difference between being lonely and being alone, Ryujin thinks, running the cloth under the stream of the shower and then pressing it damp against her throat, wiping at the backs of her knees.

Lonely means that something's missing - it's something she feels when she catches a glance at the handsome arm reached around Chaeryeong's waist, the way she dances so close to someone she just met, or whenever she tells her that she's thinking about, maybe, probably, definitely, absolutely going home with him if her friends don't stop her from leaving. God, her smile is always so cute when he's near. When someone's calling her over for drinks - hips sashaying like she doesn't know the whole bar is staring at the creases where her thighs flare into her ass - because he gave her a look from across the room, and she's swaying from drink to drink.

Like, of course, they're fucking; it's a known, unsaid thing.

She knows it, he knows it. Chaeryeong fucking owns it.

Alone however, is just what it says on the tin.

That's something else Ryujin has yet to learn - that everyone loves differently, cares for different things. Yuna is still single after all, and she can never shake the feeling that it's simply to spite her for some perceived slight or another; Yuna can't live without company, no matter how brief or short or meaningless, so perhaps it's better she never catches on or finds anyone worth keeping around.

And Yeji?

Ryujin sighs, rakes the comb through her wet hair.

The showerhead is running hot between Ryujin's fingers, and the water coming off of her skin turns to steam instantly, filling the bathroom with a permanent cloud, stuck in flux - rising towards the ceiling. She passes her fingers under it, watches the flow, a quiet hm escaping the back of her throat - and she considers the way it feels beating against her throat and chest.

Down the concave curve of her stomach. How it burns red right over her thighs. The pressure slips and sinks low, lower - and when she puts a palm out for a little stability, her left leg can't help but buckle just so, lifting itself out and off to the side. So she stands, toes pointing against the shower floor, face first into her arm against the cool tile.

Ryujin sees where the rivulets of water have gathered above her clavicle - feels them trail down over the tightness in her breasts and between. A couple images pass through her mind at once - thoughts of fingers trailing a line back up the center of her body and a gentle tap against her chin, turning her face to some perfect all-consuming kiss - a hand squeezing at her calf, rubbing her muscles gently - Yeji smiling into the crook of her neck, the grasp on her hip, wrist flexing. Her back bowed and fingers, broad and experienced -

"Don't need you," Ryujin quietly says to nobody, which -

You're doing so well, Ryujin hears back in her imagination, you're so beautiful, you can keep this up, I know you can. I bet it feels good, doesn't it? Just let go and I'll...

Ryujin whimpers out. She can feel that line deep inside her going taut, buckling in her core, the reverberations down to her wrists and fingertips and toes. If she didn't have the wall in front of her, she knows she'd be on her knees - kneeling to the hot water pulsing around the knots of nerves right behind her clit. The pressure hitting her like the crack of a whip.

"Fuck me," she says to no one, gasping in that way you only can when no one is listening.

Yeji's smile is what's gotten her this close so many times, the smell of the ends of her hair tickling Ryujin's nose. Hell, she can't stop thinking about the way her nose crinkles or her dimples flare just when she finds Ryujin's name in her mouth.

It's not fair.

She's so close to cumming and letting whatever happens happen. The slick of her release pouring right out into the drain of the shower, washed away with the excess. So when her whole hand shifts and catches in just the right, delicious, frustrating way, Ryujin inhales so deep through the end of the sentence that, as a result, her knees wobble.

She feels like fucking crying.

It's that sweet little lilt in Yeji's voice, saying things like: "It's alright. I promise you can keep this up a little longer." And "Oh, god, baby." And, at worst, the way her voice shakes with a "come here, honey. Let me-"

Ryujin has to catch herself when her footing slips a little from under her. Then, your voice, coming in distant at first, grows louder, clearer. Into something catastrophic, right against her throat, like it knows the very inside-and-out of her, "go on. Fuck, please, cum all over me, baby - show me a face no one else gets to see."

And for the first time,

Ryujin gets herself off. Alone.

She moans and sighs out. Gasps, "there you go-" and whispers an, "ah, jesus." She manages the most silent, the least decipherable, fuck, as it leaves her mouth like a prayer. Her left knee twitches, body curling into itself, and her hand moves - fingers closing and her eyes clenched shut, a wave, cresting - she just-

Collapses.

Wanting: Yeji, sure - and she came - but the only thing she can really wrap her head around is the truth that she's so, utterly fucked.

"Are you sure there's no one you can bring?" Yeji asks in the middle of slapping the ever-loving shit out of a coffee maker that has, for as far as anyone can remember, never worked.

"Uh," is Ryujin's inconvenienced reaction, the tips of her fingers idly sorting through her credit card statements, which a more-sober, less-horny version of herself is a little out of sorts over. "I'm not sure there's anyone I'd want to bring."

"Uh huh," Yeji replies.

She pauses and rests the bottom edge of the coffee maker on the edge of the kitchen counter, stopping herself mid-smack - leaning away to try and give the stupid thing a once-over.

"Who the hell says it's got to be someone you wanna make babies with? Maybe it's just someone you'd think would look good beside you, smiling at the cameras with. Or."

"Or."

Yeji's lips tilt. "Or someone you wouldn't mind screwing in the bathroom."

Ryujin spins the pen in her fingers and gives Yeji a look that says back off and can you chill out already, in the sort of way it takes years to ferment - the silent understandings, the good-natured naggings, the good-fucking-luck-with-that-buddy's. Yeji knows she's getting on Ryujin's nerves. Knows that has never stopped her before.

"In my defense," Yeji clarifies, "I can count at least a hundred people that would crawl over broken glass to sleep with you and, uh-" She knocks the coffee maker off of its stand and holds it gingerly to her chest like some child, motherly. "-I don't wanna take a bullet for your unintentional chastity, Shin Ryujin."

"First of all, don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor here," she replies. "Second-"

"Can't hurt just asking, right? I could set you up, you know, someone you've never even met - no pre-burnt bridges to maneuver."

There’s a world, and Ryujin imagines it for all of a second, where she stands up and grabs hold of Yeji by her cute little ponytail - if nothing else, just to stop the way it bounces every time she steps - and maybe, she also kisses her on the mouth so hard she stumbles. Or perhaps she could pull that ribbon free of its holdings and unravel it down against Yeji's jaw. Pull a whimper, a tiny little ah that says this was inevitable. Maybe they crash onto her bed. Maybe she gets her fingers sticky with how soaked through the cotton of Yeji's shorts have gotten in those short, heated moments - what a world that would be.

"One of what's-his-name's friends? I’m assuming."

Yeji looks annoyed and proud and beautiful; all at once.

"Yes, and what's-his-name's pillow talk is exceedingly whiny about how my best friend is so incredibly standoffish and abrasive and-"

"Okay. I'll go." Anything to stop the image of Yeji with the comforter pulled up to her tits and hair splayed all over the place; red and flushed. Her lips curling with the curve of the sheets and god -

"Just for an hour?" Ryujin asks.

Yeji finally places the coffee maker back onto its stand.

"I mean, nothing much happens an hour into a birthday party," Yeji reassures. "It'll be fun."

"Uh-huh."

"Trust me."

Ryujin wonders just how far Yeji could go - if she knows that she can snap her fingers together, and Ryujin will be there: ready to do anything.

Ryujin is trying to go to sleep, is how she'll explain it if anyone asks. Though she prays to god no one ever will.

She tries books. And she tries scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. And there's this one guy she kinda-sorta-dated's updates: photos of a vacation to Boracay, which seems nice; his chest is a little more defined, more chiseled than when she was seventeen and kind of fumbling her way around a college boy and his stupid fucking preoccupation with who should be paying for drinks at whatever run down establishment was his pick of the night. Ryujin makes a face at the screen, pursing her lips; there's a girl in the photo - she looks too young for how her ass is falling out the one-piece. To the extent that she makes sure to send an unsolicited meme she's tagged herself in - like "here is my past and here are his balls", and gets a block and a report as a thank you.

It makes her feel good. That's what's most important.

And then, with little other distraction and a decent lack of luck, she picks up the phone.

It rings for a while before the operator comes in and says, "You're at number nine."

"What?"

"The queue. This call has you at number nine."

Ryujin slowly leans up from the pillows and squints into her bedroom.

"Huh."

"Would you still like to be connected, miss?

Ryujin thinks it over for a moment. Of course you're popular, a part of her mind comments, because you've got a voice like gravel-slung honey-gold. She's imagining eight other girls just like her, laying in their bed, panties on their ankles and thumbs covered with spit. All desperate for you. All curled up - one right after the other - with no fucking idea.

"Miss," the operator comes back with.

The line goes quiet - a few beats, but not too uncomfortable a silence. Then she gets a soft little exhale out, saying, "can I leave a callback number?"

"If you like." The operator considers the idea. "I can’t promise whether he’ll call you.”

“No, yeah.” Ryujin curls an arm under her chest and plays a finger against the swell of her breast through her night shirt. Gets lost in her own consideration. “Don't think he would anyway."

A new day is defined by new possibilities, or something or another you read once stitched into a frame; Something you muse over the rim of your coffee, nose-deep in the laptop at the kitchen counter top.

Last night ended a bit unexpectedly - this not considering the couple's awkward fight which took up two-thirds of the evening. Or the girlfriend-slash-fiancée of that guy, which somehow led you to wonder just how old was too old. But as you were logging your final client session of the night a ping came through the employee portal and let you know that someone had left their number with the operator in the hopes you'd call.

You swig back the rest of your coffee, roll your shoulders and shrug. Oh, there are at least a million reasons not to call a number that randomly, offhandedly arrives in the middle of the night and gets patched through a phonesex hot line under the cover of darkness.

The same number could be out there, defacing the wall of a truck stop bathroom, or inked into the skin of a squat prison convict who's got a brow like the horizon. Maybe, it belongs to that married business man that took your personal phone number as his private line and spent all the time bragging how he was going to quit his wife and make a run for it with you - just you - even though you'd rather stab him with a fork than be involved with that kind of psychopathy and are honestly just looking for that extra bump in commissions every time his wife calls to ask the exact same thing.

Your clients call. You talk.

You take the cash.

The point is: there's more fucking deviants out there than there are stars in the sky. You would know; you talk to a new handful every goddamn day.

Yet it doesn't really matter. You're gonna do it. Because you're feeling restless. Because - and it sounds insane - there's at least some probability, no matter how remote, that you will pick up that receiver and punch in a number and the line will connect with the girl who's been on your mind almost constantly for the better half of two months. That you might listen to the dial tone turn into her answering with a genuinely indifferent, "this is Ryujin," or whatever her name actually is -

You're living in a pipe dream. You're probably reaching, actually. And all you know about this woman, is, what? What does it really, factually, truly amount to, the amount you feel you've come to know about her.

You know more about how she prefers to methodically, meticulously begin, then draw out, and finally end a blowjob to someone that ain't you than you do about any detail in her life story, frankly. You're reaching, and you know it.

You pick up the phone and dial.

(It goes straight to voicemail, and get this: that’s her real fucking name.)

Yuna has the audacity to ask, as she slides into the booth, "who do you keep texting?"

Ryujin's eyebrow arches.

The younger girl nods towards where Ryujin's thumbs are practically flying over the keyboard.

"No one." Ryujin puts the phone on her lap and crosses her arms over her chest. Then the words seem to echo through the inside of her skull, so she shakes her head a little, in emphasis. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

She's right though - and maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's why it's hard to answer.

Chaeryeong washes the shot of whisky down with a swallow of lemon-lime. Her eyes slide open to Ryujin as she wipes at her bottom lip. Then she spikes a finger into Ryujin's ribs.

"Spill."

It's a dangerous order, and she doesn't realize it at first. Chaeryeong's bad ideas have an annoying habit of flinging themselves on Ryujin, like a bomb dropped at low altitude - sudden, quick, and more than enough to shake everything up. Chaeryeong will make Ryujin go out dancing - and then she'll lose her clutch purse. Chaeryeong will remember she started the evening with a scarf - so they need to walk out a whole block or two to find it.

More importantly: Chaeryeong is not a great drunk.

So, of course she spills. She relays her findings, carefully and as deliberately as she can muster.

"Does he have a nice voice?" Chaeryeong asks.

"It's kind of deep?”

Chaeryeong snorts. Apologizes immediately.

"Not... deep. Sultry. I guess. Smooth, easy to hear." Ryujin tells the two across the table.

Yuna whistles low. "Romantic as shit."

“Fuck, I don’t know. In, like a sexy sort of way." Ryujin raises both palms in a vague gesture. She clears her throat at the two pairs of eyes staring back at her as though the words coming out of her mouth belonged to a foreign language. "Uh. Sort of raspy, or something, sometimes, like he's... on the phone a lot, and you know," Ryujin flushes, suddenly caught and wondering where all the confidence went, "yeah."

Yuna's leaning forward, chin in her palm. "I'm having a hard time believing texting is a sort of standard operating procedure."

"Well try a little harder," Ryujin snaps, eyes finding Yuna's and making herself fucking clear.

Chaeryeong has this look about her, she's trying to keep it all in, but then there's her eyes, cinched at the corners and dead-fucking-giveaways. She puts an arm against the table and points at Ryujin with an up-reaching thumb. "This is the cutest shit, like ever, and you two are texting like actual lovers instead of two, apparently rando-stranger fuck buddies, or whatever."

Yuna - for whatever reason - feels at liberty to throw gasoline on the fire. "Does that mean you think he's going to get jealous if you bring some dude along to Lia's birthday?"

Ryujin sucks in a breath; the fact that he'd never - well.

"Ryujin's in love," Yuna adds for dramatic effect, for the sake of being the worst fucking person. She can be so fucking petty. It's a side of her no one ever sees, because she's just so sweet all the time. Like right now, she's doing that smile-smirk thing that gets Chaeryeong giggling against her hand and then coughing into it a second later.

"Jesus christ," Ryujin starts gathering her jacket and purse. "He's- not- this is- God, I'm done." She slips her shoulder under the strap. "Thanks for listening to me sound like a teenager."

"Isn't that just normal for you," Yuna quips back, pulling at her straw until there's only air rushing through the bend of it. "Where are you going?"

"I can't stay here," Ryujin says as if it's obvious, as well as her point, the argument she's trying to make. "Besides, Yeji is gonna want me to get my dress and shit all sorted out."

"Don't fall in love with one of the robot voices at the cross-walk on your way home, or anything!" Yuna laughs out, giving a flippant wave goodbye.

Ryujin lets her eyes roll because sometimes, she hates her friends.

It still throws you for a loop whenever Ryujin pings your phone with a text that says something like:

have you jerked yourself off to exhaustion or is there one more in you for someone like me?

Or,

my roommate is getting pounded through the springs of her mattress, wanna see if you can hear it?

Or,

are you free? I really fucking need to cum. bad.

Each text is something you tuck into yourself. Save and mark and spend all your time in those long-form responses imagining how her face looked when her brain typed out the words for you. You wonder if she's sighing through her fingers or hiding her lips behind a pillow while the heat coils in the pits of her hips.

As time goes by, Ryujin slips a little more. From one text about whatever book or series she was rereading last and another about the sadism of politicians and how people are more likely to agree with what they've heard someone else say than the facts of a given subject, to texts with a few scattered thoughts to strings of sexting that has you cumming into the palm of your hand and through your sheets and in the middle of a dream in which there's no clothes and a pretty fucking filthy proposition.

"How have you been lately," you decide, and consider, briefly, the very strong likelihood this call is gonna send her right through the goddamn roof.

When Ryujin eventually finds herself able to get out: "fine," there's a tell-tale pause, then an even longer pause, that implies she'd definitely rather say anything else. Then she kind of stutters a, "pretty good. Not too bad. All that stuff, I suppose."

And not to say any part of this has felt like routine. Both of you breathing into the end of a telephone and letting your eyes clench tight while you cum all over yourself - imagining everything she told you she wanted you to do to her, how it'd all go: "fucking with my arms grappled behind my back," she'd hum, "head pushed into the bedsheets, you're smothering me, ah- I'd let you cum wherever the fuck you like, but please-" or maybe a bit simpler: "so my thighs are straddling your face?" is about the gist.

A second goes by, another, a third.

"Hang on," you end up having to tell her sometimes, "I need a fucking towel-"

"You really are, huh, jerking off with me- I get you that hot, is what you're telling me? Or is just too much imagining how you'd fuck your way right into my guts through my pretty little pussy? Ah, jesus," the cadence of her voice climbs high before ending up back where it belongs, "Jesus, fuck."

"Can you imagine," is how it'd start, "how good it'd feel? My pussy, or- anywhere, everywhere. I think you'd ruin me for anyone else - you- with how, god-"

You can hear Ryujin shift on the sheets, licking at her bottom lip. Silently cumming. Cumming for you.

"Okay."

"Okay what," Ryujin quietly says back.

The gears turning.

You press your hand into the side of your neck. "Fuck me. Now, in a second. Tell me the last fucking thing in the world you want me to be or do and-"

"Wait."

There's this half-breath. This hmm that almost trips off Ryujin's tongue. Her eyes squinting open to a new thought. You think she's about to be sly. About to surprise you with an offhand fuck yes I'd ride that face like a bus seat; that she might come back with, yes I'll put you right in the middle of the best part of me, god you'll love it, and I promise not to make you cum if you're nice enough not to let your hands wander. But.

It's funny how things are -

"I have a confession," she says, matter-of-factly.

That's not entirely unusual. You've had more of those come through your line in a year than a confessional grate might get in a lifetime. So it doesn't sound like something special to you; Ryujin and you are in this candid don't-ask-don't-tell in regards to payments and the exchange of goods and services, but here you are, still using lines and bits. Practiced.

"In the name of the father, and of the son, and-"

"Funny." Ryujin gets the hint to backtrack. "Uhm, I mean. Remember the roommate I was telling you about?"

You hum a, "maybe."

"Uh," and now the hushed voice from her throat sounds distant, suddenly out of the scope of the receiver, "can I be totally, honestly- just really, extremely honest here, are you- or?"

You stop thinking about the ebbs and flows of her voice, how it dips down then arches up a little. Because now her voice has become something that is nervous, bordering on uneasy. So you stop, take stock and hold on. You weren't expecting a voice of worry or tension, or not at least while she wasn't thrown back into her bed and rubbing furiously at the ache between her legs.

"Yeah, of course," you offer her up.

"This is so embarrassing," she's saying, and some part of you feels ready to sink - you haven't the faintest idea for what, but there is something. Your chest clenches.

You can't help the worry and reply: "Okay, um. I mean- yeah. Me too, I can admit I feel a bit- and you can, y'know, be a little-"

"I'm not straight," she says finally, with a little quiver of her voice right at the tail end.

A blink comes, another - there's nothing coming out of you and you have no idea why that should be at all difficult, so the silence grows long. A new sort of awkward; the kind that you find out isn't just the rush of cum cooling in a pair of sweat-damp underwear. No - this is embarrassment, the kind that taints you.

"What?" You exhale a strained laugh, almost too-bright. "Are you- is this some sort of-?"

"Nope, no, this is crazy, sorry." She laughs. "Sorry."

"You certainly had me fooled." You sit up straighter in your bed, resting elbows on your knees. The moon is filtering through the windowsill and bathing the room in blue - casting light all the wrong ways. Making your own heart beat just a little too fast. "Fuck, um. Can I ask a personal question?"

"Sure." Her voice sounds uncharacteristically soft.

"What are you into?" and you as soon as you ask, you're laughing - because you've heard Ryujin wax lyrical for weeks, pontificate about every manner and way she'd take a cock between her hands, lips, fingers. Every. Single. Place, she wants one in - and now you can't believe this is what you went with: "I mean, like girls?"

"It's probably safe to assume I have some, y'know- degree of- yeah."

You chuckle a bit. The stiffness in your shoulders settling out.

"I've been in love, I realize - boy, with my roommate - for a while."

It's said with a sad laugh - as if this were a little shameful. Some deep, dark secret no one could ever be privy to; some stain on her soul that might wash out only after one final scrubbing with dish detergent and the cruelest bristles. A thing that keeps her up at night -

“Not the roommate, by the way, who we listen to get fucking railed like she’s on-demand pornography every weekend. Just to be clear."

"Good, jesus, that'd be fucking something."

Ryujin sounds more cheerful when her voice comes back through the line, "right?"

You wipe the perspiration of your top lip. You laugh nervously at this girl admitting to being in love over the phone - a stranger, truly, in all ways - to some fucked up audio-fetish sex line personality. And now - the fuck's wrong with you?

"Are you mad?" she asks, and some part of you is wrung. A small string of tension twisting so hard inside your gut, you're losing touch.

"No," you let her know. "No, not at all."

And that is honest. This is honest. There's this itching little scratch all over the insides of your skin that seems intent on driving a fucking wedge. Right at the center of your chest, tearing you apart. It feels as you've lost - not an object, not a material. Not an idea, nor a concept - but a feeling, that for once, was distinctly, overwhelmingly yours, without your wanting, or permission, or comprehension.

Ryujin sighs, this elongated relief coming in. She sinks back against the headboard.

She tells you everything. How Yeji smiles, and it's like the whole fucking room has gone up in lights, just from her and her alone. How there is nothing that she'd rather spend all her days around. She talks and you sit there, silent and listening. She talks about her. Her name and everything Yeji does and everything she wants.

The more you listen, you realize it's all real; she's not confused, or mistaken, or out to play a game or convince herself of something she believes is inherently untrue. She's not frustrated, or longing. She doesn't have this stomach-rolling pit of anxiety digging a cavern at her center because she just can't go through the rest of her life, living a life like everyone else. Not ever.

Because, all you really notice is-

She loves Yeji. The quiet kind. And she's sitting there, legs curled under her ass, crying. Not sad, or frightened, or wounded, just this beautiful sort of awed: it's the kind that only someone who is too inexperienced at crying should have. Where you just-

Look away.

"I'm not taking my phone into the bath with me," is the last thing she says to you, tears flooding out in her last couple words, before you can only offer her a meek: "anytime, Ryujin, I'm here."

(Four, five weeks go by in the blink of an eye. A month where you figure it's best to let her text or call or make it clear she wants your voice.

She never does.)

Lia is taking her sweet time to apply concealer over the cut Ryujin earned herself trying to get a stupid thing off a shelf - that's how low and unreasonable her tolerance for anything mildly inconvenient is.

"That fucking hurts," Ryujin tells her, wincing.

Lia ignores her.

She keeps on dabbing at the spot on her temple with the makeup brush until there isn't any trace of bruising, or where the jagged scar of a cut ends and skin begins, not anymore. At this point, she has gotten better, has developed a kind of surgeon's eye: zeroing in and unblinking, until every inch of damage is looking like Ryujin did when she was brought into this world -

(which is not perfect, but what it ought to look like, all things considered.)

Lia holds her hands in place on either side of Ryujin's head. "Stay."

It takes less than five minutes, and during those, Yuna just offers from around the bathroom door, "Ryujin, sweetheart, you’re looking hot tonight."

There's nothing more Ryujin wants to do than set the girl straight - the girl can't not keep a chirp to herself, for once in her fucking life. Because this flimsy slip of a dress around her middle feels too tight, the air choked out of her lungs if she shifts her weight onto the wrong foot. The hem rides way too fucking high up her thighs. So, if anyone didn't want a good long look at her ass tonight, they better come up with a plan B if she has to so much as approach a staircase.

"Have I ever not," she bites.

Yuna snorts.

And luckily for Ryujin, Lia feels the same way:

"Yuna, would it kill you to find something productive to do with your time?"

Yuna opens her mouth like she has something to say (she usually does) before retreating further away, the edge of her hair disappearing around the doorway. Then Ryujin's grinning - eyes taking in how Lia glowers a bit back, silently judging the stupidity in Ryujin's expression and also, admiring how good the girl looks. "Not bad, though, really."

Lia tells her with an underhanded wave of the brush and a wink: "historically, you do always get laid on my birthday, remember?"

Ryujin jerks a little, and the scar above her eye throbs into Lia's thumb. "Thanks?"

The party is miserable, but it's not Lia's fault. It's not really Yeji's fault either. They tried, that's really all she can say for them - her and her permanent-plus-one whose face Ryujin wants to both claw at and kiss until it’s swollen-

What she really can't wrap her mind around, though, is the guy sitting right fucking beside her. The idiot.

"Really, I'm telling you," her date - who is about 3.5 out of five stars at best and not so much handsome or hot as he is 'okay in a pinch' - grins up at her with the smarmiest of smiles, "if you'd just have taken me up on dinner, I would've spent all our time talking about you. We’d figure out how to enjoy ourselves."

"Likely story."

This fuckwad has the absolute goddamn gall to look wounded when his arm starts circling its way around the space where her dress is suffocating her at the waist, and Ryujin starts to shimmy her way out of hot water - again. God, she thinks, god save me-

"I think," she manages with a stilted grin, "I'm going to make myself useful- drinks, no?"

When he leans forward to grab her hand, it's only so she doesn't leave.

"You're not going to ask for my order?" he presses. The only reason Ryujin hasn't knocked out a couple of his front teeth is because Lia would be the one hearing Yeji whine about cleaning up the fucking mess.

"Just scotch. Neat."

Ryujin's a natural when it comes to smiling fake; it's part of her goddamned job. "Of course," she says, like she's not absolutely loathing him.

"Try the oakier, single-barrel variety, alright," he explains, because what's hotter than a man who's an expert in alcohol and being an insufferable tool? Nothing of course. She hopes he knocks back a few too many and his liver explodes - the painless way out. If god would ever fucking allow it.

She barely manages a half-strangled laugh over the blare of the music before he finally releases her wrist.

The absolute fucking prick.

Here's something Ryujin never thought she'd come to appreciate:

Being alone.

It's just her and the breeze through the open doors of the rooftop garden, which is something every bit as refreshing as it is teeth-chatteringly cold. The wind picks up in gusts and billows, until it starts nipping up the fabric around her knees, like it's any one of the drunk, stumbling guests milling about and looking for a noncommittal lay.

Her left foot slips a step outwards, the uncomfortably tall heel bouncing on the edge of her toe and tapping a tune against the brick. Ryujin slouches on the railing that encapsulates the entire terrace, arms pressed over it, hands folded one-over the other - letting the night sky caress her bare shoulders with its wind-brushed kisses. This, is okay. It's better.

Maybe not ideal, but better.

And all it really took was a few fucking moments where she isn't smiling with pursed, stressed lips; where the pressure in her jaw finally settles out enough for the knot in the back of her teeth to fall loose and for her mouth to actually feel, y'know - good.

Not forced, is what. Not fake, or not real, or whatever-

Ryujin almost fishes her phone from her clutch. Almost. Almost texts to tell you that: this fucking night, like all the others in the past month or two or year, has left her feeling particularly done for, and yeah, no, it isn't helping that she'd take whatever would be the alternative if it meant a face like yours came in handy to lean against, or your shoulder or thigh to use. Like some pillow - that's all.

And you are, like. An option. But not, she sighs out, exactly the right one.

An errant chill shudders through her and down her spine.

"Shin Ryujin."

She'd recognize the tilt of that voice anywhere; even if her ears were pounding and her head filled with static and noise, she'd be able to place Yeji at the end of the world. The truth is easy to see, if only Yeji knew where to look: the corners of Ryujin's eyes screw up tight for a second, an immeasurably long time, in order to not do what they wanted. What it would mean.

She does anyway. "I'd hug you," Ryujin throws behind her with an airy sigh, "but I know where you've been."

Yeji's jaw has set at this point; a twist is still in her lip and she lets out this dry, half-laugh, half-not sound - which is the thing that drives Ryujin a little crazy. Yeji turns her attention from the concrete ground, to Ryujin's profile, her body leaning forward, toes tipping in: "sometimes I wonder if my partner in crime can breathe without saying something incendiary."

"Nope." Ryujin offers no further response or follow-up. Instead, the quiet gush of air makes itself the center of attention and a victim of silence.

"Sorry about-"

"Don't be. Don't give it a second thought." Ryujin stretches, leaning a little over the railing. Her fingers arch before her. Her words sounding the slightest bit cold, "can't win 'em all, right?"

Yeji's eyebrows pull together. "That's not how this was supposed-"

"God, Yeji." Ryujin smiles. Yeji hates that she never knows what that means. "I'm trying, really, I am, but you know - I really, I have tried my best, so can we just lay it to rest?"

Yeji leans over the railing - the fucking moon reflecting in these lustrous pools where her eyes go darker than night - and doesn't say anything for the longest moment. Ryujin chews her tongue, and tries to look as interested in the void of stars and night clouds as possible.

"Fuck's going on with you, lately?"

Ryujin just laughs back.

"Really," and the last word dips in a groan. It's almost childishly tragic how petulantly she insists, "talk to me."

But Ryujin has nothing else to say - no witty, scathing remarks. No deadpan observations or funny asides, not even a morose comment to throw back. There are times and moments and fucking periods of her day where she'd happily chew glass if it meant that Yeji would sit there a second longer, be beside her for a while and smile, just smile at only her, once - for once.

Her only response is the worst kind of lie, this soft: "really nothing."

The moment where it slips and hangs between them, when it lingers the longest -

She could reach out, a hand on her thigh, the small of her back, if she could only reach. And Yeji, she'd listen to her, for once. She'd really, genuinely hear what Ryujin says; like she can see it, plain as day, everything there's in Ryujin's eyes, the thoughts inside her head, written on her goddamn face and across the open night air in neon:

I love you. I'm in love with you, you're too close to me.

The seconds pass. They tick, they stretch and grow thin. Yeji looks at Ryujin expectantly, and Ryujin knows. It is something like being put on the spot and called in. Something like a long, pained whimper caught somewhere in her throat.

She is very much still, unmoving, and feeling nothing at all.

Maybe she can blame the alcohol, the dark, the series of events that saw her hiding away behind a bunch of decorative trees and fighting for breath where the wind blows a little cooler. She can pretend like the stars aren't absent above her, and it doesn't hurt a goddamn bit.

“Yeji, I-” She licks at her lip, ready, willing-

Ryujin grabs at her waist with a hand. Her knuckles white around the black of the railing. And with no further fanfare, she spits it out like venom, with no small measure of shame or guilt or worry for how Yeji will take it - or worse: how she herself would react in the wake of admitting it aloud -

“I love you,” Ryujin says, and it pops out of her mouth as neatly as it had the first thousand times practicing alone in her car.

A blink, and another. The look on Yeji's face is hard and blank, as if she'd understood every syllable, but didn't hear it at all - maybe. Her gaze drops, it trails a path along the long line of Ryujin's pale neck. Of the two ways it could ever go in her head, stuck on loop for as long as she can remember, Ryujin had never considered that Yeji might turn this still and vacant. A sudden feeling, a pull or a grip, starts in the lowest part of Ryujin's guts.

"And not-," she hears her own voice falter, "like-"

Then - it's on the back of Ryujin's head and in her hair, a hand curled at the base of her skull and pulling her head a little downward and her, until their foreheads meet. And before she has a chance to walk it back - to stuff it down where it came from and seal the bottle tight - before she can clench her eyes, shake her head, and spit out anything else like the fact that there was not much that had to change, between them -

Yeji just says plainly: "Yeah, hun. Love you too."

And it's shockingly, the most painful thing - that she just squeezes her hand and pats her back like it's all they could ever be. Without even the wherewithal to reject her properly; to tell her something like "don't ever say that again, god," or "oh shit- Ryujin. Sorry. So, no," or at least to spit back with a scathing laugh: "welcome to the fucking party," like what she always does.

"Yeah." Yeji clears her throat quietly and starts retreating back from the brink - with no apparent aim but to pull away as she draws herself away from the warmth of Ryujin's space, "uh, don't forget to say hello to some of the staffers before they go home, okay?"

Ryujin is left with nothing but the air that follows Yeji's outline; left with her heart sinking into the depths of the night; left trying to make sense of the bitter sting ripping her chest in two.

Left with her own hopelessness - the pining - when Yeji walks away.

To be lonely, to be alone; neither are the same.

And she hates knowing she is so incredibly both.

The worst part is she knows how it looks.

Her pace just on the verge of unsteady, the way her feet come up from the ground: Left foot, the right. The other. Back and back and forth again, faster and then slower and- fuck.

A damsel, severely distressed.

She sits down on the curb. She wants to cry, but even just the way she looks, carrying her heels and struggling with this fucking dress she wishes she'd never bothered with at all - oh, the tabloids would be sure every detail gets pinned under all the wrong lights. A breakdown would only serve to confirm all the right things; it would paint a story for anyone who cares enough to glean from her crestfallen posture and red cheeks that she is yes, a little broken, and that everyone wants to be loved and she's no different - and -

She sucks a breath. This time, when her tears fall, it's a quick, perfunctory action, no show in it.

Her palms rub her face - and she wipes, and wipes, and wipes - smearing at the foundation under her eyes before she takes a long drag of night air. Deep from her core, filling up her lungs until she can't hold anymore. Until it hurts and stings the backs of her ribs - it's enough for a single, fleeting moment. The street is mostly empty; an occasional car will speed by every now and then and it's those few and far between intervals that hurt most, that nearly shatter her: if she can barely do this, alone, how can she possibly be enough for anyone?

Ryujin’s smiling only to hold back her tears, and it fucking stings. She flicks hurriedly past the lock screen of her phone and swipes through the message stream with blurry eyes - there’s a whole host of people that want to know where the fuck she went, if she's safe, why she up and vanished the moment Yeji couldn't keep an eye on her. And well. The girl sighs.

Finds your name in her contacts and puts her thumb right beside it.

It rings exactly three times, and she hates the number. She hates how many things can be associated with that number in those seconds alone.

Four, the pause where you must have had the opportunity, but didn't decide to pick up - just leave it be. Then five - Ryujin is definitely no longer looking forward to any of this.

Six: it stops.

There's this crackle, and through the night -

"Just what brings you here, stranger?"

For an indistinct amount of time, Ryujin drifts in the whirlpool current of that question; it sinks her deeper, into the currents of your voice and the tone and what it's suggesting and demanding from her. All the things your voice is giving her permission to ask of and with and-

Until finally she answers back: "do you ever just, like, wish," a shallow pause for the hitch in her breath, "something, someone was a little more for you- or to- with you-"

The swell of a smile through the receiver; and you can't help your laugh, soft.

"Sometimes," is what you say, "that's just human, don't you think?"

She doesn't understand how something like love or life or desire should be a universal trait.

"Uh, maybe," she shrugs out, and thinks.

"It's pretty normal," you tell her.

Quiet, as if you were right in front of her.

"Look," you start, and you can hear how she sniffs her nose and swipes the pad of her hand right along the side of it, to catch anything stupid and stupid sounding leaking down to her upper lip. "You don't have to. Let's just hang out. Tell me anything."

And for once, she does.

She talks.

(The whole story.

From the first time Ryujin realizes the world is never going to be fair - that she shouldn't have to look at herself like she's unlovable because she's seen her friends be held as though they are - or at Yeji like she's completely unattainable or somehow, unlovable, and that someone as amazing as Yeji should have been loved from the moment she was born.

The rest comes through as fragments: the truth of her career. Yeji.

The balcony, the breeze, the bitter-fucking-disappointment.

And what came of that -

When Ryujin isn't a million and one words per minute, it feels, almost, it feels - she'd swear there was less noise in her own head: this thrumming in her brain has settled out; the walls around her and the echo coming off of them - the booming and pulsing - it's, gone.

Because even though there was an indistinct shape for where she had landed, in the aftermath, and nothing much had changed - all that did. You listen, and that alone makes it so you're both exactly where you’re supposed to be, even if this, tonight - you are unsure, if it will actually fix anything - if anything needs fixing at all.)

#ryujin smut #itzy smut #itzy ryujin smut #kpop smut #male reader #capslocked kinkvember

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carmecendants · 5 years

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Jaylos Interactions That Could've Been Added in D3

(I'm aware that I've been on another unplanned hiatus, I'm very sorry for not being able to update you guys on what's going on. The first thing I'm going to try to finish up is the "I Draw Your OC" thing I was doing last, I still have the final person whose charecter I have to post. If you sent me an ask or message, I'll try to also get to those as soon as possible! For the time being, please accept this post I had saved in my drafts for a while now.)

___

As Ben recites the reprise of "Did I Mention", Jay can be seen in the background, subtly grabbing Carlos' hand.

Keep that one deleted Jaylos scene where Jay and Carlos are sitting on the bench, Carlos teasing Jay about how much he's going to miss him. I mean, seriously, it's tragic that it was removed in the first place.

When Carlos calms down one of the Smee twins by offering him chocolate, Jay grins in reminiscent and how much the other boy has grown.

Have Carlos wearing Jay's beanie/tourney jersey. (But, even if it's a bit big on him and he appears adorably smol, no one really points it out because of how much of a regular occurence it is.)

Jay ruffles Carlos' locks and tells him how, while he's thrilled that he's becoming confident enough to experiment with his looks, he admits that he missed his boyfriend's soft curls and he's happy that they're back.

When Carlos and Jay are beating themselves up for not locking their bikes up, resulting in them being stolen from Harry Hook, Carlos attempts to lighten the mood by softly singing a few lines of Ben's "Did I Mention" reprise. (Which earns a flustered smile from Jay, of course.)

Either Gil or Harry make a subtle comment about how it's finally time that Jay and Carlos got together, they figured that they had something going on. (Gil would just be absent mindedly noting this as a compliment, while Harry would phrase it in a more taunting, yet lighthearted manner.)

As Carlos tries to calm down beast!Ben, Jay is holding his hand the entire time. (Or Harry/Gil is lightly holding back Jay, knowing that Carlos needs to focus and not worry about his protective boyfriend possibly charging between him and his cursed friend.)

Jay and Gil still plan their travel trips, but Carlos tells him that he better visit him often.

The talk about Cruella goes very differently at the end of the movie. Carlos has no interest in "reconnecting" with his mother and they talk more about just making sure she gets proper mental health treatment and that Carlos doesn't have a duty to see her if he chooses not to.

Feel free to add more!

#jaylos #disney descendants 3 #jay #carlos de vil

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ghostlywritten · 6 years

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Uncertainty IV.

Sorry, it took so long. I was actually done with the chapter and just editing when it got deleted from my drafts and I had to start again. I made it longer to make up for it. Enjoy!

I also realised that Jeff Atkins must have known about the Clubhouse since he was on the baseball team, so I’m questioning whether there is actually any decent human being in this world.

Words: 6k+

I II III

Warning: Language. Mentions of abuse, nothing graphic, just mentions.

“So, Bryce is testifying today?” you spoke up as you sat down at the kitchen table with Clay and Justin, the former having decided to drop by today for breakfast.

“Yep,” Justin simply replied, munching on his pancakes, “What about it?”

You and Clay exchanged a glance before you continued, “Well, you sure you wanna come? He’s probably going to sprout a bunch of lies and they might make you lose your temper-”

“Really? You are talking to me about temper?” Your ‘best friend’ raised his eyebrows, pointing at his phone, “After that voicemail you left?”

Clay chuckled, “Justin Folfuck. I remember that.”

You grinned, “Come on. That was a good one.”

Justin snorted. “It was bullshit.”

“It was possibly the best nickname ever for you,” Clay objected, making the other boy glare at him.

“I think we can come up with even better ones,” you mused as you placed your chin on your hands, “Justin Fuckley maybe?”

“Or Justin FolofFuck,” Clay suggested.

“Or Justin Fo-”

“Ok enough abusing my last name for today!” Justin cut you off and you all laughed a little, your hearts the slightest bit lighter than before.

“We gonna meet up with Jessica first to show her the polaroids,” Clay said after a minute of silence and the semi-peacefulness that had settled on your mind disappeared. Right, they still had stuff to do. “And then we’re going to talk to Chloe about them.”

You furrowed your eyebrows in thought, “I dunno. I don’t think she would feel quite comfortable if you approached her with this.” You picked this up, taking a deep breath upon looking at the picture. It had lain there on the kitchen table since you guys woke up, haunting you and making sure you never forgot how fucked up this school was.

“Why?”

“Because you are boys,” you said slowly, raising your eyebrows.

“Right. I don’t get it, but right,” Clay nodded with a look that clearly showed he didn’t.

“I mean, you tried convincing Jessica to testify before and how did that end?”

“...So you and Jessica will go to her?”

“Best be that way,” Justin said and you nodded in agreement. You weren’t sure how exactly to approach Chloe with this, but Jessica and you would have to find a way.

One hour later you were sat at Monet’s next to a horrified Jessica staring at the pictures as you failed to find the appetite to sip on your hot chocolate.

“If she doesn’t know this happened to her, she’s going to be destroyed,” Jessica whispered, choking up and you rubbed her back in an attempt to soothe her. She didn’t show any signs that it was working. “You can’t expect her to be alright with letting the whole world know about this. They need to take Bryce down without her.”

“I don’t think they can,” you said softly, “Bryce is just going to lie and there is no proof against him. Except for this...and you.”

Clay took out another picture of a girl sitting on the sofa of the infamous Clubhouse. “Nina is part of it, too.”

“Oh my god.”

“This is proof, Jessica. Proof, who Bryce is. Who they all are.” You winced slightly but tried to pretend you didn’t care about who else he was accusing in his implication. Justin’s hand grasping yours around your cup told you that you weren’t really successful. “It’s proof that you are not alone.”

“And that makes it easier?!” Jessica stood up, enraged. “Like we’re a fucking club?” She swiped up the pictures in her hand, leaving. “Jesus, you guys!”

“Wait! That might be evidence,” Clay protested, meekly.

“Well, it doesn’t belong to you,” Jessica said, glaring at you three and walking out. You sighed. ‘Now that went well,’ you thought, looking up the two in front you.

They were staring at you, expectantly. “Wh-what?”

“You said you would go talk to Chloe with Jessica,” Clay reminded you.

“Yeah, well. That plan is over, Jessica clearly doesn’t want to talk about it with her.”

“Then, convince her! You’re a girl!”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t raped,” you said, shutting them up. “I can’t talk to Chloe alone and I can’t try to persuade Jessica, either because I don’t know what they’re going through. I can only help when Jessica wants to.”

“Please, Y/N. Try to convince her somehow,” Clay almost begged and you wondered why he was so much more invested in this than anyone else, even Justin, whose ex-girlfriend got raped, “You know this is the only way to take down Bryce. If you don’t, this shit will continue at school even after we graduate and who knows how many other girls will get rape-”

“Alright. Alright,” you stopped his rant and stood up, taking your hand out of Justin’s grip. “I will try, okay?” They sighed in relief. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

“That’s okay. Meet you at the courthouse?” Justin suggested and you nodded, quickly running after Jessica.

“Jessica!” you knocked at the window of the passenger seat and she jumped in fright.

“Jesus, Y/N,” she said as soon as she rolled down the window.

“Sorry,” you smiled sheepishly, “I was...wondering if you could give me a ride to school. The guys want to go see the trial and I’m not really in the mood to see that fucker’s face.”

“Yeah, sure. Get in.” You thanked her quietly, opening the door and sitting down. She turned up the engine and BTS’ Blood, Sweat & Tears started blasting from her aux.

“No...freaking...way. You’re a Kpop fan?!” you exclaimed as Jessica turned it down, sheepishly.

“Yeah, it’s weird. I know.”

“What’s weird about it? I love Kpop!”

“You do? I thought I would never find someone who does,” Jessica laughed, turning the volume back up. The rest of the ride to school was spent yelling out the lyrics off-key, which you probably pronounced completely wrong but you didn’t give a shit.

“Wow, it’s so fun if someone else actually sings along with you,” Jessica breathed, still shaking slightly with laughter as she parked her car in front of the school.

“Right? I never managed to get Scott into this-” you cut yourself off, your smile dying.

“I’m sorry. I heard you guys broke up,” Jessica said, gently.

“Yeah. It just- I couldn’t handle it anymore with all the shit about Bryce.”

“I get that...but what exactly does your ex have to do with it? If I can ask?” Already the second person, who had asked you this. “I mean...did he ever...do what- Is that why you’re with Clay and-”

“God, no!” you immediately said. The amount of implications of rape was getting way too much around this school. “He never ever touched me against my will. That’s not it.”

“What if you don’t remember...” she almost whispered and you stared at her, wide-eyed. “What if he- or someone else of those bastards - drugged you. Like they did with the other girls.” You hadn’t noticed she was clutching the pictures of Nina and Chloe in her hand until she looked down at them, sheer pain contorting her expressions.

“I-I,” I never really thought about that. “As far as I know, nothing happened. No. As much as I detest Scott being friends with that dick, I don’t think he would ever do something- or let someone do this-,” you swallowed, thickly. Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath and bit your lip.

“No, the reason I’m with Clay and Justin all the time is that I think you should-”

“Go against Bryce in court?” she cut you off, chuckling bitterly. “You don’t get it. You don’t know how it feels to be up there, getting your words completely twisted and make you out to be your own villain. It- I...I don’t want to go through that again. They won’t believe me. A drunk slut,” she bit her lip, slumping against her seat, defeated. Silence, and then-

“...I believe you,” you said, softly. She wiped her tears away and you scrambled to get a tissue out for her. “And Clay believes you. And your parents believe you. And I think Alex too, though I don’t really know him. And Chloe will believe you...when she sees the pictures. Jessica,” you called out her name as she started shaking her head, “You need justice. You need to make him pay for what he did to you. I know it’s not my place to say anything because I can’t imagine how hard it is for you, but...if I were you, I wouldn’t want him to just walk the halls of this school without any consequences when he continues being a rapist.”

She sniffed, taking the tissue from you. “I...I’m sorry, I can’t. I- it just hurts too much, I-”

“...It’s okay,” you said, slightly disappointed but you couldn’t blame her, “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want-”

“We should talk to Chloe and Nina about this,” Jessica said, holding up the polaroids.

“Are you sure?” you asked, surprised. She nodded, drying her tears determinedly. “I’m not strong enough, but maybe they are.”

You took her hand, squeezing it slightly. “Let’s go.”

Approaching a girl with the devastating news wasn’t exactly your special field so you were glad that Jessica took the lead and talked to Chloe. At the beginning, you guys couldn’t find her during first and second period until you figured she would be at court for Bryce along with the rest of the jocks. Excluding Zach Dempsey, including Scott.

But you got a text from Justin during third, stating that Chloe had walked out of court, surprising you and Jessica. After that it was easy to find her in one of the lounges, skimming through a magazine.

As heartbroken as she was about the news she was willing to do something about it and Jessica was quick to tell Hannah Baker’s mother as Chloe called her own.

“This went...pretty well,” you commented as you guys parted from Chloe and walked down the hall slowly, “You did really good. I didn’t have to say anything, basically.” Jessica smiled, weakly. “I guess it’s easier to hear it from someone, who went through the same shit. Even if she didn’t believe me at first.”

You nodded in understanding before pointing at the cafeteria. “Should we grab something to eat before you talk to Nina with me sitting for silent, moral support?” You chuckled and Jessica looked at you uneasily, “Look. I know, Nina is very private about this. She would probably flip if she knew someone else knows about what happened to her-”

“You gonna go alone?”

“I think, it’s best if I talk to her alone, yeah.”

“Okay. Text me if you need help or something,” you said, quickly exchanging phone numbers before you went your separate ways. There wasn’t much of lunchtime left but you figured you would still try to get something when someone got in your way.

“Hey tutor, who got me an A in English,” Cyrus greeted you with a wide smirk, holding up the essay he had worked on with you.

“Cyrus, that’s amazing!” you gasped with a smile, high-fiving him. “Well done!”

“Nah, I won’t take all the credit. It happened because of your massive help.”

“I didn’t really do m-”

“Shut up and accept my gratitude,” he snapped, flicking your forehead.

“Oookay and ouch,” you mumbled, rubbing the sore spot and he grinned.

“Atta girl. Now, listen,” he said, clapping his hands as you looked through his essay. “If you need any help with anything, I’m your man.” You chuckled. “Like maybe beating a certain ex of yours, you know...” Your laughter died down quickly.

“So, you’ve heard,” you remarked, your smile turning sad.

“I don’t think there is anyone, who hasn’t heard,” he replied, shrugging.

“Yeah...no beating him up though, thank you,” you said sternly and he pouted slightly. “Maan, I was looking forward to having a valid reason to mess with some varsity jackets.”

You laughed, “Since when do you need a valid reason for that?”

“...Good point. But my boys and I are not enough in numbers to really beat the shit outta them.”

“I guess not...”

“But we are enough to beat the shit out of one of them...”

“I’ll repeat myself. No.beating.him.up.”

“Alright, alright,” he clapped your shoulder with seriousness, “Just know, my biceps are ready whenever.” You laughed and nodded, bidding him goodbye as the bell rang for the next period.

“Hey, you said you would meet us at court,” Justin’s voice rang through your ear as you held your phone up against your ear with your shoulder.

“Yeah, I planned to. But Jessica is taking ages talking to Nina and I have no ride since you guys have my car,” you explained whilst putting your books in your bag.

“Right, shit. I’ll pick you up,” Justin said and you could hear the engine starting in the background.

“Where are you guys now?”

“Still parked at the courthouse, it just finished for today.”

“Do I wanna know how it went?”

“Not really,” Justin mumbled, “Bryce was full of shit like we expected and the jury fed off of it.”

“Damn,” you cursed under your breath, “I need a drink.” Justin chuckled, “I think we all do.”

“Unfortunately my mom only possesses red wine at home and really nothing else.”

“That’s fine.”

“Is Clay coming, too?”

“Eh, no. I don’t think he’s really in the mood. Clay?”

“What did Chloe say?” Clay demanded to know abruptly in the background. He probably took the phone from Justin because next, you could hear him clearly, “Did you get through her?”

“Yeah. She’s going to meet with the Baker’s lawyer. I think she will testify,” you informed him, closing your locker.

“Good. Good,” Clay muttered, more to himself than to you.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. All good. I’ll give you Justin,” with that you were unceremoniously handed back to your ‘best friend’.

“See? Told you he’s not in the mood.”

“Fine. Take him home and then pick me up?”

“Yeah. See you in twenty-something.”

You ended the call and proceeded to walk down the hallway towards the exit when a voice called out to you. “Y/N!”

Turning around you saw Mr. Porter halfway out of the school’s office.

“Yes?”

“Do you have time for a little chat?” he asked and you grew nervous. Did you do something?

“E-ehm, sure. What is it?” you replied, shifting.

“Nothing bad. I just wanna check up on you.” Confused, you passed him and went into his little office, seating yourself in front of his desk. He placed himself across from you with the attempt of a welcoming smile. “How are you doing?”

You raised your eyebrows. “Fine?”

“That sounds more like a question than an answer.”

“I mean, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“I told you. I wished to check up on you.”

“Are you checking up on everyone in this school? I imagine you would be busy,” you remarked and he chuckled lightly.

“No. I do wish I could talk to every single one to the extent they deserve but I don’t have much time. So I’m singling out the ones I feel need my attention the most.”

“And...why do you think I need your attention? I’m fine,” you protested slightly, “There are others you should be paying attention to. With the trial and everything.”

“I am. You are not who I have flagged as the most worrisome. I have talked to the others, also Justin whom you’ve kindly sent to me the other day.” You smiled, pumping the air mentally in success.

“How did that go?”

“Now, I’m not allowed to talk about other students. And Y/N, this is about you,” he said, turning the topic back on you lightly. “Unless you want me to refer you to a female counselor if you’re uncomfortable talking to me.”

“Why would I be uncomfortable?”

He sighed quietly. “Y/N, I know about your relationship with one of the baseball team.” You sucked in a breath, getting a hunch on what this was about.

“I was...we broke up,” you said and he nodded.

“Can I ask about the reason?” You stared in utmost surprise at his blunt question. “Can you? Like are you even allowed to ask this?”

“Personal relationships between students are usually not my field, I admit that. But if I have the feeling that a certain relationship could be of some kind of danger for one of them, I need to be made aware of it.”

“...What exactly do you want to say?”

“Y/N, I...have failed once in providing the help a girl needed when she came to me.” You swallowed. He was talking about Hannah. “And I know I’ve lost the trust of all the students here, but...,” he paused, trying to compose himself as he cleared his throat. You could tell Hannah’s death was burdening him. “But I don’t wish to do the same mistake, again. And I know, the students won’t approach me so I have to approach them.” You stayed quiet.

“Now, Y/N. You’ve been in a relationship with someone, who is a close friend of a certain Bryce Walker.” You stared up at him, wide-eyed. “I’m assuming because of their relationship you were close to him as well. Or at least, often in his vicinity.”

“I- Yes.”

“Is there a possibility that you and Bryce have been...intimate against your will?”

“What?!”

“Or with anyone else of his friends. Or maybe your boyfri-”

“No. Nothing of that sort happened!” you quickly responded and he stopped, nodding slightly.

“And you are certain of this?”

“Yes!”

“Alright. Have you ever been in a situation where you could have been heavily intoxicated...or even drugged?” he continued to prod gently.

“What? Like a party?”

“For example.”

“Yes. But I- I never drank too much to pass out or anything. Scott made sure of that.”

“Scott. Scott Reed from the baseball team,” Mr. Porter noted, “Your boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“Right. And you trust him? Or trusted him?”

“Yes. I do trust him.” You failed to notice that you weren’t talking in the past tense. “He would never let something like this happen. Or do it himself.”

Mr. Porter looked at you, analysing your determined expression. “You seem pretty sure about this? Can I ask why?”

“Look,” you leaned forward, “Scott is not like the others. He just wants to play baseball and that’s it. It’s not...it’s not his fault he’s surrounded by dicks,” you said, slowly coming to the realisation as you spoke it out. It wasn’t his fault. He could have done something, but he was one against the rest of the jocks. And maybe Jeff Atkins. Who never did anything about it, either. You didn’t know what to feel anymore. Should you blame him for sitting back and watch girls get raped or should you not? Could you even ask of him to go against a whole team? You didn’t know.

“If you are sure about this,” Mr. Porter said, interrupting your thoughts, “Then I believe you. But if there’s ever anything that happened or happens to you, please - I’m pleading with you - come to me or a female counselor or any other authority you can trust. Don’t keep it in. Whoever you go to will hopefully not do the same mistake that I did,” he ended. You saw the sincerity glistening in his eyes or maybe they were glistening from unshed tears.

You gulped and nodded. “I will.”

“Okay,” he whispered.

“Okay,” you echoed as quietly before you gathered your things quickly and stood up. “Thanks, Mr. Porter. For reaching out.” He smiled slightly, nodding.

Walking out you barely noticed your feet heading towards the exit of the school as your thoughts ran through your mind in full speed. You took deep breaths to calm yourself as you pushed the double doors open, hoping Justin had already arrived so you could get your drink sooner than later.

As you surveyed the parking lot in search of your ‘best friend’ you noticed a black Range Rover rolling in with more jocks in it than the car could possibly fit. And they were hollering as if they had won a game. You looked on with a frown when the car halted not far away from you and the passenger door opened. Scott got out, clapping a few waiting hands as half-hearted high-fives.

“See you tomorrow, Scotty!” Bryce hollered. He was in an awfully good mood. You hated him.

“Yeah, bye,” Scott said, waving them off and taking out his car keys as he walked to his own machine. Which was parked across from you.

It was too late for you to pretend you hadn’t watched him because as soon as the Range Rover backed away he looked up and made eye contact. He halted in his tracks, almost dropping his keys. You bit your lip, which had turned too dry for your liking as you took in his features. He was still the same beautiful, tanned boy you knew as Scott Reed, yet his skin seemed almost gray and his striking bright eyes were dull as they scanned your face like you did his.

“Y/N,” he muttered, unsure of whether he should take a step closer or not.

“Scott.” You wished you could have sounded stronger but your voice was as weak as his. He briefly closed his eyes as if he was savouring the sound of his name coming from you.

“Are you...are you okay?” he asked, hesitatingly. He dared to step a little closer.

“I’m fine...you?” you asked back. He looked relieved when you didn’t move back and took it as a sign to try and get closer.

“I’m-I’m...my body’s healthy,” he said clumsily and you resisted the urge to smile when you raised your eyebrows. “Okay?”

“I mean, I’m functioning, but...” He looked down, gulping and the ghost of your smile vanished. “I miss you, Y/N,” he said, glancing at you longingly. Your eyes shifted from his, not being able to handle the strong emotions in them. “Y/N, I can’t- I...can we please get back together?”

“Scott, I-”

“Or at least let me see you. Let me talk to you,” he continued desperately and you suddenly realised how close he had gotten. You could feel the warmth emitting from him, smell his comforting scent. You also noticed he wasn’t wearing his varsity jacket like he did every day at school. “I can’t stand the silence. Yell at me, be mad at me, anything. But not this...emptiness,” his voice broke off at the end and you had to physically restrain yourself from wrapping your arms around his neck and never let him go. Was it really his fault?

“Y/N,” he softly grazed your cheek with his fingertips and you closed your eyes, relishing in his touch, “Please say something. Anything.”

You pulled my underwear down and used your body to trap me there. You gripped my wrists and pushed yourself inside of me. It felt like a knife cutting me open.

A car came to a screeching halt right in front of you. You snapped out of your trance-like state. “Y/N,” Justin called out, eyeing you two and especially glaring at the boy next to you. He looked ready to jump out of the car and beat him up. Scott tensed, glaring right back at him. “Come on. Get in,” your ‘best friend’ simply demanded and you could only nod.

“Y/N, baby.” Your steps towards your car faltered at his pained voice.

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

“Any news from Jessica about Chloe?” Clay asked as soon as you stepped out of the car with Justin the next day.

“Not yet,” you replied, closing the door and swinging your bag over shoulder, “They’re still in the meeting, I guess.” Clay nodded, breathing deeply.

“Good morning, by the way,” he said in the aftermath, remembering his manners. You chuckled and greeted him back before turning to the latino next to him.

“Hey Tony,” you greeted him lightly, knowing him from a few classes. He nodded with a smile.

“Ready for Math?” he asked to make a conversation.

“Oh hell no,” you groaned as you remembered it was your first class. Well, you guessed it was one of your least worries right now.

“It’s not that bad,” Clay threw in albeit absent-mindedly and you knew his head was filled with the trial and one Hannah Baker.

“Of course you would say that. You’re the best in that class,” Justin snorted as you guys stepped in.

“And we’re the worst,” you said, gesturing towards Justin and yourself. “My locker is the other way. I will see you guys in class?”

They nodded and went down the hallway as you took a left to go to your locker. And you wished you hadn’t. Before you even reached your first period you got hit with the news of the fight that had broken out.

“What the hell is wrong with them?” you whisper-shouted to Sheri, who told you. She shrugged with a sigh. “Apparently Justin saw Bryce and flipped his shit.”

“I knew he would lose his temper.” You pinched the bridge of your nose when your phone dinged at the same time Sheri’s did. You took out your device, noticing an update on the trial’s blog.

“Oh my god,” Sheri whispered just as you read it, “Chloe is testifying against Bryce Walker?”

“Yeah, Jessica managed to convince her,” you said more to yourself than her, feeling the slightest spark of hope ignite inside you, “This could be a huge benefit for the Baker’s.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“You know where the boys are now?” you asked her, pocketing your phone. “We should go be at the trial.”

“I think they are in detention with Coach Patricks,” she responded and you left to get them. Though their detention might stand in the way of getting to court in time.

On your way to the class, you got a message from Jessica asking when you would come to court and you texted her back quickly. Pacing in front of the door, you wondered whether Coach was asleep already or not. You didn’t have to make a decision as the secretary of the school came waltzing down the now empty hallways with some guy. She gave you a look. “I believe you have classes now,” she stated and you nodded, pretending to walk away before you took a u-turn as soon as they walked into the class.

“Mr. Walker, please come with us,” you heard her say.

Risking a peek inside you saw more guys than you had expected to be involved in the fight, even Cyrus and his men. You chuckled quietly to yourself, ‘Finally got to beat up some varsity jackets.’ Your mirth died down soon though when you noticed your ex-boyfriend in the middle of the crowd already looking straight at you. His clothes looked disheveled and he had yet again left his varsity jacket behind, leaving him only in a white, tight-fitting shirt. His eyes looked empty.

To your relief, he didn’t seem hurt at all so you quickly stopped scanning his features and glanced at Clay and Justin instead. They gave you a questioning look and you waved your phone at them, indicating them to check their own. Clay frowned, pointing at Coach. You noticed they had to hand off their devices when Bryce picked off his own.

He walked towards the door, which is exactly where you were and you narrowed your eyes at him as he assessed you with a calculating look.

“Mr. L/N, off to class,” the secretary ordered again and you nodded at her absently before you turned back to Clay.

“Chloe is testifying,” you tried to whisper as you could and his eyes widened along with a few others, who had heard in the silent room.

You sat in the courtroom with Justin and the others next to you. Chloe was up on the stand, fidgeting nervously as she was sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. She was looking at Jessica for reassurance, who smiled at her albeit falsely. You couldn’t blame her; not having the polaroid box anymore was a huge loss and you had no further proof except the ones with Chloe and Nina.

“Wonder how Bryce feels with his own girlfriend testifying against him,” Justin mumbled, looking past you towards the other aisle. You glanced that way too, immediately spotting Scott in the crowd of jocks, the only one staring blankly ahead between them. You noticed he had shown very little emotion here and in school lately.

“Hopefully feels like karma biting his ass,” you mumbled back, “What’s his deal with the glasses anyway?”

“He had them on yesterday too at his turn,” Justin replied, “Alex says it’s a trick to make him look more empathetic.”

“Try more ugly,” you scoffed and you both chuckled until Clay shot you glare, causing you to quiet down.

“It’s in the woods,” Chloe informed, “behind the fields. It’s this secret place that you have to be invited to...unless you are on the baseball team.” You looked at Scott with a pained expression. So he knew ever since he started playing years ago.

“And who invited you?” Dennis interrogated with Chloe answering accordingly, “Bryce.” She described what happened in the Clubhouse and what they were doing when she was asked about the photos.

“So you don’t remember having sex with Bryce Walker?” the lawyer asked straight on. This was the key part. The part to take down Bryce and the school. You held your breath in anticipation as you were sure everyone else did when...

“No, I do.”

...

What?

“I remember.”

You shot a look at Justin, who looked as confused before turning to Bryce. He was fucking smirking. Leaning back against the seat, your shoulders slumped in defeat. Chloe lied. And the polaroids were gone. You practically lost.

“Jessica said yes to me testifying,” Justin informed you as soon as you pulled up at Monet’s to pick him up.

“Really? How did you manage that?” you gasped in surprise and he shrugged, buckling himself. “I can be super persuasive, what can I say?”

You raised an eyebrow at him before laughing, “Don’t get cocky now. Though this is great!”

“Right? We might still win...against Bryce,” he said slowly, listening to something on his phone as you pulled out.

“What is it?”

“It’s...Clay. He’s asking me to meet him at the bottom of Vaughan’s Hill. With his car.”

You frowned. “Why there? Isn’t that where Bryce lives around?”

“Yeah. What the fuck is he doing?”

“Let’s find out.” You made a turn to the right, changing directions.

“Wait, he was asking for his own car.”

“Well, he’s getting mine. It’s better than his Prius anyway,” you chuckled, Justin joining you. Upon arriving at Vaughan’s Hill you spotted Clay just right outside, seemingly having a breakdown.

“What the fuck?” Justin mumbled and you stopped the car right in front of Bryce’s porch, making yourself known to Clay.

“Clay, what are you doing?” Justin asked as soon as he got out with you tagging along. Before you could say anything yourself, you were suddenly grabbed by your ‘best friend’ and pulled behind him when he yelled out, “Where the hell did you get that?”

“Get out of my way, Justin,” Clay said, looking like he was losing his mind and your heart stopped when you noticed the gun in his hand.

“Clay,” you gasped out but he didn’t seem to have heard you, instead he tried to get closer to Bryce’s house, not looking at any of you.

“Come on, Clay, this is fucking crazy,” Justin tried to stop him, making sure to keep you behind his back at the same time.

“No one’s going to get justice for her. Move!” Clay yelled. Your hand clutched at Justin’s shirt when he suddenly pointed the gun at him.

“Clay, stop it!” you yelled out, stepping out from behind Justin to block his way as well. You couldn’t let him ruin his life nor could you let him shoot your best friend.

“I can’t count on anyone else anymore. I have to do this myself,” Clay tried to explain, struggling with something in his mind.

“You don’t have to. Jessica wants me to testify,” Justin said, trying to appease him, “We can get him tomorrow.”

“I have to do this now...for Hannah.”

“Clay, I know you loved her, but she’s gone. And taking out Bryce won’t bring her back.”

“How do I make her stop? She won’t stop,” Clay said desperately, not looking at Justin or even at you but some spot beside you. The same spot he had been glancing at continuously when he wasn’t talking to you.

“Stop who?”

“He’s seeing her,” you breathed out and Justin looked at you confused, “He’s seeing Hannah.”

“What are you talking about?” Justin said, trying to pull you back behind him but you resisted, going to the spot where you noticed Clay staring. You tried to catch his eye but it was like he was looking right through you, suddenly pointing the gun at himself.

“Clay, don’t do this,” you pleaded, slowly walking closer to him. Your heart raced and your palms started sweating when you saw his finger on the trigger. You didn’t know what you would do if he pulled it. “Give me the gun,” you said with an unsteady voice.

“She won’t stop,” Clay whispered again and again like a mantra when you heard a door opening behind you.

“What the fuck?” Bryce’s voice reached your ears.

You silently drove your car through the streets, your unsteady breathing the only noise in the little space. Stopping in front of Clay’s house, you mulled over what to say to the two quiet boys, who were with you. Quite frankly you were happy they were both alive. And that you didn’t have to see someone die right in front you even if it was someone like Bryce Walker.

“Well, here we are,” you mumbled numbly. Justin nodded, glancing at the boy in the backseat.

“You really gonna testify tomorrow?” CLay suddenly asked, turning his stare from his hands to your best friend. Justin nodded again silently. Clay looked back down, wetting his lips before he suddenly got out, not being able to handle the tension in the car anymore.

You breathed out as quietly as you could but Justin still noticed. He placed a hand on yours, making you look at him. “You okay?”

“I guess. You?”

“I guess,” he repeated and you were almost too tried to roll your eyes at him. Almost. He laughed a bit and you squeezed his hand. He looked down at your joined hands, intertwining them. “We do get through a lot of shit, don’t we?” he mumbled. You thought about the times he came over when Seth was being a dick or the time he was there for you when your dad was killed by some mobster that was never found.

“Yeah, we do,” you muttered back before taking your hand out from his to pull your car out, “Let’s get home.”

“You know, maybe I should stay with Clay,” Justin suggested, looking at the house his friend had disappeared in, “He’s freaking unstable right now. I should...watch over him or something.”

“You’re right,” you agreed, stopping the car. You resisted the urge to tell him that you needed someone too right now. “Take care of him.” He nodded, getting out.

“Justin,” you called him back and he turned to you, questioningly, “Where is the gun?” He looked down at his pants before back at you and you threw him a disgusted look. “I have to hide it somewhere, don’t I? Can’t waltz in there with a gun in hand.”

“Yeah, maybe you should leave it here. I could put it along with my mom’s collection,” you suggested, “No one will question it.” He nodded, pulling the gun out from his pants and handing it to you. You pulled a face and motioned towards the glove locker, “Put it there. I ain’t touching it.” He laughed before following suit.

Waving a last goodbye you drove out of sight, the tears immediately flowing out. Could you blame yourself? Tonight was too intense and you didn’t think you could handle any more of this. At this time, you needed Scott more than ever. You wiped your tears away to get rid of your blurred sight. ‘Tomorrow is the last day of court,’ you thought to yourself, ‘And then it will be over.’ Hopefully.

Pulling up at your driveway, you shut down your car. The light of the porch immediately went on by your movement and you noticed a figure sitting on the stairs that led up to your house, sitting there as if he knew you needed him. Your breath got caught in your throat as his features got illuminated by the light, making him look out of this world. At that moment, you wanted nothing more than to jump out of the car and run into his arms and you could almost picture yourself doing it. But society was standing in your way like tall, unmoving brick wall.

So instead you got out of your car slowly, aware of his gaze following your every movement as he sat there with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped tightly together.

“What are you doing here?” you asked tiredly, taking out your keys as you walked up to him.

“I came to see you,” he said softly and you briefly closed your eyes to savour the feeling of hearing his voice.

You pulled yourself together quickly, looking him dead in the eye. “Well, you saw me. Now, leave.”

“You’ve been crying,” he suddenly said, standing up as his forehead creased in worry, “What happened?”

“N-Nothing.” You hated how your voice wavered, “Nothing happened.”

“Bullshit. Did someone do something to you?” he asked, taking a step forward.

“No. I’m just sick of humans, of rapists, of this school, of everything,” you almost shouted and his eyes softened, “And there is nothing you can do about it.”

“Baby-”

“Don’t call me that,” you interrupted him, slapping his hands away that tried to reach for you, “We are not together anymore, why don’t you get it?” His lower lip quivered as he tried to come up with a sentence, but you brushed past him, walking up the stairs to your house, “Now, please leave me alone.”

It was quiet as you tried to get your key into the lock with your shaking hands until-

“Do you want me to testify?” You stopped dead in your tracks. Turning to look at him, shocked.

“What?”

“Do you want me to testify?” he repeated, his green eyes staring straight into yours. “For the Bakers.”

Help me Get Coffee Support?

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peter-parkouuuur · 6 years

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Chapter 1: Only Angel (Girl Crush - Harry Styles Fanfiction)

Accidentally deleted Chapter 1 so here it is! Thank you for the notes Xx

If you happen to stumble upon this fanfic, kindly read the prologue first, just so you’ll get the gist of it all.

ILY!

PROLOGUE

Marty opens the car door for Y/n the moment they stop in front of Founding Farmers, the usual brunch place Y’n and her friends. Not wanting to show everyone how hungover she is, covers her eyes with sunglasses before stepping into the building.

“There’s our little miss Drunky-drunk-drunk.” Mia greets Y/n as soon she arrives at their table.

“Ha ha. If you must know, I sobered up the moment I arrived home.” She clarifies sitting next to Andy.

“I mean if my parents were lawyers and one of them happened to be the President of the United States, I’d rather stay sober for life just so they wouldn’t be able to see right through me,” Andy states.

“Welcome to my life.” Y/n sighs.

“So how was your morning?” Andy starts.

“It was fine… My dad talked my mom out of screaming at me. Plus, he had guests over, so there’s that.” Y/n just shrugs her shoulders before eating a piece of the remaining scrambled egg on her plate.

“Well, that’s good. Did you tell them that we were watching a concert tonight?” Mia asks.

“What? We’re going to watch Harry again?” Y/n questions.

“Uhhh yeah?! He gave us tickets plus backstages passes last night… Don’t you remember? Heck, you were even flirting with him a little bit right before you puked.” Mia smiles pitifully at her.

“I don’t remember half of last night. Oh my god did I puke in front of him?” Y/n panics.

“Well he told us you felt like you had to vomit, so he kind of helped you with that one.” Mia replies.

“Funny, I can’t even remember it happening.” Y/n scrunches her eyebrows.

“That’s because the guy couldn’t keep his hands off you. He was like a magnet. You are the luckiest girl in the world, you know that?” Mia sighs.

“Please! He’ll forget about me the moment he leaves DC. Plus, he’s not my type.” Y/n rolls her eyes.

“Okaaaay.” Andy mimics.

Y/n tries to recall the events of last night, not remembering the exact details.

Last night….

The three girls all look at Harry in shock, not actually sure if they’re seeing the same person.

“Are you going to pay for that?” Y/n asks him.

Andy pinches Y/n by the arm, Y/n yelping in the process.

“Sorry about her. Hi um…. We just watched your show a couple of hours ago actually…. You were really good.” Andy apologies for her friend’s frankness.

“It’s alright… and thank you! It was a small show, I actually prefer smaller shows, to be honest, it’s more intimate.” Harry looks at Y/n with a slight smirk on his face.

“Your cover of Little Big Town’s song was so good by the way.” Mia compliments, almost as if completely forgetting her breakdown a while ago.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your names. You are?” Harry reaches his hand out to Mia.

“I’m Mia.” She giggles as soon as they shake hands.

“Hi, I’m Andy.” Andy acting all casual over their handshake.

Y/n could literally roll her eyes right in front of them right now and it wouldn’t make a difference, these girls were obsessed with Harry Styles and the rest of One Direction.

“And you are?” Harry reaches his hand out to Y/n who just looks at him with no expression on her face whatsoever.

“I’m Y/n.” She takes her hand in his as their handshake lingered longer than that with her friends’.

“Are you here with someone?” Andy interrupts their short lingering moment. Y/n taking her hand away from his.

“I am. My band and my mates are on the other side of the room.” Harry replies.

“If you guys were on the other side of this place, how’d you end up here?” Y/n asks.

“Well, a little birdie told me that the President’s daughter was here,” Harry smirks at her.

“Looks like you already know who I am, I don’t see why you needed me to introduce myself to you.” Y/n retorts.

“I know, but I figured I had to find a way to get you to hold my hand.” Harry takes the bottle from the table and pours vodka on the empty shot glasses.

Andy and Mia give each other the knowing look. Looks like everyone is immune to the American Sweetheart label that comes along with Y/n and her family.

“That was pretty straightforward of you… Do you do this with every girl you see?” Y/n questions.

“Hardly. It’s not every day that you bump into a daughter of a world leader. Plus…” Harry moves closer to Y/n’s ear.

“I think your friends have a thing for me.” He whispers.

Y/n looks at her friends whose eyes are as wide as saucers. She just giggles at the sight of them and looks directly at Harry whose face is centimeters away from hers.

“They do.” She affirms his statement.

“And what about you?” He smiles at her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Y/n replies.

A grin forms on Harry’s face.

“Well, it’s going to be a long night for us then.” Harry hands shots to both Andy and Mia as the two happily oblige.

Harry offers her a glass with a hopeful smile on his face, showing off his irresistible dimples.

“I won’t take no for an answer.” Harry takes Y/n hand and puts the tiny shot glass in her hand.

“Cheers!” Harry exclaims, clinking bottles with Andy and Mia.

Y/n doesn’t even give him enough time to clink with her and takes the shot in less than a second.

“But seriously, are you going to pay for the drink we bought?” Y/n asks.

“How about I give you guys something better.” Harry reaches for the tickets inside his coat pocket.

“No way!” Mia squeals.

Andy happily takes the two tickets for her and Mia.

“Do you just carry tickets around and give it to random fans or something?” Y/n laughs.

“Only this one time.” Harry winks at her.

“I’ll take that as a yes from them.” Harry laughs, Harry, offering her the last ticket from his hand.

Y/n reluctantly takes the ticket from him.

“Thank you.” Y/n smiles at him.

“These have backstage passes written on them! We’re going to meet you again tomorrow?!” Mia gasps.

“Well yeah…. It’s the only way I could see your friend again.” Harry puts an arm around Y/n’s shoulder.

“Y/n, I know you said we were going to watch a movie at your house tomorrow, but this sounds way better. We have to go.” Andy squeals.

“Wow, you really are making your way into our friendship group, you know that?” Y/n giggles, looking at her friends’ excitement for tomorrow’s concert.

“If it means I get to talk to you more often, yes. I am going to carve myself a spot.” Harry retorts.

Y/n just shakes her head and removes Harry’s arm around her.

“I’m gonna need a few more drinks.” She pours vodka on the shot glasses.

“That’s the spirit!” Harry cheers.

The whole night was going extremely well for the three girls and Harry who invited his band and friends to join them as they form one big table and drink their hearts out. Y/n finishes her 15th round of shot, her eyes blurring by the second as if she could pass out.

“You okay there?” Harry catches Y/n by the arm.

“I’m fine.” Y/n tries to push him away.

“Sit down, I’ll get you some water.” Harry leads her to the nearest chair.

“I don’t need water. I just need 1 more drink.” She groans.

“I think you’ve had enough.” Harry laughs.

“I don’t think I have.” She bops her finger on the tip of Harry’s nose.

Y/n tries to sit up but accidentally loses balance, grabbing onto Harry’s shoulders.

“Falling for me already?” Harry smirks at her.

“Whoaaa….” Everyone in their table stops talking and looks at the two obviously hearing Harry’s flirty little comment.

Alex and Mitch begin to slow clap with Clare and Sarah following suit. Andy and Mia just laugh at their banter.

“That was a good one, Styles.” Mitch pats Harry by the shoulder.

They all go back to normal but Y/n was still feeling a bit uneasy

“You wish.” Y/n let goes off him and stands right back up again.

“I’m just saying, I’m always here to catch you, you know?” Harry flirtatiously states.

“I’m not really one to fall for every musician who flirts with me.” Y/n retorts.

“Are you saying there are other guys?” Harry jokingly gasps.

“Hah. I wish.” Y/n scoffs, only to realize how pathetic she sounded.

Harry just smiles down at her awkwardness. He hands her the glass of water which she obliges to drink.

“God, that sounded pathetic didn’t it?” She grumbles.

“I think it was cute.” Harry ruffles her hair.

“Hey now, I’m not a puppy, don’t go touching my hair like that.” She complains.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He giggles, putting an arm around her shoulder.

Y/n feels herself getting dizzier by the second. She leans her head against Harry’s chest.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.” She warns Harry.

Harry signals Andy and Mia.

“I’m gonna bring her to the girls’ toilet. She’s feeling a bit lightheaded.” Harry tells them as the two just nod their heads and go back to their conversation with Clare and Sarah, Harry’s keyboardist and drummer.

“Come on.” Harry holds Y/n by the shoulders, leading her to the comfort room.

“Can we get McDonald’s fries after this?” Y/n asks Harry.

“Of course we can.” Harry just chuckles before opening the door of the girls’ comfort room.

Present time…..

“I totally forgot about the whole flirting thing. God, I sounded ridiculous.” Y/n grumbles.

“Oh please. If I were you, I would’ve been all over him. The way he did those advances at you, it’s like it was his first time to meet an American girl… and he dated the whitest girl on earth, Kendall Jenner.” Andy retorts.

Y/n makes a disgusted face.

Of course, Harry only dated models. He looked like a model, himself. She didn’t feel like there was anything special with her apart from the title she’s been carrying for three years.

“If it’s any consolation, I think they broke up.” Andy winks at Y/n.

“You have got to stop turning us into your OTP or something, I’m not into him.” Y/n replies.

“Lies. He’s exactly your type!” Mia protests.

“And how would you know what my type is?” Y/n asks.

“Uh… Don’t you remember your first boyfriend, Wesley? Curly hair, brown eyes, had a dimple on the left side of his cheek? Captain of the school soccer team?” Andy states.

“Wesley and I dated for like what? A year? You only named 1.” Y/n clarifies.

“Christopher from Model UN doesn’t ring a bell? Also had brunette curly hair, blue eyes, and a jaw that could cut diamonds…. Shall we go on?” Mia smirks at her.

“Well this one is different, he’s not my type.” Y/n shrugs her shoulders before taking a bite of the remaining bacon on her plate.

“Right…” Andy sighs, looking at Mia knowingly.

“I mean….. He didn’t do anything right? Or at least, we didn’t do anything stupid?” Y/n inquires.

“Not that I can remember… Andy and I were talking to Clare and Sarah the whole night. You and Harry had your own world the moment he invited his friends to join our table.” Mia replies.

“We’ll see what he has to say later.” Andy winks at Y/n.

10 minutes before the concert…

“This is so exciting! This is the first time I got a meet and greet pass.” Mia squeals.

The three friends are joined by 4 members Secret Service as requested by Y/n parents. Everyone was looking at them, probably recognizing Y/n and her guards. There were girls screaming Y/n name, causing other people to look and gasp.

“Ms. Y/n, we were told by the organizers to let you pass through the back entrance,” Marty informs them.

Y/n and her friends didn’t argue and followed suit.

“Marty, who contacted you?” Y/n asks her bodyguard.

“Mr. Styles’ manager… I was given strict orders to coordinate with their people for your safety, as per request of your parents and Mr. Styles himself.” Marty answers.

“God, I should really drag you to more gigs just so I could avoid the long lines.” Andy jokes.

“Same here! Can you at least visit me in Chicago for the weekend, like when school starts?” Mia asks Y/n.

“If I could, I’d visit the both of you every weekend, California on Saturday and Chicago on Sunday…. But we all know I don’t make the rules.” Y/n shrugs her shoulders.

The guards point to the door and tell the three girls to go inside.

“Are we gonna be standing with the rest of the crowd or do we get to sit further?” Y/n asks Harry’s guard.

“For your safety, you’ll have a separate area beside the stage. The crowd can get a bit wild in the middle of the concert, throwing water and bras at Harry.” He replies.

“How lovely.” Y/n retorts.

“Well, I for one want to throw water at him.” Andy laughs.

They pass through the backstage where Harry’s band is preparing.

“Hey, Sarah!” Mia greets the drummer.

“Oh hey, guys! Good to see you again. Y/n, good to see you walking with your two legs.” Sarah giggles, giving the three of you a hug.

“Yeah….. Wasn’t my finest moment.” Y/n sighs.

“Who knew America’s Sweetheart couldn’t take her vodka shots?” Sarah retorts.

“In my defense, we had a pre-game before the gig and I drank like 15 shots.” Y/n raises her arms in defeat.

“Or maybe, you just wanted Mr. Styles to catch you when you fall.” Sarah jokes.

“Definitely.” Mia and Andy agree.

“Please stop.” Y/n grumbles.

“We need to go out now, Ms. Y/n. The show’s about to start.” Marty reminds them.

“Oh yeah! See you out there, Sarah! Break a leg!” The three of them hug the drummer before heading to the side of the stage.

Marty leads the girls out, some of the fans see Y/n and her friends and begins shouting her name. She waves at them shyly, not wanting to draw attention to herself in someone else’s event.

The arena went pitch black and soon enough Harry begins to sing Only Angel.

Open up your eyes, shut your mouth and see

That I'm still the only one who's been in love with me!

Harry begins to walk around the stage, sashaying his hips while singing the song.

She's an angel

Only angel

She's an angel

My only angel

He then walks to the left side of the stage and waves at the fans (in a cool way). He makes his way to the right side and notices the three girls. He smirks while singing along, casually hinting a bit of flirtatious smile at Y/n.

I must admit I thought I'd like to make you mine

As I went about my business through the warning signs

He points at Y/n the moment he sang the second verse, getting loud screams from the fans who noticed the subtle move done by Harry. He adjusts the collar of his Gucci button downs and points at the love bite present on his neck, while still casually singing the song, then walks away with a cheeky grin written on his face.

“Did you give him that hickey?!” Mia exasperates.

Y/n pauses for a second, trying piece her memories from last night, before gasping loudly.

“I think I did?” Y/n mutters, completely speechless.

CHAPTER 2, CHAPTER 3

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kriskebob-blog · 6 years

Text

Day 1, Part 1: Me vs. the grocery store

Hi again. It was really nice to hear from some of my friends and family in response to my post last night! I’m really excited to know that some people are down to read my long-ass posts about plants. I’ve also had several people offer me cookbook suggestions or even offer to have me plunder their own stash. Thanks for being my enablers, guys! (No seriously, thank you, I love you all sm.) Also, I can now reveal that my grandma texted me this morning to confirm she did indeed read my first post to its end. She’s the best!!!! This blog is rapidly evolving into a dual-purpose food/my grandma fan page and I can’t be sorry for it.

So it’s Friday afternoon as I write this but the day I’ll be writing about is actually Wednesday. Can you tell it took me a little while to get going with the actual blogging part of this project? Anywho, I woke up Wednesday and after taking some time to wake up with a coffee, I flipped open my shiny new How Not to Die cookbook to the pages with the 2-week meal plan. I scanned the lists of recipes, already nervous. There were so many listed for every single day. I’m used to preparing dinner each night and eating leftovers for my lunches. For years my tried-and-true breakfast almost every single day has been two hard-boiled eggs and a piece of toast. So I’m really only used to having to prepare a fully involved meal once a day. You wanted to do this, I reminded myself. You have the summer off. You have the time! Trying to calm my nerves, I opened up the notes app on my laptop and began typing the names of the suggested recipes. There are no page numbers referenced on the meal plan pages, which would have made things a lot easier, just sayin’, Dr. Greger! I found the recipes and opened the grocery list Google Doc I’ve shared with my husband since we moved in together. I started typing up a shopping list.

This was more than 48 hours ago at this point, but luckily I did stop to write down some initial thoughts. I shall share them with you now, verbatim:

How the f@#! am I going to buy everything we need for all this? How will it fit in my fridge? Will I spend literally all day prepping all of this? Am I even going to be able to find everything I need for these recipes?

...

16 recipes compared to my normal 4, MAYBE 5. Eating this way is obviously the vanity project of the wealthy wtf

...

It’s only two weeks. I can spend 2374623645 dollars on food for just half a month right? right?? It’s normal to spend money on hobbies? Gah

...

What the hell is date sugar?

...

I am definitely using vanilla extract instead of buying a giant vanilla bean Fresh turmeric? Where would even sell that? Ground sounds just fine to me

I noted that I began this process at 8:55. At 9:21 I wrote:

I give up… because I can already tell I’m going to be buying WAY too much produce to fit into my crisper drawer. The original plan had been to stock up enough stuff to carry me through until Monday but I can see now that’s just not going to be realistic at all. I’ll stock up on enough stuff to get me through to Friday night. I don’t want to grocery shop on the weekend if I can help it. I’ll just go again on Friday. Then I’ll probably have to go again on Monday, maybe Tuesday if I’m lucky. That’ll be three grocery store stock-ups in one week. I wanted a hobby, didn’t I?? Time to go back and redo my list to only reflect recipes for the next three days then.

I put a break in my recipes list. Alright. That brings me from 16 recipes to 8. Feels much more manageable. I look at the huge list of ingredients I amassed on my Google doc and decide it’d be easier to just delete it and restart from scratch than go through and try to remember what I now do and don’t need. 9:30.

9:45 - done. Still a LONG list. This is only for 2 days plus a dinner. But to be fair I did include stuff for a couple of desserts.

I’m a tad concerned by how none of these recipes call for ANY salt.

I was more than a tad concerned, actually. But I had my mission lined out. It was time to head to Big Y.

Of the common local grocery store chains in Connecticut, Big Y is probably the nicest one. My husband and I used to frequent Stop & Shop but we stopped because the produce kind of sucked and anyhow the set-up of Big Y is a lot more appealing. I drove on over to the Ellington Big Y, hopeful that I’d be able to find the majority of the items I needed, but also aware that I’d probably end up at Whole Foods later that day.

I’d been so focused on getting together my massive shopping list and hustling out to the store that I hadn’t attended to my basic personal needs with as much care as usual. I realized two things almost immediately as I crossed the parking lot: I kinda had to pee, and I was also sort of thirsty/hungry. Should I get a lemonade or something from the cafe? I wondered briefly then decided against it. I’d be fine til I got home, surely.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the produce section. I bagged up two heads of lettuce and an even bigger head of red kale. I bought the biggest container of baby spinach they had and then also the biggest bag of regular spinach. Cilantro and parsley. Scallions. And that was just from the greens section! I was already tired by the time I got to the natural foods section, and I had only shopped for stuff whose location I already knew.

I spent some time figuring out which seeds/nuts I needed that Big Y sold by the weight. It’s a really convenient and cool system, except the stupid sticker-printing machine is sort of finicky. I must have spent a solid ten minutes before I had the correct amount of almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, etc. Okay. Now I needed to look for some stuff that I genuinely had no idea where exactly it might be. I knew they likely were somewhere in this natural foods section, I just didn’t know where. Stuff like hemp hearts and nutritional yeast (sounded gross but it was called for in quite a few recipes). I found them eventually. Cool. Now I needed canned tomatoes and beans, but Dr. Gregor really wanted me to be sure I bought cans without a BPA liner. Seriously? Was that really going to be the thing that would make or break if I lived to see 100? But I didn’t want to half-ass the Dr. Gregor lifestyle. It was only for two weeks, after all. After way too much time studying the shelves of tomatoes and beans, I ended up with two cans of diced tomato that cost twice as much as the brand I normally purchased... and the same exact generic brand of beans I normally went for, because none of the beans at Big Y seemed to be BPA free. Whatever. I was hungrier and grumpier by the minute. I wanted to stuff something into my mouth full of sugar and gluten and whatever other chemicals were out to kill me, stat. Almost done. Just had to find frozen okra (vegan gumbo, y’all! Stay tuned), and also miso. I wasn’t too worried about the miso. Big Y has a decent Asian foods aisle... one that I paced up and down at least four times before accepting that they didn’t seem to have miso. They also didn’t have date sugar, a key ingredient to a no-bake brownies recipe I wanted to try. I have a major sweet tooth (can you tell?) and the idea of two weeks without chocolate bars or ice cream was something I refused to entertain without some sort of chocolate dessert option. Okay. No miso, no date sugar. I also hadn’t been able to find “whole wheat tortillas - no salt added” anywhere in the store. So, I’d be going to Whole Foods. I had figured as much.

I checked out with a whopper of a bill and tried not to die too much inside at the fact that this was only two and a half day’s worth of groceries. After all, I had needed to stock up on several crunchy hippie type pantry items I hadn’t already owned. Thank god I already had a pretty sizable spice collection or my bill would have been even higher. I tried not to think of how this wasn’t even everything on my list. Not only did I still need to go to Whole Foods, but I needed to go to the farm stand.

Shout-out to Johnny Appleseed’s Farm in Ellington. Sam and I love them, and they love us back! Okay, they love Sam back because he told them once that he had gone onto Google and fixed an incorrect listing stating they were permanently closed. They really love Sam for that. They have no idea who I am unless I walk in with him. But that’s okay. Every late July through October, Sam and I buy as much of our produce as possible from Johnny Appleseed’s. I stopped over there to load up on tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and an ungodly amount of zucchini. The woman ringing me out seemed amused. “Lots of squash,” she commented. “What’re you cooking?” I stared at her, trying to remember. The recipe planning I’d done only a couple hours ago already seemed such a blur. “Zoodles,” I managed finally. “You know, like when you try to pretend you’re eating pasta but it’s actually vegetables?” She chuckled and nodded. “You make your own sauce from scratch too?” “Usually,” I told her, feeling a sudden pang of longing for a nice meaty bolognese. Wow, I really wasn’t going to be cut out for this meatless life for long. I told her goodbye and got into my car. It was sweltering outside and 10x worse inside my black interior car. I now definitely needed to pee and I was starving. Home couldn’t come fast enough.

Of course, before I could eat my lunch I had to go through the battle of trying to fit all of this produce into my refrigerator. Even with the clearing out of the usual cartons of eggs and older produce that I’d tossed earlier that morning, it was definitely a game of Tetris trying to fit all of the extremely perishable items I’d just purchased into my fridge. I didn’t even entertain the thought of trying to fit all the vegetables in the crisper. Just to fit them in the fridge itself was an accomplishment. Thank god I hadn’t been quite stupid enough to try to buy enough groceries to last us through Monday. Dear lord, I was really going to have to go back in two days and do this again? You chose this, you chose this I sang to myself repeatedly in my head as I grabbed the container of my last non-vegan meal for two weeks: zucchini turkey meatballs, romano cheese, and marinara sauce over spaghetti. It was damned good. This is still healthy, isn’t it? Do I definitely have to give up cheese, Dr. Gregor?

Now came the time for my final real dessert of the next two weeks. Something I end up binging on far too often when Sam leaves me at home unsupervised for too long: Aurora honey nut granola with chocolate chips mixed in. It’s so good!!! And I definitely went especially overboard that day knowing it was my last sugar binge for awhile.

Alright. It was time to head to Whole Foods. The closest one to me is in Glastonbury and a solid 25 minute drive away. The air felt heavy and oppressive as I headed out into the heat. Ominous dark clouds hung low in the sky. I could feel the nasty air pressure in the depths of my sinuses. Blah. Almost done, I told myself. The parking lot at Whole Foods was mobbed. Why are so many people out on a random Wednesday afternoon, I grumped to myself as I narrowly avoided running over a perfectly nice young family (sorry, strangers!!) and found myself a spot. I walked inside and immediately started rubbing my arms up and down. It was freezing. One thing I love about Big Y is that they keep a lot of their refrigerated items behind doors. I forget how cold other grocery stores are.

I don’t go to Whole Foods very often. I knew where the ethnic condiments were but had no clue where I might find “whole wheat tortillas, no salt added.” I wandered the entire length of the store twice over and finally found a small selection. They really didn’t have much to offer in the way of wraps. Too many carbs for the Whole Foods shopping crowd, I guess? I settled for normal whole wheat tortillas that did indeed have salt as an ingredient. What do you want me to do, Dr. Gregor? I’m only one person. I at least then found the date sugar no problem. Okay. Cool. Only the miso left.

I wandered into the Asian condiments aisle... and essentially repeated the same pacing act I’d done at Big Y, except I went back and forth even more times because I had a hard time processing that Whole Foods wouldn’t have what I needed. I mean, they’ve got some weird stuff there! They have like 5 different brands of ghee! Miso sounded like such a basic Asian condiment to me. We’ve all heard of miso soup, no? But it was nowhere to be found. Ugh. Fine. I’ll go to the Asian market in East Hartford. It’s not that far from here anyways, I tried to reassure myself. I could feel a sugar crash hitting my bloodstream. I wanted a juicebox and a nap.

I checked out and made my way to Je Mart. I wandered up and down their aisles and couldn’t seem to find miso there either. It finally occurred to me that I was obviously missing something here. Like I really should have done at Big Y in the first place, I pulled out my phone and Googled “Where do I buy miso in the store?” Within 5 seconds I realized I’d been looking in the wrong spots of the stores the entire time. Miso isn’t a bottled or jarred condiment like Sriracha or curry paste. It’s actually sold in plastic tubs in the refrigerated section. Look near the tofu, the infinite wisdom of the Internet advised. I turned around and what do you know, literally right behind me was the refrigerated section with the tofu. And within five seconds I spotted it: a tub of miso!!! I grabbed at it ecstatically and scanned the label. Was this the white miso that Dr. Gregor had specifically demanded? It didn’t specify, but it looked pale enough for me. And it was only $5 for a pretty decent sized tub. I handed my money gleefully to the cashier and went on my way. Finally.

I got home and put away my new purchases. It was about 2:20pm and I was beyond exhausted. I really shouldn’t have eaten that much granola, I thought morosely as I flopped onto the couch. I wanted to rewatch Forks Over Knives (it’s on Netflix!). If I started now it would end right around 4, a good time to start trying to actually prepare some of the meals I’d worked so hard all the day just to shop for.

I’m not saying that I napped for the entire documentary because I definitely didn’t. I remember some parts of it. But can I guarantee I didn’t nap at all? No, no I cannot.

This was another long post, so obviously I’m going to need to give us all a break and stop here before going on to Part 2, in which I’ll finally talk about cooking and eating these recipes. These first couple of posts have really just been a lot of exposition, I promise I’m going to get to the meat of the plot soon! (pun intended)

For now, here’s a picture of the miso I drove all over the state searching for before finally acquiring for the very reasonable price of $5 (fyi - Big Y does have miso but it’s red miso and it’s $7 so I guess all’s well that ends well):

#food blog #food writing #veganism #healthy cooking #plant based #whole foods #still bad at tags

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ahouseoflies · 4 years

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The Best Films of 2019, Part II

Part I is here. ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

106. Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)- I'm not looking at a list of films with budgets over $175 million, but I guarantee this is the one with the lowest stakes. It concerns a cyborg who tries to uncover the identity that the audience knows she has all along, and it takes place on three sets. I was intrigued by the prospect of Robert Rodriguez directing a James Cameron production, since the former uses effects to be lazy and the latter uses effects to challenge himself. Alita is more of a Rodriguez movie in that regard. Although it looks slightly better than those pictures he used to make in his backyard, it ain't by much. 105. The Upside (Neil Burger)- As good enough as movies get, good enough right up to the childish screenwriting contrivances of the third act. ("I guess he knows about wheelchairs now, so he gets a job at a wheelchair factory? Or maybe it's his own factory? I don't know--I'm still spitballing in this production draft.") Queen Nicole is criminally underserved though. Have you read that story about how Keanu Reeves's friend forged his name onto the contract for The Watcher, but Keanu didn't want to go through a prolonged legal battle, so he just showed up despite the fraud? Surely it's got to be something like that. Or maybe she was under the impression her character was still being fleshed out, but she got there and saw that nothing has been changed since the last draft? It's just like, "Yvonne looks stern. More to be added." I know for sure that no one told one of the greatest actresses in the world about the part in which she's supposed to be a good dancer. She would have prepared. 104. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dean DeBlois)- HtTYD is still the most visually experimental animated franchise. For example, DeBlois hazes the image when a character is looking at another through a torch, there's a five-minute wordless sequence of dragons falling in love, and a lot of work has been put into crafting peach fuzz. I also appreciate that these films retain consequences. Hiccup has a prosthetic leg, and his dad is still dead. Narratively though, everything feels like a holding pattern, a brand extension that doesn't offer real stakes or real laughs. (Fishlegs has a beard now. That's his character development. That's it.) Even if The Hidden World offers an ending of sorts to the trilogy, it's a story of retreat/escape that can't help but feel like a sideways step from its already disappointing predecessor. My daughter tuned out and got really restless with about twenty minutes left. 103. Greta (Neil Jordan)- Such a boilerplate thriller that I was actually predicting the dialogue at points: "Miss, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do if she's just standing there across the street. She's not breaking the law." There is one notable thing that happens though. In a scene at a church, Huppert makes the Sign of the Cross incorrectly. As an actress, kind of negligent. As a French person, pretty exquisite. 102. Anna (Luc Besson)- The timeline-jumping didn't work for me, but without it, I don't think there's much notable about the quadruple-crossing here at all. The awe-inspiring restaurant fight sequence is the film's saving grace; I'm awarding an extra half-star for its slashing-throats-with-plates viscera. 101. Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)- Was I supposed to know what a Skrull was before this? Lee Pace and Djimon Hounsou show up playing Guardians characters, so I think I was supposed to connect more of the sci-fi dots of the first twenty minutes than I did. All of that inter-planetary stuff was tough sledding for me, and I preferred the Elastica music cue and Radio Shack jokes. As it turns out, especially in this genre, it's dramatically frustrating to go on a hero's journey with a character who doesn't know who she is. It was nice to see Samuel L. Jackson, with convincing de-aging effects, get a real arc in one of these movies, rather than just posing here and there. Brie Larson does enough posing for the both of them. 100. Frozen II (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)- Frozen begins with sisters being separated after one injures the other. It plays for keeps from minute five. Frozen II, whose smaller stakes are felt in the one-or-so location, B-team songs, and forgettable new characters, never feels as real. 99. Aladdin (Guy Ritchie)- Even if the songs still bang and Nasim Pedrad is very funny, Aladdin feels as cynical and--don't say it, don't say it--unnecessary as all of these live-action remakes do. I'm looking forward to the animated remakes of the live-action remakes, which might figure out a way to reincarnate Robin Williams. One can dream, even cynically. 98. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Vince Gilligan)- Finally, the TV movie--and no shade, but this ending we didn't ask for is definitely part of the TV movie tradition--that answers a burning question for Breaking Bad fans: Was Jesse ever interesting by himself?

97. High Life (Claire Denis)- As uncool as it makes me, I have to admit that I just don't care for Claire Denis's aesthetic. Knowing nothing going in, I was captivated by the mysterious first half-hour, but once the film started to explain itself, it seemed like a B movie with more ponderous music. High Life is effectively claustrophobic, but I found myself "yes-anding" most of it. Yes, for example, space is lonely, as I've learned from every other movie about space.

96. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Richard Linklater)- From the get-go, this movie doesn't work--structurally, tonally--but the miscalculations of Linklater and Blanchett and especially the mawkish music don't have enough consequence for the film to even fail on a noteworthy level. It's not unpleasant. You just laugh sparingly and think, on the way out, "I don't think she loved her daughter as much as she said she did" or "Get to Antarctica twenty minutes earlier or twenty minutes later." Linklater, an inestimable talent, has added an entry to his filmography that might as well not exist. Making movies, especially adaptations of epistolary books, is hard. I'm being too understanding of that or not understanding enough. 95. Dumbo (Tim Burton)- Just as Dumbo begins to take chances--fashioning itself as an anti-corporate parable with Keaton playing a Disney-esque "architect of dreams"--it settles back down to its own low expectations. Expectations that come from the storytelling and characterization and not the production design, which seems grandly practical except for the CG [rolls up sleeves, adjusts glasses, tightens shoes] elephant in the room. Of the performances, Farrell comes out on top, displaying Movie Star confidence despite very little to work with. (Can a World War I veteran who lost his arm and his wife be allowed a bit more pain?) It gives me no pleasure to dunk on child actors, but both of the kids seem to be reading their lines, and their monotones nearly sink the movie at the beginning. 94. Echo in the Canyon (Andrew Slater)- A nice enough introduction to the scene, but Jakob Dylan's constant presence as an interviewer and performer turns it into a vanity project. The film shuffles among talking heads interviews, prep for an anniversary concert, and an anniversary concert, and I'll let you guess which one of those is interesting. The access that the filmmakers got is impressive, but if a person didn't participate (Carole King is the obvious one), the filmmakers just pretend he or she didn't exist. 93. Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt)- I like the notion of someone so specialized in his profession that he has a child-like understanding of the outside world, and Carloto Cotta sells the innocence of the title character. (The Donna Lewis needle-drop killed me too.) But too often this film feels as if it's focusing on sheer weirdness over satisfying narrative. Cult classics are fine, but you should try for the regular classic. 92. Ma (Tate Taylor)- There are some cool ideas here--the innocent entrees that technology provides, the way the movie earns its R rating. But the script needs a few more passes for everything to congeal past the silliness, especially with regard to the hammy flashbacks that attempt to provide motivation for the Ma figure. I respect the attempt to humanize a monster, but she would be more scary if left opaque. 91. Bombshell (Jay Roach)- The films that try explicitly to comment on our current social climate are never the most successful ones, especially if their internal politics are this muddled. The film takes great pleasure in implicating the toxic system of Fox News, taking shots at anyone who would participate. Then it starts to pick and choose who to like in that system, which is where it gets weird. Obviously, a Fox News employee who sexually harasses another employee is "worse" than an employee who gets harassed. But then the Charles Randolph screenplay starts to sort closeted lesbians and career-strivers, and it's not sure who the bad guys really are. The film moves quite swiftly in its first half, and Charlize Theron's mimicking of Megyn Kelly is eerie. But I don't think Jay Roach knows what he believes. The lurid, claustrophobic scene between Margot Robbie's composite Kayla and John Lithgow's breathy Roger Ailes is the transcendent moment. It teases out the humiliation slowly and powerfully. With a quite meta flourish, the scene makes you hate yourself if you've ever objectified one of the most objectified actresses in the world; she's that great at illustrating her discomfort.

90. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)- 1. A great example of "story" vs. "things happening." A negative example, I'm afraid. 2. The Osaka Tower represents the literal and figurative highs that the film will literally and figuratively not reach. 3. Spencer Treat Clark back!!! 4. The flashbacks are actual deleted scenes from Unbreakable, which is amazing. 5. Not since Lost has there been a work that seems like obsessive fan service, but the fan in mind is the creator, not any member of the audience. We do not want your explanations about Jai the security guard's role in your universe, Night. 6. This is a sequel to Unbreakable and a sequel to Split, but it somehow does not feel like a third chapter of anything. 7. It makes sense that I watched this on the same day that I listened to Weezer's The Teal Album, their surprise collection of punctilious '80s covers. In both cases, there's an artist who was really important to me in formative years but who has used up the last of whatever capital he has accrued by giving in to his worst instincts. In Shyamalan's case though, at least it's a confident swing. The second act pretty much tells us that we were dumb to believe what he sold us on. Even though it's dramatically inert and completely stops halfway through, this is exactly the movie he wanted to make, which I stupidly still admire. 89. Five Feet Apart (Justin Baldoni)- I checked this out because I have the sneaking suspicion that Haley Lu Richardson is a Movie Star, and she is continuing to progress into that power/responsibility. Otherwise the movie is a by-the-numbers weepie that doesn't really have a new spin on anything but hits its marks adequately. I was surprised that Claire Forlani got neither a "with" nor an "and" card in the credits. How rude. 88. Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer)- I like the bleak dive the film takes following its second big twist, which is handled well, but there is a ceiling for an adaptation of one of King's least ambitious and most predetermined tales. 87. Wild Rose (Tom Harper)- So conventional that Jessie Buckley almost got nominated for a Golden Globe. 86. Judy (Rupert Goold)- Just as the leaves start to change, we get biopics like these: too earnest to be cliched, too safe to be original. I'm on the ground floor of the Zellwegerssaince, but Judy is a slog in stretches. 85. The King (David Michod)- Capable but superfluous. Animal Kingdom was nine years ago, so it's quite possible that David Michod, even when he has an imperious Ben Mendelsohn at his disposal, has lost the urgency. The reason that anyone should see this--at least until someone puts together a YouTube compilation of just his scenes--is for Robert Pattinson, whose take on The Dauphin is the frontrunner for Most On-One Performance of the Year. 84. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams)- There are just enough moments--the first Force battle between Kylo and Rey being one of them--that remind the viewer of the magic of Star Wars. Kylo Ren's arc concludes in a more satisfying way than I expected, Babu Frik is officially my dude, and Daisy Ridley's post-Star Wars career intrigues me. My Dolby seat was rumbling, and I was pretty charged up on candy. But, man, most of the business here feels compromised, undermined, and inessential. It's a rushed connect-the-dots compared to The Last Jedi. There's a scene in which the gang has to risk wiping C-3PO's memory to gain important information--they need a thing to get to another thing to get to another thing--and there appear to be stakes for just a second. Then, as if to reassure the audience that there will be ten more of these movies, Rey adds, "Doesn't R2 have a backup of your memory?" That's the whole movie in an expensive, nostalgic nutshell.

83. Queen & Slim (Melina Matsoukas)- Capable of tender moments but shot in the foot by its episodic nature, Queen & Slim is the most uneven picture of the year. The characters work well as foils to each other, but Jodie Turner-Smith's performance is overshadowed by Kaluuya's. I have no idea what Chloe Sevigny and Flea are trying to do in their brief time on screen, and I have no idea what the film is trying to do when it disturbs the point of view for a misguided protest sequence. 82. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)- It has been a long time since I was so surprised that a movie was over. The coda comes up telling us about, in real life, what kind of criminal slaps on the wrists the characters received, and I got pushed out of the theater wondering what it all amounted to. Yeah, that's the point. I know. Just as none of the 2008 bankers went to jail in the wake of their destruction, none of the women who drugged and exploited them did much time beyond "14 months of weekends" either. But should I applaud moral confusion? Can I be angry about the lack of consequences for both parties? If you want me to judge the film I watched instead of the film I wanted to watch, I can be more complimentary. Some of the most electric moments in 2019 cinema are here, rooted in 2008 strip club music. And saying 2008 strip club rap was good is like saying 1890 French Impressionism was good. Nearly every performance works, from Lili Reinhart's bashfulness to Wai Ching Ho's gratitude to Jennifer Lopez's intractable confidence. Also, I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but J. Lo has a nice butt. 81. The Report (Scott Z. Burns)- There are some interesting things going on here. For example, this feedback loop: An hour or so in, protagonist Daniel Jones watches a fabricated news feature that explains what waterboarding is, and I had an instinct as an audience member to go, "Like we don't know by now. Don't hold my hand." But the only reason I know is because of news reports like that, informed by work that the real Daniel Jones did, dramatized in the events of the first half of this very movie. Still, this movie is a lot like one of those dishes in which every single element sounds like something you would like--"Ooh, pork belly, delicious. Oooh, lemongrass. Bet those would go well together"--but you take a bite, and it doesn't taste good. Is that your fault or the restaurant's?

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purrincesskittens · 7 years

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Miraculous Ladybug: Adventures Of Lupine Alpha and Corvus. Chapter 8

Summery: A new girl has started at Adrien’s school. One whose elder brother is just as rich and famous as his father. Adrien gets to know the girl more as his father works with her brother on a new project and finds she is a lot like him. As Chat Noir he continues to work along side Ladybug to keep Paris safe when a new Miraculous Holder appears along with a new enemy. Just who is Lupine Alpha? As their knowledge changes and expands more and more information about the Miraculouses comes to light. As do more miraculous holders.

(Note: I do allow reblogging of this on tumblr alone )

Adrien sat in his room with a sigh staring up at the ceiling from his desk chair. His room had been basically cleaned out of all things interesting enough to provide him with entertainment. No computer, No T.V., No cell phone, no video games either. Nothing. His father found out he had skipped his fencing and Chinese lessons and he had lost all his privileges except for going to school. He couldn't even hang out with friends after school.

He sighed again bored out of his skull trying to think of something he could do. He had finished his homework so that was out. He wasn't in the mood to read. He wanted to talk to his friends or play video games but he couldn't. He was SOOOO BORED! Plagg groaned as Adrien sighed again. "Kid enough with the sighing already! You're driving me insane!" He growls floating up to his face to lecture him. "But I'm bored there is nothing to do." Adrien complains with another sigh.

Before Plagg could answer there was a few rapid knocks on his door before it swung open. His father and Natalie always waited for him to answer before opening the door so he knew it wasn't them. Gorilla never came into his room usually. Plagg quickly zipped into the trashcan with a piece of Camembert to hide. J.J. walked right in through the door with a amused smile on her face.

"I love how you get grounded and yet you're still allowed to see me." She comments dropping her bag on the floor and making her way towards him. While his attention was focused on her Accalia quickly zipped out of the bag and under the first piece of furniture she could get to before zipping her way towards the trashcan having figured out where Plagg was hiding.

"How? What? Why?" Adrien asks confused as to why the older girl was here. "My brother agreed to work with your father on the project which means I'll be staying in Paris for the duration of it if not longer as your dad wants Kei to work on several other projects after this one. In the mean time I get to hang out with you." She says cheerfully plopping herself done in a chair.

"But I'm grounded. I'm not allowed friends over or to go out with friends or go over any friends houses." Adrien says mournfully still confused. He was bored and quite frankly lonely. He was even missing Chloe for all she could be annoying. At least before he went to school he had her now he didn't even have that. He never thought he could miss his friends so much.

"Ahh but you see my brother brings me along since as he sees it I get into mischief if left to my own devices for long and I just annoy him to death while he's working unless otherwise occupied and I'll be in their way while they are working so I'm sent off to go do what I want and since you and I are friends that means hanging out with you. Keeps me occupied and out of the way. And your father doesn't want to risk my brother backing out on him now that he has finally agreed so I get to hang out with you anyways even if you're grounded." J.J. exclaims with a bright smile on her face.

Adrien blinked taking in all that she just said. It did make sense if he thought about it. His father was smart and he had put to much work into getting her brother to collaborate on this project with him to mess it up now or let it slide out of his grasp now because of one, as he would see it, silly bored teenager who could easily be kept occupied with his own teenage son. Letting her hang out with his grounded son was a little thing to allow compared to how important this project was; he had been preparing for it for over a month.

"Well hanging out with you is something at least though I don't know what we're going to do since my video games were taken away." He says glad to have someone as company other then Plagg. "Not a problem. Your father didn't think to pat me down for all pieces of technology I have on me." She answers reaching down the front of her shirt and pulling out her cell phone from between her breasts causing Adrien to blush. "Why...Why do you have that hidden there?" He stutters his face turning bright red.

"Just in case your father did have me pat down." She says with a roll of her eyes tapping away at the keyboard to unlock her phone. "Now who should we call first? Ohh I know." With a grin she played with her phones features for a minute before scooting closer to him so he could see the screen as it rang for a video call to someone listed as Mari Girl with a Heart Emoji?. "Hello?" Marinette's voice came though the speakers on the phone crystal clear before the video loaded. "Hey Mari guess who I'm hanging out with today? He got grounded for missing his lessons and I'm the only one allowed to visit him so this is the only way he can talk to you out of school."

J.J. seemed to have a particularly evil glint to her smile as Marinette blinked her face scrunching up rather cutely in confusion. "Huh who are you talking about?" Before she focused in on the other person sharing the screen with J.J. and let out a terrified shriek dropping her phone and her arms pinwheeling as she fell over backwards. Adrien could see the wheels on her rolling chair spinning off to one side of the screen and he could hear her pained groan from where ever she landed off screen.

"I don't think you should have called her up so suddenly out of the blue like that with out any warning that I'm here too. I don't think she likes me very much. We didn't exactly meet on the best of terms I sometimes think she still holds a grudge for that." He murmurs feeling disappointed that the one friend he could talk to at the moment was so terrified of him she went into a panic over just talking to or seeing him; scratching the back of his neck as he spoke.

J.J. sent him this odd look. "I heard from Alya how you two met and trust me she doesn't hold a grudge over something as petty as that after you made up and became friends. Trust me when I say Marinette isn't afraid of you. She likes you." Adrien brightened at that smiling himself now glad to know Mari didn't hate him. "I like Marinette too and am glad she's my friend." He says giving a warm happy smile.

Marinette had recovered enough to pick up the phone again and nearly fainted when she heard what he said and saw his smile. "Oh boy you are so obliviously stupid when it comes to girls." J.J. mutters under her breath casting her eyes heavenwards. "Ohh Hi ...AdAdrAdrien I'm sorrrwry about at I mean that you just startled me is all." Marinetee stutters tripping over her words her face turning as red as her ladybug suit.

"Chill ax girl it's just me and him take a deep breath and calm down then try speaking again no need to get so formal and all." J.J. interrupts rolling her eyes before giving her a wink. "Just talk like you normally do to me or Alya." Marinette took a deep breath Tikki coaching her on mediating breathing in the background not that they could hear her through the phone. "Sorry I guess I nervous got... I mean got nervous is all." She says after a minute keeping her gaze mostly on J.J. the best she could still mixing up her word order.

When Marinette did look at Adrien and start to freak out again she did the breathing just as Tikki told her to and tried her best to remember J.J. was there to speak as if she was speaking to J.J. and Adrien just so happened to be around too which he was he was right there oh my god Adrien was right there she was doing a video chat with Adrien! Squeeee!

Adrien watched as Marinette changed from looking somewhat terrified to overly excited and jumping up and down. Her frequent mood changes and positive attitude was one of the things he liked about her it made her interesting. "Mari Girl deep breath before you hurt yourself again." J.J. says an amused smile on her face watching Adrien's indulgent slightly adoring look on his face at the moment wishing she could take a picture of it to send to Mari and Alya later. Thinking quickly she hit the capture button on one corner of the screen so it captured a picture of them at that exact second.

Adrien barely registered the click sound it made shaking his head and peering at J.J. curiously. "Sorry my finger slipped. Don't worry I'll delete the picture later." J.J. lies smoothly having gotten good at it after moving in with her brother. It was the only way to get away with things at times that he would otherwise not allow. He wasn't the easiest person to live with especially having spent the years from age 9 to age 16 living apart.

"Sorry about that I got a bit over excited." Marinette apologizes sheepishly rubbing the back of her head with a shy smile. "It's okay Mari that's what makes you so cute." J.J. purrs with a endearing smile. They laughed and joked and talked together for a while Marinette stuttering occasionally or tripping over her words when she looked directly at Adrien and focused in on him. Having J.J. there to play referee helped she would randomly interrupt at times long enough for Marinette to catch her breath and try to calm down.

By the time they were wrapping up the conversation Marinette had only embarrassed herself with somewhat strange embarrassing things she said a few times which J.J. laughed off putting her more at ease. J.J. knew what it felt like to be embarrassed or be afraid of being embarrassed in front of others and tried her best to make Marinette feel more at ease and have more confidence in herself with Tikki whispering words of encouragement in her ear from behind her head.

Marinette's stuttering hadn't been as bad as it normally was around Adrien talking on the phone helped with that some instead of talking to him in person even if it was a video chat. J.J. had an entire collection of pictures of different facial expressions Adrien made throughout the call figuring out how to also reverse the camera so it captured a screen shot of Marinette's expression as well adding even more photos to her phone's gallery.

"When Adrien get's ungrounded we should all go see a movie together. You, Me, Adrien, Alya and Nino." J.J. says as the phone call drew to a close. It was getting late which meant that soon her brother or Natalie would be coming to get her to leave. Marinette's face lit up and she let out a squeal of delight. "That would be amazing there is a new movie coming out that I've been dying to see." She gushes hearts in her eyes at the thought of a group date with Adrien.

"Yeah that would be fun. If I can get my father to let me go or give my bodyguard the slip." Adrien says his face falling as he considered his father actually letting him go see a movie with friends. "You leave that to me I'm a master at giving my bodyguards the slip." J.J. puts in flipping her ponytail over her shoulder arrogantly. "Judging from your grand entrance at school on the first day I don't doubt that." Marinette comments snarkily with a yawn her chin resting in the palm of her hand.

"It's late, you're tired and we should be going, my brother should be finishing up any minute too. See you tomorrow at school Mari." J.J. says giving Mari a gentle smile. "Bye Marinette see you at school tomorrow." Adrien says giving her a smile of his own. "Bye J.J. Bye Adrien I'll see you guys at school tomorrow." She says with a sweet smile and another yawn as they hung up managing her her sleepy state to get out the words no problem.

A knock on the door sounded just as J.J. was slipping her phone back into her pocket. "Miss James your brother is getting ready to leave." Natalie calls through the door. "Alright give me a minute and I'll be down." She calls back moving to grab her bag rustling in it to pull something out. "Here this is my spare phone that I use for when I lose my actual phone. The features suck on it and it gets crappy signal but you can make basic calls using it and my number and a few others you know are programmed in besides numbers of my friends back home. The games aren't to bad on it simple but not bad you can use it till you get your phone back." J.J. explains handing Adrien the small touch screen burner phone.

"Cool thanks." Adrien murmurs trying to press and hold the button on the lockscreen long enough to unlock it. It was apparently very touchy and stubborn. This gave Accalia time to get back into J.J.'s bag part of the reasons he distracted him with the phone in the first place. "And here. This is the latest handheld version of my brother's games for on the go. It's still in the testing stages this one so you can play it and give me the feed back on how it works." She says with a wink slinging her bag over her shoulder placing the hand held gaming device in his hands before heading out the door.

"See ya Adrien." J.J. calls back to him as she closed the door behind her. Adrien had a huge grin on his face now. "Well you can't be bored now." Plagg mutters glad to finally be rid of that nosy wolf. Her sense of smell was far to sharp; she found his hiding place in no time at all. But one thing she had going for her he had to admit was she really knew how to pick them if one didn't know any better her pup would seem almost normal. "No I most certainly can not."

~o~

Gabriel Argeste nearly jumped out of his chair in his study when his son's phone which he had in his pocket suddenly erupted in a flurry of noises that kept on going with seemingly no end. It wasn't his ringtone. One of Adrien's so called friends had tried calling earlier only for Mr. Argeste to answer and inform them Adrien was grounded and lost all phone privileges. She had squeaked out a vague reply and quickly hung up much to his satisfaction.

Now he pulled out the phone to figure out not only how to silence the damn thing but why it was going off. He blinked one brow rising as he saw the notification on the homescreen saying there were thirty something messages from one J.J. ;P a few quick taps and the phone was unlocked. Adrien didn't need secrets he was his father he had the right to know who his son was talking to and who he hung out with.

All the messages appeared to be one picture each. Various pictures all taken of the same girl. Not taken in person either but a screenshot of a video call. Despite the photos being cropped he could still make out the details that showed the girl was talking to whoever this J.J. was through their phone's cameras. More pictures arrived after a pause. After a few moments of a pause and Gabriel browsing through the new photos, a text message arrived.

"These are for Adrien when he gets ungrounded. Yes I know you have his phone at the moment Mr. Argreste but that doesn't stop me from sending these for him to see later. If I don't send these now I'll forget later. Don't bothering to delete them either I have copies as do others. ;) Besides isn't she cute? followed by an *Sparkling heart emojicon*. She is too cute for words! She's super shy and sweet and looks so f*ing adorable! (delete this last message please)

The message dropped off after telling him to delete the last part. He frowned looking back through all the pictures as Adrien's father he didn't approve of Miss James sending his son or rather his son's phone a ton of messages especially pictures of one girl. As Adrien's father he had the right to determine who Adrien saw and had contact with. His perfect son had to have only most perfect of backgrounds which included those around him which at the moment was sadly lack luster except for a few diamonds in the rough as one might say.

However the designer in him had admiring the pictures mainly seeing as how they all captured a cute expression on the young lady's face that one would most likely not see under normal circumstances but something had sparked her into making those faces and they had all unknowingly been captured forever by a cell phone. The pictures themselves weren't ideal for model type shots but they could be digitally touched up.

It was the girl who caught his interest. The spark in her eyes the shy but hint of sweetness in her smile and the pure look of adoration stamped on every inch of her face. Her faint bits of freckles across her button nose made her look cuter in many ways that freckles could also detract from ones looks. Small and delicate she was if her features where anything to go by and one of mixed blood.

The pictures made him vaguely curious as to what the girl looked like fully not just her face. Her eyes was what drew him back to the pictures each time he hit the lock button to go back to work. Those bluebell eyes had that same look in them that his wife had had in her amazing green eyes. It made him miss her even more. It also made him angry that someone so young could have that look in their eyes and be happy when he could not. He could not see that same look in the eyes of the one he loved but whoever that look was for for this young lady they were lucky and they probably didn't even know just how lucky they were to still be able to see it.

Getting frustrated with himself over a bunch of stupid photos and not very decent ones he relocked the phone and called for his secretary Natalie. "Here take this until Adrien gets off groundment. Miss James just sent over thirty photos all at once of some random girl. It's bothering me while I'm trying to work I don't have time for some teenager's foolishness." He orders handing over the phone to her. "And delete the last message she sent."

He throws in getting back to work on organizing the details of his new advertisement parts of it were coming together nicely now that he had Miss James's brother Kei working on it with him after all Kei wasn't the best for nothing. Natalie replied with her usual monotone "Yes sir.", until she opened the phone to delete the last message and saw all the pictures of the girl, one of Adrien's classmates.

"Sir should I delete these pictures as well? They seem all rather well kind of intimate." Natalie questions flipping through the pictures herself. "No leave them. Adrien has never shown any interest in any girl at all this time will be no different. As his father I'll pick him out a nice girl of good breeding for him to date once time comes he is too young still too foolish right now he needs to learn. After all it's my right to make all the important decisions for him I'm his father after all. I know whats best." He responds shuffling through the papers on his desk dismissing her with a wave.

"Yes sir of course sir." Natalie responds backing out of his home office. She couldn't help but think that perhaps this time he might just be wrong there was something about this girl that just made her feel special. Perhaps she would be the one to heal Adrien from the loss of his mother after her disappearance. Natalie also couldn't help but think that Mr. Argeste despite all his words was not much of a father towards Adrien when he needed him most. Having to basically be forced to see his son like back during Christmas, was not something a father should be doing.

Adrien was growing up and he was doing it alone. Public school might not be such a bad idea after all since it gave him people who really did care for him, it gave him a support system. Adrien was experiencing the world slowly through his new friends whether or not his father knew it or not. Miss James was going to be playing a big part in it now too. Natalie knew about the new game and spare phone Adrien currently had but didn't say anything.

This girl understood the way Adrien felt but she rebelled against the life she was being forced to live and was helping Adrien learn to rebel too and to stop being the perfect model son his father expected to be. Miss James was just as suppressed as Adrien except for one fact she had grown up free of it all until she had been kidnapped at age 15 and then everything changed for her. But she could be free once more all she needed was just over a year and she would be. Just as Adrien would one day be free of his suppressed life. Nothing could go back to the way it was before but maybe just maybe Adrien could be happy again even if it wasn't in the Agreste house or under the Agreste name.

#miraculous: tales of ladybug & cat noir #new miraculous holder #adrien agreste #plagg #marinette cheng #tikki #wolf kwami #oc #gabriel agreste #nathalie sancoeur #grounded adrien

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