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hannieehaee · 2 days

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OUTTA MY MIND

18+ / mdi

summary: getting a brand new job as a senior idol's manager was scary enough on its own, but it became even worse when said idol was jeon jungkook, idol of all idols. what made it even worse? when jungkook began taking a special liking to you, damning any conflict of interest his crush on you may have had.

content: idol!au, staff!reader x idol!jungkook, jungkook is shameless about his crush on reader, but it's fine bc reader likes him back!!, reader acts hard to get bc her job is too important though boo, afab reader, banter, jk is a flirt, reader is a little bit shy, a lot of rlly wrong info about working in the industry, smut, oral (f receiving), penetrative sex, etc.

wc: 7.7k

a/n: my first jungkook solo writing!! i hope u guys enjoy<33 ive been into bts since 2017 idk why i never wrote about them before lol anyways hope this is a good introduction to all my future jungkook works<3

masterlist | kofi/patreon

support me through a one time tip<3

Whenever you'd tell someone you worked within the entertainment industry, – the music industry, to be precise – people always showed a little extra interest in your words, probably assuming you to be involved in the flashier aspects of it. The statement on it's own sounded exciting, enigmatic even. This would only then be followed by disappointed upon finding out your specific profession of choice, deeming it less exciting than most.

You were a manager. No, you were not an active member of the entertainment industry itself, but you were one of the many pillars necessary for the talent to create the entertainment people would always seek.

Being as young as you were, it had been hard to get to where you were so quickly. Networking had been your best friend all throughout your career, eventually landing you in your current role – one that would only open even more doors for you.

It had only been a week since you had received a call from your friend – an old friend from an internship who just so happened to be a former Hybe video producer – letting you know of a recent opening as one of the many managers at the company. Having been between gigs at the time, you jumped at the chance without a second thought. Hybe? The biggest entertainment company in Korea? You didn't need any details before agreeing.

It was a few days later in which you found out the details. The opportunity had been even more life-altering than you'd thought.

Originally, you had believed you'd end up becoming manager to one of the many brand new rookie groups in the growing company. With so many surging youth in the industry, it made sense to you that you'd be assigned such a role, not having had any prior experience within Hybe itself.

Except that wasn't the case. Having previously worked and interned at a few other South Korean entertainment companies through the years, it seemed like Hybe deemed you experienced enough to assign you the role of becoming a senior artist's manager.

Jeon Jungkook.

Senior artist had been an understatement. Those had been the words written in your contract, explaining your role in excruciating detail, yet failing to mention that your client would be Korea's most popular singer.

You couldn't lie, you were insanely intimidated by your new role. Despite being proudly skilled at your job, becoming the manager of an idol who had been in the game for longer than you'd even been out of college was a bit scary. Jungkook had gone from the absolute bottom to the top, he had most likely lived through it all by now – what kind of expertise could you offer someone who had already seen it all?

Being manager of an idol differed slightly from managing any other person. Idol companies usually handled the schedulings, bookings, and the legalities of their artists. As a manager, you somewhat took the role of a bodyguard. You were meant to show up everywhere Jungkook went and become his spokesperson – vying for him as if your life depended on it.

And now it was too late to back out – not that you actually wanted to. All paperwork had been signed, you had your own personal Hybe badge and all the benefits that came along with working at the company. Any feelings of intimidation or fear for the role would have to be put aside as you walked into the Hybe building to meet with your new client; the boy you'd have to stick by 24/7 from now on.

You weren't sure what you were expecting upon meeting him. It wasn't like there would be any special introduction, or even as if you were his sole manager; no, he actually had a few others who would occasionally aid him in the absence of his main manager, which was now you. Today was a workday for him, meaning that he likely already had a few people in supportive roles as he did whatever it was that Jeon Jungkook did while working.

Walking into the huge building, after getting lost a few times, you made your way to the seventh floor, which, as you'd been informed, had various rooms designated for photoshoots. That's where you'd find Jungkook for the first time, presumably having one of the many shoots scheduled for this week.

Having possession of his schedule made you realize how busy idol life was. Despite having no public schedules all this week, he had a packed itinerary, filled with either shoots or signings or producing sessions. You hadn't even met him yet, but you were already assured that he was overly hardworking – and you had maybe also stalked him online this past week.

It was very unlikely you'd even speak to him, seeing how busy he was. Your duty, after all, was just to be one of the many members of his team, taking care of any logistics as you went around with him, but not taking away from his time by socializing with him.

Upon entering the room, he was the first thing you noticed. Ignoring every other person working the room, your eyes focused specifically on him. It was hard not to, since he was quite literally standing under the spotlight, modeling for a camera. But it was more than that. He had an aura that filled up the room. Putting aside every stylist and photographer in the room, every staff member and intern, he was truly the epitome of main character.

Fuck. Was this going to cause trouble?

Admittedly, you had found him attractive all previous times you'd come across the name Jeon Jungkook whilst working in this industry, but that attraction did not go further than seeing it as an objective fact. You had never had any interest in artists outside of for work-related reasons, so you only knew him by name. Yet now, seeing him in person, it was a while other story.

It wasn't until the director gave Jungkook the green light to take a break that you first made eye contact with the boy. It appeared as if he had also noticed you immediately upon your entrance, as his eyes had gone straight from the camera onto yours. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on your part.

To your absolute surprise, his eyes stayed on you, lighting up when he realized you were staring back at him. Even more surprisingly, that's when he began walking towards you, a bright smile on his face as he approached you.

"Hey! You must be Y/N! It's really nice to meet you," he bowed at you when he reached you, bunny teeth still sticking out in a smile.

"Oh, I- Thank you! It's nice to meet you too, Jungkook," you managed to get out, bowing awkwardly. You were surprised at him even knowing your name. Was he on a first name basis with his staff? That was crazy to imagine considering how many people he must work with on a daily basis.

"Today's your first day, right?"

"Yeah, hah, is it that obvious?", for some reason you were at a loss of words, not having expected to even speak to Jungkook at all today.

His eyes widened as his head shook in negation, almost as if he believed to have genuinely insulted you by assuming it was your first day.

"Not at all! I know it might look kind of hectic, but I swear you get used to it pretty quick," he assured, giving a quick once-over to his surroundings.

Your eyes left him in favor of eyeing the room, noticing how everyone continued to work on separate tasks as Jungkook spoke to you. Too many tasks were being performed all at once, yet there was some sort of synergy to it all. It seemed far too fast paced for you, but Jungkook seemed to get the rhythm of it all by now.

"Has anyone given you a tour yet?" he asked, making your eyes go back to him.

"Oh, no. But it's fine. I only got lost a few times on the way here. I'll get used to it," you reassured. You had been given an overall overview of the premises, but you were yet to explore the entirety of the place. It was likely unnecessary, considering the size of the building.

Jungkook's eyes widened once again. Jesus, his eyes were gigantic. He seemed shocked at no one having taken the time to show you around.

"What? No tour?? I can't have that. I'll have to take you in one after this."

"What- No! It's fine, Jungkook. I'm sure you have more pressing things to get to. I mean, I have your schedule, I know you have a packed day. I'll just-"

"None of that. I have more control over my schedule than it might seem," he chuckled, "so you don't have to worry about that. It'll be a nice way for us to get to know each other."

The following five minutes or so were taken up by your consistent, yet polite, refusal to his offer, not wanting the talent himself to feel like he had to work his schedule around you. These refusals were met by even more insistence. He was overly charismatic and likable (on top of extremely cute), so it was a lost battle from the start. There was no way you could deny him in the end.

His break ended soon after, forcing his conversation with you to be interrupted. With an exaggerated groan and a lighthearted eye roll, the boy went back to posing, sending you a friendly wink when he was finally back in action in front of the camera.

As a true professional, he got back in the zone very quickly, taking on the form of a model as he followed the director's directions to a T. You continued watching him from afar, easily getting entranced by how good he was at his job. Being too distracted by him (as he kept sneaking glances towards you), you almost forgot to make the rounds around the room and introduce yourself to his other staff.

After about twenty minutes or so of conversing with his other staff (who all had nothing but positive things to say about the boy), things began to quiet down. The director announced that he had everything he needed and things began to get packed up as people left one by one. As everyone left, Jungkook made sure to express his gratitude to each team involved, even personally bidding goodbye to some staff he seemed a bit more familiar with. By the end of it, only a few people were left as Jungkook finally approached you.

Once again, the boyish smile was on his face, almost as if he specifically excited to talk to you. But that was just wishful thinking.

"So, about that tour?"

"You really don't have to-"

"Are we really gonna go over this again?", he groaned humorously, "Please let me show you around. It's the least I can do if I'm gonna make you attend all my schedules," he insisted once more.

"Fine, okay. You wore me down, Jungkook."

With a kiddish yet sarcastic fist bump to the sky in victory, Jungkook gestured for you to follow him and began leading the way out of the room, ready to show you the building.

"So, how are you liking Hybe?", he asked after a while of walking around the endless building.

Jungkook was a great guide. He was extremely talkative, so no question was left unanswered. Even before you were able to inquire about certain part of the building, he was already giving you a response, even being able to start a brand new subject of conversation every time.

"Well, it's kinda my first day. But it's nice. Just, uh, maybe a little intimidating," you admitted, walking side by side with the boy.

"Intimidating? Is it cause of me?", he tilted his head to the side with curiosity.

"Maybe," you winced, hoping he didn't take it to heart. You knew it must've been annoying for people to put him in a pedestal, but it was kind of hard not to, especially upon barely meeting him.

"It's okay. I'm not as intimidating as my fame may make me seem. Most people think I'm pretty nice, actually-"

"No, it's not like that! I know you're nice, I, uh, I looked you up before accepting the job. It's just," you paused to gesture at your surroundings, "I've never worked at such a huge company, managing one of the biggest artists in the country. I ... I don't wanna mess it up," you admitted.

He slowed down his walking at this, turning to face you better as both your movements lessened in speed.

"You won't trust me. I, uh, I actually chose you specifically. You know, to be my manager."

That took you by surprise.

Jungkook knew who you were? He picked you? It's not like you had anything to your name, just a few managing gigs here and there, along with endless internships from your school years. Why would he have picked you from what you assumed must've been a pool of tenured professionals at this?

"What do you mean you picked me? Did you-"

He shrugged, the speed of his steps still slow as he focused more on conversing with you, tour of the company fully put aside.

"They asked me for my input, since, you know, we're gonna be spending a lot of time together. I saw you on the list. You were my age and your cover letter made you sound so sincere and excited," he explained, "You were also pretty cute ...", he muttered in a cough before continuing, "I just wanted someone I could be friends with. And I think I made the right choice."

You chuckled, "Yeah? How can you be so sure?"

"I can tell that you like me," he grinned, "We're gonna be besties in no time."

His hand bumped yours as he said this, lightheartedly making contact with you. It was hard to gauge whether he was just overly charismatic or if he had been genuinely hitting on you all this time. All you knew was that if he kept it up, you'd probably end up actually falling for him.

Humoring him, you absentmindedly bumped your hand into his own too, rolling your eyes jokingly as he grinned even bigger at you.

Yeah, you were going to get close in no tome.

It had been two months. Two months since you started your job. Two months since you met Jungkook. Two months since you'd been right – you did fall for Jungkook.

It wasn't as dramatic as it sounded. You were pretty sure this was just an innocent crush. One that most people in Jungkook's vicinity probably had to battle on a day to day basis.

Innocent civilians could not be blamed for the natural effect Jeon Jungkook just had on people. He was handsome, funny, charming, and he was also a flirt. Unfortunately for you, it seemed like he reserved that last trait for you and you only.

Through the weeks, Jungkook was not shy to show his special interest in you. He'd seek you out constantly, always making you stick to his side – which was your job, but still! There was always a sense of something more behind his actions. As he had said, you two became friends quickly, but just as quickly, you had become one of the closest people to him within his staff.

He'd make conversation with you, constantly migrating to your side the moment he got a short break from whichever schedule you were currently at. He'd go as far as interrupting your work just for some of your attention. In short, he was driving you insane.

Walking far too close to you in the hallways, he'd question "Where to next?", with a smile, walking side by side with you while putting his entire attention on you.

And now, you were currently overseas with Jungkook, accompanying him for some solo recordings while the rest of his members worked on their own stuff. It was a small team of people, which was quite unusual for a member of the biggest group in the world. Since it was an unofficial schedule that only Jungkook would be attending to, only the closest members of his team were really necessary. This meant you and a few others.

The situation had started off pretty much okay. One of the requirements for your position had been to become a translator for Jungkook in any situation he ever needed. That had been unnecessary so far, as you had been in Jungkook's home country these past few weeks of work. Now that you were in America, however, Jungkook sought you out even more, claiming you must attend to every outing with him in order to help him in case he needed a better understanding.

You didn't know Jungkook too well yet, but, you were aware that after so many years in the industry, he knew enough English to get by. This was simply yet another excuse of his to keep you close. When you lightheartedly confronted him about this, his response was to stare down at you with his gigantic doe eyes and pretend as if he had no idea what you were talking about.

"English? What's that?" his head had tilted to the side, cutely feigning confusion and giggling when you broke out into an annoyed smile.

On top of joining him any time he went out for leisure (under the false vice of translating), he had also insisted you accompany him to the occasional dance practice he'd attend while in America. Your presence in this instance was completely unnecessary, but you still did not question it. Nor did you question why you were the only person he insisted on bringing along. His other managers? Nowhere to be found. As time passed by in Los Angeles, less and less people would accompany you and Jungkook on his outings – whether they be for leisure or work. It had now fallen down to Jungkook, his bodyguard, and you.

"C'mon, don't you want to see me dance? I'll buy you a meal afterwards, pinky promise," he'd hold his pinky up to you with a boyish smile, knowing you wouldn't deny him.

Anytime Jungkook would discreetly hit on you or fluster you with his attention, you'd simply laugh it off or play into it just the right amount. It wasn't like you didn't enjoy it. His decided infatuation with you gave you butterflies that had you kicking your blanket late at night when you'd think back to how much he must've liked you.

You were entirely aware that he knew you liked him back also. You never said it, nor did you ever return his flirting, but you knew that he knew. Any rebuttals or instances in which you told him to chill (jokingly, of course) were just covers you'd put up. The nerves about actually acknowledging his feelings always stopped you in your tracks, leaving you the lone option of just giggling along to him or rolling your eyes (depending how cheesy he was being).

Jungkook loved your back and forth, you could tell. He enjoyed when you'd jokingly tell him off for his sickly flirtatious demeanor or when you'd simply banter with him. It was likely just a motivator for him to keep going, naturally knocking down your walls one by one as time passed.

The camel's back had broken one week after your arrival in LA, when Jungkook finally decided to take things further, now inviting you over to his hotel room after what were assumed to be work hours. The excuse? He wanted to go over next week's schedule. Both you and him were fully aware he simply wanted to hang out, but the lines were beginning to blur.

"Hey," he welcomed you with a smile when you came knocking on his door, leaning against the frame before gesturing at you to come in.

"Hi, Kook," you walked in, unsure of what to do after making it past his door.

"You can take a seat while I get us some drinks," he gestured to the hotel room couch and walked over to the mini fridge in the living room.

"Drinks? Thought we were debriefing next week's schedule?", you asked with a teasing tone, reclining back into the couch.

"Oh, yeah, the schedule, for sure," he responded in a completely unserious manner.

Approaching you again with drinks in hand, he sat on the same couch as you, leaving a small distance between the two of you to create a more casual environment.

Handing you your drink, he chuckled before even being able to speak.

"Have I been obvious enough or should I try harder?", he asked, sipping his beer.

"Jungkook ..."

"C'mon, it's been a few months. You already know I like you, right? You have to know by now. Are you really not gonna reciprocate at all?", he pouted, "I know you like me back."

"What makes you so confident?"

"You haven't once told me to fuck off," he grinned, leaning back against the couch in complete relaxation.

"I can't do that, I work for you," you rebutted.

"Hah! Please, I know that wouldn't stop you. You might've been a little shy when we first met, but I know by now you would've told me to get fucked if you weren't interested."

He had a point. There had been a few instances in which you did, quite literally, tell him to get fucked. It was always in jest, of course, but you knew that if you ever turned down his flirting, he'd tone it down without question.

Of course you never wanted his flirting to stop. You had found a new source of energy within yourself any time Jungkook would shamelessly shower you with attention. Despite being discrete about it, never being direct with his flirting, he still gave you the same undivided attention any boy with a crush would. It made you feel giddy and wanted. Yet it also made you worry for what may come of acknowledging his interest further than you already had.

You laughed along with him and entertained his banter for a while, following along with his flirting as the two of you drank with one another, eventually arriving to a tipsy state. He drank like a sailor while you only nursed a few drinks, yet somehow reaching a similar level of drunk.

"Are you ever gonna answer my question? I already know the answer, I just want to hear it from you," his original question in regard to your feelings did not circle back until now, catching you off guard yet again.

"Jungkook ..."

He scoot closer to you, "Come on, it's just us. You know what they say – acceptance is the first step."

"If you already know I like you, why do you keep asking?", you groaned, taking yet another swing of your third drink of the night.

"Aha! You do like me," he pointed at you as if he had made the grand discovery.

"Jungkook!"

Raising his hands, he relented, "Sorry, sorry. I'm just excited to hear it. Can you blame me? I've been trying to get you to flirt back for months."

"I don't have the same liberties as you, I'm your subordinate, it'd be inappro-"

"Inappropriate? Not any more inappropriate than me hitting on you every day since we met."

"Inappropriate, exactly," you scoot further away, "which is why you should stop."

He scoot closer again, this time even more so.

"I like you, you like me. Why should either of us stop?"

"I work for you. Yeah, you can flirt with me, but-"

"But what? Come on, don't reject me before I've even asked you out. At least let me have that much," he insisted, knowing he was wearing your false rejection down.

You sighed, twisting your body so you'd now be facing him fully on the couch, "Okay, fine. Go ahead."

He twisted too, now fully facing you. He took a deep breath and put down his drink, "Let me take you on a date? Please?", he pleaded with a shy smile.

"Can I say no?"

"I mean, you can, but I'll just keep insisting," he giggled, making you groan exaggeratedly.

With a fake sigh of defeat, you accepted, "Fine. You can take me out. But if you're as annoying as you were today, then I don't think it's going to work out."

"Yah! I'll be the perfect gentleman. Just you wait."

After a few more drinks, Jungkook insisted on walking you back to your room, – despite the fact that it was just next door – sheepishly asking if he could kiss your cheek goodnight, to which you responded with a kiss on his cheek of your own and a hug goodbye. Through your peephole you could see a very adorable Jungkook scrunch up his nose and smile to himself in contentment at the night's outcome.

Going to sleep with this insane sense of giddiness had been almost impossible. Your mind kept going back to the pretty boy who had insisted yet and yet again for the chance to simply go out with you. The back and forth this past few months had wore you down immensely, and last night had just thoroughly hammered you in.

You weren't entirely sure of the logistics of the date just yet. How were you to go out with Jungkook when he was so insanely popular? People were already aware of his current stay in Los Angeles, as he had been spotted a few times. They were also aware of your presence, though people already knew of your role and had grown accustomed to seeing you with Jungkook without questioning it.

Going to any usual dating spot with him alone would still prove catastrophic, however. Even if people knew you were nothing more than a manager, a one-on-one outing at a place usually meant for couples would be an instant giveaway, so it was entirely out of the question.

Surely the hopeless romantic that was Jungkook already had something planned, so you likely didn't have to worry your head over it. For now, you could simply wait for Jungkook's next unpredictable act of affection towards you with a racing heart.

The following day, you found yourself waking up earlier than usual, having been awoken by incessant knocking on your door that you had not expected. It was 9AM, so not too early, but today was meant to be a day off for everyone on Jungkook's team, including him. It was obvious to you who could be the culprit behind the knocking, but it didn't make it any less strange, especially considering Jungkook never had a tendency of waking up early unless it was for work.

Marching to your door in annoyance, you swung it open without any need to check who was on the other side, knowing you'd encounter the same doe-eyed boy you had kissed goodnight just a few hours ago.

"Jungkook, what the hell are you doing here so early?", were the first words out of your mouth.

He was already fully dressed, donning his usual black attire and carrying two drinks from what you knew was a local coffee shop – with one of them being your drink of choice, because of course Jungkook would have it memorized.

He grinned at you, placing your drink on your hand and smiling even harder when you sipped it.

"Just wanted to make sure you hadn't changed your mind about the date," he wasn't actually here for that reason, obviously, but it was still cute of him to use it as an excuse.

"And if I have?"

"Don't say that, I'll cry."

You laughed, leaning against your door as you sipped your drink once more, "So, have you decided what we're doing?"

He shook his head, "Nope, can't tell you. That's top secret. All you can know is that you should be ready tonight at 7 sharp and to wear something nice but comfortable," he blushed a little before continuing, "maybe that pretty sundress you wore the other day?", his eyes left you to shyly look at his shoes for a moment.

Fuck, he was far too cute.

You pretended to ponder for a bit before agreeing, "Okay. I think I can manage that."

Letting out a tiny little "yes!", he looked to you again, noticing your pajamas, "I'll let you sleep in since I kinda kept you up all night, but I'll be back, okay? You can keep your expectations as high as you want, I'll meet them all," he said confidently.

"Oh? Okay, let's see if you can swoon me then," you accepted the challenge before receiving a shy yet short hug goodbye and heading back into your room, aware you'd be unable to go back to sleep with all the anticipation you felt for your date.

Things had already changed drastically between you and Jungkook and it had only been a few hours since his official confession about his crush (along with your reciprocation). He was touchier and more open with his affections, even becoming a little sheepish now in contrast to how bold he used to be. Now that the cards were all on the table, it was harder to even look at each other without blushing. It felt like a giddy high school crush, and you were already enjoying it far too much.

"Fuck, you look gorgeous," Jungkook breathed out the second you opened your door, "Sorry, was that too much?," he chuckled sheepishly afterwards.

Ignoring the blush threatening your cheeks, you shook your head and smiled, "Thank you, Kook. You look ... you look really handsome," you went on a whim and placed your hands on his jacket, enjoying his own shy smile at your compliment.

You made small talk as you walked down to take Jungkook's private car, sitting side by side in the back as the driver took off.

"So, where are you taking me?", you asked again.

He tsk'd, "No patience in that head of yours, huh? Relax. It's private and comfortable. You'll have fun, I promise. Just let me surprise you."

"Fine," you sighed in feigned annoyance, leaning back into your seat. Jungkook followed and leaned back also, face turned to stare at you.

"Would it be too forward to say I already want to take you home?", he asked.

"Stop," you groaned, "Don't say that, you already wore me down into going on a date, give me time to breathe."

"Are you saying I could wear you down into letting me take you home?", he smiled.

"Anyways," you rolled your eyes, making him chuckle.

The rest of the ride was filled by your usual banter, making the date entirely too casual thus far. It felt like a regular outing with a friend, plus the added butterflies you felt any time his eyes would scrunch up whenever you made him laugh. How handsome he looked also did not help matters. He had changed out of the casual clothes he had on this morning, opting for a casual yet elegant look that consisted of his usual chunky boots and a black blazer. It was very much a usual look for him but he somehow looked extra good tonight.

Fastforward to the date itself and you found yourself in what was supposed to be a private restaurant A-listers in LA would frequent. It allowed for the utmost privacy and served the most famous of people. The atmosphere of the place was casual enough for you to be able to sit yourselves, but it was still packed with security and high-end waiters making the rounds. Being there as a mere manager felt almost illegal.

Jungkook held your hand as he guided you to a secluded booth in the back, opting to sit next to you rather than across you, something you found really cute of him.

"Do you like it?", he asked after a few moments of sitting.

You nodded, "Do I even wanna know how much this place costs?", you asked as you took in your surroundings.

"Yeah, no," he laughed, "Don't think about that. It's all on me. You being here is more than enough," he reassured, reaching over to take your menu before you could get to it, "I'll cover the prices, okay? I want you to order anything you want."

Cute, handsome, funny, into you, and also such a gentleman? You were not to survive even the first date.

"Order for me?", you suggested, knowing he was a foodie at heart and would likely order the perfect meal for you.

And he did. Unsurprisingly to everyone, he picked the perfect meal and side dishes and drinks and even desserts. The meal was amazing and completely relaxed. The conversation was never-ending, allowing for no awkward lulls or forced small talk. Jungkook had been right all those months ago, you did become very good friends. It made you wonder if he had liked you from all the way back then.

"What are you looking for in a relationship?", asked Jungkook after a few drinks, already cozied up with you in the booth.

"That's very forward for only two bottles of soju," you joked.

"C'mon, you can tell me. I won't tell," he whispered childishly, leaning closer to you with genuine interest in his eyes.

You straightened up before responding, "I guess I want something serious. No hookups or anything like that, just ... just someone nice to spend my time with."

"Hey, that's kind of what I am already, huh? I'm nice and we spend most of our time together."

You chuckled, taking a swing of your drink before returning the question, "What about you? What are you looking for in a relationship?"

"You," he deadpanned, giving you a dopey smile.

You couldn't help giggle at that, scrunching up your face at how much of a flirt he was.

He grabbed onto your chin and made you look at him, completely halting your laugher, "I'm serious," he started, "I've been wanting to ask you out since forever, but I knew I'd be putting you in an awkward position with your job. But I don't care about that anymore. I know you like me, and I like you – so fucking bad. Give it a chance? Please?", he pleaded as he stared down at you, eyes fleeting to your lips for one quick moment.

Your breath caught in your throat, making you freeze and gulp before being able to respond to the confession you'd been expecting, yet were not prepared for.

"Jungkook ... Take me home?"

"F-fuck," he groaned, "do you know how long I waited to have you?", his mouth trailed down your neck, leaving wet kisses in his wake, "thought about this every day ... How pretty you'd look pressed up against me ... So fucking pretty," he panted.

Jungkook had dragged you off the booth the moment you suggested for a change of scenery, directing the driver to get the two of you to the hotel as soon as possible. Once at the hotel, Jungkook rushed you to your floor, having already had to hold back during the entirety of the drive back. Even in the elevator, your usually lighthearted Jungkook was missing and replaced by an agitated version of him.

The first thing he did upon unlocking the door to his room as push you against it, closing it back up in the process and liberally letting his lips trail down your neck.

"Kook ..."

"Have I ever told you how much I love the way you say my name? God, just everything about you," he trailed his way back up, hands still on your waist and fingers digging into your skin.

His lips leaned down into yours, almost kissing you but not yet, "I know it's kinda late to ask, but can I kiss you?", he whispered.

Your nod was nothing short of desperate, lips almost chasing his won before he finally connected them to yours.

His kiss was as soft as his hold on your waist, and the sigh he let out against your lips was only a ghost of the passion he felt for you. His lips guided your own, with his tongue licking your mouth open and invading it in a sensual entanglement between your tongues.

It was hard to think clearly with the pretty moans he let out against your lips, almost as if you were gifting him the utmost pleasure with the mere touch of your lips. Hands became braver and breaths became heavier, leading to a mess of ruffling clothes and gasps filling up the silence of the room. You melded into each other, refusing to let your lips separate nor prevent your hands from exploring one another. His hands made it under the skirt of your dress, liberal in the way he felt up your add and pressed you up against him. In the meantime your hands threw off his blazer and began unbuttoning his shirt, feeling up his strong chest in the process.

"Let me take you to my room? Fuck, I- I can't think. Just wanna have you so fucking bad," he mumbled into your lips, groaning when you refused to stop kissing him as he spoke.

You nodded, not trusting your voice and allowing him to guide you to his room by the hand.

Once in his room, he laid you down softly, letting you sit up as he took off his remaining clothes, eyes encouraging you to do the same. His eyes widened when he realized what you'd been wearing under the dress he'd requested, clearly caught off guard by the pretty set you had chosen for him.

It wasn't all that, simply a matching lacy bra and panties that you'd packed before coming to LA. Clearly Jungkook didn't care about the quality of the set, or at least that's the impression his eyes gave you as they stayed glued to your chest, halting his movements as he took his shoes off.

"Oh ...", he breathed before making his way to you on the bed, "For me?", he asked as his hand went down to lightly run his fingers across the strap.

"Mhm," you nodded, getting up from the bed and putting your hand on his shoulders, eyeing up his toned chest and tracing his tattoos, "Do you like it?", you looked up and made eyes at him.

"Fuck, don't do that. You can't look like that and then look at me like that and think I won't fucking burst," he groaned, wrapping his arms around your waist once again, "Can I touch you, pretty? Hmm?"

Nodding again, you led his hands to your breasts, letting out a breath when his hands began feeling you up, going from your breasts to your hips to your ass while his mouth made its way back to yours. He freely moaned into your mouth at the feeling of your body under his hands, walking you back onto the bed and lying you down once more.

His hands were hesitant in reaching the clasp of your bra, to which you responded by humming a soft 'please' into his lips. The removal of your bra caused him to pull away for you as his eyes got a fill of you, groaning yet again at the sight. His hands went to your breasts again, feeling them up as his lips trailed down to your tits. Jungkook's groans of pleasure at the feeling of your bare skin against his lips were never-ending. You fed into it, arching against his lips and running your hands through his hair. It wasn't like he needed any encouragement; his eyes told you of every bit of lust he felt.

"I want you so fucking bad," he murmured against your tits, "I can't even think ... Just want you so bad. Haven't been able to stop thinking about you for months," his lips suckled at your nipple once more before reaching your ear, breathing heavily against it, "Tell me I can fuck you, please. Just need- need you so fucking bad."

Pulling him to your lips by the his hair, you moaned your desire for him into his mouth, pleading at him to get on with it.

"Fuck me. How do you want me? I'll- Fuck, just-"

"I know, pretty. I'll take care of it, okay? Just ... Want you just like this. Wanna see you while I fuck you, okay? Let me-", his hands reached to your panties, seemingly meaning to finger you before you stopped him.

"No, Jungkook, just fuck me. Please? I'm wet enough, I swear. Just need you. Now," you pleaded at him.

He shook his head, tutting at you, "Baby, at least let me eat you out? Gotta stretch you out a little. Swear I wanna fuck you so fucking bad, but shit ... Need to taste you," he rambled before getting on his knees, pulling your legs apart and towards the edge of the bed.

"Fuck ... Always wanted to kiss up these thighs," he breathed as he ran his nose up and down the sensitive skin, leaving a few airy kisses along the length of them, "So soft and pretty."

Slowly yet sensually, he made his way to your cunt, pressing his nose against your panty-covered pussy and taking a deep breath, shamelessly capturing your essence. Ignoring your scandalous whine, he pushed your panties aside and stuck his tongue inside, groaning at the taste of you.

"Baby ... Fuck, how am I ever gonna function without this pretty pussy ever again?", he murmured into you, tongue digging deep inside you as he took turns sucking and licking at you. His nose made an appearance eventually, rubbing deliciously against your clit while your hands pulled at his hair, pushing your hips up against his face.

"Yes, fuck, keep grinding on my face, baby. Use me," he pleaded, almost crying into your cunt.

Jungkook was already an expert in your pleasure, damning everything else in favor of optimizing your pleasure in every way. He let you pull at his hair and grind on his face, somehow never running out of breath as he ate you out with a desperation that had your nails digging far too harshly into his hair – something that had him moaning against you.

Once finished, he licked up every drop of your essence, humming in pleasure at the taste and even coming up to let you suck on his tongue, sharing your own honey with you.

"Kook ... Fuck me. God, I need- need you so bad. Please," you pleaded into his mouth despite not pulling away from his kiss.

"Fuck, okay, yeah. I- I'll fuck you," he finally pulled away and pulled down his boxers, reaching over to his pants on the floor to get a condom from his wallet.

"Oh? You were ready for this?" you grinned at him mockingly.

"Baby," he whined, letting his head fall to your chest in bashfulness, "Don't do this right now. Just let me make you feel good. You can make fun of me all you want after."

"Okay, Kookie. Now, hurry up!", you reached down to his ass, squeezing it jokingly as he let out a scandalized noise and lightly nibbled at your tit in retaliation.

Finally, he put on the condom as you slipped off your panties all the way and throwing them off. He was soft yet shy in his movements as he teased your slit with his cock, playing with the wetness and groaning at the warmth wrapping around the head of his cock. He checked in on you constantly throughout, kissing at your cheek every so often as he bottomed out.

"Feels so good, pretty. Fuck ... gorgeous girl. Knew you were made for me," he groaned, wrapping his arms around you and bringing you closer as he began to thrust.

His words of encouragement didn't end there, letting out every emotion he felt towards you all while you whined his name and raked your nails down his back.

"Always wanted you ... You have no idea how much I like you,"

"Sweetest girl, and all for me ... Oh, fuck- feel so good wrapped around me,"

"You take it so good ... Feel so fucking good and look so fucking pretty. How could I ever resist you?"

"Need you so bad, fuck. Need you every day,"

His praise was never ending, rendering you a mess both physically and emotionally as your feelings for him burst in the form of cries of his name and mumbled reciprocations of his feelings.

"I need you to cum with me, gorgeous. Okay? Let me just- Yeah, right there, huh? That's the spot?", he murmured almost to himself as he lifted you by the legs and began hammering his hips against that one spot deep inside you that had your eyes rolling back. One of his hands eventually joined the mix, thumbing at your clit slowly yet harshly enough to make you gasp at the intensity of the sensation.

"Gonna cum, Kook. Cum with me? P-please?," you cried out for him.

"I'm right there, baby. Just cum with me. Like you so fucking much," he couldn't help but let out yet another expression of his feelings as his orgasm took over him, taking you right along with him.

"Like you t-too. S-so much!", you cried before practically blacking out.

Hips continued to grind against each other as your highs hit you, creating a symphony of skin slapping desperately and high-pitched whines coming from the two of you.

Jungkook almost fell limp against you when his high finally wore down, breathing heavily into your chest before rolling to your side, holding your trembling form against him.

"Was that a good first date?", he asked after catching his breath.

You laughed at the complete change of subject, "Maybe. I'm still expecting you to outdo it for the second one," you turned your body to his own, nuzzling against his chest.

You could feel the vibration of his chest as he chuckled a response, "Oh? I earned a second one?"

"Shut up before I change my mind."

"Yes, ma'am."

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"Kook! Stop being so touchy!," you whined when you finally found yourself alone with him.

He ignored you at first, opting to wrap his arms around you and nuzzle his head into your hair with a satisfied hum.

"But why, baby?", he huffed.

He thought he was so cute when he played dumb.

"No one in the staff can know we're dating. It's like you want me to lose my job," you groaned, reciprocating his gesture against your better judgment.

"Baby, I'm your boss, and I have no plans of firing you, so what's the problem?", he ran his nose up and down your neck, breathing you in softly.

"Still. Sleeping with my boss just gives off a bad image."

"Everyone already knows I have a crush on you anyway, what's the harm?", he whined.

"Kookie ...", you groaned.

"Hmm, love when you call me that, baby," he giggled against you, waddling from one side to the other as he walked you over to the wall, pressing you up against it in a surprisingly innocent manner.

After yet another 'subtle' public display of affection he had decided to engage in whilst recording for a new brand deal, you had dragged Jungkook over to an empty dressing room during a break, deciding to put a stop to his behavior before it went too far.

You had only been dating for a few months by now, becoming exclusive almost immediately after that first date. However, despite the exclusivity and the age of your relationship, you had demanded that Jungkook keep it under wraps when it came to work. The only people aware of your relationship could be counted on one hand (maybe two), including his members, family, a few close friends and your own loved ones. Other than that, not even the company was privy to your new relationship.

Unfortunately for you, it seemed like your boyfriend was on a mission to let everyone know about your relationship, always sending you suggestive looks or sticking to you in a manner usually reserved for couples.

Most people in Jungkook's team already knew of his touchy demeanor (and of his very obvious flirtatious tendencies when it came to you), but you knew that you'd be in trouble if you ever reciprocated. Having such a cute boy blatantly show interest in you proved hard, as you had to control yourself in front of everyone else any time he decided to cause trouble for you.

"C'mon, baby. We're alone now. There's no one to see what I wanna do to you," he smirked into your neck, beginning to trail kisses along its length.

His grabby hands stayed on your hips, occasionally sliding up your waist and under your shirt to feel the warmth of your back. Not-so-innocent touches were beginning to arise, making you conflicted since you were technically still in your company's premises at the moment.

Pressing your hands into his chest, you made a lame and effortless attempt at pushing him away, your heart not truly in it as you allowed him to keep his hands on you, "Kook, we're still at work!"

"We're practically done! I did my part, it's just the guys who need to get their shoots done. I could literally disappear right now and no one would notice. It's okay, baby," he reassured, wrapping your hands around his waist and pulling you even closer, lips beginning to ghost your own.

"Kook ..."

"Shhh, just let me kiss you. Been holding back on kissing you all day," and those were his last words before occupying his lips with your own.

...

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Double Indemnity, Veritas Ratio and Aventurine

This was originally a part of my compilation post as a short analysis on the Double Indemnity references, linking to this great thread by Manya on Twitter. However, I've recently watched the movie and found that the parallels run much deeper than just the mission name and the light cone itself, plus as the short synopsis I've read online. Since there isn't really an in-depth attempt at an analysis on the film in relation to the way Aventurine and Ratio present themselves throughout Penacony, I thought I'd take a stab at doing just that. I will also be bringing up things from Manya's thread as well as another thread that has some extra points.

Disclaimer that I... don't do analyses very often. Or write, in general — I'm someone who likes to illustrate their thoughts (in the artistic sense) more than write. There's just something about these two that makes me want to rip into them so badly, so here we are. If there's anything you'd like to add or correct me on, feel free to let me know in the replies or reblogs, or asks. This ended up being a rather extensive deep dive into the movie and its influences on the pairing, so please keep that in mind when pressing Read More.

There are two distinct layers on display in Ratio and Aventurine's relationship throughout Penacony, which are references to the two most important relationships in the movie — where they act like they hate/don’t know each other, and where they trust each other.

SPOILER WARNING for the entire movie, by the way. You can watch the film for free here on archive.org, as well as follow along with the screenplay here. I will also be taking dialogue and such from the screenplay, and cite quotes from the original novel in its own dedicated section. SPOILER WARNING for the Cat Among Pigeons Trailblaze mission, as well.

CONTENT WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF SUICIDE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

To start, Double Indemnity (1944) is a film noir by Billy Wilder (and co-written by Raymond Chandler) based on the novel of the same name by James M. Cain (1927). There are stark differences between the movie adaptation and the original novel which I will get into later on in this post, albeit in a smaller section, as this analysis is mainly focused on the movie adaptation. I will talk about the basics (summaries for the movie and the game, specifically the Penacony mission in tandem with Ratio and Aventurine) before diving into the character and scene parallels, among other things.

—

[THE NAME]

The term "double indemnity" is a clause in which if there’s a case of accidental death of a statistically rare variety, the insurance company has to pay out multiple of the original amount. This excludes deaths by murder, suicide, gross negligence, and natural causes.

The part of the mission in Cat Among Pigeons where Ratio and Aventurine meet with Sunday is named after the movie. And before we get further into things, let's get this part out of the way: The Chinese name used in the mission is the CN title of the movie, so there's no liberties taken with the localization — this makes it clear that it’s a nod to the movie and not localization doing its own thing like with the mission name for Heaven Is A Place On Earth (EN) / This Side of Paradise (人间天堂) (CN).

—

[SUMMARY OF THE 1944 MOVIE]

Here I summarised the important parts that will eventually be relevant in the analysis related to the game.

Insurance salesman Walter Neff, wounded from a gunshot, enters his office and confesses his crime on a dictaphone to his boss Barton Keyes, the claims manager. Much earlier, he had met Phyllis Dietrichson, the wife of Mr. Dietrichson and former nurse. Neff had initially wanted to meet Mr. Dietrichson because of car insurance. Phyllis claims her husband is mean to her and that his life insurance goes to his daughter Lola. With Neff seduced by Phyllis, they eventually brew up a scheme to murder Mr. Dietrichson in such a way that they activate the "double indemnity" clause, and the plan goes off almost perfectly. Initially, the death is labeled a suicide by the president of the company, Norton.

Keyes finds the whole situation suspicious, and starts to suspect Phyllis may have had an accomplice. The label on the death goes from accidental, to suicide, to then murder. When it’s ruled that the husband had no idea of the accidental policy, the company refuses to pay. Neff befriends Phyllis’ stepdaughter Lola, and after finding out Phyllis may have played a part in the death of her father’s previous wife, Neff begins to fear for Lola and himself, as the life insurance would go all towards her, not Phyllis.

After the plan begins to unravel as a witness is found, it comes out that Lola’s boyfriend Nino Zachette has been visiting Phyllis every night after the murder. Neff goes to confront Phyllis, intending to kill her. Phyllis has her own plans, and ends up shooting him, but is unable to fire any more shots once she realises she did love him. Neff kills her in two shots. Soon after telling Zachette not to go inside the house, Neff drives to his office to record the confession. When Keyes arrives, Neff tells him he will go to Mexico, but he collapses before he could get out of the building.

—

[THE PENACONY MISSION TIMELINE]

I won’t be summarising the entirety of Aventurine and Ratio’s endeavours from the beginning of their relationship to their final conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth the same way as I summarised the plot of the movie, so I will instead present a timeline. Bolded parts means they are important and have clear parallels, and texts that are in [brackets] and italics stand for the names of either the light cone, or the mission names.

[Final Victor] Their first meeting. Ratio’s ideals are turned on its head as he finally meets his match.

Several missions happen in-between their first encounter and the Penacony project. They come to grow so close and trusting with each other that they can guess, understand each other’s thoughts, way of thinking and minds even in high stakes missions. Enough to pull off the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Aventurine’s E1) and Stag Hunt Game (Aventurine’s E6) and come out on top.

Aventurine turns towards Ratio for assisting him in the Penacony project. Ratio's involvement in the project is implied to be done without the knowledge of Jade, Topaz, and the IPC in general, as he was only sent to Penacony to represent the Intelligentsia Guild, and the two other Stonehearts never mention Ratio.

Aventurine and Ratio cook up the plan to deceive Sunday before ever setting foot on Penacony. Aventurine does not tell Ratio the entirety of his plan.

Aventurine convinces Topaz and Jade to trust him with their Cornerstones. Aventurine also breaks his own Cornerstone and hides it along with the jade within a bag of gift money.

[The Youth Who Chase Dreams] They enter Penacony in the Reverie Hotel. Aventurine is taken to the side by Sunday and has all his valuables taken, which includes the gift money that contains the broken aventurine stone, the jade, and the case containing the topaz.

Aventurine and Ratio speak in a “private” room about how Aventurine messed up the plan. After faking an argument to the all-seeing eyes of Sunday, Ratio leaves in a huff.

Ratio, wearing his alabaster head, is seen around Golden Hour in the (Dusk) Auction House by March 7th.

[Double Indemnity] Ratio meets up with Sunday and “exposes” Aventurine to him. Sunday buys his “betrayal”, and is now in possession of the topaz and jade. Note that this is in truth Ratio betraying Sunday all along.

Ratio meets up with Aventurine again at the bar. Ratio tells Aventurine Sunday wants to see him again.

They go to Dewlight Pavilion and solve a bunch of puzzles to prove their worth to Sunday.

They meet up with Sunday. Sunday forces Aventurine to tell the truth using his Harmony powers. Ratio cannot watch on. It ends with Aventurine taking the gift money with his Cornerstone.

[Heaven Is A Place On Earth] They are in Golden Hour. Ratio tries to pry Aventurine about his plan, but Aventurine reins him in to stop breaking character. Ratio gives him the Mundanite’s Insight before leaving. This is their final conversation before Aventurine’s grandest death.

Now how exactly does the word “double indemnity” relate to their mission in-game? What is their payout? For the IPC, this would be Penacony itself — Aventurine, as the IPC ambassador, handing in the Jade Cornerstone as well as orchestrating a huge show for everybody to witness his death, means the IPC have a reason to reclaim the former prison frontier. As for Ratio, his payout would be information on Penacony’s Stellaron, although whether or not this was actually something he sought out is debatable. And Aventurine? It’s highly implied that he seeks an audience with Diamond, and breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone is a one way trip to getting into hot water with Diamond. With Aventurine’s self-destructive behaviour, however, it would also make sense to say that death would be his potential payout, had he taken that path in the realm of IX.

Compared to the movie, the timeline happens in reverse and opposite in some aspects. I will get into it later. As for the intended parallels, these are pretty clear and cut:

Veritas Ratio - Walter Neff

Aventurine - Phyllis Dietrichson

Sunday - Mr. Dietrichson

There is one other character who I feel also is represented in Ratio, but I won’t bring them up until later down the line.

For the sake of this analysis, I won’t be exploring Sunday’s parallel to Mr. Dietrichson, as there isn’t much on Dietrichson’s character in the first place in both the movie and the novel. He just kind of exists to be a bastard that is killed off at the halfway point. Plus, the analysis is specifically hyper focused on the other two.

—

[SO, WHAT’S THE PLAN?]

To make things less confusing in the long run whenever I mention the words “scheme” and “plan”, I will be going through the details of Phyllis and Neff’s scheme, and Aventurine and Ratio’s plan respectively. Anything that happens after either pair separate from another isn’t going to be included. Written in a way for the plans to have gone perfectly with no outside problems.

Phyllis and Neff —> Mr. Dietrichson

Goal: Activate the double indemnity clause by killing Mr. Dietrichson and making it look like a freak train accident

Payout: Twice or more of the face value of the life insurance ($100,000)

Main Actor: Walter Neff | Accomplice: Phyllis Dietrichson

During the entire time until the payout, Phyllis and Neff have to make sure to any outsiders that they look like complete strangers instead of lovers in an affair.

Step-by-step:

Neff convinces Mr. Dietrichson to sign the policy with the clause without him suspecting foul play, preferably with a third party to act as an alibi. This is done discreetly, making Mr. Dietrichson not read the policy closely and being told to just sign.

Neff and Phyllis talk to each other about small details through the phone (specified to be never at Phyllis’ own house and never when Neff was in his office) and in the marketplace only, to make their meetings look accidental. They shouldn’t be seen nor tracked together, after all.

Phyllis asks Mr. Dietrichson to take the train. She will be the one driving him to the train station.

On the night of the murder, after making sure his alibi is airtight, Neff sneaks into their residence and hides in their car in the second row seating, behind the front row passenger seat. He wears the same colour of clothes as Mr. Dietrichson.

Phyllis and Mr. Dietrichson get inside the car — Phyllis in the driver’s seat and Mr. Dietrichson in the passenger seat. Phyllis drives. On the way to the train station, she makes a detour into an alley. She honks the horn three times.

After the third honk, Neff breaks Mr. Dietrichson’s neck. The body is then hidden in the second row seating under a rug.

They drive to the train station. Phyllis helps Neff, now posing as Mr. Dietrichson, onto the train. The train leaves the station.

Neff makes it to the observation platform of the parlour car and drops onto the train tracks when nobody else is there.

Phyllis is at the dump beside the tracks. She makes the car blink twice as a signal.

The two drag Mr. Dietrichson’s corpse onto the tracks.

They leave.

When Phyllis eventually gets questioned by the insurance company, she pretends she has no idea what they are talking about and eventually storms off.

Phyllis and Neff continue to lay low until the insurance company pays out.

Profit!

Actual Result: The actual murder plan goes almost smoothly, with a bonus of Mr. Dietrichson having broken a leg. But with him not filing a claim for the broken leg, a witness at the observation platform, and Zachette visiting Phyllis every night after the murder, Keyes works out the murder scheme on his own, but pins the blame on Phyllis and Zachette, not Neff.

Now for Aventurine and Ratio. You can skip this section if you understand how deep their act goes, but to those who need a refresher, here’s a thorough explanation:

Aventurine and Ratio —> Sunday

Goal: Collect the aventurine stone without Sunday knowing, ruin the dream (and create the grandest death)

Payout: Penacony for the IPC, information on the Stellaron for Ratio, a meeting with Diamond / death for Aventurine

Main Actor: Aventurine | Accomplice: Veritas Ratio

From the moment they step onto Penacony, they are under Sunday’s ever present and watchful eyes. “Privacy” is a foreign word to The Family. They have to act like they don’t like each other’s company the entire time and feed Sunday information through indirect means so that the eventual “betrayal” by Ratio seems truthful to Sunday. Despite what it looks like, they are closer than one would ever think, and Ratio would never sell out a person purely for information.

Step-by-step:

After Sunday takes away the bag of gift money and box, Aventurine and Ratio talk in a room in the Reverie Hotel.

Aventurine establishes the Cornerstones’ importance, and how he lost the gift money and the case containing the Cornerstones to Sunday. Ratio turns to leave, saying “some idiot ruined everything”, meaning the Cornerstones were vital to their plan. (Note that Ratio is not wearing his alabaster head while saying it to said “idiot”.)

Aventurine then proceeds to downplay the importance of the Cornerstones, stating they are “nothing more than a few rocks” and “who cares if they are gone”. This lets Sunday know that something suspicious may be going on for him to act like it’s nothing, and the mention of multiple stones, and leaves him to look up what a Cornerstone is to the Ten Stonehearts of the IPC.

Ratio points out his absurd choice of outfit, mentioning the Attini Peacock and their song.

Ratio implies that without the aventurine stone, he is useless to the IPC. He also establishes that Aventurine is from Sigonia(-IV), and points out the mark on his neck. To Sunday, this means that Aventurine is shackled to the IPC, and how Aventurine may possibly go through extreme lengths to get the stone back, because a death sentence always looms above him.

Aventurine claims Ratio had done his homework on his background, which can be taken that this is their very first time working together. (It isn’t, and it only takes one look to know that Aventurine is an Avgin because of his unique eyes, so this comment does not make sense even in a “sincere” way, a running theme for the interaction.)

Ratio mentions how the true goal is to reclaim Penacony for the IPC, establishing their ulterior motive for attending the banquet.

Ratio asks if Aventurine went to pre-school in Sigonia after saying trust was reliant on cooperation. Aventurine mentions how he didn’t go to school and how he doesn’t have any parents. He even brings up how friends are weapons of the Avgins. This tells Sunday that the Avgins supposedly are good at manipulation and potentially sees Ratio possibly betraying Aventurine due to his carelessness with his “friends”. Sunday would also then research about the Avgins in general (and research about Sigonia-IV comes straight from the Intelligentsia Guild.)

Ratio goes to Dewlight Pavilion in Sunday’s Mansion and exposes a part of Aventurine’s “plan”. When being handed the suitcase, Ratio opens it up due to his apparent high status in the IPC. He tells Sunday that the Cornerstone in the suitcase is a topaz, not an aventurine, and that the real aventurine stone is in the bag of gift money. This is a double betrayal — on Aventurine (who knows) and Sunday (who doesn’t). Note that while Ratio is not officially an IPC member in name — the Intelligentsia Guild (which is run by the IPC head of the Technology Department Yabuli) frequently collaborates with the IPC. Either Aventurine had given him access to the box, or Ratio’s status in general is ambiguous enough for Sunday not to question him further. He then explains parts of Aventurine’s gamble to Sunday in order to sell the betrayal. Note that Ratio does not ever mention Aventurine’s race to Sunday.

Ratio brings Aventurine to Sunday. Aventurine offers help in the investigation of Robin's death, requesting the gift money and the box in return.

Sunday objects to the trade offer. Aventurine then asks for just the bag. A classic car insurance sales tactic. Sunday then interrogates Aventurine, and uses everything Ratio and Aventurine brought up in the Reverie Hotel conversation and their interactions in the Mansion, as well as aspects that Ratio had brought up to Sunday himself.

Aventurine feigns defeat and ignorance enough so that Sunday willingly lets him go with the gift bag. After all is said and done, Aventurine leaves with the gift money, where the Aventurine Cornerstone is stored all along.

Ratio and Aventurine continue to pretend they dislike each other until they go their separate ways for their respective goals and plans. Aventurine would go on to orchestrate his own demise at the hands of Acheron, and Ratio… lurks in the shadows like the owl he is.

Profit!

Actual Result: The plan goes perfectly, even with minor hiccups like Ratio coming close to breaking character several times and Aventurine being sentenced to execution by Sunday.

This is how Sunday uses the information he gathered against Aventurine:

• Sunday going on a tirade about the way Aventurine dresses and how he’s not one to take risks — Ratio’s comment about Aventurine’s outfit being peacock-esque and how he’s “short of a feather or two”. • “Do you own a Cornerstone?” — Ratio talked about the aventurine stone. • “Did you hand over the Cornerstone to The Family when you entered Penacony?” — Aventurine mentioned the box containing the Cornerstones. • “Does the Cornerstone you handed over to The Family belong to you?” — Aventurine specifically pluralized the word Cornerstone and “a bunch of rocks” when talking to Ratio. • “Is your Cornerstone in this room right now?” — The box in the room supposedly contained Aventurine’s own cornerstone, when Aventurine mentioned multiple stones. • “Are you an Avgin from Sigonia?” —Aventurine mentioned that he’s an Avgin, and Ratio brought up Sigonia. • “Do the Avgins have any ability to read, control, and manipulate one’s own or another’s minds?” — Aventurine’s comment on how friends are weapons, as well as Sunday’s own research on the Avgins, leading him to find out about the negative stereotypes associated with them. • “Do you love your family more than yourself?” — His lost parents. “All the Avgins were killed in a massacre. Am I right?” — Based on Sunday’s research into his background. • “Are you your clan’s sole survivor?” — Same as the last point. “Do you hate and wish to destroy this world with your own hands?” — Ratio mentioned the IPC’s goal to regain Penacony, and Aventurine’s whole shtick is “all or nothing”. • “Can you swear that at this very moment, the aventurine stone is safe and sound in this box?” — Repeat.

As seen here, both duos have convoluted plans that involve the deception of one or more parties while also pretending that the relationship between each other isn’t as close as in reality. Unless you knew both of them personally and their histories, there was no way you could tell that they have something else going on.

On to the next point: Comparing Aventurine and Ratio with Phyllis and Neff.

—

[NEFF & PHYLLIS — RATIO & AVENTURINE]

With the short summaries of the movie and the mission out of the way, let’s look at Phyllis and Neff as characters and how Aventurine and Ratio are similar or opposite to them.

Starting off with Aventurine and Phyllis. Here is where they are the most similar:

Phyllis is blonde and described as a provocative woman. Aventurine is also a blond and eyes Ratio provocatively in the Final Victor light cone.

Phyllis was put under surveillance after Keyes starts figuring out that the so-called accidental death/suicide may have been a murder after all. Similarly, Aventurine was watched by Sunday the entire time in Penacony.

Phyllis never tells Neff how she's seeing another man on the side to possibly kill him too (as well as how she was responsible for the death of her husband‘s previous wife). Aventurine also didn't tell Ratio the entirety of his plan of his own death.

Phyllis puts on a somewhat helpless act at first but is incredibly capable of making things go her way, having everything seemingly wrapped around her finger. Aventurine — even when putting on a facade that masks his true motives — always comes out at the top.

Now the differences between Aventurine and Phyllis:

Phyllis does not care about her family and has no issue with killing her husband, his previous wife, and possibly her daughter Lola. Opposite of that, Aventurine is a family man… with no family left, as well as feeling an insane level of survivor’s guilt.

Really, Phyllis just… does not care at all about anyone but herself and the money. Aventurine, while he uses every trick in the book to get out on top, does care about the way Jade and Topaz had entrusted him with their Cornerstones, in spite of the stones being worth their lives.

Phyllis also uses other people to her advantage to get what she wants, often behind other people's backs, with the way she treats Neff and Zachette. Aventurine does as well (what with him making deals with the Trailblazer while also making a deal with Black Swan that involves the Trailblazer). The difference here is Phyllis uses her allure deliberately to seduce men while Aventurine simply uses others as pawns while also allowing others to do the same to himself.

Phyllis makes no attempt at compromising the policy when questioned by Norton. Aventurine ends up compromising by only taking the gift money (which is exactly what he needs).

The wig that Barbara Stanwyck (the actress of Phyllis) wore was chosen to make her look as “sleazy” as possible, make her look insincere and a fraud, a manipulator. A sort of cheapness. Aventurine’s flashy peacock-esque outfit can be sort of seen as something similar, except the outfit isn’t cheap.

Moving on to Ratio’s similarities to Neff… There isn’t much to extrapolate here as Ratio is more of a side character in the grand scheme of Penacony, however this is what I’ve figured out.

Neff has dark hair. Ratio has dark purple hair.

Neff almost never refers to Phyllis by her name when speaking with her, only as “baby”. The few times he refers to her as Phyllis or Mrs. Dietrichson is during their first conversations and when he has to act like he doesn’t know her. Ratio never calls Aventurine by his name when he’s around him — only as “gambler”, sometimes “damned” or “dear” (EN-only) gambler. Only in the Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode does Ratio repeatedly say his name, and yet he still calls him by monikers like “gambler” or, bafflingly, a “system of chaos devoid of logic”.

Both Neff and Ratio committed two betrayals: Neff on Mr. Dietrichson and Keyes, and Ratio on Sunday and Aventurine. With the former cases it was to reach the end of the trolley line, and with the latter it was on a man who had put his trust in him.

As for the differences…

Neff is described as someone who’s not smart by his peers. Ratio is someone who is repeatedly idolised and put on a pedestal by other people.

Neff is excellent at pretending to not know nor care for Phyllis whenever he speaks about her with Keyes or when he and she are in a place that could land them in hot water (the office, the mansion when there are witnesses). His acting is on the same level as Phyllis. With Ratio it’s… complicated. While he does pull off the hater act well, he straight up isn’t great at pretending not to care about Aventurine’s wellbeing.

Instead of getting his gunshot wound treated in the hospital like a normal person, Neff makes the absolutely brilliant decision of driving to his office and talking to a dictaphone for hours. Needless to say, this is something a medical doctor like Ratio would never do.

Now here's the thing. Though it's very easy to just look at Phyllis and Neff in the movie and go "okay, Aventurine is Phyllis and Ratio is Neff — end of story" and leave it at that, I find that they both take from the two leads in different ways. Let me explain. Beginning with Aventurine and Neff…

Neff is the one who hatches the plan and encourages Phyllis to go through and claim the double indemnity clause in the first place. He is also the key player of his own risky plan, having to fake being the husband to enter the train as well as fake the death. Aventurine puts himself at great risk just by being in Sunday’s presence, and hoping that Sunday wouldn’t figure out that the green stone he had uncovered wasn’t the aventurine stone.

Adding onto the last point, Neff had fantasised about pulling off the perfect murder for a long time — the catalyst was simply him meeting Phyllis. Aventurine presumably sought out Ratio alone for his plan against Sunday.

Neff makes a roulette wheel analogy and talks about a pile of blue and yellow poker chips (the latter in the script only). I don‘t even have to explain why this is relevant here. (Aventurine’s Ultimate features a roulette wheel and the motif is on his belt, thigh strap, and back, too. And of course, Aventurine is all about his chips.)

Neff has certain ways to hide when he’s nervous, which include hiding his hands in his pockets when they were shaking, putting on glasses so people couldn’t see his eyes. Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back when he’s nervous: Future Aventurine says that "they don't know the other hand is below the table, clutching [his] chips for dear life", and in multiple occasions such as the Final Victor LC, his character trailer, and even in his boss form in the overworld you can see that Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back. And he is also seen with his glasses on sometimes.

Neff says a bunch of stuff to make sure that Phyllis acts her part and does not act out of character (i.e. during their interactions at the market), like how Aventurine repeatedly tries to get Ratio back on track from his subpar acting.

Neff is always one step ahead of the game, and the only reason the plan blows up in his face is due to outside forces that he could not have foreseen (a witness, Keyes figuring out the plan, the broken leg). Aventurine meanwhile plays 5D chess and even with the odds against him, he uses everything he can to come out on the top (i. e. getting Acheron to kill him in the dream).

Even after coming home on the night of the murder, Neff still felt that everything could have gone wrong. Aventurine, with his blessed luck, occasionally wavers and fears everything could go wrong whenever he takes a gamble.

Neff was not put under surveillance by Keyes due to him being extensive with his alibi. After witnessing Robin’s death with eyewitnesses at the scene, the Family had accepted Aventurine’s alibi, though he would be under watch from the Bloodhounds according to Ratio.

Neff talks about the entire murder scheme to the dictaphone. Aventurine during Cat Among Pigeons also retells his plan, albeit in a more convoluted manner, what with his future self and all.

Continuing with Ratio and Phyllis, even with their personalities and motivations being quite different, they do have a few commonalities.

Phyllis was a nurse. Ratio is a medical doctor.

Her name is Greek of origin. Veritas Ratio, though his name is Latin, has Greco-Roman influences throughout his entire character.

The very first scene Phyllis appears in has her wearing a bath towel around her torso. Ratio loves to take baths to clear his mind.

Phyllis was instructed by Neff to be at the market every morning at eleven buying things. Ratio is seen in an auction house with his alabaster head on so no one could recognize him.

Phyllis mostly acts as an accomplice to the scheme, being the one to convince her husband to take the train instead. She is also generally seen only when Neff is involved. Ratio plays the same role as well, only really appearing in the story in relation to Aventurine as well as being the accomplice in Aventurine’s own death. Even him standing in the auction house randomly can be explained by the theory that he and Aventurine had attempted to destabilise Penacony’s economy through a pump and dump scheme.

With these pointers out of the way, let’s take a closer look at select scenes from the film and their relation to the mission and the pair.

—

[THE PHONE CALL — THE REVERIE HOTEL]

Before the murder, there is a scene with a phone call between Phyllis and Neff discussing the plan while Keyes is in the same room as Neff. Neff has to make sure that Keyes doesn’t think of anything of the phone call, so he acts like he’s calling a “Margie”, and says a bunch of stuff that sounds innocent out of context (“Can’t I call you back, ‘Margie’?” “What color did you pick out?” “Navy blue. I like that fine”), but are actually hinting at the real plan all along (the suit that Mr. Dietrichson wears.)

In a roundabout way, the conversation between Ratio and Aventurine in the Reverie Hotel can be seen as the opposite of that scene — with the two talking about their supposed plan out loud on Penacony ground, a place where the Family (and in turn, Sunday) has eyes everywhere. Despite being in a “private” room, they still act like they hate each other while airing out details that really do not make sense to air out if they really did meet the first time in Penacony (which they didn’t — they’ve been on several missions beforehand). It’s almost like they want a secret third person to know what they were doing, instead of trying to be hushed up about it. The TVs in the room that Sunday can look through based on Inherently Unjust Destiny — A Moment Among The Stars, the Bloodhound statue that disappears upon being inspected, the owl clock on the left which side eyes Ratio and Aventurine, all point to that Sunday is watching their every move, listening to every word.

Rewinding back to before the phone call, in one of the encounters at the marketplace where they “accidentally” run into each other, Phyllis talks about how the trip was off. How her husband wouldn’t get on the train, which was vital for their plan, because of a broken leg. All this, while pretending to be strangers by the passersby. You could say that the part where Ratio almost leaves because Aventurine had “ruined the plan” is the opposite of this, as the husband breaking his leg was something they couldn’t account for, while Aventurine “being short of a few feathers” was entirely part of the plan.

—

[QUESTIONING PHYLLIS — THE INTERROGATION]

This section is going to be a little longer as I will cover two scenes in the movie in a more detailed manner — Mr. Dietrichson signing the policy, and Phyllis being questioned — and how they are represented in the Sunday-Aventurine interrogation and the prior conversation between Ratio and Sunday in multitudes of ways.

Going about their plan, Neff has to make sure that Mr. Dietrichson signs the policy with the double indemnity clause without him knowing the details, all the while having Phyllis (and Lola) in the same room. He and Phyllis have to pretend that they don’t know each other, and that this is just the standard accidental insurance process, instead of signing what would be his downfall. To sell it, he gets Mr. Dietrichson to sign two “copies” of the form, except with Mr. Dietrichson’s second signature, he’s duped into signing the accident insurance policy with the respective clause.

You can tie this to how Ratio goes to Sunday in order to “expose” the lie that the suitcase didn’t actually contain the Aventurine Cornerstone, as well as there being more than one Cornerstone involved in the scheme. Ratio must make sure that Sunday truly believes that he dislikes Aventurine’s company, while also making sure that Sunday doesn’t figure out the actual aventurine stone is broken and hidden in the gift bag. The scheme turns out to be successful, as Sunday retrieves the two Cornerstones, but not the aventurine stone, and truly does think that the green stone he has in his possession is the aventurine.

This whole scene with Sunday is also reminiscent of the interrogation scene in the middle of the movie, where Phyllis was questioned by the boss (Norton) who was deducing that Mr. Dietrichson's death was a suicide, not accidental death. Neff, Phyllis, Keyes and Norton were all in the same room, and Neff and Phyllis had to act like they never knew the other. Phyllis acts like she knows nothing about what Norton insinuates about her husband and eventually, Phyllis explodes in anger and storms out the room, even slamming the door. Her act is very believable to any outsider.

Now back to the Ratio and Sunday conversation. One glaring difference between the movie and here is that his acting isn’t great compared to either Phyllis nor Neff. It never was throughout the Penacony mission. He even comes very close to breaking character several times, and is even defending Aventurine in a somewhat aggressive manner during his one-on-one conversation with Sunday, as in he literally tells Sunday to see a shrink. It’s very different from the way he was acting in Herta Space Station — like Ratio cares about Aventurine too much to keep his hands off.

It's also worth pointing out that Neff doesn't speak a word when Phyllis was being interrogated. Similarly, Ratio is silent throughout the entire scene with Sunday and Aventurine, with his only “line” being a “hm”. When Aventurine calls him a wretch to his face, all he does is look to the side. In fact, he can only look at Aventurine when the other isn’t staring back. Almost like him uttering a single word would give them away. Or his acting is terrible when it has to do with Aventurine, as he has no issue doing the same thing in Crown of the Mundane and Divine (Mundane Troubles).

So, Sunday finds out about the Cornerstones and reveals them to Aventurine, and reasons that he cannot give them back to him because Aventurine had lied. Note that in that same scene, Aventurine attempted to use the two murders that had occurred beforehand against Sunday to retrieve his own cornerstone. Similarly, when it was revealed that Mr. Dietrichson did not know about the accident policy and that the so-called “accidental death” was not, in fact, accidental, the insurance company refused to pay out the money.

Unlike the movie, this was all planned, however. The double-crossing by Ratio, the gift money being the only thing required for Aventurine’s real plan. All of it was an act of betrayal against Sunday, in the same manner as the meticulous planning as Mr. Dietrichson’s murder — To sign the policy, get him to take the train, kill him on the way, and to have Neff pose as the husband on the train until the time is right to get off and lay the body on the tracks. A key difference is that they could not have expected their scheme to be busted wide open due to forces outside of their control, while Ratio and Aventurine went straight down the line for the both of them no matter what.

From here on out, we can conclude that the way Ratio and Aventurine present themselves in Penacony to onlookers is in line with Neff and Phyllis.

—

[“GOODBYE, BABY” — FINAL VICTOR]

And now for the (in)famous light cone, Final Victor. The thing that truly kickstarted the Ratio and Aventurine ship in the fanbase, and the partnership between the two in general. It’s a direct reference to the final confrontation between Neff and Phyllis in the movie.

I’ll fire through all the similarities between the two scenes.

During the respective scenes, Aventurine and Phyllis both outsmart their partner one way or the other: Aventurine with his one-sided game of Russian Roulette, and Phyllis hiding her gun underneath the cushions until Neff turned away.

The guns are owned by Phyllis and Aventurine, not Neff and Ratio.

Phyllis couldn’t bring herself to fire any more shots after she realised she truly did love Neff. Ratio could do nothing but watch as Aventurine did what he did — he couldn’t even pull away if the LC animation is anything to go by him struggling as Aventurine firmly keeps the gun to his chest.

Neff says he doesn’t buy (believe) that Phyllis loved him. She then goes “I’m not asking you to buy […]”. The LC description has Aventurine ask Ratio “You don’t believe me?”, while in the LC animation Ratio straight up says “You expect me to believe you?” and Aventurine answering “Why not, doctor/professor?”

The visual composition of the LC and the scene are nearly identical, from the lighting to the posing to the way Aventurine looks at Ratio — Aventurine and Ratio are even wearing different outfits to fit the scene better. The background in the LC is also like the blinders in the movie, just horizontal.

In the shot where Phyllis’ face is more visible, the way she looks at Neff is strikingly like the way provocatively looks at Ratio. Even their eyes have a visible shine — Phyllis’ eyes brightly shining the moment she realised she really fell in love with Neff, and Aventurine having just a little light return to his eyes in that specific moment.

And now the differences!

Neff holds the gun in his right hand. Aventurine makes Ratio hold his gun in his left.

Neff is the one who takes the gun from Phyllis‘ hand. Aventurine is the one who places the gun in Ratio’s hand and fires it.

Three gunshots are fired. In the movie, Phyllis shoots the first shot and Neff the second and third. Aventurine unloads the gun and leaves only one bullet for this game of Russian Roulette. He pulls the trigger three times, but they all turn out to be blanks.

Phyllis does not break her façade of not smiling until the very last moment where she gets shot. Aventurine is smiling the entire time according to the light cone description, whilst in the animation, it’s only when he guides the gun to his chest that he puts it on.

So, you know how Neff meets Phyllis and it all goes off the rails from there. The way Neff goes from a decent guy to willingly involve himself in a murder scheme, having his morals corrupted by Phyllis. His world having been turned upside down the moment he lays eyes on Phyllis in that first meeting. Doesn’t that sound like something that happened with the Final Victor LC? Ratio, a man all about logic and rationality — a scholar with eight PhDs to his name — all of that is flipped on its head the moment Aventurine pulls out his gun in their first meeting and forces Ratio to play a game of Russian roulette with him. Aventurine casually gambles using his own life like it’s nothing and seemingly without fear (barring his hidden left hand). All or nothing — and yet Aventurine comes out alive after three blanks. Poetic, considering there’s a consumable in the game called “All or Nothing” which features a broken chess piece and a poker chip bound together by a tie. The poker chip obviously represents the gambler, but the chess piece specifically stands for Ratio because he plays chess in his character trailer, his Keeping Up With Star Rail episode and his introduction is centred around him playing chess with himself. Plus, the design of the chess piece has golden accents, similar to his own chess set. In the end, Aventurine will always be the final victor.

Furthermore, Neff had deduced that Phyllis wanted to kill her husband and initially wanted no part in it, but in a subsequent visit it was his own idea that they trigger the double indemnity clause for more money. As the movie progresses though, he starts to have his doubts (thanks in part to him befriending Lola) and makes the move to kill Phyllis when everything starts to come to light. It’s strikingly similar to how Ratio initially wanted no part in whatever Aventurine had in mind when they first met, but in the subsequent missions where they were paired up, he willingly goes along with Aventurine's risky plans, and they come to trust each other. Enough so that Aventurine and Ratio can go to Penacony all on their own and put on an act, knowing that nobody in the IPC other than them can enter the Dreamscape. The mutual respect grew over time, instead of burning passionately before quickly fizzling out like in the movie.

Basically, in one scene, three shots (blanks) start a relationship, and in the other, it ends a relationship. In the anan magazine interview with Aventurine, he says himself that “form[ing] an alliance with just one bullet” with Ratio was one of his personal achievements. The moment itself was so impactful for both parties that it was immortalised and turned into a light cone.

—

[THE ENDING — GOLDEN HOUR]

The ending of Double Indemnity that made it into the final cut has Neff continue his confession on the dictaphone until he realised that he wasn’t alone in the room. Keyes had come inside at some point, but none had said a thing, only listening to a dead man speak of his crime. When Neff sees Keyes, they talk for a moment, Neff says he plans on fleeing to Mexico. Keyes does not think he will make it. He tries to leave, only to collapse at the front of the elevator, Keyes following just behind him. Neff attempts to light a cigar but is too weak to do so, so Keyes does it for him.

Parts of the ending can still be attributed to the interrogation scene between Sunday and Aventurine, so I’ll make this quick before moving on to the conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Ratio and Aventurine’s final conversation together. Once Sunday mentions how quickly Aventurine gave up the suitcase, he inflicts the Harmony’s consecration on him, which forces Aventurine to confess everything that Sunday asks of. In a way, it’s the opposite of what happens in the movie — where Neff willingly tells the truth about the murder to his coworker. Aventurine does not like Sunday, and Neff is close to Keyes. Ratio also does not speak, similarly to how Keyes didn’t speak and stood silently off to the side.

Post-interrogation in Golden Hour, Ratio worriedly prods at Aventurine and asks him about his plan. He then gives him the Mundanite’s Insight with the Doctor’s Advice inside when Aventurine tells him to leave. Throughout Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Aventurine gets weaker and his head starts to buzz, until he falls to the ground before he can hand in the final gems. Similarly, Neff progressively grows weaker as he records his confession. Keyes says he’s going to call a doctor and Neff says he’s planning to go to Mexico. And when Neff collapses near the elevator, they talk one final time and Keyes lights Neff’s cigar as the other was too weak to do so himself.

—

[OPPOSITE TIMELINES AND DEVELOPMENTS]

Remember how I said the way certain events happen in the movie and the game are mostly opposite and reverse of one another?

The Final Victor LC is the first meeting of Ratio and Aventurine, and Neff killing Phyllis is their final meeting.

Between that first and last meeting between Phyllis and Neff’s whirlwind romance, their relationship becomes strained which ultimately leads to Neff not trusting whatever Phyllis has to say at the end point of the movie. As for Ratio and Aventurine, the exact opposite had happened, to the point where Ratio trusts Aventurine enough to go along with his plans even if they went against his own ideals. The basis of the mission involved Veritas Ratio, whose full name includes the Latin word for “truth”, lying the entire time on Penacony.

Aventurine is sentenced to the gallows by Sunday after his unwilling interrogation. The movie starts and ends with Neff willingly confessing everything to Keyes.

It bears repeating, but I have to make it so clear that the trust between Ratio and Aventurine runs incredibly deep. Being able to predict what your partner says and thinks and plans in a mission as critical as the Penacony project is not something first-time co-workers can pull off flawlessly. All the while having to put on masks that prevent you from speaking sincerely towards one another lest you rat yourselves out. You have no way of contacting outside reinforcements from within Penacony, as the rest of the IPC are barred from entering. To be able to play everybody for fools while said fools believe you yourselves have handed your case on a silver platter requires a lot — trust, knowledge of the other, past experience, and so on. With Phyllis and Neff, the trust they had had been snuffed out when Neff grew closer to Lola and found out what kind of person Phyllis truly was on the inside. Phyllis did not trust nor love Neff enough and was going behind his back to meet with Zachette to possibly take Neff and Lola out. And the whole reason Neff wanted to perpetrate the murder was due to him being initially taken by Phyllis' appearance, which single handedly got the ball rolling on the crime.

Now then, how come trust is one of the defining aspects of Aventurine and Ratio’s relationship, when Phyllis and Neff’s trust eventually lead to both their deaths at the hands of the other? Sure, this can be explained away with the opposite theory, but there’s one other relationship involving Neff which I haven’t brought up in excruciating detail yet. The other side of Ratio and Aventurine’s relationship.

—

[NEFF & KEYES — AVENTURINE & RATIO]

Here is where it gets more interesting — while Phyllis and Neff are at the centre point of the movie, there is another character to whom Neff has a close relationship with — Keyes. It’s also the only relationship with no pretences, at least, until the whole murder thing happened and Neff had to hide his involvement from Keyes. Watching the movie, I couldn't help but feel there was something more to the two than meets the eye. I knew that queer readings of the film existed, but I didn't think too much of them until now. And though Aventurine and Ratio parallel Phyllis and Neff respectively, the fact that they also have traits of their opposite means that it wouldn’t be completely out of the question if parts of their relationship were also influenced by Keyes and Neff on a deeper and personal level. Let me explain.

Keyes and Neff were intimate friends for eleven years and have shown mutual respect and trust towards one another. They understood each other on a level not seen with Phyllis and Neff. Even after hearing Neff confess his crimes through the dictaphone (and eventually standing in the same room while Neff confessed), he still cared for the other man, and stayed with him when Neff collapsed at the front door. The only reason Keyes hadn’t deduced that it was Neff who was behind the murder was because he had his absolute trust in him. Keyes is also Neff’s boss, and they are always seen exchanging playful banter when they are on screen together. Neff even says the words “I love you, too” twice in the movie — first at the beginning and second at the end, as the final line. There’s also the persistent theme of Neff lighting Keyes’ cigarettes (which happens in every scene where they are face-to-face), except in the end where it’s Keyes who lights Neff’s.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Mutual respect, caring too much about the other person, the immense amount of trust… Ratio says he’s even the manager of the Penacony project (which may or may not be a lie), and despite their banter being laced with them acting as “enemies”, you can tell that in Dewlight Pavilion pre-Sunday confrontation that Aventurine genuinely likes Ratio’s company and believes him to be a reliable person. From the way he acts carefree in his words to the thoughts in his head, as seen in the mission descriptions for Double Indemnity. Their interactions in that specific mission are possibly the closest thing to their normal way of speaking that we get to see on Penacony.

Not to mention, this is the way Neff describes Keyes. He even says (not in the script) “you never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second.” Apart from the line about the cigar ashes, doesn’t this ring a bell to a certain doctor? “Jerk” with a heart of gold?

After solving the puzzle with the statues, Ratio jokingly offers Aventurine to join the Genius Society. Aventurine then goes "Really? I thought you’ve given up on that already", and then Ratio says it was, in fact, a joke. Solving the puzzle through brute force has Ratio telling Aventurine that the Council of Mundanites (which Ratio himself is a part of) should consider him a member. In the movie, where the scene with the phone call with Neff and Phyllis reiterating details of their plan happens, Keyes actually offered Neff a better job (specifically a desk job, as Keyes’ assistant). The two pairs saw the other as smart, equals, and were invested in each other’s careers one way or another.

Because of all this, the character parallels for this side of the relationship are as follows:

Aventurine - Walter Neff

Veritas Ratio - Barton Keyes

With the way I’ve talked about how Aventurine and Ratio take from both leads in terms, it does fit to say that Aventurine is Neff, and Ratio is Keyes in this layer of their relationship. Since we’re on the topic of Keyes, let me also go through some similarities with him and Ratio specifically.

Keyes says the words “dimwitted amateurs” in his first on-screen conversation with Neff. You can’t have Dr. Ratio without him talking about idiocy in some way.

Keyes almost only appears in the movie in relation to Neff, and barring a single interaction in Neff’s house, is also only seen in the office. Same with Phyllis, Ratio also only ever appears regarding Aventurine.

Keyes genuinely wanted the best for Neff, even offering to celebrate with him when he thought the case truly had been busted wide open by forces when Zachette entered the picture. You could say the same for Ratio, as he hoped that Aventurine wouldn’t dwell on the past according to his response on Aventurine’s Interview, as well as telling him to “stay alive/live on (CN)” and wishing him the best of luck in his Doctor’s Advice note.

Whether or not you believe that there was more going on with Neff and Keyes is up to you, but what matters is that the two were very close. Just like Ratio and Aventurine.

—

[THE ORIGINAL FILM ENDING]

Something that I hadn’t seen brought up is the original ending of Double Indemnity, where Neff is executed in a gas chamber while Keyes watches on, shocked, and afterwards leaves somberly. The ending was taken out because they were worried about the Hays Code, but I felt it was important to bring it up, because in a way, you can kind of see the Sunday interrogation scene as Sunday sending Aventurine to his death in seventeen system hours. And Ratio doesn’t speak at all in that scene, and Keyes doesn’t either according to the script.

Another thing that’s noteworthy is that Wilder himself said “the story was about the two guys” in Conversations with Wilder. The two guys in question are Keyes and Neff.

—

[THE NOVEL]

With the original film ending covered, now it is time to bring up the novel by James M. Cain. I bought the book just to read about the differences between the adaptation and the original source material, and to list a few more similarities and opposites I could gather. For this section alone, due to the changes in the (last) names of certain characters, I will be referring to Walter Huff (Neff in the movie) as Walter, and Mr. Dietrichson as Nirdlinger. The plot is pretty much the same as the movie’s apart from a couple of changes so there isn’t a need to recount everything.

From my two read-throughs of the novel, these are the following passages that stood out to me the most. Starting with Aventurine:

Walter, as a top businessman of the company, knows how to sway a deal and to get what he truly wants with what the other gives him. Aventurine is the same, reliant on his intuition, experience and whatever information he has on the table to claim the win. Him luring out Sparkle in Heaven Is A Place On Earth and his conversation with Acheron in the Nihility is indicative of that.

• "But you sell as many people as I do, you don't go by what they say. You feel it, how the deal is going. And after a while I knew this woman didn't care anything about the Automobile Club. Maybe the husband did, but she didn't. There was something else, and this was nothing but a stall. I figured it would be some kind of a proposition to split the commission, maybe so she could get a ten-spot out of it without the husband knowing. There's plenty of that going on. And I was just wondering what I would say to her."

Phyllis, like in the movie, had been hiding her true intentions of talking to Walter in their first conversations, always saying things that she didn’t actually mean. In a similar vein, Aventurine consistently says stuff but almost never truly means any of it, which is all part of his façade.

• "And I could feel it again, that she wasn't saying what she meant. It was the same as it was the first afternoon I met her, that there was something else, besides what she was telling me. And I couldn't shake it off, that I had to call it on her."

When discussing the murder plan with Phyllis, Walter makes this comment, kind of like how Aventurine seems to operate in a way where he has a plan, but is ready to improvise and think fast when needed.

• "And then it's one of those things where you've got to watch for your chance, and you can't plan it in advance, and know where you're going to come out to the last decimal point."

Remember the roulette wheel line from the movie? In the novel, the gambling metaphor that Walter makes about the insurance business goes on for two paragraphs, mentioning a gambling wheel, stack of chips, a place with a big casino and the little ivory ball, even about a bet on the table. Walter also talks about how he thinks of tricks at night after being in the business for so long, and how he could game the system. Needless to say, insanely reminiscent of Aventurine.

• "You think I’m nuts? All right, maybe I am. But you spend fifteen years in the business I’m in, and maybe a little better than that, it’s the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? It’s not. It’s the biggest gambling wheel in the world. It don’t look like it, but it is, from the way they figure the percentage on the oo to the look on their face when they cash your chips. You bet that your house will burn down, they bet it won’t, that’s all. What fools you is that you didn’t want your house to burn down when you made the bet, and so you forget it’s a bet. To them, a bet is a bet, and a hedge bet don’t look any different than any other bet. But there comes a time, maybe, when you do want your house to burn down, when the money is worth more than the house. And right there is where the trouble starts." • "Alright, I’m an agent. I’m a croupier in that game. I know all their tricks, I lie awake thinking up tricks, so I’ll be ready for them when they come at me. And then one night I think up a trick, and get to thinking I could crook the wheel myself if I could only put a plant out there to put down my bet." • "I had seen so many houses burned down, so many cars wrecked, so many corpses with blue holes in their temples, so many awful things that people had pulled to crook the wheel, that that stuff didn’t seem real to me anymore. If you don’t understand that, go to Monte Carlo or some other place where there’s a big casino, sit at a table, and watch the face of the man that spins the little ivory ball. After you’ve watched it a while, ask yourself how much he would care if you went out and plugged yourself in the head. His eyes might drop when he heard the shot, but it wouldn’t be from the worry whether you lived or died. It would be to make sure you didn’t leave a bet on the table, that he would have to cash for your estate. No, he wouldn’t care."

Returning home from the murder, Walter attempted to pray, but was unable to do it. Some time passed and after speaking to Phyllis, he prayed. Aventurine presumably hadn’t done the prayer ever since the day of the massacre, and the first time he does it again, he does it with his child self.

• "I went to the dining room and took a drink. I took another drink. I started mumbling to myself, trying to get so I could talk. I had to have something to mumble. I thought of the Lord's Prayer. I mumbled that, a couple of times. I tried to mumble it another time, and couldn't remember how it went." • "That night I did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed."

Phyllis in the book is much more inclined towards death than her movie version, even thinking of herself as a personification of death. She’s killed ten other people (including infants) prior to the events of the novel. Something to keep in mind as Aventurine had mentioned several times that he attempted to kill himself in the dream, plus his leadup to his “grandest death”. Just like Phyllis, he’s even killed at least a few people before, though the circumstances of that were less on his own volition and more so for the sake of his survival (i.e. the death game in the maze involving the 34 other slaves where he was the winner and another time where he murdered his own master). Instead of Phyllis playing the active role of Death towards everybody else, Aventurine himself dances with Death with every gamble, every time his luck comes into play. Danse Macabre.

• "But there’s something in me, I don’t know what. Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes." • "Walter, The time has come. For me to meet my bridegroom [Death]. The only one I ever loved."

Moving on to Ratio:

Walter says several times that it’s hard to get along with Keyes, and how he says nice things after getting you all worked up. A hard-headed man to get along with, but damn good at his job. Sound like someone familiar?

• "That would be like Keyes, that even when he wanted to say something nice to you, he had to make you sore first." • "It makes your head ache to be around him, but he’s the best claim man on the Coast, and he was the one I was afraid of."

Keyes sees Walter as smarter than half the fools in the company. Ratio can only stand the company of Aventurine in regards to the IPC.

• "Walter, I'm not beefing with you. I know you said he ought to be investigated. I've got your memo right here on my desk. That's what I wanted to tell you. If other departments of this company would show half the sense that you show—" • "Oh, he confessed. He's taking a plea tomorrow morning, and that ends it. But my point is, that if you, just by looking at that man, could have your suspicions, why couldn't they—! Oh well, what's the use? I just wanted you to know it."

After going on a rant about the H.S. Nirdlinger case (Phyllis’ husband) and how Norton is doing a horrible job, he ends it by saying that it’s sheer stupidity. “Supreme idiocy”, anybody?

• "You can’t take many body blows like this and last. Holy smoke. Fifty thousand bucks, and all from dumbness. Just sheer, willful, stupidity!"

Phyllis’ former occupation as a nurse is more elaborated on, including her specialization — pulmonary diseases. One of Ratio’s crowning achievements is curing lithogenesis, the “King of Diseases”.

• "She’s one of the best nurses in the city of Los Angeles. […] She’s a nurse, and she specialized in pulmonary diseases. She would know the time of crisis, almost to a minute, as well as any doctor would."

As for the murder scheme, they talk about it a lot more explicitly in the novel. Specifically, Walter mentions how a single person cannot get away with it and that it requires more people to be involved. How everything is known to the party committing the crime, but not the victim. And most importantly: Audacity.

"Say, this is a beauty, if I do say it myself. I didn't spend all this time in the business for nothing, did I? Listen, he knows all about this policy, and yet he don't know a thing about it. He applies for it, in writing, and yet he don't apply for it. He pays me for it with his own check, and yet he don't pay me. He has an accident happen to him and yet he don't have an accident happen to him. He gets on the train, and yet he don't get on it."

"The first is, help. One person can't get away with it, that is unless they're going to admit it and plead the unwritten law or something. It takes more than one. The second is, the time, the place, the way, all known in advance—to us, but not him. The third is, audacity. That's the one that all amateur murderers forget. They know the first two, sometimes, but that third, only a professional knows. There comes a time in any murder when the only thing that can see you through is audacity, and I can't tell you why."

"And if we want to get away with it, we've got to do it the way they do it, […]" "Be bold?" "Be bold. It's the only way."

"I still don't know—what we're going to do." "You'll know. You'll know in plenty of time."

"We were right up with it, the moment of audacity that has to be be part of any successful murder."

It fits the situation that Aventurine and Ratio find themselves in extremely well: For the first point— Aventurine would not be able to get away with simply airing out details by himself, as that would immediately cast suspicion on him. Having another person accompany him who not only isn’t really a part of the IPC in name (as the IPC and The Family have a strenuous relationship) but would probably be able to get closer to Sunday because of that means they can simply bounce off each other without risking as much suspicion with a one-man army. Which is exactly what Ratio and Aventurine do in the conversations they have on Penacony. Secondly — they knew how Sunday operates: as a control freak, he leaves no stone unturned, which is how he became Head of the Oak Family, so their acting required them to give off the impression that a. they hated each other, b. Ratio would go against Aventurine’s wishes and expose him in return for knowledge, c. there were only the two Cornerstones that were hidden. This would give Sunday the illusion of control, and lead to Sunday to lower his guard long enough for Aventurine to take the gift money in the end. The pair knew this in advance, but not Sunday. And thirdly — the plan hinged on a high-level of risk. From breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone, to hoping that Sunday wouldn’t find it in the gift bag, to not telling Ratio what the true plan is (meaning Ratio had to figure it out on his own later on), to Sunday even buying Ratio’s story, it was practically the only way they could go about it. “Charming audacity”, indeed.

An interesting aspect about the novel is that the ending of the novel is divergent from the movie’s final cut and the original ending: Phyllis and Walter commit suicide during a ferry ride to Mexico. The main reason this was changed for the movie was because of the Hays Code, and they wouldn’t allow a double suicide to be screened without reprecussions for criminals. There’s also a bunch of other aspects that differentiate the novel from the movie (no narration-confession as the confession happens in a hospital, less characterization for Keyes and instead a bigger focus on Lola and her boyfriend, the focus on the murderous aspect of Walter and Phyllis’ relationship instead of actual romance, Walter falling in love with Lola (with an unfortunately large age gap attached), etc.)

As for the ending, this wouldn’t even be the first romance media reference related to Aventurine and Ratio where both the leads die, with the other being The Happy Prince and San Junipero (in relation to the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth reference), which I normally would chalk up as a coincidence, though with the opposite line-of-thought I have going on here (and the fact that it’s three out of four media references where the couple die at the end…), I think it’s reasonable to say that Ratio and Aventurine will get that happy ending. Subverting expectations, hopefully.

—

[THE HAYS CODE — LGBT CENSORSHIP IN CHINA]

I’ve brought up the Hays code twice now in the previous two sections, but I haven’t actually explained what exactly it entails.

The Hays Code (also known as the Motion Picture Production Code) is a set of rules and guidelines imposed on all American films from around 1934 to 1968, intended to make films less scandalous, morally acceptable and more “safe” for the general audiences. Some of the “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” include but are not limited to…

(Don’t) Pointed profanity

(Don’t) Inference of sex perversion (which includes homosexuality)

(Don’t) Nudity

(Be Careful) Sympathy for criminals

(Be Careful) Use of firearms

(Be Careful) Man and woman in bed together

What does this have to do with a Chinese gacha game released in 2023? If you know a little bit about miHoYo’s past, you would know that pre-censorship laws being upheld to a much stronger and stricter degree, they had no problem showcasing their gay couples in Guns Girl Z (Honkai Gakuen 2/GGZ) and Honkai Impact 3rd, with the main three being Bronya/Seele, Kiana/Mei (admittedly the latter one is a more recent example, from 2023), and Sakura/Kallen. Ever since the Bronya and Seele kiss, censorship in regards to LGBT content ramped up, causing the kiss to be removed on the CN side, and they had to lay low with the way they present two same-sex characters who are meant to be together. They can’t explicitly say that two female or male characters are romantically involved, but they can lace their dynamics with references for those “in the know” — Subtext. Just enough to imply something more but not too much that they get censored to hell and back.

So what I’m getting at is this: The trouble that Double Indemnity had to go through in order to be made while also keeping the dialogue of Phyllis and Neff as flirtatious as they could under the Hays Code among other things is quite similar to the way Ratio and Aventurine are presented as of now. We never see them interact outside of Penacony (at least up until 2.2, when this post was drafted), so we can only infer those interactions specifically until they actually talk without the fear of being found out by Sunday. But, there’s still some small moments scattered here and there, such as when Aventurine goes near Ratio in the Dewlight Pavilion Sandpit, he exclaims that “the view here is breathtaking” (he can only see Ratio’s chest from that distance) and that Ratio could “easily squash [him] with just a pinch”. Ratio then goes “If that is your wish, I will do so without a moment’s hesitation.” Not to mention the (in)famous “Doctor, you’re huge!” quote.

It’s not a coincidence that Ratio and Aventurine have three explicit references to romance media (Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince), possibly even four if you take the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth as a reference to Black Mirror’s San Junipero. It’s not a coincidence that the storylines or characters of said references parallel the pairing, from surface-level to deep cuts. It’s not a coincidence that the CN voice actors were asked to “tone it down” by the voice director when it came to their chemistry. It’s not a coincidence that Aventurine has only flirted with (three) men throughout Penacony, even referring to a Bloodhound NPC as a “hunk of a man” inside his thoughts, all the while ignoring Himeko and Robin when it came to their looks — women who are known across the cosmos with a myriad of adoring fans. There are so many other so-called “coincidences” related to the two that you could make an iceberg just based on versions 2.0-2.2 as well as content miHoYo themselves have put out on social media. They absolutely knew what they were doing, and were trying to get their point across through subtle means — the extent they went to with the Double Indemnity reference while also keeping it under wraps from a “surface” level point of view is proof of this — the implications are there if you take the time to look for them, and are simply hard to ignore or deny once you do find them.

—

[CONCLUSION]

This was supposed to be short considering the other analyses I’ve seen were also pretty short in comparison, but I couldn’t get the movie out of my head and ended up getting carried away in the brainrot. I hope you could follow along with my line of thinking, even with the absurd length of this post, and the thirty-image limit. I tried to supplement context with some links to videos and wiki pages among other sources wherever I can to get around it.

I will end it with this though — the love in the movie turned out to be fake and a farce, going off track from what was a passionate romance in the beginning because of the murder scheme. Meanwhile, the whole reason why Ratio and Aventurine can pull off whatever they want is because of their immense trust in one another. What was initially shown to be distrust in the Final Victor LC grew into something more, for Ratio, someone who would have never put faith into mere chance and probability before this, put his trust in Aventurine, of all people.

TL;DR — (I get it, it’s over ten thousand words.)

Not only is the relationship between Neff and Phyllis represented in the deception and acting side of Ratio and Aventurine, but the real and trusting side is shown in Neff and Keyes. They have a fascinating, multi-layered dynamic that is extremely fun to pick apart once you realise what’s going on underneath the bickering and “hatred” they display.

Many thanks to Manya again for making the original thread on the movie. I wouldn’t be here comparing the game and movie myself if it weren’t for that.

By the way, I really do believe that Shaoji totally watched this movie at least once and really wanted that Double Indemnity AU for his OCs. I know exactly how it feels.

—

Other points I'd like to mention that didn't fit anywhere else in the main analysis and/or don’t hold much significance, have nothing to do with the Penacony mission, or may even be considered reaching (...if some of the other points weren’t). Just some potentially interesting side bits.

Phyllis honks three times to signal Neff to go for the kill. That, and the three gunshots in the confrontation. Aventurine is all about the number three.

The height difference Aventurine and Ratio have going on is close to Phyllis and Neff’s.

Phyllis had killed her husband’s previous wife and went on to marry Mr. Dietrichson, pretty much taking the wife’s place. Aventurine killed his previous master, and had taken certain attributes from him like his wristwatch and the rings on his hand and the “all or nothing” mantra.

When calling Ratio a wretch (bastard), Aventurine smiles for a moment. This is exclusive to the EN, KR and JP voiceovers, as in CN, he does not smile at all. (Most definitely a quirk from the AI they use for lip syncing, but the smile is something that’s been pointed out quite a few times so I thought I’d mention it here.)

Sunday specifically says in the CN version that he knew of Aventurine's plans the moment Aventurine left the mansion, meaning that he realized he had been played the fool the moment Ratio and Aventurine talked in Golden Hour

In the description for the "All or Nothing" consumable, teenage Aventurine says this specific line: "Temptation is a virtue for mortals, whereas hesitation proves to be a fatal flaw for gamblers." According to Ratio, this is Aventurine's motto - he says as such in Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode. Note that in the anan interview he explicitly says he does not have a motto, and yet Ratio in the video says otherwise. They definitely have to know each other for a while for Ratio to even know this.

A big reason why Neff even pulled off the murder scheme in the first place was because he wanted to see if his good friend Keyes could figure it out, the Mundane Troubles Trailblaze Continuance showcases Ratio attempting to teach the Herta Space Station researches a lesson to not trust the Genius society as much as they did.

In Keyes’ first scene he’s exposing a worker for writing a policy on his truck that he claimed had burnt down on its own, when he was the one who burnt it down. Ratio gets into an Ace Attorney-style argument with the Trailblazer in Mundane Troubles.

Neff talks repeatedly about how it won’t be sloppy. Nothing weak. And how it’ll be perfect to Phyllis, and how she’s going to do it and he’s going to help her. Doing it right — “straight down the line”. Beautifully ironic, considering what happens in the movie, and even more ironic as Ratio and Aventurine’s scheme went exactly the way they wanted to in the end. Straight down the line.

#honkai star rail #double indemnity #veritas ratio #aventurine #golden ratio #ratiorine #an attempt at analysis by one a-u #relationship analysis #you know what‚ i guess i can tag the other names of this ship #aventio #raturine #you could make a fucking tierlist of these names #um‚ dynamics (yk what i mean) dont really matter here in the analysis just fyi if youre wondering its general enough #also if you're wondering about the compilation thread - its not done. it'll take a while (a long while.)#this post was so long it was initially just a tumblr draft that i then put into google docs. and it ended up being over 2k+ words long #is this a research paper‚ thesis‚ or essay? who knows! this just started as just a short analysis after watching the movie on may 5 #final word count according to docs (excluding alt text): 13013 - 43 pages with formatting #i wish i could have added more images to this‚ 10k words vs 30 images really is not doing me any favours…#plus‚ i hit the character limit for alt text for one of the images.#if you see me mixing up british and american spelling‚ you probably have!#oh yeah. if any of the links happen to break at some point. do tell. i have everything backed up #there also may be multiple links strung together‚ just so you know.#I link videos using the EN and CN voiceovers. Just keep that in mind if the jump between two languages seems sudden.#I had to copy and paste this thing from the original tumblr draft onto a new post because tumblr wouldn't let me edit the old one anymore.#Feels just like when I was finalising my song comic…#(Note: I had to do this three times.)#I started this at May 5 as a way to pass the time before 2.2. You can probably tell how that turned out.#Did you know there is a limit to the amount of links you can add to a single tumblr post? It's 100. I hit that limit as well.#So if you want context for some of these parts... just ask.#I'm gonna stop here before I hit the tag limit (30) as well LMAOO (never mind I just did.)

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imaginaryf1shots · 1 day

Text

Clingy | Lewis Hamilton

WC: 1.3K

Lewis x wife!reader

Summery:(REQUESTED) Just lewis being affectionate and clingy to his wife.

Warnings: none

Masterlist

Lewis has always been the attentive type, you loved to spoil you and take care of you. He's very loving and caring, he started picking up on your little wants and needs very early in the relationship without you even having to say anything. What was weird is how much more all his love became, everything just intensified for some unknown reason, it was amplified.

Lewis never asked you to travel with him to any of his races, he always just left you to pick and choose when you wanted, he never wanted to pressure you into coming if you didn't feel up to it. But as of late it all has changed, each week he'd ask you to fly with him.

"But Lewis, I don't have any more clothes, I'll go home and next week I'll fly out with you." You'd say and he'd just laugh.

"Sweetheart, I can buy all the clothes you want." Needing anything was not an excuse to Lewis, he earned more than enough for you to dress in new clothes every day if you wanted. And you earn your own money from working in his team as well, so money was not an issue. Offering you a job on his team was also one of the ways he'd kept you close.

"Fine, I'll go with you." You say giving up and Lewis leans over to press a loving kiss to your lips. "Only because you're cute though."

"Hey, I'll take it." You both laugh enjoying the moment.

Lewis isn't the biggest fan of PDA, sure he's kissed you when he won races before and don't get me started on the kisses you shared whenever he won world championships, the online girlies went crazy over these. Lately they have way more content to share around containing you two, or more like Lewis's hands.

He's always touching you one way or another, holding your hand, his arms around your shoulders, pulling you back to his front as you both talked to someone, arm around your waist, on your butt on your thighs, his hands were everywhere.

"My timeline is filled with you touching me." You tell Lewis while you were in the car on the way to the track, you turn the phone for him to see. His hand was on your thigh from the moment you got in the car.

"What can I say, I just have a beautiful and irresistible wife." Lewis says and you chuckle.

"Flattery does nothing, you're already married to me." You tease Lewis, he smiles at you.

"Best thing that has ever happened to me." You blush at the look he's giving you, you try to hide your face from him, it's been so many years since you started dating and he still has that effect on you. "Don't hide your face."

That makes you blush more, Lewis kisses your cheek lovingly, and you lean into him.

The rare times you're not together, you're always texting. Check-ins are a must in your relationship. Just small texts, where are you? How was your day? Did you eat? Do you need anything? Do you want anything? And a ton of I miss you(s) and I love you(s).

During race weeks, when he was in the garage or in a meeting, he'd always pop in or look for you to spend just a few minutes together before he's whisked somewhere else.

"Lewis, you look happy today." The interviewer commented at the smiley man in front of her, his smile was contagious.

“Yeah, it’s just my wife is standing right there." Lewis said and pointed at where you were smiling and talking to one of the Mercedes staff, unaware of his eyes that went to you every once and a while. But you felt it when the camera turned to face you along with everyone else. You slowly stopped talking and looked at everyone weirded out how they all turned to you at once.

"Uh hi." You say uncertain, waving your arm slightly at them.

"Lewis was just saying you're the reason he's so happy today." The interviewer said and your eyes went to your husband who was smiley just like he was all weekend.

“He's just been giddy all weekend." You try to make the focus go elsewhere, despite being in the spotlight for years because of Lewis you still weren't 100% comfortable with the attention especially when it was mainly on you.

"I'm just happy she's here this weekend." Lewis says and you smile at him refusing to say anything, since you're there most weekends.

There was a rare weekend when you were feeling a tad bit tired and wanted to just stay back home, feeling a bit sick and exhausted. After the race Lewis flew home straight away, the race was in Italy so the flight to Monaco was a very short one. When Lewis made it home the first thing he did was head to the living room where you sat watching your comfort show.

You heard the front door open and close, making you smile to yourself anticipating the warm greeting. And within seconds, Lewis was by your side, his arms wrapping around you in a gentle yet possessive embrace.

"Hey, love." He murmured, nuzzling his face into your neck. "Missed you so much."

"You saw me not even four days ago." You chuckle softly pausing your show.

"It's still too long." He sighed, tightening his hold on you. You couldn't help but laugh, it was all too funny, how protective and clingy he's become in the last couple of months. It was like he sensed it all before she did, something that she was sure of just today. The incline that you had proven today and it put everything in perspective.

"Lewis." You say pushing his braids out of his face, you turn so you're facing him, his arms loosening from around you. His eyes were filled with adoration and love, they were inviting and warm. "I need to tell you something."

“What is it, love?" Lewis asked, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. "Are you alright?" His grip on you tightened a bit. "Is everything alright? Are you sick?"

You shook your head no, your smile widening. "No, nothing like that. Actually, quite the opposite... Lewis, I'm pregnant.”

For a moment there was silence. Lewis took a few seconds to process your words, but once he processed it and it made sense in his mind, his eyes lit up with pure joy and disbelief.

"You're- you're pregnant... we're having a baby?" Lewis stammered, you nodded your eyes filling with tears.

"Yes, we're having a baby." A sound of pure joy just escaped his lips, you laugh as he pulls you up and in a fierce hug.

"Oh my god, this is amazing!" He exclaimed, twirling you around." I'm going to be a dad."

You laughed, the room is filled with the sound of pure happiness and love.

"Yes you are." You lean into him, and you verbalise your theory that you had since you found out. "That's probably why you've been so clingy and protective lately, your instincts knew before we did."

Lewis kissed you deeply, his happiness overflowing.

"I love you so much, and I love our little one already." He whispers against your lips.

"I love you too Lewis." You replied, resting your forehead against his. "I can't wait for us to be parents, and start the next chapter of our life together."

If you thought Lewis was protective and touchy before, you had it wrong. From the moment he found out about you being pregnant he doubled everything that he was before. His attentiveness took on a new meaning. Every touch, every gesture, was filled with even more love and care, now directed not just at you but at the life inside of you. You just relished in his attention and his affection, knowing that your life and your baby's life will just be filled with endless love and happiness.

Maintaglist

@gnatthefly . @mochimommy2002 . @llando4norris . @mrswolffs-blog . @barcelonaloverf1life . @c-losur3

#f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 scenario #f1 x reader #lewis hamilton #lh #lh44 #lewis #lewis x reader #lewis imagine #lewis hamilton fanfic #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton one shot #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis x wife! reader #lh44 x reader #lh44 imagine

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obaex · 3 days

Text

four - hockey player!ex!rafe cameron (pt. 1)

summary: rafe knows he's screwed up, but when he offers you a way to make amends, you can't resist. the catch? he'll have to do the impossible.

word count: 1.8k

a/n: rafe is slightly toxic in this ngl! i am in love with this. hockey romance is very near and dear to me (this is v loosely based on a real life experience). *mwah*

You saw your phone light up out of the corner of your eye and lowered your mascara wand as you leaned over to glance at the screen and let out a shaky sigh.

A part of you knew the right thing to do by now was to block his number. You hadn't responded to a single message he'd sent for over two weeks. And the messages had been relentless.

I'm thinking about you in the afternoons.

Hi beautiful in the mornings.

I'm sorry.

You're still my girl.

And on and on, escalating to paragraphs at night, as he typed out things he'd never once said out loud to you before; about how he felt the first time he met you, the things his teammates said, about how Wheezie was asking about you and Sarah spent an hour on the phone lecturing him, about how he'd do anything to get you back.

Reading his messages was like drinking a honied poison that went down sweet, warming every inch of you, only to make you sick in the end. But you couldn't stop. You couldn't block him. And even though you'd made him think you were ignoring him, you craved every message, every word he said something you had ached to hear when he had the chance.

Now it was two hours before the biggest game of the season, arguably one of the biggest of his career. He should be focusing on his pregame routine, on his way to the rink, if he wasn't there already and instead here he was texting you. You were the one on his mind and you drank that poison down, allowing yourself to feel special, even if the text had made no sense to you.

How many?

How many what?

His last message before that was from a couple of hours ago, before his pregame nap, the one you often took together as he had reminded you, in excruciating detail.

Your fingers twitched with the urge to reply. You knew he was baiting you into responding, but you swallowed down the urge and took a deep breath to still your beating heart and went back to applying your makeup, dragging up the same memory you did every time you were tempted by him.

It was just after 2AM, and you were sitting in your car that you had driven to his apartment, unable to sleep, desperate to talk to him. He lounged in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead at the windshield, tracking the rain that was falling steadily.

"Can you please talk to me?" you whispered, trying so hard not to come across as needy or desperate.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, shrugging, avoiding your eye contact.

"I don't know, just tell me what's going on with you? You barely talk to me anymore, you won't even look at me. Did I do something?"

He shrugged again and you felt physically sick. Maybe it was because you couldn't remember the last thing you'd eaten, the last time you'd slept more than a few fitful hours, all consumed with the feeling that your five-year relationship was running off the rails. Rumors were flying that there was another girl... or girls... And when you had asked him about it, he brushed it off, not strongly enough to give you even an ounce of comfort. You were falling apart. And he was letting it happen. He was forcing you to end this, too cowardly to do it himself.

"Do you even want to be with me anymore?" you whispered, barely audible over the pounding rain, like maybe if he didn't hear you, he couldn't answer.

He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed loudly, frustrated, like you were just so annoying to him, and you wished you could suck your words back into your mouth.

"I have practice in like four hours, I can't be doing this with you right now" he said, aptly avoiding the conversation again.

Your chin was wobbling and you bit back everything you wanted to say, not wanting to be needy, or nagging, hoping if you were on your very best behavior he would have a change of heart, change his mind.

You pursed your lips and nodded, averting your gaze to look out at the rain and gathering the strength you needed to say the words that felt like nails in your mouth.

"I can't do this anymore" you whimpered, as tears fell that matched the droplets on your windshield. "I can't keep giving 100% and getting nothing in return. I'm sitting here spilling my heart out to you and you won't even look at me. After everything we've been through... You won't even deny that you hooked up with her."

Silence.

You could see him grimace, the tic in his jaw as he pushed his tongue into his cheek. You wanted to grab the front of his sweatshirt, shake him and scream 'SAY SOMETHING!'. But you didn't. And his silence persisted a moment longer.

"So that's it then?" he said finally, like you had any other choice.

You wiped futilely at the tears that were now pouring down your face, even as you tried to hold them back, sniffling with a shaky breath to avoid outright sobbing in front of him.

He opened the car door, got out, slamming it forcefully behind him without so much as a glance your way and you broke down. You didn't make it one block before you had to pull over. You couldn't see, you couldn't breath, and you couldn't hold your hands steady on the wheel you were shaking so badly. You threw your car in park, lay your head on the steering wheel and cried.

Two days passed before the first text came in.

"I'm sorry" is all it said.

You could see the bubbles at the bottom of the screen, indicating that he was still typing before more messages appeared.

At this point you were grasping your phone with both hands, like a lifeline, eyes glued to the screen, heart hammering so hard in your chest you felt nauseous and your hands were shaking. There was a chance, a glimmer, a hope and you were clinging to it.

Your fingers hovered over your phone, ready to forgive him, to forget, to run right back to the way things had been, to have him looking for you at the end of every game, for stolen kisses in the parking lot at the arena, to whispered I love yous as you fell asleep in his arms. And then more messages came flooding in.

More messages were coming now but you couldn't read any further. Your heart was battering around your ribcage like a pinball machine with the whiplash of information: your boyfriend of five years had been actively texting another girl... because she was easygoing, and fun to talk to and didn't stress him out… like you did.

Your tears were back like no time had passed from the night you broke up, heavy sobs coming from your mouth at how stupid you felt, at all the rumors being true. And did you really believe that nothing more had happened between them? He was Rafe fucking Cameron of the Carolina Eagles.

Your eyes skimmed over the second half of his message, about how you were it for him, about how much he loved you, how he wanted to marry you and for you to have his babies?? The ache of wanting that so desperately to be true and knowing it couldn't be was too much for you as you turned and cried into your pillow.

You recalled all of those messages now as a new one came in. You shoved your finger into the bruise on your heart, forcing yourself to feel that pain again, to imagine him laying in bed, in the bed you had slept in with him, while he texted another girl, maybe even texted both of you at the same time, and you refocused on your makeup.

You had faithfully followed the Eagles for five years, his teammates were some of your best friends, like brothers to you. Despite everything that had happened with Rafe, you weren't going to miss their game tonight. Rafe's best friend and linemate Nick had texted you earlier in the week to let you know he had a ticket for you.

Fine. It was hard to say no to that. Everyone you knew would be there anyway and you didn't need Rafe thinking he had power over you if you weren't there. So, you were going. And you decided if you were going to go you were going to look stunning, and as you put the finishing touches on your makeup, there was no doubt in your mind that you were.

You had spent more time on your hair and makeup than potentially every other game that season combined. You may have gotten a little comfy towards the end, wearing Rafe's team-issued sweatshirt with his name and number on it and a pair of leggings. He claimed that he loved you in that, but that wouldn't cut it tonight. You wore skintight jeans that accentuated every perfect curve of your body, heeled booties and a tight-fitting long sleeve shirt. Your hair was immaculate and your makeup was admittedly a little extra for an AHL game, but effortless nonetheless as it amplified your natural beauty. The pain in your heart had been ebbing its way into anger: you were going to make him regret every single thing he'd done, the thought nagging at you as your phone lit up again.

You huffed. You had been strong for weeks, and now he was throwing that at you?

Your perfectly manicured fingers hovered over your phone as you nibbled your glossed bottom lip, and finally relented.

What the hell? you thought, confused.

Feeling pretty good about your level of engagement, you sent another question mark before his response came in.

You scoffed before laughing out loud. He was truly unbelievable. You weren't on some sort of barter system here. This wasn't a deal you had ever discussed nor agreed to. This isn't how the world worked, this isn't how relationships worked. It was stupid. So so stupid. And Rafe wasn't the team's lead goal scorer anyway. Sure he was good for a flashy goal every few games, maybe two, but this was the semi-finals of the league championship, everything was on the line here, it was not the time to be playing games...

...But damn if you didn't love the semblance of power he'd given you over the situation, and you desperately wanted to fuck with him.

Four goals in one game. Essentially impossible. A joke. Sidney Crosby, arguably the best player in the NHL at the moment hadn't even achieved that. But not a second passed before his reply came through, simple, straightforward, no arguing or complaining:

"Done"

And then:

"I love you!"

"I'll be looking for you 😍"

You rolled your eyes, throwing your phone down on your bed, annoyed at yourself for even answering him.

And yet you couldn't fight the smallest bit of excitement you felt.

It was impossible. It was never going to happen, but Rafe Cameron was going to try to win you back.

part two - coming soon!

taglist: @gillybear17, @palmwinemami, @moremaybank, @one-sweet-gubler, @m-indkiller, @ihe4rttwd, @diary-of-jj, @crlsummer, @jjsbank444

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron fanfiction #outerbanks rafe #rafe obx #rafe imagine #obx rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x reader #rafe outer banks #rafe x reader #hockey rafe

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monstersflashlight · 2 days

Text

It’s finally here, I know I’ve been teasing with this story for weeks but life has been hectic and I wanted to do some requests, but here it is, the forest entity story. Hope y’all enjoy it!

The tree-hole debacle

Forest entity x fem!human || very light dub-con, tentacles (more like vines), bondage, squirting

Oh no. Oh, no, no, no... You kept chanting in your brain. You were trying to reach the fucking shiny thing you saw in the tree's hole and you got stuck. In the middle of the forest. All your torso inside a tree-hole and your legs kicking the air. You couldn't get out. You were stuck. You felt like you were living your own bad porno. Fuck.

You always knew your eagerness to pick stuff in the woods would bring you problems, but you never thought it would be in the shape of a tree. A fucking tree. You were just walking around the forest trying to find some good pieces to build some more fairy jewelry, who knew you could get stuck in a tree. And now you didn’t know what to do, how to get out. A spark of anxiety was creeping up your back. What if you died there? What if they found you dead in a tree-hole? They would think you are a weirdo. Well, in that they wouldn’t be wrong, but that would be so embarrassing. News would say something along the lines of “young girl found in a tree”, and that would be awful in so many levels. God damn it.

You tried crying for help, but you knew there wasn’t anyone coming, you never followed the path, confident you’d find your way back. And you always did, you have some kind of sixth sense about these woods, they called to you. And well, now you called whoever was listening to get you out of that damn tree-hole.

When you felt something creeping behind you, you started kicking your legs, trying to scare whatever animal was close. You didn’t want to be attacked by a random wolf or something. You didn’t even know what kind of animals could roam the forest, you were so careless in the way you explored the woods without thinking about it. You felt like a dummy now, a completely dumb woman who was now stuck in a fucking tree.

Something behind you let out a growl, you started to panic, moving your legs faster, making sounds to scare it away. A light caress to the back of your leg made you twitch, your whole body reacting with full on panic. But before you could scream, you were hanging out upside down, roots embracing your body. You were suspended in the middle of the woods, a weird creature made of leaves and some kind of mud in front of you. He slowly shook your body up and down, making you bounce in an uncomfortable way.

Your confusion, added to being upside down, made your head feel all kinds of dizzy. The roots around you seemed to come from everywhere, like he could control all the things around you. What was he? He answered you without having to verbalize your question: “I’m the spirit of these woods, and you, human, were asking for help. I came.” His voice sounded deep, like if he was talking from inside a cave, an echo of a real voice. Your body shivered.

“I- You- What?” Your confusion at everything happening was making your head spin. He turned you around, hanging you in an upright position this time, your feet still far away from the ground.

“You were screaming, the little creatures came to find me. And here I am,” he explained. His matter of fact statement made you think he was crazy. Maybe you were crazy. Maybe you did die inside that damn tree-hole and all of this was just an hallucination.

“Thanks?” You didn’t know if that was the correct answer, the vines and roots around your body wouldn’t stop twitching, touching, careful not to touch any of your most vulnerable parts. But hey were exploring everything else, caressing your hair, your cheeks, your legs… “Can you put me down?” You asked.

“No.” That instant denial should have scared you, but weirdly enough, you didn’t feel fear or panic anymore. Your body was calm, your mind completely quiet and relaxed. What kind of weird mojo was he doing to you? “You asked for the help of a forest spirit, you need to repay your debt now.” You looked at him expectantly, trying to convey you needed more explanation. He didn’t say anything.

“What the fuck does that mean?” You finally asked, a spark of anger rising inside your chest.

He nodded as if your question was answered like that and said: “I will take you now.” The vines around you started to pull at your clothes. You struggled against the hold, but they were so strong and tight that you could barely move some millimeters.

You struggled harder, screaming at him: “What? No!” You looked at him with all the fire inside of you. If looks could kill, he’d be killed right there, right now. But it wasn’t the case. He just looked amused at your struggles. But he stopped the vines from moving, some of them hovering over your tits and mouth, so close you could smell the petrichor smell they emanated. It was intoxicating.

“You have to pay, human. The balance must be restored.” That made no sense to you, he talked about restoring balance as if you had a debt with the forest or something. What?

“But I didn’t ask for your help.” He looked back at you skeptical, his dark eyes so expressive even though he didn’t have eyelids or brows. His face was so weird, but enthralling at the same time. “Okay, I did need help, but I don’t- I don’t want to have sex with you,” you lied through your teeth.

The truth was that you were aroused, the vines around your body were making you all kinds of horny. You always dreamed of being tied down, of being at the mercy of your partner as they took their fill off you. And without knowing it, he was restraining you, making all your fantasies come to the surface and making your pussy tingle. But you weren’t going to say that to him.

“What is sex, human?” The question caught you off guard, how could he not know what sex was?

“You… You said you’d take me.”

He was looking at you intently, like the answer to your unasked question was obvious and you were just dumb. Maybe you were. “I’ll give you pleasure so your juices can fertilize my forest,” he explained. You could what?

“You what? Fertilize? What?” And then it clicked. “You want to make me cum?” It seemed so random you couldn’t fully process what that meant.

“I believe that’s how humans call it, yes.”

You argued with the angel in your head, but the demon rapidly won the argument and before you could process it fully you were saying: “I- I- Okay.” Your voice was barely a whisper but he nodded and the vines around you closed more firmly against your body, making you shiver. It was weirdly comforting to be held so tightly.

You clothes were pushed away, thrown carelessly to the ground and you found yourself wrapped in vines and roots, suspended in the air. He opened your legs fully, exposing your holes to his eyes. He approached you then, his weird face close to your pussy, but not touching. The leaves around his head tickled the inside of your legs as he inspected you, his breath cold against your heated skin. You whimpered, being exposed to him so openly was embarrassing beyond belief, but the juices dripping off your cunt were even worse.

He reached around him and took some kind of leave, different to the ones covering his head. He squeezed it until a clear substance formed. He coated one of the vines with, the vine shifted into a wider form, cupping your whole pussy, coating it with the substance. At first, you felt nothing, but suddenly scolding heat ran through your body and you came. Just like that. You came faster than ever, he didn’t do anything, he didn’t touch your clit, your entrance… He just put some magical liquid over your cunt and made you cum. What the fuck?

You didn’t get to catch your breath before another vine was proving your entrance, making you moan loudly as it pushed inside. Two more vines appeared, framing your boobs and squeezing, some leaves playing with your nipples at the same time. The pleasure was maddening. The combined sensation of the vine entering you and the leaves was so overwhelming that you came again. This time your scream was cut short when another vine pushed against your asshole. Surprise and arousal made you arch your back, which was fruitless, the restrains on your body so tight you couldn’t move at all.

He was still close, observing the vines playing with your body, controlling everything but not touching you. You felt dehumanized, you were just a means to an end for him. And that made you hot. You could be anybody, everybody. He didn’t care. He just wanted your juices… And he was milking every drop off you.

The vine on your pussy pressed against your G-spot, the sensation too rough and raw. Some more juices gushed around it as you came again. He hit and probed and pushed and made your mind go blank as he transformed your body into a pleasure machine. You came, and came, and came. You were sure there was a river down your legs at that point. You were crying, tears running down your face as he assaulted all your sensitive areas at once. Your body felt like an exposed nerve.

When you thought you couldn’t take anymore, he pushed a new vine in your already overflowing pussy. You saw stars as the vines inside of you intertwined. You were so full, so sensitive, you couldn’t stop crying in pleasure, your voice long gone.

And then something inside of you broke completely and you were peeing. Peeing? No, squirting. He made you squirt. Your juices flowed over him, showering his leaves like summer rain. You ascended to another plane, the pleasure beyond human realm, the orgasm so good your brain broke a bit.

He stopped abruptly, his leaves shiny and his face contorted in some sort of a grin. “That would be all, human. You paid the debt to the forest.” You blushed deeply as he lowered your naked body to the ground, a bed of moss forming under you. “I’ll see you soon,” he muttered as he disappeared before your eyes. The earth literally swallowed him.

#forest entity #forest spirit #forest entity x human #forest entity x reader #monster #monster fucker #monster imagine #monster x human #teratophillia #monster x reader #terato

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watchmegetobsessed · 2 days

Text

SOFT LAUNCH

A/N: luckily i actually wrote this concept for once lol

WORD COUNT: 2k

SUMMARY: You officially soft launch your relationship.

MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

Your usual barely changed when your relationship with Harry moved from a friendship to a romantic relationship. Well, at least your public usual.

Because in the privacy of your home or when around you it’s strictly the people you trust, a lot changed. The kisses, the touches, the looks, it’s obvious just how hard you fell in love with each other and your friends often tease the two of you for being great actors for hiding all of these the moment you step out into the public. Very early into your relationship the two of you agreed to keep it as private as possible, so the world didn’t see a single thing of how you eased from being friends into becoming a couple.

Spotting you out and about together wasn’t a new thing, you’d been friends for a while before you finally took everything down another road, there were plenty of pictures of the two of you grabbing lunch or coffee, hanging out with friends or even attending events. The moment you were spotted for the first time rumors started spreading that you might be an item, but with time they died down and back then, they weren’t true. But what people didn’t see was the shift that happened behind all those simply friendly pictures, how you both fell for each other and your love blossomed steadily and undeniably behind the scenes while everyone else started to accept that you are nothing more than good friends.

There were photos, still, but what the tabloids didn’t see was the kiss you shared the moment you were behind closed doors.

It’s been over ten months and you’re definitely over that first phase where all you can see is the pink clouds, no one around you is questioning if this is just a fling, it’s quite clear you are planning your future together.

There is a downside of keeping your relationship in the shadows however, a kind of freedom is taken away that’s given for everyone else. Date nights have been restricted to your or Harry’s place, if you wanted to go out somewhere you always needed extra people around you so it wouldn’t look romantic. You haven’t been able to go on a vacation, just the two of you, because it would draw suspicion, so it’s been always with others, friends and family. You can’t set your favorite photo of him as your lockscreen, because fans are always quick to spot him in the tiniest details.

It’s not that you want to post about him day and night, that’s not your style, never was, you like to keep things private, it might be selfishness or consciousness, doesn’t matter. But some days it would be nice to hold his hand as you walk down the street, share a reassuring kiss as you wait in line at the coffee shop or share a photo to your Instagram that features him and only him.

So it’s been lingering in the back of your head, the thought of being just the tiniest bit more public, allowing yourself to enjoy your love outside of the comfort of your home.

This is what your mind is racing about as you watch Harry move around the room. The warm Italian sun is peeking through the curtains, calling your name for another wonderful day, exploring Rome. The white, rippled sheets are snaked around your body comfortably, the other half of the bed is still warm from his body. You’re currently residing in a villa that’s hidden enough from curious eyes to let you be yourself even in the backyard, not just inside.

You mindlessly scroll through your photos from yesterday while Harry is showering and when he appears with a towel wrapped around his hips, hair still damp, water drops running down his chest as he is scratching his jawline and you already know what his question will be. He stops at the end of the bed and opens his mouth, but you’re quicker.

“Do you think I should shave it?” you ask, imitating his voice by lowering yours. He gives you a cheeky look.

“Well, should I?”

“Told you, I love you both ways.”

“Okay, but you surely have a preference,” he pushes.

Sighing, you sink deeper into the pillow, keeping eye contact with him.

“The stache is… always more than welcomed.”

He chuckles and then walks back in. When he emerges a minute later he is dressed and his facial hair is still the same.

“Up, up! We have a lot to see today!” He reaches under the covers and easily finds your leg, wrapping his hand around your ankle he tugs on you gently, to which you just grunt at him disapprovingly.

“Just five more minutes!”

“Come on, don’t you want to explore more?”

“Yeah, but I also want to sleep more.”

“Think of all the pasta and pizza we could be eating right now…” He barely even finishes, you’re already jumping out of bed, sprinting towards the bathroom. Harry just chuckles.

A couple of hours later your little group is grazing the streets of Rome again. You haven’t planned anything major for today, just exploring and having a relaxing time. To be honest, your feet are thankful for a slower day, you feel like you’ve walked around the world these past couple of days.

Sometime after lunch, your group breaks up. Some want to go souvenir shopping, others want to go back to the villa while you and Harry plan to check out a hidden little park you read about online. So now it’s just the two of you strolling down the streets and as you listen to Harry talk, all you can think about is how your hands are hanging by your sides, sometimes even brush against each other, but you can’t hold his.

When you find a great spot with amazing view of the city you instantly want to take a picture together, one where Harry is hugging you from behind, the panoramic view of the city in the background, you can already see the picture in your mind and you also think of a place in your home where it would look amazing framed.

But you know you can’t take a photo like that, you can sense how a few girls recognized the two of you, now they are a few feet away, pretending like they are just casually taking videos, but you know they are recording you and Harry, so you can’t risk it.

Instead, you both just take pictures of each other, staying as friendly as possible. Your phone is still in your hand when the girls come up to Harry at last, starting a chit chat with him and asking for photos that you end up taking of them of course. They thank his time politely and the two of you move on.

When you’re lying in bed at the end of the day you’re scrolling through your gallery, smiling to yourself at some of the candid pictures you’ve snapped of Harry today. These are your favorite, when he is just being himself and you catch a glimpse of his true essence, keeping it forever in that frame.

Then you find a photo you took probably accidentally when the girls approached you earlier. You must have snapped it when you were putting away your phone, it features Harry standing on the cobblestone, but only his feet and his tattooed arm is shown, his skin is a warm tanned color from being out in the Sun so much lately, his tattoos look so cool, you always loved the edge they give him. It’s also such a candid picture and for some reason you just love it so much, it’s exactly the kind of photo you’d post on your Instagram story.

The door to the bedroom opens and Harry walks in with two bottles of water in his hands, he places one to your nightstand before he joins you in bed, opening his.

“Why are you staring at a photo of my… arm?” he asks with a chuckle, when he sees what you have open on your screen.

“You have a nice arm,” you grin up at him. “I just… like this photo,” you add with a shrug.

Harry hums, but doesn’t really get stuck on the topic. He turns his attention to his own phone, sneaking one arm under your head, pulling you closer to cuddle him. But you’re still stuck on the photo and all the feelings and thoughts you’ve been struggling with.

“H?” you finally lift your head to look at him.

“Yes baby?”

“Have you ever thought of… being a bit more public? About us?”

He locks his phone and puts it aside to give you his undivided attention. He never fails to make you feel like his number one priority.

“I have, yeah.”

“And what do you think if we just… went for it? What if we just stopped hiding.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I just… I would love to act like a couple more, not just when we’re alone, behind closed doors. I’m not saying we should make out on the street, but… Holding hands, a few tiny kisses, these would be nice.”

Harry stays silent and you grow nervous that he might see it all entirely differently. You know it better than anyone else that Harry values his privacy highly, however he is not the most private public figure either, that’s also fact.

His gaze finds yours and slowly, you notice a tiny smile hiding in the corners of his mouth.

“Whatever you feel comfortable with, I’m okay with that as well.”

“Really?” You let out a relieved breath as you sit up in surprise. He chuckles.

“Of course. I just wanted to protect you. And I will still be doing that, but if you feel like you’re okay with being a couple for the rest of the world as well, then let’s do that.”

At first you pout at him, touched at how calm and supportive he is about the whole thing, then you just throw yourself at him, kissing him stupid.

“So then can I soft launch you?” you ask against his lips.

“What?” he laughs, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Soft launch. I want to post this picture,” you say holding up your phone again, showing him the photo from earlier, “on my Instagram story. Your face is not shown, but everyone will know it’s you. That’s a soft launch, posting a suspicious but not straight forward picture of your partner.”

“Okay, Miss Urban Dictionary,” he laughs, his hand cupping the back of your head to bring you down for another kiss.

Cuddling to his side you open Instagram and then put the line ‘LOVE-ly day in Rome’ between his tattoos so it’s not quite what you notice at first, but it definitely catches your attention if you look at the photo for a few more seconds.

“How do you like it?” you ask, showing him your phone.

“The best soft launch of history,” he teases you before you finally post it.

Then you watch what happens together. Though you don’t have as many followers as Harry does, a lot of his fans engage with your social media profiles as well, hoping to get some content from you as well. Just a few minutes later the photo starts spreading across the internet of course, it reaches Twitter, Tiktok and other platforms, the reactions are mixed and pretty much all over the place, some aren’t the nicest, but Harry is quick to remind you just how much he loves you.

When you both put your phones away, shutting the rest of the world out, you’re lying in bed, facing each other, your hands laced together between the two of you.

“Now it’s out there,” you whisper.

“Softly,” he jokes and you just roll your eyes at him, smiling. “Is hard launch a thing as well?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that like?”

“Well, it has to feature your pretty face, preferably in a romantic setting.”

“Will we also be doing that?”

“Hmm… maybe.”

“Okay,” he smiles warmly. “But soft or hard, I will always love you.”

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb

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youryanderedaddy · 3 days

Text

tw: female reader, non - con, sadism, hinted abuse

I'm thinking about the sweet sadistic type.

The way he pins you down and folds your body at whatever angle is convenient for him, completely disregarding those pained little yelps that tear your throat, or so you think. In reality he finds your broken gasps incredibly hot and would do anything to force more out of that cute little mouth despite your protests.

When you're so much smaller than him it's hard to see you as anything more than a defenseless plush toy - impossible to control the cute aggression that overtakes him at the sight of you when all he wants to do is pinch your cheeks and squeeze your thighs red, leaving fingerprints all over your body. He wants to bite your neck, to suck at your sweet spot for so long it stops being pleasurable and becomes unbearable instead - wants you to push at his chest and kick his legs just for the real helplessness to set in your brain.

When he takes you, he makes sure you're stretched, but never enough for it to be painless. Your captor finds sick satisfaction in the way your walls hug his cock all the way to your cervix, tight pussy throbbing in a pitiful attempt to adjust to his massive length - stretching you beyond your comfort. And when you finally cave in and give him those beautiful tears he loves so much, he's the first to caress your hot wet cheeks and kiss your puffy eyes. You're doing so well for me, sweet girl. Just bear with it for a bit longer. But it's never just a bit. He keeps rutting into you for hours, getting rougher and faster with each impending orgasm while you keep falling in and out of sleep, every time waking up to a sinister, lovesick gaze and a hand around your throat. Every time he's thrusting just a bit deeper, making your body jump and twist like it weights nothing.

He loves leaving bruises on you, although he would never admit it out loud. You look absolutely beautiful when you're bare before him, bashfully trying to hide the striking, undeniable proof that you're all his - the blue hickeys on your collarbone, the purple spots across your ass and thighs, the red marks all over your tits. It feels him with so much pride he always ends up pulling you in and kissing you with teeth, leaving a thin trail of blood down your chin. The things you do to me, baby. You really know how to set me on fire.

Still, he thinks you're the prettiest when you're crying. When he has just hit you and your cheek is burning, or when you hear your parents' names on the radio, and you let out those big, pearly tears, when you let your voice out after fighting your misery for so long. Shh, come here, babydoll. I know what will make you feel better. I'm going to give you lots of love until you forget about those pests from your past. Just try not to scream so much this time. You remember what happened last time, right? I would absolutely hate to see you hurt.

#yandere #yancore #male yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere smut #yandere oneshot #yandere x you #yandere male x reader #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere drabble

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ghosthunterbuck · 2 days

Text

7x10 coda. beware the spoilers

Three months pass, and Eddie still isn’t used to it. It’s too quiet at home, and too awful at work, and he still grabs two bowls every morning even though he’s the only one eating.

He thinks about quitting, again. Leaving behind Captain Asshole and following Christopher to Texas. He knows he can’t. He’d promised. Eddie clenches his fists and forces himself to finish buttoning his uniform.

He sends Christopher a text, the same one he sends every morning, then shuts his phone in his locker.

“Line up in five,” Gerrard bellows from the loft. “If you’re late, you’ll be scrubbing the rig with a toothbrush, no exceptions.”

Eddie stands mechanically and walks over to the bay.

Another day, another goddamn reason to bury himself in blankets and hide until the world ends.

Buck invites him over for dinner most nights, or offers to go home with him. Eddie says no more than he says yes, but Buck… Buck’s always known Eddie better than he knows himself. He doesn’t stop asking.

“C’mon Eddie, it’ll be fun—you, me and Tommy, we can come up with ways to drive Gerrard insane.”

Buck looks at him, soft and imploring, an expression Eddie rarely knows how to refuse. But despite everything that’s happened, Buck’s managed to carve out a small sliver of happiness, and Eddie doesn’t want to drag him down.

“You go ahead,” he says. “I’m picking up half a shift at the 136 tomorrow. Need to get some sleep.”

It’s true and it’s not. He is picking up the shift, but he doubts he’ll sleep.

He goes back to therapy, but he never knows what to say. It was all—everything was in his head, last time. It’s not, now. It’s all real, and it all hurts, and no amount of talking about it makes it hurt any less. He says as much to Frank.

“Then why are you here?” Frank asks.

Eddie looks away. “I don’t know,” he says.

That’s not quite true either.

Kim calls him, and Marisol doesn’t. She leaves voicemail after voicemail, apologizing for that night. Eddie can never bring himself to answer the phone. Eventually, he blocks her number.

He texts his own apology to Marisol, but it never goes through. It’s probably for the best—he doubts the message would’ve made either of them feel better.

Eddie needs—he doesn’t know. Before, he would’ve said time. Now though, he’s got all the time in the world, and he’s desperate to get rid of it.

Buck calls. Eddie can’t answer him, either. He lets it ring out, then listens to the voicemail.

“Hey Eds, it’s me. I uh—just wanted to check in. It’s been a couple days. Call me when you can.”

Eddie tells himself he will, but he has no idea when that’ll be.

Christopher doesn’t text him, but he does text Buck.

Eddie never asks what he says, and Buck usually doesn’t offer to tell him.

“Just—he’s okay, right?”

Buck smiles, a little bit sad, and leans into Eddie’s space. “He’s okay,” he says. “He misses you, even if he’s not ready to tell you that.”

Tears streak down Eddie’s face before he even realizes he’s crying. Buck wipes one away and pulls him against his chest.

“What if he never comes home,” Eddie whispers into the soft material of Buck’s sweater.

“He will,” Buck replies. “He will.”

Good morning, Eddie texts on the one hundred and second day since Christopher left. I love you, and I hope you have a good day.

He drops his phone on the table and tries not to hope for a response. A second later, though, it dings. Eddie’s heart leaps into his throat as he scrambles to open the message.

Morning, Dad.

#i've got feelings and making everyone else's problem #911 spoilers #911 #911fic #911 fic #eddie diaz

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ghcstao3 · 2 days

Text

something something civilian AU. something something johnny ends needing an ambulance after breaking his leg and they put him on painkillers that make him woozy and even more bold with his speech than usual.

something something the emt that helps him is tommy, and johnny flirts with him the entire way to the hospital because all he’s thinking beyond the dulling pain in his leg and the floaty feeling of his body is wow, blond. tommy just laughs him off, used to having been flirted with by patients before, only entertaining johnny’s advances to get him to cooperate with their checks. it’s as he’s wheeled off to get proper care that he asks for tommy’s number, to which tommy shakes his head and says sorry, i’m taken, flashing the gold wedding ring now that his gloves have been removed.

johnny frowns at that. goes quiet a long moment. then asks, d’you have a brother then?

tommy snorts but doesn’t dignify johnny with an answer, merely sending him on his way. but johnny clings onto the fact that this emt never said no to his question.

and apparently tommy telling simon the story later is enough to have him intrigued, only half joking when he offers to visit johnny in hospital before he’d likely be discharged the next day—but tommy won’t give up the man’s name because he’s still professional, and besides, johnny likely wouldn’t remember the interaction just a few hours from when he had made it.

but he does, of course. he still wonders if the emt would do him a kindness and send his brother johnny’s way, but it never happens. what does happen, however, is days later at a grocery store, as johnny struggles on his crutches to reach something on a higher shelf, simon ends up helping him as he is coincidentally wandering down that aisle. johnny thanks him, then does a double take, squinting.

aren’t you the emt that brought me to hospital the other day? i asked about your brother, right? he says. i’m really sorry about—

i’m not, simon interrupts. and just as johnny’s face falls, but i do happen to be said brother.

oh. johnny’s eyes go wide. oh!

simon grins, his smile endearingly shy as it is lopsided. yeah. here, i’ll help you out. in the meantime you can repeat everything you told my brother.

johnny goes bright red, initially sputtering out his responses, not at all confident like he was while on painkillers. but by the end of the shopping trip, as simon helps load bags into johnny’s car (he’d been so lucky to break his non-driving leg), his flirting has returned full swing, this time with simon’s reciprocation. of course, they plan for a first date.

(and years down the line, much to johnny’s chagrin, tommy already has his best man speech fully prepared with the story that started it all.)

#silly idea today for u guys #simon ghost riley #tommy riley #john soap mactavish #soapghost #ghostsoap #ghost x soap #ghoap #alternate universe

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toppersjeep · 3 days

Text

But I Love Him- Lando Norris

Masterlist

Summary: You work at McLaren with Lando. You are his race strategist. You used to be in a relationship before he ended it because of all the hate you were receiving. One day you see him bring another girl to the races. And it upsets you. So you decide to take matters into your own hands and talk to this girl.

Your POV

Lando had arrived late at the paddock with some blonde girl. Of course she was beautiful. But I knew she had a reputation. But why would he care as long as he had someone by his side. I knew he was just needy. He was that way when we were together.

She walked into the garage and sat away from everyone. Lando walked over to me. Putting a hand on my back. Standing beside me. There it was butterflies like it used to be.

“What’s the plan for today Y/N” Lando said looking at my laptop. “Uhhhh well same as usual you know” I said his hand went lower. But why?? We aren’t together anymore. “That’s good” he said overlooking it. “Yeah just changed a couple things you’ll be on softs first” I said.

“Alright” Lando said with his arm around me. “You need anything else” I said. “Uhhhh no but I’m glad to have my lucky charm here today” Lando said. “Me really or Oscar” I said he laughed. “You of course” Lando said I smiled. “You look nice” I said fixing his color.

“It’s just my racing suit” Lando said. “Papaya brings out your eyes” I said. “Ah” Lando said blushing. “Beautiful blue eyes” I said. “Well I should get ready thank you Y/N” Lando said. “I got you” I said.

I walked around the garage when the girl he brought scoffed at me. I stopped in my tracks.

“Problem Maugi” I said. “Oh she knows my name” she said rolling her eyes. “Yeah I know who you are” I said. “Don’t you have a job to do” she said. “You know.. you are no good for him” I said. “Don’t care what you think he dumped you” she said laughing.

“And?? At least I’ve never cheated on my partners” I said. “You don’t deserve someone as amazing as Lando” I said. “You truly have no idea how special he is” I said. “I don’t care that he dumped me he did because he was protecting me” I said.

“So what” she said crossing her arms. “You don’t even deserve to be in the same room as him” I said. “You know what I think you are jealous” she said. “Why would I be jealous of someone like you? Sure you are pretty girl but you’ll always be mean” I said she stayed silent.

“You will never ever know him the way I do or love him the way I do” I said. “He dated you for what ten months get over it” Maugi said. “Just stop” Lando said walking over. “Lando” I said. “Not you her” Lando said as she looked at him. “But she started it” Maugi said. “No she didn’t as a matter of fact you need to leave” Lando said.

“Whatever you be with your stupid little race strategist” she said brushing my shoulder as she walked out. “I’m sorry she was pissing me off” I said. “I heard you” Lando said laughing. “What” I said. “You are so feisty sometimes you know” Lando said. “Shut up and go get ready” I said he kissed my cheek.

“And uhh I love you too” Lando said. I just blushed as he walked away.

Later…

Lando had won his first race. I ran over to the cars with everyone and stood up front. With tears pouring out of my eyes. He got out of the car. The whole McLaren crew cheered.

He walked over and spotted me. He then ran over and kissed me. As the McLaren crew cheered.

“My lucky charm” he said I smiled teary eyed. He then picked me up and spun mr around. “P1 so proud of you” I said. “You helped a lot so thank you baby” Lando said. “Oh so I’m baby now” I said sarcastically. “If you want to be my girl just ask” Lando said.

“Hmmmm tempting Lan” I said. “How about you just say yes and we see what happens” Lando said. “Alright I’ll be your girl” I said. “Good cause tonight I’m taking you out” Lando said. “Oh really shouldn’t I treat you” I said.

“When it comes to you just let me treat you” Lando said. “Fine my love” I said. “But tonight I’m expecting so many kisses” Lando said. “Of course my race winner” I said kissing him. “Now let’s go celebrate baby” Lando said.

____

(A/N- Sorry for randomly disappearing but I’m back now, needed a break from writing and stuff. But I’m back and I’m gonna take new requests. I’m gonna do a couple that have been asked. But send in new ones!!)

#fanfic #love #f1 imagine #x reader #f1 x reader #mercedes amg f1 #lando norris #lando x reader #lando norris smut #lando norris x reader #f1blr #f1 x you #f1 fic #formual one #red bull f1 #f1 fanfic #classic f1 #mclaren f1

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pitchsidestories · 2 days

Text

Good girl gone bad II Ingrid Engen x Mapi León x Reader

masterlist I word count: 1886

a/n: hi, it's based off this request here, enjoy.

warnings: minors dni, 18+, smut at the end, toxic behaviour from OC, jealousy, please don't take this too seriously !

“Ingrid, you played fantastic!”, Mapi waved enthusiastically her little flag, before she jumped into the open arm of hers and your Norwegian girlfriend.

“Oh, thanks.”, the tall woman’s face lit up at the Spanish defender’s compliment.

“Seriously, you filled out the defensive role so perfectly, I couldn’t have done a better job.”, the smaller player couldn’t stop gushing about her lover’s great performance.

“Just wait until you can play again.”, Ingrid muttered cheerfully.

“Not that long anymore.”, Mapi answered giddily.

“I’ll miss you and your little flag though.”, the younger footballer admitted.

“To be honest, I’ll miss that too.”, she agreed wistfully.

“ I know but there’s no better feeling than playing.”, Ingrid mumbled, her teammates still running around with the CL trophy in her hand, taking pictures in between the celebratory moves.

The defender who has followed her girlfriends gaze added grinning:”Playing and winning.”

“Exactly.”

From the sidelines you’ve followed their conversation, you were hurt about the fact that you weren’t a part of it as it usually was you three together and not as a pair like in this particular moment.

With every fibre of your being, you felt like the other woman who wasn’t in this relationship even though you were up until now. The loneliness crept under your skin; jealousy clung to your heart and wouldn’t let you go until Alexia started talking to you.

“Don’t let your head down, beautiful. After all we won.”, she reminded you, while pulling you into a encouraging hug.

“Um, what?”, you gave the midfielder a quizzing look, her words haven’t reached you as you’ve been too busy to listen to your girlfriends’ sweet nothings which didn’t include you in them.

“I can tell you’re disappointed.”, Alexia stated earnestly.

“I didn’t play much tonight, so it’s not really my win, Ale.”, you told her miserably. You hated that tone in your voice. Where was your confident self?

“We’re all in this situation at one point. Someone is always on the bench. But we always win as a team.”, the blonde tried to cheer you up.

“Right.”, you said even though you turned away when you saw your girlfriends were kissing ignoring everything around them as if they were in a movie in which they played the leading roles, while the rest of you were the supporting actresses to help the lovers get to their happy ending.

“Oh, hey, babe. We’re going to the party later. You’re coming too, right?”, Ingrid asked you later in the changing room, finally realizing you were still there after all.

“Yes, of course.“, you nodded.

Ingrids gaze went back to Mapi as she smiled: “Great, I’ll go shower.“

“Me too.“, you said, walking past both of your girlfriends into the showers that were adjacent to the dressing room.

You had hoped that the steaming hot water would clear your mind but the calmness that usually came with a warm shower never set in.

Instead, the pictures of what happened after the game kept repeating in your head. You were never the jealous type, you could not be jealous in a relationship like yours. But you also knew that you deserved better than to be ignored by your girlfriends, so you came up with a plan.

For the party, you decided to slip into a a pair of suit pants and a button-down vest with nothing underneath, drawing attention to your arms and chest with your outfit choice. You curled the ends of your hair and put on some make-up. You looked at yourself in the mirror, satisfied with your looks.

“Are you two ready to go?“, Mapi asked impatiently, looking effortlessly cool as usual.

Ingrid appeared next to her, wearing a tight dress and radiating ethereal beauty: “Yes, we’re ready, love.“

Mapi nodded towards the door: “Let’s go then, babe.“

You reluctantly followed them, already disappointed that none of them had commented on your outfit. You were not exactly pouting on your way to the party but you also refused to talk much.

Arriving at the location, your two girlfriends retreated to a table in the corner with their drinks. They were lost in each others eyes. You were sure they noticed nothing of what happened around them.

As you were nursing your drink at the bar, Alexia appeared on your side: “What are you thinking about?“

“Me?“ You looked at her in surprise.

“Yes.“

You first inclination was to tell her that you felt like your girlfriends did not need you in their lives but instead, you swallowed down the thought and forced yourself to smile: “They’re playing Rosalia. Want to dance, Ale?“

The captain looked at your for a second before giving in: “Only because you look so unhappy.“

“Dancing always helps with that…“, you promised.

“Come on then.“ Alexia reached out her hand and pulled you towards the dance floor.

You immediately fell into an easy rhythm with her. You deliberately pushed close to her during your dance and she let you.

On the other side of the room, Ingrid tapped Mapis arm frantically: “Mapi!“

“Yes?“, the defender could barely tear her eyes from her Norwegian girlfriend.

“Look!“

Only then did she look over in your direction, her eyebrows knitting together: “Y/n is dancing with Ale?“

“Looks like it…“, Ingrid whispered.

“That’s not her usual good girl behaviour.”, the Mapi observed through gritted teeth. Sawing you dance with one of her best friends in the way you did, so intimately and sexy was driving the older woman insane.

“No, it’s not.”, the Norwegian player nodded, she wasn’t able to take her eyes from you and your team’s captain.

“We’ll see and give her a little time to redeem herself otherwise if she keeps behaving naughty like that over the night we’ll take actions.”, the older woman thought out loud.

“Take actions`”, Ingrid looked startled at the smaller footballer.

“Y/n is needy and bratty in front of everyone, so we’ll punish her at home.”, she explained seriously.

“Punish her?”, shock was written all over the younger woman’s pretty face.

“Yes.”

Meanwhile, Ona tipped your shoulder making you turn around to her to look into her eyes, which glanced concerned back at you:” Can I take over?”

“Sure.”, you agreed enthusiastically to her offer, feeling the alcohol more than you wanted to admit. After a dance with you Alexia had returned to her girlfriend to engage into a passionate conversation which involved mostly kisses.

“You’re in a party mood. How many drinks did you have?”, the defender asked you, damn her, she really did notice everything.

“Uhm maybe two.”, you replied, your cheeks immediately turning red.

“Two?”, Ona raised an eyebrow at you. Her voice was full of scepticism.

“Don’t worry about it, Oni.”, you answered with a charming smile on your lips.

“I don’t.”, she quickly reassured you.

“Good.” But you realized your teammate’s her hands were still on your upper arms contradicting what she just said.

“Something’s up with you.”, Ona stated firmly.

“Let’s just dance, please.”, you shook your head heavily.

With a sigh the defender said:” Alright.”

“Thank you.”, you mumbled relieved, that the questioning was over for now. Sweet, innocent Ona was the last person you wanted to trouble with your worries.

“You’re welcome.”

The mix of alcohol and changing teammates made you forget that time was passing by. You were confused when you found the home you shared with your girlfriends was already dark without any lights on.

Nonetheless, you let them know that you arrived:” Hi, I’m home.” A familiar shadow was pressing on to your legs, being clearly happy about your return.

“And hello Bagheera.”, you added, as you stroke the cat softly who purred loudly to your touches.

“About time.”, Mapi announced sounding very displeased, you shrieked as she appeared from the darkness, her moves scarily similar to Bagheera. Elegant but lurking, why you didn’t understand. Maybe your behaviour had worked out?

“Mapi, Ingrid, here you’re. but why didn’t you turn the lights on?”, you questioned them irritated.

“We were about to go to bed.”, Ingrid responded calmly.

“Great, me too. I’ll just go to the bathroom quick.”, you sighed.

Mapi raised an eyebrow and said cooly: “You have two minutes.“

“What?“ Confused, you opened the bathroom door. Whatever that was supposed to mean, you were now determined to take your time.

“Go.“, Mapi ordered.

You rolled your eyes, disappearing into the bathroom. You only heard Ingrid say: “Good girl.“

You sat down on the toilet and took out your phone, scrolling through pictures of tonight. Only then, you slipped out of your nice suit and left the bathroom in only your underwear.

Ready to go to sleep, you were about to go into your shared bedroom but Mapi blocked your way.

She leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed in front of her chest: “What did you think you were doing all night?“

“Partying?“, you replied, playing dumb and trying to move past your girlfriend.

“Dancing with Alexia and Ona? You might as well have given them a lap dance.“, Mapi scolded you.

Ingrid appeared next to her, eyeing you closely before turning to the Spanish defender and mumbling seductively: “Our good girl’s gone bad tonight…“

You shot Ingrid a deadly glance: “You think you’re funny? You ignored me all night. I was just having fun.“

“We saw everything.“, Mapi said, her jaw set.

“I’m sure you did, the way you stared at each other all night.“, you rolled your eyes.

“Y/n.“, Ingrid said softly, while Mapi shook her head: “Don’t distract.“

“I don’t!“, you exploded.

Mapi continued: “You were trying to make us jealous all night.“

Ingrid nodded: “Exactly.“

Before you could protest, Mapis hands were on your body and pulled you towards the bed: “Now come here.“

You could feel your back hit the mattress. Your girlfriends climbed onto the bed as well, one on either side of you.

You had no idea what happened but suddenly, Ingrids mouth was on your neck and sucked on the sensitive skin. She slipped a slender hand over your mouth right as you wanted to start to complain. Mapis hands in the meantime rested on your hips.

You were too focused on Ingrids kisses to realize that your Spanish girlfriend had started to pull your panties down with her teeth. Only when she dipped her tongue in, you started to moan into Ingrids hand. She already knew how she had to move her tongue just right.

While Mapi was busy stimulating you, Ingrids mouth wandered across your upper body. Kissing and licking her way towards your breasts. She circled your nipples with her tongue before starting to suck on them. You squirmed under her touch.

Mapi had switched from licking to using her fingers and you could not contain yourself any longer.

Impatiently, you removed Ingrids hand from your mouth. “Stop!“, you whined.

You could see Mapis lips turn into a smirk: “Say please.“

“Please stop.“, you begged impatiently.

And then you finally climaxed, a firework bursting in every part of your body. You moaned.

Mapi rested her head on your stomach as she watched you breath heavily.

Ingrid pressed a kiss to your forehead: “Good girl.“

You knew that this was supposed to be a punishment but right here on the bed, you finally felt seen by your girlfriends again.

#ingrid engen #ingrid engen x reader #ingrid engen imagine #mapi leon #mapi leon x reader #mapi leon imagine #ingrid engen x mapi leon x reader #woso x reader #woso #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso one shot #woso community #woso oneshot #barca femeni #barcelona femeni #alexia putellas #ona batlle #woso smut

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wsoc-gay · 3 days

Text

World Cup Results II

Part 1

Ona Batlle x Reader

Summary: The beginning of Ona's Pregnancy

A/N: At least one more part to this of the pregnancy, might continue it after the baby too. But if anyone has a request please feel free to put it in my asks! I work much better and faster with ideas. I'm open to writing anything, smut, fluff, angst, kid fics, just let me know what you want to read!

You and Ona couldn’t be more excited on the drive home from the clinic. Neither of you could wipe the smiles off your faces as your hands were held together and rested in your girlfriend’s lap. The entire ride home was full of loving sentiments exchanged to one another and plenty of blushes being spread across faces.

Arriving home began your new train in following the advice from the doctor as closely as possible as well as going a bit overboard. Your girlfriend was starting to get annoyed with you, but even she would admit it was sweet how caring you were. Ona never opened her car door, never lifted anything too heavy, didn’t carry her bags to training, and you hardly let her do household chores. Every night for dinner you cooked a meal full of all the proper nutrients the doctors had advised eating and made sure to buy Ona only the best prenatal vitamins.

You both had agreed to not tell your teammates until you reached the 15-week mark, until then Ona didn’t have to alter her trainings and could still play in games. You had let the coaching staff and medical staff know as soon as you found out so they could monitor the Spaniard closer, but as of now you wanted to keep it on a need-to-know basis.

It was around the 8-week mark, right after the first ultrasound, that some of your teammates began to catch on that something was happening. Any slight bump or tackle Ona took during training led to you sprinting to be by her side checking up on her. The brunette found it sweet but needed you to let up a little bit before they had to tell your team sooner than expected.

Your worries weren’t without their reason, the chance of miscarriage was drastically higher through IVF and until Ona was outside her first trimester you had every right to worry. The days leading up to your 8-week scan were some of the most stressful days in your recent memory. You and Ona both were worried sick about having the scan show that you had lost your baby.

Ona was more stressed than you were due to her late-night research of her symptoms which often times resulted in her reading many horror stories of parents going to the first ultrasound and finding no heartbeat. The internet on top of her raging hormones led to many tearful nights where you tried to alleviate her fears but knew that the only thing to help the brunette’s anxiety would be seeing your baby.

Thankfully one day after training the two of you were able to go to the clinic for the scan and see your baby for the first time. Tears immediately came to both of your eyes as the doctor told you your baby was not only alive, but healthy and thriving inside your girlfriend. You weren’t one to cry, but Ona made a comment that she thinks you’ll be a mess at every ultrasound, and you couldn’t help, but agree. There was something about seeing your baby on that screen that made everything seem more real. Therefore, the attentiveness only got worse.

Your English teammates were the first to confront you about your recent behavior. The pair was sat alone at a table during lunch when Lucy pulled you into a seat, “What’s wrong with you?”

You gave the older woman a confused look, “What the hell do you mean?”

Kiera slapped Lucy’s arm and muttered something you couldn’t quite make out under her breath. She looked over to you, “What Lucy meant to say,” She sent the brunette defender a glare, “Is that you’ve been acting a bit different during training recently.”

You truly hadn’t caught onto what they were referring to yet and raised an eyebrow at the pair, “Is this your guy’s subtle way of telling me I’ve been playing badly?”

Lucy slapped the back of your head and groaned, “No you idiot,” You slapped her right back, “Every time someone so much as touches Ona you act like she got shot.” Lucy slapped you again, “And you’re always watching her like a hawk,” You slapped her back.

Kiera grabbed her arm before she could retaliate, “Would you two stop acting like children already.”

This wasn’t surprising behavior for you and the outside back, ever since you arrived at Barcelona the two of you grew much closer. Lucy helped you a lot to settle into the team and lifestyle of Spain, so overtime you grew a lot closer. Hence, why she was one of the first ones to notice a change in your behavior.

You suddenly realized what they were referring too and tried to hide it best you could, “I’m not acting any different, I always worry about her.”

Lucy gave you a dumbfounded look, “Yeah, but this is even pushing it for you,” She began to dramatically mimic you, “Oh my love, Ona, someone leaned on you during our full contact sport, and job, are you sure you’re going to survive this,” She leaned back with an arm laid against her forehead dramatically.

You started slapping the older brunette again, “Oh shut up, I am not acting like that.”

Kiera sighed and pushed the two of you apart, “Would you two seriously stop it,” she looked at Lucy, “Luce stop being dramatic,” and then turned to face you, “You’re not acting like whatever the hell that display was, but you are acting extra protective over her.”

You ultimately made up some excuse about Ona having reinflamed her ankle and that you wanted to make sure she didn’t seriously injure it again. The pair of English women didn’t seem to believe your excuse, but let you go on your way.

On the ride home you had told you told Ona about the confrontation with Lucy and Kiera which she followed up by agreeing that you needed to tone down the protectiveness and worrying. She had begun to notice it too and believed it was sweet but agreed that it was about to get out of hand and was only a matter of time before more of your teammates began to catch on.

---

It was a couple weeks later, around the 12-week mark, when Ona was quieter than usual after training. The car ride home was nearly silent, but you didn’t mention it and assumed she was just tired. As the pregnancy progressed Ona was starting to become increasingly more tired throughout the day, so you assumed that alongside the hard training today was the cause for her quietness.

It wasn’t until a little later when you walked into the living room and found the Spaniard sitting on the couch with her head in her hands that you finally asked, “Is something wrong babe? Are you not feeling well?”

Her head remained in her hands as she softly muttered out, “I need to tell you something.”

You quickly sat down next to her with you hand on her thigh and concern lacing your voice, “Is it the baby? Do we need to call the doctor?”

She quickly sat back and leaned against the couch quickly alleviating your worries, “No, no the baby is fine. It’s just, es posible que accidentalmente le haya contado a Aitana sobre el bebé.” She had rushed out the last sentence in Spanish making it difficult for you to understand.

“Slower, por favor, you know my Spanish isn’t good when you talk fast.”

“I accidentally told Aitana about the baby today,” Feeling increasingly guilty she began to ramble, “I know we didn’t want to tell people about the baby this early, but she cornered me and you know I’m bad at keeping things to myself when someone asks and it just slipped out. I am so sorry mi amor.”

You chuckled at her rambling but let out a sigh of relief knowing this was the cause to Ona’s mood shift and not something more serious. Ona and Aitana had always been close, growing up playing for the academy together and since Ona returned to Barca they became even closer, so part of you was more surprised it took this long for her to find out. The outside back also was known for being bad at keeping secrets. Anytime someone would ask her about something she wasn’t supposed to talk about she would begin rambling making it obvious that she was hiding something and would usually end up saying it anyways.

You dropped back to lean against the couch and moved your hand from her knee onto her, hardly noticeable, bump, “Oh thank god, you had me worried, love.”

Ona covered your hand with hers, “There is nothing to worry about, I’m sorry she found out.”

The outside back when onto explain that Aitana had cornered her in the locker room after training when the rest of the team had already filed out. Instead of the usual comments which were about how protective you had become, Aitana had brought up how happy the two of you had seemed and that you were touchier than usual. She also had picked up on Ona subtly rubbing her stomach and your hand grazing over it after you would hug. She had straight up asked Ona if she was pregnant, and there was no escaping it from there, your girlfriend didn’t know how to lie.

“And you know I can’t lie, amor, she caught me so off guard and I must’ve taken too long to try and come up with an excuse, but she just pulled me into a hug saying how happy she was for us.”

You laughed again, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull the smaller girl into your side, “I’m more surprised you lasted this long without everyone finding out.”

Ona rubbed a hand over her stomach instinctively, “As long as everyone keeps bringing it up to you instead of me, we should be okay, there’s only three weeks until I can’t play in matches anymore and then we’ll have to tell them.”

You looked down to her face as you smoke softly, “We can tell the team now if you want, you’re out of the first trimester, we just saw the baby, and everything is healthy, there’s no big reason to keep it from them anymore.”

“No, no, I like just keeping it to ourselves. Our own little bubble outside of football for now,” she leaned up to connect your lips softly and full of love.

---

Aitana did much better of a job keeping the secret to herself than you originally expected. The midfielder took her job as being the best friend and only teammate who knew very seriously. Anytime your teammates would begin on the topic when she was around, she would quickly shush their comments and would back any lie you made up to cover your secret.

You and Ona were grateful for her efforts, but in a way, it only increased your other teammates suspicions. You also were now partially convinced much of the team actually already knew what was going on. As the last two weeks have gone by Mapi, Ingrid, and Alexia had completely stopped asking anything about the topic. Originally Mapi had been one of the most vocal players about finding out what was going on, but now had completely stopped in her efforts.

The truth was Ingrid, being the observant and caring teammate and friend that she was, had picked up on the same signals Aitana had. She obviously told Mapi about her suspicions who then confided in Alexia about them. Therefore, they came up with a plan to get the two of you to admit it to them.

It was after the last game of the season before the Christmas break that Alexia decided the team would go to a club to celebrate before everyone left to their respective homes. You and Ona were going to see your family in England for the break, so you tried to get the two of you out of going by saying that you had to finish packing before your flight. Alexia wasn’t taking this as an answer and needed the both of you there to try and get an admittance from you, therefore, said it was required team bonding and you had to be there. The original plan was for Alexia and Mapi to call Ona out on not drinking and essentially for her to expose the pregnancy, but this plan was quickly stopped when the two of you entered the bar, keys in Ona’s hands, clearly having drove the two of you there. Anytime she was asked about a drink it was easy for her to say she was driving that night, plus she didn’t have to lie so there was no worries about her slipping up.

Alexia and Mapi were still trying to come up with a new plan when, surprisingly, you were the one to let it slip.

You were sitting at a table with many of your teammates while Ona was dancing with Aitana, Patri, Claudia, and Cata when a guy walked up behind Ona and placed his hands on her hips. You were on your feet and dragging the man off her before she had the chance to pull away.

The man turned around to be face to face with the hands that had just pulled him off the girl he was obviously interested in, “What the fuck do you want?”

You stood tall with your chest puffed and harshly spoke, “I want you to get your hands off my girlfriend.”

He scoffed, “Girlfriend? Sorry bud, I don’t think she’s the girlfriend type.”

You laughed, “Sorry, bud, but I’m the one she’s woken up next to for the past 8 years so I think I might know her a bit better than you.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t see you anywhere until after I came over so looks like I’ve beat you to it.”

“Oh, fuck no,” You tried to shove past him to get to Ona, but he moved to block your path.

“Why don’t you prove it to me then?” By now a decent amount of your teammates had noticed what was going on and began to come over to help deal with the man.

This sent you over the edge, it might’ve partially been at fault to the alcohol you had that night, and you being a little more than drunk already. But with one big push to his shoulder you announced, “I think the fact that she’s pregnant with my baby proves enough,” this left him shocked and gave you enough time to walk over to Ona with your back turned to the man and place a hand on the side of her face, “Are you alright, love?” Most of your teammates were now standing around you with their jaws hanging open clearly in shock.

The man clearly wasn’t over the embarrassment yet, as he pulled your shoulder back to face him and landed a hook across your cheek, you threw one right back getting him across the nose before security was dragging him away just as Lucy was doing the same to you. You looked back to find Ona and saw Alexia standing in front of her having clearly dragged her back and away from you and the man, likely assuming the altercation may escalate and after your confirmation didn’t want the Spaniard anywhere near the potential of a fight.

After clearing some things with the security guards, they let you stay and Lucy was dragging you over to the table many of your teammates had gone to sit at, the rest following close behind you.

Ona slid into the booth next to you with a bag of ice in her hand, and reaching up with her free hand to grab your chin and turn your head to assess the damage, “Are you okay? You know I hate it when you do that.”

You were waving your arm dramatically, clearly still affected by the alcohol in your system, “He wanted to take you home I was protecting you both.”

She had a soft smile and pressed the bag of ice to your cheek, which you took over holding against your face, “I know you were, but you could’ve gotten hurt a lot worse.”

“I don’t care,” You leaned closer to whisper in her ear, clearly having forgotten you had already spilled your secret, “You’re carrying precious cargo, Baby Mami.”

Ona chuckled and patted your thigh, “No point in whispering now, amor, you already announced it.”

You turned to see the rest of your team giving you both dumbfounded and shocked looks, but Alexia, Aitana, Mapi, and Ingrid just smirking to themselves.

Alexia was the first to speak up from across the table, “So, you two are having a baby?”

You moved your free hand to rest on your girlfriend’s stomach and smiled as Ona replied, “Yep, baby y/l/n-Batlle is due in May. We were going to tell you all after the break, but tonight was my last match for the season, I’m about to be fifteen weeks, so no more matches.”

You were met with a lot of congratulations from your teammates when Lucy finally connected the dots and pointed at you, “So this is why you’ve been so unbearably protective over her recently.”

You defended yourself, “She’s carrying precious cargo, that’s the future best player in the world in there,” You patted her small bump, and the brunette covered your hand with hers.

This caused a smile to breakout on Ona’s face and laughs spread around the table. Ona had decided you had enough to drink, and she was exhausted having played 70 minutes today, so announced that you would be heading home. It took a few minutes before you were finally out the door, having to go through and hug every one of your teammates and being told congratulations by each one of them.

The next day the two of you flew to England for the first half of break, you would spend Christmas with your family before coming back to Spain to spend the rest with Ona’s family who you saw more often.

Since the secret was already out to your teammates and your families had already known for weeks while home in England you and Ona were able to tell a few of your England and former Arsenal teammates you were closest with.

While in London and met up with Leah, Lia, Lotte, Alessia, Beth, and Viv for lunch to share the news with them. Leah was especially moved when you told her, having been much like a big sister to you during your time at Arsenal. She couldn’t get past how grown up you were and that now were having a baby. Alessia did a lot of claiming that this all happened because of her setting you two up. While you’ll go to your grave denying her you can’t help but thank her slightly.

---

Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you enjoyed! Again, please leave any requests or prompts in my asks!

#woso x reader #woso fanfics #woso #woso imagine #ona batlle #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle imagine

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lowkeychenle · 3 days

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Some Things Can't Be Taught [ZCL] (M)

Description: In which you are failing college physics, and your childhood best friend offers up one of his friends as your tutor—except, there’s a little something he wants to learn from you in exchange.

Genre: Smut/Fluff/Angst in some spots

Content Warnings: explicit, protected sex; awkward Chenle; reader is more experienced (Chenle is a virgin); reader and Chenle ridicule each other; use of pet name ‘baby’ (Chenle isn’t creative yet); oral sex (f & m receiving); alcohol consumption; explicit unprotected sex (reader on unnamed birth control lol); Chenle is somewhat of a fast learner

Word Count: 23,775

Taglist: @lostinneocity @dinosaurtoothbrushwithninjasauce @niinjo @once4sunrise @amyjipark @buns-inhiding @ti--red @defzcl @theboyz-jacob

Permanent Taglist: @sunnybutcloudy @neozon3nha @waffleuvs

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x fem!reader (features Dreamies, aespa Karina & Giselle)

Juliet's Masterlist | Tell me what you think? :)

“Come on. It’s either this or you’re gonna fail.” Your best friend, Jisung, crosses his arms over his chest. “You need help, and I already asked him for you. He said yes, so you’ll have to suck it up.”

“Ji, I’ve never even met him before. He’s a complete stranger to me, and I don’t really care all that much if I fail.”

“(Y/N), it’s the first semester of college. You need to try a little harder or you’re gonna start failing everything,” Jisung scolds you.

His front door opens, and both of your gazes go toward the sound. Without even seeing who it is yet, you know exactly what’s happening.

“Park Jisung, did you literally tell him to—”

As soon as Jisung’s friend comes into view, your words die lodged in your throat. You blink a few times to make sure you’re seeing things correctly, and then glare at the man standing next to you. All he does is raise his eyebrows in response, a grin filtering onto his face.

“Who knows,” Jisung whispers, nudging your arm. “Maybe you’ll get more than a tutor.”

“Ew, Sungs, the last thing I need is you trying to find me dick. Please never say that again.”

Jisung’s friend is simply unlike any other man you’ve ever seen. He enters the kitchen, and despite running his fingers through his hair and sighing, he sends you a gentle smile before looking at Jisung.

“This is the girl who needs physics help?”

“And maybe physical edu—” Jisung wheezes as you backhand him in the stomach, nearly keeling him over. His friend bites back a laugh before returning his attention to you.

“Yes, I need help with physics. The class.”

“Is there any other kind of physics?”

You can’t get a read on him. Not really. His hair is neat, not a single strand out of place, and he’s wearing jeans with a button-down tucked into them. Glasses are perched on the bridge of his nose, and he’s carrying two fairly large textbooks.

An instance of silence takes over the room, but both you and this other guy are at a complete loss on what to do next. And for some reason, you can’t stop looking at him. It must be because your analysis isn’t working. He intrigues you, but only in the sense that it’s rare for you to be unable to see into people’s souls.

“(Y/N), this is Chenle, Chenle, this is (Y/N).” Jisung gestures between the two of you once he finally catches his breath.

“Hi, Chenle. Great to meet you. Jisung, can I talk to you for a few minutes? Over there?” You violently point in the opposite direction, but send a somewhat small smile over to Chenle. “Sorry, we’ll just be a second.”

He nods and sets his textbooks down on the counter. You pull Jisung by his wrist.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “I’m doing you a favor.”

“Now, I know you’ve got like, six girls in your phone you could’ve asked to help me with physics. Why him?” You cross your arms over your chest.

“Okay, look. Hear me out all the way first before you punch me.” Jisung sighs and shifts on his feet. “Chenle is literally the smartest person I know. Yes, including you. And he’s really nice, too, and I think you’d…I don’t know, like him eventually if you gave him the chance. You haven’t really done that recently.”

“Sure, but I like being single, Sungs. If I wanted someone, I would’ve asked.”

“You can just let him tutor you then. I know both of you pretty well, alright? I think you two could be good for each other. By all means, don’t date him or try to date him. But for the love of God, let him tutor you. He’s gonna do it for free, and you fucking need it.”

You roll your eyes, but he’s right. There’s no denying it. Letting out a sigh, you finally agree, “Fine. I’ll let him tutor me.”

What you told Jisung wasn’t a lie—you did like being single. And part of keeping yourself single (and happy) has been avoiding any men who might change one or both of those things. You’d never met Chenle before today, but the second you saw him, you knew. He had the potential to ruin your life…if you let him.

So, no dating. But you’ll take tutoring, because if you face the facts, Jisung is right. The last thing you need to do is fail a college course.

You and Jisung walk back over to Chenle. He’d made himself busy with getting a water bottle out of the fridge. Once he tilts it back, you almost curse yourself for your reaction—why the fuck are you watching him swallow it? Imagining the liquid roll down his throat and—

“Well, she said she’d greatly appreciate your tutoring, Chenle.” Jisung sends a bright grin over to his friend. “And she happens to live right next door. I have a…friend coming over, so if you two wanna get started, I’ll be here.”

Jisung wants you dead, apparently.

Chenle’s cheeks get a slight pink hue to them. “Oh, I didn’t—you won’t be there, too?”

“The hell do I need physics help for? I’m a dance major.” Jisung shrugs. “You kids have fun.”

“I’m older than you.” Chenle narrows his eyes.

“Yeah, me too.” You cross your arms over your chest and glare at your friend.

“Besides the point. Now, you two go. I’ve got plans today.”

“I hope you know I’m gonna kill you. Bring a stranger into my house with no warning, what if it’s messy in there?”

“Maybe you should keep your place clean.” Jisung shrugs.

You sigh and face your new tutor. “Is that okay with you? We can reschedule for a different day if that works better for you.”

“No, no.” Chenle shakes his head. “We’re good. I guess I wasn’t expecting to—it doesn’t matter. Let’s go?”

His books are back under his arm, and he uses his other hand to tell you to go to the door first. You send one last glare at Jisung before you leave his apartment with Chenle in tow. You’ve met him all of three seconds, and now you’re bringing him into your house. Great.

“You go to the same school as Ji?” you ask as you step inside your own place.

He runs his fingers through his hair again but nods. “Yeah, but I met him over the summer. At—”

“You go to Jeju for the summer, too?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Not usually.”

“I didn’t see you there,” you say, and instantly, your face heats up. “Not that it’s weird, just an observation. I was only there for like, a week, and I would’ve remembered seeing you—”

You cut yourself off, scratching your forehead. He chuckles, the corner of his lips pulling upward slightly.

“I was only there for the last week Jisung was.” He pushes his glasses up and follows you into your kitchen. “He’s pretty cool.”

You snort. “He’s alright. I’ve known him my whole life, unfortunately.”

“Your parents are friends?”

“Best friends,” you tell him. “Not that anything has ever—or will ever happen between us. I legitimately want to knock him out. Maybe put him in a chokehold.”

“I was kinda surprised he didn’t have us stay over there,” Chenle mentions. “I thought he’d give us a little bit more of an introduction.”

“Ah, him bringing a friend over means he’s about to get laid, actually,” you say, going into your fridge to grab some snacks. “Don’t worry, we won’t hear anything. His room’s not against this wall.”

His eyes widen, and he blinks incredulously at you. “Are you serious?”

“Mhm.” You set the strawberries and the watermelon down on the counter and open the lids. “Surprised you didn’t pick up on that. Thought it was some guy-code talk.”

“I…” He pauses, scratching his forehead. “Maybe? I don’t really know.”

“Want some?” You slide the fruit over to him, and you almost laugh when you see how he seems to be floundering for words.

“Sure. Did…What did you want to study today?”

“To be honest, I don’t really want to at all.” You pop one of the strawberries in your mouth. “It might be better for us to get to know each other first. Because right now, you’re a strange man in my apartment. And I’m not very fond of strange men.”

Your satisfaction grows when the pink returns to his cheeks.

“Right, sorry. I’m Zhong Chenle, but I think Jisung told you that already. I’m a physics major, actually, and not to brag or anything, but I’m the top of my class. And I also…also really like music. Singing and writing it.” He purses his lips, and after a few moments, decides he’ll take you up on the offer of snacks.

“You’re insane for being a physics major, just so you know.” You lean forward on your counter, clasping your hands together. “Music is cool.”

His gaze dances all over your figure, but he hides it somewhat well. You barely notice.

“You?”

“Oh, I’m not all that interesting.” You chuckle. “I haven’t declared my major yet. Not really sure what I want to do.”

“I mean, I’m not sure what I’ll do with physics. I’ll probably have to get a Masters if I want to be anything useful.” His tongue darts out to wet his lips. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, and you find the awkwardness of all of it…endearing, maybe. You’ll keep going a bit longer.

“I see.” Intentionally being awkward is your forte. You’ll see how much he can handle. How much he’ll give back.

“We should at least do one chapter today,” he says after almost an entire minute of silence. “I told Jisung I would help. And if you push it back, there’s no guarantee you’ll do it.”

“Hm. Jisung is the only reason you want to tutor me?” You can’t help the smirk on your face. Nor can you ignore the way his face hasn’t lost the pink since he stepped foot in your apartment.

“I—I mean, yeah. No. Originally, yeah. He asked me to h—” he cuts himself off, a scoff escaping his lips. “I’m trying to be nice. I honestly don’t have a whole lot of friends outside of Jisung, either, so I guess he thought we could be good together. As friends, of course.”

Oh, let the games begin. This man wants to be your friend, and here you are, eyeing him up and down like he’s your next meal. Getting him flustered has all but unlocked a new portion of you you had no idea existed. Every guy you’ve ever dated has been your stereotypical jock, and certainly, none of them would’ve ever been able to tutor you. But the lack of confidence on Chenle’s part should be studied—how does he look like that and have no confidence? It astounds you.

“Of course,” you agree, biting into a piece of watermelon. “Fine. One chapter, but then you have to come with me to a party tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow’s Tuesday.”

“Yeah, and?”

“We have school on Wednesday.” He blinks at you, pure confusion behind those pretty brown eyes.

“Chenle,” you deadpan. “Letting loose for one night won’t ruin your GPA. I wouldn’t let you drink enough to be hung over.”

“I’ve never been drunk before.” He clears his throat. “Or been to a party. That sounds like a bad idea.”

“And if I promise to stay with you the whole night? I promise, parties are fun. And Jisung will be there. We won’t let anything happen to you.” You stand up straight and cross your arms over your chest. “Not to mention parties are a great place to make friends.”

“I’m not…great at that.”

“Oh, come on.” You glare at him. “I let you tutor me in physics—”

“Let me?”

“Yes, let. And I’ll tutor you on how to make friends. How to get out of your shell a little bit. I can’t pay you money for school help, so let me do this. It’s a good exchange.”

“I literally didn’t ask for anything in exchange, though.”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

He presses his lips into a thin line. “Fine. But if I really don’t want to do something, you can’t make me.”

“Dear God, obviously.” You scrunch your nose up. “Fear not, Chenle, I find consent sexy.”

His lips part, but you’re pretty sure you see him gulp. You put the lids back on the containers and set them back in the fridge, sending a smile his way once you’ve let him flounder enough.

“First step of making friends, be confident.” You point at him. “You’re pretty nice to look at. Get rid of the awkwardness and you’ll have people all over you.”

“Oh, great.” Sarcasm twinges in his tone. “What is this? One of those makeover projects?”

“No, of course not. I’m not changing anything about you. I never understood why they always take the glasses off in those movies. They suit you.” You shrug and walk over to him to look at the books he has.

Your arm brushes his, and he blinks at you. When he doesn’t move away, you smirk. At the end of the day, you don’t want to make him uncomfortable…at least not in a bad sense. But teasing him? If it continues to be this easy to fluster him, then you’ll have a great time with it.

“Shall we?”

He nods. “Um, are we studying in here?”

“There’s not really anywhere to sit. We can go in my room.”

“Your—(Y/N), I—”

“Relax, I’m not luring you into a trap, you weirdo. I’ll be on my bed and you can use the desk.” You gesture toward your door. “We’ll even leave it open.”

“You don’t live alone?”

“Nope, my roommate is at class right now. Not too sure when she’ll be back though, she spends a lot of time at her boyfriend’s house.” You walk toward your room, and he follows behind you.

“We’ll have to share the book, though.” He sets it down on the desk.

Seeing him in your room is odd, to say the least. Mostly because you just met him today, but also because he seems to fit. You sit on the edge of your bed, and with the lamp in the corner not quite bright enough to light up the whole area, it casts shadows on his face. He looks even prettier like this, and you suddenly regret bringing him in here.

“And…the light?”

You point to the wall. “There.”

“Alright, sit at the desk. I’ll stand.” He flicks the switch on and watches you closely as you get up to do as he asks.

“Are you sure? I feel bad making you stand.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he reassures you. “We can meet somewhere else next time. Or get another chair.”

And then he puts the book in front of you, opens it to the first chapter, and places his palm flat on it to keep it on that page. You’d attempt to ignore the way his hand looks, but the way the other one is placed behind you on the chair is a much more dangerous thought.

How Jisung knows exactly who would be your type is crazy. You hate him for it.

“Can you do a physics fun fact? Maybe it’ll make my life less miserable.” You look up at him and see the gentle smile on his face.

“Sure. We’ll do one every lesson. Let me think.” He ponders for a moment, pursing his lips. “Diamonds. They’re the hardest natural material on Earth, well, that we know of. But it has the lowest crystal packing fraction, meaning the atoms are the least densely packed.”

“That’s…physics?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“Huh. Alright, then. I feel like I should write that down.” You grab a notebook from your drawer and scribble down what he just said.

“You have pretty handwriting,” he mentions, a hum escaping his throat.

Leave it to you to have warmth spreading to your cheeks from a compliment on your handwriting.

“Oh, thanks.” You clear your throat and slide the notebook to the side. “Should we…learn, I guess?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

It takes an hour to get through the first chapter, but Chenle thoroughly explains it in a way that suddenly has you understanding the very basics. As much as you hate to admit it, Jisung was right. Chenle’s a damn good tutor.

“You caught on fast.” He nudges your arm.

“Well, you didn’t explain it like a decrepit old man who speaks at one word per hour.” You chuckle. “You’re easy to listen to.”

“Wow, your poor professor.”

“No, poor me, alright? He also stands with his elbows permanently glued to his sides. He looks like a T-rex.”

He laughs out loud at that one, reaching up to massage his forehead. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I know. Now you know why I suck at physics.”

“You don’t suck at it,” he defends you. “It takes time to learn. And…good teachers.”

It’s at this point that you realize he’ll be leaving. And that you’ve been making him stand for an hour, it’s almost dinner time, and he’s been incredibly kind (and not weird or impatient) the entire duration.

“Um, I’m really sorry about making you stand for so long. Can I buy you dinner? I feel bad for being a little bit of an ass earlier, too.” You push the chair back and climb to your feet. He’s close like this, and you still have to look up slightly to catch his gaze.

“Oh, I’m supposed to go somewhere with Jisung and our other friend, Mark. If you’re okay with it, you should come.” He must be more comfortable with you, too, because he hasn’t made a single move to back away from you.

“To be honest, new people kinda scare me. I have a max amount per day.”

He smiles. “That’s the most relatable thing you’ve said all day. No worries.”

“Rain check, though?”

“For sure. Did you want to set up another session?” he asks. “Whenever works for you, I can make it happen. I have class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, pretty much until 5pm, but other than that…depending on how much you need, I can do all the weekdays at like, 7pm, but I obviously wouldn’t stay super late. School’s important, and—”

“Seven is great. I’m gonna need a lot of help.” You stick your hands into your pockets. “And tomorrow? You’re still going?”

“A deal’s a deal.” He nods.

“Do you want to meet me here? Jisung’s going, too, so he can drive the three of us.”

“Sounds good.”

“Alright.”

“Yep.”

“Have a good time with your friends.”

“Have a good time…recharging.”

Silence cascades over the two of you once again, and this time, it’s broken by both of you cringing and laughing at yourselves. You walk him to your front door and then find yourself in a similar situation, only now you’re in the hallway of your apartment building.

It’s too awkward to say you want to hang out with him more, but it’s also too awkward to rush him out of the door.

“Oh,” you say, reaching into your pocket for your phone. “Do you want to exchange numbers? That way if there are any changes or something, we can reach each other.”

“For sure.”

You offer it to him with the contacts screen open, and he takes it from you. He quickly types his number in and hands it back to you. You start to say something, and then you notice Jisung out of the corner of your eye. Immediately, you snap your mouth shut and take a large step back from the man in front of you.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He gives you a small smile before walking toward Jisung, and without another moment of hesitation, you close your door and groan to yourself. Jisung will never let you hear the end of this. Good thing Chenle will most likely get a barrage of teasing today, because it might get it out of Jisung’s system by the time he’s around you again.

You’re finishing up your makeup in your bathroom when Jisung stops mid-sentence, perturbed by the knock sounding on the door. With your lip gloss on, you turn to Jisung.

“I need to go change. Can you get that? It’s Chenle.”

“It’s…I’m sorry, did you just say Chenle’s here?”

“Wow, you can hear with those big ass ears. I’m surprised.” You feign shock. “Yes, please let him in. And don’t be weird. It’s not what you think at all, so if you make him awkward, I’ll kill you.”

“What is happening?” he mutters to himself as you close your bedroom door to change.

The party isn’t a huge one, so you planned on going in a more relaxed outfit than you originally thought. You settle for a crop top, jeans, and boots. After you look at yourself in the mirror six times to make sure it looks fine, you leave your room to find Jisung and Chenle have barely made it a few feet inside your apartment.

Jisung’s back is to you, but Chenle faces you. It seems like he stops mid-conversation at the sight of you, and after Jisung turns to you as well, you pretend not to notice the other man’s gaze lingering on you.

“Three years later. Did you cut the shirt yourself?” Jisung grumbles.

“You’re ridiculous. Are you guys ready?”

“Wait, Chenle’s going?” Jisung glances between the two of you. “Like, for real?”

“Obviously. Why else would he be here?”

“You…invited him to a party. And he…said yes.”

“Sorry, Chenle, sometimes I have to repeat things seven times for him to understand me. Can we go?”

Jisung’s at a loss, which makes both you and Chenle chuckle. The car ride to the party is fairly short, but you let Chenle take the front seat, and you sit in the middle in the back. Leaning forward, you rest your elbows on the center console as you talk to the two men.

“You guys are hanging out at this party together?” Jisung asks.

“Now you’re just making it weird,” the other man mentions, pushing his glasses up. “She invited me. I wasn’t gonna say no.”

“I invite you places all the time.”

“Well, Sungs.” You pat his shoulder. “Should I point out the obvious differences? I’m more charismatic than you. And cuter.”

You grin to yourself at the plastering of pink on Chenle’s cheeks, and he averts his gaze out the window to avoid Jisung seeing.

You walk in front of them, essentially leading them into this house. Your friend throws these all the time, and you and Jisung are always on the invite list. Mostly because you’re a package deal at this point, but also because you’re pretty sure your friend has a crush on him.

“I’m gonna get a drink.” You head toward the kitchen, and when you glance back, Chenle is following behind you.

“Jisung found a girl, I think,” he explains. “Is it okay if I—”

“You think I’d leave you by yourself? You don’t even really want to be here. Of course, you can hang out with me.” You pause and wait for him to catch up, and then loop your arm through his.

He’s surprised at first but allows you to guide him through the crowd of people. There are several of your friends in the kitchen—Karina, Jaemin, and Renjun. They all light up at the sight of you, but then immediately catch where you’re attached to Chenle.

“Sorry, there’s more than one new person here for you.” You look back at him quickly. “They’re all nice, don’t worry.”

“I think I’ve met that one,” Chenle says. “Renjun, right?”

You beam at him. “Right. That’s good then.”

Chenle stands next to you on the opposite side of the kitchen island as you animatedly talk to your friends. You introduce him to them, explain how he’s your new tutor (Jisung sponsored), and that you thought it’d be cool for him to hang out with everyone. Your group is immediately welcoming, and soon enough, Jaemin offers to pour you guys each a drink.

You glance at Chenle. “You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to.”

“I never have.” He shrugs. “First time for everything, right?”

“Rum and Coke,” you tell Jaemin. “Go easy on the rum, though. We don’t want to be dragged out of here.”

Once the drinks are poured into the red cups, Jaemin hands them to the two of you. You sip yours, watching Chenle closely as he lifts it to his lips. Just like with that fucking water bottle yesterday, you can’t help but stare as he swallows the liquid, and you know damn well your friends are clocking this whole thing.

“Not bad,” he says.

“There’s barely any alcohol in it,” you tease him. “Did you want to go sit down? Jaemin’s selective about who’s allowed in the living room, so the couch will be open.”

“Selective?”

“Well, one time, this random couple hooked up on his old couch. Like, in front of everyone. It was crazy. But he also replaced that couch, so no need to worry about it being gross.” You laugh as Chenle’s jaw drops.

“People just…do that at parties?”

“Not typically in the middle of the party, but sometimes, yeah. But that doesn’t mean you have to, so don’t freak out.” You grab his wrist and lead him toward the couch, glad to see that the only other people in there are Jeno, Giselle, Jisung, and a girl you don’t recognize sitting on his lap.

“This is already a lot better,” Chenle murmurs, his breath brushing your ear as he leans down to tell you.

“Good,” you reply.

“Well, well, well.” Jisung clicks his tongue. “You were supposed to be a good influence on her, not let her poorly influence you.”

“There’s like, half a shot of rum in there.” You sneer at your best friend.

“Whatever. Plan is working.”

You flip him off, and then you and Chenle take a seat opposite of everyone. He keeps a respectful distance from you and holds his cup with both hands, nervously glancing around.

“Don’t tell me you put Chenle in (Y/N)’s line of fire,” Giselle teases, grinning widely.

“You guys are gonna make him think I’m weird,” you complain. You touch Chenle’s arm. “I’m not evil, they’re just assholes.”

“I’m inclined to believe you, I think.” He shrugs. Attempting to hide the humorous gleam in his eyes, he takes another sip of his drink.

The night passes by somewhat quickly, and eventually, the whole group is in the living room, meaning no one is really paying attention to you and Chenle anymore. You’ve had enough to start feeling a buzz, and the way the pink on Chenle’s cheeks has become permanent tells you he might be a bit past that part himself.

“Maybe we should get some water,” you whisper to him. “Are you okay?”

He nods, and when he looks at you, you almost recoil at how close it makes you. Resting his head back on the cushion, he takes a deep breath. “This is nice. I’m not really stressed about anything right now.”

“Yeah, it happens like that.” You allow yourself a brief glance over the length of his throat, and the alcohol coursing through you has you wanting more than you’d ever admit out loud.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He lets out a sigh.

“If you want to, sure.” You nod.

“Think you’re really pretty.” He laughs, scrunching up his nose. “And talking to you is cool.”

“Well, if it helps at all, I think you’re pretty, too.” Your heart warms at the sight of him like this. You’ve known him just over twenty-four hours, but you knew he needed this—a way to relax and stop worrying about life. You’re not sure exactly what parts are stressing him out, but he needed to get away from them regardless.

“Thank you for not making that weird.” He scratches his forehead. “Maybe I should drink water.”

“Stay here, I’ll get it for you.” You set your cup down on the coffee table and go back into the kitchen.

As you’re grabbing two water bottles from the fridge, you’re joined by Jisung.

“You’re taking care of him now?”

“Relax. It’s a water bottle.” You shake your head. “It’s not like that.”

“Sure.”

“I’m surprised you came up for air. Breaking away from what’s-her-face must’ve been difficult.” You stop in the doorframe and sigh. “You were right, though. He’ll be a good friend.”

“That’s all I needed.” Jisung grins. “Both of you need more of those.”

“I take it back. We’re gonna fight outside.”

“I’d drop your ass and you know it,” your best friend jokes. “But try if you must.”

You make it back to Chenle, who gratefully accepts the bottle from you. When you sit, you don’t realize how much closer the two of you were from when you first sat down. There’d been a good foot of space between you guys, and now your thigh brushes his.

“Are you tired?” you ask him. “I can take you home.”

“Go…home. Like…with you?” His gaze drags over you, and your eyes widen.

“As in, I drop you off at your home, and then I go to mine.” You put your hand on his knee. “Are you alright?”

“I never told you the physics fun fact of the day.” He points at you. “The screens of smartphones work thanks to the electric charges leaving our fingers. But yours didn’t. ‘Cause you didn’t text me.”

“Did I leave you waiting?” You nudge him.

He nods. “Mhm. It’s not nice.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.” You bite back a smile. Who knew a somewhat tipsy man could be so fucking cute? “I’ll text you right now.”

You grab your phone and send him a message. It vibrates in his pocket.

“Oh, hold on. I think someone just texted me.” He grabs it and checks it, and then grins widely. “It was you.”

“It was me, yes.” You wave Jisung down, waiting until he’s close enough to hear you. “Can you take him home? It’s best if he’s done for tonight.”

“You’re staying?”

“For now, yeah. I had too much to drive him.”

“Sure. Is he coherent?” Jisung glances at the other man. “Hangover bets?”

“He won’t be hung over. He had like three drinks with barely any alcohol. Don’t tease him. Be nice and take him home. Make sure he actually makes it to his bed, okay?”

“Jeez, what are you, his mom?”

“My mom’s at home right now,” Chenle mutters.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

The next morning, you didn’t receive a message from Chenle. You were curious as to how he was feeling and if he’d been okay all night. And you thought about messaging him closer to seven when he was supposed to show up, but you decided not to. If he didn’t come at the scheduled time, you could do it then.

But he did.

He showed up with his textbooks in hand, and an apology for his actions on the tip of his tongue. You quickly brushed it under the rug—if anyone knows anything about drunk thoughts, it’s you. All discussion of the night before was done after that, and the two of you simply continued your tutoring.

Weeks later, it was 7:30pm on a Thursday, and you were sitting on your bed, your back against the wall and your arm pressed against Chenle’s. The physics book was open across both laps, and his soft voice guided you through whichever lesson you were on now.

“So, the universe is still growing?” you ask.

“Oh, yeah. Every second it’s expanding. It has been for billions of years and will continue on for another billion years after we’re gone.” His eyes widen as he shifts to get a better look at you. “Think about it. All those stars out there, the planets. We’re still discovering new ones almost every new place we unlock. This is my favorite part of physics—learning why everything is the way it is. Real explanations, and not just…talk.”

Those same stars he’s talking about? You’re pretty sure they’re scattered in his gaze, staring right back at you as he allows his passion to shine through.

“Chenle,” you say, pausing briefly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“You told me before you’ve never dated anyone. Why?”

“Oh.” He clears his throat. “I never really wanted to. I’m focused a lot on my schoolwork and stuff, I figured I wouldn’t have time. So, I just…didn’t. And let’s be honest here, it’s not like I had a whole lot of prospects, anyway.”

You stare at him with a raised brow before he returns the expression.

“What? I’m serious.”

“You’ve got to be joking. Like actually.”

“Come on, all I do is study. I don’t even really talk to anyone, so how would I have had any?” He sits up further and stretches, moving his glasses to rub his eyes.

“Well, now you do talk to people. Anyone you’ve been interested in?”

“I thought we were doing this to make me friends, not find me a girlfriend.” He presses his lips together. “Besides, I don’t have any time. I probably won’t until after I graduate.”

“Dude, you spend pretty much every night with me. That’s why you don’t have time. And being interested in someone doesn’t necessarily mean you have to date them.” You cross your arms over your chest.

“Right, and so what does that interest even do, then?”

“I have to spell this out for you?” You narrow your eyes at him.

“I’m genuinely confused.”

“Hook up with someone. College is important, yeah, but have some fun.”

He laughs. “I don’t want that, either. We both know I don’t have the confidence for something like that, and it doesn’t sound all that appealing. Not that I judge people who do. I’m obviously friends with Jisung. And I genuinely wouldn’t have any clue how to handle that situation.”

“It’s very simple. You approach girl, flirt, make her laugh, dance a little, and then if she’s into you, you take her somewhere—”

“Not what I meant.”

Your jaw drops as realization hits you, and you slap your hand over your mouth. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think you’d—and now I’m being an asshole because I—dude.”

“Relax,” he says. “It’s not really a big deal. You didn’t mean anything by it, and if anything, it’s flattering you didn’t think that was a possibility.”

“Dear God, someone delete me from this Earth.” You glance up at the ceiling. “So, obviously, don’t hook up with random people if that’s not how you want to lose it. Is it one of those waiting til marriage things?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Just no opportunities have presented themselves that seemed worth it. In the past.”

“This is embarrassing. For me, not you.” You drop your head in your hands. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

He puts his hand on your shoulder. “You don’t make me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t have told you if that were the case. Let’s just stick to finding me friends for now, alright?”

“Of course, yeah. That makes sense.” You take a deep breath, pausing. “I’m getting hungry. Do you wanna go get some food?”

“Sure, sounds good. I’ll pay this time.”

“No, you won’t.” You poke his chest. “Nice try, though.”

You spring up from your bed, suddenly feeling as if the distance between him and your bedroom needs to be far greater than what it has been. Time to erase the last ten minutes from your memory and hope it doesn’t make absolutely everything weird between the two of you.

Everything was normal until the next Saturday. You don’t usually see Chenle on the weekends unless there’s a party you’re dragging him to. Today, you hoped to relax your brain and take a day for yourself, but the knock at your door decided otherwise.

You open it, and Chenle stands there, looking as if he’s about to be sick to his stomach. Recoiling, you step back to let him in, and he enters without a word.

“Are you okay?” you ask. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I don’t want to be a virgin anymore.”

You flounder for words, unsure of how to handle this situation. “I thought you wanted a real opportunity—”

“Opportunities are made, aren’t they?” He wets his lips. “How do I…I don’t want to be fucking awful when I do find someone, okay?”

“Chenle, that’s a wild way to think of it. If you want to be with someone you love, and you’re in a relationship long enough to get to that point, the other person should be understanding—”

“It’s not a big deal. Societal constructs or whatever.”

“I…Okay. I’ll help you find someone.” Your brain whirls at the sudden switch, and you shift on your feet. “Are you sure?”

There’s a moment of silence, accompanied with him looking up at the ceiling briefly, as if there are words locked in his throat he desperately wants to let out. He curses under his breath and shakes his head.

“I don’t want someone random.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“This is so fucking embarrassing.” He laughs at himself and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t be weirded out by this. But I need to be with someone I trust, and you…you’re the only girl I trust.”

The shock hits you so hard, you’re almost knocked off balance. You knew Chenle had gotten more comfortable with you, but this stretches a bit beyond that. And before you knew he was a virgin, you wouldn’t have said no to hooking up with him.

“Me.” You gulp. “You want…to have sex with me.”

“Okay, now it’s weird.” His fists clench at his sides and he avoids your gaze. “Forget I came by, okay? I’m sorry that was so weird, we can just never talk about it again, and I’ll keep…being me, and—”

“Slow down, please.” You card your fingers through your hair and try to force the shock away. “I didn’t even respond. Give me like three seconds to wrap my head around it.”

He nods in response, staring down at his feet.

“So, you…you trust me. And because of that, you want me to take your virginity?” You’re still not completely caught up.

“Yeah, it sounded better in my head, I think.”

“Is that the only reason you want me instead of someone else?” you ask.

“What do you mean by that?” He plays with the bottom hem of his T-shirt. “But you’re not—it’s not like that. I trust you. We both know I think you’re pretty. I’ve learned a lot of…things from you, and I thought that maybe we could—”

“You want sex lessons.”

“Can you—My God, please don’t say it like that.” He cringes.

“It’s not weird,” you reassure him. “I didn’t expect this. At all, clearly. Um, I need a little bit of time to think about it.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t want things to change with us because you’re really a great person, and I…You know I won’t be mad at you or anything if you say no. I get it.”

“I didn’t think you would be.” You pause. “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow. I need to process a little more.”

“Of course. Thank you. Either way.”

More silence.

“Um, did you know that sound waves could heat up cold soup?”

The awkwardness swarming the two of you shatters as you laugh. “You’re ridiculous. Truly the only man I know that’ll proposition sex in one sentence and then move on to fucking physics.”

“Icebreakers. They work wonders.” He shrugs.

If it was possible for your brain to be on one topic for an entire twenty-four hours, that’s exactly what happened to you. When the topic first came up, Chenle seemed like he wanted someone special to share the moment with. Now, he wants to get it out of the way. And he wants your help. If he regrets it, there’s literally nothing you’ll be able to do to change that. And you’d undeniably been attracted to him from the moment you saw him, but that doesn’t mean this was the best way to go about this. He trusts you. He said that with his whole chest, and you’re not sure if that’s the entire reason. So you came up with some stipulations, and if any of them are a no for him, then you won’t do it. You’re about as nervous as he was when he came over to ask you, but you text him and tell him to come over. When he sits next to you on your couch, you fidget with your hands in your lap. You don’t know exactly how to just say it.

“Before I make my decision, there are a few things you’d have to be okay with.” You clear your throat, and you watch realization dawn on his face.

“Okay. What is it?” he asks.

“First, I’m clean and on birth control, so protection is up to you whether or not you want to use it. But it’s a good habit to start, obviously. For when you…eventually hook up with other people, too.”

He gulps. “That makes sense.”

“We don’t tell Jisung.”

“I think he’d kill me if he knew, anyway.” He grips his thighs tightly, fingers digging into the fabric of his jeans.

“If I do something or ask you to do something you don’t want to do, tell me. I would never get mad at you for telling me no, okay?”

“Same would go to you.”

“If you were to ever…find that you’re falling for me, or catching feelings, you have to tell me. And we’ll stop.” You analyze him closely, waiting for any change in his face.

He chews on his bottom lip, but ends up nodding.

“You still have to tutor me in physics. And if things get too awkward and I fail, I’ll kill you.”

That one makes him laugh, and his grip on his legs relaxes. “I won’t let you fail.”

“We’ll still be friends after this?” you inquire. “Like, we’re not gonna do this and then you’ll fall off the face of the Earth or anything?”

“It’s—”

“Don’t tell me it’s impossible. Just answer the question.”

He gives you a soft smile. “I’m not going anywhere. Promise.”

With that, you stand up and hold out your hand. He stares blankly at you, lips slightly open as he tries to figure out what you’re trying to do.

“No better time than the present.”

“Oh, we…you…we’re gonna do this now?” He stands up.

“We don’t have to. Let’s see where it goes.” You grab his hand and tilt your head at him. “If you’re okay with that.”

“It’s just…I’d want to get condoms, and I didn’t bring any because I thought this was going in a completely different direction—”

“I have some.”

“You…” He wets his lips. “Okay, yeah. Let’s, um, see where it goes.”

Chenle allows you to guide him into your room, and then he’s sitting on the edge of your bed. Giving yourself one more mental pep talk, you straddle his lap, not quite sitting all the way down yet. His breath hitches, and his fists clench at his sides.

“Relax,” you whisper. “You know I’ll take care of you. You can touch me.”

He hesitantly lifts his hands up to find your waist, barely gripping you while refusing to break eye contact.

“Have you ever kissed someone before?” you ask, unable to hide how closely you’re staring at his parted lips.

“Not recently,” he responds. “Probably not one that counts.”

“Follow my lead, okay? And you can stop me at any point if you want to.”

You adjust yourself and sink down on his lap. He’s already half hard, the firmness of his length pressing into your core.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s…”

“Don’t apologize.” You chuckle, almost breathlessly. “That’s what’s supposed to happen.”

He scoffs at you, his pointed look does well in breaking the awkward tension between the two of you. You cup his cheek, eyes trailing over his face as you trace his bottom lip with your thumb.

He watches you through a curious, almost hazy gaze. Like he’s admiring you with him like this. Swallowing the rest of your nerves, you lean forward and press your mouth to his. He inhales sharply, his fingers gripping your shirt. The movement is awkward, and he doesn’t reciprocate right away.

“Chenle,” you say. “I said follow my lead. You have to…move your lips a little.”

“Sorry, it’s new—”

“Stop apologizing. There’s nothing wrong with any of it. Just listen and learn.”

He nods, and you return to kiss him. This time, he matches your movements, and that’s when you realize just how fast of a learner he is. You reach up to weave your fingers into his hair. He gasps, pulling away to look at you. Your lip gloss shines on his lips, and you’re certain that a new part of yourself has been unlocked.

“You’re…so pretty.” His voice strains.

“What do you want?” you ask.

“You.” He gulps. “I-if that’s okay.”

“Have you thought about this before?” You trace along his jawline. “Me?”

He sucks in a breath. “I didn’t mean to. At first. And then you…we talked about hooking up with people, and all I could see was you.”

“What kind of thoughts, Chenle?” While all you want to do is keep kissing him, you move your lips down from his jaw to his neck.

“(Y/N), I—”

“If you want to do this, you have to stop being scared of saying the wrong thing,” you hum, and when you find his pulse thrumming beneath your lips, you gently bite down.

“Fuck,” he chokes out. “I-I’ve seen enough porn, okay? I don’t usually think about people I know like that, but I’ve imagined what you’d feel like.”

The desperate twinge to his voice has you wishing you could clench your thighs together. You don’t want to do too much right off the bat, but he’s fully hard beneath you now, pressing directly into your core. Despite your own slight embarrassment, you allow your lips to brush his ear.

“Do you touch yourself to those thoughts?”

His grip tightens again, and his pants nearly turn into whines. “Yes.”

“I think we should slow down,” you tell him. “Don’t wanna overwhelm you.”

He sighs when you lift yourself off his lap. You take your usual spot against the wall and pat the bed next to you, and he joins you without hesitation. When you lean in to kiss him, he quickly reciprocates. You’re surprised by how fast he caught on to the movement, because the kiss is nothing but enjoyable for you.

“Can I touch you?” you ask, tapping your fingers on his upper thigh.

He nods fervently, but quickly pulls you back into a kiss. You smile against his lips before popping the button on his jeans. He curses quietly at the sound of you pulling his zipper down. You push down on them, and he lifts his hips to assist you. Pausing the kiss, you look down at where he strains in his boxers.

“It’s not gonna take very long.” He lets out a weak laugh. “Don’t wanna make a mess.”

“Let me worry about that,” you tell him.

You pull back for a split second to look at his face, finding lust waltzing around in his irises. He either can’t hide it or doesn’t want to, but you have him wrapped around your finger. His lips are swollen from kissing you, and he’s never been more attractive to you. Your thighs clench together, and the warmth between them is undeniable.

“You sure?” you whisper.

He nods, and you go back for another kiss in an attempt to distract him from you pulling at the hem of his boxers. The sound that escapes from his mouth into yours sends a shiver up your spine. God, the things you’d do to him if it wouldn’t melt his brain. You trail your finger up his length, collecting some of the precum from his tip.

He curses but doesn’t break the kiss, his hand now tightly gripping your thigh. His touch sends sparks through you, and you wrap your hand around him.

You stroke him up and down, grinning into the kiss when you feel how he pulses against your palm. He struggles to keep his focus on kissing you the longer you slowly pump his cock. You sink your teeth into his bottom lip, gently tugging it as you rub your thumb across his tip. A long moan escapes his mouth, and his head thuds back against the wall, and within seconds strings of white pump from him.

You catch as much of it as you can in your hand and kiss him again to quiet him down. This exchange is softer, slower than your previous, and he all but melts into you as he attempts to calm his breathing.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I—”

“Don’t apologize.” You slide away from him to grab a towel from your closet. “That was the whole reason I did it.”

You won’t tell him how weak your legs are and how bad you want his hands all over you, considering it’s very likely he wouldn’t know what to do with you anyway. As soon as your hand is cleaned off, you come back to find him zipping and buttoning his pants.

“Can I ask you something?” He chews the inside of his cheek.

“Chenle, my hand was just on your penis. Of course, you can ask me anything.” You chuckle at him.

“Did that…do anything to you? Are you turned on?”

Embarrassment replaces the heat already on your cheeks as you turn to him. “I mean, yeah. But that’s a good thing, obviously.”

“You don’t want me to help you?”

For the thousandth time this weekend, you’re floundering for words in his presence, but you can’t deny how much you do, indeed, want that. You figured he’d not even think about it, leave, and then you could just take care of yourself instead.

“I…”

“If not, that’s okay. But I didn’t want to learn how it felt for just me, you know.” He shifts to the edge of the bed and holds his hand out to you. “C’mon. Show me how to help you. Besides, I definitely owe you now.”

“Okay.” You step toward him and slide your palm on his, gasping when he tugs you into him.

He moves to place your back against the mattress, your head hitting the pillows. Hovering over you, he allows his gaze to travel down to your mouth. You spread your legs to accommodate him, grabbing his hand and placing it on your thigh.

“You could say I’ve…studied this part a little.” He wets his lips. “But I don’t hold too much stock in that stuff being real, so…”

You chuckle. “That’s good. Porn is very unrealistic.”

“How do you want me to do this?” he asks. “Um, I can use my hand or if you want oral, that’s…yeah.”

“Let’s make sure you’re good with your hands first, alright?” You weave your fingers through his hair and rub your thumb against his scalp.

“I want you to feel good, too.” He furrows his eyebrows as if he’s trying to figure something out. When he leans down, he brushes his lips against your jawline, mimicking the way you kissed his neck earlier.

“Chenle,” you whisper, letting your head fall back against the pillow. “Come lay next to me.”

He listens to you quickly, making sure your back is flat against his chest. His arm is snug around your waist as he brushes your hair out of the way to leave wet, open-mouthed kisses along your neck. You skin buzzes everywhere he touches you.

“Don’t be afraid of me, okay?” you tell him. “Foreplay is the most important part of sex for a girl. It’s harder for us to finish, so you’ve gotta…be deliberate.”

“Mhm,” he hums, squeezing your hip.

“You can explore.”

“Show me where.” He most likely meant it to make sure he doesn’t do anything you don’t want him to, but as you place your hand over his to guide him, more warmth spreads between your thighs. You slide him beneath your shirt, slowly moving him over your skin.

“You’re so warm.” He kisses your shoulder. “Soft.”

You stop at your breasts, a soft moan escaping you as you have him squeeze. Your head falls against his chest, and you bite your lip as you move him beneath your bra. He whispers a curse, and you can’t stop yourself from squirming against him.

You move your hand away from his, and he moves to your other breast. His thumb brushes over your nipple, and your eyes nearly roll back into your head. Sure, you told him what to do, but the feeling of his fucking hands on you has your fantasies running wild.

“Was that okay?” he asks.

You nod and tug on his wrist. “Now, when you really start, you have to make sure whoever you’re with is wet. If she’s really wet, it’ll feel better for both of you.”

“How will I know the difference between—”

“Touch me.” You push him toward the apex of your thighs. “That’s what really wet feels like.”

He slides his hand beneath your shorts. “(Y/N), I don’t…I don’t know how—”

“It’s okay,” you say, putting your palm on him again. “I’ll show you.”

He cups your core and gently rubs back and forth. “Doesn’t this ruin your panties?”

“Precisely why I try to take them off as quickly as possible in these situations, smart ass.” You scoff. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’ll get messy.”

“You caught my cum in your hand. It’s the least I can do.” He shifts down a bit and waits for you to look at him so he can kiss you. In the midst of the kiss, you move him beneath your panties. He lets out a shaky sigh when he feels the wetness against his skin.

“Few, um, key things going on here,” you tell him. You position his fingers over your clit. “This is the clit. Don’t ever forget that. It’s arguably the most important thing on my body. In…this case, I mean.”

“Mhm.” His breathing is uneven against your neck, but he listens intently.

You move further down to your entrance. “This is where you’re gonna put those pretty fingers to use, okay?”

“You’re so wet,” he comments, his forehead dropping on your shoulder. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

You pull him back to your clit. “Start here. Don’t be a psycho. Going slow is good until she tells you to hurry the fuck up.”

“Stop saying it like that,” he says, allowing you to move him in whatever way will make you feel good.

“Like what?” you ask, your hips unintentionally grinding down on his fingertips.

“She. I’m with you right now. Only wanna think about you.” He clicks his tongue. “I got it now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You move your hand away from his, sighing as he continues his circles. “When you put your fingers in, use your thumb to keep rubbing the clit.”

“Is it normal that I really feel like I might cum in my pants?” He chuckles.

“Considering this is your first time touching a real vagina, yes.”

He slides his fingers inside you, the length of them alone making your eyes roll back. When you moan, he lets out a similar sound, his hips pushing against your ass. You close your eyes, truly not expecting much out of him in the slightest. You’ll probably have to remind him—

His thumb finds your clit as he starts pumping his fingers inside you, and your back arches from the pleasure. You’re desperate to finish from getting him off earlier, and you start to believe he might just get you there.

“If it’s…it’s this tight with my fingers, how does…good fucking God, (Y/N), you’re fucking perfect.” He picks up his speed a little, and you feel that knot tying deep in your stomach.

“Whatever you do, don’t fucking change anything,” you practically whimper the words out, rocking your hips in time with his hand. Your walls clamp down on his fingers, and you let out a loud moan, your nails digging into his wrist as he continues his work between your legs.

Once overstimulation sets in, you close your thighs around him until he gets the hint that you’re done. He gently removes himself from your panties and settles your shorts back in the proper spot. You pant while he kisses your neck.

“I feel like everything makes sense now,” he mutters.

“What do you mean?”

“Why people are so obsessed with sex. I get it.”

“You haven’t even had sex yet.” You chuckle and turn toward him. “Um, you can stay if you want to, but don’t feel like you have to. I know you have class tomorrow.”

“I definitely would, but I for sure came in my pants. So I’ve gotta go home and change.” He pauses and wets his lips. “If you come with me, you could stay at mine.”

“Chenle, that…” you trail off with a sigh. “That sounds like we’d be crossing a friendship line, you know?”

“Oh. Yeah, of course. Don’t even worry about it, I don’t know what’s normal in these situations, so I’ll…just go home. And I’ll see you tomorrow, right? Normal time?” His cheeks are stained pink as he lifts himself off your mattress.

You nod, frowning to yourself—you don’t want him to leave. You want him to lay next to you all night, and no part of that sounds like a good idea.

“Have a good night, Chenle.” You clasp your hands together in your lap.

“You, too.” And then he’s gone, and you fall back against your mattress.

You won’t get him out of your brain any time soon, but at the very least, you hope it’s not going to make everything awkward between the two of you. He wanted lessons, plural, so you can only think that means he’ll want to have real sex. More than once.

You grab your pillow and put it over your face, screaming into it.

This, you fear, is only the beginning.

“Chenle, it’s been two hours. Please put the book down. I can’t think anymore today.” You rest your head back on the wall.

“You’ve got a test coming up,” he mentions as he gives you a pointed look. “If you don’t do well, that’s a direct reflection on me.”

“Mm, no. I think it’s a reflection of me not being able to shove all of this in my brain.” You drop your head in your hands.

He stops for a moment, and then ultimately decides to close the book. “Maybe I should come earlier tomorrow?”

Without another thought, you rest your head on his shoulder and sigh. He tenses for a brief second, but quickly relaxes. Neither of you are quite used to the physical affection aspect, but after last night, you’re not too sure you have to hold back anymore.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“My brain hurts.”

“I’m serious.”

“Me, too,” you reassure him. “If there was something wrong, I’d tell you.”

“C’mere.” He wraps his arm around you and pulls you closer to him, all before resting his head on top of yours.

You shouldn’t enjoy it. In fact, you should be encouraging him to do the exact opposite of this, but, for some reason, you crave his comfort. Your day was unnaturally long, and with a test coming up, you need all of the support you can get.

“I know I’m not Jisung, but you can talk to me about anything, you know.” His voice rumbles quietly, and he reaches up to play with your hair.

“We shouldn’t be this close right now,” you say.

“I know.” He sighs.

Your heart twists in your chest. Both of you are fully aware of what all of this could mean—of the risk you’re taking by opening up a connection like this—but at the same time, neither of you are moving to change it.

“And it’d…be wrong to kiss you, wouldn’t it?” Chenle taps his fingers on your arm. “Because we only do that during…I don’t know, whatever you want to call them. Lessons?”

Fuck, you want to kiss him, too.

“I…I think we make the rules.” You lift your head to lean toward him. “Besides, maybe you could use another lesson. Do you want that?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he admits. “But I don’t want you to think that’s all I’m doing here.”

You close the distance, pressing your lips to his. He puts his hand on the back of your head and sighs into your kiss. You shift closer to him. With your full attention on him, you drag you hand down his chest, down, down, down—

Your front door opening sends the two of you flying apart, and you curse under your breath. Chenle gets up from your bed, but not without kissing you one last time. You hate how fucking giddy it makes you feel.

“(Y/N), are you asleep with your lights on?” Jisung’s voice carries from the living room.

“It’s almost 10 o’clock,” Chenle mutters to you.

The two of you walk out together, and Jisung glances between you and Chenle, then down at his phone to look at the time.

“Chenle’s still here.”

“Yeah, we were studying. I have a test on Friday.” You cross your arms over your chest. “I think we fell asleep for a little bit.”

“Huh.”

“I was actually just leaving.” He almost reaches out to touch you, but opts against it and nods at you instead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You watch Chenle leave, and you know you’re in for a long conversation with Jisung. Rubbing your eyes, you head into your kitchen to get some water, and as soon as you take a sip, of course, Jisung opens his mouth.

“I think he’s a virgin.”

You nearly spit out your water. “What the fuck, Sungs?”

“Just in case you were thinking about doing anything with him.”

“First of all, why would him being a virgin matter? And second of all, why are you even thinking of me thinking about wanting to do something with him?”

Jisung looks you up and down. “You fell asleep, huh?”

“What?”

“Dude, look at you. Your hair’s messy, it looks like you spent an hour biting his lips, be so for real right now.” He scoffs and shakes his head. “Just be gentle with him when you break his heart. I like him.”

“I’m not—Jisung, for the love of God, I don’t plan on banging him.”

“You’re such a liar. I know you too well. But I’ll let you live in your land of delusion.”

When you passed your exam (with flying colors), you hadn’t expected Chenle to show up to your house that weekend. He showed up with Thai food, a bottle of wine, and a smile to rival the entire sky full of stars outside your window.

“You passed.”

“What’s all this for?” You chuckle as you close the door behind him before following him into your kitchen. “It was just a test.”

“Just a test,” he tsks, narrowing his eyes at you. “You’ve been studying for it for weeks.”

“If you’re gonna drink, I’m not letting you drive home,” you say.

He turns to your cabinet and grabs out a couple wine glasses. “Is that okay with you?”

You nod, opening the bag he brought. Somehow, he’d gotten so comfortable here in your apartment that he was aware where you kept things. He knew what kind of Thai food you like, and if you were to taste it right now, you’d be willing to bet he knew the exact spice level you liked. He hasn’t acted weird at all since last weekend, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’re the problem. If the only reason all of these things are ‘weird’ because you’re making them that way. He seems perfectly content living whatever way the two of you have been for months now.

“Are you okay?” he asks as he fills the glasses with red liquid.

“Yeah, of course.” You accept one from him and bring it up to your lips. “Are you—Did you know you know where everything is in my apartment?”

He chuckles and scrunches his nose. “I wouldn’t say I know where everything is. But we study here all the time, so I think it’s natural to learn those things. Plus, I’m a fast learner.”

His words take you right back to last week, to him being in your bed with you, and you know damn well he’s right. Fast learner, indeed.

“I…I didn’t ask if I could do all of this, though.” Realization dawns on him as he takes in everything sprawled out on the counter. “I’m sorry, I should’ve. Honestly, I was just proud of you for passing because you’ve been working so hard. I never would do something with the intention of—”

“You ramble when you’re nervous.” You tilt your head at him.

“Long story short, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you tell him, putting your hand on his. “It’s sweet. I appreciate it, really.”

The two of you share normal, everyday conversation while you eat, and thankfully, the awkwardness fades away. You two easily finish the bottle of wine, and once you’re both done, you’re exhausted.

“You can stay with me,” you tell him. “Unless you’d be more comfortable on the couch.”

He shakes his head and follows you into your bedroom. Considering how much time he spends in there, you expect it to feel more natural to crawl into bed with him. The gentle buzz of the wine in your veins calms you, but when he’s finally next to you and you’re curling into his chest, you fear even that can’t save you from the inherent danger of the situation you’re putting yourself in.

You’ll never forget the look on his face when he first sees you naked. Nor will you forget the power it sent raging through your bloodstream. You’re straddling his lap, your mouth gently working on his as his hands explore over your back.

“Are you sure?” you ask breathlessly. “This isn’t something you can take back, you know.”

“I trust you completely. I want you.” Chenle nods as he drags his nails gently along your bare skin.

You grab the condom wrapper next to you and open it, your heart pounding in your chest as you roll it on him. His breath catches in his throat as you grip him to line him up with your entrance.

“Okay. We’re gonna do this.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He grips your hips to stop you from moving. “Don’t do this if you’re gonna regret it, (Y/N).”

“Like I could ever regret anything I do with you.” Humor laces in your tone, but he seems to understand it’s not a joke.

“Okay,” he whispers, loosening his hold on you.

You sink down slowly so as to not overwhelm him. His lips part and his brows furrow as you take him deeper. You stop to give yourself a second to adjust. The look on his face has shivers running up and down your spine, and all you want to do is move.

“This is…” he trails off, gulping.

“What?” You’re finally completely seated on his lap, gasps escaping you as you fight every urge inside you. “What is this, Lele?”

You’re halfway certain you see his eyes roll.

“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he mutters and rubs up and down your thigh. “You…fuck, this feels…good.”

“I’m gonna start moving, okay?”

“Please.”

You watch closely as you lift up and slide back down, refusing to let your eyes flutter shut for even a moment. He inhales sharply through his teeth. It’s been a good amount of time since you’ve done this, and something about knowing the man beneath you is Chenle spurs you further.

He bites down hard on his bottom lip, digging his nails into you. “I—I can’t—”

“Don’t hold back for me,” you scold him. “It’s okay to cum first.”

“Too fast.” He shakes his head, his words practically slurred together. “You’re more important.”

“Do you know how unlikely it is that I’ll cum first in, like, the first few times—”

“You arguing is helping a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to the ceiling and then down to where the two of you are connected. “Or not. Fuck.”

“Worry about feeling it first before you think about stamina.” You roll your hips, smirking as he inhales sharply.

“I am…feeling a whole lot of things right now.” He allows his touch to trail down to your ass. When he squeezes, it causes you to lift up, and the friction has his head falling back against the wall with a thud.

“Good God, be careful,” you scold him.

“To be honest, I’m not too worried about this head.” He lets out a breathless laugh. “I’m good. You can move.”

“You can stop me if it’s too much,” you remind him.

He nods, chewing on his bottom lip as he waits for you to continue. You’re almost embarrassed by the sounds of your wetness when you lift up, but seeing him clench his jaw and the slightest eye roll puts you on a little bit of a power trip. You set a steady but slow pace, biting back your own moans so you can pay attention to him. It’s like a whine leaves his mouth every time your walls take him completely.

You pull him back to you so your chest presses against his and you wrap your arms over his shoulders. He leans in to kiss you without hesitation, his lips slotting against yours perfectly. You swipe your tongue along his bottom lip, and his moan allows you entrance. That sound turns into a whine, and you know he’s close. He desperately reaches between the two of you, his thumb swiping over your clit. The shock from the move has your back arching, and your walls squeeze around his cock.

His hips jolt up, slamming his tip deep inside you as his face contorts in pleasure. With his nails digging into your thighs, he pants, chest heaving.

“God damn it,” he groans.

“I’ve never seen anyone so upset about cumming.”

“I feel like I’m already behind. The least I can do is be good at it.” He runs his hands down his face. “You didn’t even—”

“This isn’t about me,” you remind him.

He frowns. “Uh, yes it is. I’m literally inside you right now. That means it’s definitely about you, too.”

“Lele, relax. You’ll get better with time.” You press a kiss to his cheek and shakily lift yourself off him.

He catches you off guard by pulling you back, and the next thing you know, your back is against your mattress, and his fingers trace shapes on your thighs.

“Haven’t you learned how competitive I am yet?” He runs his tongue over his teeth. “Can I?”

You’re not a hundred percent sure exactly what he’s referring to, but you nod anyway. When he kisses you, it’s soft and sweet, almost distracting enough to make it hard for you to realize how close his fingers dance to your core.

“One day you’ll cum with me inside you,” he whispers into your mouth. “The fucking lengths I’d go to.”

He wastes no time in sliding two fingers in. Your back arches into him, and you hold the back of his head to keep his lips on yours. He didn’t lie when he said he was a fast learner—you told him how to make sure you feel good too one time and he fucking ran with it. With his thumb on your clit, he kisses down your neck. You have no idea what’s happening to you, but you’ve never been like this with anyone. Maybe it’s because you trust him, too.

His lips wrap around your nipple and the world comes crashing down around you as pleasure sparks over your skin. You gasp and dig your nails into his skin. When your senses come back, he’s pulling his fingers out of you and moving up to kiss you again, the softness of his movements making you sigh all over again.

“(Y/N), I think I—” he cuts himself off, wetting his lips.

Your heart stops in your chest when you hear his tone, and half of you wants to ask him to continue. The other knows damn well you shouldn’t.

“I…don’t really know what to do with the condom.”

You can’t stop yourself from laughing, but you tell him the proper disposal method. When he comes back, he pulls your comforter back and helps you under it before climbing in next to you.

“Is it okay if I stay?” he asks softly. “If it’s weird, I can go.”

“Don’t.” You shake your head, shuffling closer. “It feels right.”

“Yeah, it does.” His voice is so soft, you barely hear it. He presses his lips to the top of your head, leaving them there for a moment longer than necessary, and then he inhales deeply. You drift off to sleep before you fully feel him exhale.

Despite the obvious, you hadn’t expected Chenle to be completely normal in all other circumstances. He hasn’t touched you excessively in front of other people. When you’re focusing on studying, he doesn’t try to make a move on you. Over the course of two weeks, you’d spent most of those nights with him, teaching him all there is to know about female anatomy.

He didn’t lie about being a fast learner. You find yourself looking forward to the moments where you’re alone with him, where you get to be tangled up in sheets and forget the rest of the world exists.

There have been a few times where he’d gotten you close to finishing first, but much to his frustration, he still couldn’t hold back.

You’d convinced him to go to Jaemin’s party while he was in the middle of kissing your neck. And as a thank you, you’d shown him the wonders of a blowjob. By the time he’s ready for a relationship, you’re sure he’ll have nothing to worry about.

Except, you do. Because the thought of him dating someone else after spending this time with you has an unsettling feeling stirring in your stomach.

You ignore it the best way you know how—by talking to someone else you’ll pretend to entertain. Sitting between Jeno and Chenle’s friend Mark, you laugh along to whatever they’re talking about. Truth be told, you have no fucking clue what that may be, but they’re encouraged by you.

Chenle sits across from you, trying his best not to stare. He nurses his drink and talks to Jisung, but his attention is never truly off you. The second Jeno’s hand comes in contact with your thigh, Chenle abruptly stands from his seat and practically stomps out without a word to anyone.

You frown at Jisung, who shrugs. He’s not much help after he’s been drinking. With a sigh, you get up and follow him wherever he may have gone. You see the top of his head as he makes his way toward the door through the crowd.

He makes it outside and down the porch steps before you catch up to him and grab his wrist.

“Let me go.” His voice is colder than you’ve ever heard it.

“What the hell is your problem?” you snap.

He whirls around, eyes wide and full of something you can’t make out. “I get you can still do whatever—whoever—you want, but right in front of me? Do you have any idea how fucking—God, it’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, now you’re embarrassed of me?” You scoff.

“Not for you. For me.” He most likely has no clue he’s shouting, but his breath leaves a frigid cloud in the air. “Am I not good enough for you?”

“Chenle, keep your fucking voice down,” you hiss.

He sucks in a shaky breath. “How? I—I don’t know how to handle any of this. We agreed it doesn’t…mean much, but doesn’t it fucking mean something?”

Your heart trembles in your chest, and you gulp. How do you respond to that? Of course, it means something, but what that is, you’re unsure of. How do you tell him that?

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” he asks, exasperated.

You recoil, frowning as you take him in.

“Go ahead and fuck Jeno, (Y/N). It’s not my business, right? I have no reason to be upset. At the very least, just act like you care about me a little bit, alright? I don’t want to see you…want someone else.”

“I do care,” you say quickly, grabbing his wrist. “It’s not like that, okay?”

“So, what is it?” he breathes out, a short laugh escaping his throat. “Are you tired of teaching me? You want someone who’s better?”

“Stop.”

“What the hell else am I supposed to think? Will I ever be enough for you—”

“I said stop.” You don’t mean to yell, not really, but as soon as the words leave your mouth, you slap a hand over it.

Chenle flinches, realization quickly dawning on his face. “I’m sorry. God, I don’t know what the fuck that was, and it’s definitely not my place to tell you—”

“Just stop,” you say weakly, blinking back the tears welling in your eyes. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Fuck, don’t cry. Please.” He steps forward and wraps his arms around you. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of that shit. You don’t owe me anything, okay? We both know that and we both know you’re doing me a fucking favor, so I’m gonna be better, I promise. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

“Maybe we should stop.” You wipe at your eyes.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t think you’re being honest with me, Lele.” You sniffle. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“(Y/N), I—I’m drunk, for fuck’s sake. And, yeah, I’m a fucking idiot who tried to…control you and what you do with your body, and that’s so messed up. I’m really sorry for that. But honestly, it’s pride and ego. It felt like I wasn’t…like I don’t give you what you need, so you’ve gotta find it from someone else. That’s all.”

“I wanna go home.”

“Okay, we can go—”

“You need to go home, too.” You look down at your feet. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay with me tonight.”

“Don’t do this—”

“It’s one night. You need to respect what I’m asking for.”

He stares at you with wide, concerned eyes.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I think you should go back in there with Jisung, and he’ll make sure you get home in one piece.”

“(Y/N)...”

“Goodnight, Chenle.”

Being alone in your house makes you regret your decision to send him home. You barely drank at all, so you can’t blame any of your emotions on the alcohol content in your bloodstream. God, how do you describe what the fuck is going on inside you?

Chenle keeps his distance from you for a few days. You and Jisung are splitting some drinks in his apartment when he decides to bring it up, analyzing you for your reaction as he speaks.

“Did something happen with you and Chenle?”

“Why do you think that?” You take a giant sip of your drink, cringing at the taste.

“Don’t do that. I was being nice. I know something happened because I saw you guys argue outside the party, and he’s been a miserable lump for four days now.” Jisung crosses his arms over his chest. “You hurt his feelings.”

“I don’t want to talk about Chenle.”

“And what if you fail physics, dude?”

“Jisung, fuck physics.” You drop your head into your palms. “I invited you over to drink and not think about the real world. So if you’re going to bring him up, please just go home.”

“Oh.” Jisung pauses, slowly leaning forward until his elbows are braced on his knees. “(Y/N).”

“No, Jisung. No. I just…want peace, okay? I can’t do this right now.” You shake your head.

“Alright.” Jisung stands. “I’ll leave you alone. But we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

You don’t say a word as he leaves, but you do chug the rest of what’s in your can. Chenle hasn’t so much as texted you. Why would you want to talk about him? Doesn’t Jisung know how royally fucked everything is between the two of you. Instead of going to bed like you should, you sit on your couch and stare up at your ceiling, occasionally pausing to take a sip of the new drink you opened. By the time your door opens again, you think you’re dreaming. You see Chenle in front of you, and in your hazy mind, you want nothing more than to touch his ethereal, angelic face.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”

You groan, sniffling.

“C’mon, you gotta get some sleep.” His words make your head whirl even more.

“Lele?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re real?”

“Yeah, baby, I’m real.” His voice sinks into your skin, and you lean into him immediately.

“Help.” You hold your hands out to him.

He loops his arm around your waist and guides you into your bedroom. “How much did you drink?”

“Not a lot,” you mutter, your words slurring together. “I’ve had more.”

He scoffs. “You’re ridiculous.”

You flop into your bed, and you swear your sheets still smell like him. He should be tangled up with you every night, holding you close to him like you’re the only thing that matters. You should be. The only thing. Chenle hesitates before climbing in next to you.

“I don’t want to stop,” you whisper as his chest settles against your back. “We’re both fucking stupid if we want other people.”

“Sh.” He makes the gesture so softly, you almost miss it. “We’ll talk tomorrow, baby. Get some sleep.”

You wake to lips on your shoulder. Shuffling closer to Chenle, you groan at the brightness of the sun.

“Careful,” he mutters, squeezing his arm around your waist.

“What time is it?”

“Ten.”

“What?” You attempt to shoot up in bed, but you groan and slump back in your spot. “Fuck. Don’t we have class?”

“We had class, yeah.” Chenle tightens his grip around you and traces shapes on your hip. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

You remember Chenle telling you he’d never missed a class in his life. How he’d always known how important every single lesson was, and how he’d never miss for something unimportant.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him.

He frowns. “What for?”

“I did it on purpose. Well, not really. But I was trying to distance myself from you because we were…I don’t know, spending a lot of time together. It was fucking weird.”

“Do you not want that?” he asks.

“I do. And it’s weird that I do.” You bury yourself in his chest. “Can we forget everything today? I just want you.”

“Of course,” he whispers. “That sounds perfect.”

His arms wrap around you, a deep hum escaping him as he rests his head on top of yours. You breathe him in. You wonder what it’ll take to get through your own confusion, and if it’s even worth dragging him along with you. His fingertips comb through your hair. And for the first time in weeks, the only movement between the two of you is steady breathing.

A few more days pass, and the two of you haven’t resumed despite agreeing not to stop. You assume he’s too awkward to ask, and he’s awaiting your nudge to tell him it’s okay. But you realized that part of him gaining confidence is about letting him figure it out.

You’re sitting on your couch with his head in your lap, fingers sifting through his hair as the TV plays quietly in front of you. A lot of time spent with him feels oddly domestic. You’ve never let Jisung lay on you like this, so what exactly is the extent of what’s running through your mind?

He shifts on his back, grabbing your hand. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

He sits up and faces you, gaze traveling over you briefly. “Are we…You said you wanted to stop, and then you said you didn’t want to stop. And we never talked about it. So, please don’t think I’m trying to pressure you or anything, but I think it’s worth a conversation.”

“You’re right.” You cross your legs and turn toward him. “What the hell was all of that?”

“I really don’t know. Like, logically, you weren’t doing anything to spite me, but it just…felt like I’d never be good enough. Not just for you but for anyone. It wasn’t fair of me to take that out on you, and you’re obviously more than welcome to do whatever the hell you want with your body.”

“What part of you isn’t good enough?”

He sighs and clasps his hands together. “C’mon, (Y/N), I haven’t been able to make you finish first. And you can say whatever you want, but it’s gotta be frustrating—”

“Chenle.” You shuffle closer to him. “If it were frustrating, do you really think I’d keep going back for more? You still take the time to make sure I’m good, even if it’s not before you, which is more than what a lot of guys can say. Relax.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why that’s immediately where I went when I saw that guy touch you. To be honest, I’ve never…felt anything like that before. And it scared me, so I figured it’d be better to leave.” He picks at the seam of his jeans.

“Is it okay if I kiss you?” you ask.

Chenle nods, glancing down at your lips. You give him a small smile before leaning in and pressing your mouth to his. He sighs as if he’s melting into you, and his hand moves to the back of your head.

“I missed this,” he murmurs.

“Me, too,” you admit.

No matter how much you want to, you don’t push further. You wait for him to make that decision. He pulls away briefly as if to analyze you, and then he moves back in with determination. Without a word, you allow him to guide you until your back is against the couch cushions.

You throw your arm around his shoulders and pull him closer. With a gentle roll of his hips, his clothed length presses against you. He kisses down your neck, gently nipping at your skin. Finally, he lifts up to press his lips to your ear.

“You know, people radiate more thermally per volume than the sun.” His hand trails down your body, slipping into your shorts to cup your core over your panties. “And you’ve got me fucking addicted to you, for fuck’s sake.”

“Did you just tell me a physics fact right now?” You quirk an eyebrow at him.

He grins. “Yeah, I did. It felt like it fit the situation.”

“It’s so fucking weird that I found that hot.” And then you pull him back into a kiss while you roll against his hand.

“Oh, good.” He moves your panties aside and slides his fingers along your entrance. “Can I go down on you?”

“Huh?” Your eyes shoot open and you grab his wrist.

“You’ve gone down on me, but I’ve never…” He gulps and nudges your clit with his fingertips. “Do you not want me to?”

“I’m just…shocked.” You let out a shaky breath as he circles you. “That you want to.”

“I want anything that’ll make you feel good.” He pulls at the hem of your panties, only to let them smack back against your skin.

“You know I’m not gonna say no.” You lift your hips to encourage him to undress you.

He smirks and removes his hand from your core. “I like to hear you want me.”

“Can you do me a favor?” You trace along his bottom lip, entranced in the thought of his head between your thighs.

“Anything.”

“Keep the glasses on when you do it.”

He raises an eyebrow, but you’re quickly distracted by the way he tugs your shorts and panties off in one movement. You’re not sure where the determination on his face comes from—or the confidence and knowledge—but he starts by pressing open mouthed kisses around your inner thigh.

“You’re so pretty everywhere,” he mutters, tongue running along your skin.

You let your head drop back against the couch and reach to card your fingers through his hair. He hums into you as he trails closer and closer to your core. You usually try to refrain from squirming too much or letting him know just how fucking needy you are, but the thought of his lips on you is driving you up the fucking wall.

“Lele, don’t tease me,” you whine, shifting so you can see him.

His gaze flicks up, a look within you’ve never seen before. You did something to him, and you’re more than ready to find out. He narrows his eyes slightly as he analyzes you before he dips his head back down. His tongue starts at your entrance, and he flattens it and moves upward until he takes your clit in his mouth.

You gasp, wanting nothing more than to throw your head back, but you refuse—you need to see him. He sucks on your bud and flicks it with his tongue, and you grip his hair.

“I didn’t fucking teach you that,” you say breathlessly, chest heaving.

He pulls away just long enough to say, “Porn isn’t completely useless now, is it?”

You’re dazed already, watching as he pleasures you. He moans against you, and the vibrations course through you. You’re not sure what made you ask him to keep the glasses on, but you’re appreciating it now more than ever—he’s between your legs with his face buried in the very apex of your thighs, and every time you squirm, you feel the thick frames of his glasses.

“Fingers,” you tell him. “Fuck, use your fingers.”

He doesn’t let up, immediately listening and thrusting two inside you. Your back arches as you moan and push him further against you. Everything becomes a blur, and when he curls his fingers just the way you taught him, you’re practically thrashing beneath him.

A strangely masculine scream robs your body of the high you were two seconds away from, and Chenle freezes and lifts himself to cover a bit more of you. Embarrassment floods through your body.

“What the fuck?” Jisung shouts, hands slapped over his eyes. “(Y/N), I sit on that couch!”

“That’s really what you’re worried about?” You scoff and grab the throw blanket from the back. Chenle helps you spread it out so he can safely move away from his spot. You cover him, too, considering the noticeable bulge in his pants.

“You should save all sexual activity for your bedroom—”

“Says the guy who was telling me how he fucked a girl on the kitchen counter,” you shoot back. “We’re covered.”

He drops his hands from his eyes and shivers like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I’m gonna puke. Chenle, wipe your fucking mouth.” Jisung clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head. “What the fuck?”

Chenle’s ears turn pink, and he uses the blanket to remove what’s left of your arousal from his face. Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as you study him—

“My God, are you gonna eat him alive?” Jisung scolds you. “Right in front of me? I can’t believe you guys didn’t tell me you’re together.”

You and Chenle exchange glances before you both look back at Jisung.

“No. No, no, no.” He drops his head into his hands. “You mean to tell me you’re not?”

“Can we do this later?” you ask.

“What?”

“I agree,” Chenle adds. “You should come back in like an hour. Or two. Because to be honest, I don’t really care if you’re here or not, I’m gonna fuck her.”

Everything inside you heats up again, and you gape at Chenle. Jisung lets out a dramatic scream and slams the door behind him.

“What the hell was that?” You push Chenle’s shoulder.

“The truth,” he says. “I want you so fucking bad right now.”

“Well, you’d better hurry up and put this extra time to good use.” You lean forward and kiss him hard, holding onto the back of his neck. He inhales sharply but wastes no time in reciprocating. With one quick movement, the blanket once covering you is tossed to the floor, and he’s between your legs.

While his mouth works against yours, he almost frantically moves his hands beneath your shirt and only breaks where you’re connected to pull it off. His urgency takes you off-guard, but you can’t deny the thrill running through your veins and the wetness rushing to your core.

You grab at his shirt, and he sits up on his knees to take it off. Practically lunging forward, you unbutton his pants. As soon as his zipper’s down, he grabs your wrist.

“Turn around.”

“Huh?” you ask.

“Turn around,” he repeats. “You know what I want.”

With anyone else, you’d be embarrassed by how much his request turned you on. You flip over and lift yourself to your knees. You arch your back and let your head rest against the couch cushion, and his groan reverberates through your entire being.

His hands grip your ass, nails digging in as he squeezes hard. “Do you have any fucking idea how bad I wanted you to cum on my tongue?”

“Was pretty close.” You push back against him.

“Think he’s listening?” Chenle asks, tapping your hip before flattening his palm over your stomach. “Just a little curious about us, huh?”

His touch burns against you in the best ways, and after being as close as you were, you’re desperate for him to make you finish. You cry out when he puts two fingers on your clit and rubs slow circles. Gripping onto the cushion below you, you rock your hips in rhythm with him.

“You said you’re on birth control, right?” he murmurs, seemingly distracted by the way your arousal coats his skin.

You nod fervently.

“Is…” He pauses, cursing under his breath. “No condom is okay? I can, um, finish inside you?”

Your eyes roll back. “Fuck, of course, you can. I need you right now.”

He shuffles behind you, and you wish you could see what he was doing. His fingers slow, but your whine is cut short when he slides his length against you to collect the wetness.

“A-and there’s…no risk?” He gulps.

“C’mon, you little science nerd, you know there’s always a risk.” You chuckle airly. “That’s part of what makes it fun.”

He hums and removes his fingers from you, grabbing his cock and jerking himself off a few times before lining up with your entrance.

“You’re sure this is okay, baby?” Chenle’s free hand squeezes your ass again.

“For fuck’s sake, Lele, please—” You’re cut off by his tip ever so slowly stretching you to accommodate him. You gasp, immediately pushing back to take more of him. This angle has you seeing stars. Once he bottoms out, he lets out a long moan.

“So good,” he whines, just barely rocking his hips. “You’re so fucking good.”

He reaches around you again to circle your clit, and then he starts to thrust. Your eyes roll and your body melts, everything around you becoming blurry as he sets a steady pace that has your toes curling.

You attempt to assist him, every time he’s entering you, you push back to take him harder. One hand grips your hip, and the other frantically works between your legs. You can’t even think straight, moans pouring out in unison with his. A knot starts to form in your stomach, and you attempt to shut your thighs.

“‘M close.” You gasp, legs beginning to shake. “Fuck, ‘m gonna—”

You let out your loudest moan yet as you spasm around him, overwhelmed from the pleasure. Sensitivity sets in quickly, but you need him to cum inside you. He lets out a high pitched noise, and the next thing you know, he’s pressing his hips against you, burying himself as deep as he can to fill you with his load.

Both of you pant, unable to move for a moment. Once he regains some of his composure, he slowly pulls out of you, sighing at the feeling. He turns you on your back and kisses you slow, his lips working to part yours as he slides his tongue in.

You smile, unable to hold it back when you think of how much he’s learned in such a short period of time.

“You did it,” you tease him.

“That was the best fucking feeling in the world,” he tells you. “I’m never cumming first again.”

You laugh and push at his shoulder. “That’s not really something you get to just manifest into the universe.”

“Maybe not.” He shrugs, sheepishly grinning at you. “You want new clothes?”

“It’d be really great if you could grab me a towel, actually.”

“A towel?” He frowns.

“You see, Lele, when you fuck raw, messes occur.” You chuckle. “That’s a good thought for the future. Aftercare includes towels.”

“The future?” He quirks an eyebrow.

“I just meant—” Your face heats up. “Like, whoever you end up with. It’s important.”

“Right.” The playful gleam on his face fades, and as he leans back to get up and retrieve what you need, he stops to stare at the apex of your thighs. “It comes out.”

You slap a hand over your mouth to stop the abrupt laugh. “Yes, it does. What did you think happened? It magically gets absorbed into vagina land?”

“Well…yeah.” He shrugs, wetting his lips. “But this is so much hotter. I might get hard again.”

“You psycho, go get a towel.” You push at him, and he bursts into laughter as he tucks himself back in his boxers and jeans before heading toward your bathroom.

When he comes back, he helps you clean up. His touch is tender, gentle, and it makes you want to wrap him up in your blankets and stay in your bed all day with him. He grabs the throw blanket from the floor, lays down on top of you, and rests his head on your chest. You hum in content and run your fingers through his hair.

You’re not sure how long the two of you stay like that, but you find yourself drifting off to sleep. Just before you do, a phone vibrates on the coffee table. Chenle groans.

“Who’s is it?” you ask.

He lifts his head to look. “Mine. The one time it actually rings—should I just ignore it?”

“No, it’s okay.” You sigh and rub your eyes. “Answer.”

He kisses your forehead before getting up. After he has the blanket on you again, he reaches for his phone and answers it.

“Yeah?”

As soon as the other person speaks, he tenses and sits straight up.

“That was today? Are you still there? I’m so sorry, I can be there in fifteen minutes if that works.” He pauses and massages his forehead. “Yeah, I understand. It won’t happen again.”

After a few more moments of listening, Chenle hangs up the phone. He curses and reaches down to grab his shirt from the floor. When he turns to you, you’re watching him with a concerned look on your face.

“One of my professors assigned a group project, and we were supposed to present today. Like…twenty minutes ago. It’s literally twenty percent of my fucking grade.” Despite his anxious energy, he gives you a gentle kiss. “I’m so sorry, babe, I’ll come back later, okay?”

You don’t have time to answer, because he grabs his wallet and keys and bolts out the door. Not that you would’ve been able to anyway—shock courses through you at the pet name. Sure, he says things during sex, but the two of you have never…nicknamed each other outside of that.

You sit up in confusion and scratch the top of your head. What the fuck is going on with you and Chenle?

After you shower and get dressed, you go over to Jisung’s. You’re glad Chenle won’t have to sit through this. When you’re on Jisung’s couch with a bowl of popcorn, he begins his in-depth interview.

“You’re not dating?”

“Nope.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Jisung,” you deadpan. “I think it’s pretty obvious. He’s helping me with physics, and I’m helping him—”

“Did he say you had to—”

“Park Jisung, this is Chenle you’re talking about. You really think he’s capable of something like that?” You put another handful of popcorn in your mouth.

“Fine. Then tell me how it started. I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me. Your best friend. I tell you when I hook up with people.” He frowns at you.

“Well, one day, we were doing physics homework.”

“Wow, so sexy.”

“Shut up.” You send a glare his way. “Anyway, he was telling me about the ever-expanding universe or whatever, and…like, when he gets super passionate about something, he’s attractive. Like more than usual, you know? So, I asked him why he hadn’t ever dated anyone before.”

“And then you banged him?” Jisung purses his lips. “That’s…well, to be fair, I kind of expected that portion of it.”

You flip him off. “No, that’s not how it happened. Just listen, would you?”

“Fine, fine.” He holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“He said he didn’t have any prospects so obviously I was like…be for real, dude. He’s…attractive, you know? And then he said he was busy, and then I asked what about hooking up with people? Because you can still hook up and not date.”

“That kinda sounds like he was making excuses for not wanting to date.”

“Yeah, maybe. But he was also a virgin.”

“What?” Jisung’s jaw drops, and he drags his hands down his face. “(Y/N), are you insane? He’s probably unhealthily obsessed with you—”

“He showed up the next day and asked me to…teach him how to have sex. And I’d been dickless for…shit, months at least, so of course, I said yes.” You purse your lips and stare down at your lap. “He’s still learning.”

“When was this?”

“Um…” you hesitate, fidgeting with your fingers. “Remember that party where you said you saw us all angry and stuff?”

“Yeah?”

“Like, a few weeks before that.”

“Holy fucking shit, (Y/N), you’ve been fucking him for that long?” Your best friend lets out an exasperated sigh. “You realize he’s in love with you, right?”

Your head shoots up and you stare at the man on the couch. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry, but no dude like him is gonna be able to stop himself from falling in love with a girl he’s been fucking for months. Guys are really oddly attached to their firsts, you know. And that reaction at the party. He’s been missing classes. It’s like you’ve taken over his whole life.”

The rose-colored glasses shatter, and you recall what happened just hours before. He’d missed the presentation of his project. Your throat closes in on itself and you slap a hand to your forehead. Sure, you asked him to tell you if he was starting to catch feelings, but you should’ve known better than to think he’d even realize it before it was too late.

“If you don’t even have a smidge of feelings for him, you’ve gotta stop all of this. For his sake.” Jisung moves over to you so he can give you a supportive hug. “You know he deserves someone who will love him.”

“He’s not in love with me,” you say quickly. “I’ll prove it to you. You’ll see at the party this weekend. He’ll pull some random girl.”

“Sure…” he trails off. “We’ll see, I guess.”

You don’t want to stop.

That’s the only thing whirling through your head when Chenle tells you he’s on his way back to you. Your nerves churn until you’re sick to your stomach, but there’s not a damn thing you can do to change it. He’d never tell you if he got feelings for you. You should’ve known better than to expect that from him. After all, you guys spend nearly every day together, and you don’t have sex all of those days. Or learn physics. Sometimes, the two of you just lay on your bed together, your head buried in his neck, legs tangled until you don’t know which ones are yours anymore.

If he doesn’t put up a fight, it means Jisung was wrong. And that also means you don’t have to distance yourself. If he does…

“(Y/N)?” His voice carries from your living room.

“In here,” you call out to him.

Chenle’s footsteps are barely audible as he makes his way over to you. His form takes up the door frame, where he pauses to study you. He lets his backpack fall from his shoulder, and then he’s climbing onto your bed. With a long sigh, he finds his spot next to you and wraps his arm around your middle.

“That bad?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “I just can’t believe I forgot that.”

You pause for a moment, and the two of you are cascaded into a blanket of silence. He must sense the awkwardness in the air, given the way he gulps and his heart rate speeds up. You lean back to get a good view of his face.

“Why did you?” you ask quietly.

“What?”

“Forget. Why did you forget?”

He blinks, lips parting while he searches for something to say. “I…I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve never done something like that before. I’m glad the teacher still let me present, otherwise I would’ve lost my top spot. And I think that’s the only reason why she did.”

“And you were…okay with that?” You recoil.

“At the time, it really freaked me out.” He frowns. “But even if I lost the top spot, I’d still be in the top ten, so…(Y/N)?”

You roll away from him and out of his grasp, planting your feet on the floor. An overwhelming guilt floods you as you bury your head in your hands. The man in your bed just a couple months ago would’ve dropped dead at a statement like that. He could’ve gone on for hours about how important that spot was to him, and what the hell’s he willing to give that up for?

“Are you okay?” Chenle sits up behind you, fingertips brushing your arm.

“We have to stop.” It was supposed to come out much stronger than it did, but at least you didn’t have to look at him.

“Wha—how did that even—why?” He adjusts to sit next to you, eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” you snap. “What the fuck is top ten to someone like you? School has been everything to you, and you’re forgetting projects like it means nothing. Have you even been doing your work? You’re with me all the time, and the only thing you’ve been doing school wise is helping me with physics.”

“It was one time, (Y/N), okay?”

“Now you’re lying to me,” you groan in exasperation.

“I…” He gulps and turns his head away from you.

“I told you to tell me if you ever caught feelings, Chenle.” You blink back tears and chew the inside of your cheek while you await his response.

But no matter how much you wait, it doesn’t come. His hands are clasped together in his lap, and he stares down at them, inhaling shaky breaths.

“My God, you’re not even denying it.” You stand up, unable to stop yourself from pacing around the room. “This is what’s making you all complacent about school? Seriously? This is the exact reason you said you didn’t want to date. Or find someone to sleep with, because you didn’t have time—”

“I actually said it was because I hadn’t found anyone worth it,” he finally speaks up, gaze finally lifting to meet yours. “What did you expect would happen? You really thought the virgin would be able to stop himself from falling for you after everything we’ve done? I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted, or if you wanted me to tell you, but by the time I actually realized what was happening, it was too late. I’d lose you. In all aspects, not just…whatever the hell this is.”

“You need to go.”

“After all of this, you don’t even…not even a little bit?”

You do. How do you tell him no and lie right to his face?

“I just put everything out there. The least you can do at this point is tell me if all of this only meant something to me.” Desperation tugs on his features, and he takes a step closer to you. “Did you spend every night with me and still not…”

“Stop,” you shout. “What the hell are you thinking? What is it that you want me to say? It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t have feelings for you, because I would never—”

“Date me?” he interrupts you. “Love me? What’s so bad about either of those things? I’m trying my best out here.”

“Would you let me finish?” You run your fingers through your hair. “I was going to say I would never let you give up your number one spot for any girl. Not just me. Because that’s fucking stupid. And you’re not stupid, Chenle, so you need to remember what’s actually important.”

“(Y/N), please. I can’t go back to how things were. Not when I know what all of this is like.”

“Then maybe we just don’t talk at all.” You clench your fists at your side. The idea breaks your own heart. “It’s not like we have any classes together. The only time we see each other is here anyway.”

“You haven’t denied it, either.” He’s directly in front of you now, watery eyes staring into yours. “You made a big deal of me not denying it, but you haven’t either.”

“Get out.” You point toward your door. “Leave me alone. Just go.”

Now he’s speechless, and the hurt on his face plays out right in front of you. You want to yell and scream because you’re the one causing this. You should’ve seen this coming. When he first approached you and asked you for this, you should’ve said no. If you had turned him away, things would be normal. He wouldn’t have turned complacent about the thing he once cared the most about. But what did that mean? Was it you he was willing to give it up for, or was it the freedom and new experiences you provided?

“You…what about your exam? It’s only a couple weeks before the end of the semester.”

“Don’t worry about me or my grades when you’re not even thinking of your own. Please, Chenle, just go. I’ll bring Jisung here if I have to.” You sniffle, rolling your eyes.

His jaw tightens as he glances up at the ceiling. “Fine. I…Clearly, nothing I say is gonna—yeah. I guess I’ll see you around.”

He grabs his backpack from the floor and slings it over his shoulder, and as soon as he closes the door behind him, you climb into your bed, grab the pillow he always uses, and cradle it to your chest. You don’t mean to let yourself cry, but once you start, you can’t stop.

You barely even remembered telling Jisung that Chenle would go to the party that weekend. To be honest, you’d told him about it, but hope that he won’t come gnaws at the edges of your heart. In all honesty, you didn’t even want to go. And if your best friend hadn’t practically forced you out of bed and to get dressed, you wouldn’t have.

You and Jisung went separate ways once you arrived at Jaemin’s house. Absent-mindedly, you find yourself in the kitchen, mixing a drink. The only way you’ll get through the night is with liquor. Once you walk back towards the living room, you see Jisung standing at the corner. He grins when he notices you.

“Dude, I so thought you were fucking with me. I’ll give it to you though, I guess you were right. You must be a good tutor.” Jisung lets out an obnoxious laugh. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“What are you talking about?” You frown.

He nods his head in the opposite direction, and when you follow his gaze, you immediately tense. Of course, Chenle did show up. Not only that, but he’s in full-on conversation with a girl you don’t recognize. Your throat tightens, but you swiftly attempt to ignore it with a quick sip of your drink.

“Never thought he’d get there,” Jisung evaluates him. “She looks like she’s into him.”

“Great.” You try your best not to sound sarcastic.

Jisung side eyes you, but he doesn’t say anything else. He crosses his arms over his chest and proceeds to watch Chenle, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to look in his direction. Your desire to be at this party has significantly decreased, and all you want to do is walk out and forget you ever saw him here. But it doesn’t matter either way—you sent him away. You have no right to be jealous or upset that he’s doing exactly what you taught him to do. If he wants to find a girlfriend or a fling, that’s up to him. And neither option should make you upset, no matter how much you can’t deny that it very much does.

“Oh, shit,” Jisung mutters, a chuckle escaping him.

Your head shoots in Chenle’s direction, and you bristle at the sight. He whispers something in the girl’s ear, and she laughs. Your chest tightens, somewhat desperate to know what he said to her—if it was any of the things he’s ever said to you. Maybe it was something you taught him. He leans away from her, but not all the way. The smile drops from her face, and you know immediately what’s about to happen. You push your cup against Jisung’s chest until he takes it from you.

“I can’t do this.” You shake your head and bolt in the opposite direction, toward the front door. Tears well in your eyes, but they only serve to piss you off. You shouldn’t care—you told him you didn’t.

Jisung drove you, so there’s nowhere for you to go except the front porch. You sit down on the top step, head buried in your palms. Taking a deep breath, you look up in time to see Karina walking out of the house with her keys.

“Are you going home?” you ask.

“Yeah, tonight’s kinda lame.” She scans over you and purses her lips. “You want a ride? I didn’t drink.”

“Fuck, yes. Please.” You launch up and follow Karina to her car.

Thankfully, she doesn’t ask you any questions on the way to your place. As you thank her and step out of the car, she grabs your wrist.

“I think I know what’s going on.” She pauses. “If there’s something you want, (Y/N), you shouldn’t let it go. Because you’ll regret it, okay?”

You nod and gulp. “Thanks, Rina.”

She lets you go and smiles. You close the car door behind you and head up to your apartment, questioning how you let yourself get into this predicament. Why the you from a few months ago didn’t have any clue how easy it would be to fall for someone like Chenle—a man with a kind heart, who cares for you and your wellbeing. You stare at your phone like it’ll light up from his text message, but you put a decent wedge between the two of you with your last conversation. Would he even look at his phone if you texted him? Maybe he’s already taking that girl home. He may learn it wasn’t even you he fell for, but the sex. And when he has sex with another girl, he’ll figure out you’re not special, and—

“God fucking damn it,” you groan, angrily wiping at your tears. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Your phone vibrates, but it’s a call from Jisung. You sniffle and clear your throat before answering.

“Yeah?”

“Where the hell did you go?” he snaps.

“I’m at home,” you tell him. “Rina drove me home.”

“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” Jisung’s annoyance creeps through. “You just stormed out, but I figured you’d at least tell me if you were leaving the area.”

“Sungs, I’m not really in the mood to be yelled at right now.” You can’t hide the crack in your voice.

“Are you okay?” His voice instantly softens. “Is this about—”

“Don’t. I don’t want anyone else you’re with to know. It’s humiliating, isn’t it? Teaching a man everything you know for him to use it other places.” You chuckle, staring up at your ceiling.

“You wanna tell me what happened?” Jisung sighs. “Because you clearly didn’t want him talking to that girl.”

“You’re making me sound pathetic.”

“Uh.”

“Fuck you, Park Jisung.” You roll your eyes. “You’re not helping.”

“Do you want me to come over?” he asks.

“Stay at the party. I’ll be okay.” You grab Chenle’s pillow and pull it to your chest. “Is he…did he leave?”

“He’s not with her, if that’s what you’re asking. He left. By himself. After I figured out you were gone, I kinda freaked out and there was like…a search party. He didn’t care much about her after that.”

“He’s so annoying,” you huff out. “Why couldn’t he have just…fucked that girl or something?”

“Like you wouldn’t have crumbled to dust at the literal thought of that.” Jisung scoffs. “I know you, (Y/N), and no matter what you say, there’s no way you feel absolutely nothing for him. You’re both suffering because of the denial, you know.”

“What if it’s not really me he wants? Like…what if he just likes the sex and doesn’t realize it yet?” You shake your head.

Jisung lets out a long sigh. “He’s not a child, okay? Just because he hasn’t had sex before or dated anyone doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what that feels like, dude.”

Before you answer, the knock on your front door takes you off guard. You sit up and throw the blanket off your body. Jisung mutters something in the background, but you can’t focus on what he’s saying. When you open the door, you almost stop breathing. You put the phone back up to your ear. “Jisung, let me call you back.”

He doesn’t even have time to respond before you hang up and toss it over to the side. Through the dark, Chenle stares back at you. His fists clench and unclench as he stands there in silence, clearly unsure what to say.

“What are you doing here?” you ask.

“I can’t fucking do this,” he replies. “I need you, okay? Don’t try and lie to me and say you have no feelings for me, because I saw you today. When I acted that way about you and Jeno, you asked me if I had feelings for you. Is that ‘cause you have them, too?”

“Yes.”

“Can you just be honest with—huh?” His brows furrow and his eyes narrow.

“You want the truth, Chenle? Yes. Yes, I like you, but I’m not letting you jeopardize your schooling for any of this. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I’ll be better,” he says. “I was just…distracted. It felt like every moment with you was fleeting, and I had to get every second I could before you disappeared.” He steps inside your apartment and closes the door.

“Lele, that’s such a big risk.” You feel like you’re shrinking in on yourself. How do you tell yourself it’s okay to be selfish this time if he doesn’t have to give anything up to be with you?

“And I get that. I do. But it’s worth it. You’re worth it. And I don’t want to let you go just because we’re still in school. We can have something real. Honestly, we’ve had that this whole time, and you trying to say we didn’t is doing us both a disservice.”

“What happened with that girl today?” you ask.

“You know what that was. A whole lot of fucking nothing.” He runs his fingers through his hair and wets his lips. “I didn’t even kiss her, by the way. I couldn’t. Seriously, I wanted to because I needed to know if these…feelings I have for you are real. Maybe that’s an awful way to do it, but I figured if I kissed someone else and it felt the same, then I’d be okay without you.”

You don’t say a word. His eyebrows furrow.

“I wanted to kiss her because I thought it’d give me the answer I desperately needed, not because I wanted her specifically. I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first fucking day I met you. And I couldn’t kiss her because she wasn’t you. Nobody will ever be you, and—”

“I love you.”

“—I wish there was a way I could—huh?”

You step closer to him. “You’re right. I love you. From the moment you had stars in your eyes just from talking about them.”

His jaw drops, and relief floods his features, but he flounders for words.

“If you don’t say it back, I might die of embarrassment.”

“God, of course, I fucking love you.” He scoffs, reaching forward to cup your cheeks and pull you to him.

Your lips meet so abruptly, you gasp. Without any hesitation, you wrap your arms around him and weave your fingers through his hair. His chest presses against yours, and whatever battle you’d been trying to fight until this point has been lost.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” He punctuates each word with another kiss, and he begins to walk you backwards. You cling on to him but allow him to guide you.

“You have to promise you won’t let school fall behind,” you say breathlessly, placing your palms on his chest once you make it to your door frame. “That you won’t lose yourself because of me.”

“I hadn’t known myself until I met you, (Y/N). I’m only me if I’m with you.” Chenle gives you a soft smile. “If you’re mine, I won’t be worried about fleeting moments.”

You nod slowly, pulling him back to you. “I need you.”

He groans against your mouth, wrapping an arm firmly around your waist and walking you back until you’re by the edge of your bed. Without breaking the kiss, he follows you down to the mattress, his weight pressing you into it. You spread your legs to accommodate him, sliding your hands beneath the hem of his shirt to pull it off. He assists you, and as soon as it’s thrown across the room, you reach for him desperately to minimize the amount of time without the two of you connected.

“Say you love me again,” he mutters. “Please.”

“I love you,” you repeat easily, letting out a shaky breath as he reaches beneath your shirt to squeeze your breasts. His thumbs flick over your nipples, and you moan quietly.

“Me, too, baby.” He pulls your shirt off and interrupts the kiss to drag his lips down your neck. “There’s one thing you still haven’t taught me.”

“What’s that?”

“Show me how to make love to you.” He moves down further and takes your nipple in his mouth.

You tangle your fingers in his hair, gasping at the sensation. “Come here, Lele.”

When he’s face to face with you again, the darkness in his eyes has wetness spreading between your legs. He edges closer to you, unable to resist the urge of kissing you again. When he’s barely centimeters away, you lift your hand and trace his bottom lip, entranced by everything he is.

“Some things can’t be taught,” you whisper. “Sometimes, they just have to be felt.”

A ghost of a smile forms beneath your touch, and he nods. While his urgency is still there, he slows down, giving his hands freedom to explore you. Your back arches as his palm slides along your side. He grinds against you, shuddering breaths escaping. You lift up to match him, and you moan when you feel his hard length against your thinly covered core. The lust in his gaze has changed to adoration, a gentle gleam reflecting the moonlight outside as he removes your shorts and panties. His palm sends warmth through your abdomen, and he slowly moves lower.

“Can I?” he murmurs, kissing the corner of your mouth.

“Please.”

He kisses you as a distraction, and you whine when his fingertips press against your clit. Humming in his own form of pleasure, he rubs uniform circles.

“Relax,” he tells you. “You’re so tense, baby. Let me take care of you.”

You immediately melt. “More.”

He parts your lips with his tongue, and as soon as it enters your mouth, his fingers slip inside. You moan, eyes rolling back as you rock your hips. The noises pouring from you can’t be controlled. You break the kiss and gasp when he curls his fingers and hits your spot.

“Fuck, again.” You dig your nails into his shoulders.

He repeats the motion, the tip of his nose brushing along your cheek. In your ear, he says, “I love you. So fucking much.”

A shiver of pleasure runs down your spine. You tilt your head back. “I’m close, fuck.”

He takes your ear lobe between his teeth and tugs, eliciting a cry from the back of your throat. Your walls clamp down wildly on his fingers, but he knows you more than you’d care to admit at this point. Right before you crumble before his eyes, he removes his fingers from you. Before you can protest, he silences you with a kiss.

“Condom?” he asks.

“Up to you,” you reply.

He pushes his pants off and to the floor, and you have a brief moment to admire the bulge straining in his boxers before those are thrown, too. Wrapping his hand around his cock, he inhales sharply as he jerks himself off a couple times.

“Ready, baby?” He climbs over you again, nudging your sensitive clit with his tip.

You nod, tugging him closer. “Hurry up.”

Chenle trails down to line up with your entrance, and he groans when he coats himself in your arousal. “You’re so wet.”

You open your mouth to say something, but he pushes inside of you at the same time. A loud moan escapes instead, making you slap your own hand over your mouth as your walls stretch to accommodate Chenle.

“God, do you know what you fucking do to me?” He drops his head on your shoulder as he bottoms out deep inside you.

Both of you are impatient today, apparently, because he wastes no time in moving his hips. He only leaves the tip in, just to push his hips forward. His moans join yours, the sound enough to make your walls flutter around him.

“So good.” You match his movements, lifting up every time he thrusts.

He speeds up, making sure to press flush against you every time he bottoms out. The sight of him alone is enough to have you trembling, but seeing him entranced by where your bodies are connected has you clenching around him.

He lets out a long moan, and you join him in looking between the two of you. His skin slaps yours, and sounds of your arousal fill the room. His teeth sink into his bottom lip, and he reaches between the two of you to find your clit. The first contact makes you jolt and whine.

You wrap your legs around his waist, smashing your lips to his. He smirks against your mouth, the steady pace of his thumb on your sensitive bud sending spasms down your spine. Your stomach ties in knots, and you squirm beneath him.

“Lele, ‘m gonna cum.” You barely get the words out through your pleasured haze, and he nods, burying his head in your neck and thrusting into you harder. Your legs shake as you tighten them around him, and your entire being ascends as your orgasm slams into you. You moan so loudly, he kisses you to keep you quiet.

“Feels so good.” His voice cracks as he fucks you through your high.

You kiss him hard, and use your legs to flip the two of you over so you’re on top. His jaw drops at the sight of you, hands immediately trailing up your body to your breasts. You give him a second to admire before you start your steady pace. You lean back and brace your palms on his thighs, slowly rolling your hips as you sink down on his cock. He uses the position to put his thumb on your clit again. You jolt, cursing again as you speed up. The sensitivity has your eyes rolling to the back of your head, but the feeling of him snug inside you, rubbing against your walls, has you approaching a second orgasm.

You’re not expecting it, but you hope he lasts long enough to finish you off a second time. Your brain is clouded with pleasure, and one look at him tells you he’s teetering close to the edge. His jaw is clenched, face contorted in pleasure as he stares at you bouncing on top of him. You’re seconds away. Your orgasm builds deep inside you, and your hips falter. He thrusts up, moaning loudly. Legs quaking, your second orgasm hits you hard, back arching. Chenle sits up to catch you crumbling into his chest, rocking his hips. He wraps his arms around you and holds you to him tightly as one last thrust has him spilling deep inside you. Both of you are covered in sweat, panting in the aftermath of the pleasure.

“Fuck.” He pants, burying his head in your neck and kissing where it joins with your shoulder. “‘M never gonna get used to that.”

When you chuckle, he squirms and gasps.

“Did you know you like, clench when you laugh?” He squeezes your hips. “We’ve been doing this for months, and I’m still learning.”

“The human body is wonderful,” you tease him. “Maybe you’ll switch from physics to anatomy.”

“The only anatomy I’m curious about is yours.” He holds you close and turns you on your back. Placing one last kiss on your forehead, he pulls out of you slowly. A lazy smile graces his face as he sees the sticky mess between your legs.

“You weirdo.” You nudge him with your foot.

He grabs your ankle and yanks you down closer to him. Hovering over you, he narrows his eyes. “Me being a weirdo is solely your fault, you know.”

“I suppose you’ve earned it.” You pretend to think about it. “Kiss me.”

He doesn’t hesitate to lean down and press his lips to yours, the movement softer and slower than before. You don’t mean to let out a long sigh of pleasure, but his breath shudders against your mouth. “Don’t do that,” he whines. “I’ll get hard again.”

“Why don’t we go shower together?” You twirl his hair.

“Mm, you gonna let me wash your hair?” He presses soft kisses up your neck. “I’ll take any excuse to touch you, baby.”

“You’re getting good at this.” You laugh and rest your head back on the pillow. “You never would’ve talked like that before. It’s sexy.”

He hums and nips your skin. “That’s your magic.”

After a few more moments of him doting on you, the two of you get in the shower. The two of you stand under the water, relaxing in the hot steam and each other’s embrace. His hands trail over your body until he’s eventually cupping your breasts.

“Hear me out,” he mutters. “How about we both just drop out and stay exactly like this forever.”

“Sounds great in theory, Lele, but you made a promise.”

He groans. “I made a few promises tonight. Don’t worry, I meant all of them.”

His thumbs brush your nipples until they harden beneath his touch. He pins you to his chest with his arm, continuing his work on your breast as his other hand trails down your body. Apparently, you’ve turned him into something insatiable, but you definitely benefit from it. He stops with his hand on your hip.

“Need something, baby?”

The tone of his voice sends a chill down your spine, and mixed with hot water cascading over you, you moan. You clench your thighs together, desperate for friction.

He adjusts to pinch your nipple, rolling it between his fingers. “Feel good?”

“Touch me,” you whine, grabbing at his wrist to push him between your legs.

“If it were socially acceptable, I’d be touching you at all times.” His fingertips find your clit. “You’re so fucking warm, and those little sounds you make…”

“Faster,” you say as you arch your back.

“But you’re so sensitive,” he whispers. “I’m having fun like this.”

“Lele, please.” You drop your head back. “I need you.”

“Music to my fucking ears.” He sinks two fingers inside you, his palm smacking against your clit every time he thrusts them in.

Your arousal gushes over him, and he bites down on his bottom lip to keep any sounds at bay. He stops working your nipple, too focused on the way your walls clamp on his fingers. You whine at the loss, putting your hand over his to tell him to keep playing with you.

He pulls his fingers out, trailing the wetness along your thighs. Right when he pinches your nipple, he does the same to your clit. You jolt and cry out, rolling your hips to get more stimulation.

“I wanna fuck you so bad right now,” he groans. “You always look so fucking pretty when you want me like this.”

“I can take it,” you tell him as you squeeze your thighs together. “Anything you give me, I’ll take it.”

A deep moan escapes him, and the next thing you know, he’s pulling you back so he can bend you over.

“Hands on the wall,” he instructs.

Once you’re fully bent over, you push back against him, desperate for him to fill you. He strokes his cock, gaze stuck directly on your core. He reaches around your body, squeezing your breasts again.

He releases you and lines himself up with your entrance. Right when you think he’ll push inside, he rubs his tip on your clit. Without warning, he slides completely inside, his tip resting snug against your spot from this angle. You scream, already pushing your hips back.

Neither of you have time to breathe before he’s thrusting hard, nails digging into your skin as he pulls you back with every forward movement. Your hands slip down the wall, the squeak of the tile doing nothing but adding to the pleasure of him inside you. The water amplifies the clapping sounds of his body against yours, and your eyes roll back from all of the overwhelming feelings.

“Lele,” you whine. “S-spread my legs a little more.”

He does as you ask, still thrusting at a slower pace.

“Now keep going how you were.” You push back until he’s buried deep inside you.

He seems to understand your motive without you explaining it, and you thank everything you can think of that he’s so fucking smart. When he resumes his unrelenting pace, it’s joined with his balls smacking into your clit. Every thrust has your walls fluttering around him, and each hit on your sensitive bud brings you closer to your much needed orgasm.

“Just like that.” You can barely speak at this point, fucking yourself back on his cock to match his pace.

A knot ties in your stomach, and you’re left delirious as you chase the unraveling of it. You let out your loudest moan yet, letting all of the sensations around you drive you over the edge. Chenle curses behind you as your walls clamp down on him, but he keeps moving. It doesn’t take long for your pleasure to turn into overstimulation from him rubbing against your walls.

As soon as an unfamiliar cry leaves you, he stops immediately.

“Are you okay?” he asks, panting.

“I–I can’t keep—fuck, I’m sorry.” You clench your fists together.

“No, baby, it’s okay.” He carefully pulls out of you and guides you back to your feet. “Don’t be sorry. You’d never be mad at me for something like that.”

“But you—”

“The fact you even let me in at all still baffles me.” He chuckles, pulling you in for a short kiss. His cheeks are bright red, and while he’s brushing your hair out of your face, an idea comes to mind.

“Let me fix it.” You kiss his cheek.

Before he has the opportunity to ask what you’re talking about, you’re guiding him until his back is against the wall. The chill of the tile makes his cock twitch, and you wish you could take him again. Instead, you lower yourself down onto your knees.

“You’re—the tile’s gonna hurt your—”

“Do you want to cum in my mouth or on my face?”

He gulps. “You don’t have to—”

“Answer the question.” You glare up at him, and he curses.

“Your face. If that’s okay.”

You chuckle. “I wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t.”

“It kinda—it sounds so hot but I don’t want you to think it’s demeaning or anyth—oh, fuck.” His head drops against the wall when you take him in your mouth. You sink further and further until he’s snug down your throat, your nose pressed to his pelvis.

You hollow your cheeks as you pull away from him. He slides out with a pop, and when you look up at him, his jaw is dropped.

“First of all, if I was worried about you looking down on me, we would not be having sex at all. Second, don’t be shy. Grab my hair. Fuck my throat, I don’t care.”

His eyes widen, and like you’ve awoken something inside him, he grabs the back of your head and pushes you forward. You grin smugly before wrapping your lips around his tip. Running your tongue along to gather his precum, you grab onto his thighs to keep you steady.

“C’mon, baby, take it.” He inhales sharply as he pushes his cock into your mouth. You let him take full control, humming around him.

The vibrations make his hips jerk, and his tip slams into the back of your throat. You whimper, tears welling in your eyes.

“‘M sorry,” he groans, thrusting at a steady pace. “Just feels so fucking good. Smack me if you need to stop.”

You give him the best nod you can and brace yourself against him. It doesn’t take long for his orgasm to approach after he has your confirmation. He holds your head firmly, letting out a high pitched moan as you gag and your throat constricts around him.

He mutters something incoherent, and you pull away from him and stroke him with your hand instead. As soon as his hips buck, you open your mouth. Strings of white shoot from his tip, and you close your eyes as it coats your face. You swallow what lands on your tongue, panting as you look up at him.

“Oh,” he murmurs, the tips of his fingers lifting your chin up.

His thumb swipes over your bottom lip, and before he can rinse away his release, you lean forward and wrap your lips around him.

“My fucking God, you’re dangerous.” He kisses you, guiding you back beneath the water to rinse you off. You sigh into his kiss, finally letting the warmth relax you completely.

“We should get out soon,” you tell him.

“I don’t ever want to be away from you.” He shakes his head. “Let me at least wash your hair like I said I would.”

You laugh and roll your eyes. “You’re the one who got sidetracked, by the way.”

“And you love me for it. You said it yourself.” He beams at you, grabbing your shampoo from the shelf.

“That is the truth.” You wrap your arms around him and allow him to work his fingers through your hair.

After your hair is washed, the two of you get out of the shower. Both of you are beyond exhausted, so you end up right back in bed together, you curled into him like he’s a body pillow. He runs his fingers up and down your spine.

“Think Jisung’ll kill us?” he asks, sleep weighing down his voice.

“Who cares?” You listen to the steady sound of his heartbeat. “We’re happy.”

Chenle pulls you impossibly closer and presses his lips to the top of your head. If anyone told you when you first met him that this is how it was going to work out with Chenle, you would’ve laughed in their faces.

But life works in mysterious ways, and not only are you happier with Chenle in your life, but you’re a bit smarter, too.

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