#the way he's kinda proud of himself in the last one

[peppertoastuniverse]

pep reads: long fics edition – gojo satoru (pt.1)

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ Here are some loooooong fic recommendations for when you just need to get lost for a bit. These ones just made me absolutely binge and DEVOUR their fics in one sitting. Thank you to all of the authors for feeding us and sharing their talent!

Part one for gojo since there's so much love for him (and rightfully so!) Might do a list for geto too in the future. Which ones did you enjoy? Let's gush together!

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☆ the way you love me by @peachsayshi [AO3/tumblr] [status: ongoing ◦ 29/? chapters] [smut!] [fwb!gojo] #pep's first fic she was OBSESSED with #real good good smut WITH FEELINGS

“We can stop anytime. If either one of us feels like... this ...might be too much. We stop, no questions .” “We can stop anytime,” Gojo repeated “... and nothing changes between us .” You swallowed hard at his last statement. You may not be able to read his eyes but you could hear it in his voice that he needed reassurance. “No matter what happens, we’ll still be friends...” you replied softly, “now kiss me before I change my mind.”

☆ you and me by tomodachi [AO3: ] [status: completed ◦ 5/5 chapters] [tear jerker] [eventual smut!] #pep cried #gojo just kinda loves you real hard

“Prisoners say the most comical things when their judgment comes,” you tilt your head, lifting a finger before him, “Who are you?"

--- History is written by the winners, Satoru knew this well. It was only when he lost and got sealed inside the Prison Realm he learned how to be weak and find out a long buried truth.

☆ ito by peekamatcha [AO3] [status: ongoing ◦ 48/? chapters] [super slow burn] [shinto elements] #pep DIES with every update #the TWIST in that one chapter omg

You, a former sorcerer now working as a university lecturer, were hoping to maintain your distance with the sorcerer world for an eternity to come. However, with the reappearance of an upperclassmen from a decade ago, you are forced to go on a journey which you would rather sit out of. But somebody must save humanity from the impending apocalypse and apparently the job falls on the shoulders of you two.

It would have been alright had he not been everything you didn’t want to be reminded of. And the sacrifices to be made may be more than what had been bargained for. ☆moonlight by @septembersummer [AO3/tumblr:] [status: completed ◦ 10/10 chapters] [smut!] #pep loves this AU #pep SCREAMED

Gojo Satoru is dying. And no, it's not his fault this time.

The curse which is withering Satoru into an early grave is actually the product of his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, who had a couple of sons that refused to procreate. And what does a proud, powerful man do when his sons refuse to fuck, and there won't be another heir to the clan?

He curses his own bloodline, of course.

It's only natural that he forces them through some twisted form of sorcery to become uncontrollably, violently attracted to the person they're most genetically compatible with.

It's even better that the curse creates a permanent, unbreakable bond between the two unwilling lovers. That's right, it usually takes more than one fuck to make a baby-- so, why not force them to have twelve?

Satoru wished his ancestor would be resurrected from the grave, just so that he could kill him again. That is, before Satoru inevitably dies.

He's had a good run, he thinks. Now, all he has to do is make sure you don't find out that you can fuck him back to life and try to very stupidly save him from himself.

(here's a spoiler: you do).

☆ a typical family by @literalia [AO3/tumblr] [status: completed? ◦ 32/32 chapters] [non liner narrative] [dad!gojo] #pep absolutely MELTED #slice of life #pep's gojo comfort fic

"satoru. where did you get these kids?"

or

after a six month absence, satoru shows up at your door two little kids following behind. chaos ensues.

☆ and if i cant see by hollowdonut [AO3: ] [status: unknown ◦ 26/? chapters] [slowburn] [eventual smut!] [tw: ptsd] #pep loves the reader's dynamics with gojo!

They say eyes are the window to the soul, but Gojo’s eyes are almost always hidden behind a blindfold. Even when they aren’t, you can never tell what he’s thinking.

You wonder if you should’ve taken that teaching job in Kyoto instead.

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bonus!

☆ all hail the empress! by @chuluoyi [tumblr/AO3: ] [status: unknown ◦ 1/? chapters] [smut!] #pep loves this AU #but THE END THO? OMGGG you are an empress perfect in every way... until your husband suddenly casts you aside for his expecting mistress. but you won't be dethroned just like that, because the newly coronated western emperor, gojo satoru, sets his sights on you, and thus your revenge against your ex-husband begins...

[c0smiccom3t]

AND NOW.... FOR A SPECIAL 3RD ANNIVERSARY UPDATE. (6/1/2024)

Hello friends, hello mutuals, hello dimension dyfenders fans and hello people who like indie cartoon/comic stuff in general! Comet here. Once Again. and this time i've got something ig this year. This was supposed to release on May 29th, but due to Ren not coming back for a long time because they needed to prioritize irl stuff, of course, we had to delay it.

But, but, BUT! thankfully I had a few things ready after all, however as for some other things else, we'll get to it much later, when the moment calls. Now, let's get off with the first one.

(warning, in case this update gets too long, i'll make a part two where i'll be able to link it through here.)

You Kinda... Look Different.

You may have noticed that Dislexo looks a bit different than usual (darker skin, a bit of shorter hair, etc.), in case you're wondering why... Yeah, you're about to find out.

So, while I was thinking and drawing up some D.D related stuff, I was brainstorming a little by my lonesome. All of the sudden, as I was making a new render for a character, I was like... "Wait a minute... What if I give Dislexo a new look which is a mix between a secretary and a butler but keep it's elements from what made their design unique?" and So, the new and improved Dislexo was born!

Honestly i'm proud of what they look like now. I just hope i won't (or will) get to redesign ALL of the cast again so suddenly lol! Anyways, thats just a small change I made, nothing too big. Now, let's get on something else... which is...

Pocket Adventures' current status + how's minisode 1 coming along

You might be asking inside your minds, "i wonder when more of minisode 1 will drop", "where are the new parts?"- Well, i got the answer. It'll only come only when im completely finished. However i havent been working much on it aside from making a few pages a few months ago, but hopefully this summer i may get back to it and finish it all up if i can. The final script is 73% percent complete, as for the comic itself, let's just say its 58%. I promise you i'm taking my time with delivering everything i can for this minisode. However i might republish the minisode with the series' current artstyle if it ever comes out physically (or either when I'll have the time or energy to do it.) So, now, you may be wondering: "But Comet, what do we do while we wait." Well you're not gonna believe this.

No, it's not an extremely late april fools post! We got new stuff coming soon, recently i've been brainstorming some ideas for brand new content, and you know what? It came to me, HERE'S WHAT'S COMING!

MORE TOONIES COMING YOUR WAY!

THAT'S RIGHT, after months of hiatus, Toonies is coming back with more strips! This time, since summer's coming around, i'll try to post and make more of them and even schedule the finished ones! We got even more covers for it coming, but for now, here's one of them!

More comics are not only gonna explore more of the Dyfenders' and the Dajo Crew's everyday lives in-and-out of their superhero/Villain occupations, we are also going to focus on much more on other characters (at least some of them), and some will last for a few more pages longer! No arcs though, sorry. But hey, you're getting more wackiness as a treat! Now, i know i said this year is not gonna be big like the other two years we had, but...

NEW SPECIAL CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT!

THAT'S RIGHT! We're working on a new special to commemorate our three years! Thought it'd be a nice adiction to this year, we may not reveal the logo and it's title yet, but we can tell you what the sypnosis is about!

You're all invited to the biggest night in the Omniverse, right across it's stars, cosmos, galaxies and portals! Both the Dimension Dyfenders and the Dajo-Crew are crossing the red (or should we say, blue) carpet in this brand new 3-part special! Prince Dajo-Voo has a new plan on how to take over the gala, all while he tries to self-control himself from doing the same explosive incident he did back then. The Dyfenders may be having a great time at the gala, but rest assured, they'll be sure to keep a close eye on him. Here's to a Rift-errific and (hopefully) trouble-free gala!

As a bonus, when the production on all three parts are done, we'll be posting Toonies comics related to the special, which may feature a new character who will debut later on in Pocket Adventures! We don't know when it'll exactly be out, my guesses would be either summer, september or next May 2025. But rest assured, we'll be working on it, but we won't rush it out.

So... What's next?

Honestly, i can't really tell. But I can assure you i still have so may plans for this series, plans that will be put in action in the far-off future. What i really hope to do is to make animated shorts as well, not just Toonies strips, pocket adventures minisodes and comic dubs of it. Maybe if we'll ever make a backerkit or a kickstarter for it and get a budget, it might happen (along with more VAs joining in.) Speaking of VAs, in case you're a VA and you haven't auditioned yet, anytime is the right time! (this is still a test leap, but if it succeeds it may go further.)

but for now, we're sticking to comics, and then, if possible we'll get to comic dubs and so on.

That's all for now! I hope you're all looking forward to what's coming for this series. I'm sorry that it wasnt as big as the last years, but we promise that things will arrive when they can.

Happy (LATE) third anniversary, everybody!! Thanks for reading!

By the way, HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!

[sunglassesmish]

he is everything

[wrioluvr]

sub yandere inmate x gn! prison warden reader

thank u all for 1000+ notes on my last post omg....<3 short fic about an idea i had as i work on part 2 of the sub yandere x himbo reader ♡♡♡ kinda wriothesley inspired coz thats bae...

cw: mentions of nsfw

"so let me get this straight." you sighed, looking at the man who was currently on the other side of the bars in disappointment. "you beat up some of the other inmates and got into a fight because.... they were talking shit about me?"

"exactly..... they were saying you were too strict! but they don't know how much you care for us.... such ungrateful bastards." his last words came out with an obvious distaste. he held the bars of his cell tightly, looking into your eyes imploringly for any sign of validation. "aren't... aren't you proud of me?"

you pinched the bridge of your nose in frustration. "no. you can't just hurt other people for my sake. i'm your warden. i can handle a few snarky comments." he had always been rather attached to you, but he had been acting overly clingy and whiny in the past few weeks. you wondered if solitary confinement was finally getting to his head.

at your words, he crumbled a little, sadness evident in the lines of his pout. your approval meant everything to him, so you being annoyed with him was the worst feeling in the world. but all of a sudden, he perked back up, seemingly coming up with a devilish idea. his voice dropped to a low whisper. "you know.... if you're that upset with me, i'm always ready for punishment." to get his point across, he pressed his ass to the bars, moaning softly as he felt the cold metal graze his hole. "a spanking would be perfect."

you immediately took a step back, glaring at him. "i don't believe in corporal punishment." you said sternly, trying to deter him from getting any more perverted ideas in his head. "you're not even really interested in getting better, are you?"

"whaaat. i am! come onnnnn. the only way you can get me to behave is if you spank me. i'll be a good boy. i promise."

"you know what would be a better punishment?"

"what?" his eyes light up at the thought of you taking the initiative to put him in his place.

"if i don't partake in your twisted scenarios and leave right now. try not to get into any more fights, okay?" you walked away, shaking your head as you wondered what on earth you would do with this pathetic man.

"seriously? no! come back...." he whined, slumping back down onto his bed, defeated. but at least he had got your attention with that stunt... you had been paying far more attention to the other inmates recently.

he giggles to himself, staring up at the ceiling of his cell. a few years meant nothing, if it meant that once he was out he could live out the rest of his days as your malewife, taking care of your every need. that was the one thing keeping him going. you wouldn't be so cruel as to deny him of his fantasy, would you?

[whiskygoldwings]

The Tattooist

The first clone trooper client she tattoos is an act of remembrance.

The man stands forlorn and desperate in the reception area, his borrowed clothes fitting poorly on his slumped frame. His face is tight, like a man on the edge of screaming, holding it back by the skin of his teeth. She recognises this pain, and quickly ushers him into her workroom, calling for A'maa to take the front desk while she speaks to a client. He breaths slightly easier once they are no longer in public, and she gestures for him to sit on the well-worn sofa she reserves for guests.

“I haven't got many credits,” he admits straight up. “They don't exactly pay us. I just wanted to see what could be done for what I have.”

She nods and grabs a pad and stylus, settling herself into her armchair and crossing her legs. “Tell me what you want and how much you've got and I'll see what I can do.”

He swallows painfully, and reaches into his pocket. “I have exactly 134 credits,” he holds a handful of ingots, and she glances down before looking back at his face. “I looked you up; I know it's not much in terms of tattoos. It's just... It's all I could scrape together...” he stumbles over his words, embarassment curling his lips.

“And what you want?” She interrupts, halting his ashamed attempts at explaining himself.

He takes a deep breath, grimaces, then sighs. “My brother was killed in the last battle. His name was Star. The long-necks... The Kaminoans I mean, never let us mourn each other where they could see. But he's my brother. We were born of the same batch, he helped me when I struggled with the maths tests, we had each others backs... I have a million odd brothers, but he was mine...” He presses his thumb and forefinger into his tightly-shut eyes, choking back a sob. “I want to honour him forever. I want to carry him with me, in a way they can't take away from me.” At this he straightens, bringing his hand down to stare at her determinedly. “They can make us wash our armour off, take our possessions from us. They will have to flay my skin from me if they want to take this.”

She stares back, stylus against her lips, and feels a swell of righteous fury in her throat. She's always had a mild force-sensitivity. Not enough to make training her of any worth, but enough that she can get a feel of a person, enough she can get a taste of their emotions.

This is a proud, strong man. And he is not broken by the hardships he faces, as much as he should be.

She will honour his brother with him.

The design practically leaps from her stylus, as she coaxes little stories from him. Little tales of his brother. His name was Star, he tells her first, and she sketches the rough outlines of one. He named himself, the man tells her, not giving his own name. Named himself after the balls of fury in the universe that were always out of their reach of Kamino. He laughs quietly, painfully, as he tells her the first time they had snuck out on a rainless night, when there was a brief respite in the clouds of Kamino, and by chance, there was a meteor shower over head. They'd all been amazed, confused and delighted by the sight, their little squad of five. One of the trainers, a kind man named Kal, had chuckled and told them “That'll be a shooting star” when they ask him about the phenomena, and Star had whispered to him in their bunks that night that he had decided on his name.

“I used to call him a shooting Star when we were in sims,” the man admits, a crooked grin on his face. “He kicked me in the shin for it once. Think he actually kinda liked it though.”

She adds a trail of dust behind it.

“He was so proud of being an ARF,” the man whispers. “So proud when I was nominated for ARF training alone with him. I was never as good as him, but he always took me with him, wherever he went. When the Commander told us we were getting the training, he basically hugged him. The Commander just gave him a pat on the back and told him never to do it again or he'd demote him quick as sithspit” the man snorts. “He didn't mean it, but Star'd never moved so bloody quick back into a salute, I couldn't help laughing at him, the idiot.”

She tabs out and finds a reference for an ARF troopers helmet on the 'net, and draws the trail of star dust bursting out of it and curling round to meet with the star itself.

“Our battallion wears green. Mainly olive-green. The commander started it, reminds him of the General I suspect. We became Green Company.”

The dust trail gathers sprinkles of olive green, the Star limned in the colour. She hesitates for a moment, then asks. “What markings did he wear?”

The man startles; she'd been loath to bring him out of his memories, but she wants to make it accurate. Needs to make it accurate really. She can feel how important this piece is to the man, and she finds herself strongly opposed to disappointing him.

“He had two stars on the left hand side of his helmet, one within the other.” The man indicates a point on his crown, above his ear. “And his visor was lined in green. He had a stripe vertically down the right hand side, ending just under the visor itself. On his chest piece...”

She lets him continue detailing his armour, drawing another star in olive green within the big one, then delicately tipping the helmet to conceal where the star would have been on the left. She's good, but it would have been too small to depict without potentially bleeding into a solid line, and she doesn't want that to happen. Instead, she marks in the line on the right-hand side, and ensures the big star is representative of what she imagines was on the helmet.

He's trailed off, staring sightlessly at his hands in his lap. She doesn't want to shake him, suspects alarming a trained soldier out of his own mind would be a bad idea. Instead, she uncrosses her legs, and clears her throat lightly. He glances up at her, and she smiles and extends the pad to him.

“Is something like this what you had in mind?”

He blinks at her, than reaches over and takes the pad. She sees the moment when he takes in the image. His eyes widen, and a tear he's been holding back since well before he got here slides down his cheek. He presses his fist into his mouth, other hand shaking where it holds the pad and he nods, clenching his eyes shut. “y-yes... Oh yes...” He stammers, voice thick.

“Where would you like it?”

“Over my heart,” he whispers. “I will carry him always in my heart.”

She stands abruptly, making him jump slightly and reaches out for the pad. “Okay, shirt off and lie down on the bed for me please. I assume as a clone trooper you're routinely screened for any blood diseases?” He nods, standing up with a slightly dazed expression on his face. She nods back and turns away, beginning the ritual of preparing her inks. She's playing a game of avoidance now, knows she won't take this man's money, and if she can keep him from asking about it she may be able to get it finished before he finds out. She suspects he'd do the honourable thing and refuse to get the tattoo. It'll be harder for him to do if it's halfway done. And while normally she'd insist on a full disclosure form and signature, she gets the feeling having no hardcopy evidence of what is about to happen will be a very good idea. The pad will need reformatting after she's done, but she's been required to do that for other clients who want their body art to be completely untraceable, so she doesn't store anything of any import on it for long anyway. She hears the rustle of cloth behind her and smiles slightly to herself, pleased at a plan going well. “Would you tell me more about him please?”

The man takes a deep breath behind her, even as she hears the bed creak as he clambers onto it. “He was always good at slipping by unnoticed. It's how he kept us both out of trouble back in training...”

She finishes mixing up the colours she needs as he begins to tell her about their childhood, what little of it there was. Checks her machine and cleans the patch of skin above his heart as he laughs about a prank played on one of their batchmates. It warms her and chills her at the same time, realising how little they had, but what great things they made of what they did. She prints out the stencil and places it over his chest as he whispers about Star easing him through the tail end of a nightmare, checking quietly that he's happy with the position before pressing the needle to his skin. He breaths in through his nose once when she starts, and she glances up at him, but he smiles and continues on into a story about when they first met their Jedi, and how Star gushed about her afterwards. She sinks into the meditative process of stamping lines into being, bringing colour to life, all the while surrounded by the man's soft voice building a memorial to his brother in their room.

When it's finished, the man looks surprised. “I thought it would take longer than that?” He blinks at her, “And be more painful in all honesty.”

She grins, “You did your research well hon, I'm good at what I do.”

He laughs and sits up, wincing slightly as the skin stretches around the wound. She squirts cleaner onto a cloth and holds it towards his chest, pausing before touching the tattoo for him to give a nod of permission, then wipes carefully across it, removing excess ink and stencil gently. Looking it over critically, she's happy with what she's done, knows she's poured herself into this tattoo as well. The lines are clean and crisp, the colours deep and rich. The helmet tilts up to look at the star above it, the trail of stardust sweeping behind it and curling up to emerge from the opening of the helmet at the bottom. Olive green accents in the tail, the line over the right-hand side of the helmet and around the visor, and the outer and inner two stars. She nods to herself, and grins up at him. “Ready to see it?”

He swallows nervously, but nods. She feels her grin quirk into a proper smile, then holds out her hand to him. He looks at it for a second, then places his own in hers, and she helps pull him from the bed. She keeps hold of his hand as she guides him to the full length mirror just beside the couch, and gently pulls him to stand infront of it. The hand in hers trembles as he stares at his reflection, taking a moment on his own face to gather his courage, then looks down at his chest.

The noise that punches out of his lungs is almost animal, and she grips his hand tightly. He cries openly, other hand reaching up to hover just under the tattoo as he looks down at his own chest. It's several moments before he can say anything, and she stands next to him the whole time, holding his hand as he clenches onto hers. He cries and cries, grief finally allowed expression, as she gives him silent comfort in proximity. His first words are “thank you”, and she smiles at him, as he starts to collect himself and turns away from her to try and pull himself back together.

“I'll give you a few minutes to check it over and make sure you're happy before I bandage it up,” she murmers, and steps quietly out of the room, giving him privacy in his sorrow.

A'maa glances up at her as she steps out, raising an eyebrow. Strictly speaking, she wasn't supposed to be working today, and she hadn't considered that A'maa might have had to turn away one of her own clients when she committed to tattooing the man. But A'maa glances over at the door to her workroom and shakes her head. “Don't worry about it Elaah,” she whispers, “Whatever it was, it was clearly important.”

“Yes,” Elaah whispers back, walking over to cradle herself in A'maa's outstretched arm, seeking the comfort of her own found family. “Yes, it really was.”

It's a few more minutes before the man opens the door, glancing around the edge of it. She quickly cuts off her conversation with A'maa and smiles at him. “Ready to get bandaged up?”

He nods and smiles, face a little blotchy from the tears, though neither she nor A'maa say anything. She gives A'maa's shoulder a quick squeeze, then heads into the room, leaving the door ajar this time. The man stands infront of the mirror again, gazing down at his new ink, and she quickly grabs the bits she needs to finish off. He smiles at her as holds the fake skin bandage up to his chest, carefully sizing it up to fit nicely over the tattoo.

“How much do I owe you?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“Nothing hon, you paid me in stories.”

He protests immediately, as she suspected he would. “Too late hon!” she grins at him. “It's already on your skin and I'll throw your credits out onto the street after you if you try leaving them behind. Good luck winning this one!” She winks and pats him on the shoulder, turning away to grab his top and thrusting it into his abdomen. He grabs it and gapes at her, clearly not quite sure what to say, before straightening and flashing a sheepish grin at her.

“You planned this from the start didn't you?” He asks, pulling the top over his head and rolling his eyes as she throws him a cheeky wink and nods.

“I've got to give you something, this means so much to me... You have no idea...” He gulps and shakes his head, blinking fresh tears out of his eyes. “Tell you what, I'll make sure anyone else who might be thinking of getting some ink heads this way?”

She shrugs. “I'm not going to turn down customers, but you don't owe me anything. I just hope you think of Star whenever you see it.”

“I will,” he murmurs, a hand going to rest over where the tattoo sits over his heart. He glances up at her. “My name is Trix. I just... wanted you to know that.”

She smiles at him, and gently rests a hand over his own. “Thank you Trix.” she says, smiling up at him, “Thank you for everything you and your brothers do for us.”

He grasps her hand with his other one and squeezes it tightly for a moment, before turning around and walking out the shop.

[temiizpalace]

☆┆MY LAST NAME BELONGS TO YOU!

SUMMARY: writing your name out, with his last name!

CHARACTERS: basketball club + azul and leona

GENRE: fluff

WARNINGS: reader is referred to as [mc] – not really a warning, just kinda cringe – mentions of pursuing marriage in floyd and azuls part

ROMANTIC, RELATIONSHIP IS UP TO READER

reader is g/n, reader is yuu

♥️┆ACE TRAPPOLA

“man, this stinks..”

ace whispered under his breath as professor trein droned on with the lesson. he was struggling to keep his eyes open. as much as he wanted to just fall asleep in the middle of the lesson, he really really didn’t want to add to his homework pile.

that’s just more precious hours of his day wasted. all the repetitive sounds were oddly enough lulling him to sleep. the grating sounds of grim snoring, the weird twang noise deuces rubber band was making, and the sounds of pencils writing against paper.

“hey deucy, make sure not to fall asleep.” he whispered to ace, as if he wasn’t about to do the same. deuce gives him a look, about to open his mouth before trein had looked in their direction. ending their banter immediately.

to keep himself awake, ace started doodling in his notebook. not in the corner as most would, no he began doodling on a brand new sheet of paper. curious as to what you were doing, it seems you were notetaking at first.

but getting a closer look, you were doing the same as him. doodling in the notebook, barely paying attention to the lesson. he snickered, deep down grateful that he wasn’t the only one not paying attention.

‘hah. look at that idiot, not paying attention. they’d have to work twice as hard without magic. hehe.’ ace thought, shifting his attention to staring at you. though he was focused on you, his hands still mindlessly doodled across the page. completely unaware of what he was writing.

deuce glances over his shoulder, eyes widening at what he managed to read. “ace?! i.. i never would’ve thought this was your level of dedication..” deuce says to ace, confusing the boy. “eh? deuce what are you talking about—“

ace looks at the paper. his handwriting was messy since he wasn’t paying attention but it was certainly legible.

[MC] TRAPPOLA

he shuts the notebook hastily, emitting a loud thud noise to echo in the classroom. all eyes were on him. including yours. he whistles as if nothing happened, face flushed a light pink color. trein grunts, and continues on with the lesson.

🦁┆LEONA KINGSCHOLAR

“how’d i get stuck here..”

leona mumbles, sitting at his desk in what felt like forever. his plans to skip were officially ruined as you dragged him to his classroom before he could make it to the botanical garden. usually he’d just brush off anybody getting in his way of a good nap, but you looked so persistent in getting him here.

so begrudgingly, he took his seat in class with a huff as the professor continued his lesson. does he regret it? sort of. you looked satisfied and proud when he listened to you, so he’ll oblige for now. he can just ask for a reward later as a thanks for his compliance. he’s mentally making a list of things you could do for him..

joining him for his afternoon nap, fetching him lunch, coming to a spelldrive club practice, the list goes on. his blissful thoughts were then interrupted as the professor placed a paper worksheet in front of him. a worksheet? those are barely ever given out to students..

“kingscholar, this is a sheet of things you must catch up on as a result of your frequent absences. surely you can finish this by the end of the week since you seem to have much free time.” the professor spoke, handing him a pencil and leaving him off to writing.

“haah.. I shouldn’t have listened to that damn herbivore.” he sighs, slouching in his seat and reviewing the sheet in front of him. ‘i already know all this..’ leona thinks, stretching his arms out getting ready to nap. the least he could do is write out his name and do the rest when he feels like it. instead of his name, it was something else entirely.

[MC] KINGSCHOLAR

his ears drop down, his eyes widened, and his cheeks got darker. he followed his first instinct and crumbled the worksheet, ensuring nobody could read what he had just written. the professor glares at him and makes his way over to his seat. “mr. kingscholar.. i hope you know that’d be a rather large part of your grade. we wouldn’t want you to be held back another, would we?”

“tch..” leona scoffs, trying to look away from any of the attention he was receiving. the class ends as soon as it has started, thankfully with no more incidents. leona was just glad nobody has seen what he has written and that he can escape this situation as quickly as possible.. or so he thought.

“roi du leon!” an all too familiar face calls out.

oh no.

🐙┆AZUL ASHENGROTTO

azul sat in his office, filing through the contracts he had made in the past month. many let their minds wander when sitting at a desk for 2 hours or so, and azul is no exception.

eventually growing bored and tired of looking through the deals he made, he took out a notepad and simply wrote out his thoughts. at first he thought this was a dumb idea, but his mother insisted he try it and it has been working ever since.

his mind always felt at ease once the notebook was pulled out. but today felt a little different. he was happy, but today he felt more excited than anything.

he had a dumb lovestruck smile on his face, lightly giggling as he wrote. what on earth? his face was flushed and warm, but he didn’t mind it one bit.

[MC] ASHENGROTTO

he would’ve never thought something so simple would’ve gotten him so worked up. it was just your name and his surname. what was so special?

that’s what he would’ve thought in the past. now, he began to imagine a future of you and him in the coral sea.. a house together.. you meeting his mother.. his stepfather.. it made him feel all giddy. like a schoolgirl if you will.

his love fantasies were inevitably cut short as he heard a knock on the door. “ne, azul. shrimpy is here to see ya.”

panicked that you and floyd might see his notes, he hurriedly opened his drawer and slams it shut. the thud can be heard on the other side of the door, confusing you. “a-ahem.. come in!”

as he saw you, his fantasies began to boot back up. a wedding.. dates at mostro lounge.. it sounded like paradise. every fiber of his being was fighting the primal urge to make you a sign a contract. a contract in which you’d agree to be his life partner. forever, and ever.

🦈┆FLOYD LEECH

not feeling like attending classes, floyd skipped out on the lesson. he knows he’d get scolded by azul later, but if he doesn’t feel like going he don’t wanna.

since you were in classes, the teachers had pushed him out before he even got to you. even despite his protests! floyd complains at the closed door, trying to open it back up.

“eh? why can’t i just take shrimpy and go? lessons are borin’ anyway.” he complains, causing you to hide your head from all the eyes staring at you. all this attention pointed more at you than at floyd..

“leech.. that’s quite enough. go back to your class and come back for this.. “shrimpy” later. interrupting a lesson is NOT what a mage of the future should be doing.” the teacher retorts, now ignoring floyd and his remarks.

“tch.” getting tired of trying to pull you out, floyd retreats to his room in octavinelle. he flopped onto his bed, a pen in hand and a notebook in front of him. jade said drawing is a good time killer or whatever, so he’ll do just that. in all honesty, it won’t take long for him to get bored of this activity and look for something else.

floyd being floyd, just wrote or drew whatever first came to mind. there were tiny drawings of shrimps all over the page. an occasional eel to be seen next to it. he laughed and smiled looking at the page before him. “ehe.. there are shrimpys all over this paper—!”

he writes out another thought that came to his mind. it wasn’t a shrimp drawing, neither was it an eel. the handwriting was slightly shaking being on an uneven and unstable surface, but you can tell what it says.

[MC] LEECH

[MC]? ohhh, that’s your name! leech? that’s his last name! he didn’t truly process what he had wrote, but he knew the implications of it. you being a leech.. to change your last name..

you typically marry a person of interest.. and that person of interest typically inherits the others last name..

hey! person of interest is you! you’re his person of interest! just wait shrimpy! you better save that ring finger just for him!

and 5 minutes later he gets bored, tosses the notebook to the side and goes back to terrorize your classroom again.

🐍┆JAMIL VIPER

jamil sat in the scarabia lounge, finally finishing up dinner for the day. kalim was held up in club activities, and basketball practice has been cancelled due to the fact over half of the members were injured thanks to floyd and aces negligence.

this was a rare moment where he actually had time to himself. nobody to interrupt him in his peaceful state of mind. jamil walked over to his room, locking the door behind him and laying flat onto his bed.

he stares up at the ceiling, unsure what to do with this free time. homework? no he already did it all. check up on kalim? no, why would he ruin his moment of peace like that. check up on you? …

what a ridiculous idea. he doesn’t have time for that. well he does but.. ugh. having time to himself isn’t as relaxing as he made it out to be. especially considering he never had a moment to himself in forever.

jamil figured to keep himself occupied, he can make a bucket list. many people make bucket lists, surely this’ll help him plan his future, right? he grabs a pen and a sheet of paper and began to brainstorm.

obviously seeing the world is one of them. that’s something he wanted to do for as long as he could remember. his mind blanks. so far, his only desire was to travel. far far away from kalim. a thought occurred in his mind.

“..they have to be putting a spell on me or something.” jamil mutters, massaging his temple. he tried wiping the thought clean from his mind, but there was no luck. it annoyed him that such a simple thought was enough to leave him flustered.

[MC] VIPER

he wrote it onto a separate sheet of paper. examining it with a slight smirk. his cheeks were tinted a slightly darker shade, signs of him blushing. “their name doesn’t go well with my surname. what a shame.”

he’s lying. hearing your name with his last is like music to his ears, as much as he’d hate to admit it. surely enough he rips the paper into shreds and tosses it into a nearby trashbin, going out on a walk to clear his clouded mind.

you must’ve put a spell on him. he shouldn’t be having such fantasies of you and him traveling the world together.

A/N: this kinda sucks but it’s better than nothing lmao

date published: 1/6/23

© temiizpalce — don’t steal or copy my work!

[bountydroid]

Darlin' pt 4

pt 1 / pt 2 / pt 3 / pt 5

Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x f!reader (Slowburn romance)

Description: Reader realizes her growing feelings for her traveling companion in Filly.

Notes: Okay, so I am SO proud of this part. Please let me know what you guys think. 

TW: Kinda angsty at the end.

"Find somethin' to do," Cooper says as he makes himself comfortable on a chair, watching the store across from him carefully. 

I huffed and crossed my arms before looking around. "A new shirt would be nice." I thought to myself as I looked down at my mud-covered clothing.

"You got any extra caps?" I asked, leaning up against the side of his chair.

"No." He responds shortly. 

I hummed in response. Just as I started to walk away I felt him grab my wrist, "Don't get into any trouble darlin'." He said, smirking, "Wouldn't want a repeat of last time. You'll scare away my target." 

Embarrassment crept up into my cheeks, "I'll be good." I mumbled. I was not sure If I was telling that to myself or him. Probably both to be honest, but it seemed to satisfy him as he let go of my arm. The last thing I wanted to do was mess up this job for him. He was finally warming up to me, and the idea of ruining that ate at the back of my mind.

Filly was an interesting town. It was packed to the brim with fiends and travelers alike. I couldn't help the nervousness that settled in my stomach as I got farther and farther away from my newfound companion. I felt safe with him, safer than I have ever felt in my life. Most people would think that strange. Safe with a ghoul? I thought back to the man who called me a freak for being with the ghoul as I blushed. He thought we were together. A couple. Butterflies found their way into my stomach as I thought about the possibility. Romance was something that I never thought I would experience beyond the tattered books my brother got me from a wandering trader.

"Stop being stupid, Y/n. He doesn't want you." I thought to myself.

Without any caps, I decided to find a place to sit and lay low. I was determined to stay out of trouble, so I found a nice tree to sit up against while I watched all the people go by. I found watching all the different kinds of people walk through extremely interesting. All different types of hair colors, hairstyles, clothing, and weapons. Not to mention odd couples, siblings, and partners. All the new experiences were overwhelming. I found myself sitting there watching for longer than expected. After I had my fill, I got up from the tree and started heading back to Cooper. 

"Right where I left you," I said to myself as his sitting form became clear. He had his hat covering most of his face, I assumed it was to avoid detection. The last town made it very clear that ghouls were not welcome.

As I made my over to him I saw his head tilt and his eyes peer up at me from under his hat. I smiled at him, "No trouble here."

He snorted in response as his eyes flickered over to the men wrestling each other across the way. "You might be the only one darlin'."

I leaned up against his chair again, letting some weight off of my feet. "My feet are-" I start to say before a person caught my eye. Her unique outfit and soft hair made her stand out from the rest of the crowd. 

"A vaultie," Cooper responds, anticipating my question before it even forms.

"Those are real?" I gasp before leaning forward, wanting to get closer to her. 

"Yeah, they are real." Cooper sighed as his hand shot back up to my arm. "Don't talk to her."

I frown but I keep quiet as I continue to watch her. He then kicked my foot gently to draw my attention back to him. "I mean it, darlin'."

"Fine," I say sighing as she disappears into the shop across the way. I felt sadness creep into my stomach as his hand dropped down to his lap and went back to fiddling with an empty Jet bottle. The butterflies from earlier returned as I thought about his touch. I bit my lip as I stared up at the sky.

"What has gotten into me?" I thought to myself.

We stayed there in silence for some time before a man and a dog came into town, making his way to the same shop the vaultie was in. I recognized him from the drawing. It was the bounty. I shifted in anticipation as he started making conversation with the vaultie at the front door.

"So now what?" I whispered, excitement laced in my voice. 

"Now... you find somewhere to hide," Cooper said back. "And you don't come out till' I say so, got it?"

I frowned, confused. "Hide?" 

"They ain't gonna let me just take him, darlin'." He responded, shifting in his seat as he readied for action.

The implication was clear. There was going to be another shootout. Not only was I unarmed, but I was unfamiliar with weapons altogether. Hiding was definitely the best course of action for me. 

"Right," I said as I looked around before making my way behind one of the buildings.

Once I was finally out of view I heard Cooper's familiar voice, "Whilzig!" He shouted.

I peeked around the corner to see him walking up to the bounty. At this point, they were too far away for me to hear. I could tell that the people of the town now saw him for what he was as all eyes were on him, a ghoul. "That is a lot of people." I thought to myself. I was starting to worry.

"Now last night a bounty came in through all six agencies!" He shouted again. 

I whipped back around and pressed myself to the building taking deep breaths as I tried to tamp down the panic in my chest. Once the first gunshot rang out I could hear the townspeople scrambling. "Maybe no one will give him any trouble?" I thought to myself. I was being naive again, but I didn't care.

"I got a thousand bottle caps for whoever kills that fucker!" I heard a woman scream out. "But you don't get shit if I kill him first."

"Shit," I whispered. I took one last deep breath before I peeked back around the building. I watched as Cooper moved in a circle, taking count of all the men lining up to fight for those caps. Our eyes met for a moment. While my eyes were filled with fear, his eyes were filled with confidence. He gave me a small smirk before continuing to circle around, waiting for someone to be brave enough to take a shot. 

Once the shots started, all hell broke loose. I could hear wood breaking and bodies being thrown. Some of the ammunition even made its way through the buildings and out the other side. 

In defense, I curled up in a ball on the ground. I was so worried about him that I didn't even realize that I could be shot too.

When there was a brief pause in gunfire, I fought the temptation to look out again. "Don't come out till I say so." His words echoed in my head.

As the shots started up again, I felt something pierce my arm. I fought the urge to shout in pain as tears started to run down my face. One of the men's shots went through the building and into my arm. I look down to see a nail and some wood splinters sticking out of me. 

"Fuck." I whimpered as I cradled the wound trying to take deep breaths.

As I did my best to steady my breathing I heard a robotic voice say, "She said stand down ghoul."

I look around the corner to see a knight making his way towards Cooper, "Knight Titus of the Brotherhood of Steel. Stand down, or be cut down."

I couldn't hear Cooper's response, but I saw a look of disbelief and amusement on his face. 

"Just do what he says, please," I whisper to myself. "Cooper." Just as I finish saying his name he lifts his gun at the girl and the knight makes a run towards her, jumping in front of her to take the bullet. 

I squeeze my teary eyes together as I turn back around. If Cooper was going to be killed by this knight. I didn't want to see it. 

Gunshots rang out again, this time it was just Cooper and the knight. To distract myself I looked back down at my arm, still bleeding. I had no idea what to do so I decided to pull the nail out. I took a deep breath in anticipation before giving it a good, hard yank. I couldn't help the loud cry that escaped my mouth. At the same time, I heard a body fly into some wood nearby. "It's not Cooper, it's not Cooper," I repeated over and over again as I fussed over my arm. 

"Well, I'd say come up here and get me, but it's hard to walk upstairs while wearing a 12-piece cast-iron skillet set." Cooper chuckled.

Relief flooded my body when I heard his voice. The sudden sounds of bullets, explosions, and crashing filled my ears. I closed my eyes tight as I waited for it all to stop.

Eventually, I heard the knight flying overheard, clearly having lost control of his suit. It was over. 

"Y/n?" I heard Cooper yell out. 

I unsteadily got up on my feet and shuffled out from behind the building, still cradling my arm. "I am here."

As his eyes raked me over and stopped at my arm a look of concern washed over his face. He jogged over to take a closer look.

"I'm okay." I try and convince him as he gently touches my wound. 

"Those crocodile tears suggest otherwise, sugar." Cooper responds, giving me a small smile. "Let's find you a stimpack."

I nod my head as he wraps his arm protectively around me and guides me towards the shop. He only lets go when we reach the dog, wounded and whining on the ground. He gently picks it up and brings it into the shop with us. After putting the dog down on the table, he starts to rummage through the junk in the shop. 

"There's gotta be one around here somewhere." He mumbles. 

Between sniffles I say, "When you find one, give it to the dog."

He lets out a small chuckle as he finally finds what he's looking for. "Well lucky for us I found two."

"And the bounty?" I ask as he makes his way towards me.

"Ah, I'll get him," Cooper says, brushing off my concerns before he quickly stabs me with the needle.

"Ouch!" I whine as he rubs my arm while shushing me.

"You are okay, Darlin'." He coos.

"The dog-" I start.

"I got the dog." Cooper interrupts before giving the dog the other stimpack, petting his head gently. A smile erupts across his face as the dog pops up, immediately feeling better. "There."

I smile wide as I watch him with the dog. "You like dogs."

He looks over at me still smiling as his eyes flicker over to my arm. The wound was healed and I am no longer cradling it, the pain completely gone. "Feelin' better?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

All the feelings I had experienced during the shootout came flooding back to me as my smile faded. I felt overwhelmed with sadness, fear, and relief. "I-" I started as tears filled my eyes. 

"I was so worried about you!" I cried out as I ran towards him and wrapped my arms around him. 

Faster than it took to wrap my arms around him, I felt him rip me off. He dug his fingers into my shoulders as he held me at arm's length, shaking me gently. "Don't." He said sternly.

Embarrassment washed over me as I stared down at my feet. "I-"

"Just, don't." He interrupted, sighing before releasing me. "We will wait here until nightfall and then we'll follow Whilzig's trail. See if you can find anything useful around here while we wait."

"Okay," I whispered in response before shuffling to the other end of the store. The rejection stung so deeply that I could barely focus on what I was looking at. Right when he started to warm up to me, I ruined it.

tag list: @msrawog @valdemarismynonbinarylove @topiramateagreeable @whizbang-cap @sitkafay

[oopsdevil]

COD + Tropes

which trope do they fall into when it comes to you.

SIMON GHOST RILEY + FWB TO LOVERS

i have said it before but simon really struggles when it comes to relationships.

he insisted that this was a casual thing but soon realized that's not true. from the way his heart beats faster when you rarely cuddle, to his trouble sleeping wondering if maybe you were with some other bloke. his insecurities got the best of him and he would end up saying something mean out of jealousy. when he saw you took offense to it he decided in four seconds that he was not gonna lose you. he confessed his feelings (in a sentence or two) and since then he has no problem with everyone knowing you are his.

KYLE GAZ GARRICK + THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

kyle was always a romantic. outspoken, proud romantic. you guys probably met in high school and just fell in love. you both knew you were it for each other but everyone kept insisting it was just a first love kind of thing. it was not.

circumstances brought kyle into the army and leaving you was the hardest of it all. you both also decided staying together was just gonna be painful so you broke up.

a couple years later kyle came home and got his life together as an adult. after seeing the reality of bills, rent, taxes and just life, he realized maybe he doesn't wanna do it at all without you. a call and a few tears is all it took for admitting you are still each others soulmates.

JOHN SOAP MACTAVISH + FAKE DATING

look at me in the eyes and tell me this is not HIS trope. it was simply meant to be. maybe he saw you in a bar and some guy was being too insisting for his liking, maybe johnny got sick of his family asking about a future wedding or maybe gaz told you guys you couldn't pull it off and you took the bet. doesn't matter, but it happened.

after months of intense eye contact across the room, flushed faces when realizing you were holding hands but there was no one around and holding you by your hips for group pictures, johnny felt his stomach turn when you mentioned something about going on a date with some other soldier for real.

next thing you knew he was kissing you against a bathroom door. really kissing you, not like those pecks for the public that always left you wanting more. in breathless sentences you both decided to be together like you always wanted (probably in a quick to be continued kinda way so you could keep kissing)

KÖNIG + SLOW BURN

it took him years. years.

from the moment he saw you in base he was thankful his hood could hide his red face when he developed a crush in about 15 seconds. he was also very surprised when you just talked to him.

könig kept you as a friend for years and himself busy with missions, it wasn't until you were thinking about transferring when he decided you wouldn't do it. you can't just go, right?

the only condition to staying was a very long conversation with him, where you admitted being in love with him for the longest time, and thinking maybe he felt the same way. but after that many years you needed to have him now, or just try to move on.

i don't think könig ever felt that relived. he mumbled something in german, suddenly ripping his hood off and kinda tackled you to the bed in a hug. you laughed and decided yeah, this is gonna work.

JOHN PRICE + FORCED PROXIMITY/ SECRET RELATIONSHIP

having a new secretary in his office was the last thing john needed.

he was sure it was about the fact that it was someone new in his personal space, someone who knew nothing about his routine.

it obviously had nothing to do with the fact that he looked at you longer than he looked at papers. or about your accent being so distracting to him that you had to say most things twice.

being trapped in an elevator with him was the last thing you needed.

again, its about the fact that you have so many things to do for your impatient boss (not about his cologne being intoxicating and his shoulders looking a little too big right now)

neither of you knew how it happened, but it did. and you were sure he pressed you against every inch of the elevators walls while kissing you like a mad man.

the truth is everyone else on the team knew the reason why you drove each other crazy, and john was more than grateful when the person who opened the elevator doors and saw the state of you was simon.

after fixing your clothes and an awkward apologize to simon, you talked about it.

having a secret relationship with him didn't last long, this man likes to move fast. but after the elevator incident, you were more than okay with that.

[crybaby-bkg]

“Oh, my poor baby,” the words are cooed directly in your ear, making you whine as you try to shake his heavy body weight off of you. “This was all you needed, huh?”

Bakugou’s voice is so teasing, so soft compared to the usual growl he holds for you and you only. You couldn’t fucking stand him and his cocky attitude, how he always seemed to undermine you in the field just because you were still a sidekick. When you tried to show him that you were capable, it only backfired more. The thought makes you grit your teeth, your nails reaching back to claw at his nape.

“Fuck you.” You snap at him, hearing him hiss in pain—or pleasure? You could never tell with this freak of a man. Bakugou only grins against your smooshed cheek, letting the heavy weight of his hips push his cock even deeper inside of you. You cry out, eyes clenching shut, whimpering when his hand trapped between your bodies starts to rub your clit in quick circles.

“Such a filthy mouth on ya,” Bakugou huffs a little laugh, nipping at your cheek, pinching your lips together in a pout as he turns your head to face him. He takes you in—your watery eyes, your puffy cheeks, how you still try to frown at him, your downturned brows that quirk up when he slams his hips against you again.

“You’re one to talk,” you grit out, eyes rolling back when he pinches your clit softly between his thick fingers. Bakugou kisses you, finally, more of a smash of his lips against yours, licking at the crevices in your mouth, your teeth, your tongue. He swallows the cry you emit when he pushes you over the edge, doesn’t want anyone to hear how your pro hero boss fucks the brains out of you on his office couch.

“You fuckin’ love it.” Bakugou grins against you, cocky and proud at the way you tremor and shake around his cock. You can only sigh, body falling under the weight of his own as you pat at the hair on his nape.

“Yeah,” you mutter. Bakugou only laughs at you before rearranging you until you’re sitting up with your back against his chest, thighs spread over his, as your head rests on his shoulders.

“Last round ‘fore I have to send you out into the field, rookie. Let’s see how well you perform with my cum still plugging you up.” Bakugou grins, and you catch his reflection in the glass across the room from over your shoulder. He looks wicked, arrogant and full of himself. Secretly, you kinda love it.

[doobean]

ROMAN HOLIDAY ─ NAGI S.

synopsis: Nagi Seishiro has a plethora of secrets up his sleeves. He knows that Reo loves being in the center of attention—well, no, that's a fact. But one thing that Nagi knows for sure is that the Mikage Corporation is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. And what better way to prevent that than to have an arranged marriage with another powerful company? You're intelligent, beautiful, and obedient. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't take long for Reo to fall for you, and you seem to be content with everything—at least, you pretend to be. Nagi knows you're head over heels for his best friend, but doesn't understand why you hate his guts.

contents: explicit content, afab!fem!reader, bathroom sex, kinda cheating/kinda not really, piss involved towards the end, dubcon, hate sex, nagi centric, reader comes from an affluent family, power/dominance play, frottage, descriptors of a curvy, busty reader, breast play/nipple play, facials word count: 4.8k a/n: this fic is for all the nagi haters out there ig @niitoshi + @pipppinn (u get a rest from beta reading ur enemy)

You’re an absolute menace. 

Nagi had no clue, when his best friend had introduced you as his potential fiancee months ago, just how big of an impact it was going to have on his life. In most cases of Nagi’s lack of social life, he originally had no intentions of befriending you, at least, outside of introductions and shorthand greetings whenever he crashed over at Reo’s apartment. To him, it didn’t make sense to get close to you, even if you were going to be a major part of Reo’s life. 

Unlike his best friend, you appeared reserved and uptight, much like all the other affluent students he surrounded himself with back in high school and university. Nagi thinks he’s only received one ‘hello’ from you, and that was just from the first meeting. You’ve always attached yourself to Reo, whenever he’s around, and Reo would somehow play it off as you’re just “shy” around others.

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” Reo had assured him with a firm shoulder clasp. “She’ll eventually warm up to you.”

And while Nagi still has a hard time believing that, he didn’t feel the need to continue the conversation knowing that Reo wouldn’t get the hint. You don’t flaunt your wealth and status around, but Nagi has always sensed that you were looking down on him. Why else would you always stare at him?

You come from a family of ‘self made’ entrepreneurs and billionaires. 

From all those last minute conferences meetings that Reo would have him attend, simply because his best friend would lose track of time whenever they’re together, Nagi knows that your father owns a famous construction company that’s somehow affiliated with the Mikage estate. From one shareholders’ meeting, he’s learned that your family owns 60% of all rental properties in Japan, and he doesn’t know if that’s something to be proud of. Coming from a semi-wealthy family himself, Nagi is well aware that there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire.

He’s seen your family name plastered on billboards before, shining over the neighborhoods in Akihabara, and the company sounded impressive enough that Reo’s father didn’t hesitate to bring up the topic of marriage during a conversation about future prospects. 

Reo didn’t seem to mind, or rather he tried really, really hard to mask any trace of anxiousness and annoyance when he signed the NDA papers. Nobody wants to be in a loveless, arranged marriage, after all. Especially not when they still have their whole youth ahead of them. Though, needless to say, Reo fell for you rather quickly. Nagi’s aware he’s not the best at expressing his emotions, but anyone with a sensible brain could obviously tell you’re the standard stereotype of “wifey material”.

Quiet. Intelligent. Extremely obedient to the seniors around you. Nevermind the fact that your behavior reflects your style as well. Your makeup never strays from being “too little” or “too much”. The outfits you wear always reminded Nagi of those old British dramas from the late 90s, he thinks Reo calls it “old money” fashion. Whatever that means. 

He just knows that it’s classy and fits whatever housewife aesthetic you’re trying to go for. Even though he can easily see through how much you hate it. You’re always picking at the threads in annoyance, as if they’re tight, itchy, and alien on your body. Even when he watches your pretty, plump lips smile and nod towards everyone around you, you always quickly turn sour when you think no one’s watching. 

At age twenty four, Nagi carefully watches his best friend enter the room with you wrapped around his arm, from the corner of the banquet hall. Today’s a celebration, a huge one, because Reo just completed his accelerated MBA program and, therefore, is one day closer to filling in his father’s shoes as CEO of the Mikage Corporation. This also means he’s one step closer to becoming a married man. Soon, you’re going to be a permanent fixture in Reo’s life. That thought alone had his tongue swelling up in his mouth, and urged himself to get it together.

The event ends up being treated like a work gala. Everyone is dressed in black tie, the smell of warm leather fills the air, Nagi only half understands the business jargon being thrown around, and the food looks rather bland for what it’s worth. Most of the guests are crowded around Reo and his father, and he can only assume the business executives are trying to wiggle their way in to just get a chunk of free shares. 

He notices you standing to the side, in the midst of your own conversation with your father. Your outfit throws Nagi off, slightly. It’s certainly different from your previous choices, more modern and form fitting, highlighting certain assets that makes it slightly even more obvious why certain men in the room couldn't stop their gawking.

Somehow, even though you’re caught up in a seemingly heated conversation on the other side of the room, Nagi catches your stare. Your eyes, facial expression, and even aura feels uncomfortably blank, despite the small smile you force out. 

He merely awkwardly waves back and, for whatever reason, you take that as a sign to make your way over. He can only groan inwardly as he watches you exit out your current conversation and thread gracefully through the stuffy crowd, somehow showing up with two empty wine glasses in hand. Originally, his plan was to just show up for the free food, say hi to Reo, then prepare an Irish exit. With the look you’re currently giving him, Nagi feels like he can’t plan an escape. 

You turn around and reach for a bottle of wine on the bar cart, a brand that Nagi could never pronounce correctly despite the numerous times that he’s heard it leave from Reo’s mouth. It’s also the same imported wine from France that all three of you shared the day Reo had introduced you to him. From what Nagi remembers, it didn’t leave a good taste. 

You end up pouring the two glasses, then whirl back around to face him, quickly setting the drink down by the end table. Nagi picks up his glass as soon as it's available, but you clink yours against it before he could bring it up to his lips.

“Do you have a moment?” you mumble quietly.

“For what?” he’s honestly surprised to hear that many words coming from you.

“I…” you trail off, looking down into your drink and unconsciously hug your sides. Nagi uses this opportunity of silence to sip. Then, after a moment, you shake your head a little, clearly flustered over something. 

“I want to talk to you about Reo, about your friendship and me fitting into that. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I haven’t had the chance to bring it up.”

Nagi just nods, sipping again, not sure if he’s pleased or disappointed by your response. Of course the very first thing you bring up after not speaking a word to him for months is about their friendship. 

He then notices that you’re suddenly rubbing your palms, hands alternating between them as you stretch your fingers out. You’re grimacing slightly, and Nagi leans back against the wall, something stirs inside of him at the sight of you appearing in distress. He’s not sure what to make of the odd feeling.

With a shrug, he tilts his head. “Go ahead with it.”

You meet his eyes and shake in disapproval, setting down your wine glass. “I need to speak with you in private about it.”

Nagi doesn’t say anything, and a moment of silence passes between you two as several high executives try to usher the rest of the crowd to the next room for an unrelated conference meeting. At one point, a clientele calls you over for a drink, and you disappear to join him for one, leaving Nagi to stew in his own thoughts once more.

A part of him wants to go over to Reo, telling him what happened, why you’re suddenly being so vague and direct with him after all this time. However, with one glance at his best friend, who’s currently knee-deep in a conversation between his father, the idea dies out. He’s never seen Reo this relaxed and determined before. 

Maybe the closest expression he shared was when they were both heavily sprawled out on the turf field after an intense football match back in high school, but even then Nagi doesn’t even think he’s seen Reo this content. He wants to believe that you’re simply just asking about potential wedding details, maybe to even join in on the planning, but that’s laughable. You seemed nervous, and not for the right reasons.

He shouldn’t be here, glass half empty, stomach barely full from all these damn healthy finger foods, sitting under the appraising and curious eyes from other businessmen and yourself. 

“Nagi, an answer?” you probe, as if hearing his thoughts when you finally return. 

Were you always this demanding? He shifts in place and adjusts the collar of his suit, and tries his best to sound unaffected. “Right now?”

You finally smile, and it lights up your entire face. “Right now.”

At that, Nagi downs the rest of his drink.

You eventually coax him to an empty hallway, down the corner next to the fire escape, while everyone else is preoccupied with the meeting. You kept reiterating that it’ll be quick, that Nagi will understand what’s the “problem”, but he doesn’t believe it one bit. Not when you’re squeezing both sides of your arms and keep glancing down the hallway, anxious to be seen.

Without warning, you blurt out, “Please, stop dragging down Reo. I want you out of his life.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, yet is drenched with anxiety and the barest edge of vexation. 

“What?” Nagi can’t help but be offended. The reluctance on your tongue contradicts the harsh order. 

“I’ve seen the way he talks to you. You’re a distraction to him and having you around will just—”

“He can say what he wants about me. Why do you care so much? Your only job is to sit by his side.”

“Nagi, please—”

“Forget it,” he can’t seem to find an answer to your demand. It doesn’t make sense, and even if he did make out an answer, his brain is currently too distorted and torn to process a coherent response. 

You stand your ground and the next few words are fumbling over the other, “I’ve… never liked you since the day I met you.” 

That doesn’t surprise him. You aren’t much of a talker, but then again, neither is he. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re currently having an unusual personality shift—almost as if you’re revealing a bit of truth about yourself to him, and only him. Reo probably doesn’t know that this side of you exists. 

Nagi doesn’t bother to respond. He only rests his back against the bathroom door behind him, crossing his arms over his chest in irritation, and stares down at you. In that moment, he can see the raw edge of your bubbling… is it anger he’s sensing? Your body is filled with tension and he can’t imagine why. Your eyes are boring into his and refusing to let go.

Suddenly, Nagi feels his frustrations growing thicker. 

“You don’t know anything about me.”

You step closer, eyes narrowing, yet you look conflicted. “I could say the same thing.” 

The proximity of you—the blend of sweat, bergamot, and something that could only be described as bitterness—makes Nagi dizzy. The space of this hallway, once ample, now feels suffocatingly small. 

“Nagi,” you seeth out, a plea that’s both sounding an invitation and surrender. “This is a business deal. If this doesn’t fall through it’ll look bad on us and—argh, I really need this to work out, okay?” You quickly clamp a hand over your mouth, as if surprised that the words flooded out.

It wasn’t much spilled, but he understands the gist of it. Your frantic explanation earns him a curt laugh, one that’s distinctly him. He almost feels sorry that you were forced to do this, all of this. But you could’ve also easily gone against it, too. “You can’t think for yourself, can you? This is why I can’t stand these heirs and heiresses, you’re all a bunch of hassles to be around.”

“Fuck you.” you’re cracking under pressure. The makeup, dress, your hair… The facade of being perfect and plain slowly comes crumbling down the longer Nagi stands there, unwavering. “I can think for myself.”

“Prove it.” His tone is a dangerous one, spoken with an even tone. 

You take another step forward, slow and purposeful. It serves as a reminder that your background is influential, powerful, and that you’re no puppet. Nagi wants to believe that more than you do. 

He would be doing himself a disservice if he hasn’t admitted that there’ve been nights where he does think about you. What life would be like if you haven’t given him the cold shoulder, times where he wishes he could understand all the hidden languages spoken between you and Reo, and if you would’ve treated him any differently.

So, Nagi’s command is framed as a tease, and knowing how you really are now, you’re not going to leave until you give him an answer. Nagi Seishiro hates the rich, hates dependent people even more, but he’s a good guy when he tries to be. You, on the other hand, might be ruining that for him.

He watches as your plump lips part, and a needy little sound escapes. It sounds like a damn moan that’s absolutely dripping in desperation. Nagi lets out a breath, feeling his insides liquefy and overflow. His cloudy eyes search your face, and the dark overcast over your eyes instantly hooks him in. He can see the wetness where your lips separate, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed with the desire to trap your mouth between his.

Nagi drops his hands to both sides of your face and holds your cheeks tight in the expanse of his calloused palms, drawing himself closer to you when he feels your hand latch onto his forearm. Your cheeks are warm and soft beneath his touch and, without a second thought, you both close the gap.

You gasp into his mouth as his lips claim yours with a hunger that leaves no room for hesitation, a heated urgency that clears any uncertainty. He feels your other hand shooting up and roughly tugging at his silver locks, a stark contrast to your passive actions earlier. His hands roam over your body, tracing and mapping your curves with extreme possessiveness. 

Nagi wants more. Wants your hands even lower, on his thighs, between his legs, wants your pretty lips wrapped around the base of his cock. He wants you, but not here. He wants to leave here with you, see where you live, do this on the comfort of your mattress, inhale the scent of your sheets, and rid your mind of his best friend and that damn business proposal.

“Excuse me? Is somebody there?”

You pull away first with a concealed string of curses by the intrusion, gasping for air as soon as you separated, the hand you have on his forearm is now trembling. Whether it's from excitement, fear, or a combination of the two—Nagi can’t tell.

He peers over to find a security officer patrolling around, radio in hand, at the end of the hallway. From this angle, where the corner curves slightly, it doesn't seem like he’s able to make the two of you out, at least for now. The last thing he wants is for the media to highlight why you were seen alone with him. He’s already got enough on his plate with professional football on its own. Kissing his best friend’s bride to be is something entirely different. He doesn’t want to wait around to find what might happen.

“Fuck, fuck, where should we—”

“Quit freaking out,” he pulls the handle behind him and tugs on your waist, ushering you inside the bathroom as the sounds of sharp loafers against marble creep closer. Bewilderment flashes across your face as he shuts the door and locks it. He ignores your swarm of questions and props you against the sink’s countertop in an instant. 

You appear terribly confused with yourself as he cages you in between his arms, his head leaning against yours with a dark look in his eyes. Your lipstick is smeared at the corner of your lips, your hair is nothing but a disheveled mess, and your damn breasts— Nagi looks down and scoffs —you're not wearing a bra. He soon realizes that this look suits you better than any other outfit you’ve worn. 

“What was that,” you try to say, but he quickly keeps your busy mouth occupied again. His fingers trail up your shoulder blades, easily slipping down the top half of your dress, and soon your breasts fall free — round, heavy, and soft. 

Your chest heaves as you breathe in sharply, tongue darting out to wet your lower lip. “You’re such a dick,” you shoot him a misty glare, defiant in tone despite every bit of your body language screaming submission.

This is enough to set him off. Nagi’s fingers curl into your waist, sighing in pleasure when you whine at his harried touch. He lifts you from the counter, your legs instinctively wrapping themselves around his waist, as he pushes your back against the door. The frame and his greedy palms on your fleshy ass serves as support as he begins to shamelessly grind against you, the needy, aching pressure from his arousal fights through his slacks. 

God, he wants to fuck you right into the door.

You moan into his shoulder when Nagi dives against your throat, swearing under his breath as he finally gets a taste of your intoxicating skin, a sound of pure lust vibrating throughout your bodies.

“Don’t tease me,” he warns with a groan.

“I’ll do what I want,” you bite back, jolting in pleasure when his tight erection probes against your thighs. 

Nagi decesends, his mouth leaving wet trails across your collarbones and down your chest until he stops at your breasts. Gently, his teeth grazes over one nipple, nipping at it until he hears a sharp hiss from above. Before you could chastise him, he captures your nipple in his mouth, sucking the stiff peak between his lips. He feels the dampness of your panties rubbing against the clothed tip, causing his tongue to twirl aggressively over the wrinkled flesh.

“Oh, fuck,” your mews are growing louder and louder in pitch. Nagi hopes that the security guard from earlier is long gone by now. He’s also certain that his dick might come bursting apart any second. But he’s not going to admit that, not to you of all people.

Seeing you crumble under his fingertips makes Nagi’s heart swell. He pulls back with a loud pop and closes the distance between your lips again, pressing hard so you can feel the urgency from the heat of his tongue.

“Need you,” he finds himself whispering against your lips, pressing his entire weight of upper body into yours.

You choke out another desperate sound and begin fumbling with his waistband, hands blindly searching to feel him, trying to prove and show that you can provide the same fervent pleasure and attention. You both sigh when Nagi feels his cock springing free, hard and leaking with copious amounts of pre. He carefully watches your movements, there’s hesitation and surprise glassed across your face as you gently wrap your fingers around his length. 

It barely makes the full circumference. 

“Scared?”

Then a shudder rumbles through Nagi’s frame as you begin stroking him. It takes everything in him to not rip your dress in two and fuck you right then and there, but he’s trying not to be eager, caging his bloodlust. But it’s hard. Hard when you pull him into a kiss that leaves him breathless and grinding against your palm. 

Nagi can’t stop himself from the way he crushes his lips against you, nor can he stop the way his tongue slips forward into your mouth, his hands squeezing the softness of your waist when you melt in his embrace, pressing those soft breasts against his blazer.

You break the kiss with a moan, and it’s so messy that he can see the tether of saliva that stretches between you two when you finally pull away. Your face looks even more dazed than before, and you squirm against him, sending a hot flare soaring throughout his body when your thumb brushes against his leaking tip. 

“Sensitive?” you mimic his teasing tone.

Nagi’s now positive that you’re trying to kill him. He’s known it before, from the first moment he’s laid eyes on you, but there’s no reasonable explanation for you to be so beautiful and sexy all at the same time. The way you’re teasing his bare cock, rubbing your wet, clothed cunt straight against it, is doing nothing but sending him straight into a tailspin.

The truth is, when you first approached him, the only thing that had been on his mind was getting to know you more, same as it has been for months now ever since he’s met you. Now, with your lips looking glazed and pouty as ever, he feels like he’s on cloud nine.

“Turn around,” he commands.

You stare at him with wide eyes, and Nagi sees your brain rewiring in real time whether or not to follow through with your stubbornness, but after a moment, you obey. You unclasp your legs around his waist and he gently sets your feet down, letting your body spin around so that your palms are flat against the door, back arched, and ass pressed against his length. The look you shoot across your shoulder stirs something inside of him, and he quickly takes you by the hips, pulling aside your soaked panties with ease. 

“Is this okay?” he doesn’t know why he’s asking right now, despite everything that’s happened within the past few minutes. 

Regardless, it’s meaningless to wait for your response; the wave of pleasure from the way he’s playing with your breasts from behind, to the warmth of your puffy entrance teasing the tip of his cock, has you unable to respond with anything other than a loud moan. Nagi takes this as an affirmative response, and angles his hips from behind, sucking in his teeth as he watches the entirety of his length being swallowed and hugged by your gummy walls.

The mirrors in the room have begun to fog up when he starts the initial movement. Nagi grabs a palmful of your ass, grasping and kneading them in a way that has you widening your legs to deeper access. Your soft whimpers and moans ring like a siren’s call in his ears, and he doesn’t quite understand how you’re able to control his body like this, but you’re squeezing him just right as if you’ve known him forever. 

Nagi shuts his eyes and easily begins to lose himself to this bliss. The tight, velvety walls are all too euphoric, making him easily forget that you’re both in a random bathroom in one of the biggest, extravagant conference halls in the country. A vivid grunt escapes from his mouth as his shaky hands maneuver up to your hips, guiding them in a circular motion as the fat of your ass ripples from every thrust he spears into you.

“Fuck,” he pants out. “Just like that…”

But the rough, muffled sounds of sex in the room shatters as a knock pierces through the air. 

Your fingers, splayed across the door, come together close and form into fists as he watches you struggle to catch your breath. After a moment of silence, a tender murmur breeches the stillness. 

It’s Reo, and his call for you is automatically fear inducing. Nagi feels you clamping up more than ever.

“—are you in there?” he repeats through the door’s barrier. 

Panic flicks across your features and you scramble for composure, frantically pulling up the top half of the dress and craning your neck around to gawk at Nagi, wondering if he has any clue on what to say, or do. Little do you know, Nagi has absolutely zero plausible answers.

“It’s okay,” he leans down and nips your shoulder blades. “Just stay like this.” 

A sweet whimper exits from you as he continues his thrusts, slower and shallower. “A-Are you insane?! He’s going to know it’s us…!”

You’re afraid, intimidated by the position that you’re both in, but Nagi kisses you again and engulfs your hand with his. He offers a comforting squeeze before dining in the pleasure of the tip of your tongues touching.

“Stay quiet and he’ll eventually go away,” what is he even saying right now? He’s not being fair to Reo, but somehow there’s hardly any guilt flowing through his veins. 

His best friend, your future husband, faintly calls your name again. This time with more uncertainty. There’s nothing but stillness on either side of the wooden barrier, where neither of you are willingly to slip out a sound. Nagi just rests his head on the side of your neck, letting the sweat from his bangs seep down, as he focuses on your steady breaths while having to control his own. If it weren’t for Reo on the other side, he would’ve fallen asleep just by the rhythm of your heartbeat. 

Another agonizing moment of silence passes before Reo mumbles out an apology, saying that he’s got the wrong person, and retreats. The sounds of heavy heels from his loafers hitting against the floor burns deep into both of your memories. 

By the time he’s gone, Nagi doesn’t waste any time and throttles against a spot inside of you that has you squealing like an animal. 

Pulling his hands away from yours, he brings them up to your chest, teasing your nipples while you throw your ass back against him, fucking as hard as you possibly can. He feels you drifting far away, bringing yourself closer and closer on his length, and a tight familiar coil begins building inside of his core.

Suddenly, you try to pull away, stumbling over your next words, “W-Wait, stop, I feel like I have to go—!” 

Nagi huffs and readjusts his grip around your waist, snuggling his cock deeper, “Then go, what’s stopping you, heiress?”

“I’m being serious…!”

Lowering his mouth to your ear, he whispers, “And so am I.”

He doesn’t care. Nagi positions his hand lower, keeping the other arm wrapped tightly around your waist, and his long, callous fingers pull your folds up, applying pressure against your full bladder. Vibrations of your whines send him to set a wicked pace until you’re creaming white around the base of his cock. The wet sounds, your moans, and the sloppy grip—it’s all too much, too exhilarating for him.

“Have to be patient…” Nagi murmurs, but his words are starting to jumble. Heat gathers and twists throughout his stomach and he winces, trying to not cum all in an instant. 

Your voice is nothing but all breathy moans, puffs of air rushing all around, and you mumble something unintelligible, but it’s all the confirmation Nagi needs. He shudders when he feels the warm wetness finally spill from your pussy as you climax at the same time. Your lewd moans are buried deep into your shoulder, and the sound is forever imprinted in his mind. He feels thousands of sparks ignite between his thighs at that saccharine note.

Nagi relishes in the warmth, until he finds his own release and pulls out, cumming all over the front of your chest, and even striking the bottom of your chin. He leans back with a gasp, gripping the sink counter for balance, his heart thundering as the bliss ebbs away entire chunks of his brain. Slowly, the haziness begins to fade, and Nagi tucks his throbbing cock away, reminding himself that he’s in a restroom of all places. 

“Fuck…”

Suddenly, Nagi hears you crying for his name and sees your entire body shaking, trying to calm down from the high of your orgasm. Wet, fat tears are streaming down your face, but he wraps one arm around the front of your body, pinning you against him. You’re both breathing heavily, covered in the sticky warmth and heavy sweat, but the feeling of your racing heartbeat is soothing him. 

Nagi holds you tight, letting his fingers get caught in your damp hair.

© 2023 DOOBEAN. do not copy any of my writing and translate/repost.

[lovelyhan]

— every summertime  ⟢

you're not really interested in the record shop downtown. but people aren't oblivious to the way you keep trying to get into the owner's pants—not even the owner himself.

★ FEATURING; jeonghan x afab!reader

★ WORD COUNT;  16.1k words

★ TAGS; 70s au, playing hard to get, bad bad bad decisions, friends questioning said decisions, reader is a slut in theory but not so much in practice (at least...in the beginning), pining?, angst but like, only a microcosm of angst, smut (MINORS DNI)

★ WARNINGS; alcohol consumption

★ NOTES; if i told you all about how much this fic has changed over the last three months i've spent writing it, you'd all be sick of me going back and forth with the direction i wanted this to go lmfao !!!! i don't think i've ever suffered writing anything as much as i did with this, so i'm proud to be sharing the fruit of every one of my trashed drafts to all of you :') i sincerely hope you all like it T T

this is part of the svthub 70s;teen collab!

★ SMUT TAGS; unprotected sex, jealousy, possessiveness, dom jeonghan bc i just Need him to dom me, vaginal fingering, semi-public sex, dacryphilia kinda?, cockwarming

★ PERMANENT TAGLIST; @cheolhub - @pretty-trustme - @just-here-to-read-01 - @idkmelkro - @dejavernon - @venusrae - @jyiiscool - @jiniesclub - @junhui-recs - @bldelaine - @featmia - @fruitzcup - @hoeforhao - @candidupped - @billboard-singer - @caratochan - @novalpha - @dahliatopia - @0717luv - @shiveringgaze - @toruro - @mixling-blog - @minnie-mouser22 - @homerunhansol - @mirtaspace - @ti--red - @zzucculent - @woozarts - @rubyreduji - @mozellerra - @lllucere - @cheolzip - @jjjzzzz - @lissiesykes - @dearjeonwonwoo - @meowmeowminnie - @colored-confetti - @partiallyinfluencial - @speaknowlwt - @flwrshwa - @lilylikesthat - @aurorahongg - @whippedforjihoon - @todorokiskitten - @immabecreepin - @98-0603 - @peachhiz

★ JEONGHAN TAGLIST; @yoonzinoooo - @scandal-in-bohemia - @bias-recs - @lunaryoongie - @haoxiaoba - @ak6ko

“Ji, I got you a present!”

Your best friend of over ten years glances at you momentarily while he’s in the middle of replacing the strings of his guitar. There’s an unimpressed look on his face when he does it—no different from the way he looks at you whenever you walk in a gritty session of Dungeons and Dragons back in high school. Only this time, you’re being downright annoying for another reason entirely.

“I’m pretty sure you already have all the Led Zeppelin vinyls in existence so I just picked out whatever from the shelf instead,” you tell him nonchalantly as you bring out a spiffy-looking record of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. “This one’s nice, isn’t it?”

It is, but here’s the thing:

“I already have that.” Jihoon affixes you with a blank stare as he gets up from his seat, letting his fingers glide across the alphabetized collection on his own shelf. 

Ten seconds later, your best friend pulls a carefully preserved vinyl with the exact same album art plastered on the front, making you lower the one in your hands in abject disbelief. But Jihoon has been friends with you long enough to know that something like this isn’t enough to fluster you.

“Consider it a high quality dupe then.” You giggle maniacally before letting yourself fall on top of Jihoon’s bed and hold the sealed vinyl tightly to your chest. “Jeonghan looked soooo gorgeous today. I was really down in the dumps when I heard that he cut his hair, but there’s just a different appeal when guys have it shorter. You get me, right?”

“I really don’t,” Jihoon deadpans as he plops himself back into his chair, coiling a roll of fresh nylon around the pegs of his guitar. “Don’t you ever get tired of spending your summers chasing after a guy that obviously doesn’t like you back?”

“Don’t you get tired of lecturing me when we both know I’m never gonna listen?” A simper escapes your lips before you engage the Stevie Wonder poster on Jihoon’s ceiling in a staring contest. “Besides, it’s not as if I like like him! I just want to fuck him—big difference.”

There it is—the classic why am I even best friends with you sigh that only makes Jihoon more endearing than he already is. “Let me rephrase then: why do you keep chasing after a guy who obviously doesn’t want to fuck you back?”

Stevie Wonder ends up winning when you shoot back up into a seating position, letting out an obnoxious laugh that you stifle with the same vinyl you supposedly got for Jihoon. “Au contraire! It might seem that way, but you just haven’t seen a person as deep in his own denial as Jeonghan is.”

“Second door to the left—bathroom’s there. I highly recommend that you take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror.” Jihoon’s jaw ticks when he says the words but as long as he isn’t blatantly kicking you out of his room, you’re still within tolerable range. “Didn’t Mingyu set you up with one of his friends? I clearly remember you telling me about it before the semester ended.”

Ah, that’s right. 

Two weeks ago, Kim Mingyu—one of the many friends you’ve left in your hometown—called the telephone that you shared in an apartment with four other girls. When the housemate that answered told you about some guy with a lisp looking for you, you quickly ditched whatever notes you were pretending to read for a quick conversation.

Of course, once Mingyu dropped the call, you quickly turned the telephone dial to ring up your best friend with a pressing question: Mingyu wants to set me up with some guy named Jungkook. Do you know him? 

Jihoon, however, has never met anyone that goes by that name his entire life, which made you draw the conclusion that this Jungkook person must be Mingyu’s friend from another city. He tends to collect people like trading cards and you can’t fault him for it. Mingyu is pretty charming.

Charming enough that you agreed to go hang out with him and Jungkook once you’re back in your hometown.

“Well, he hasn’t contacted me about it again so my Jungkook appointment is on hold until then,” you point out with a huff. “Plus, I don’t see why I should stop trying my chances with Jeonghan just because I’ve got another boy reserved.”

“I don’t remember you being this much of a man-eater last summer.”

“Yet you still love me anyway.” 

Despite already having one in his possession, Jihoon accepts the blasted Pink Floyd vinyl and places the dupe right next to his first copy on the shelf of collectibles. The conversation drifts onto different topics ranging from your mutual struggles with work and the supposed girlfriend that Soonyoung may or may not be lying about. Then right after he finishes restringing his guitar, your best friend walks you home just like old times.

When you’re halfway to the front door of your house, however, Jihoon calls out your name—a sound barely audible in the evening breeze, but you turn around with a questioning look anyway. 

“Don’t be too pushy with Jeonghan, okay?” He instructs sternly. “I know you’re just fucking around, but really, you’re better off investing your time in better things. In better people. Not someone who only keeps you around as a source of entertainment.”

You gasp, covering your mouth with your hand for added flair. “Fucking around? I’m very serious about getting my insides rearranged by him!”

Your best friend makes a face. “Y/N.”

“Just kidding, Ji. You, of all people, should know that I know my limits!” you reassure him with a smile. “Why do you think Jeonghan still speaks to me warmly whenever I walk inside his shop? Whenever I run into him at the disco?”

“Because you’re his customer? And he’s after your money? And maybe he’s a pretty decent person outside his reputation as a sexual fiend?”

“Well that might be true, but that’s also because he’s interested in me too!”

“Good night, Miss Delusional.”

“Good night, Mister Enabler!”

This is pretty much a good summary of your relationship with your best friend. You willingly get yourself tangled up in something incredibly stupid, he tells you off like he’s your mother every time he finds out, and once things start crashing down, you run over to Jihoon in tears while he consoles you for something that’s a hundred percent your fault. It’s quite the understated miracle how he’s tolerated you for so long, but that’s precisely why you’re best friends in the first place.

But there’s this one thing that you can’t tell even Jihoon about. 

“Were you finally out on a date with Jeonghan?”

Your sister, Luna, asks when you make your way to the living room to say hi. She’s nose-deep in one of those Stephen King novels, but her eyes stray away from the pages to spare you a momentary glance. 

You snort. “As if he’s that easy.” 

Luna hums before her eyes wander back to her book. “Mmm. You’re right. If he was, he would’ve gone out with you like, I dunno, three years ago?” 

“You’re such a bitch.”

“And you’re such a coward,” she snorts. “You know, if you just told him hey I’ve been in love with you since we met at Joshua’s graduation party instead of asking if he wants to sleep with you, your odds of getting with him would skyrocket.” 

“Now where’s the fun in that?” you chuckle before stepping inside the living room to ruffle her hair—an act of affection that Luna receives with distaste. “Quit making unnecessary comments about my sex life and help me with dinner before Mom and Dad get home.”

“Your non-existent sex life?”

“Oh, screw you.”

After having dinner with your family, you quickly retreat to your bedroom to retire for the evening before Soonyoung can call your house phone to ask if you’re down for a night out. It’s practically tradition whenever you’re back in town, but your last conversation with Jihoon has been weighing heavily on your mind since you walked inside your house. 

Despite there being a one hundred percent chance that you’ll run into Jeonghan again if you go out with your friends, you’re strangely not in the mood to mingle like you always do. 

You’re better off investing your time in better things. In better people.

That might be true, but…

How can you possibly break free of a cycle you’ve always found yourself tangled up in every summertime?��

THREE SUMMERS AGO

A few nights before graduating from college, Hong Jisoo—better known as Joshua—decided to throw an unforgettable party at a disco club his stepfather owns and monopolizes an entire chain out of. You’re not sure how he managed to pull the strings and smuggle enough booze to make the entire graduating class drunk, but old money does wonders especially in a town as small as this.

You recall it vividly because that was the first time you met Jeonghan.

He was a new face in a crowd of people you practically grew up with. But even if he wasn’t, you still would’ve been able to pick him out of the sea of graduating seniors with ease because of how breathtaking he looks.

His hair was brown when you met him, the tips barely tickling the nape of his neck with bangs framing his soulful eyes. You caught him sipping on a glass of something you can’t really name and the moment your brain managed to process the existence of such a beautiful man in such a boring old town, your immediate reaction was to turn to Mingyu. 

“Who’s that? Violet jacket, white pants? I don’t think I’ve seen him before.”

Mingyu hums before looking around—something made easier by his towering height. “Oh! That’s Jeonghan—Joshua’s brother.”

“Brother?” Jihoon pipes up right next to you, mirroring your surprise. “I thought Joshua was an only child.” 

Seungkwan hisses as he ushers the four of you into a miraculously vacant booth near the jukebox, looking around as if your conversation was under threat of being eavesdropped on. “Pipe it down! We don’t want to get kicked out of the party for talking smack about Joshua’s family.”

“We’re not talking smack, we’re just confused.” Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Is it so bad to wonder about the newcomer when the entire disco has been eyeing him up and down? Look, even Soonyoung stopped mid-dance just to talk to him.”

True to Jihoon’s observation, another one of your friends, Kwon Soonyoung deigned to step off the dancefloor to exchange a few words with this Jeonghan person. Their interaction lasts for merely a few seconds with Soonyoung obviously taking a liking to the newcomer—a hearty laugh piercing through the song playing on the jukebox as he nods before heading back to whence he came.

Jeonghan was grinning the entire time too—a lazy, laid-back yet attractive smile—and fuck… 

You might have a nasty case of love at first sight. 

“So are you going to explain why Joshua suddenly has a brother or are we going to be in suspense the entire night?” Mingyu whines in his seat. 

Seungkwan huffs. “Alright, alright! Apparently, Joshua’s stepdad has another son who used to live several cities away. No one knows why he moved into this old dump, but hey, more eye candy for everyone, I guess.”

“Is he single?” you blurt out.

Mingyu’s expression twists with smugness. “Why are you curious? You’re not trying to go after him, are you?”

“And if I am?” Brows raised, you fold your arms together as you stare the six-foot puppy down. “It’s like Seungkwan said—he’s eye candy! It won’t do anyone any harm to try and get to know him better, right?” 

“Are you sure that’s a wise decision to make when you’re going to be traveling a lot for work?” Jihoon ponders seriously. “What happened to being ready to leave everything behind and starting anew?”

“Hey, it still counts as starting anew when I’m trying to get with the new guy in town.”

That’s when it starts. 

Jeonghan is easy to talk to. That night, you learned that he moved into town because the big city was much too stifling for him to bear; that he gets along swimmingly with his stepbrother despite their parents’ sudden remarriage; that he isn’t really interested when you boldly asked if he wanted to go out sometime.

It’s no big deal. Not like you went into that conversation with high expectations. The fact that he even entertained you was already a miracle on its own. You can take your losses with your head held high—because it’s no big deal.

But then you saw him leaving the disco with some woman you don’t recognize. You’re not sure who she is and what her relation is to Jeonghan, but the smiles they exchanged as the man of the hour escorted her outside would be forever engraved in the back of your head. 

The rest of the evening was a blur. You thought you’d be able to wipe the image of Jeonghan going home with someone else off your mind with enough booze, but even when you wake up with a hangover the next morning, the ghost of his pretty smile still haunts you. 

You carry it with you even after graduation—all teary eyes and tight hugs exchanged with the friends you spent your entire life with. While Soonyoung is in the middle of telling you to memorize everyone’s house telephone numbers so you can keep in touch while you’re away, you spot Jeonghan in the crowd of visitors filling the university quad.. 

He’s with Joshua and their parents, happily congratulating the youngest for his most recent milestone. You're sure you were at least subtle enough with how you observe him from the corner of your eye, but he catches you staring anyway. 

Instead of breaking eye contact immediately, however, Jeonghan holds your gaze and cracks another one of those lazy grins before waving. You have to look around to see if he was gesturing towards anyone else, but to your surprise, it seems that you’re the intended recipient.

Naturally, you don’t let it get to your head. You’re leaving town in three days and maybe it isn’t such a good idea to keep hankering for someone who made it clear that he isn’t into you. 

But then Jihoon thought it would be a great idea to drop by this newly opened record store in Main Street. So I can give you a little souvenir when you’re thousands of miles away, he said and you were so touched with the sentiment, you actually went along with it.

The excitement you’d racked up at the idea of receiving a gift from your best friend, however, was easily eclipsed by the person that greets the two of you once you enter the front door of the shop. 

“Good morning,” greets a chipper-looking Jeonghan wearing denim overalls with the name of the shop embroidered on the front pocket. “How can I help you two?”

Jihoon quickly recovers from the initial surprise and utters, “Oh, um, I wanted to buy a few cassette tapes for my friend. Can you direct us to the right aisle?”

Jeonghan nods before leaning across the wooden counter to direct you two to a row of shelves on the far right. “Just go down that one and you should be able to find what you’re looking for. They’re all arranged by the artist’s names.”

“Cool. Got it.”

Before you can even get a word in, your best friend proceeds to drag you off to the stack of cassette tapes—ducking behind the shelves to make sure Jeonghan doesn’t see what goes on.

“What’s he doing here?” he hisses quietly.

“Do I look like I have a clue? You’re the one who planned this,” you point out with your arms folded. “Just when I thought you were against me making a move on Jeonghan, you proceed to bring me to the place where he works anyway.”

“I still am! I just didn’t know he’d be here too…”

“Well, don’t get your panties in a twist and just let me pick out my gift so we can leave. How’s that?”

Though he’s visibly disgruntled with the knowledge you’ve both been presented with, Jihoon grunts in agreement before you flutter off to the neatly organized shelf. It reminds you of the one back in your best friend’s room. He’s been big on collecting vinyls and cassette tapes for as long as you can remember, so it’s natural for Jihoon to be drawn to this newly opened record shop. 

When you end up taking far too long to make up your mind about what you want, Jihoon eventually migrates to the other spots in the store—checking out the other merchandise being put up for sale with a quiet look of amazement shining in his eyes. The sight of him in his natural habitat has you chuckling to yourself before your gaze rivets back to the collection of tapes you’re supposed to choose from. 

Of course, you’re startled by Jeonghan appearing seemingly out of nowhere right next to you.

“You’re taking your sweet time,” he chuckles, offering up another smile that makes your heart do somersaults. “Say, aren’t you the one who asked me out at Shua’s graduation party?”

You stare him down like he just personally affronted your entire family before clearing your throat—making a show of grabbing a random tape from the rack to examine its contents. Anything to get you to look at anything but Jeonghan’s stupidly beautiful face.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me,” you laugh uneasily. “And I’m only taking my sweet time because I don’t want to repetitively play an album I don’t even like on my Walkman.”

“Fair. How about I offer up a few suggestions then?”

That makes you arch an eyebrow. “Sure. What do you have for me?”

He hums for a moment before reaching for one of the higher levels—easily accomplished by his height. The gesture has you backing up against the wooden shelf to give him some more space, but the close proximity has your face flaring with warmth. 

“Here,” Jeonghan offers before handing you a cassette tape that looks pretty brand new. “The Beatles is cliché for a reason and I personally think Let It Be was the best way to end their time together. But you might also be interested in Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. It’s a personal favorite of mine.”

He then proceeds to reach for another tape from the store’s vibrant collection and gives it to you—the lazy smile on his face never faltering. 

“Hmm, which one should I get though?” you wonder while comparing the two. “My best friend over there rarely gets me gifts and I’m not about to abuse the privilege by getting two.”

Jeonghan shrugs. “The other one’s on the house then.” 

The nonchalance in his tone makes your face twist with disbelief. “What?”

“I said it’s on the house. You can have your friend pay for one while you get the other for free,” he explains. “Think of it as a limited time promo of sorts.”

You grimace. “Um, I don’t think I saw any signs outside that said you’re offering a Buy 1 Take 1… Won’t the owner of this place be furious with you or something?”

“Now how can I ever be furious with myself, sweetheart?” 

You’re not sure what baffles you more—the fact that Jeonghan turns out to be his own boss or the fact that he just addressed you with some nickname that has you blushing like a schoolgirl. 

“Y/N, are you done—oh.” 

Saved by the bell—or rather, your best friend—Jihoon walks back into the scene with surprise coloring his features. He’s got a couple of vinyls and a box of guitar picks hefted in his arms as he stares at you and Jeonghan all alone in the aisle.

“Ji, I finally got to pick some out,” you beam while holding the two tapes Jeonghan recommended. “The owner said it’s a Buy 1 Take 1 so…”

He mutters the words the owner under his breath before his gaze zeroes in on Jeonghan who simply waves at him with a cheery air.

“Oh, I-I see,” Jihoon clears his throat. “Thank you for being so generous. You really didn’t have to. She doesn’t even care that much about music in the first—”

“Anyway,” you interject loudly before directing yourself to the counter. “Let’s go check these out. We’re meeting Mingyu and the rest of the guys for lunch, aren’t we?”

You pack up your business with Jeonghan fairly quickly. He places your most recent purchases in individual plastic bags, handing them to you with an ever-present smile. Even when you’re already seated at the diner you chose to hold your farewell lunch in, your mind still toys with the memory of Jeonghan calling you sweetheart.

Though if you’re being honest with yourself, you don’t think of Jeonghan much when you eventually move out of your hometown to pursue your work. You make new friends and colleagues, kindle a few romances here and there, and still keep in touch with a select few you’ve left behind.

Of course, Jeonghan does cross your mind whenever you deign to listen to the cassette tapes he personally picked out for you, but starting over completely in a new city every few months certainly gives you a fresher outlook in life.

Yet whenever you come home for the summer, it takes little for you to start regressing into old habits you thought you’d already outgrown. 

TWO SUMMERS AGO

“When did you arrive in town?”

You nearly spill your drink all over that same violet jacket he was wearing the night you first met him—heart rate spiking at the sight of such a gorgeous face. Jeonghan leans across the counter where you and Seungkwan deigned to catch a breather after dancing your hearts out to Earth, Wind, and Fire. Thankfully, you’re able to mask the surprise upon seeing him again with a warm smile.

“Just this afternoon actually,” you chuckle before taking another sip. “I didn’t think you’d still be here. Big city boy like you should’ve gotten tired of this place in the first month.”

“I could say the same for you,” Jeonghan rebuts with an easygoing grin. “You’re a big city girl now too, aren’t you? But you’re back home anyways.”

“Well, Y/N actually has friends to come back to or else we’ll hop on the earliest flight to wherever the hell she is to come get her ourselves,” Seungkwan interjects beside you with a huff. “What’re you even doing here? Don’t you have a date waiting for you or something?”

Despite convincing yourself that you were over that fleeting crush on Jeonghan, you still feel your shoulders sag at the thought that he was here tonight with someone else. Thankfully, neither Seungkwan or Jeonghan notice the shift in your countenance.

“I do, actually. I was just going to pick up a couple drinks I ordered earlier. Can’t a man treat her to a Tequila Sunrise?” Jeonghan pouts and just in time the bartender stationed behind the counter places two glasses of a vibrant-looking drink in front of him. “Well, it’s nice to see you again, Y/N. I hope the tapes I sold you kept you good company while you were gone.”

Oh. He still remembers that.

“They did,” you affirm all while trying to keep yourself from smiling too much. “I can always rely on the taste of someone who literally owns an entire record store.”

“Well, if you need some new tunes to groove to, you know where to find me,” Jeonghan says with an attractive wink, butterflies beating their wings inside your stomach. 

It’s only when Jeonghan walks back to the booth he’s sharing with his supposed date—a pretty blonde with shiny dangling earrings that glimmer in the disco lights—that you realize that maybe you haven’t really gotten over him like you initially thought.

Unfortunately for you, Seungkwan gets the same idea.

“Jihoon’s not gonna be happy about this,” he drawls before taking another sip of his drink. 

“Well, he’s not my mother.”

“Your mother won’t be happy about you getting the hots for someone who sleeps with different women every weekend, but okay.”

You brush off his comments with a shake of your head, downing the rest of your drink as you tug him out of his stool. “Whatever. Come on, let’s go find Soonyoung and the others.”

Apart from your usual circle with Jihoon, Seungkwan, Mingyu, and Soonyoung, they’ve made a couple more friends in the local university they decided to attend together. They introduce you to Seokmin, a theater major with the brightest smile you’ve ever seen—and for some reason, they’ve all managed to befriend Joshua Hong himself as well.

The new additions to your growing group of friends fit right in. Even Joshua, who you’ve always thought of as some snotty trust fund baby, proved to be quite enjoyable company. To your delight, your first night back after almost an entire year of being away turns out much more worthwhile than you initially thought.

For the rest of the night, you try your best to keep your mind off of Jeonghan and focus on mingling with your friends again. God knows how badly you’ve missed them—the occasional phone call can’t ever hold a candle to hanging out with these lunatics in the flesh. 

But despite having loads of fun just watching Soonyoung engage someone apparently named Minghao in a dance-off, you can’t help but feel like someone’s watching you. 

It doesn’t take long for you to find Jeonghan’s eyes in the crowd. 

His date is resting her head on his shoulder—obviously buzzed from the drinks she’s consumed for the night. You’re not sure if it was pure coincidence that your gazes locked in such a packed crowd, but before you can even think about waving at him, Mingyu yanks you to the dancefloor to duke it out with the rest of your friends.

The heat of Jeonghan’s gaze sears into your being like a soldering iron kissing your skin. Every time you try to look for him wherever the boys would unwittingly drag you to have some fun, you’d find his intense stare still affixed on your form. If it was anyone else, you would’ve been unnerved by the scrutiny he’s giving you especially when his date is literally half-asleep next to him in their booth.

But maybe part of you will always want Jeonghan—even if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise.

When the night comes to an end, Mingyu and Seokmin do the honors of carrying a ditzy-drunk Soonyoung inside Joshua’s SUV. It proves to be a fool’s errand at most because of course Soonyoung would make it a point to be difficult while all his well-meaning friends just want to tuck him back to bed—breaking into a quick dance every five steps forward.

“Hey, I’ll just go use the washroom first,” you whisper in Jihoon’s ear. “I won’t be long.”

Your best friend nods. “Yeah, we need someone to look after these idiots. Seungkwan would just provoke Soonyoung into doing something even more stupid.”

“Hey! I heard that!” Seungkwan complains.

You break away from them momentarily with a giggle before hoisting the strap of your purse over your shoulder and making your way to the washroom. 

There are a couple of other disheveled disco-goers trying to make themselves look a bit more presentable. You decide to take a vacant spot by the mirror to touch up your makeup, dusting bits of glitter with unknown origin away from your face. Once you’re all set, the others have long left the washroom—prompting you to make your way out of the building before the owner closes its doors.

However, once you make it back to the main area, you spot Jeonghan on one of the barstools—speaking to a man with dyed blue hair, while his date is nowhere to be found.

“Y/N?” Jeonghan calls out despite your best effort to brisk walk to the door. “You’re still here? Your friends didn’t ditch you or anything, right?”

You shake your head. “Oh, no. They’re waiting for me outside. They were struggling to get Soonyoung inside your brother’s car so I thought I’d go freshen up first.”

“Shua’s car? I didn’t know you two were friends,” he comments with brows raised. “I asked him about you back then but he said he and you haven’t spoken two words to each other.”

Wait a minute. He asked Joshua about you?

“That’s because you’re always too friendly, Han,” the other man whose name you don’t know interjects with a roll of his eyes. “You probably know all your customers and mine by name at this point.”

“You’re being funny again, Cheol,” Jeonghan snickers before turning to you once again. “Y/N, this is Seungcheol. He’s the new manager of this particular branch of our father’s discotheques. He’s also a very good friend of mine.”

You glance at Seungcheol with a nod. “Hi.”

“Hmm, your friends are a bunch of regulars here, but I don’t think I’ve seen you around,” he observes. 

“That’s because this little bird has been away for work for the past year,” Jeonghan supplies while twirling a glass of what looks like bourbon in his hand.

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow at him. “You sure know a lot about Y/N.” 

“Well, she was one of my first customers and her best friend is one of my most loyal regulars,” he laughs before taking a sip, grinning so handsomely, you can almost feel your knees give out at the sight of him. “Tell Jihoon I said hi once you meet up with them again, yeah?”

“O-Okay,” you stammer, clutching your purse much too tightly for someone who’s just having a casual conversation with a bunch of guys who aren't your friends. 

“I’ll leave you for a while. I’m going to go check on your sister and make sure she hasn’t thrown up all over my desk,” Seungcheol excuses himself with a pat on Jeonghan’s shoulder. 

“Your sister?” you repeat with an incredulous ring to your voice.  

“Mhmm. My biological sister,” Jeonghan hums in affirmation as Seungcheol steps out. “Not so different from you, she’s been traveling in and out of the country for work and decided to pay me a visit while she’s here. Though I didn’t expect her alcohol tolerance to be…like that, which is why I had her rest in Cheol’s office for the meantime.”

Your mind processes his words at lightning speed—quickly pulling out the memory of Jeonghan with his supposed date with her head on his shoulder.

“So your date was your sister?” you clarify. 

“Why are you making it sound like it’s a bad thing? Can’t I take my sister out on a few dates?” He shakes his head.

“I never said anything like that!” 

Jeonghan places a hand on his chest in feigned offense, shaking his head with a dramatic sigh. “It’s alright, I’m quite used to being falsely judged.”

“You are so dramatic,” you snort.

“So I’ve been told,” he laughs airily before putting down his glass, getting up from the stool he decided to occupy. “By the way, there’s a little something that’s been bothering me since you came over here.”

As your present company draws closer to you with each word, your heart swells with equal parts anticipation and dreadful curiosity. 

Something’s been bothering him? Did you perhaps do something wrong? That’s a little impossible because you could’ve sworn you’ve done your best to ignore him the entire—

“You’ve got some glitter right…” Jeonghan murmurs as he cups the side of your face with a warm hand, thumb brushing against the corner of your mouth. 

“Here.”

It’s as if time came to a standstill when he does it—holding both your gaze and your breath captive in the lush brown of his eyes. You always wondered what it would feel like to have Jeonghan’s skin on yours and of all the ways it could’ve happened, this isn’t exactly part of your list of delusions.

He’s so close and so pretty and he smells so good—

“Are you sure you don’t want to go out sometime?” 

You don’t even realize that your thoughts have translated it into words until Jeonghan’s expression morphs from relaxed to mildly surprised. He pulls away only a little before his lips twitch into a smile that borders on taunting.

“Oh? You’re still on a mission, huh?” Jeonghan simpers. “You’re a persistent little thing, aren’t you?” 

Maybe it’s just the alcohol you’ve consumed making you just a bit braver than you usually are, but your mouth just won’t stop running.

“Well, I wouldn’t be this persistent if you didn’t give any signs that you might’ve lied to me the first time I asked.” 

“Hm? And what makes you think I was lying?”

Your shoulders heave with a soft laugh, folding your arms together as you hold his gaze with confidence oozing out of your posture. “Yoon Jeonghan, if you really aren’t interested, then why were you watching me the entire night? I’m not blind you know. You weren’t being subtle either.”

“What if I was just extremely happy to see one of my first ever customers back in town?” he chuckles, the tone of his voice aggravatingly leveled for someone you’re supposedly cornering. “And sorry to say, sweetheart, but I don’t really go out with any of Shua’s friends.”

His reasoning makes you heave an incredulous laugh as you recall the way he stared at you earlier tonight like you have a target on your back. You want to make it a point that you’ve only considered his stepbrother as a friend on this same night, but decide on going at this with a different approach.

“Okay,” you respond coolly, challenging the nonchalant smile on his face with one of your own. “If you don’t go out with any of Joshua’s friends, would you sleep with one?”

You don’t know how, but you’ve managed to make the distance between you even smaller. Jeonghan doesn’t budge even as you stare at him with fire in your eyes—even when your skin prickles with electricity from the sparks of something inevitably flying between the two of you. 

Once upon a time, you resigned yourself to the fact that Jeonghan would be nothing more than a fleeting, unrequited crush. But who knew that all it would take is a single night after months of not seeing him to make you realize that maybe things aren’t really what they seem?

“My, I’ve never had anyone come onto me this strongly before,” he muses with a soft laugh. “But your friends must be looking for you. No one takes that long to retouch in the ladies’ room, no? You best be on your way, Y/N.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” you deadpan with an amused smirk. “If I told you I’d leave you alone and never bother you with this again if you really, truly aren’t interested, will you answer me then?”

A voice that sounds like a strange mix of Jihoon and Seungkwan wails in the back of your semi-inebriated mind. What the fuck are you doing?!

You want to respond back that you completely know what you’re doing, but you’re well aware that the half the words you’ve uttered during the entire course of the conversation would never even get past your lips had you been in a better state of mind.

But for all of Jeonghan’s inclination of playing hard-to-get, he leans closer to your ear—the hand he places on your bare shoulder nearly searing his mark onto your skin. 

“Maybe next time, sweetheart.”

This game you’re playing with Jeonghan eventually becomes commonplace.

You spend a chunk of it deliberately getting under his skin. While you certainly made all those bold declarations under the influence, you quickly realized that the day after Jeonghan gave you his cryptic answer, you’re completely serious about this so-called mission.

So you brought out all sorts of ammunition that would make your mother weep with how you’re practically flaying yourself open for a man. You’d purposely wear tight-fitting clothes that emphasized the dips and curves of your body, show up to every night out where you were certain Jeonghan would be present, and of course, hang out at his record store more times than an average person would willingly spend in her boring old hometown.

Jeonghan—ever the infuriatingly level-headed person he is—takes all of it in stride. Where your friends have raised eyebrows with how you’re openly pursuing the most un-pursueable man you all know, he doesn’t treat you any differently from the way he usually does. 

He still entertains you whenever you sneak up on him at the disco, still accommodates your unnecessary purchases in his store…

Still flat-out rejects your advances even if he’s borderline flirting back.

It’s a constant push and pull that Jihoon might be sick of hearing whenever you deign to come over to tell him about the progress of your pursuit—or lack thereof. But since he’s taken up the mantle of your best friend, this is the fate that he has to live with. 

“You do know that you’re dancing with a wolf over there, right?” he points out one night while he’s busy writing a song and you’re flipping through a magazine on his bed. “The other guys have told me enough stories about how he’s always got a different date every time they’re at the disco. He’s a raging Casanova, Y/N. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“How can I get hurt when I’m just after a good time?” you chuckle as your ears ring every time he strums his guitar. “If he’s such a Casanova, then why hasn’t he tried to make a move when I’m openly expressing how into him I really am? Have been for, like, two years now!”

“If I knew the thought process behind how he responds to you, I wouldn’t be stressing as much as I have for the past two years,” he grumbles.

“You worry too much about me, Ji. I’ve already fooled around with some guys here and there. What’s another one from my hometown?”

Jihoon turns to glance at you with a tired look on his face. “But Jeonghan isn’t just some guy. He’s Jeonghan.” 

You want to refute that statement by saying that you have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. But for someone who mostly keeps to himself, Jihoon has an extremely good perception on things. He probably already knows things about Jeonghan even if you don’t say them outright.

The owner of the record store in Main Street is undoubtedly alluring. He’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen—beautiful enough to have you hope time and time again that you can call him yours. What’s more is that the chemistry between you was established the moment he teased the possibility of you getting what you’ve wanted since you met. 

Maybe next time, sweetheart.

No matter how risky it is to toe this jagged cliff of your mutual interest, you’ve always been a glutton for danger.

ONE SUMMER AGO

Your game plan after settling your bags into your house is simple: drop by Jeonghan’s store to let you know that the biggest thorn on his side is back in town and check if he magically wants to fuck you this time around. It’s a routine that your friends have long grown tired of—seeing no point in interfering when you’re so dead-set to get with Jeonghan however you can.

It’s pretty pathetic, but you’re anything but a quitter.

Although contrary to popular belief, screwing Yoon Jeonghan isn’t always the only thing running through your head whenever you’re home. Take right now for example.

You’d just finished unpacking your things into your room when you realized that you’d forgotten to place one of the cassette tapes that Jihoon personally made for you inside its usual protective container—discovering that the outer casing was cracked through the middle while the plastic film lolled out of the rupture, dangerously close to being torn in the state you found it in.

If it were any other cassette tape—even the ones Jeonghan personally picked out for you before you left—you wouldn’t have been fazed. These things are replaceable, especially when Jeonghan would have a dozen other copies waiting for you in his store.

Except this tape in particular can’t be replaced because Jihoon spent a fortune getting it personally manufactured for you. He recorded a few of the songs he personally wrote into the film and had it mailed to you as a surprise—a thoughtful attempt at easing your homesickness for the holidays. 

There wasn’t a day when you didn’t listen to your best friend sing with the help of your Walkman. Your old cassette tapes from Jeonghan definitely took a backseat once you received Jihoon’s present in the mail with a letter he personally wrote attached to the package. 

And now it’s broken because you were an idiot who didn’t pack it somewhere more secure—

“Sweetheart, I’m closing early tonight. If you’re going to ask if I want to sleep with you, you should try…”

Jeonghan’s playful tone falters when he sees that you’re sniffling in the oversized parka you hurriedly pulled from the coatrack before heading over to the only person who can possibly salvage Jihoon’s precious gift. You don’t say anything as you place the broken cassette tape on top of the wooden counter—eyes downcast as Jeonghan peruses what you’ve presented for him to inspect.

“T-That’s really important to me,” you murmur, wiping the tears off your face as your eyes rivet themselves on the smiley that Jihoon doodled right next to the message he wrote for you on the outer cover. “Can you fix it? I’ll pay you up front.”

As the store owner you’ve been crazy about for the better part of three years examines the crime scene before him, he lets out a soft laugh that has you glancing at him inquisitively.

“So Jihoon made you your very own tape, huh? How sweet of him.” He smiles comfortingly—devoid of the usual mirth and amusement he typically showcases in your presence. “Don’t worry too much, yeah? The outer shell is damaged, but the tape reel itself is still intact. I’ll just replace the casing and you’ll still be able to listen to this just fine.”

Your eyes widen ever-so slightly. “Really?”

Jeonghan’s smile spreads even wider as he leans across the counter. He’s tall enough that he can reach you without much difficulty, his knuckles softly brushing against your cheek in a quaint attempt at drying your tears. 

The sight of him so close to you is equal parts foreign and familiar. His gesture reminds you of the time he brushed some glitter off your face last summer, but the provocative look in his eyes back then is nowhere to be found. All Jeonghan offers you right now is solace over something that you probably overreacted about. 

“I’ll go check if I have some spare cassette cases in the back before I try to fix this, okay? You can have a look around the shop in the meantime.”

Jeonghan punctuates the words with two soft pats on your cheek, his soft smile never faltering as he directs himself to the door behind the counter—Jihoon’s broken present carefully cupped in his hands.

As promised, your knight-in-denim-overalls manages to fix one of the most precious gifts you’ve received in your lifetime. You nearly jump to embrace him when Jeonghan reemerges from the back with the cassette tape more or less good as new, but he quickly side-steps your attempt out of the fear that you’ll end up breaking the damn thing all over again.

“How much do I owe you?” You’re practically humming with glee as you bring out your wallet from the pocket of your jeans. “Thank fucking god, Jeonghan. I was so close to losing my mind over it.”

“I’m the one who revived this patient and you’re thanking god? Way to discredit an artist for his craft.” The store owner pouts. “I’ll let this slide and tell you that you don’t have to pay for a thing.”

“I insist.”

“You can pay for it in other ways, you know.”

Once the words are out of his mouth, silence settles over the two of you in near-deafening fashion. The bustling of cars and other vehicles from outside is the only sound you could hear as you mull over what his words could possibly imply.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” You gape, eyeing him incredulously. 

As Jeonghan hands you back your perfectly repaired cassette tape, the corners of his mouth twitch with a conniving smile. “What do you think I’m saying, sweetheart?”

That you can pay for his services with sex? Isn’t that the usual implication when it comes to things like this? But that doesn’t seem right. 

Even if you should be elated from being so much closer to your goal, it feels like you’re cheating. You’ve been subjected to this seemingly endless chase for so long that in the ideal event that Jeonghan would finally cave and let you sleep with him, this definitely isn’t the way he’d concede. You know him well enough to say that for sure.

So instead of pouncing at your prize like some slobbering mutt, you choose your words carefully—making sure to not step into that conversational bear trap he so obviously set up.

“No idea. You tell me.”

Jeonghan simpers before dusting off his overalls, carding his fingers through his dark hair. He’s wearing it a little longer this summer and you’re really digging the look more than you probably should.

“How about we stop by the roller rink later? My treat. You can pay me back with your company.” 

A large scowl immediately roots itself on your face. “Aren’t you already doing too much?” For someone who’s been pestering you like a fly every summertime, you’d like to add but obviously didn’t. “Seriously, let me just pay you for the repair and we’ll be even.”

Adamantly, he shakes his head. “I don’t have any rates for tape repairs, so consider it as a favor. I also mentioned that I was closing up early tonight, remember?”

“Uh, what does that have to do with—”

“Seungcheol begged me to come to the roller rink to teach him how to skate because apparently this lady he’s been eyeing is a figure skater. Poor guy doesn’t want to embarrass himself in front of her on their first date this weekend,” Jeonghan explains swiftly before chuckling to himself. “He’s kind of unteachable so I thought I’d bring some backup.”

Your face twists with even more confusion. “And what made you think I’m any good at roller skating?”

Jeonghan shrugs. “Gut feeling.”

And that’s how you wound up in the town roller rink at eight in the evening when you promised Luna you’d be home to watch The Exorcist on your father’s VHS player. 

Jeonghan is awfully difficult to say no to when he’s the one doing all the pestering and even though your roller skating skills are subpar at best, at least you’re not as pitiful as a man named Choi Seungcheol.

“These aren’t even roller blades,” you point out all while stifling a laugh. “What’s the deal, Cheol? Is your center of gravity that shitty?”

“Say that to me when we’re in a taekwondo match, I dare you,” Seungcheol huffs as he grips the metal railing for dear life. “The things I do for a gorgeous girl…”

Jeonghan skates over to his friend with a smirk, tugging on his arm. “Come on, now. You won’t impress your date if you keep ambling by the sides like a spaz.”

In an attempt to become the devil’s advocate, you take Seungcheol’s other arm in your grasp as well. “Yeah. If you weren’t confident about this, why’d you ask her out here? Actually, who on Earth schedules the first date at a roller rink?” 

“I wanted her to know that we have common interests!” 

“And skating is your common interest?”

“...No, but at least she’d get the idea that I care about what she does for a living.”

With the newfound determination to not embarrass himself in front of the gorgeous figure skater, Seungcheol lets you and Jeonghan teach him the art of not falling on your ass every time he glides forward. This goes on for about thirty or-so minutes until he finally gets the hang of it and is out and about in the rink full of teenagers that are looking at him funny.

This is when you decide to wind down and hang out by the railings as well, watching your student test out if he can do a little spin now that he’s sort of mastered the basics. Unfortunately for Seungcheol, he slips and lands on his back after the attempt—immediately scrambling back to his feet before any of the younger skaters could laugh at him for the mishap.

“Hope you don’t mind that I whisked you off for an impromptu tutoring session.”

You don’t even startle when Jeonghan materializes beside you like he almost always does—his eyes also trained on his poor friend while he practices what he’s been taught. A soft sigh escapes your lips as you stare at him with a shake of your head. 

“I’m supposed to be marathoning horror movies with my sister, you know,” you chuckle. “Dunno why you asked me to come with you to teach the unteachable, but I’m glad I could help.”

He lets out a quiet laugh of his own. “I just wanted to give you a warm welcome is all. Haven’t seen you in a year.”

“Even if all I do is ask if you want to have sex with me?” 

“Hey, all friendships are built on different foundations. Ours just happens to be more unorthodox than the rest,” Jeonghan points out, like it’s common knowledge. “Besides, don’t you think it gives the friendship more spice when one of us keeps asking the other if they want to sleep together?”

You punch him in the shoulder. “You’re so weird.”

“And you still want me to fuck you despite that. I think that says a lot more about you than it does about me.” He grins and your throat constricts with how pretty he looks.

Just before you can open your mouth to dish out another snarky response, the song that comes up on the speakers switches into something familiar—the crowd of skaters immediately erupting into cheers.

“Oooh, Dancing Queen,” Jeonghan marvels as he pushes himself off the railing before yanking your hand. “Let’s go, sweetheart. Can’t let Cheol have all the fun now, can we?”

You’re no dancer but you’ve spent so many nights with your friends at the disco that you can’t really refuse when ABBA says that you can dance and you can jive. It’s a little more challenging when you’re literally wearing roller skates and Yoon Jeonghan is spinning you around while his head is thrown back in laughter, but you can manage,

It feels so strange to be doing this with him. You’ve gotten used to just coming up to Jeonghan to hit on him and get rejected before going about the rest of your day, so you don’t really know the protocol when it comes to fooling around with him in a roller rink. 

But instead of psyching yourself out too much, you just let yourself loose in the moment.

It’s…nice. You can feel the music in your veins as you burn the memory of Jeonghan grinning as he twirls you amidst a sea of roller skaters. Something pangs in your chest—a feeling you’ve felt with your other romantic prospects from the past, but never with Jeonghan.

Just when the song is about to end, however, you lose your footing and end up slipping onto the polished wooden floor. It would’ve been less embarrassing if you hadn’t hooked your arm around Jeonghan’s waist to balance yourself, but you both end up toppling into a heap.

“Shit, sorry!” you groan, rubbing your tailbone as you try to collect yourself. Your legs are right on top of Jeonghan’s though, so it proves to be somewhat difficult to get back to your feet without bracing your hands on the ground. 

Which is exactly what you end up doing just to keep yourself from face planting.

Jeonghan isn’t able to school his expression fast enough when you straddle his hips in the middle of the roller rink—eyes lit up with surprise as you stammer apology after apology. You really want to fucking stand up but you’re so shaken up by the chain of events that you can’t find the right balance. 

“So much for your center of gravity, huh?” 

You and Jeonghan both jump at the sound of Seungcheol’s voice—the other man sporting a smirk of his own as he stands over the two of you. Thankfully, instead of simpering at the fact that you got a taste of your own medicine, he offers a hand for you to take—one that you take more gingerly than you meant to. 

The three of you eventually hobble back to the waiting lounge together, making jabs at each other’s slip-ups for the night. Hanging out with these two men is just as fun as hanging out with your old friends and you’re glad to know that you’ve found such worthwhile company despite being away for most of the year.

After returning your skates, Jeonghan tells you and Seungcheol that he’s just going on a quick bathroom break and you agreed to wait for him before heading home. Your student then takes the opportunity to strike up a conversation. 

“Hmph. And you thought this wasn’t an ideal spot for a first date.”

Puzzled, you glance at Seungcheol with a questioning look. “What are you talking about?”

“You and Han,” he continues. “This is your first date, isn’t it? Took him long enough.”

Took him long enough? Seungcheol’s words sound so silly, you actually end up laughing at the foolishness of it all. “What? Jeonghan? Taking me out on a date? You didn’t hit your head while you were practicing, did you?”

“Hey, I might be a newbie, but once I learn, I never forget it,” Seungcheol huffs before crossing his arms. “And, yeah, is it so strange for Han to ask you out? Sure, you’re never really here like half the time—”

“I wouldn’t say half the time. I only ever get short breaks in the summer”

“Hey, summer breaks aren’t short… Okay, maybe they kind of are, but that’s not the point!” 

“Whatever your point is, it’s pointless,” you snort. “He always turns me down whenever I ask if he wants to sleep together. How could he possibly want to take me out on a date?”

Seungcheol makes a face. “You’ve been asking him what?” 

“...If he wants to sleep together?”

“Well, that’s because you’ve been asking the wrong question!”

“I’m not! Look, that wasn’t always my go-to. The first time we met, I asked if he wanted to go out sometime. He said no. And it’s been a…thing between us for me to constantly ask even if I know he’ll just turn me down.”

“...Doesn’t that just make you pathetic?”

“You know, you’re a lot different when you’re outside the disco.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Anyway, you should really recalibrate the way you’re trying to get with Jeonghan because even if he’s the biggest manwhore I’ve met, when he actually gets serious, he—”

“Now what could you two possibly be talking about?” 

Like he always does, Jeonghan waltzes into the conversation with the most opportune timing. He glances at you and his friend curiously as he slings his arms around both of your shoulders—a conspiratorial grin weaseling its way onto his face. “Sounds to me like it’s something interesting.”

“I was just about to tell Seungcheol that you don’t go out with Joshua’s friends, hence the complete impossibility of this being a first date,” you clarify—face heating up with embarrassment at how ridiculous you sound right now. “I mean, would a proper first date include teaching your hopeless friend how to roller skate?”

Seungcheol snorts. “You obviously don’t know what Han considers as a proper first date.”

“But she’s completely right about that specific preference of mine,” Jeonghan agrees without missing a beat. “Now that this is all cleared up, how about we drive her back to her house? It’s getting late.”

That night, you climb under the covers of your bed reeling from that conversation you had with Seungcheol. You still think it’s downright silly for him to assume that Jeonghan took you out on a date when he clearly just sees you as a friend. 

Yet when you think about it a bit more, isn’t it more ridiculous for you to still be going at this game you’ve been playing with him for the past three years? Asking a man who’s way out of your league to sleep with you like some hooker on the streets? 

The way Jeonghan receives your advances doesn’t help your predicament in the slightest either. Most men would be unnerved by the fact that some woman keeps trying to get in his pants, but Jeonghan practically considers it as a thing that friends do. He simply turns you down without treating you any differently, and you’re starting to second-guess whether he’s just that good of a person or if he’s only keeping you around to amuse himself.

Seungkwan would tell you that you’ve got little to no respect for yourself. Jihoon would just sigh and tell you that he honestly expected better from you, and you wouldn’t fault either of them, really.

Because even when the odds are stacked against you, you’ll always find your way back to Yoon Jeonghan.

THE PRESENT

Much to everyone’s surprise, you’re able to go two straight weeks without seeking out the object of your prolonged affections. 

You make plans with anyone and everyone else there is to make plans with—going on a picnic with your sister, helping Jihoon write a song, hitting the arcade with Seungkwan. Anything to keep yourself away from Jeonghan.

Hell, you even agreed to meet Jeon Jungkook in the flesh when Mingyu finally remembered that he set you up with him a month ago. 

First impressions last and Jungkook definitely blew all your expectations out of the water when he pulled up in front of your house with a shiny Harley Davidson that boasted far more horsepower than your father’s old minivan. He’s the textbook definition of a badboy if his piercings and full sleeve of tattoos are anything to go by.

But for someone who hasn’t even met you before, he was thoughtful enough to bring flowers for your mother, a bottle of wine for your father, and Stephen King’s newest release for Luna when he arrived at your door with a boyish smile.

When Jihoon caught wind of the news, he immediately came over to your house to confirm if it’s actually true—a completely drastic shift from your usual habit of coming over at his.

Apparently, your mother ran into him at the grocery store and fessed up all about this wonderful biker who took Y/N out on a candle-lit dinner at the only decent restaurant in town to your best friend. It’s painfully obvious that Jihoon mirrors her excitement when you tell him that yes, your first date with Jungkook actually went better than expected. 

You thought Jungkook was the type of guy that your best friend would avoid at all costs. Jihoon hates loud noises that don’t contribute to his musical creativity and your newest flame’s motorcycle would definitely be an issue if your best friend ever hears him rev it up. 

And yet when you finally introduce them to each other, they hit it off at lightning speed. Turns out Jungkook was also a music major when he was in college and you find yourself lost in a sea of jargon as the pair engrosses themselves in a conversation regarding their mutual interests. 

Jungkook gets along swimmingly with your other friends too.

You should’ve trusted Mingyu’s judgment when he first told you that his friend can blend into any circle he chucks himself into because now you can only watch in awe as he and Sonyoung duke it out at your usual disco—exchanging high fives when the song on the jukebox comes to an end and the rest of the crowd cheers at them from the sides.

“How’re you liking our little town so far?” you ask when he returns to the booth you’ve claimed for the two of you, giggling when he leans down to press a kiss on your cheek. 

“You seriously downplay this place too much,” Jungkook sighs, unable to suppress the grin on his face. “Sure, there aren’t a lot of things to do, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s as passionate about dance battles as Soonyoung over there. Joshua, Seokmin and Seungkwan are brilliant company, too. Oh, and how could I forget about Jihoon? I’m seriously pissed because Mingyu didn’t introduce me to them sooner.”

Your bottom lip swells into a pout. “Only them, not me?”

Jungkook lets out a soft laugh that makes your skin tingle, leaning closer enough that you can feel his breath on your face. When he smiles, his lip ring glints in the colorful lights of the disco.

“Baby, if we’ve met any sooner, you’ll probably get sick of me.”

“And why is that, Mr. Jeon?” you whisper. 

He hums for a moment, tracing the outline of your lips with the heat of his gaze. “I’ve been told that I’m a very passionate lover. You might not be able to handle it.”

“And who’s to say you’re the judge of that?”

“Well, we can get out of here so you can see for yourself, no?”

Your face heats up at the notion of what he’s trying to imply. It’s a little silly because you’ve spent so much of your time practically throwing yourself at Jeonghan that when another man expresses interest in you, you suddenly clam up out of embarrassment. 

Jeonghan…

Even if you’re being pinned in place by Jungkook’s weightful stare, your gaze still goes over his shoulder—straight to the bar where you know he’s been watching you. 

The moment your gang of loud friends piled into the disco one after the other, you were quick to pick up on Jeonghan’s presence as he spoke to Seungcheol at the bar and from the way he snapped his head in the direction of your group, you like to think he’s just as privy to yours too.

Especially when his eyes zeroed in on Jungkook’s arm around your waist.

This time around, instead of hounding the guy with the same question you’ve been asking for years, you do your best to ignore his existence altogether. It was easier than you expected because Jungkook has the ability to make you forget about everything else when you’re in his company. He’s charming and sweet in ways that don’t leave you second guessing his intentions. The man wants you and he needs you to know that in whatever way he can manage.

But even if you’ve got a handsome badboy under your spell, Jungkook’s charms don’t work on you with the same intensity as a single gaze from Jeonghan.

He isn’t smiling at you like he usually is—lips nearly twisted into a frown as he watches Jungkook crowd you in your shared booth. While most of your body language would suggest that you’re receiving your beau’s affections openly, the fact that your eyes are trained on the man you’ve been trying your best to get over would tell Jeonghan another story entirely. 

Which is what ultimately makes you let out a breathy laugh before lightly pushing Jungkook off of you.

“Easy there, tiger. We’ve been dating for, what? A month?” you remind him with a somewhat forced smile. “You might be one of the two hottest guys I’ve met in my life, but I still believe in the art of taking your time.”

“The two hottest guys?” Jungkook parrots, amusement coloring his face as he leans back on the leather upholstery of your seat. “Who’s the other one then?”

You force yourself not to look at Jeonghan so you wouldn’t give yourself away. After all, you haven’t lost yet. It’s perfectly normal to still think about the man you may or may not have been in love with for years when you’re in the middle of getting over him. Whatever you and Jungkook have going isn’t a lost cause just yet.

“No one important,” you insist before tugging him back to his feet . “How about you come dance with me instead of asking silly questions, loverboy?”

A hint of skepticism crosses his face for just a moment before he concedes, letting you drag him back to the dancefloor as you try your damnedest to ignore the way Jeonghan’s gaze never strayed far from you for the rest of the night.

Summer is almost coming to an end and your boss has already mailed you some documents containing the details of your next job. You read through them while you’re bundled up in blankets in the living room with Jihoon, who seems more excited about it than you are.

“You’re going to Paris?” your best friend gawks. “That’s actually insane. I thought only the filthy rich could go there in this economy.”

“Well, if you land yourself some work in a pretty well-off company, you can gain more benefits than you’d otherwise expect,” you chuckle. “How about you come with me? You can go busking in front of The Louvre or something. Then the Parisians would discover just how talented one Lee Jihoon actually is.”

“Or I could get arrested by the Parisian police force.” Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the offer, but I am not as ambitious as you are.”

“Hmph. Suit yourself then.”

While the two of you are busy planning an itinerary for the entirety of your trip, the telephone rings down the hall and you get up to answer it. 

“Hey, beautiful,” Jungkook’s smooth voice rings in your ears after asking the caller’s identity, making your face warm with how flustered you are. “Heard tonight was best friend’s night so I wasn’t really supposed to bother you, but Gyu wanted to throw me a surprise birthday party and he was wondering if you and Jihoon want to come with.”

“It’s not a surprise anymore if you’re the one inviting guests though?” you point out with a laugh. “And your birthday isn’t until a few days.”

“Yeah, you’re right, but one thing about Mingyu is that he can’t keep a secret for the life of him. What’s more is that we already have dinner plans for my special day, remember?” Jungkook sighs. “Anyway, are you two going to show up or am I gonna be miserable the entire night because you’re not here?”

“Where even is here, Jungkook?” 

“At the disco, where else? Mingyu rented out the entire place for the occasion.”

“Hmm, maybe you should start dating Mingyu instead.”

“God, no. So are you coming or not?”

It’s funny how you don’t even hesitate when you answer, “Sure thing. I’ll go tell Jihoon about it.”

“Aw, baby, you sure know how to make the birthday boy happy. See you soon.”

You hang up on Jungkook after bidding him a farewell of your own, heart beating just a little bit faster at the exchange. You know you’re not obligated to come to his not-so surprise birthday party since you already made plans with Jihoon to marathon a couple of movies, but even if you and Jungkook aren’t really a thing just yet, you still feel like you should at least be there to celebrate alongside your friends.

Jihoon agrees to it without a hitch—god knows how much he adores Jungkook. And as the two of you are getting ready to go out again, an idea pops into your head.

“You can go ahead of me to the disco. I’ll just go buy Jungkook a present first.”

Your best friend glances at you, confused. “I can accompany you, you know. It’s no big deal.” 

But despite his kind offer, you shake your head adamantly. “I really want this to be kept between me and him, Ji. Is that alright?”

“Ugh. Fine, whatever.”

There’s some truth to what you’ve told Jihoon, but everyone knows that only relaying some of the truth is as good as lying. 

You tug your jacket tighter around your shoulders as you stand in front of a familiar record store. You’ve been to and from this place so often in the past that you’ve practically memorized Jeonghan’s operating hours by heart. 

You’re going to prove to yourself that you’re over that phase in your life. Once you buy a vinyl by this one bossa nova artist that Jungkook really likes, you’ll kiss your once-prominent obsession with Jeonghan goodbye.

Not like it’s difficult, right? Jungkook has always been sweet and reassuring where Jeonghan gave you nothing but uncertainty and countless instances asking yourself, what am I even doing? It’s practically a no brainer to choose the former over the latter.

You suck in a deep breath. The thundering of your heart is too loud to ignore, but before you’re overcome with nerves, you step straight inside.

It’s empty like it always is when closing time is just a few minutes away. Jeonghan’s already mopping up the floor of his shop—something that surprised you the first time because you didn’t think people who came from old money actually knew how to do chores. 

You also notice that he’s already changed out of his denim overalls—already donned in an outfit that he would no doubt be wearing to the disco right after he closes up shop. A velvet maroon shirt with a few buttons undone that’s tucked inside a pair of black trousers. Before you can catch yourself salivating over how fucking good he looks in that outfit, his gaze flickers to you in an instant.

“Hm? Been a while since you’ve dropped by, sweetheart,” he comments before stuffing the mop back in a supply closet and sanitizing his hands. “You’ve been busy with that boyfriend of yours, haven’t you?”

So he has noticed. “You could say that.”

He nods before stepping over to you, that stupidly disarming grin ever-present on his pretty face. “Hm? Is that trouble in paradise I sense? Don’t tell me he hasn’t bothered to put a label on things. What a waste.”

You planned on making this gruesome exchange with Jeonghan swift, but you completely forgot that he has a knack for getting under people’s nerves when he feels like it. “Why would it be a waste when we’re just taking our time? Besides, I’m not here to talk to you about me and Jungkook. I’m here to buy something.”

“For your little badboy? Now what could he possibly know about the finer things in life? That man looks like he wouldn’t even be able to play a triangle.”

Just when you managed to spot a record that you’re certain Jungkook has mentioned to you in passing, Jeonghan’s uncalled for words have you scowling at him. “Really? I know your family’s loaded and all, but you never really struck me as the pretentious type, Jeonghan. Mind you, Jungkook is a music major, and that’s low, even for you. 

He simpers with folded arms, one foot tapping impatiently on the linoleum. “Well, forgive me, sweetheart, I don’t think I can react with my usual finesse when someone else is encroaching on what belongs to me.”

You don’t even think it’s possible, but your scowl only deepens. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’ve always been mine, no?” 

…How he has the guts to tell you that after every single instance he’s rejected you is unfathomable. You do not want to have this conversation right now, so you quickly pluck Jungkook’s present from the assortment of vinyls before storming off to the cashier—mentally cursing Jeonghan for being so self-sufficient that he doesn’t see the need to hire other people but himself. Now you’ll be forced to deal with him until you’re finished with your purchase.

“How can you stomach buying your little badboy a birthday gift when we both know your heart is still tethered to me, sweetheart?” Jeonghan taunts you from behind as he shuffles towards the counter. “I thought this was just some ploy to get me jealous, but you’re acting a bit too realistically for comfort. Have you forgotten who you were trying to get with for the past few years? 

“Have you forgotten who you’ve rejected time and time again?” you deadpan with a glare. “You made it clear whenever I asked that you weren’t interested. You know, Jihoon and the others kept calling you a player, so I never really understood why you never tried to get with me—someone who’s literally throwing herself at your feet every summer.”

Jeonghan lets out an incredulous laugh. “Why do you think I turned you down each time? You’re always asking if I want to have sex with you, but have you ever considered that maybe I don’t just think of you as another notch on my belt? That I actually wanted to get to know you past the sexual pretense?”

His words are quick to turn your heart into stone. “Then why didn’t you say that to me back then? Why are you only coming clean about this when I’m finally ready to move on with someone else?”

“That’s because I like you, Y/N,” he sighs, jaw clenching as if he has the right to be more frustrated than you are. “I didn’t want to just sleep with you. I wanted us to be friends first before I pursued you, but then you went on about asking if I wanted to fuck each and every time you’re home. I was just being careful because I don’t want to give anyone the power to trample on my feelings.”

“So you thought it was okay to trample on mine?”

The exasperation on Jeonghan’s face seemingly melts away with that simple response. You’re still staring at him with fire in your eyes—the kind he’s used to admiring from afar whenever you’re feeling your emotions a little more intensely than usual. But for once in his life, Jeonghan is unable to formulate some clever retort.

“Just fucking scan my vinyl so I can leave,” you grumble before sliding the record across the counter. “If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say to me, just don’t say anything at all.”

“Do you really mean it?”

Your whole body freezes up when you feel Jeonghan standing directly behind you, caging you between his tall frame and the counter. Both of his lean arms are braced against the wooden surface and you make a mistake of whirling around to face him. 

“M-Mean what?” you stammer, suddenly losing whatever conviction your voice once held because of his goddamn eyes. They look so pretty even if they’re pleading for something you can’t put your finger on.

“That you’ve already moved on with him?” he murmurs. “If it’s true then…you can forget that this conversation ever happened. Go celebrate his birthday and make him your boyfriend or whatever.” 

When Jeonghan leans closer, his lips brush the shell of your ear—making you shiver with anticipation. “But if you think you’d still choose me after all, then I promise you that I won’t waste your time anymore. I’m ready to own up to what I feel about you even if I deserve none of your reciprocation at this point.”

He’s right. He doesn’t deserve even an ounce of what you would’ve been willing to give before you saw reason. Jihoon was smart to come to the conclusion that Jeonghan only kept you around to entertain himself, but once losing you became a possibility, he suddenly put on this show of buttering you up.

Admitting things he should’ve told you years ago. Telling you he likes you only when you’ve already got your eyes set on someone else. 

The logical thing to do is turn him down and walk away from Yoon Jeonghan once and for all. You could do it—you could leave the convoluted history the two of you shared in the past. You’ve already been doing it with Jungkook for the past month. But no matter how much you convince yourself otherwise, there’s a singular truth that you won’t be able to escape: 

You’ll always find your way back to Yoon Jeonghan.

The next few minutes are a blur of desperate touches and equally desperate kisses. You don’t remember when exactly you lunged in for the kill, but the next thing you know, Jeonghan has you propped up on the counter of his store as he pushes your jacket off your shoulders and hikes your skirt further up your thighs.

“Wanted you for so long,” Jeonghan sighs against your lips and you feel like he’s exercising active restraint so he wouldn’t rip the delicate fabric of your skirt. “But I needed you to take me seriously so you wouldn’t think you’re just another girl I slept with.”

You bark out a condescending laugh before reclaiming his lips, shoving your tongue down his throat until he’s groaning into you—fingers digging into the flesh of your thighs. 

“You obviously didn’t take me seriously with how much you fucked with my head.”

“I wasn’t fucking with your head, sweetheart. I was just biding my time.”

“So the thing that finally got you to crack is seeing another guy get his hands on me,” you point out with a quiet chuckle, trying not to moan when his lips trace a scorching path down the skin of your neck. “I didn’t take you to be the jealous type. If I knew, I would’ve paraded Mingyu inside your shop ages ago.”

“Hm?” He hums—a noncommittal noise that has you shivering beneath his touch anyways. “Are you saying that you would fuck Mingyu too? When you’re already cozying up to his best friend? You’re quite greedy, huh?”

You let out a quiet whimper when you feel him press two fingers against your clothed core—wanting him, needing him. “J-Jeonghan, someone outside might see…”

“Then we better put on a show, right, sweetheart?” 

The fact that Jeonghan calling you sweetheart incites a more visceral reaction out of you compared to Jungkook calling you baby makes a clump of guilt fester in your chest. The vinyl you’re supposed to get for him as a present sits idly a few inches away, but all of it is forgotten once Jeonghan reminds you of what you really want. 

It’s fucking humiliating how your cunt gushes at his words. Jeonghan is clearly pleased with the mess he finds between your thighs after pushing your underwear to the side. You curl yourself into his chest, twitching every time his fingers graze your clit. He laughs, low and dangerous in your ear all while he lathers your slit in your own essence.

“I’d love to take my time and eat you out right here, but I don’t think I have the patience just yet,” he whispers before teasing your entrance with the occasional dip of his fingers. “I’ll make you come with my mouth some other time. For now, I think I just need to see you crying on my fingers and my cock.”

His crooked digits slide into you with perfect ease, stretching out your gummy walls so you’d be able to take something more. You cling onto Jeonghan like a lifeline as he murmurs a string of filthy musings into your ear.

“Has your little badboy finger-fucked you this good, sweet thing?” he rasps. “In fact, has he even kissed you?”

“H-He’s kissed me once,” you admit, the walls of your cunt clenching around his intrusive fingers as you try to recall how you and Jungkook shared your first real kiss in the parking lot of the movie theater. “But I wished it was you instead…”

“Really now?” Jeonghan chuckles, clearly emboldened by your honesty. “You still think of me even when you’re with someone else, hm? Well you’re in luck sweetheart.”

“I do the same thing, too.”

Your eyes flutter with pleasure when he curls his fingers inside your tight channel, his free hand toying with your clit with each pass he makes. Jeonghan praises you for spreading your legs so prettily for him, for being his good girl and no one else’s. Every word he breathes into your ears only makes you wetter by the second and you fear that each time he plunges his digits into your heat, someone outside would hear the squelching flesh.

“J-Jeonghan,” you whimper, thighs quivering with the need for release. “Let me come, please. I wanna come on your fingers. I need it.”

Of course, your newfound lover makes it a point to laugh at your desperate plea, licking his lips as he draws tight circles around your sensitive nub. “Just a few moments ago, you were afraid of being caught getting off like this. Now you want me to make you come?”

You nod vigorously—uncaring for how pathetic it would make you seem. “Yes, I want you so much… You’ll give it to me, won’t you?”

Ah, he’s always known you were a vixen. Those days when you’d purposely dress up wearing the skimpiest outfits just to get his attention were one of the hardest. In fact, the entire ordeal of keeping his hands off you when you were offering yourself up so willingly was one of the hardest things he’s done in his life. 

But Jeonghan supposes that he can still reap the benefits of his patience—even if that patience was snapped in two when you dared to think another man deserved to have you.

“Of course I’ll give it to you, sweetheart,” he murmurs sweetly before planting the sloppiest kiss on your lips. “Come for me if you want my cock in you. You can do that, right?”

You screw your eyes shut at his affirmation to focus on getting yourself to the pinnacle of gratification. Jeonghan has slowed the pace of the fingers thrusting in and out of your messy cunt and decided to zero in on your clit. You’re twitching and thrashing in his grasp, moaning his name so prettily, he wishes he could snap a photo to preserve the memory for life.

You come undone on his fingers with a breathless sigh, nearly collapsing on top of the counter from how boneless you felt in the aftermath. But Jeonghan is quick to coil an arm around your waist, peppering your face with kisses as he keeps himself from grinning too wide.

“So good for me. So perfect—my perfect fucking girl.” 

The lasciviousness dripping from his words urges you to spread your thighs for him—eyes glazed over with lust as he undoes the zipper of his trousers. You have to keep yourself from gasping once he takes out his impressive length—fully engorged with how much you’ve been teasing each other over the past half hour. 

Jeonghan fists his cock before sliding the head across your oversensitive clit, but you don’t voice out any complaints—already desperate to have him again despite having just recovered from your last orgasm. 

He doesn’t wait for a verbal confirmation, doesn’t waste his time on any more preamble. Jeonghan simply hooks your thighs around his elbows and sinks his cock into your tight channel with his bottom lip caged between his teeth. You’re a lot less reserved with the noises you make—openly crying out his name once he buries himself to the hilt. 

You feel him everywhere—inside you, on your skin, on your face, in your heart. Jeonghan is heaving deeply as he lets you get used to him and when he flashes you that lazy smile that started everything, your chest seizes with something not shy of glee. 

You have him. You finally have him.

And from the way that smile you’ve always loved morphs into a smirk, you have a feeling he’ll make sure you engrave this moment into your mind.

“We could’ve done this sooner,” Jeonghan sighs with the first drag of his hips, loving the way you writhe underneath him when he plunges his cock back into your slick heat. “If only we just got together like normal people, I could’ve fucked you on every surface of this store years ago.”

“If only you didn’t reject me every single time like some self-absorbed brat.”

“You sound pretty brave for someone who’s already in tears on my cock, sweetheart.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jeonghan murmurs something along the lines of cheeky little thing before surrendering his grip on one of your thighs in exchange for the space to reach for your face. There, he wipes the moisture collecting in the corner of your eye with his thumb, a self-satisfied look settling on his face.

Jeonghan murmurs something along the lines of cheeky little thing before surrendering his grip on one of your thighs in exchange for the space to reach for your face. There, he wipes the moisture collecting in the corner of your eye with his thumb, a self-satisfied look settling on his face.

“Maybe you do now.”

He doesn’t waste anymore time after that—fully aware that though he’s already drawn the shutters before you came, he hasn’t had the opportunity to lock the main entrance yet. The possibility of someone walking in on you getting fucked to an inch of your life on the countertop are all too real and Jeonghan has no plans on getting arrested for public indecency when he just grew the balls to tell you how he’s felt all this time.

“You’re fucking dripping for me,” your lover rasps into your neck, leaving a trail of love bites in his wake as your poor cunt takes a beating. “All dressed up for someone else but here you are stuffed full of my cock. Tell me, who is it that you really want?”

“You.” The mewl that follows your abrupt answer is music to his ears. “I’ve only ever wanted you, Hannie. F-Fuck! Right there, please.”

He drags your hips closer to the edge, resuming a secure grip on your thighs to keep you balanced as he rams his thick cock into you. You throw your head back in bliss, uncaring for how the bruises he’s kissed into your skin sting with pain. The pleasure he’s sowing between your legs eclipses any sort of ache that can deter you from losing yourself in the moment.

You hook your legs around Jeonghan’s waist to keep him close—arms slung around his neck as you pull him down for a kiss. Your lover responds in kind, moving his mouth in perfect sync with yours as if to make up for all the years you could’ve spent in each other’s arms. 

“You’re so pretty like this,” he murmurs against your lips, eyes burning with pure, unadulterated desire. “So pretty and perfect for me.”

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you’re balls deep inside me,” you try to scoff but it melts into another breathless moan when Jeonghan angles his hips just a bit differently and has your eyes rolling to the back of your skull.

“You talk big for someone who can’t handle being a little roughed up,” he teases. “Now hush and take my cock like the good girl you are.”

It doesn’t take long for you to feel that familiar pressure in the pit of your stomach—like a balloon expanding and expanding until you’re filled to the brim with the pleasure he’s giving you on a silver platter. You whimper beneath him, pressing your mouth against the cut of his jaw as you murmur about how close you are.

“Fuck, I need you to feel you come around me, sweetheart,” he moans. “Come on my cock—let me feel your cunt squeezing it out of me.”

You don’t know if you’re just that high strung, or if you’ve waited for this for so long, your body just responds to his whims. But whatever the reason, the most skin-tingling, toe-curling orgasm washes over you like a storm surge—pure lightning skidding up the length of your spine as you surrender yourself to the height of euphoria. 

“That’s it,” Jeonghan goads, fucking you through your orgasm as he chases after his own. “You feel so good around me, my perfect Y/N.”

As you drift in and out of coherence, you vaguely pick up on the fact that Jeonghan isn’t wearing any protection—the two of you overcome by your need to have each other to think things through. But as his cock plunges over and over into your soiled cunt, you find yourself uncaring for the consequences of your recklessness.

But Jeonghan continues to surprise you by using all his strength to disentangle your legs around his waist—pulling out just in time for those spurts of cum to splatter all over your rumpled skirt. He hisses between his teeth as he pumps his cock into completion, his white hot release staining your clothes in a way that you’ll probably still forgive him for with how well he fucked you tonight. 

"Can't get you pregnant when your career's ahead of you," he chuckles and you can only punch him in the chest in response.

The silence that settles moments after is more deafening than it should be, but you’re no means unsettled by it.

Not when Jeonghan still has that look in his eyes.

When he kisses you again, it feels like the stars and the planets have aligned for everything to fall into place. He smiles against your lips as if he’s just as relieved to have found you when you thought all hope was lost and it makes you recall any other time you’ve been more in love with someone else in your life.

In the end, you come up empty handed.

“I’ll clean you up and close up the store,” Jeonghan murmurs. “I need to take you home with me because I am nowhere near done with you.”

And who are you to say no to that?

“Paris, huh?”

Jeonghan muses right after he’s finished cleaning you up—diligently scrubbing at what three more rounds of sex at his apartment have done to your poor body. You answer him with a quiet hum, burrowing deeper into both the warmth of his blankets and the heat of his chest.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be stationed there for a better part of the year,” you tell him softly, tracing the small trail of freckles on his sternum. “It’s going to be way different than what I’m used to, but new experiences are always welcome.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, you don’t have any reason to be afraid of Paris to begin with. The only thing that might get in the way of you having a good time is the language barrier.”

“You talk like you’ve been there before.”

“Been there before? Sweetheart, I lived in Paris before I moved here… Why are you looking at me like that?”

You mutter a string of curses under your breath before pouting at him. “I keep forgetting that you and Joshua are a couple of trust fund babies. Of course I’d be surprised if you dropped a bomb like that.”

Jeonghan chuckles before leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss—deepening it until you’re hooking your thigh across his hip and moaning into his mouth again. Your lover chuckles at your eagerness before he pulls away, a string of saliva obscenely connecting your lips. 

“I do kind of miss it there,” he admits sincerely, but you can’t pay the admission much mind when his fingers are trailing the inside of your thighs again. “Maybe I should go on a quick getaway for a while.”

“What, so you can go fuck me in Paris, too?”

You do your best to bite down your whimpers when he lathers his fingers with the wetness between your thighs, making it a point to rub your still sensitive clit in slow, lazy circles. The vibrations of Jeonghan’s laughter travel across your skin and when he presses a kiss on the corner of your lips, you’re not sure how to feel—endeared by the sweet gesture or embarrassed by how quickly he’s winding you up.

It doesn’t take long for his cock to be in full hardness again and you don’t even resist him when Jeonghan eases his length back into your tight hole. He sighs against the crook of your neck, grazing your skin with his teeth as he slides inside you languidly. When your hips are flush together as he bottoms out, your chest swells with pride when you hear him breathe out a shuddering sigh.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Can’t believe I waited for so long to have you like this.”

“Now if only you said yes the first time I asked you to sleep with me,” you chuckle, trying not to moan at the feeling of his cock pulsating inside you. “You could’ve railed me in the bathroom of Cheol’s disco and he never would’ve known.”

“Oh, he’d definitely know,” Jeonghan chuckles dryly as he presses a kiss along your jaw. “But thanks for the visual, I think I just got even harder. We should do that when you get back.”

“Didn’t you say something about going on a quick getaway so you can fuck me in Paris, too?”

“You’re the one making plans here, sweetheart. Not me. But if you’re so hell-bent on taking my cock in the bathroom of some random Parisian disco instead, then I suppose I can make the proper arrangements,” your lover appeases you with a lazy smile. “Maybe I’ll have Jihoon and your friends watch after the store while I’m gone.”

“He might be your regular, but when he finds out that we’re screwing around, he’ll probably torch the entire building.”

Jeonghan pauses for a second. “That reminds me, won’t they be looking for you, sweetheart? From the way you were dressed earlier, it looked like you were headed somewhere else after buying that stupid badboy his birthday present. This is quite the detour, don’t you think?”

When Jeonghan brings it up, it takes you a few seconds to process that…fuck.

“Yeah…” you groan. “I was headed to the disco for Jungkook’s surprise party.”

He hums. “And here you are warming my cock. That boyfriend of yours is going to be heartbroken, you know?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you grumble, mewling when Jeonghan snaps his hips into yours to take you by surprise. “But…I guess it still sucks that I lead him on like that.”

“I suggest,” Jeonghan starts before pulling himself back again only to rut into you so hard, you’re surging forward on the bed. “That you give him a call in the morning—tell him that you’re fine and nothing’s happened to you. Oh, and tell him that you actually have a boyfriend now.”

Despite your senses being overloaded by how good his cock is stretching you mid-conversation, you still manage to look up at Jeonghan with withering surprise. “I do?”

“Sweet girl’s gone dumb on my cock, huh?” Jeonghan laughs, pressing a kiss to your forehead that has you melting from the contact. “From here on out, I’m your boyfriend. Some fucker from another city has no business flirting with you when you’re with me.”

In a split second of clarity, you roll your eyes at him. “I still think it’s stupid that you only went after me after I found someone else. You’re a terrible person.”

“But you still love me anyway, hm?”

You do. You think you’ve loved Jeonghan even longer than you first realized it. 

Loving him and losing him even if you had neither to love nor lose is a vicious pattern you’ve cycled through for the past four summers. You’re perfectly aware that actions have consequences and what you chose to do with Jeonghan now would definitely jeopardize everything you’ve built for yourself. 

But you can think about what Jihoon and Jungkook and Seungkwan and everyone else has to say about this some other time. 

For now, you’re just going to focus on how good your boyfriend splits you open on his cock.

“And how are you so sure about that?”

Jeonghan shrugs before crowding you against the bed, a no-good smirk plastered on his pretty face. It gives you hope that maybe—just maybe—the cycle has finally been broken.

“I dunno. Gut feeling.”

⟢ end notes: you're finally at the end of it! thank you so much for reading through this brain fart that has been decaying in my drive since july :') i'd also like to extend my thanks to jj, rj and zeta specifically because if it weren't for them i would've lost every and all direction for this fic altogether and i might've actually dropped out of the collab for real (i am literally 4 going 5 days late!!) leave a like, reblog with your thoughts, or yell at me in the replies -- idk !! it's just that this might be one of the last fics you'll read from me for a while, so i'd appreciate the feedback now more than ever T T that said, do check out everyone's works from the collab as well!! they've all created such wonderful stories with the given theme <3 you def won't regret it!

this is part of the svthub 70s;teen collab!

[puckinghischier]

Suds n Sorrows

Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary: anon request for reader comforting nico after losing the last game of the season

notes: y’all i kinda love this one 🤭. me being a cancer, i’m patiently waiting for the day i can nurture and comfort nico. that’s all. hope you enjoy !!

(also, i used google translate for any german present in this fic, so if its wrong, oopsies)

[2.9k]

part 2 (18+)

~

You already felt terrible you were having to miss the last game of the season, but as you watch the clock hit zero on the screen of the tv in front of you, signifying another Devil’s loss, you really wished you could be there. You think about how defeated your boys look, not being able to secure one last win for the fans this season. You watch as they skate to the middle of the ice, thanking their fans with rounded shoulders and sad smiles on their faces.

You curse your professors, hating that their review schedules for finals fell right in the middle of the end of the hockey season. You were supposed to be there tonight, supporting your friends and boyfriend; but a last-minute email from a professor informing you of a mandatory review session, starting only an hour before puck drop, threw your plans out the window.

You pick up your phone to send Nico a quick text, telling him you love him and are proud of him no matter what. You know he won’t see it right away, with post-game interviews and the added responsibility of fan-appreciation activities, he won’t be home for another hour or two at the earliest. You turn the tv off, not wanting to see the dejected looks from the team any longer.

You go to the kitchen and start to busy yourself by making one of Nico’s favorite treats, wanting to give him something to smile about when he gets home. You make plans in your head to either make something or order something to take to the rest of the team tomorrow during their locker cleanout. Once you’ve finished the task at hand and cleaned the kitchen, you make your way back into the living room, figuring Nico will be home any minute.

You were scrolling through Instagram, lost in the comments on the Devil’s most recent post about the fans, when you heard the front door to your apartment open. You sat up, turning your body to face the entry way, watching Nico walk towards you. He dropped his bag as he reached the couch, wordlessly flopping down beside you, throwing his body half on top of yours. He buried his face in your neck, inhaling the comforting scent of your perfume, squeezing your body against his own.

“I’m so proud of you,” is the first thing you said to him, taking the beanie off of his head so you can run your fingers through his hair.

“Nothin’ to be proud of, Schatz. We lost. Didn’t you see?” You feel him mumble against your skin.

“Hey, now. No more pity party, alright? You still went out there and gave it everything you had. I’ll always be proud of you, win or lose,” you scold, hating when he doesn’t give himself credit for all the work he puts in for this team.

“Just wish we could’ve won one last one. For the fans. For the guys. For Jack.”

“How is he, by the way? You heard anything?” You ask about the middle Hughes, knowing how upset Nico was he wouldn’t be finishing the season with the rest of the team.

“Yeah, talked to him before the game. Sore, but good. Already trying to weasel his way back onto the ice, but Ellen has him under house arrest.”

You chuckle, causing Nico’s body to shake with yours, knowing how stubborn Jack can be.

“I swear, if he doesn’t just let himself rest and heal I’ll fly out to Michigan myself to babysit him,” you tell your boyfriend, earning a laugh in response.

The conversation falls silent soon after, the two of you just soaking in each other’s company. You had adjusted your bodies so Nico was fully laying on you now, one hand continuing to play with his hair, the other lightly tracing shapes up and down his back. You worry he’s fallen asleep until you feel him lift his head, resting his chin on your chest so he can look up at your face.

“Wanna talk about it?” You ask him, looking down at his soft, sad eyes.

“Not much to say. We lost. The game, the season, the cup. We just didn’t perform this year. Got a lot to work on going forward,” he shrugs, not meeting your eyes.

“Okay, when I asked if you wanted to talk about it, I didn’t mean give me locker room answers. I meant, do you want to talk about why you’re being so hard on yourself? Why you’re acting like you won’t ever play hockey again? I know how hard this is on you all, especially after the season you guys had last year, but not every year is a stellar year, Neeks. Sometimes you have to have a bad season before you know how to have a great one,” you pushed him off of you slightly, both of you sitting up so you can face each other.

“I know we can’t be great every year, Y/N, but I at least expected us to do as well as we did last year. Coming off of such an explosive season, even though we didn’t win the cup, I figured everyone would show up ready to go, ready to win some games. And then then everyone started getting injured, and the longer the season went on, something shifted. It’s like they gave up before we even got started. It’s like they didn’t even want it anymore!” Nico cries out, letting himself get worked up.

You simply nod, encouraging him to keep going, knowing he needs to get it out of his system.

“I just-“ he hesitates, calming himself from his outburst mere seconds ago. “I worry about who’ll be coming back next season. I like this team. I love these guys like they’re my brothers, and I wanted better for so many of them. Nothing is ever guaranteed in the league, and I just want to keep playing with this team. Tonight could’ve been the last time I ever stepped onto that ice with a few of them.” He continues, emotion so raw on his face you almost want to cry for him.

There it was. The real reason he’s so upset. You knew this was more than just a loss, even if it was a hard one. He hardly ever comes home and just allows the two of you to sit in silence, always going over what they could’ve done better, and what they need to work on in the future. He’s upset about losing his team. Nico always gets so attached to his players, wanting to give every person he plays with the best guidance and outcomes he can. You figure its why they made him captain.

“Oh Neeks,” you start, reaching out to grab his hands. “These guys love you, you know that, right? They want to do their best for you, always. You think they don’t beat themselves up for letting you down?” you pause, wanting your words to truly reach him. “But…you know this is always a possibility. Trades get made, contracts expire. It’s just part of the world you signed up for. I can guarantee you, nearly every one of these guys would come back next year if it was up to them. They love this team just like you do,” you reiterate, having been told this by his teammates more times than you can count. “You gave them everything you could this season. I can assure you, not a single player left that arena tonight thinking of what you could’ve done differently, instead focusing on what they could’ve done differently.”

Nico sat for a second, absorbing your words. He takes his hands from yours to place his head in them, trying to collect his thoughts.

“Wenn es nur so einfach wäre,” you hear the foreign words muffled by the sound of his hands.

“Neeks, you know I’m learning, but I have no clue what you just said,” you chuckle slightly, not knowing if he’s even aware of the language switch.

“I said, if only it was that easy. I know you’re right, I do. But I just can’t make my brain hear the words the way my ears do,” he sighs.

You look at the man in front of you with sad eyes. You wish you could carry some of this burden for him, but you can’t. At the end of the day, you don’t know what it’s like to be the captain of a hockey team. You don’t know the full extent of the pressure not only his coaches place on him, but the team management, as well.

“My sweet, sweet boy,” you coo sadly, reaching out to cup his face, his own sad, brown eyes looking into yours. “Why don’t we just relax for the rest of the night, yeah? I was thinking about a bath earlier, if you wanted to join me? I’ll add some of that bubble bath you like. The one that smells like oranges and raspberries?” You question, deciding you’d talked enough hockey tonight.

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” he agrees, leaning into your touch, letting his eyes flutter shut.

You lean forward to give him a small peck on his forehead before standing and making your way to the bathroom.

You make sure the temperature of the water isn’t too hot, but still wanting it to be warm enough to soothe the ache not only in Nico’s muscles, but the ache in his chest, too. You decide to light a few candles, wanting to make the space as relaxing for him as possible. The bathroom door opens as you’re lighting the last candle, Nico having already discarded most of his clothing, standing before you only in his boxers.

He closes the door behind him, walking fully into the bathroom and leaning against the counter next to you. You set the candle away from anything that could potentially catch fire, and walk over to Nico. You wrap your arms around his torso, resting your cheek against his bare chest.

The two of you stand like that for a few moments, trying to transfer every ounce of love you have for the man through the contact. Eventually he pulls back, placing his hands on your shoulder before cocking an eyebrow, eyes raking down your body at your still fully clothed figure.

“Shouldn’t you have much less clothing on if we’re meant to be taking a bath together, Schatz?” he asks, the teasing in his voice a nice change from earlier.

“Are you trying to get me naked, cap?” you try to act shocked, but you can’t help the amused smile that breaks out on your face.

“Always, Mrs. cap,” he cheekily responds, using his teammates’ nickname for you.

You step back with a giggle, undressing yourself as Nico removes what little clothing he had on. After you walk over to turn the bathroom light off, the two of you step into the steaming tub, settling into a comfortable position. Your back rests against Nico’s chest, head resting on his shoulder, his clasped hands resting on your stomach. He begins tracing shapes on your stomach like you were on his back a few minutes ago, letting the warm water heat your skin and wash the stress of the day away.

“You know, even though I’m sad the season’s over, it does mean I get to spend more time with you now,” Nico breaks the silence, head tilted to rest against yours.

You hum in response, smiling at the thought of no more early morning alarms or late-night interruptions when he gets home from a roadie. You daydream about lazy mornings and breakfast in bed, something the two of you don’t get to indulge in nearly enough. You open your eyes, the thought reminding you of the treat you made Nico before his arrival home, nearly forgetting about the baked good sitting in your kitchen.

“Oh, I almost forgot, I baked you a little something before you got home!” you sat up a bit, water splashing around you.

“You did? What ever for?” Nico asks, eyes widening a bit at your sudden burst of enthusiasm.

“Just because. Knew you had a hard day, wanted to make sure you had something sweet to brighten it up a bit,” you shrugged.

“Not necessary. Not with the promise of getting to come home to you already.”

Your cheeks flush red, never really getting used to the sweet words Nico always throws your way.

“Well, I guess you don’t want any Luzerner….Luzerner…Leb…” You start, but can’t remember how to pronounce the Swiss dessert. You huff, crossing your arms over your chest, aggravated with yourself and your lack of fluency in Swiss-German.

“Luzerner Lebkuchen?” Nico finished for you.

“Yeah…that.” You roll your eyes at his perfect pronunciation.

“You really made it for me? From scratch?”

“Mhmm. Used your mom’s recipe. I hope it turned out. I didn’t want to cut into it to try it before you got home. Wanted to surprise you.”

Nico’s heart swelled at the confession, amazed that you’d go through all of that effort just for him. It wasn’t an easy dish to perfect, by no means. It took his mom years to get her gingerbread cake perfectly moist and flavorful. Regardless of how it tastes, he’ll savor it like it’s the last food on earth, simply because you made it for him.

“Well consider me surprised,” Nico murmurs, leaning in to kiss you.

You love moments like these. Lost in Nico, the two of you in your own little world. No hockey, no schoolwork, no responsibilities. Just two people hopelessly in love with each other, soaking in every ounce of affection the other has to offer.

Nico runs his hand down your back, causing your body to shiver at the contact. He pulls you closer, his other hand coming to tangle itself in your hair, tugging just enough to cause your mouth to open in a gasp, using the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Your tongues fight one another, his winning the struggle for dominance in the end, a groan working its way out of his throat. When he starts to move his hand lower down your back, grabbing the flesh of your ass in the process, you pull back, lips swollen and out of breath.

“Nope. Slow your roll, hot stuff. This was meant to be a relaxing bath, not a sex and suds party,” you push him back by the shoulders, earning a pout from the man across from you.

“But, a sex and suds party sounds pretty relaxing to me. No better way to unwind after a hard day than watching your face as I make you cu-“

“Nope! Not happening right now! Keep it up and it won’t be happening at all tonight,” You warn, turning back around to resume your earlier position, hands resting over his on your stomach to keep them from wandering.

Nico laughs, finding amusement in your commitment to the relaxing bath you promised him. He places a kiss to your temple, deciding to leave it alone for now, knowing he’ll revisit the subject later.

The two of you sit in the warm tub until the water runs cold, talking about anything that crosses your minds. From your upcoming finals to summer destinations you’d love to visit, the security of your bubble filled world allowing no room for hockey talk or stressful situations to infiltrate the delicate space.

After you start shivering, having put up with the cold water for as long as you could, Nico reaches forward to drain the tub, deciding that its time the two of you get out and dry off. You step out of the tub, reaching for the towels you had placed on the closed lid of the toilet seat, grabbing one for yourself before handing one to Nico. The two of you dry off your bodies, no sound other than the draining tub in the room. You look over to Nico, towel wrapped around his waist, and admire the man you love. You love him for so much more than his physique, but you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t the cherry on top of the already perfect soul before you.

Before he catches you staring and gets anymore ideas, you look away and wrap your own towel around your body, trying to shield yourself from the cool air on your damp skin.

“Thank you, Schatz,” Nico breaks the silence, causing you to look up at him, noticing he had closed the distance between the two of you, reaching out to place a piece of hair behind your ear, hand falling to your cheek.

“For what?”

“For always being here when I need someone. For always knowing exactly what I need, even before I do. For being you,” he states, referencing the many times you’ve been his sanity after days like today, always managing to take his mind off of his troubles and filling his head with thoughts of you, instead.

“Always,” you turn your head, placing a kiss on his palm before placing your cheek back against his palm, flashing Nico one of your loving smiles.

“Now, what about digging into that cake I made you? It’s not going to eat itself, you know?” you perk up, wanting to find out if you efforts paid off or not.

“Oh, I have a different kind of dessert I’d rather dig into, if you don’t mind,” Nico smirks, watching your eyes widen as he picks you up and throws you over his shoulder, laughing at your squeal as he heads towards the door of the bathroom, ready to savor his sweet treat.

[lunarduty]

𝙋𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙏 𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙊 𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝘽𝙀𝘿

☾ sfw & nsfw headcanons for dating soap JOHNNY 'SOAP' MACTAVISH X F!READER TAGS | nsfw. smut. oral (female receiving). female reader. WC | 2,063 x

SFW

☾ in his mind, he was already your boyfriend before even becoming official. soap is fiercely LOYAL and dedicated - just as soon as he realized the depths of his feelings, he was yours before you even knew it. stopped so much as looking at other people, much less thinking or fantasizing about them. for soap, you were it. he just had to convince you to go out with a guy like him, which is very soap. not always looking before he jumps.

☾ he loves calling himself your boyfriend, or calling you his girl. soap isn’t one to try and make it lowkey or anything. he wouldn’t be unprofessional - disrespecting or making you look bad is the last thing he wants. but soap will insert the fact into mundane little conversations whenever he can. the team quickly gets tired of it long before he does.

“soap, you joining us for drinks after the debrief?” “don’t know,” he says, sounding awfully CHIPPER for someone who might miss out on a night at the pub. “gotta check in with my girl, see if she wants to do anything tonight. missed out on lunch with her, y’know.” he was still beating himself up over that. you kept insisting it was fine - you both have crazy schedules sometimes. but soap didn’t want to make it a habit of blowing you off. gaz nodded like he agreed - soap didn’t think he really got what it meant to be your boyfriend.

☾ his favorite thing in the world is making you laugh, and he does it so easily. and a lot of the time, he doesn’t even mean to. soap can be blunt and cheeky sometimes, and his smart mouth has gotten him in hot water more often than not - but he’s always very happy to make you laugh, even accidentally. always acts kinda proud when his jokes land perfectly. or if he’s not in a great mood, but ends up saying something that makes you laugh, it always brightens his mood.

☾ while he usually finds one petname and sticks with it, soap is known to call you different ones - each worse and more SAPPY than the last. they’re never spoken seriously, he just enjoys seeing your nose wrinkle and look at him as if he just tracked dog shit into the house. it’s one of his favorite ways to tease you without feeling like he’s going too far, like he does with some of his mates.

with his nose buried against your neck, and the slowly thump of your heart vibrating on his chest, soap was damn near close to following you into unconsciousness. it had been a chaotic last few days - the mere chance to cuddle up with you in bed had him relaxed beyond the point of needing a quick fuck to tire him out. at least until you shifted your legs, and your icy toes pressed against his legs. “fuck, lass. toes are fuckin’ freezing,” he hisses against your shoulder. you just hum, not bothering to reply, more interested in finally falling asleep. he hums in return, and condemns himself to the icy torture. “lucky i love ya, my l’il popsicle.” “jesus, johnny.”

☾ generally enjoys going out on dates than staying home. of course, if you’re more of a homebody or he just doesn’t feel up to going out, a home date is perfectly fine with him. but soap likes going out and experiencing things - most of all, he wants to show you off. absolutely loves walking down the street with you on his arm, or you pulled against his side. tries to get some leave every few months so you two can travel somewhere, but usually, soap’s idea of a good date is simply going somewhere and having fun.

☾ gets super soft when you start getting comfortable around him. before the relationship began, you two were good friends - there was already a layer of comfort and familiarity before, but it’s different when you start dating. so one night, when you both are just chilling on the couch, and you start cackling at a joke on the TV or ugly-crying during a sad scene, soap just REVELS in it. he’s heard how far some people go not to show certain sides of themselves to their partners, and he’s super pleased that you don’t feel like you need to do that with him. on the flip side, soap immediately gets super goofy with you right off the bat, so it’s not like you’re alone in your silliness.

☾ don’t think you can outkiss this man. don’t even try to challenge him. soap mactavish is a man made for kissing and he will do it all day if you let him. your eyes in the morning to wake you up, on your cheek before he leaves, your hand after meeting up for lunch, your lips when he gets home at the end of the day, your neck while doing the dishes, your forehead after a good fuck before falling asleep. soap loves being able to kiss you whenever he wants and he takes full advantage of that privilege.

☾ arguments aren’t super common, but they do happen. soap can be stubborn and sometimes doesn’t see the wider picture. he forgets to take your feelings into account. arguments are usually resolved pretty painlessly, since soap knows he can be dumb sometimes and he doesn’t let his pride get in the way of apologizing. even still, he likes to go out of his way when it comes to make ups. he doesn’t like feeling guilty and can go a little overboard in comparison to the argument.

“so, you forgive me yet, bonnie?” “hmm,” you draw out the hum, even if the smile on your face negates the tension, “i haven’t decided yet.” suppressing his own grin, johnny throws his hands up in defeat. reclines back in his chair with a sigh and a shake of his head - always with the theatrics. “yeah, i figured ya say that. but i’ve learned to never enter a battle without a secret weapon.” “making up for a fight is a battle for you, is it?” your question, though a joke, made him pause. “well, no, i didn’t- fuck’s sake, lass. take it easy on me.” johnny stands, his hands clapping together. “i was listenin’, though. i know you feel all alone when i’m gone so much, and i’m sorry. wish i could change it.” of course, you knew he couldn’t just uproot his whole life. some of the things you said during the argument weren’t even exactly how you felt - just something said in the moment. “johnny, hold on, i didn’t mean-” “hey, hey, i’m not done.” he backs away from you toward the bedroom. “last thing i want is you to be here feelin’ all LONELY again. so i got something to fix all that.” he finally turns and makes for the bedroom door. when you stand and follow to watch, you notice how carefully he opened and slid right past. like he didn’t want you coming in. but you realized right away it was because he didn’t want something getting out. “a puppy? john, this is-” “great, right? can cuddle up to him when i’m not here!”

☾ definitely thinks about marriage super early on, but doesn’t really bring it up because he doesn’t wanna come off as weird or creepy. but honestly, soap knew you were the one right away. he’s not out looking at rings or wedding venues - he just kinda ACCEPTS that he’s gonna marry you. might make little jokes or comments here and there. jokingly calls you his wife or “the missus.” so when he eventually does pop the question, he’s a little taken aback when you’re caught off guard. and then he remembers that, oh yeah, he’s always been mentally married to you since basically forever.

NSFW

☾ it’s not hard at all to tell when soap is in the mood. he’s going to get very touchy if you let him - from soft grazes of his fingers along your skin to straight up groping your ass when you walk by. he is an absolute menace when he’s horny. loves coming up behind you when you’re doing something and just squeezing your hips and kissing your neck. grinds his cock against your ass, as if it isn’t painfully obvious how wound up he is.

☾ foreplay with soap is more fun than anything. there are rare moments when he’s silent and serious and focused, but mostly, he likes to keep it light. makes you laugh before sucking on your tits to take your breath away. says some dumb comment when you’re grinding against his thigh to distract you, only to suddenly change pace and laugh when you whimper. he sees sex with you as something to 100% ENJOY and making sure the both of you have fun with it…

☾ …that is until soap gets completely pussy-drunk off you and just shuts the fuck up and enters this kind of tunnel vision when he’s eating you out. it happens a good 60% of the time - he starts out his usual light and teasing self, kissing your thighs, asking you if you want to fuck his mouth. but just as soon as he gets his tongue on your clit and his fingers buried knuckle-deep, it’s so easy for him to just get lost in it. will make you cum twice before he realizes it, and is almost confused when you’re begging him to stop, or at least give you a break. 

“fu- fuck, johnny! i can’t- shit, you need to stop.” those words seem to finally break him of his little trance. your little moans and whimpers of his name are always MELODIC in a way that makes him want to hear more and more. but hearing you ask him to stop makes soap blink and pull his face away - lips parted in his panting, chin glistening. “okay, bonnie?” he asks, a hand squeezing your hip. you’re breathing hard. skin flushed. chin tilted upward with your eyes closed and he wonders just how hard you came. or how many times. “i’m okay,” you answer quickly. “just…need a break. or just fuck me - that works too.” a wide grin spreads over his face, and when he pulls his fingers free, the soft squelching sound almost makes him shiver. “just said the fuckin’ magic words, beautiful.”

☾ not at all picky with positions, so he usually just tries a bunch of different ones or follows your lead. there’s something to enjoy with all of them, so how can he have a favorite? fucking you in missionary gets him on top, where he feels so big and strong and loves feeling you hold onto him like your life depends on it. when you ride him, he gets to watch your face the entire time, or play with your tits, or do anything he wants. getting you in doggy is great when soap is feeling especially FERAL and just wants to drive into you, grabbing your ass, tugging on your hair when he feels like he can’t hear you well enough. gun to his head, he can’t pick just one.

☾ soap does have a preference when he cums. as fucking fantastic as it feels to cum inside you, there’s something otherwordly about pulling out and painting your skin. he saves creampies for slow and sleepy sex (or when you beg for it), but every other time? soap is cumming on your back, your belly, your thighs, your face, your tits. anywhere and everywhere is fair game for him. he’s definitely taken a picture when the sight is too good to leave to memory. eventually deletes them because he doesn’t want them to somehow get out, but not before using it as wank material while he’s away.

☾ very gentle and attentive with aftercare. sex with soap isn’t especially rough or intense most of the time, but he still doesn’t slack on it. kissing you good and proper after you both cum, letting you know just how much he loves you. always gets something to clean you up and talking while he does so - soap is a chatterbox anyway, but more so after sex because he doesn’t want you to start feeling awkward. lots of cuddles and touches when he climbs into bed - but be warned, he does tend to nod off pretty soon.

[weirdkpopgirl]

Stealing Kisses | Dream Reaction #14

Reaction: When their gf steals a kiss from them

Genre: Fluff, slight angst in some

Warnings: insecure thoughts, kinda suggestive, light making out in Jaemin's, kissing (obviously lol)

Word Count: ~3.1k

Author's Note: This idea came to me last week I think, and I thought it'd be fun to write. I think you guys like this type of stuff too lol. It was also nice to write something sweet and fluffy, a break from my recent stuff. Hope you all like it and thank you for reading ^ ^

P.S. I'm currently have a few fics I'm working on. But I'm going to try writing some shorter stories for the members and group things to fill up my second masterlist.

~ ~ ~

mark

The two of you were lying side by side on his bed, your gazes fixed on the ceiling. Mark was sharing his late-night thoughts, and you were listening attentively. Nights like these were a regular occurrence, mostly because Mark often had something weighing on his mind. Though it was usually just him recounting his busy day, tonight things seemed to carry a more serious tone.

“Sometimes, I’m just really not satisfied with myself,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. “Like so many people are relying on me— with the company, 127 and Dream. Then there are the fans too, I don’t want to fail them. But no matter how much time and energy I put in, it’s not enough.”

You carefully processed your boyfriend’s concerns, trying to put yourself in his shoes. It was so easy to say he was just overthinking and shouldn’t worry so much. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to do so, given that you faced similar struggles. Those dismissive words weren’t what either of you needed to hear. Mark was undoubtedly the most hardworking person you knew, but you understood all too well the feeling of never quite doing enough.

Before speaking this time, you opted for a different approach of consolation. You shifted around to gently place your hand on his cheek, guiding his gaze towards you. With closed eyes, you leaned in to kiss him softly. Your lips moved slowly against his, hoping he could feel the comfort of your touch. Soon enough, Mark’s hand rested comfortably on your back, reciprocating the affection.

You stifled a light giggle as you pulled away, catching his slightly confused expression. Offering a small smile you used your thumb to caress his cheek reassuringly.

“You’re doing great, Mark,” you whispered sincerely. “You might not think so at times, but I’m always so proud of you.”

And it was those words that caused tears to gloss over Mark’s eyes. Then he was pulling you into a much-needed embrace, holding you tightly in his arms. You could feel the warmth of his smile as he mumbled, “Babe, I love you so much.”

Though you didn’t necessarily need to return the words for him to understand, you still said you loved him too. He deserved it, after all. He deserved every bit of love, understanding, and support. And you were more than willing to give it to him, wholeheartedly.

•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•

renjun 

You emerged from the kitchen, holding a plate of freshly cut mango in your hand. Renjun was sitting at the table, fully absorbed in the watercolor painting in front of him. Seeing him use the paint set you got for his birthday brought a smile to your face. He was so engrossed in the activity that he almost didn’t hear you sit in the empty chair beside him.

Renjun momentarily glanced up from his artwork to greet you. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you replied quietly, carefully placing the plate of fruit on the table. The two of you shared a smile before his attention was on painting again.

For a moment, you paused to admire the way his focused expression softened his features, making him even more endearing in your eyes. You always found joy in watching your boyfriend immerse himself in the things he loved. Renjun consistently poured his heart and soul into everything he did, and that dedication was one of the many reasons your relationship flourished so beautifully. 

After a few minutes passed by of you silently observing the boy, you leaned into place a quick kiss on his cheek. His eyes widened in surprise, and a faint blush followed. 

“What was that for?” he asked, voice laced with curiosity.

You simply shrugged in response before confessing, “Just thought you looked cute.”

Renjun’s soft chuckle was like honey for your ears, and you couldn’t suppress a smile. “Oh is that so?” he teased, amusement twinkling in his eyes even as his gaze softened when he looked at you.

Now it was your turn to feel shy, heat naturally rushing to your face. Without a word, you reached for a slice of mango and lifted it to Renjun’s lips, quietly offering the yellow piece of fruit to him. Lucky for you, his eyes sparkled with fondness as he accepted the treat. 

However, he didn’t waste the chance to quickly steal a kiss from your lips, before taking a bite. Your eyes mirrored the surprise he had experienced earlier, and Renjun laughed now the tables had been turned. He savored the sweetness of the mango, just as he savored the sweet moment shared between the two of you.

•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•

jeno 

You weren’t exactly expecting to return home to Jeno sprawled across your sofa. It was late at night, and you technically should have been back in your apartment much earlier. However, you got caught up in helping your friend rehearse for an audition and lost track of time. If you had known your boyfriend would be coming, you definitely would’ve gone home sooner.

 After quietly removing your shoes and shedding off your jacket, you carefully crossed the room to check the man resting on the couch. He looked so peaceful with his eyes blissfully shut and the pillow he held close to his chest. Yet, you couldn’t help but frown, thinking about how he must’ve been exhausted from work. While he never complained, you usually saw through his facade.

With a barely audible sigh, you fetched a cozy blanket to drape over him and tucked it snugly around his sleeping form. Leaning down, your lips pressed to his forehead and let your lips linger for a moment before pulling away. You straightened up, ready to start your nightly routine before heading to bed yourself. However, you froze when a warm hand tugged at your wrist. 

“Don’t go,” he murmured, almost sounding like a child begging his mom not to leave. 

The unexpected sound of his voice made your heart skip a beat. “Sorry for waking you up,” you apologized sheepishly, turning back to see him.

He shifted over a bit to give you some space, and you sat down beside him. Without thinking, your hand subconsciously moved to stroke his hair gently. He hummed at the sensation, appreciating any sort of affection from you.

“Don’t apologize. I liked it,” he said softly, leaning further into your touch. “Do you always kiss me when I’m asleep?”

“Sometimes,” you admitted quietly, feeling a blush creeping up your cheeks.

A small pout formed on his lips in response. “You should just kiss me when I’m awake so I can give you one back.”

His words would’ve sounded playful if they hadn’t been spoken in such a sulky tone. But of course, you sort of expected this reaction from Jeno. Chuckling softly, your embarrassment gradually began to melt away.

Moving your hand to caress his face, you casually said, “Well you can give me one now if you’d like.”

With your permission, Jeno happily sat up to pull you closer for a kiss that made your head spin. Nonetheless, it was a tender moment that left you both with silly smiles as you parted. Afterward, you took his hand in yours and suggested you both move to the bedroom so he could sleep more comfortably.

Later, as you cuddled up together in bed, Jeno smiled to himself as he felt a rush of love he felt for you. Even though it was past one a.m., he still found himself falling for you all over again.

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haechan 

To say the least, Haechan was a little restless just chilling in his apartment with you. Usually, he liked being at home, especially with your company. But the original plan for today was to have a lovely date at Han River, which was forfeited due to the ongoing thunderstorm outside. He regretted not looking at the weather forecast beforehand.

So to cure his self-proclaimed “boredom,” Haechan proposed the idea of playing the pepero game. At first, you tried to decline, knowing that you’d be signing up for endless teasing and blushing on your part. That didn’t sound very fun to you.

“Oh come on, babe!” he pleaded, shaking the pepero box. “I won’t be annoying this time, promise.”

Knowing he was going to keep whining until you agreed, you reluctantly set aside the book you were using to ignore him. “Ugh, fine. But just this once!” you conceded, holding your pointer finger up as a warning.

Haechan grinned triumphantly as he tore open the bag inside the box to retrieve a Pepero stick. He moved to where you were sitting on the couch and lifted the chocolate-covered treat to your lips, gesturing to open it. With a resigned sigh, you reluctantly complied and took the stick with your teeth. Haechan took hold of the other end, his eyes already sparkling with mischief.

As the two of you started nibbling, Haechan promptly contradicted his earlier promise of not being annoying. His eyes sparkled with mischief when you hesitated after he took the next bite, leaving only a few centimeters left. No matter how often you had been in close proximity with your boyfriend, there was something uniquely captivating about the way his warm tan skin was adorned with scattered moles, and how you could get lost in his deep brown eyes. Seeing those features up close always stirred a weirdly fluttery sensation in your heart.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting shy already, (Y/n),” he teased, his words slightly muffled by the long biscuit between his teeth. You merely glared at him in response, unwilling to admit how easily you were influenced by him.

To rebel, you decided to make a bold move of your own this time. Despite your racing heart, you seized the opportunity and bit the remaining piece, but not without planting a swift kiss on his lips. Haechan froze for a moment as you pulled away. A laugh escaped when you saw that he was too stunned to speak. Well, that was one way to shut him up.

Feigning innocence, you asked, “That’s what you wanted, am I wrong?”

It didn’t take long for a grin to spread across the boy’s lips. The initial shock of your unexpected move kiss was replaced by a look of impressed amusement. In the next moment, his right arm encircled your waist, drawing you close once more. You didn’t even have time to blush before his lips began to explore every exposed inch of your skin.

“You’re so bad for me,” he murmured between kisses, his fingers tangling your hair. “But I love it.”

You giggled, surrendering to the warmth of his affection. Maybe you’d be more inclined to indulge in games with Haechan now, knowing they’d end up like this.

•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•

jaemin

In the solace of his apartment, Jaemin observed you interact with his cats in the living room. Usually, he’d be cooing and snapping a hundred pictures of you and his children. However, he wasn’t very amused at the moment.

Na Jaemin never thought he’d be jealous of his babies until he saw Luke rubbing against your leg and hopping into your lap. Your giggly response and the way you tenderly stroked your fingers through the feline’s soft white hair, certainly didn’t make him feel any better. Although he loved his pets dearly, seeing them snuggle up to you so easily made him feel a bit envious. 

“Hmmph, it seems like you’ve become more fond of Luke than your own boyfriend,” he scoffed, not even bothering to hide it. 

You looked up, noticing how he was resting his head in the palm of his hand, his elbow propped on the couch’s armrest. His body language fully displayed his discontent, and you tried not to laugh. Rolling your eyes, you returned Luke to his siblings and tugged the collar of Jaemin’s hoodie to pull him in for a sweet kiss. 

Any negative feelings dissipated instantly as his heart fluttered at the touch of your lips against his. Warmth spread through him like wildfire. But before he could reciprocate the kiss, you pulled away with a playful glint in your eyes.

“Does that make you happy?” you teased, gently pushing him back to give yourself some space.

Adoration shined over Jaemin’s eyes as he grinned. “Hm, I think another one would make me even happier,” he said, his voice husky with desire.

Before you could even respond this time, Jaemin was already leaning in to capture your lips in a passionate kiss that sent sparks flying between you. One of his hands rested on the nape of your neck, allowing him to press his lips harder against yours, while the other was placed firmly on your waist. Though you were initially caught off guard by the sudden intensity of the kiss, you decided to enjoy this moment of intimacy.

As you melted into each other’s arms, Jaemin was reminded once again of just how amazing it felt to be loved by you. Honestly, if he could have one wish, he’d probably wish to kiss you forever.

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chenle 

The steaming pot of oxtail soup stared up at you, and you lowered the heat to let it simmer some more. It was your first time cooking the Chinese soup. But recalling how your mom used to make it when you were younger, figuring it on your own hadn’t been too difficult. Although you were mostly confident in your culinary skills, you still wanted to be sure.

“Lele, can you come here for a sec?” you called out to your boyfriend who was probably playing some mobile game in the living room. 

You could hear rustling sounds, and soon the sound of slippers padding against the wooden floor reached your ears.  “Smells good babe,” he said, shuffling over to your side. 

Something about seeing Chenle waddle into the kitchen, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood over his messy hair, made your heart strangely beat faster. But instead of ignoring that feeling like you usually did, you decided to act on it this time.

After dipping a spoon in the red broth, you raised the utensil to his mouth. “Taste it for me.”

Chenle complied, allowing you to feed him some of the soup. You tried to suppress a laugh as a smug yet impressed expression appeared on his face. However, before he could give you his feedback, you swiftly leaned in to give him a peck. 

The male froze for a moment at your actions. You chuckled softly and hugged his waist, as your cheeks flushed with embarrassment. His eyes widened in surprise before the corner of his lips curled into a smirk. A part of him wanted to tease you for stepping out of your shy image, but he also found himself enjoying it a little too much. 

“Did you like it?” you asked, glancing up at him innocently.

Chenle’s cocky grin widened as he leaned in closer. His eyes twinkled with mischief, as he used his pointer finger to gently tilt your chin upward. “Wait, let me taste it again to just be sure,” he teased.

It didn’t take much for you to understand that he was not talking about the food. You simply smiled as his lips brushed against yours before he went all in. Shivers danced down your spine as you melted into the electrifying kiss. By the time you finally pulled apart, Chenle was smiling like an idiot.

“Hm, that was delicious,” he breathed, earning a playful smack on the shoulder from you. Even though you had started it, his comment was unnecessary in your opinion. Was he trying to kill you?

Trying to recover from your now flustered state, you returned your attention to the brewing pot on the stove. Chenle’s laugh rang through your ears, and then he was squeezing you into a backhug. It was those types of moments that reassured you that being with Chenle could never be boring.

•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•

jisung 

Amidst the dark sky, the street lamps cast a soft, golden glow as you walked back to your apartment. Jisung strolled beside you, holding your hand securely. Occasionally, you smiled to yourself, thinking about how tonight had been another lovely date, filled with laughter, shared stories, and stolen glances that spoke volumes without a single word.

As you neared your apartment building, you felt Jisung’s fingers intertwined with yours tighten. A sense of reluctance washed over him, realizing that he wasn’t ready to say goodbye tonight yet. Your presence always brought Jisung a sense of warmth that made him the happiest when you were together. He wanted to experience that just a little while longer.

Pausing in front of your door, your eyes widened when you were pulled into a tight embrace. Jisung seemed clingier than usual this evening, but you honestly couldn’t complain. You returned the hug by wrapping your arms around his waist and letting your nose press against the oversized hoodie he was wearing. The scent of the perfume Renjun recently bought for him filled your senses. It wasn’t bad, you thought to yourself.

“I miss you already,” Jisung murmured, his chin relaxing against your head. 

The soft longing in his voice left your heart melting. These were the types of words you expected to read in texts from Jisung. So hearing them in person was even more touching. A smile tugged on your lips and you pulled away slightly to glance around, ensuring there were no cameras around. Once you confirmed there were no prying eyes that might stir trouble for either of you, you reached up on your tiptoes and pressed a quick but passionate kiss to Jisung’s lips.

He blinked in surprise, heat immediately rushing to his cheeks as the unexpected affection registered through his mind. Any kiss from you always made his heart flutter and left him wearing a shy smile. Nonetheless, witnessing the fondness in your eyes as you were blushing too was irresistible for Jisung.

Chuckling he moved his hand to gently pat your head. “Cute.”

You blushed a little at his words and squeezed in one last hug before he reluctantly released you to head inside. 

“I love you, Ji,” you said quietly, glancing back one last time to ensure he heard you. He exhaled shakily and said he loved you more.

There was an unspoken sadness shared between you, both feeling the weight of the parting. The two of you were uncertain of when or where you’d meet again. However, you found comfort in the knowledge that the love you had with Jisung was too strong to let too much time pass without seeing each other. In the meantime, you would cherish those precious memories together.

•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•°•❀•

previous masterlist -> new masterlist

[st4rymoon]

can I please request where Steven has a fixation on fuckin the reader dumb and when she makes faces or noises he mimics them back at her and is kinda condescending but the reader is into it?

Like reader is really smart and steven likes having the power to make her dumb.

This is so good omfg.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐟𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 • Steven Grant x Fem Reader

- 18+, smut, unprotected sex!, soft dom Steven, meanish Steven, dumbification, language, pet names, finger sucking, p in v, creampie!, teasing, reader is described as smart, messy sex!

Steven loved having such a dork as a girlfriend. He was over the moon when he finally found someone that was hyper fixated on something like he was with Egyptian History.

You could go on and on about your interests in science and Steven would sit and listen with a cheeky smile.

But what he loved most was knowing you’ve never failed an exam or a quiz, top of your classes since you can remember. The last thing anyone could call you is dumb.

Everyone around you joked that the day you answer anything in a dim-witted way is the day pigs will fly.

That’s why the first time you and Steven got intimate together, it was like a whole new world being opened up for the both of you.

You were always so sharp and composed that the second Steven had you scratching at his arms with your eyes rolled back, drool pooling out of your mouth as you mumbled on incoherent sentences made him cum right there.

It felt like you could finally release all that stress and energy whenever Steven was fucking you dumb, you didn’t care about anything other than Steven.

Steven on the other hand couldn’t stop thinking about the way you seemed to go dumb. How utterly wrecked and brainless you looked as you bounced on his cock, coating him in your slick as the lewd sounds of your pussy filled his ears.

And the sounds you made. Oh god the sounds you made, steven could hear it now. He’d close his eyes and imagine it right there steven, don’t stop pleaseee, ah- oh mhm, as you dumbly cried with mascara smeared all over your face.

Today was a stressful day for both of you so it was no surprise that you were in his arms as soon as you walked into the living room.

Steven’s soft lips were peppering warm sloppy kisses all over your face, lips, and shoulders. You could tell he was needier than usual, his grip tight around your hips as you spread your legs around his waist.

His hands were already up your skirt as you tossed your blouse behind the couch. Both of you seeming to be ripping off each others clothes in haste. “You know what Khonshu said today?” Steven cooed.

You hummed in question as you dragged your nails up Steven’s back “that old bird joked he’d never seen someone so smart mouthed like you. Always right, always so bratty” Steven huffed.

“Steven please” you whined, his calloused hands now tugging your panties down your legs “please Steven please, that’s all you bloody say when we get this far” he mocked.

You signed as he pressed reassuring kisses down your jaw, his hands swatting your legs wide for him to settle in. “Look at me sweetheart, in the eyes, yeah just like that” he whispered.

“Why do you already look so empty-headed darling?” He hummed with a cheeky smile. Your eyes dumbly rolled back as Steven sunk into you, your warm walls instantly squeezing around his thick size.

You let out a pathetic mewl “st- stevennn”

He smiled at the praise, the stupid look on your face making him groan as he pushed two fingers into your mouth. He watched with his mouth ajar as your tongue swirled around his digits. Your teeth softly biting down as he thrusted his hips forward.

You moaned into his fingers as he watched hypnotized, he felt his hips moving on their own all the while his eyes locked onto your face. He felt so proud of himself knowing he was the only one to get you so messy.

Ragged moans slipping past his lips as he felt you throbbing around him. You never understood why Steven was the only one to get you this way, he was nothing like you expected.

He was so quiet and shy when you first met him and now you’ve come to learn that he’s the one man capable of being so loving and caring yet fucking you like a pro. He seemed to know exactly what you needed, when you needed it.

“St- o- Pleas- ah” you hummed, saliva and sweat making your hair stick to your face as he pounded you into the couch. You clawed at his chest as your legs began to shake, you could feel him so deep it was getting harder to ignore the starting of tears form.

The amount of pleasure you were feeling as getting to you and Steven could feel it, you were gushing slick, your wetness sticking to his thighs as he angled his hips.

A shaky gasp escaped you as your orgasm turned your vision blurry, your cunt fluttering around him as he muttered to himself. The only thing you heard was his voice cooing at you in a mocking tone.

You didn’t even try to get angry when you heard him mocking your moans with a chuckle “I’ve got you this dumb? Aren’t I a lucky guy”

All you could do was nod and glare up at him with glossy eyes.

The look on your face was enough to make Steven cum, saliva all over and tears staining your cheeks. He let out a loud moan, hands pinning your hips down to make sure he fills you up nice and full.

Neither of you seeming to care for the couch that was now messy with cum as Steven softly thrusted.

“Made for me love”

[qtkoshi]

Maybe gn!Reader and Hobie adopt a kitten and the other three (Pavitr, Gwen, and Miles) come to see the kitten? Maybe a orange kitten gn!Reader wanted to name Spunk or Spike while Hobie gave them a spike collar? Would be cute lol

i luv ur brain anon

"you got....a kitten?"

- ok ok idk if this is what u meant, but u can feel free to run this with the bubblegum reader + hobie bc i think it fits alright :-) - also get a little deep with describing relationship,, but it’s necessary for the plot ! (...) - also!!! tysm for the requests; i am very excited to get into them, but will prob wait till tmrw to release bc it is my birthday today <3 much love to you all

──★ ˙ ̟ to the stars ！

general headcannons

alright first of all: hobie with a kitten? i’m in tears. 

i love the hc that hobie has a soft spot for cats and the fact that y’all got one together? bye.

NAPS WITH THE KITTEN JUST NESTLED BETWEEN BOTH OF YOU

this cat is gonna be SPOILED in attention i tell u rn

hobie isn’t as obvious ab it as u, but the amount of times u see him chilling with the cat just perched on his shoulder?? (why are u taking the baby swinging across the city hobie; wait a min now–)

how u got him

imagine this: ur walking past an alley and hear this small little meow; after further investigation you find this tuft of orange fur crying outside the dumpster and

now u gotta take it in what r u talking about!!

bringing him home immediately ; hobie's spidey senses prob picked up the cat's presence before you got in the door.

'baby what's that.' 'c'mon spiderman we got saving to do'

man can't even argue with you

hobie not naming the cat himself bc he doesn’t wanna enforce socio-constructed labels on an unsuspecting creature that can’t consent

u can tho.

and while you very much want to, you tell hobie you gotta think on it for a bit – it has to fit just right!! (tbh he rlly doesn’t mind the cat being nameless, but he’s kinda whipped and will kinda go with what u want if it helps give that pretty lil smile to him again)

spider-squad finding out ab him

the besties r wrapping up something with a fight and hobie’s all k gotta leave and check on the cat and the rest are like ????? 

pav absolutely floored bc how dare did u not mention this sooner hobie

'so you lot wanna come see him?' (inter-dimensional travel ensues) – also never gonna complain ab coming to hobie’s house they all think his place is dope

i’m sure we all know orange cats are fucking crazy and that does not exclude the little gremlin jumping off the walls of your flat rn

hobie ofc is smirking bc his son the cat is a little agent of chaos and he couldn’t be more proud 

you, on the other hand, are just a little tired trying to get the fucker to stay still for a second so u can put on the damn flea medicine

everybody loves him are u kidding (miles a little hesitant tho, he still has beef with the last spiderman-variant cat he met :/ ) 

“so whats its name?” miles was watching with wary eyes as the little ball of fur darted around. with a heavy (and definitely not dramatic) sigh, you walk over to the group “still haven’t picked. we just found him yesterday.”

luv the idea of hobie looking at u anytime ur in the room (stay with me now) — can’t help it u just grab all his attention, maybe stop being so lovely idk

speaking of your relationship: he has spent years battering against everything life throws at him that having your love in the palm of his hands? something to protect not in the way he does as a hero, but in the way to cherish as a person?? give the man a break, he deserves to admire you whenever he can.

anyways hobie’s looking at you before going ‘oh yea’, just grunts and pulls out this little collar with little spikes and their matching and oh my that is so cute

says he found it in some garbage, most def made the collar with some scraps like he did his own (gotta keep it cool yk)

you giddy and putting the collar on the little heathen and just all ‘omg wait a min’

promptly lifting the cat up and “THIS IS SPIKE.”

cue golf claps from the squad with some ooo’s and aah’s

more gen headcannons

remember when hobie and the cat were swinging around the city? yea he's taking that mf everywhere. puts him in his pocket like a little surprise

hobie loves to play fight with the cat

spike is the perfect mix; got hobie’s energy and your brightness it’s a win-win

i could write more but i'll stop here for now 🕸️

⊗