#this one personal just fucking hates vincenzo for no reason other than that:

[consigleire]

personals talking shit on my gifsets rlly sparked my spite and so therefore i am here

[firelord-suki]

Heyyyy, Bianca!!! Happy Valentines!!! 💚💜💚💜

I was wondering here: which ships are your Top OTP? (And the reason you put them so high if you want to share!)

Heyyy! Happy late Valentines Day 💝 💘

Thank you for the question. At first, I struggled to come up with more than two ships, but then, once I started thinking back to old hypefixations, I couldn't stop lol to keep it short, I selected only four.

Here they are:

1. Levi and Hange

I mean, they gotta be on top, right? This is the ship that brought me back to fandom life and made me want to start writing and sharing my fanfics online. What first caught my interest was their interactions, their bickering, their bright & energetic/calm & annoyed dynamic. But now I think what I like the most about their relationship is their friendship, how much they trust and can count on one another. Considering how fucked up their world is, it's nice to know they have each other's back. AND the tragic element keeps me chained to them 😢 (I'll stop here otherwise I'd keep going on and on forever...)

2. Artemis and Wally (Young Justice)

These two... Honestly, Young Justice is probably what got me into the DC Universe and it was also my first contact with fandom spaces (I still remember the fics I used to read about this couple on ff.net back in 2012 lol). I think their relationship was so well constructed throughout the first season that it's impossible not to fall in love. The "I hate you but we're forced to work together" trope is one of my favorite and it excels with them! The annoyance and mistrust at the beginning slowly fading as they work together and finally learn to care about it each other as more than just teammates, but friends too? Peak romance 😭 Artemis' individual storyline was also very well done, and I love the angst coming from her past trauma, how it caused her wariness of the team and doubt their true intentions towards her. She's been mistreated her entire life but finally learned how to trust and love again, and Wally was a part of that <3

3. Vincenzo and Cha Young (Vincenzo)

This is a relatively new one. Granted, I'm not as obsessed with them as the other ones, but I still think they deserve their place here. Again, these two start off not really liking each other but end up on the same side, so they set their differences aside to work together (this seems to be a theme with my ships Lol). I just think they built a beautiful friendship and partnership. Cha Young was probably the only person Vincenzo could fully trust in that scenario (being in a new country, away from his subordinates and all). I liked how they learned how to rely on and trust the other. Yeah, Vincenzo was a Mafia consigliere but that didn't really made their relationship unbalanced? That was my main concern going through the series, considering that Cha Young is not as physically strong as him. But she's still just as smart, witty, brave and stubborn as him.

4. Kat and Patrick (10 things I hate about you)

Ahhhh, there's always a place in your heart for your first love ship. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love how Kat was always so abrasive and Patrick just wasn't put out by it. Of course, he was paid to take her out, but I know he secretly liked having her fight him all the time and always speak her mind. And I love that it didn't change towards the end, her character growth didn't involve her getting calmer or sweeter, just learning how to be vulnerable. Do I think that these two would've stayed together in the long run? Definitely no, but I still like the enemies-to-lovers situation going on here.

Honorable mentions that didn't make the cut: Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle (in basically every universe, lol), Shikamaru and Temari, Suki and Sokka, Kaz and Inej, Mulder and Scully, Koyanagi and Kabakura, Ash and Eiji, Ava and Beatrice, Anne and Gilbert, Jaime and Brienne, Monica and Chandler, Jiwon and Sungming + Yina Yeeun (both from Age of Youth), Keith and Lance (happily, I outgrew my Voltron fase), Howl and Sophie, and last but not least, Ymir and Historia.

Thank you again!

[xoteajays]

I know, I know.. Everyone has a right to their own opinions on what is liked and disliked. Because everyone know I know enjoys the show so it's surprising to know there's people who has no interest in the show.

I don't know why.

Yes. So if you do end up watching Vincenzo, then you'd have some of those characters to look forward to. If that might help. I don't know.

~

Orphan Black is like a fantasy scifi series to me. But, besides Orphan Black, every other scifi series I have ever watched was through anime though. Not with real people. If that makes sense. So I might watch a lot of scifi anime, at least enough to sometimes be interested in scifi.

That's fine. It's not like you can't watch those shows after Informa any time. And besides.. That might give you ideas for your characters too.

Really? Usually international apps like that are channels you'd usually have to pay for. If the channel is free, then I might look through some of their shows and movies to see if anything seems interesting to me.

~

Oshiage's crush was the more far away crush since she never seemed to know him personally enough to actually be able to crush on Yoshiki in that way. But Junko's crush is more of a stalker crush though, since she is always stalking Cobra any chance she gets. Although, I may be able to see her possibly trying to get the other Strawberry girls into a lot of them hating Cobra's love interest, I also feel like they're smarter than Junko in the sense they don't want to be involved. Or don't even care who Cobra's dating. So I can actually see that backfiring on her.

When it comes to their sexual preferences.. This is really how I'm even imagining them. Rocky and Cobra seem like they're men dominant, in a soft dom type of way to me. Where they treat their partners equally. But Hyuga seem more of a hard dom to me because of his aggressive tendencies. This is just how I see this guys though. And I am not even sure about the other male characters either. So this is how I see them with their partners. Cobra's dominant but not too dominant, he would be dominant in a gentler wat rather than aggressive (unless she is the type for aggression in some situations). Seriously, Cobra? Fuck you.

Although I can imagine Rocky and Cobra as switches during sex with their partners, I see them leaning more towards gentle doms though.

Except during the more kinky intimate moments with their partners.

Actually! Cobra. If the woman he's having sex with is someone he has been close to, someone who knows his sunnier personality, then it's a intimate situation where he might be slightly more playful with her.

That's why I was torn between White Rascals and Rude Boys, if I even decide to use her as a face claim. During her blonde era.. She has this Rascals vibe to her aesthetic (in those pictures). If she's involved with the Rascals, I can see her having two jobs but not overworking either. Like works in a bakery or even restaurant (like Itokan) by day but then working as a bartender by night. Or she just likes to cook and bake on the side as a hobby. But that picture also gives me this feminine style to her appearance like preppy and chic styles. Gives me this romantic vibe like most Rascals give me too, so she might also possibly enjoy a more romantic genre from time to time. And since White Rascals is in one of our favorite groups, you thought the same thing I did, she may be able to give more depth to the Rascals characters that we've rarely seen in the franchise. So those are reasons why I thought Rascals.

But when I see her more grungy styles to her, with mostly earth tones to the colors. That makes me think of Rude Boys. And like you said... I was watching the first movie. On the SWORD map for the district, RB and SHS are the towns next to each other. So she can live in between those two towns. And even though she does know the Rude Boys are able to care for themselves since they were children, I keep imagining her still wanting to help them in any way she can. I don't knw why I do think that, but that's what came to mind for Rude Boys though.

I know the ideas are vague. But that's what I came up with at the very moment, if I decide to use her as a face claim. Except I am indecisive. I can't really decide between the White Rascals or Rude Boys for her... Maybe I should put some notes down, which notes seem more closer to whichever gang. Don't know. I'm still figuring her out. If she's used.

And I still have to work on Red too.

Why do I do this to myself?! What the fuck.

You have four characters now? Maybe more. Since we're talked about fire personalities. Are your characters associated with the elements in the sense of personality traits. Since Yui is most likely the fiery type.

I'm trying to figure out how different Orange would be when she may be in a situation that would lead her to changing into this new person.

I was curious about that. Since Kizzy is a woman now, she would be a woman protecting women (unless those women deserve to be hit in a way like Strawberry Girls should be hit for being stupid girls who have never seemed to know what they're doing). So that would be different than when men like Rocky, Koo, or other Rascals tries protecting her.

Shizuka and Kaito watching Yui and Kizzy being mischievous brats.

If Yamato attempts to grab her, then hopefully he doesn't accidentally touch her breasts. I don't think girls would like that. Most girls may be turning on them for the accidental act, and taking anger out on him.

I never knew there were creatures called semons. Interesting! So then are semons a new type of demon? I know, I know.. I'm joking. But that was a funny typo to me. So I had to make a comment about that too.

So Yui would be trolling Shizuka over his superstitious behaviors. And I can't say I blame her.. I would react the same way about teasing a lot of people who are superstitious like that. That's just me though.

Mikey and Draken are my boys!

i’ve only watched the one episode of informa, but it looks like it shaping up to be interesting. reo’s character is a bit of a dingus, but i like that in a character. and the dynamic he has with the titular ‘informa’ is fun.

yea i cant remember the name of the other apps i’d used for international stuff, but they’d required signing up for. hitv is a bit like tubi in which there’s no sign up unless you want to pay and there’s a couple ads between episodes. it’s unfortunately only got a small amount of horror/thriller stuff, but there’s a lot of dramas and romance shows.

~

i think oshiage and murayama could be decent friends if given the chance. but junko’s always switching up her personality whenever she sees cobra around. iirc there was a scene where the other girls were pumped up to join a fight but junko dissuaded them because ‘fighting wasn’t something boys like’?

i can definitely see hyuga as being a bit of a rough lover. probably bites in the bedroom as well. cobra and rocky are def soft doms, i can see them being very focused on making sure their partner is doing okay/enjoying it. i think cobra at least could be a bit more of a pushover towards being more submissive than rocky.

g o d cobra’s playful side coming out while with a partner’s he’s very close with/trusts. very much a post-final mission situation though, when he’s finally got the chance to relax and doesn’t have the weight of the sword rivalries and kuryu on his shoulders.

pre-final mission i could see him being a lil - unintentionally - rougher. not enough to hurt his partner at all, but treating it a bit like a stress reliever thing. (and his partner would probably have to initiate bc he’s busy brooding).

if the rascals area and the sannoh area were closer, i could see her working in both, like a restaurant/bakery in sannoh and then club heaven by night. but oya territory is in the middle there.

speaking of, kinda weird that dan (from sannoh) meets lala (from nameless) - which okay, those areas are close to each other - but then they? what? walk all the way to club heaven in the rascals area? through oya? so dan not only cut into rascal territory but oya too? (i dont think it really counts the same for lala since i think she was just regarded as a regular nameless citizen for a while, did she show up with the rest of the rude boys at any other time before final mission?).

four now, with maybe a small handful of side characters later. like the guy ryuko scars up and maybe some ojou full-timers.

i haven’t totally pinned any of them towards the elements, other than yui being fire (passion, strength, anger). but with a lil googling: hinami would be water (flowing, rebirth, healing). shizuka would probably be earth (grounded, solid, dependable). which leaves ryuko with air (intelligent, perceptive, curious). this would make a good edit actually.

speaking of symbolism, since ryuko is represented by plum blossoms and hinami is irises, yui is probably peonies (honor, bravery) and shizuka is zinnias (loyalty).

yui sees it as ‘women protecting women’ and is mostly cool with it (so long as kizzy doesn’t get hurt in the process), she views it like fighting alongside any of her ojou girls, but with the rest of the rascals she’s like ‘get out of my way, i can protect myself 😡’.

kizzy finally has a girl friend to party with at club heaven. shizuka prefers the quiet calm of a bar though. since hinami isn’t a party girl and ryuko is a lil naive about clubs and such.

DID I WRITE SEMONS?!!!! AUTOCORRECT WHERE WERE YOU???

shizuka is going on about some legend and making yui take the longer route home ‘just in case’ of kuchisake-onna or jinmenken. yui just rolls her eyes and goes along with it, she does think it’s kinda dumb though, but shizuka can sometimes spook her.

[jiminrings]

what happened to mc after that?? JUNGKOOK I WILL WHOOP YO FUCKING ASS

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

the aftermath of stem koo breaking senior!y/n's heart

"do you need anything from us?"

yoongi asks you for the fifth time in the twenty minutes you've been home, heart breaking from the inside out when you haven't moved a single inch

he is begging that the thing you need from him and jin is to go beat j*ngkook up

HE CAN'T EVEN SAY HIS NAME WITHOUT BEING ANGRY AT HIM!!!!!!!

anything. anything to atleast make you sleep in peace tonight.

or them honestly,, either way

your body's facing the backrest of the couch and maybe that's for the better, because that way, seokjin won't feel the need to cry looking at the coldest person he's known to be openly vulnerable

you're still wearing your jersey!!! your stained dirty jersey that you've been in for the past three hours and the reason that it's still wet was that you've been using it to wipe your tears all the way to the dorm

"no. i'll be alright."

you mumble for the fifth time out of the five times you've been asked, and yoongi just has to grapple at his fist because he knows that being frustrated wouldn't help

you are the fURTHEST thing from okay

to be honest, it was only a miracle that you told the two of them what happened in the first place

it was in between sobs that you asked them why they were friends with you and they couldn't be anymore dumbfounded

it was in between violent tears that you mentioned hyeji that seokjin looked for a box of tissues because you've been intentionally rubbing your eyes raw

it was in between heaving that you said that no one wants to go the extra mile for me that yoongi started holding your cheeks and trying to get you to breathe with him in his panic too

it was in between hiccups that you uttered that no one wants to walk me home and that's when both of yoongi's and seokjin's throats started tightening, the dots hazy yet aligning nonetheless

it was in silence when you told that jungkook said that no one likes me, and that's when out of the three of you in the room – you're the one who's the calmest.

"okay. i'll bring you a blanket."

yoongi leaves it at that, standing from his spot on the floor to walk over to the kitchen where the blankets cLEARLY aren't there

no one really prepared yoongs for this

no one really is

there isn't a manual on how to act when the dearest friend that you have is crying their guts out for the first time

he can't explain his close bond with you and he's always seen you as his platonic girlfriend!!! his platonic girlfriend who has a bond with him that's closer than a sister's, more understanding than a mother's, and the utter admiration more than a friend's

you r literally yoongi's (platonic) soulmate and he would die on that hill

he would rather subject himself to torture via having to stay in a freshman's dorm equipped with the de facto led strip lights everyday!!! every single day, than to see you like this :(((

"what do you have on the bitch?" yoongi doesn't spare his words when he sits on the kitchen stool next to jin's figure

the dude is sTANDING and that means business

jin doesn't feel a single ounce of regret fetching his work laptop and scrolling through the files and tabs he has on every single student on campus, eyes only looking for one lee hyeji that's contributed to your anguish rn

jungkook is atleast 3/4 in this equation and seokjin will get to him of course

no one makes his emotional support best friend cry and nOT pay the consequences for it!!!!

in another life, vincenzo cassano's character is based on seokjin and the events in his life that definitely happened >:(

"she's daddy's money. can't fucking believe that sHE'S representing the school," he sighs in genuine annoyance, but not loud enough to pique your attention as he turns the screen so yoongi could clearly see her headshots, "must be a diversity hire. every university needs a fucking bimbo, apparently."

you see,,, yoongi would've SNORTED at that but now is not the time!!! he is still planning discreet retribution to avenge you!!!!

jin lets yoongi look at hyeji's entire file, wanting to get even the smallest bits even if the information he's taking in is against his will

he'll immediately delete whatever he learns about her right after it's served its purpose

"just messaged the faculty groupchat," seokjin himself didn't imagine the words coming out from his lips determinedly, but he knows that he's willing to do anything for the sake of this, "been crushing on jeon ever since the start of last semester. philosophy professor thinks it's because he once saw jungkook lending her a pen when they were in the topic of soulmates."

jesus christ

now THAT'S just annoying ://

this

whatever this is

seokjin and yoongi don't know what they're digging all this information for

they don't know what this unspoken plan is for, or if they even have a plan in the first place

if jin were to tell the faculty gc about this???

absolute mayhem

but he knows for a fact that they'd hate star student jungkook easily within a tap of a finger

the philosophy prof would lose all sense of rationality and reasoning and INSTANTLY point to jungkook as an asshole!!! no questions asked!!!! no elaborations!!!!

"i could get jeon eliminated from all the academic listings he's in."

jin pipes in at the silence that he and yoongi share, both listless in this situation that they never expected to encounter with you

"i could always spread a rumor and make him unlikeable."

yoongi toys with the rings that he wears, a heavy exhale tearing away from him

they could think of a thousand other ways to get back at jungkook!!! they literally can

seokjin knows a contract guy who leaves shredded paper with his contract's initials written on red ink (for a base fee of three dollars, he can switch up the ink for you!!!) right next to their side on the bed

yoongi knows a guy whose modus operandi is to discreetly follow people, have subliminals playing in the background (for an extra fee of ten dollars, he'll use wireless bass-boosted speakers), and continue doing so until the desired message is achieved!!!!

none of the people they have connections to could employ the same amount of pain he's caused on you

there's literally nothing that could hit home with jungkook besides you.

but there's no way to do that and even in your state of anger and sadness tHEN utter vulnerability, you can't even really think of hurting jungkook in the way he did

because you know and yoongi knows and seokjin knows and everyone knows that you aren't the type to wish ill

you admit that sometimes you're unavailable but you don't want that to be an asshole-reason to make everyone else around you suffer in the same way you do

the people around you aren't your shock absorbers!!!! that's why you hang out a teddy bear on your doorknob when you're mad so that neither yoongi or jin would have the possibility to be caught in your rage

that's why you call for a break when your soccer team is out of their game and make everyone drink their electrolytes before they speak to you!!!!

that's why you have the old heart of your even older build-a-bear stuffie in your pocket, one of the only reminders that your childhood even happened, one that you'd squeeze between your fingers in any remotely anxious instances that you find yourself in

jungkook's words hit home and it put you into a spiral if you even had one in the first place

your parents divorced when you were young and it's just that,,, no one from the two of them wanted you because you were the reminder of the other parent

you're a place marker for when a commitment started and ended and god did it make you grow up quickly

your aunt raised you!!!! she's an angel and she's the maternal figure in your life that you'd always be grateful for

you love her all the same and as much as you didn't wanna relate yourself to your parents in the same way that they don't, the feelings of being unliked hit you ever so often

lol it's quite a dashing mindset you have but you can't see any other interpretation you should employ

you leave before they could leave you.

it's not really as dramatic as it sounds

BUT IT COULD BE

there's always obligatory groupchats for projects and you're the first one to leave it instead of awkwardly waiting out for the conversation to dwindle and then leave one by one

when you and yoongi argue, you leave before he attempts to get the last word in

when jin is about to ask if you want to split the bill, you're already putting more than half of your share on the table

it's a nagging feeling of not wanting be unwanted in every situation you're in, but you aren't all that sure of wHAT you'd do to be liked

the only thing you could think of are lunchboxes, and even that gets taken away from you.

does no one really like you??

you're shifting in your position before you know it and the lone sound makes jin and yoongs come to your side immediately, looking at you in concern

you're looking up and you could just fEEL your eyes are puffy and even the light's hurting them

"i need to sleep."

"o-oh! m'kay, sure. i'll carry you to bed, let's go," seokjin wastes no time in responding, about to hook his arms underneath you when you repeat yourself again

you only chuckle but it's the driest and most painful they've ever heard, wincing when they can hear how breathless it was

"no. i mean i need to sleep."

jin blinks once

yoongi blinks twice

OH

right

they get it now

you don't want to sleep, and you really can't, but you need it

"i'll get it!!" jin volunteers to grab what you need, leaving yoongi with you

oh god you could fEEL that he's going to cry

what a big baby ://

seokjin comes bearing the joint :D

he's about to light it for you because he knows that three specific short hits would lull you to slumber then knock you out cold for like a day lmao

he minored in chemistry actually but he cAN'T explain shit on why that's your body's reaction

you're all-good for literally anything besides three short hits lmao

yoongi was about to scold jin because he lights it and tHEN he's the one who takes the first drag, but there's an assuring wave of his hand

how romantic

jin just blew you a heart

<3

they can't get anything from you besides the slight crinkling from your eyes but they don't mind at all — your eyes are atleast one degree less sad

you take your turn and even pass it to yoongi but he rEFUSES,,,,, not the least bit dejected that he decided not to because he wants to watch over you instead and not see every inanimate object with cartoon eyes on them while watching over you

"bake her a cookie if in case she suddenly gets hungry in the middle of her sleep. sneak a carrot in it or something," jin reminds yoongi and he's sERIOUS about the recipe, holding you in tow as he makes the way to your room

yoongi's about to break out the bowls, freezing in his steps when he hears the doorbell frantically ring

oh god

the ONE time that they didn't plug the door with a wet towel and now it's probably the hall manager outside about to do an inspection

that is not..... the hall monitor

that is a fucking asshole

jungkook's been pacing on his heels, his knocking loud enough to wake up the entire hallway at this point

he's SWEATING and he's not even wearing his hoodie

the door finally opens and the words start tumbling out of his mouth

"good evening. i-i wanna explain myself and-..."

that is not,,,,, you

it's his senior that he's disrespected probably too many times

yoongi leans to the door, a sickeningly sweet smile on his face that the junior's never seen before

"you ever had a sandwich before, jungkook?"

"w-what?"

the younger boy stammers, his eyes following yoongi's actions of looking behind him out of worry and then going outside to join him by closing the door softly without noise

yoongi only snorts, not even sure if he's up for conversation

"hyeji's never packed you a sandwich before?"

jungkook pales at the mention, mouth drying when he sees yoongi bring up the soft smile that doesn't comfort him at all

"the one that's all knuckle?"

[sweetestlamb]

Mostrami Amore.

Summary: Cha-young tries to move on from a certain mafia boss. 

Author’s Note: Thank for to everyone who sent in prompts for Chayenzo, it resulted in this mess. I don’t have much to say, I considered making this into a multi- chaptered story but honestly I don’t have time for another ongoing story so if this seems rushed it was a little, I wrote it in one go today. Hope you enjoy this, I stuck in some of my favorite crack ship because I am weak and obsessed. Happy reading! 

p.s takes place after final episode but han seo lives because this is my world and I get to play God. 

Another postcard.

Their delivery becomes sporadic and she’s embarrassed at the giddiness that washes over her each time a new square is sent miles across a wide stretch of ocean, the view on the card most likely lackluster in comparison to the true rendering of Malta. She has spent many hours on her laptop searching for images of the small paradisiac island, yearning to see what he sees and feel just a tad bit closer to him. Most of her life has been spent in solitude with only her work acquaintances filling the void at times, so she expected herself to be more equipped to deal with his disappearance and subsequent absence. But nothing prepares her for those moments at the coffee shop, when she finds herself smiling across a table only to realize there is no miniature espresso cup in the hand of a very dangerous Italian Korean mafia member grinning back at her. 

The smile melts off her face and she swallows the bitter cool sludge in her cup, the beverage tasting exactly as he had described it without him there. 

Nights are the hardest, loneliness coils around her like a snake. 

There was never any other fate for them, she knew that when Vincenzo murdered all their enemies this was their only real outcome. He would always be a fugitive on the run and she an accomplice if he were captured and questioned, it was in both of their best interests if he vanished from the face of the planet. But knowing that does nothing to qualm the ever present feeling of isolation that clings to her skin as she sits alone on her couch, downing makgeolli at a vicious pace. Trying to wash his taste from her mouth, that kiss on loop in her mind and the phantom grip of his hand on her neck. 

It’s those treacherous nights without the plaza members that have become a second family to her and Han Seo following her like the lost puppy he is calling her “Noona” so freely and frequently until she forgets her own name, that she allows herself to feel exactly what she’s feelings. 

Heartbroken. 

Desperate. 

Lonely. 

Rage. 

The last one she hides like a dirty secret in the closet of her heart, she knew what she was signing up for. She has no legitimate reason to be angry, or so she tries to reason with herself. But. This was the same man who had bypassed the security of one of the richest men in Korea and ultimately killed him without leaving a trace. She had watched him do despicable things, blackmailing, threatening, seducing, and murdering others as he saw fit and yet, he hadn’t used any of those dastardly ways to see her. That chance meeting at the art gallery had been the last she had seen of him, Then a few weeks later another postcard with the same message she had boldly uttered at the airport, it feels insufficient after having him in her arms again. She knew in that moment that they would never be enough again. She hadn’t even argued when Mr. Nam claimed he would leave this one on his table instead, she merely nodded and walked away to peruse the new sexual assault case she has taken recently. 

It gets harder and harder to hear Han Seo regaling the wonders of his “hyung”,  her anger boiling deep below the surface like magma waiting to explode and transform into something tangible and destructive. 

“He told me that he has a room for me too. I wonder when he’ll let us visit.” 

She nods absently, staring out the window at the sunlight twinkling in through the blinds but then his words register and the gears in her head churn before running the sentence back through to carefully process them. 

“He---what? You spoke to Vincenzo?” 

The human puppy pouts his lips before tilting his head and dealing a hard blow to her ego and her heart, “Yeah, he sends me letters. I got so scared the first time! He said the letter would self-destruct after I read it and I really thought that was true and I dived across the room to escape but I bumped my head on the table and then...” 

He sent Han Seo letters.  

She had received the same fucking postcard for months on end with the same message she had said to him, and he had time to write Han Seo letters. He hadn’t sent her even one in the time he had been gone. 

“That fucking bastard!”  She explodes interrupting Han Seo’s recount of his near death experience and he looks wide- eyed and taken back by her outburst, she almost soothes him before another wave of anger rushes through her veins. She had accepted the bare minimum because she thought this was all he could give her but it seemed she was being too naïve. He was Vincenzo Cassano after all, he could make anything happen. She had seen it with her own two eyes. If he wasn’t reaching out to her maybe that was a message and she was too blind to see it. 

“Noona? Are you okay?” Han Seo looks absolutely terrified, eyes huge and quivering. She doesn’t bother answering, grabbing her cup of lukewarm coffee and stomping out of the office ignoring Mr. Nam’s calls behind her. She’s tired of being an idiot. 

She throws herself into forgetting him, the same way he seems to have forgotten her despite his words to her that fateful night on the stairs. 

I thought about you everyday. 

Actions speak louder than words and she is done accepting his crumbs. She has never needed anyone, had even accepted when her own father wanted nothing to do with her; she has basically been prepping for this moment her entire life. 

So she goes shopping with Miri, buying gadgets that she has no idea how to use but that the other girl makes sound like things that she definitely needs such as a new home security system, her break in still fresh in her mind. She grins at the pretty smile on the other girl’s round face as she explains the specification of the machines around them and she can see why Han Seo has such a huge crush on the girl, the pretty blush that blossoms on the other girl’s cheek after stating the fact out loud is adorable and she pinches said cheek much to her chagrin. 

“You should worry about your own love life.” Miri teases but the words sting like acid on her skin and she turns away to hide the grimace on her face, but she’s not fast enough and the other girl catches her wrist halting her movement. 

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Mr. Cassano?” Miri whispers the last part, looking around to make sure that nobody overhears them. 

She forces herself to stifle her emotions, trapping them in the back of her mind refusing to let him have this kind of affect on her. 

“I wouldn’t know.” She tries for a emotionless tone but even she can hear the bitterness in her own voice and Miri’s eyes fill with pity and it makes her sick to her stomach, “Don’t. I am going to be fine. Let’s just go.” 

They don’t utter single word in the car ride home. 

After that it becomes painfully obvious that everyone in the plaza thinks something is wrong with her and are teaming up to make her feel better. It’s the packed lunches that keep showing up on her desk without fail, her clothes being steamed and pressed for free, the way that they won’t allow her to be alone and there are countless spontaneous family game nights all ending with her drunk and being carried home. 

Tonight Mr. Tak is the unlucky volunteer, dragging her limp body in her father’s house and she thinks of all the times that they drank here together and a certain person was the one hauling her body to bed complaining and grumbling but that distractingly fond smile on his face that he only ever seemed to shoot her way. Her heart thumped loudly as he loomed over her and leaned in close, getting her hopes up only to brush her hair behind her ears and softly tell her, “Go to sleep now,” and she had never been obedient all her teachers could testify to that but when he looked at her like that she was powerless to do anything else but listen. 

“I miss him.” The traitorous words fall from her lips and vanish into the inky darkness of the night. 

A deep sigh from the left of her, “We know.” 

She feels vulnerable, the worst thing about having a weakness is other’s noticing too. She hates how weak she feels. 

“I am going to forget him.” 

The body supporting most of her weight tenses under her arm and she waits for his response, they all love Vincenzo- he had become their unexpected hero and leader in many ways. They would always take his side, she knows that. 

“If that’s what you need to do to be happy. Then, do it. Loving a man like Vincenzo isn’t easy.” 

She turns to look at him in genuine shock. 

“What? You thought I would tell you to keep waiting with no end in sight? You should know by now, you mean a lot to us too. Your happiness is important to us too, we’re a family.” 

“But we’re the Cassano family,” she challenges unable to accept that they could love her without Vincenzo attached, but Mr. Tak shrugs at the clarification, “We can be the Hong Family too.”

She feels her eyes swimming. 

“I should go inside.” 

She feels sober and more awake than ever, she stays up all night twirling the long strands of her hair in between her fingers. 

Thinking. 

Variety is the spice of life. 

She doesn’t know where she’s heard that but it’s those sage words that are the catalyst for her spontaneous decision. 

“Same as always? Silky with some body?” Her stylist peers into her eyes through the wide mirror and she hears herself say, “No I want a cut and some color.” Yu-jin raises one pretty tweezed brow but nods after a moment’s pause, “Okay. How short are you thinking?” 

And that’s how she starts her day with long thick hair that grazes her lower back and ends it with a short bob that tickles her neck. It feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulder, metaphorically and literally and she loves the face that she sees in the mirror, her eyes looking brighter than they have in months. She feels more alive, like a snake shedding its skin and becoming a newer and fresher version of itself. 

“Your hair?” That becomes the running theme for her day, shocked gaping mouths and hands reaching out for the hair that was once there.  She merely smirks at their palpable surprise, especially Seol-jin who doesn’t recognize her from behind. 

“I haven’t seen a pretty lady like you aro--Oh Ms. Hong! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you, I am so sorry please excuse me!” The interpretative dancer bolts away leaving her to watch him bemused, she skips to Jipuragi with a pep in her step laughing loudly when Mr. Nam drops his coffee upon seeing her and the brown liquid goes flying and douses him in a sticky hot mess. 

It’s an entertaining day to say the least. 

Moments later when he’s finished cleaning himself up and changing into the cheetah print track suit that he insisted to keeping in the office, he mentions that a new postcard has arrived. She nods at the information, looking at her laptop and it’s only seconds later that she finally looks up and sees that he’s waiting for her response. She doesn’t have one. 

Forcing a tight smile on her face she replies, “Oh that’s great. Just put it with the others.” 

He does. 

But she can feel his eyes on her, his concern heavy and tangible in the air. 

She pretends not to notice and keeps clicking away on her laptop, only glancing over at the card once or twice. But it’s only out of habit. 

Nothing more. 

She starts going on dates with random men. Men she meets in coffee shops, on the streets, in bars, hell one time even the bookstore. She never meets the same man twice and they never get what they want but it does make her feel desirable and that’s all she’s looking for. 

“Where are you going?” Han Seo asks her curiously, Miri by his side as she struts out the plaza new perfume on her skin. 

“On a date. I’ll see you both later.” They both gape at her and can only watch with wide eyes as she sashays away, heels clicking with every step. 

Word spreads like wildfire and no one takes it harder than Mr. An, who calls her a “jezebel” and cries at the front of the law firm for hours, she has to step over him to go get lunch shaking him off when he latches on to her ankles. 

The others just look at her with sad eyes, filled with both understanding and disappointment. 

Much to her surprise the lunch boxes keep coming and her clothes are still pressed and starched to perfection though. 

She also starts taking self defense classes, Korea is much more dangerous than she had first suspected and she has to be able to protect herself because nobody is coming to save her.  Not anymore. 

It becomes a great outlet for her built up anger and her instructor praises her for being a fast learner. She grins and nods before flipping him and twisting his arm around his own neck in a modified sleeper hold. When he taps on her arm she squeezes tighter instead of letting go and he goes limp for a moment before she comes back to herself and releases him hastily with a quick apology, “Sorry!”

He rubs his neck, panting for air and she feels guilty, there's a tinge of that but most of all she feels powerful, more so than she has for a long time. 

It’s crazy but she finds herself asking him for drinks after class and even crazier is that he agrees even with her marks still there on his skin, the area bruised and red. He looks at her like she’s challenge that he wants to conquer, she lets him believe that’s possible. It’s only a bit of fun anyway, she has no plans for anything serious. 

Drinks turn into a drunken cab ride home with his hand on her thigh, hot through the thin material of her tights and they don’t feel right- too small and not rough enough but she’s moving on and she has no time to reminisce. 

There hasn’t even been a postcard lately. Message, loud and clear. 

When she shoves the keys into her door, he’s glued to her body leaving wet kisses on the long column of her neck and she tries to suppress the nausea that swims in her stomach, everything feels wrong and she hates herself for feeling that way. Why shouldn’t she fuck whoever she wants? He is probably doing the same thing, everyday on his beautiful private island. Kissing women that aren’t her and whispering dirty Italian words into their ears as he rocks back and forth, nary a thought of that Korean woman he knew once upon a time. 

Fuck him. 

She rocks back into the purposeful grind of the hips behind her, feeling the hardness that digs into the soft flesh of her ass and finally the door opens and they both tumble in haphazardly and he thrusts a hand under her loose shirt fingering at her breasts before a dark figure moves far too quickly in her peripheral and she hears her date cry out in pain. 

She almost faints at the familiar sight of the one person she never expected to see, the hard glint of his cold eyes as he twists the same hand that had just been fondling her chest. The grip looks painful, the wrist contorted in an unnatural manner. 

“What the fuck? You have a boyfriend?!” Her instructor cries out, voice high pitched falling to his knees as Vincenzo kicks his feet out from under him. 

She rolls her eyes, of course he would come now when she is trying (and failing) to get over him. 

Vindictively she answers the question, ‘No.” 

But that makes Vincenzo twist the wrist in his grip even tighter and she can see the bones breaking so she takes pity on the poor man, he didn’t sign up for a murderous mafia leader after all. 

“Just let him go. You have no right to do any of this.” 

He doesn’t listen right away and absently she wonders if she’ll need to test out her new moves on him, it would be satisfying to deck him square in the face. She dreams of that as often as she dreams of their reunion. Her feelings are...complicated to say the least. 

Then with a grunt, he throws the other man away like he’s trash and growls out, “Get out of here before I kill you.” 

She tries not be get turned on by that. But it’s a hard sell, her body already getting revved up. He’s telling the truth. 

The man wastes no time, jumping to his feet and bolting out the door without one backwards glance. Asshole, he was really just leaving her with a clearly unstable and dangerous man. 

“We need to talk.” Vincenzo squeezes out between clenched teeth, and her blood runs cold but she stares him dead in the eyes tired of this game they’ve been playing, if he’s here to end things she wants to know. 

“Okay. Then talk.” 

She looks insanely beautiful, with her hair cropped so short bringing his eyes to the tantalizing length of her neck. His eyes close in on a spot of moisture on her neck, he feels his blood boiling imagining that bastard touching any part of her.  She’s glaring right back at him, her chest rising and falling and he can’t help but check her out, it’s been months since he saw her in person the photo of her doing aerial yoga above his bed couldn’t compare to the tempest that is Cha-young in real life. 

The flat plane of her belly is on display under the white crop top loosely stretched across her chest which leads down to her slim hips and legs wrapped in white spandex, leaving very little to the imagination not that he hasn’t imagined her in far less many, many times. Too many times to count. Spilling across the silk adorning his king sized bed with only her name on his lips. 

She looks fucking hot. 

That makes it even more frustrating because he can still clearly see that bastard wrapped around her like a snake and his hands going up her shirt---he has to take a deep breath before he breaks something. Or chases that asshole to break his face. 

There’s so much he wants to say to her, so much he owes her. 

I missed you. 

I love you. 

Come with me. 

“Who the hell was that?” He says this instead then watches her eyes glint over into nothing but pure murderous rage. Wrong move. But he couldn’t help it, green eyed raged taking away his decision making abilities. 

“That’s all you have to say? Get out.” 

He wasn’t expecting rose petals and trumpets when he returned but he definitely wasn’t expecting this, her cold glare or another man in his spot. He thought she would wait for him, just as he had done for her. 

“Are you serious right now?” He counters, flabbergasted. 

“Deadly. Get out.” 

He clenches his fist, and then stomps out. Turning back but only to watch the door slam in his face. 

What the hell. 

It had only taken a letter from Han Seo to get him on boat that would take him to an open field and hours later he was soaring through the skies on a hot air balloon, on his way back to Korea. It was insane and he barely had time to explain to his family but Luca nodded at him like this was the only choice and told him that he would take care of everything, and he trusted those words more than he had ever trusted anything in his life.

“Vai a prendere la tua donna( go get your woman).” 

He had nodded, gruffly patting the other man on his shoulder before hopping over into the waiting boat. 

But he wasn’t so certain anymore that Cha-young was his. 

She seems different. Colder almost, she leaves whenever I mention your name and she goes on dates now. I think she’s moving on hyung, what are you going to do? 

Those words had been the scariest thing he had never seen. Scarier than every gun that had ever been pointed at his head. He thought what they had was something special, something that could stand the test of time and distance. He stared at the huge pile of letters on his bedside, all addressed to her. He had written one everyday since they had been separated, but each time he was too much of a coward to send it. In those letters he could say things that he could never say to her face, things like how much he ached without her by his side and how her smile was the only thing that kept him going. In those letters he could regal the ways he loved her, and how deeply she had been branded into his soul, every atom of his body belonged to her and her alone.  He would kill for her, die for her, anything she needed or merely wanted he would provide it, all she needed to do was ask. 

He could only share those feelings in the letters. 

He walks for hours, until he ends up at his old apartment the familiar door greeting him and he sticks his hand in his pocket before he remembers that he gave the key away, with a sigh he starts to walk away before the door creaks open and he hears a voice he hasn’t heard in months. 

“Hyung!” 

A warmth spreads across his back as a solid weight almost knocks him off his feet. He reaches one arm around his body, awkwardly slapping the face that is pressing into his collar. 

“You really chose to stay here.” 

He feels the nod on his shoulder, “Of course. It made me feel closer to you hyung, I missed you.” 

He grunts in response, before turning around and tugging the younger man into a real hug. He had missed the annoying little leech too, he had missed everyone. 

They are still in each other’s embrace for a moment before Han Seo pulls away, sympathy etched deep on his face. 

“She wasn’t happy to see you.” 

“There was someone else there.” He hates the words even as they leave his mouth and Han Seo winces, looking pained for him before tugging him into the small apartment. Everything is just like he left it.  He looks around in awe. 

“I’m sorry hyung. What are you going to do?”

That’s the golden question, he pondered it all the way here and he’s no closer to knowing the answer to that. Usually she is the one that makes the move, she has always been the brave one between them. He back steps and says things he doesn’t mean and she sees through him and smashes down all his walls. That’s how this has always worked. 

“I don’t know. Maybe I should just leave her alone. Let her be happy.” 

A loud scoff reaches his ears, “Sure. Is that why you sailed across sharked infested waters and trusted a hot air balloon company run my former thugs?”

He smarts at the sarcastic reply and glares before flicking the cheeky brat on his nose, "I liked you better when you were stupid you know. Now you're a little smart ass."

The younger man looks even more youthful as he grins back at him, rubbing at his nose before shrugging.  "I learned from the best."

He has no rebuttal for that so he tries to flick him again, giving chase when he darts off.

It feels good to be home.

He warns Han Seo not to tell anyone that he's here least they give away his location.

So he's not surprised the next day to find the cavalry at his doorstep hands filled to the brim with containers of food. There are tears, mostly from Mr. Nam who won't stop screaming his name and pinching his cheeks to see if he's real and Mr. An who wraps around him like a koala despite his very detailed threats. It's all chaos and so familiar that his heart aches but her absence is like a hole in his chest. Nobody mentions her but they all keep looking at the door, so it's obvious that she was invited but chose not to come.

Because she didn't want to see him.

"You're here to win her back right?" He doesn't know who even utters the words but when he glances up they are all looking at him expectantly.

He didn't know that was what he was indeed here for thought that she would happily welcome him back and they could pick up where they left off but she's made it clear that this won't be the case. This will be the most important fight of his life.

"Yes. I'm here for Cha-young."

He gets enthusiastic thumbs up and a loud giggle from the Yeon-Jin  and Cheol-Wook’s adorable baby, her little hands too uncoordinated to do a thumbs up but she waves excitedly  feeding off the energy around her.

He wonders how Cha-young would look with a baby in her arms, their baby it's a dangerous thought. But one that he can't get out of his mind once he thinks it.

They stay until midnight, forcing him to eat and drink too much soju until he passes out to dreams filled with a round Cha-young, belly swollen and protruding from her body. 

It doesn't take much to learn her schedule(Mr. Nam hands him a laminated copy) and he has to put on a disguise but he enters the shop seconds after her, hearing her order that god awful sewer water she's so fond of.

"An espresso for me." He leans in too close, almost brushing her shoulder and she jolts at the sound of his voice, turning to stare at him as if she's a mirage.

"You're still here?" She whispers and then shakes her head and looks away as if she's hadn't meant to say the words aloud.

It hurts him that she thought he would leave without telling her but he can't blame her, he has been anything but consistent. Instead of answering, he leans forward to hand his credit card to the cashier who glances between them suspiciously before accepting the card.

Their orders are ready in seconds and he follows her as she walks to their table, butterflies in his stomach at the familiar sight.

She turns to him with a glare, "It's just the only available table."

He moves to pull out her chair and she starts at him tight lipped before sitting down. She's in a tight black suit today, two long slits on the side of her pants going all the way up to her thighs. He gulps down his drink to get rid of the drool pooling in his mouth.

"You're upset with me."

She stares at him like he's the biggest idiot on the planet, it's not a look he receives often but she's always the outlier in his otherwise organized life.

"Astute observation." She quips back, sucking loudly at her coffee.

"Why?"

He considered how to go about breeching this subject and in the end had decided on going straight to the source, he had been under the impression that this was working for them.

Her face morphs into a person he hasn't seen for a long time, the Cha-young that would berate him and make him angry enough to curse in Italian.

"Do you think this little of me?"

He's completely lost, "What do you mean? What did I do that was so wrong? Wrong enough for you to cheat on me!" He's panting now, his voice has gotten loud enough to catch people's attention he can feel them watching their table, nosy and invested.

"Cheat on you?"

Cold as ice, her voice is. It almost makes him shiver.

"How could I possibly cheat on you? We're not together. You send me the same postcard with the same message every few months. I have no idea what you're doing in Malta, who you're with. You can't even be bothered to send me a letter, do you think this is a relationship? You think it's enough to pop up like this every once in a blue moon? You've told me nothing about how you feel about me but I'm supposed to be satisfied with whatever you throw my way?"

If he wasn't sitting down his legs would have already given out he's certain about that. Her voice is deadly quiet each word landing and chipping away at his confidence.

"I'm doing the best I can! You knew it would be like this after everything was over, why are you blaming me now? How about you, I don't know how you feel either!"

"I love you! Anyone with eyes can see that, I told you that at the airport too. And again when I took a bullet for you, you didn't think that meant I loved you? I was willing to die for you."

Shit.

It's not at all how he expected them to confess their love for each other, it's hard to believe the words that are coming out of her mouth as she bares her teeth at him.

"So why are you doing this? Why are there other men?"

Why aren't I enough? He wants to say but he's scared of her answer, terrified that she'll say that she can't do this anymore. That he just isn’t enough anymore. 

She stares at him long and hard.

Waiting for something. But he doesn't know what.

"You haven't changed at all. You're still a coward, I'm not interested in guessing anymore. I’m done playing this game.” 

She stands up and walks away, leaving her unfinished coffee on the table.

Unwanted just like him.

She doesn't see him for days and she accepts that her words had done their damage, she had cried until she fell asleep that night. Waking up with swollen red eyes that no amount of concealer would save but thankfully no one commented on her state.

She goes through her day on autopilot and before she knows it she's back home, ready to face her night alone  again. She pushes the door open, half praying he'll be waiting for her but her hopes shattered when she turns on the lights and finds no one.

"It's better this way." She lies to herself, pouring herself an obscene glass of soju. She's going to need plenty of alcohol to get through this pain.

Her head is woozy and heavy when she hears a sound, suddenly alert she stills in her chair before rushing over to get a frying pan walking on the tips of her toes she prowls closer to the clicking sound, finding herself at the window peering at a long lost friend. Placing the frying pan on her window sill she pry opens the window, screeching when the audacious bird flies inside landing on her table as if he belongs there.

"Hey Inzaghi! Get your dirty bird feet off my table!"

He looks at her nonchalantly, making himself comfortable on said table and she sighs before shutting the window and drunkenly swaying over to him.

"What are you even doing there? Do you want to be my bird now, I won't be a very good owner. I won't remember to feed you. I barely remember to feed myself."

Despite being a bird he finds a way to roll his eyes at her before standing up and only then does she notice something on his leg. She looks at him cautiously before moving closer and untying the paper on his leg, the pigeon barely reacts before flying over to her couch. She sighs in annoyance, she's going to have to clean everything after this bird leaves.

She unwinds the string holding the paper together, unrolling the paper scroll. There is a message written inside: the rooftop. 9 pm.

Glancing at her clock the time shines at her.

7:34pm.

"This could be a trap."

It very much could be, she has enemies now. It was a small price to pay for taking down Babel but she's always looking over her shoulders now, so this note could easily be someone luring her to hurt her or get back at Vincenzo.

Inzaghi coos loudly at her as if he can hear her thoughts. This time he finds a way to look exasperated.

She stumbles off to her room.

She needs time to think.

"So she told you that she loved you and you didn't say it back?"

"I was shocked. She was growling at me and looked ready to kill me at the same time." He reasons back, trying to show his hyung his point of view. The younger man doesn't look even a little bit convinced by his logic.

"Okay and? That sounds perfectly normal for you too. You should have shot someone and wrote it back in their blood on the table."

He recoils in disgust at the suggestion, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually insane, why the fuck would I do that?"

Han Seo stares deadpan in return.

He puts up a hand trying to stop whatever response he has, "Don't say it."

It doesn't work.

"Pig's blood. Don't forget I saw it all, I've never seen Ms. Hong look so excited before. You're both crazy."

Well, that had been different. It was an old tradition, she simply had an appreciation for the classics.

"And I bet you're defending her right now in your mind. Noona is just like you, that's why you're made for each other. She's the gasoline to your fire."

"You know that would just make an even larger fire right?"

"Yes. I'm smart now remember? I know what I said."

He sighs falling into the comfortable familiarity of the couch, a spring digging into his thigh.

"Why didn't you say it back?" His stills at the barely whispered question, his chest constricting as he recalls the passionate confession. He had frozen, like he'd always known she was the brave one between them. Always doing the unexpected and the time was no different, her words had knocked him off his feet.

"Because I was scared."

Han Seo huffs at his honesty. He doesn't know where the words are coming from but he's tired of keeping it all in.

"Because if anything happens to her it'll break me, I thought it would be better if I kept her at a distance. I thought this was enough. I thought this would be easier. When I think about her I want to drop everything and just be with her and that...was too dangerous. I had to keep my distance."

There's a pregnant pause, just the sound of their breathing filling the void.

"Was it?"

"What?"

"Easier. Is this better? Enough?"

He thinks about Cha-young getting married to a faceless man, exchanging vows and sealing it with a kiss, happy and in love on their honeymoon wanton moans and screams from their room, learning that they're having a baby and her round and glowing with someone else's child smiling brightly as she rubs her belly and it's too much. He wants to smash it all into little pieces.

"No. It's not enough. I need her, without her nothing is enough."

"That's what you should have said to her. Don't glare at me I'm right, but I have an idea. I saw it in an American cartoon."

And that's how he lets his younger brother convince him to send a note to Cha-young using Inzaghi, the pigeon had shown up one night and he'd been so happy he almost kissed the bird.

"How will he know where Cha Young lives?" He asks skeptical even as he ties the note to the birds leg.

"I showed him a picture of her house. According to the cartoon, birds just know.” 

He stares at the younger man, wondering why he's listening to this ridiculous plan.

"This is stupid. I should just text her, Inzaghi is never going to deliver this. He's just a regular pigeon." 

"This is more romantic." He answers matter of fact.

"How is a pigeon delivering a message in anyway romantic?" He challenges already knowing from the shit eating grin he won’t like the response. 

"The same way pig blood was." The brat counters and he doesn't get a chance to respond before Han Seo picks Inzaghi up and throws him out the window, "In the name of love!" He only barely stops himself from bashing his head into the wall, the younger man has to wrestle him to the ground.

It's stupid. They did all of this for nothing the cool breeze makes him pull his coat tighter around his body, exposed to the weather on the open space of the rooftop.

He checks his watch, 9:48.

She's not coming and the worst part is that he doesn't know if it's because that damn bird never delivered his message or if it's because she really doesn't want anything to do with him. The burden of not knowing hurts more than anything.

Expelling the air in his lungs he walks back to the single door that leads off the roof, twisting the doorknob in his hand and pulling it open.

Meeting the shocked face of one Cha-young.

They both just stare at each other before he speaks, "You came."

He can't believe it. Inzaghi had actually delivered the note, somehow the pigeon had found her house and she was here. He almost pinches himself to see if he'd passed out on the roof and this was just a dream.

"I didn't know Inzaghi was a carrier pigeon." She futilely tries to change the subject and he takes a step back, gathering the tattered pieces of his courage. The same courage that had propelled him to kiss her all those months ago on the stairs.

"I'm so happy you're here. I waited for you."

She stares at him like he has two heads before blushing, and avoiding his eyes.

"Come with me." He extends his hands and tries not to be too hurt when she bypasses it and steps around him instead.

At least she was here.

With a quick swipe of his hand he sends the message to his accomplices.

Now.

The lights come on, fairy lights decorating the roof top in a heavenly glow. She spins around in wonder, eyes nearly as bright she's so beautiful it's almost painful to look at her.

Then the music starts.

The soft notes filling the space.

When I walk down a road I don't know well....

She looks around in wonder, staring back at him she can’t believe what’s happening. 

Then the letters start falling from the sky, all the letters he had written to her alone and missing her thousands of miles away. His plaza family smiles down at him, throwing letters from a higher building.

Cha-young stares up at the sky in surprise, hundreds of letters landing all around her.

It had taken a few days for Luca to send them all over and then another day to get the guts to do this, there was no turning back now. He had never willingly made himself vulnerable to anyone else, but according to Han Seo it was the only way he was going to win her back. 

“She just wants to know that you love her too. Show her.” 

He watches anxiously as she picks up a letter, stroking lightly at her own name on the front looking at him with stunned wet eyes. 

“You wrote me a letter.” Her voice is revere and awe that he doesn’t deserve, not after everything he has put her through in the sake of protecting himself but he’s too elated to see her looking at him like that again, like he’s someone important to her. 

“182. For each day we were apart. I told you I thought about you everyday, and every time I did I wrote you a letter.” 

She stares at the letter in her hand, gently ripping it open and devouring the words on the page. Nerves shoot up and down his body as he watches her read his most private thoughts about her, her expressive face for once empty of emotions as she silently reads the letter. 

He waits. 

Breathless and terrified. 

“Why didn’t you ever send them? They were mine so why did you keep them?” He hears an edge in her voice that makes him wonder if she’s only talking about the letters. 

“Cha-young, I don’t think you understand.” 

She breathes out loudly, stomping over to him until they are inches apart and he has no choice but to look into the deep pool of her eyes. 

“I don’t! I don’t understand anything, I thought you had found someone else in Malta and the postcards were just your way of being nice. I thought you didn’t feel the same way I did, you were sending Han Seo letters but you wouldn’t do the same for me. What was I supposed to think? Why didn’t you try to help me understand, you were gone for six months!” 

There’s so much wrong with everything she said, how could he find anyone else when his heart beats for her? How could he forget her when everything he did reminded him of her, he saw her every night in his dreams. But he doesn’t make the same mistake this time, he says what’s important. 

“I feel the same way. I love you Cha-young. I thought this was better for you, that this could be enough. But I was wrong, I missed you every minute of every--” 

“Come home with me.” 

He stops, stares, gapes and then stares some more. 

“What? I wasn’t finished confessing though.” Actually offended that she interrupted his planned speech. He was about to recite one of his favorite Italian love poems for her and then ask her to dance. 

She rolls her eyes dragging him towards the door, “Don’t you think we’ve wasted enough time? It’s been six months and you have been here for too long, you have to go soon.” 

She’s right, he has a flight in two days for an identity he borrowed for his escape. 

“Listen to her, just go back to her place and have a good night!” That sounds like Cheol-Wook and then they all erupt into applause and start cheering and hollering, chanting their names and then to his embarrassment they start chanting, “Go have sex! Go have sex!” complete with the monks banging on their drums and he doesn’t think he will ever live down this moment, especially when he sees Miri capturing it on the new video camera he had gifted her. 

He flips them off as an eager Cha-young pulls him away their laughter following them all the way. 

The car ride is too long on the way over and she wonders how quickly she can undress them both as soon as they reach, there is simply no time to waste. 

But once they get to the doorstep he suddenly freezes, tugging her backwards into his chest. 

“This looks familiar doesn’t it?” His voice is dark and smoky and she immediately knows what he’s referring to, and she refuses to give him any reaction. 

“Are you seriously doing this right now?” 

“You let someone else touch you. Here.” He runs a hand up her neck, briefly squeezing, “And here,” she gasps at his hands suddenly on her breast, squeezing harshly at the tender flesh. 

“So what are you going to do about it?” She knows that she’s playing with fire, but that is their foundation. She has never aimed to cool him off or tone him down, she sees the dark side inside of him and loves it, encourages it and feeds on it herself allowing it to bring her darkness out too. 

He kicks the door open, shoving her side and she delights at the rough treatment. She hopes that she is filled with his bruises tomorrow. 

She doesn’t wait for his next move, pulling her shirt up and over her head before tugging off her skirt leaving herself in a barely there lace panties and a matching lace bra that is translucent, her nipples peeking through the sheer material. He stares at her transfixed, his hunger evident in his eyes and in the tent forming in his tight dress pants. 

“Take those off.” She commands and he smirks before obeying, peeling the pants off his thighs standing in his button down shirt and tight boxer briefs that leave nothing to her imagination, every delicious inch of him visible. She steps forward bringing their bodies in contact, before thrusting her hand inside the opening of his briefs. He feels hard and smooth, liquid pooling at the tip and she twists her hand collecting it to ease her slow strokes up and down. His voice hitches as she fingers his balls and without warning she tugs his boxers off, leaving him bare to her eyes. 

Mesmerized by the unencumbered sight of him, she drops to her knees using her hand to guide him to her eagerly waiting mouth. 

His flavor explodes on her tongue and she swallows more, grabbing his hips to drag him deeper into her mouth until she can feel him in her throat, but even after her eyes start to burn and she feels herself choking she doesn’t stop, bobbing up and down hungrily, sloppy wet sounds filling the room in a filthy symphony. At first he lets her control the movement, pliant in her hands but as she increases her speed and suction he starts groaning and huffing loudly and then she feels his hand on the back of her hand, keeping her in place and when she looks up at him he looks wrecked. Eyes dazed and his face red and flushed, she ingrains that image in her mind, for when he’s gone and all she has are her toys. 

She stares back defiantly before he draws himself out of her mouth, a single line of spit connecting them and then he thrusts back into her mouth roughly and she opens her mouth wider to accept the abuse, loving every second of it even as a her throat aches. He sets a frantic pace, his balls slamming against her chin and she doesn’t realize at first that his grunts have transformed into words, too much blood rushing to her head. 

“Mine. Mine, nobody can---ah fuck! Nobody can see you like this. Only me. You’re mine.” 

He fucks her mouth like it’s his to use and do what he pleases, and she’s wetter than she’s ever been listening to him claim her verbally and with the wet push of his dick in her mouth. 

She starts grinding on the floor like a cat in heat and without preamble he grabs her under her armpits and lifts her like she weighs nothing, his dick sliding free from her hot mouth, “I want to make you scream.” He says this like a declaration of love and she throws herself at him, kissing the words off his lips. His tongue swirls in her mouth and she wonders if he can taste himself in her. It makes her hotter and she grinds her barely covered pussy onto his naked length, groaning at the friction even though the thin layer separating them. 

He tosses her onto the bed and she doesn’t even remember them walking, his tongue and his wondering fingers had completely distracted her. 

She lays sprawled across the bed as he stares at her, like she’s feast he can’t wait to devour. 

“Nobody has been in here.” She doesn’t know if he’s asking a question or making a statement, but she feels that his jealousy is real. Seeing her with someone else had done something to him, guilt washes over her. If she had seen him with someone else she would have lost her mind too. 

“Nobody. I never brought anyone home before, that guy was a mistake. I was just hurt and missing you. I’m sorry.” 

He had abandoned her for six months and she didn’t owe him anything but his pain is her pain and they are stronger now, everything has been said. 

“Good.” 

Then he rips her panties away and buries his face between her legs, prying her wide open with his hands and lapping at her with his searing hot tongue. Immediately he has his wish and she screams, loud enough to fill the entire room. 

“Already screaming amore? It’s going to be a long night, I want to make you hoarse.”  

She doesn’t get a moment to respond before he’s back to licking and sucking at her most sacred part, fingers deep inside her as he thrusts and strokes alongside his tongue, his fingers and tongue moving in tandem and she tries to stifle the scream but a particularly deep fuck makes the sound erupt from her throat and her head feels dizzy from the overwhelming sensation. 

He has boundless energy it seems, as time drags by and she feels her body tightening up as he systemically destroys her, he never takes a break or pauses, slurping up all the liquid that drips from her and the sounds of him swallowing are beyond erotic. When a hand runs up her stomach and squeezes at a bouncing breast she can’t contain her moans of pleasure, crying out as his fingers pinching the tight bud of her nipple. 

“Please.” 

He coos in her, “So pretty when you beg.” Then he sticks his tongue as far as it can go and she hears the rush of blood in her head as her body shakes apart and her release gushes from her body, twitching when he laps it all up her oversensitive body recoiling from the overstimulation. 

She has never come like that before, most men have never put in the work necessary to make her come and she wasn’t one to fake it so her experiences with sex with someone else were few and far in between. 

This feels like nirvana. 

“You still with me amore?” The bastard looks so smug, looming above her naked arms on the side of her head, and she had no idea when he took his shirt off. 

“I can’t feel like my legs.” 

He chuckles loudly at the statement, grinning growing wider. 

“Well I can assure you that they’re still there and they will look great wrapped around my waist.” 

Raising to his challenge, although her body is still buzzing she wraps her legs around his waist, they feel like jelly but she finds the strength to follow through with her movement. 

“I was right they do look great.” 

“Well this would look great in me.” She counters, grabbing at his thick ruddy red dick jutting from his body and he rocks into her hand before knocking her hand away and taking himself in his hand. 

“Do we need a condom?” He asks her, looking like he is ready to stop at nay minute if she tells him that they do. 

“No.” 

She has been on birth control since she was a teen and there’s been no one for her since she met him, and she trusts that it’s been the same for him. 

“Thank goodness, I want to feel everything.” He barely finishes his sentence before he’s easing into her, slow and steady. She lets him continue for a moment before she tightens her legs around his waist and pulls him in roughly, as deep as she can get him in this position. “Fuck, you’re so impatient.” 

“Shut up and fuck me already.” 

He grumbles at her calling her bossy, but she sighs when he draws out and slams back in with a quick snap of his hips. 

“Yes just like that!” 

He takes direction very well, repeating the motion until the bed starts to creak from their movements, he pistons in and out of her gone all semblance of gentle or slow, they have teetered into a speed that can only be defined as “break neck” and she feels her body sliding up the mattress as he pounds into her over and over again, she latches onto his neck eager to leave a branding mark on him and he groans at the suction, grinding harder into her and gripping her ass to force her to meet his vicious thrusts. 

Absently she feels him peeling her bra from her body, the only remaining item of clothing that has survived their coupling and she knows exactly when he sees the scar. The grotesque knitting of skin that had left a permanent scar on her shoulder, she almost covers it up but when she peels her eyes open he is staring at her mesmerized. 

“Don’t look.” 

He leans down to kiss it, the softest more precious kiss she has ever received in her life. 

He peppers more kisses all over, then strokes at it with a single finger. 

“I should have realized, this was your confession. I was an idiot. I will never be that stupid again, I love you so much. I would do anything for you. Anything.” 

He puts her legs on her shoulder, nearly bending her in half before resuming his thrusts but they are less frenzied now, it feels like lovemaking. Her eyes prickle when he kisses her scar with every downward thrust, whispering, “Beautiful, so beautiful. Every inch of you.” 

She cries out. 

With every thrust he kisses her scar, making her feel lightheaded and naked. 

When he moves them into a new position, her back to his front giving him better access to her scar, she loses herself as he whispers sweet nothings into her ears and litters the spot with warm kisses. 

She falls off the edge with his lips on her scar and him deep inside her, warm bursts filling her up before leaking out onto the bed sheets. 

“Today’s our last day.” 

Waking up next to him is torture, she tries not to ingrain that in her mind but it’s too late it’s already there. He blinks away the sleep in his eyes at her words and then nods solemnly in agreement. 

“Yes for this visit. But I’ll always come back for you.” 

She smiles brightly, “Don’t keep me waiting for too long.” 

They don’t leave the bed except to get breakfast and that ends with her laid across the kitchen table getting taken from behind after teasing him. He can’t seem to keep his hands off her new hair, twisting the short strands in his hands and yanking on them. She catches him looking at her heatedly more than once. 

Then they wind up in the shower, trying to clean up and getting dirtier instead, his hands tight in her hair and around her waist as he hoists her up to pound her into the wall. Making up for lost time. 

They get messages from their entire family, Vincenzo showing her a message from Han Seo asking if he’s going to be an uncle soon. She promises to embarrass him in front of Miri very, very soon. 

Both pretend they don’t feel the day fading away, bringing them closer to their goodbye. 

Tomorrow he will be gone again, but there’s no guessing now. She knows what she means to him now and that’s more than enough. 

She wakes up to an empty bed and a ticket to Malta, the ball is in her court. 

[literaryfic]

Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: 빈센조 | Vincenzo (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong/Hong Cha Young
Characters: Hong Cha Young, Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, vincenzo leaves, set five years after he left sk, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending


Summary: “She’d buried him next to the false hopes and broken promises he’d given her, growing her resentment and longing in the same garden as his missing corpse, taunting reminder of her failure to make him stay. Occasionally, she would revisit his empty tomb and greet his ghost, tormenting him with the same question over and over again; why?”

Chapter two is out! Read on ao3 or under the cut.

“Have you been well, Cha-young?”, the same deep voice she’d missed asks. The ghost that’s been haunting her came back in the flesh.

He hasn’t aged at all, his youthful face still handsome as ever. He’s not smiling per se, but she can tell he’s happy to see her. She gets up and walks away. This couldn’t possibly be happening.

He catches up to her after a few seconds.

“Cha-young-ah. Hong Cha-young. Talk to me.”, he urges her. Suddenly, she can’t control her anger anymore.

“Talk to you?”, she faces him. “You made it extremely clear five years ago that we had nothing to say to each other.”, she screams. His face is unreadable, years apart have made him a stranger. “And now what? You want me to talk to you? You disappeared on me out of nowhere and never looked back so don’t you dare ask anything of me, got it?”

Panting, the anger she thought gone felt just as hot as the day he left her.

“Fuck!”. She’s not done yet. How could he come back like nothing ever happened? He had given her shelter, just to make her homeless. He had made her believe in love and happy endings, built her a castle and set it on fire. She hated him, his stupid hair and his stupid face. “Why are you doing this to me now? I don’t get it. Why now?” She starts crying out of anger, out of frustration, out of exhaustion.

For years now Cha-young had spent all her energy trying to forget Vincenzo and what they could have been. She had fooled herself into thinking she was over him but even after all this time, even when she was this angry at him, all she wanted to do was to touch him. She felt like she’d been cursed by the Gods, condemned to have him in her sight, yet forever out of reach.

She’s shaking now, sobbing. Vincenzo slowly approaches her, his eyes full of anguish.

“Can I please hold you?”, he almost begs as a single tear runs down his cheek. She doesn’t remember a time where he’d sounded this desperate, and she nods, almost against her will.

He wraps his arms around her, her head falls on his chest. She takes a deep breath, filling her nose and lungs with his scent, the one she hasn’t been able to forget. Somehow, she’s crying even harder now and he starts stroking her hair. “I’m sorry,”, he whispers. “I’ve missed you so much.”

She can’t quite convince herself yet that this is not a dream, so she holds him tight, afraid that the ocean will swallow him and turn him into foam.

They stay in each other’s embrace for a while. It could be minutes or hours, Cha-young doesn’t really know. It seems that tonight, on this beach, her grasp on her reality is loosening. Dreams and ghosts come to her in waves, and she can’t help but wonder when the tide will recede.

In the beginning, she dreamt that he would stay with her. Cha-young thought herself strong enough to anchor Vincenzo, yet he had fled and renounced her. Then, she had dreamed of his return, punished to share the fate of a seamen’s wife awaiting her husband’s homecoming.

He had chosen to leave and, until now, had never bothered to come back, and so after a while she had declared him lost at sea. She’d buried him next to the false hopes and broken promises he’d given her, growing her resentment and longing in the same garden as his missing corpse, taunting reminder of her failure to make him stay. Occasionally, she would revisit his empty tomb and greet his ghost, tormenting him with the same question over and over again; why? The ghost stayed mum, mere fragment of a person who had once been alive.

Yet, here he was, the one she had lost at sea, standing in front her. There was no doubt that it was him, alive and well. She felt herself regain control over her emotions and stepped out of his arms.

“You owe me an explanation”, she demands, looking him in the eyes. He nods slowly, his face serious. He is about to speak when she cuts him off, “Not here.” Here, where dreams become reality and prayers were heard. “Take me to your room”.

And so he does. They walk back to the hotel in complete silence, the sea breeze clearing up her foggy mind. They go up to the very last floor and Cha-young almost laughs. Their rooms are exactly a floor apart.

When they get inside, Vincenzo invites her to sit on the couch while he settles for a nearby armchair. The suite is as big as an apartment and the view of the ocean is stunning. It suddenly dawns on Cha-young that he’d probably been living in luxury for the past 5 years, and why wouldn’t he when he was that rich, but the thought annoys her. As petty as it sounds, she had wanted him to be miserable, just as she had been.

“Why?”

The question that had been haunting her hangs in the air for a while, and at one point she thinks he might leave it unanswered.

“That time I ended up staying, I’d managed to take care of the situation in Italy, but it was temporary solution. I needed to come back to save our family from being killed off.” He explained, choosing each word carefully. She could tell he was nervous, his eyes scanning her face, looking for cues.

“That explains why you had to leave, but that’s not what I was asking, Joo-hyung-ah.”

He looks like she’d just slapped him across the face, and she might as well have. She had never called his Korean name in such a harsh tone before. No, this name had been reserved for their most intimate moments, when she made love to him and played with his hair afterwards, as he fell asleep in her arms, when he told her about the few memories he had with his mother, or described his life in Italy with his adoptive parents. It was the first she had used his name as a weapon, and he looked devastated. Good.

He takes a shaky breath and bites his lip, trying to hold back his tears. In that moment, he looks as old as the world and as weak as a child. Although it pains her to look at him like this, she shows no compassion. This man had destroyed her and she would hold him accountable.

“I left without telling you because I didn’t trust myself to go through with it.”, he finally manages to say after a while. “I had to leave but I just couldn’t bring myself to let you go.”

“You’re a coward, Mr. Cassano.”, she spits out his name, hoping the formality of it would hurt him too.

“I know.”

“Why did you have to leave me? I get that you needed to go back, but why did you have to leave me too?” Cha-young tries to stay as calm as possible, but it proves difficult when she keeps blurting out her most vulnerable thoughts. She feels defenceless against him, but it is the only way she’ll get the answers she needs.

“Turns out the situation was even worse than what Luca had told me, and I wasn’t sure any of us would get out of it alive. You didn’t deserve to have to wait for me indefinitely.”

“So dropping me out of the blue was the best solution you came up with? That’s the only thing the great Vincenzo Cassano, one of the best masterminds in the game, could think of?” Her words are met by silence. “Guess what, genius? I still waited years for you. How was I supposed to get closure when you just disappeared? Wouldn’t you, out of all people, know what it feels like to be abandoned?”

It was a low blow, she had to admit, but she was past that. She needed to bring him to his knees, she needed to shatter him, she needed to break his heart.

“The truth is, I thought—I thought I was freeing you. From me, from my sins.” He’s not looking at her anymore, head hanging down, tears falling onto the ground. She compels her heart to look away, just this once, to not care for him.

“And who do you think you are? Do I not get to decide for myself?”, she’s almost screaming again. Everything that was coming out of his mouth sounded ridiculous to her.

Of course, she had imagined this confrontation countless of times, coming up with all the possible reasons he would use to justify what he did, but none of them mattered. None of them were enough to appease her, to undo what had been done. Nothing would ever repair what he’d broken and they’d never be the same again.

“I have no excuse, tesoro.” She hears the plea in his voice.

“Don’t call me that.” He looks at her, visibly in pain.

It was bizarre, seeing him like that, so hesitant, so vulnerable, so scared.

She realises it at once; she’s witnessing his fear for the first time. She hadn’t been able to spot it at first but there it was. He’d allowed her to see his anger, his sadness, his unfiltered joy but he’d never been afraid in front of her. Vincenzo was scared to mess this up, scared to loose her again. She had to hold back a smile.

“Did you follow me here? Don’t lie to me.” She demands, reinvigorated by her newly found confidence.

“I’d never lie to you.” She rolls her eyes at that. “I landed in Seoul two days ago, but Mr. Nam told me you’d be spending the next few weeks here, so I hopped on the first flight I found. Meeting you here, tonight, was an accident. I didn’t know which hotel you were staying in.” He looks to his right, suitcase opened on the floor, near the bedroom’s entrance.

“Why are you here, Vincenzo?”, she’s trying not to let her emotions seep through her words, to remain distant. But he knows her well, and she can tell by the way his eyes suddenly look at hers that he hears it, the part of her that wants him to answer “For you, I’m here for you.”.

“To repent. I’m here to repent, Cha-young-ah.”. His words carry the same certainty they once did, his tone the one of a fearless man. Her heart threatens to leap out of her chest.

“Do I look like a fucking church to you?”, she forces out a laugh she hopes sounds bitter. Not letting him time to reply, she gets up from the couch, feeling dizzy. “Right, I’ve heard enough. Goodbye.”

She can’t tell if he calls her name or goes after her but she’s out the door before she knows it. She runs down the stairs, gets into her room and heads straight in the shower. The water’s freezing cold, but she finds comfort in not being able to feel the tears streaming down her face.

She tucks herself into bed, confused about whether she’d rather wake up from this nightmare or continue to live this dream.

[cuorepietoso]

-- 006.  FATHER’S SON

tw mentions of violence and murder and death. and ptsd

          He knows, conceptually, that his father probably wasn’t a good man. 

     Vincenzo Tahan was kind, certainly. He fed the strays, he helped old women across the street. He loved his wife and his son like they were his sole reason for existence-- and they may have been. Battista knows next to nothing of who he was other than this. He knows nothing of what he was like as a boy, he knows nothing of Vincenzo’s family he left behind in Tel Aviv. He knows nothing of how he got in bed with the Capulets, or when it all started. 

          He thinks about that, sometimes, when he really wants to torture himself. Lets himself wonder the what of it all, the when. Worst of all, the why. 

               Vincenzo Tahan. 

     What was he to the Capulets? A soldier? A money changer? A dealer? He tries to think of his father holding a gun, and it’s hard. Sometimes in his mind’s eye, the man’s hands shake like leaves under the crushing weight of what he has to do with the weapon. Sometimes they settle with perfect stillness, just like Battista’s own-- father and son, silent, stoic killers. He tries to imagine him giving drugs and guns out, funneling them into the streets, feeding the underground violence that tinged his nearly idyllic youth with that shade of darkness, the way his mother would clutch him close sometimes walking on the street, or the way he stopped waking up whenever there was gunfire nearby. He imagines the store, always one step from closing, hardly ever any customers outside of curious tourists and nutty artists, but somehow treading water anyway. 

     Then he starts to think, how long had his father kept this secret from them? How many nights did he have to sneak in late, how many times did he kiss his mother’s cheek with a gun in his pocket? Battista can hardly remember most of his childhood now-- too many blows to the head, or perhaps he just blocked out anything that didn’t suit his personal narrative: that ideal family, the gentleness and the love he remembers his parents pouring into him. For all he knows when he looks back on it, his father could have been a Capulet all his life. He could have only been a Capulet for days, and he was so bad at hiding it that Battista figured it out almost the day he turned fifteen. He wonders if his mother knew. If she figured it out, or if Vincenzo had told her. If she knew, and she didn’t tell Battista the truth either. If she knew, and she stayed anyway. And then he wonders why.

     He wonders why Vincenzo got into it in the first place. Big man like him, with strong shoulders and hands, his easy, gentle smile for their neighbors. He wonders if he was dragged into it-- trying to support his family, and their little store. Trying to put food on the table. Maybe he borrowed money, couldn’t ever quite pay it back. Maybe, maybe, maybe, he was an unwilling participant. Maybe that’s why he met his messy end. It’s easier, he thinks, and kinder to himself, to think of it that way. The alternative… well, he supposes he had to get his steady trigger finger, the dead look in his eye, and the cold, flat line of his mouth from somewhere. He never saw his father like that. Not that he can recall. But on his darkest nights he can’t help but wonder: what if Vincenzo Tahan signed up with the Capulets of his own volition? What if he joined because he liked it? 

          What if his father was the same kind of monster he was? Or would it be the other way around. 

     He only ever knew his father to be a kind man. He never raised his voice, he never spoke an ill word about another human being, not even politicians. Battista used to lay in his cot and think, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe he was just, perhaps he could have been, it doesn’t have to be so bad. 

     But now he lives it. And he knows: there are no innocents here, not really. If you don’t pull the trigger, you watch it be pulled. You allow it. You drag the triggerman home and you put fifteen stitches in him, or you stuff him with hashweh rice from the place down the road and sit him in front of the TV until his eyes clear, and you let him go and do it all again. You let them cheat, lie, steal, sell drugs and guns and bodies. You let them hurt people, and you stand by and say nothing. You do it too. Love it or hate it, feel indifferent toward it. You let it happen. You do it too. 

     Sometimes if he wonders if his father was murdered for being really good at that life, or just astoundingly bad at it. But that way lies madness-- he supposes if he was really curious, if he wasn’t so afraid of the truth, he could ask Vivianne, but it’s not like she would know for certain. And she’s liable to cut out his tongue as she is to look at him, he thinks. He keeps his questions to himself.

     He doesn’t know whether it’s better or worse, which way he imagines his father to be to keep that golden, joyful glow around him. Was he a bystander? A murderer? A dealer? Which one of those is the worst? Is any one of them any better at all? He doesn’t know. He can’t tell anymore, if watching someone pull the trigger is the same as doing it himself. He can’t remember what it’s like, to not be a killer. Battista thinks maybe he was one even before he took his first life, thinks maybe it had to be something he could do all along. He can’t remember, and he can’t say for sure. He’d never been put in a situation like that before he was, and now that he knows for certain that he is one, that he even likes it some days, he doesn’t know anymore whether it feels the same to stand by and watch someone take a life as it does to do the deed himself. He can’t remember if it’s worse or better. 

     It all ends up so tangled in his head, he never knows where to go anymore. Whether he prefers to think of his father fondly, or if he can think of him fondly if he was also a murderer, or if he still feels any residual anger at him. For being dumb enough to join, for being dumb enough to fuck up, for being dumb enough to die. For leaving his mother, for leaving him. He doesn’t know what’s allowed, and he doesn’t know what’s right. Maybe he’s not allowed to love a man so deeply flawed, whether he was a murderer, or a dealer, or a bystander to it all. Whether he was a good man or not. Maybe it’s enough that he was kind to his wife and his son. And to their neighbors. 

          Maybe it isn’t enough. Maybe it never could have been, maybe it never will be. 

               He doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.

[chaptersinprogress]

connection  |  2

Gokudera slowly registered the sound of beeping and hushed whispers. His eyes seemed to be glued shut and his throat felt as if he had been gargling glass shards.

At this point, he just wanted to bang his head against the wall. Why was being dead so damn difficult? Didn’t Fate have enough fun screwing him over while he was alive?

Rating: T

Warnings: swearing

Pairings: mild 8059

For @10th-vongola (thank you for the wonderful comments you have left on the end is my beginning) and @short-story-slam

Gokudera slowly registered the sound of beeping and hushed whispers. His eyes seemed to be glued shut and his throat felt as if he had been gargling glass shards. 

At this point, he just wanted to bang his head against the wall. Why was being dead so damn difficult? Didn’t Fate have enough fun screwing him over while he was alive?

With an incredible amount of effort, he forced his eyelids open a crack and let out a hiss of displeasure at the light that was attempting to sear through his cornea. The lights immediately dimmed. 

Interesting, could he actually manipulate things here with his mind? And where the fuck was the baseball freak? He should be yammering a mile a minute in Gokudera’s ears by now.

He forced his eyes all the way open. And found himself staring up at a familiar ceiling he had not seen in over 6 years. Gokudera froze. This could not be happening. He took back everything bad he had said about the baseball freak and his school, he’d rather be there, or anywhere else actually, than here. Please let him be mistaken.

“Hayato,” whispered someone.

The mattress sank on his left, the person sitting near his stomach. Gokudera blinked away the water that had started to build up behind his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. He felt far too alive for someone who was dead. Was this his punishment? Had the talk with the baseball freak sent him past the Purgatory that had been the middle school?

“Hayato I’m so glad you’re ok,” the voice breathed out. A hand reached out and gently brushed his hair off his forehead before a straw nudged his lips. He automatically sipped, the cool water soothing his aching throat. His eyes were kept fixed on the ceiling, tracing the remnants of the explosives he used to work on. 

Gokudera groped around for the person’s wrist. Finding it, he squeezed it almost painfully and asked in a strangled whisper, “Are you dead too?”

The person huffed lightly. “No, neither of us are.”

“How?” asked Gokudera, his grip never loosening.

“The medics barely reached on time. And you have a really strong will,” was all that was said.

The two maintained the strange tableaux for what simultaneously felt like an eternity and a mere second before the door opened with a sharp creak. The person gently disentangled Gokudera’s grip and squeezed his hand before standing up and walking out.

“Sis,” Gokudera croaked out just before the door shut. Bianchi paused at the threshold and watched her brother who was still determinedly staring at the ceiling. “I’m glad you’re ok too.”

Bianchi let her lips curve up before closing the door softly behind her, leaving the new visitor alone with Gokudera. Who promptly sat where Bianchi had.

“How are you feeling Hayato?”

Gokudera ignored the man. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. This was precisely what he had feared when he had woken up. Dammit, if only his body would stop feeling like it weighed twice as much as it did, then he could possibly make a break for it out the window. He was much taller now and he knew how to cushion the fall far better than his younger self did.

“Son -”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Gokudera snapped.

Vincenzo sighed. In some aspects they were very much alike, no matter how much Gokudera liked to pretend otherwise. Grudge-holding was one of them.

“Thank you, for looking out for your sister.”

Gokudera snorted and turned to face the other side of the room, “Yeah well I didn’t fucking do it for you.”

“I know that,” said Vincenzo amusedly. “But thank you anyway.”

The room once again fell silent. Gokudera felt his skin crawl. What the hell was he here for? Was this some life-debt thing that the asshole was hanging over him? He felt like his scared and angry 8-year-old self more than ever. He hated it, he didn’t want to be helpless anymore. He refused to be.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Vincenzo ignored him. “How much do you know about the Dying Will Flames?”

Gokudera finally tore his eyes away from the wall and glared at the man who he refused to acknowledge as his father. “Whatever was taught to me by your tutors,” he sneered. “Didn’t have much time for flame education as a hitman.”

Vincenzo raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I should have rephrased my question, what do you know about soulbonds?”

The silver-haired teen was left speechless. Was this guy trying to pull his leg?

“What the fuck are you talking about? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

"So nothing then,” concluded Vincenzo.

He shifted to look at Gokudera. “You already know that flames are a high-density form of energy refined from one's own life-force, and that they are graded according to their purity, which is directly proportional to the strength of the individual's resolve.”

"What is hardly known, even within the mafia, is that flames are essentially the link between our bodies and our souls. You wonder why you’re alive, no?”

Gokudera gaped at Vincenzo. What - how - what did he know about the experience he’d had?

"Valentina and I are soulmates.”

Oh now that was fucking rich, coming from the man who had cheated on her with Gokudera’s mother.

Catching the incredulous look thrown in his direction, Vincenzo laughed. “Soulmates don’t have to be romantic Hayato. There’s no one true love out there waiting for you. Soulmates can be platonic or familial too. Valentina and I are platonics, we love each other, but we’re not in love with each other.”

“Why the fuck did you marry then?”

Vincenzo shrugged. “Others, like you, assumed that we were romantically linked. Politics. Mutual benefit. Take your pick. We never claimed to be in love, and we were perfectly fine with each other spending time with others. We simply fulfilled our duties as expected. But I digress.”

“A soulmate is simply someone whose soul is highly compatible with yours. Think of souls as having different wavelengths; a compatible soul is one which has a similar frequency to yours. The key idea is resonance.”

He paused before continuing, “If there is a regret strong enough to bind your soul to this world, your flames will search for a soul which resonates with yours. To provide an additional anchor, while the body is on the mend. Usually, the regrets of such souls are dangerously similar.”

Dangerously similar? What the heck did that mean?

“I assume it is some form of balance,” said Vincenzo. “From the little we found out, generally the person who’s compatible has no compunctions about their own death. A person who has no fear of their own demise but holds a similar regret to the one who should have already died.”

No. There was no fucking way that was true. The baseball freak was fine! He was...he was...fine, wasn’t he? Gokudera recalled with horror the last time he had seen the teen. The smile that was always a little too wide and the laugh that was a little too cheerful being dropped for the blank mask with empty eyes. He remembered thinking that it was a testament to the people Yamamoto had been raised by that he had managed to fool the people around him.

Oh fuck.

They were both so achingly lonely.

Vincenzo watched the emotions flash across his son’s face. Ah, so he had finally figured it out.

“Connection, isn’t it,” said Gokudera slowly. “The whole point of the soulmate is building a human connection. A reason to live.”

The Don let his mouth twitch into a small smile and nodded.

Ah double fuck.

Gokudera shot up and stumbled out of bed, attempting to yank the IV line out of his hand, “I need to get to him! Who knows what that idiot would have done?!”

Vincenzo’s hand closed around Gokudera’s wrist, bringing the storm to a halt. Gokudera glared fiercely. Vincenzo returned an even stare.

“You’re of no use if you’re about to fall over in 5 minutes.”

“But I-” protested Gokudera.

“I know,” Vincenzo’s eyes softened. “I know how it feels. We’ll get you to him.”

“I promise.”

[sweetestlamb]

Temptation

Summary: Vincenzo is feeling parched.

Author's note: These two have been living in my mind rent free lately, I'm just shallow and they look so damn good together and when you add the chemistry, well I'm a goner. Just a little drabble based on today's episode, I'm taking a break from BMTL this weekend because it's going to be another 10k probably and it's the first weekend I'm off with my bf so I promised not to ignore him to write all day lol. Update soon though!

Bon appetit!

Wispy dark lashes flutter just above her high cheekbones as she awaits the blow, her pretty face scrunched up in anticipation as a minor twitch in her lip distracts him.

That's been happening far too often lately, more than he'd care to admit. It was easier when she was blindly following Babel and refused to see the insidious truth about the morally bankrupt company, it was easier to pacify his attraction when she was the bad guy. Not that he was the right candidate to judge, he'd done notifiable heinous things in his life. Her father had been the first person to look at him like he was worth something, like the evil that lurked under his skin could be used for something good.

But her eyes had been opened, in the end she had chosen her father. If only he'd been here to see it.

That decision unhinges the small grapple he has on his control, he finds himself looking at her all the time cataloging the many emotions that distort that expressive face. She's like a living caricature and instead of finding that off-putting he's intrigued and mesmerized. Constantly battling with his lips that won't stop rising in her presence, he's not someone who smiles lightly. Has never had much of a reason to.

Until now.

"What are you waiting for? Just do it." She whines impatiently, squirming side to side and pursing her full lips.

That small move captures all his attention, eyes locked on the rosy pink skin. Instinctively he steps forward until he can feel her body heat, her face is even more captivating up close. She was beautiful, that wasn't hard to admit he was a man after all and his eyes were functional. It was.... everything else that he couldn't admit, not even to himself.

Just do it.

If only she knew what those words did to him, he felt as if he was lit in flames by his own lighter; burning up just from his prolonged vicinity to the loud lawyer. She was being her usual brazen self but she had no idea, not the slightest inkling of what exactly he wanted to do to her. It usually ended in passionate screams in his dreams. Her wild abandon was a thing of beauty, he didn't even mind the mess on his silk sheets because his mind supplied such vivid imaginings.

Staring down at her he wonders how she would taste, perhaps like the spicy noodles she was so fond of or maybe something sweeter and forbidden, once you peeled back the many layers you would discover something so delicious it was addicting. She would be his ambrosia.

"Come on, you're killing me! What's taking so long?" She grumbles now pouting, plush bottom lip jutting out enticingly and his finger hovers in front of her forehead but he can't move, can't bring himself to hurt her no matter how insignificant the hit. Somehow this woman has weaved a web around him, he feels like a fly caught in a spider's deadly but beautiful trap.

What's wrong with me?

There must be indeed something wrong with him because he feels his hand unfurling and lowering until he's nearly cupping her jaw, the delicate point barely above his hand. He's so tempted. Taking another step forward he lifts his second hand, curling around the dip of her lower back. She's so petite despite her loud bark, her entire body could fit easily in his hand.

He wants to lower his hand, grab her face and her waist and.... And what? What is he thinking? This is not why he came to Korea. He wasn't supposed to get involved more than he needed to and he knows no good can come of this, there's only one outcome for men who are lured by seductive sirens. He has to ignore her song no matter how much his body aches when he's with her. Woman have never been elusive in his line of work, gorgeous Italian women who opened up for him easily, surrendering under his capable hands. They were nothing but a good time, a perfunctory scratching of an itch. But, Cha-young he wants to wreck her, take her apart piece by piece until she's putty in his hands.

"What are you doing?" She says sounding amused and he lifts his eyes to find her twinkling ones already on his face. She looks at the twin hands hovering above her body with a raised brow, face now turned into the hand adjacent to her cheek.

"Do you want to change the specifics of our deal?" She teases darkly and he gulps, finally lowering his hands but twisting them around his back to prevent himself from making a huge mistake.

"No." He lies, trying to douse the fire that is blazing in his blood.

"Aishhh. You're such a bad liar." She huffs, nose crinkled up in disbelief and he hates the way his heart smarts his lips twitching to form a smile. He feels so warm and he doesn't know what any of it means.

"Come here." She doesn't give him an opportunity to disobey before reaching out to grab his tie, her hands wrapped around the luxurious material and with a sharp tug he's pulled into her, their bodies colliding and everything feels right.

"Stop." He whispers throat feeling raw, his voice comes out rougher than he intended. His eyes widen at the red flush that it yields, he's not the only one affected it seems.

"You don't want to flick me," she states with certainty, eyes searching his face as she tightens her hold on his tie his neck strains under the slight pressure, leaning down to lessen the tension. Too late he releases how much closer that brings their faces, she's barely an inch away from him now her soft puffs of breath landing directly on his face. "What do you want to do to me instead, Mr. Cassano?" She boldly finishes her statement, dark eyes ping ponging between his lips and his eyes.

Mentally berating himself for his weakness he suddenly grabs her waist, his arm circumvents the entire circumference with room to spare. She gasps in surprise but doesn't look scared, rather she looks curious, biting her bottom lip as she earnestly watches him.

"Do you really want to know?" He bites out, bringing his hand to her jaw and then sliding lower curling it around her neck, fingers tickling the soft nape of head.

She smirks, unflinching in the eye of his storm. She stands on the tips of her toes, bringing them that much closer, "Oh you don't know how much I want to know, Vincenzo." His name is exotic on her tongue, the letters not quite settling correctly but it sounds delectable to his ears, he wants to hear her scream it loudly too.

"I'll show you then." He's done with words, it's clear that they're both cognizant of what's happening between them, the air is so charged it's nearly crackling. She isn't backing down and despite his better judgement he doesn't want to lose, he can't be the way to pull away now. Simultaneously they yank each other closer, him by her neck and her by his tie. He sees the passion in her eyes, finally bursting to the surface and that's all the consent he needs, if she wants him too then she can have him.

Twisting his head he surges forward, eager to capture her lips and devour her moans of pleasure, his hand is now curled possessively around the small swell of her tight posterior, her suit pants always putting it beautifully on display. He had been hungry to touch it, grab it and feel the plumpness in his hands. It's every bit as amazing as he's imagined, her lips fall open as he squeezes at the flesh and he leans forward prepared to eat her alive.

She wraps her free arm around his neck, dragging him down to meet her and he easily lifts her off the ground, grinning boyishly when she squeaks releasing his tie to wrap both arms around his neck, their faces are now level. His hand remains on her ass.

Silently they move towards each other, intent crystal clear.

He can feel the heat from her lip, just as he grazes the smooth skin he hears a loud crash from behind them and they both jump, foreheads knocking accidentally as they react to the sudden sound.

He unceremoniously drops her, but her arms still latched around his shoulder force him forward making his forehead now collide with her chin. She lets out a loud scream of pain, shoving him away and shouting obscenities. He rubs at the pained skin, wincing in discomfort before turning towards the loud interruption with a murderous glare.

Who the fuck was it?

Nam Joo-Sung stands quivering in apparent fear looking like he's seconds away from urinating himself, his knees knocking together viciously.

A deer in the headlights, his eyes are as huge and terrified as one.

"I--um well you see.... I forgot to water the plants....you both look angry. Scary. You don't want an explanation. I'm going. Gone. I'll just. Go." He stutters out nonsensical, suddenly grabbing the plants and he watches as the frightened man awkwardly lifts the pots, cursing when the soil falls out dirting his clothes and the wooden floors, then he falls to his knees scooping it back into the pots, crawling backwards until he's out the door.

They both stare at the door.

Awkward silence remaining even with the man's departure.

And then a vibration fills the air, she jumps as if broken from her stupor reaching into her tiny bag and retrieving her phone. He can barely hear her over the beating of his own heart but he catches the disappointed look she sends his way, they can't continue this.

"Yes. I understand, we'll be right there."

Grabbing his briefcase he takes a moment with his back turned to her to catch his breath, collect himself. He's Vincenzo Cassano, not some prepubescent teenager. He can control himself, control is his middle name.

Then he turns back around and loses all his hard worked composure.

She's right in his space, rubbing absently at her neck as she looks at him.

"We'll finish this later. Don't think I'm going to let you off easy, I always finish what I start." She promises, pointedly looking his lips before grinning then boldly she lightly smacks him twice on his cheeks, "Pick your jaw off the ground, we have to go."

Her long hair bounces over her shoulder as she skips away, his eyes locked on the hypnotic sway of her hips. Her hands are cutely by her side, her signature walk that he had found ridiculous before. He doesn't view it the same way now.

Next time, there will be no interruptions he will make sure of it. Even if he has to kill someone.