#true every day of my life now and forever

[sykostyles]

melodies | 1.0

summary: he's the most powerful & ruthless mafia boss in the city, and she's just a music store owner. but once he hears her singing voice, he wants nothing more than to hear it for the rest of his life..and she's not so sure about that.. he'll do anything to change that. wc: 3.1k

warnings: none this time around!

a/n: hi babies! I disappeared again but I swear I'm here! I won't lie to you all, I lost momentum for a bit but my dear love @gurugirl gave me the idea of repurposing my jjk fics for Harry! so this is my first attempt at that. I hope you all enjoy!

Harry had been renovating his new estate for about a year now. Deciding on only the best of the best, but when it came to musical items that he wanted placed variously around his house; he wanted something more lived in. More story holding. Something that looks like it had been used and loved by many. That’s where he found you and your little shop “Encore Records” in the heart of downtown. 

He wanted a grand piano, but he didn't just want any grand piano. He wanted the grand piano you had on display in your store. The one your grandfather left to you from his touring days. Your grandfather was a traveling artist, carting this piano around to every city, every country. It’d been more places than you. It sat dead center in your shop, surrounded by records, plants and various instruments customers could test out before placing orders. The only thing unavailable to order was the piano. It served as a centerpiece that you played fairly often, especially while customers perused the store and Ellie ran the cash register.  

Harry had been stopping in probably two or three times a week to try talking you into selling him the piano for his home; not taking no for an answer. Sometimes Ellie would have to fend him off while you were working in the back. Ellie would then always dash to the back to tell you what happened before another customer would walk in.

“That big mafia guy was in here again!” she says, tapping you on the shoulder.

“Huh?” you ask, pulling one of your earbuds out., slightly startled from the touch.

“You know, the tall darkhaired one who’s hot as fuck, and defintely thinks the same about you,” Ellie says, motioning to your frame, giggling at your disgusted look. “The one with the huge hands,” she winked at you.

“Ellie, he wants the piano, not me.”

“Girl, he wants both.” she chuckles, “You’re allowed to be proud of yourself,” and she's leaving you alone. Proud of yourself for what? For some Yakuza man coming into your store every day, possibly scaring off possible customers? Not everyone wants to come in here when there’s a guy with a gun strapped to his chest, followed by three other men who are also armed. 

He’d offered you millions of dollars in return for the piano, but no amount of money could replace the memories you have sitting with your grandfather at this piano every night while he taught you how to play. Or the nights you’d gotten to be with him on tour and see him on stage sitting at the damn thing every night. There was no way you were going to give it up. But there was no way he was going to give up either.

It was a rainy Tuesday the next time Harry decided to come in. Another attempt at your piano, but today something in him changed.

Walking in, Harry notices you’d just opened so there weren't any customers yet. You still haven't fixed the doorbell either, another thing he’ll have to chastise you for today. He hears you before he sees you, singing along with the radio playing Forever Young by Rod Stewart through the speakers of your store, as you stand behind the counter on a step ladder rearranging the wall of weekly favorites. 

“And may you grow to be proud

Dignified and true..”

Harry can’t believe his ears; the angelic timbre of your voice and how it just rolls right off of your tongue so effortlessly.

“And do unto others

As you'd have done to you..”

He could listen to you all day long. In fact, he just might. He takes a seat on the piano bench, and just listens.

“Be courageous and be brave

And in my heart you'll always stay

Forever young, forever young

Forever young, forever young”

Once the song is over, you turn on the stool to grab something behind you, and you're startled by Harry’s presence. 

“Jesus, Styles. Didn’t anyone teach you to knock?” you nearly fall off of the ladder,

“On a business’ door? No.” he smirks at you. “Didn’t anyone tell you to fix your doorbell? Pretty sure I did last week. And the week before that,” Harry counts on his fingers, scolding you, “I’ll just have someone come do it for you.” He snaps his fingers, pointing at the man standing on his right. A tall, broad man with blonde hair. He smiles as he pulls his phone from inside his jacket.

“No, no Styles. Boundaries, remember?” you watch as he strides over to you, offering you his hand to help you off the ladder, but you ignore his gesture; placing your hands on the back of the ladder, stepping down, and turning to face him.

“Birdie, I’m not taking no for an answer. Your safety is at risk, and that’s not okay.” He retorts, the blonde haired man already returning from making the phone call. He looks to Harry, giving him a singular nod, to which Harry nods back. “Repair man will be here soon.”

“Why do you even care? If I died, you could probably get a good deal on the piano.” your eyes involuntarily roll,  “And I told you Birdie is reserved for my friends and those fortunate enough to see me naked, and you are neither of those things. Nor are you buying my piano.” Your hands are planted firmly on your hips as the words leave you.

Birdie was a nickname your grandfather gave you when you were young. Always running about singing like a bird. He’d scoop you up and you’d squeal, making him laugh with you. You were just a little birdie that wanted to sing her heart out. It’s what your mother wanted before she passed away. This store was your way of honoring your mother and your grandfather. They both instilled your love of music into you. 

Mom loved singing karaoke anywhere she could; praying she’d get recognized by someone who saw potential in her. And oh boy, did she. But she had you and you were her main priority and nobody could deal with that when she’d mentioned she had a daughter to the talent agents. Her heart was broken but watching you grow up was what she really enjoyed. She just made sure you had the same love for music as she did.

“Ouch, you don’t see me as a friend yet? I practically come to see you every day.” he trails his fingertips up your arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Plus, if you were to die, I wouldn't be able to ask you to sing to me every day.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that. Nobody was,” you mutter. Nobody had heard you sing since before your grandfather passed away. He always begged you to go on tour with him and sing some of his songs with him but you always doubted your ability.

“Well, maybe if your doorbell was working, you could have stopped before I did.” The cocky man stands before you, hands in his pockets as he retracts them.

“Do you like hearing the sound of your own voice? Wouldn’t you rather listen to music?”

“Mm, sometimes. But the only music I want to hear is your voice telling me “I love you” for the rest of my life.”

“Fat chance, Mr. Mafia man. Now, if you’re not here for anything other than to bother me about my doorbell and my piano, please leave.” your hands make haste to wipe the counter off before you lean back on the ladder. “What about a date?” you nearly choke on your own oxygen at his question.

“I’m sorry?” you giggle your response, unable to believe what he’d just said. Maybe Ellie was right.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he chuckles, “I’ll repeat it for you. I’d like to take you out on a date, Birdie.”

“Sty–”

“Harry. I’ve told you to call me Harry.” You don't miss the way his men behind him offer each other uneasy glances. He must not let anyone refer to him by his first name, and you’re not about to start either.

“Styles, that’s not going to happen.”

“You wound me some more,” he dramatically clutches his chest, “I’ll change your mind one day.. Just watch,” he says as he makes his way to the door, his men leaving before he does. “Have a good day, Birdie. See you tomorrow.”

You’re staring into space as he leaves, thinking of the extravagant date he’d probably take you on. He’d probably be able to give you the Pretty Woman moment you’ve always dreamed of. The heels, the long red dress, the lipstick to perfectly match and the updo hairstyle to tie it all together. Harry would probably make the best Edward Lewis in your life. But you’d never admit that out loud.

An unknown amount of time passes before you’re startled again; Ellie’s voice snaps you out of it. “Helloooo, Earth to Y/N!” she snaps her fingers in front of your face.

“Shit, sorry. I was stuck, haha,” you rub your eyes before looking at her face and offering her a smile. She hands you the coffee she had hid under her arm before tucking her belongings under the counter. You went back up the step ladder after grabbing the dust rag you’d gone looking for before you were so graciously interrupted by Harry. “Good morning, by the way.”

“Why did Mafia man just tell me you agreed to go on a date with him?”

“Huh?” you quickly turn to face her on the ladder, the legs wobbling under your jerking movements.

“He walked by me on my way up the sidewalk saying he finally got you to agree to a date and that I owed him the hundred bucks we bet on.”

“HUH?” nearly losing your footing for the second time today, you make your way down the ladder.

“Why are you acting like you don't know what I'm talking about?” she eyes you quizzically.

“Because I don’t know what you’re talking about! What bet?” your hands find your hips again.

“Why are you more interested in my wrong doings? He’s out here lying about you!” Ellie waves her hands back and forth, feigning innocence. 

“And my best friend is betting against me!”

“Semantics! C’mon, y’know I'm not actually going to pay him. He’s got more money than any one person knows what to do with.”

“That’s not the point, Ellie. You bet against me! How could you?” you toss the dust rag at her, feigning annoyance.

“Because I see the way you look at him when he’s here!” she tosses it back at you. 

“Ellie, he’s literally a yakuza. I can’t entangle myself in that, whether I like him or not,” you’d love to just let him spend a night with you but, a night with him is a night with five other people that go everywhere with him.

“Birdie, you have to live a little. Enjoy the thrill. Plus, he’d probably keep you so safe.”

“While simultaneously putting me in the most danger I've ever been in.

“Okay, but the one with the double buns on top of his head is hot and I want that one so i need you to take one for the team and go on a date with this man.”

“Is that your part of some deal you made?” you jokingly accuse her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, just go on a date with him.”

“You go on a date with him,” you huff and you leave her up front. To which it only lasts about fifteen minutes before she’s coming into the back room telling you some random guy is there fixing the doorbell and isn't taking ‘no’ for an answer.. 

You just roll your eyes.

Ellie just wants you to be happy, no matter the cost. And you think maybe she’s not weighing the cost as much as you are. Sure, you’d be under protection at all times but the fact that the protection needs to be there at all times means you’re in just as much danger. Which does not totally sit right with you, but he is very persistent. And fairly beautiful. But you have to think with your brain and not your vagina for once.

A few hours later, you’re rearranging the Pop section of records when the phone rings. Ellie picks up with her normal “Encore Records, this is Ellie,” a few seconds pass before you hear her speak again. “Hm, let me ask real fast she’s right here. Hey, Birdie, do you have a piano lesson available tonight at 6?” 

“Humm, I think so, check in my calendar. Take it if I do, please!” you go back to putting the Ariana Grande records in order by year. You hear Ellie laugh with the customer on the phone before she hangs up, thanking them for their business. “So do I have a piano lesson at 6 now?”

“Yeah, said his son's name was Niall and that he had been hounding him to learn piano from the lady at the big CD store.”

“His son sounds adorable! I’m looking forward to teaching him.” you smile at the thought.

“You just like the ego boost,” Ellie side eyes you with a laugh.

“You should try shutting up,” you chuckle, going back to arranging your floor inventory; moving to the Metal section.

Six rolls around and you’re pulling the sheet music you have for teaching beginners around on the stand. Ellie makes her way up front to gather her things, reaching under the counter and turning the lights down.

A huff leaves you, “Hey, I still have that piano lesson tonight.”

“I know,” she gives you a look, “Have the best time, Birdie, and she’s out the door.” Uh, okay?

Right after Ellie leaves, the doorbell sounds again and you turn to be met with Harry.

“Styles, I have a piano less–,” you pause, “There is no piano lesson for a boy named Nial is there?”

“He’s Niall,” Harry motions behind him to the man who called about your doorbell earlier. “And I’m the one who’s here for the lesson.”

Seated at the bench next to him, you can't believe you’re actually going through with this. But if he hadn’t put a deposit down over the phone, you wouldn't have. Clearly Harry and Ellie had cooked this scheme up somehow. You almost appreciate the effort.

“You don’t seem to need a lesson,” you remark, watching him mimic your motions without even trying.

“Would you be upset with me if I said I didn't?” He starts playing Forever Young on the piano, making your eyes widen.

“Not upset, confused,” your eyes are glued to his hands, fingers flowing effortlessly over the keys.

“Just wanted an excuse to talk to you for longer than a few minutes.” Harry’s hands keep up the melody.

“You’re not going to let this up are you?” your eyes roll for the millionth time because of this man. He has a way of making your skin crawl in a good way. But again that’s something you’d never admit;

“After I heard that singing voice? Never,” he smiles over at you, continuing to play the song on the keys. “Will you show it to me again? Please, Birdie?”

“If I say yes will you stop asking to buy my grandfather's piano?” fat chance, but you’ll try anyway.

“Scouts honor,” he winks. Huh? That easy? “Or is he just that in love with you?” You can hear Ellie say in your head. Shut up. 

As you begin singing along with his playing, Harry’s smile grows in size. His hands and arms move effortlessly across the piano, fully impressing you as you watch in awe. The words flow out of you like they did earlier today.

Once you finish, Harry looks at you like you just told him he’d won the lottery. Not that he needed to win the lottery. “You really have such an amazing voice,” he breathes out, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. 

“I’d call it a good harmonizing voice,” you chuckle. “I sound better with the radio.”

“I’m sorry, was I the only one with ears for the last three minutes? Mitch? Niall?” he makes you chuckle next to him as he turns to the men behind him

“I heard it Sir,” they both said in unison.

“And how did she sound?”

“Lovely, sir.” Niall says, looking over to you with a friendly smile.

“I have to agree with Niall,” Mitch says, without a smile. He seems to be more of a hardass than the other one. 

“Ah, so you are the delusional one here,” Harry turns his attention back to you. 

“Shut up. Lesson’s over,” you laugh.

“Aw, but I was just getting started. How about a date then? We can take the rest of this time somewhere else.”

“You would love that wouldn’t you?” leaves you in the form of a laugh.

“Certainly. Cmon, Y/N. I know the best place down the road. Whadya say?”

“I say you’re dreaming,” you stand from the piano bench. Walking over to the light switch, you turn the lights all the way up, making everyone wince at the sight. “And now it's time to wake up, Styles.”

“I’ll make it so worth your while. Please, just once chance, That’s all I’m asking for,” he stands and makes his way over to you. “Please, Birdie.” he runs his thumb over your cheek, you lean into the touch before you realize what you’re doing.

“If I say yes and I have a horrible time, can I reserve the right to ask you to leave me alone permanently?”

“Of course. I’d swear on it to never show my face in here again. But I promise we won’t have to worry about that. So tonight then?”

“Not tonight, how about tomorrow? After I close for the night?’

“It’s a date,” He smiles. “I’ll pick you up,”

“You mean you’ll all pick me up?” you motion to the guys behind him.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “They’ll be around, but not with us. I want you to be comfortable.”

“Maybe you should have started with leaving them outside then,” you roll your eyes, “No offense, boys,”

“None taken,” they say in unison again. Harry snaps his fingers and the men leave.

“You didn’t have to do that,” a chuckle leaves you again. You head for the door but Harry softly grabs your arm.

“Leave em, I’m heading out anyways, he slides his grip down your arm until he’s holding your hand, offering a kiss to your knuckles. “Until tomorrow, dear Birdie. He kisses your hand once again, turning to leave.

“B-bye, Styles.”

“Harry,”

“If you impress me, then maybe.”

[gwennybriggs]

After All This Time

Can’t keep my mind focused on the last chapter of Pick and Choose (surprise surprise lol) so enjoy this tidbit. :)

Wc: 1.6k

Melissa Schemmenti x fem reader

Summary: Many years after the first time she asked, you’re finally able to give Melissa the answer she’s waited her entire life for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Melissa sat at the breakfast table with a plate of toast, bacon, and eggs; she smiled up at you as you placed a hot cup of coffee in front of her and took your own seat. She looked out the window to your backyard to watch your adult children play soccer with your husband. You watched as the corners of her eyes crinkled with silent laughter, taking in every detail of her face like it was the last time you’d ever see her again.

Every year, Melissa spent a week of her summer break visiting you and your family in Maine. You were childhood best friends, you went to college together, she fell in love with you and you turned her down to be with your now husband. But even after you broke her heart, she stuck around. Melissa was a bridesmaid at your wedding, and earned the title of ‘aunt’ when your twins were born. She was there for every birthday and holiday, every cheer competition and weekend soccer game, she was even there to make soup and clean waste baskets when the whole family caught the flu one summer break. In turn, you were there for her marriage to Joe and their eventual divorce. You helped her get back into the dating world just to watch her give up and resign herself to a life alone, claiming that having your family to spend time with was enough for her.

“My God, when did they grow up?” The redhead let out a watery laugh as Melanie tackled Ethan to the ground and wiped a tear from her cheek.

“I ask myself that every day. It seems like just yesterday we were planning their baby shower, now they’ve graduated college and are spending their last summer at home before they move away for their big kid jobs,” you said with a wistful sigh.

Melissa glanced at you with sorrow in her eyes and drifted into her own thoughts. Silence filled the air again as you both nibbled at your breakfasts and stared out the window. She wanted so badly for this to be her reality: to wake up every day for breakfast with you, for those two knuckleheads of yours to be her own too, to experience all the little domestic moments in life with you. All of it.

As far as she knew, you never thought about the day she asked you to run away with her in college. You never spoke with her about it after you let her down (except for that one drunken time she asked again at your bachelorette party, but she forgot about that the next day), you just kept going through life as if it never happened. Really, you thought about it every day. Back then your parents controlled every aspect of your life: which college you went to, what you majored in, what you wore, who you were friends with, and even who you dated. They were strict and if they even had an inkling that you were into women they would have pulled back from your life completely, leaving you with nothing and no one. You were scared of losing everything you ever knew, so despite wanting nothing more than to take Melissa’s hand and be hers forever, you married the man they wanted you to and kept your true feelings bottled deep within.

Slowly, you reached for the hand she had wrapped around her mug and held it in yours. She tore her eyes away from the game outside to look at you in shock; you hadn’t held her hand since your wedding day. You leaned across the table and placed a gentle kiss to her lips.

Her brow furrowed in confusion, hand remaining in yours. “Y/N?”

“Ask me again.” You half whispered.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“What you asked me all those years ago.” You squeezed her hand, your eyes glossy with unshed tears. “Ask. Me. Again.”

Her eyes fell to the napkin on her lap. “I can’t take that heartbreak again, hon. Plus, you have Mike and the kids, it wouldn’t be fair to them. You’ve got a happy family now, you don’t wanna lose that.”

“We’re not as happy as we seem, Red. Besides, Mike‘s always known. You’ve been the one for me since before I could put words to feelings.” You squeezed her hand again, a quiet plea for her to look at you. This time she squeezed back but she still couldn’t bring herself to look up.

She was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “Your mother would kill you.”

You chuckled, “I’m fifty somethin’ years old, it’s past time I cut those apron strings. What’s she gonna do? Take away my inheritance? She’s used most of it to spoil her grandkids anyway.” You lifted her chin to look at you. Your tone turned back to serious. “The kids know too. They won’t tell me they know, but they do. Ethan overheard me talking to Mike a few months ago about the divorce, I heard him run down the hall to tell Melanie. They’re adults now, I think they understand why and how things change.” Your voice caught in your throat, “We’ve known for many years that this marriage would end as soon as the kids were outta the house. Mike and I have talked about it a hundred times. We promised each other that we’d play ‘happy family’ until we knew the twins would be alright. This is our last ‘normal’ week before we sign the papers and our not-so-baby birds leave the nest.”

Mel wiped away the tears that spilled down your cheeks and you gave her a small smile. You’d loved her your whole life, and after everything you’d been through together you never thought you’d feel like you could lose her until that moment. You were so scared she’d walk away, that all those feelings from years ago had been washed away with time.

“Ask me, Mel. Please?”

She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the kitchen door swinging open and the twins bounding in to brag about their win against their dad. Mike made his way upstairs to shower without a word. Melanie hopped into Melissa’s lap, earning an ‘oof’ from her, and wrapped an arm around her neck. Melissa had always been her favorite person and you were okay with that, after all she was named after her.

“Aunt Mel, wanna go get ice cream with us to celebrate dad’s defeat?” Your daughter played with the bracelets on Melissa’s wrist, waiting for an answer.

“It’s like 10:30, isn’t it a little early for ice cream, Mini Mel,” the redhead laughed and your daughter’s nose scrunched.

“Damn, what happened to you being the cool mom,” Ethan asked as he stole the last slice of her bacon from her plate. “C’mon, I’m buying!”

Melissa’s smile faltered at the word ‘mom’ but she quickly fixed it, “Next time lead with that, kid. Go start the car, I’ll be there in a second.” She dug into her purse and tossed the keys to your son. Ethan beamed and Melanie raced him out the front door, fighting over who got to ride shotgun. Once everyone was out of the room, she directed her attention back to you.

“Just ask, I promise I won’t hurt you again. I wanna grow old with you and sit in recliners complaining about the price of eggs and milk. I want to spend the rest of my life in your arms. Please, baby.”

She sighed and screwed her eyes shut. You only called her baby when you were drunk. Hearing it come from your sober lips caused her heart to ache. She wanted it, a future with you, with her whole being. “You can’t drop everything for me, Y/N.”

“You’ve dropped everything for me our whole lives, it’s my turn. I’ll go anywhere, do anything, as long as it’s with you. I’m sorry it’s taken me thirty years to get here, but I’m here if you’ll have me. I’d get on my knees to beg, but I’m afraid I’d need you to pick me up.”

Melissa fought tears. “I’ll always pick you up when you’re down, hon, you know that.” She rubbed her eyes, fluffed her hair, and took a deep breath. “After Tweedle Dee and Dum eat their weight in ice cream we’ll talk. I want this, but there’s a lot of emotions that I don’t know how to deal with right this second.”

She began to walk away but you caught her elbow and turned her around. “We’ll talk later, but I still need you to ask.”

You looked deep into her eyes, love and longing swimming around in the pools of green. “Y/N, will you runaway with me and be mine for the rest of our days,” she choked out.

“Only if you promise to always be mine in return,” you teased.

“As if I’ve ever been anyone else’s.” She rolled her eyes and smiled gently.

You kissed her deeply, letting her know how much you truly loved her. Melissa’s hand tangled in your hair, holding you in place. Your whole body burned for her, just as hers did for you. She was the first to release from the kiss and you pouted at the loss of contact. She started walking backwards towards the door to join the twins, a grin on her face so wide you could see all of her pearly whites.

“Forever starts soon, better start packin’ doll.”

You bit your lip and waved as she turned around to leave, muttering an ‘I love you, be safe’ after you heard your kids yell for Melissa to hurry up. Before she was completely out the door she turned her head over her shoulder, “I love you, too. Always have, always will.”

[wonuwrites]

Seventeen as Songs From “The Tortured Poet Department: The Anthology.”

A/N: this album is fucking amazing and has inspired me to write so much. So the way I’m doing this is giving a member a song + a lyric with a mini drabble. In future I might do Song Reactions for a few of these songs *cough* Down Bad and Fortnight *cough* but until then I’m doing it like this. If anyone wants more writing of said drabbles please request it 🫶

Also before I get to warnings let me just say: this is 100% fictional and not at all how I think any of the members are irl. This album doesn’t portray the make counterpart in good light that much (minus But Daddy I Love Him, The Alchemy, + So High School.) however I'm in a angsty af mood so I’m writing it. If you hate it, im sorry. I just have to write it to process my grief. ALSO: not all of them are going to be hella angsty but most will be because this album is unhinged

Warnings: angst (not everyone's though: 96 Line + Joshua is lowkey cute,), Jun's is NSFW so Minors DNI, mentions of alcohol, breakups, heartbreak, codependency, pledis, i also wrote some swear words so if you hate bad words: this album and my writing is not for you lmaoooooo

ღ S. Coups: The Bolter "With a quite bewitching face Splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless Excellent fun 'til you get to know her Then she runs like it's a race."

Seungcheol woke up to an empty bed and couldn't help but sigh before rubbing his face. He let you in again, even after swearing to Jeonghan and Jihoon he was done. However, there was something about you that just kept him wanting more and more. He knew that you were never one for commitment because "Where was the fun in that? Commitment just is a recipe for getting hurt." He knew that trying to pursue a "bolter" was a lost cause but he just couldn't help it. He was madly in love with you and every time you left he felt more devastated than the time before. Every 11:11 he wished that one day you would let him at least try to show you that commitment could be a beautiful thing.

ღ Jeonghan: The Albatross "Locked me up in towers But I'd visit in your dreams And they tried to warn you about me."

Jeonghan knew the risks of dating you. You were what some people called a temptress and a "nightmare dressed like a daydream." He knew that there was a chance you would ruin his life and honestly, at the time, he was all in for it. He was sure he could call your bullshit however time showed that his bullshit was called out. He found out that what everyone said was not as true as they thought. He found you to be the most amazing person in this world so when you left he was heartbroken. You told him you didn't want to be what everyone said but you had to leave and you knew he would find someone even better in the long run. However, he saw you in his dreams, he saw you in faces in the street, he saw you everywhere. He missed you and wished you would be able to let him in so you could prove all of them wrong.

ღ Joshua: Fresh Out The Slammer "And no matter what I've done, it wouldn't matter anyway Ain't no way I'm gonna screw up now that I know what's at stake here."

You looked around the crowd of people as you entered a familiar park. You knew this place all too well and your heart was racing. You just got out of six year relationship with someone you swore was supposed to be your forever person. However, you always unintentionally compared him to your first love, Hong Jisoo. For the past year, you were mentally checked out of your relationship because all you could think about was Jisoo. You took a deep breath before you sat down on an empty swing and waited. You waited for what seemed like five hours when the swing next to you was taken. You glanced over and saw Jisoo looking at you with a soft smile. Your heart started to race as you both made eye contact. It had been so long but he looked as beautiful as ever. Jisoo then leaned over and pressed a kiss against your lips while grabbing both of your hands. You smiled as familiar lips that felt like home brought back warm memories. You then put your foreheads together before awkward giggling. "Welcome home, (Y/N)."

ღ Jun: So High School "Your friends are around, so be quiet I'm trying to stifle my sighs 'Cause I feel so high school every time I look at you But look at you."

You are so head over heels for Moon Junhwi as was he over you. You both felt like it was a first love that you would have back in high school. All of the feelings you would feel back in High School came crashing back. One night when you were celebrating something with all of your friends and with his group members you both ran off into a closet and were just making out when it started to get more and more intense. You both were flushed and giggling as you both helped each other get undressed. He made sure the door was locked before attaching his lips back to you. "Try to stay quiet, baby girl," he would whisper as his fingers made their way to your nipples which caused you to softly moan into his lips. "Yes sir." A quickie would be good enough for now as you tried your best to stifle the moans and sighs that Jun was causing. If his friends knew what was going down, they kept it a secret from you but teased the hell out of him when you were gone.

ღ Hoshi: imgonnagetyouback "And I'll tell you one thing, honey, I can tell when somebody still wants me, come clean."

Soonyoung and you kept crossing paths and it was honestly frustrating you. You both didn't have a horrible breakup but it still was a breakup that hurt a lot. It took everything to get over him and you swore you were over him. However, every time you saw him, you couldn't help but second guess everything. At one of these "crossroad" moments, the "crazy" in you came out after you kept making eye contact with him one too many times. You made your way across the room despite your friends trying to stop you and pulled him to an empty storage room. Both of your breath was heavy before you glared into his eyes and whispered, "I know you still want me, please come clean." This caused him to scoff before pushing you up against the door and whispering, "you first, baby girl."

holy shit, 100 notes and I will write a one shot for this one

ღ Wonwoo: But Daddy I Love Him "Now I'm dancin' in my dress in the sun and Even my daddy just loves him I'm his lady And, oh my God, you should see your faces."

A video of one of you and Wonwoo's first dates ended up getting leaked and soon dating rumors started spreading like wildfire. There was both positive and negative thoughts from both of your fans as expected but to be honest it was just "white noise" for both of you because honestly who gave a fuck what anyone thought. When both of your CEO's sat with both of your managers and you, they informed you that dispatch was working on an article "exposing" the truth and that's when you both realized that you both wanted to be the ones to tell the fans. You decided to post on instagram a mini reel of moments between Wonwoo and you saying, "the rumors are true. wanted to let you know before dispatch told you all." Once you confirmed, there was still some negative press but mostly it was positive which Wonwoo and you were both thankful for.

omg i wanna write a one shot for this too bc what!?

ღ Woozi: The Alchemy "'Cause the sign on your heart Said it's still reserved for me Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?"

Honestly, you were shocked to see Lee Jihoon brace an event like this. Especially, after all this time. It was not his crowd or in his comfort zone. You could see how nervous he was as he fiddled with his arm cuffs and nervous laughing to whatever his friend was saying. Based on rough memories you believed his friends name was "Kwon Soonyoung" but that seemed like many life times ago. It felt like a car crash when you looked at him because you couldn't turn away or look away. Memories of you both kept replaying through your memory. You just stared at the man who you once loved exist on the other side of the room. After awhile, he realized a pair of once familiar eyes were staring at him. He looked back and his face softened. It felt like a movie as you stared at each other. Neither of you remember who walked to who first but soon you both were sitting side by side at the bar laughing and recalling old memories. The hole that was in both of your hearts seemed to be patched up as the conversation progressed. When the night was over, he asked if you would be comfortable seeing him again and you couldn't say 'yes' quick enough.

ღ DK: Peter "And sometimes it gets me When crossing your jet stream We both did the best we could do Underneath the same moon In different galaxies."

"It will always be you, maybe one day we can come back together when it's not so crazy." That was the last thing you ever heard Seokmin say after you both agreed it was time to call it quits. Who's fault was it? Honestly neither of your fault. Neither you or Seokmin could say that you did not try. Of course you both tried. You both tried to make everything work but things were just too different and well 'crazy.' With his career, he was everywhere and vise versa. You both were just never in the same time zone at the same time. It was like this for months when finally it just fizzled. Time moved on, as did both of you, but when you looked out the airplane window and noticed you were flying over Seoul your heart couldn't help but mourn. You wondered what could've been. You wondered if he still laughed while clapping like a seal and if he was still sunshine for everyone he met. It broke you a bit to remember. "It will always be you, Seokmin," you whispered before closing the curtain of the window.

ღ Mingyu: Down Bad "How dare you think it's romantic Leaving me safe and stranded 'Cause fuck it, I was in love So fuck you if I can't have us."

"Kim Mingyu, you are a fucking coward," you whispered as you tried to hide your angry heartbroken tears from him. "(Y/N), trust me this is the last thing I want to do," he whispered with tears threatening to fall. Dispatch had found out about both of your relationship three days ago and the hate toward you was heavy. Delusional fans thought their beloved idol was cheating on them and you deserved to die because it was obviously your fault the 'affair." You were down to fight and continue forward but he couldn't handle the hate you were receiving and knowing there was only so much he could do. Fuck, maybe he was a 'fucking coward' but he was doing it because it would be safe for you. Who knows what saesangs could do to you. If anything happened to you, he would never forgive himself. He rather have you hate his guts then have you killed.

ღ Minghao: I Can Do It With A Broken Heart "I can hold my breath I've been doin' it since he left I keep finding his things in drawers Crucial evidence I didn't imagine the whole thing."

It has been about two months since Minghao and you broke up and it honestly has felt like a fever dream since it happened. Some days were better than others. You honestly thought today was one of the 'better' days but that was before you found one of his cardigans in one of your drawers and you just couldn't help but put it on and lay on the floor. You couldn't help but remember all the memories of him and you with this cardigan. Whether he was wearing it or you were. It was warm just like the memories and it killed you. You wrapped the cardigan around you tighter around you and just sobbed. You knew one day it would stop hurting, but until then, you were just going to run with the punches and try your best to do it with a broken heart.

ღ Seungkwan: My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys "'Cause I knew too much, there was danger in the heat of my touch He saw forever, so he smashed it up.

Seungkwan knew he fucked up the moment he stepped foot into his house after breaking things off with you. Truth be told he was terrified of you. You knew him like the back of your hand and he knew you like the back of his hand. He saw a future with you. He saw you owning a dog, living in a house in Jeju, owning a dog, having one to two kids, everything. However, he wasn't mentally ready for that. At least at the time he thought he wasn't. Now that he was alone and realizing what he had done, guilt was eating him up. He lost everything because his own damn anxiety lied and said there was danger. There was nothing he could do to fix it now.

ღ Vernon: The Black Dog "I move through the world with the heartbroken My longings stay unspoken And I may never open up thе way I did for you."

Nobody understood you the way Hansol did. He had the manuscript on what made you tick. Like how you liked your coffee over exactly five ice cubes, how you would always whisper 'thank you' before eating any kind of meats because they once had a soul, and how you would blink twice before laughing at one of his jokes. So when he made the call to end things you wondered how on earth you would ever find someone who could handle your quirks and wouldn't find you strange. It made you feel abandoned and made you hate him so much for hurting you this way. When you expressed your feelings to your friends, they would tell you it would get better eventually. Eventually, whenever "Hansol" escaped your lips to them they would tell you to stop talking. That's why you just were silently heartbroken as you replayed everything over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

ღ Dino: So Long, London "You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin' for the proof."

Your phone light blinded you as you stared at Lee Chan's pointless apologies. You both had been struggling in your relationship for the last five months. You thought things were looking up until one of your best friends delivered the heartbreaking news that they saw him kissing a new stylist that started working for them ironically when things started to go shit. You felt many things. You felt betrayed, you felt hurt, you felt sick, you felt embarrassed. He swore he loved you, he pinkie swore he loved you not even three days ago. However, you trusted your best friend and you saw visual proof which was more proof or clues on how much he "loved" you. Even though it killed you, you texted back, "So Long, Iksan." before blocking his number and preparing yourself on officially getting over him.

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

thinking about singing in a choir/group in comparison to singing solo/accompanied by music and just thinking abt how comparatively different that is. an orchestral backup to a solo song is nice- and takes a lot of dedication to perfect, certainly- but you will always be missing the synergy that comes with singing with other people. the synchronous intake of breath, the way vocal harmonies hum through the air in a way humans were biologically designed to pay keen attention to. the control and perfection of sound with your body instead of just your hands and limbs, and the perpetual awareness that you're operating in sync with a handful or tens or even a large group of people.

anyways. thinking abt how wigfrid's 'spellbinding' singing voice absolutely did NOT come out of the blue. thinking about how she probably started singing alongside some sort of group before moving to actressing and spending the rest of her career and the rest of her life before the constant singing and being completely alone.

[mooodyblue]

ignore me lol

[tonycries]

One More? Please? - G.S.

Synopsis. A kiss always solves everything! But when a kiss turns into something more…well, it’s only a desperate attempt to unseal yourselves from this damned prison realm, right? Right?

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, unprotected, coworkers to lovers, being stuck in that damn box, oral (female), mutual másturbation, spitting, fáce-sítting, máting press, Satoru is down bad for you, chóking, overstim, multiple rounds, créampie, pet names (sweetheart), swearing.

Word count. 4.4k

A/N. Happy belated two months to this blog! Concept inspired by this post by @kingkonoha.

“Maybe we should kiss and see if the box opens?”

“That’s the dumbest fucking thing to ever come out of your mouth.”

“Hey- it works in the movies! True love’s kiss and all-”

You heave out a heavy sigh that makes even the skeleton at your shoulder shake its head in pity. Goddamn, if these curses weren’t going to kill him then you will. 

“I take it back. That’s the dumbest fucking thing to ever come out of your mouth.”

Satoru hooks a thumb over his blindfold to gaze at you with mock seriousness. Oh, how the mighty have fallen - and how you were teetering dangerously close to a stroke with each dramatic bat of his long lashes.

“C’monnn~” he whines, with the flair of someone that was not sealed in an inescapable prison, “Don’t tell me that in all these years you’ve never once been at least a little tempted to kiss me, sweetheart.” 

“I’d rather kiss that dusty skull.” Shooting him a pointed look that makes even the skulls at your feet recoil. It would almost be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that you were trapped. In the prison realm. With Gojo Satoru of all people. Possibly forever.

Shit, is this karma for all those times you ditched Satoru with Nanami instead of dealing with him yourself?

Now, Satoru might be going about it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but just a few minutes ago when his life flashed before his very eyes at the mere sight of Suguru - or at least, the monster wearing his body - he’d expected some of his favorite memories to be the ones with you in it. 

You - his lil’ coworker - in all your gorgeous, smart-mouthed glory. And maybe if he was lucky, he even expected a couple glimpses of you in his future. Preferably with a giant rock on your finger.

But that’s a story for another time, what he certainly did not expect was for your stupidly heroic (and quite beautiful) ass to jump right in the middle of the prison realm’s ensnarement. 

Although, honestly, right now he doesn’t think he’d want to be locked up in here with anyone but you - and that withering glare you send him. 

Undeterred, Satoru has the audacity to throw his head back and laugh. Laugh. A sound you’ve come to realize over the years, as innocent as it sounds, does not bode well for you or your sanity. 

A sanity that’s been slowly dwindling since your first day of meeting Satoru. Back then, a brash, cocky new teacher that waltzed into the halls of Jujutsu Tech in those pretentious sunglasses like he owned the place. 

Well, not that he was any different right now. Lounging over some disgruntled skeletons, you half-expected him to pull out a deck chair and start sunbathing amidst the bones. Your begrudging coworker - and occasional bane of your existence - seemed right at home. 

You, however, were decidedly not having the time of your life. 

“I swear, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” you grumble, wincing at the bones prodding you from almost every angle. 

“Can you blame me?” he hums, now fully tugging down his blindfold to hang around his neck, “It’s not every day I get to spend quality time with my favorite person in the world.”

You scoff, strangely self-conscious as those striking blue sweep your figure from head to toe. “Lucky me. Well why don’t you spend this quality time helping me figure out how the hell we can get out of here.”

“I already told y-”

“Anything but that.”

With a sulky huff, Satoru peers down at you, “Then we just wait till someone gets us out of here. I’m sure Megumi-chan is just tearing his emo hair out trying to unseal this thing.”

“...”

“You’re absolutely correct, Yuji then. Or…” he tilts his head towards a sad pile of bones, “We end up like our little friend over there. Though I’d make a far better looking skeleton-”

You don’t hear the rest of Satoru’s rant over the small noise of concern that falls from your lips. Something hot and prickly pooling in your stomach at the fact that yes you really were stuck in the prison realm with Gojo Satoru. Possibly forever. And no this wasn’t some strange dream like when you and Shoko accidentally raided the wrong brownie box in the kitchen.

Shit. 

And perhaps it showed on your face, because you’re jolted out of your reverie by warm fingers intertwining with yours. Grounding. Satoru’s eyes now searching yours with an intensity that made you squirm uncomfortably. 

“Hey, we’ll figure this out, okay?” he mutters softly. “Remember that time we accidentally set the training ground on fire?” leaning in closer now, “Or that mission we got chased by that cursed vending machine?”

You roll your eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of your lips despite yourself. “Yeah, and then you nearly got us killed trying to order a sweet tea. ”

Satoru chuckles, squeezing your hand reassuringly. “See? It worked out, didn’t it? It always does, sweetheart.” 

And if your heart does a strange little lurch, well, then you just blame it on the femur jabbing into your side. 

All is quiet in your little hell. That is, until.

“Hey, Satoru…does kissing really work in the movies?” 

You barely catch the way Satoru’s breath hitches ever-so-slightly as he leans in closer. eyes sparkling with mischief. And oh you knew that look - one that was usually accompanied by a lecture by Yaga, one that sent shivers down your spine. He grins, “Well, there’s only one way to find out, hm?”

Embarrassment and amusement bubbles inside you, tumbling out in the form of a barely-audible, “A peck. One.”

“Awww. Eight?”’

“No.”

“Five?”

“Satoru.”

Minty breath fanning your face, “Okay okay, one peck and a kiss to your forehead. C’mon, it’s a bargain~”

Pinching your nose, you sigh out a weary, “This is so stupid. Fine, but if it doesn’t work then I’m strangling you.”

And it’s all that is said before his lips are on yours.  

Soft. Satoru’s lips were so soft. And he tasted so unfairly of caramel apples and sweet, sweet mischief. Just like him. Feather-light and fleeting - yet the kiss burns into your brain with an intensity that you strangely didn’t mind.

It’s over before you know it. The cold air hits your lips as Satoru’s words ring in your ears, a disappointed little, “Aw, that didn’t work.”

Barely even risking a glance at the still very sealed realm, your body reacts before your mind - the expensive cotton of his uniform collar soft against your fingers as you pull Satoru towards you with a sense of urgency you can’t quite explain.

And then you’re kissing him. And he’s kissing you because shit this is all that Satoru’s been dreaming about since he turned 23 and suddenly realized that oh you were frighteningly everything that he ever wanted. 

“S-Satoru,” you whisper, breathless against his lips. 

“Shhhh, my girl. One more. Didn’t work.” 

His lips are searing on yours. Urgent and greedy, because fuck if it took getting trapped in the prison realm to finally kiss you then God knows when he’ll be able to again. 

Which is why he breathes you in like he doesn’t have enough time, and probably never will - even in this godforsaken box where time never passes. 

“Shit. O-one more.”

Drinking in your sweet gasps as he intertwines his tongue with yours, tasting how sinfully delicious you were. Satoru’s hands wander the expanse of your body, cupping your head to kiss you deeper, snaking down to squeeze your ass - and everything in between. 

Pulling away ever-so-slightly with a playful bite to your bottom lip, he leaves a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down your neck. The disappointed whine that leaves your pretty mouth makes all the blood in Satoru’s body rush to his cock. 

“Sweetheart.” he grunts into the crook of your neck, lips ghosting over your racing pulse. “Y’think I kissed the wrong lips?”

Oh? 

Satoru’s words send a jolt of electricity running down your spine - all the way down to your heated cunt. “W-what?” you managed to choke out, cheeks flaring as he raises his eyes to meet yours and-

Oh.

Oh, shit. If the curses weren’t going to kill you then Satoru sure might. 

You’re snapped out of your thoughts by Satoru carefully jostling the two of you so that he’s lying on his back, your body manhandled to straddle his pretty face. 

“Satoru, when you mean ‘wrong lips’...here?” you trail off, still reeling from him and the abrupt change in position and him. 

“Exactly what I mean,” he chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest and vibrating beneath your dripping cunt. “Now, spread ‘em wider f’me. Let me taste you- Need it s’bad.”

Body moving as if on autopilot, your knees part wider to let him greedily take in the sight of your soaked panties. Beads of slick seeping through the thin fabric each time his hot breath meets your cunt. 

But not for long - the cool air hits you before you realize what’s happening. Because Satoru is ripping your flimsy panties off with one hand. Throwing it behind to God-knows-where with the urgency of a madman. 

“Shit, so wet f’me already.” he groans, mouth watering at the obscene sight of you clenching around nothing. “S’gorgeous. You really are perfect everywhere, huh?” he mutters through lazy, languid kisses along your thighs. Tongue darting out just so to leisurely trace circles along the heated skin. 

Strong arms wrap around your thighs, the stretch nothing with the two long fingers spreading your swollen folds apart. Your face burns from just how adoring Satoru looks below you.

You buck into his touch, “Hngh- Please. Wan’ your mouth on me.”

And perhaps the great Gojo Satoru decided to be merciful for once in his life, because without another word, he’s surging forward. Tongue flicking out to tease your sloppy entrance, pooling your juices before tipping his head back, back, back to let it slide down his throat so sinfully.

Shit, Satoru could just cum in his pants right now, of course you taste heavenly. Better than he could’ve ever imagined on any lonely night. 

You shudder as he flattens his tongue across your folds, sliding teasingly between them, grazing your swollen clit just barely at an unhurried rhythm that almost has Satoru forgetting where he was. But quite frankly, he couldn’t give less of a fuck about it either.

“This what you wanted, sweetheart?” he hums around your clit, the vibrations making you squeal. Sucking gently, tongue rolling harshly against your bundle of nerves, over and over- “Cause it’s what I’ve been wanting for years.”

The words ring in your ears almost as much as the lewd squelches below. Years?

“F-fuck- feels hngh- What do you mean y-years, Satoru?” 

Oh, Satoru thinks he could pass out just at the way you whine out his name so prettily. Eyes rolling to the back of his head, a hand hastily snaking down to unbuckle his pants. “Mhmm~ Couldn’t go a day without sparring with you where I didn’t think of bending you over and tasting you right there y’know.”

Your eyes snap down to meet Satoru’s hazy, half-lidded ones. Something dark and feral shining within them. And right now, thighs wrapped around his head, you don’t think he’s ever looked happier. White locks splayed out, a fucked-out expression on his face as his tongue bullies past your folds, you could feel the slight smile curling his lips against you. 

It’s overwhelming - both his confession and the way Satoru was making out with your cunt like a man starved.

Nose-deep in your pussy, tongue alternating between its abuse on your throbbing clit and dipping in and out of your sloppy hole at a maddening pace. Mouth only speeding up ruthlessly at the way you convulse and grind involuntarily on top of him.

God, Satoru was going insane at the way your walls were sucking him up so good, clamping down with each push of his tongue. 

“Shit- made jus’ f’me. You like that, don’t you?” he growls against your cunt, voice hoarse with desire. “Like fucking my face with your pussy?”

“Oh! Ngh, yes Satoru- L-love it-”

A bruising grip on your hips, encouraging you to rock against his face. Harder. Tongue more desperate. He couldn’t get enough. Meeting your every grind, tongue lapping at your cunt so obscenely. 

Breaths ragged and hot against your cunt, drinking you in with the desperation of a man that wouldn’t mind giving up air for your essence. And it was Satoru - of course he wouldn’t mind.

Especially with the large hand snaking up your thigh, going from drawing reassuring patterns at your hips to rubbing tight, little circles on your pulsing clit. Hasty, and urgent - like he had no time to waste. “Tha’s right, my girl. Give it up for me,”

Every cell in your body is on fire, every nerve ending singing with pleasure at the way Satoru plays your body like an instrument. 

“M’close, Satoru- Hah- s’close.” you moan breathlessly, a hand tangling in his soft strands. Using it as leverage to ride Satoru’s pretty face just the way you like it.

But you didn’t have to - because Satoru seems to already know exactly what to do. Exactly how to quirk his tongue just right to brush against all your most sensitive spots. Exactly how to match the rhythm of his abuse on your clit to the way he was tonguefucking you into delirium. Exactly how to look at you with such a hungry expression that devours you almost as much as his mouth. 

“Cum f’me, sweetheart.”

Satoru didn’t even have to ask. Because you’re cumming with a strangled gasp of his name. White-hot pleasure coursing through you like lightning, body trembling as you cum all over Satoru’s pretty face. 

Hands moving your limp, boneless hips across his face, forcing you to ride out peak after peak on his red lips.

As the blood roaring in your ears bates, and you blink back your vision, the first thing you see are those familiar blue eyes gazing up at you. Holding you steady, lips brushing gentle kisses along your inner thighs. 

Oh, how beautiful he was like this.

“S-S’toru?” you mewl, still sensitive from your orgasm as Satoru shifts underneath you to sit you prettily in his lap.

“Mhm?” he nuzzles your neck.

“One more. It didn’t work.”

Oh, if you knew the only way to shut up Gojo Satoru was to say something like this then you would’ve done it a lot sooner. 

But Satoru’s stunned silence doesn’t last for long, because he grins, low and sultry, “You’re right. It didn’t work.”

The metallic clinking of a belt echoes in the stuffy chamber as Satoru hastily pushes down his pants. Cock springing free to hit his lower abs, “What a shame.”

You blink at the sheer size of him - he was going to split you in two. It was unfair, really. Water is wet. Gojo Satoru has a big dick. 

But oh was he pretty - so pretty.  Prominent veins glistening in the dim lighting, fat tip flushed your favorite shade of delicate pink, leaking furiously in between your thighs.

Gulping, you reach out to wrap your hand around his achingly hard cock. So warm and heavy in your hands. “Y-yeah, what a shame.”

Both of you watch - entranced - at the way he twitches in your grasp at the mere sound of your voice. A maddening little bump! bump! bump! against your palm as you begin pumping him slowly - so agonizingly slow. 

“Oh- Feel s’good, sweetheart.” Satoru hisses lowly as you swipe at the precum beading at this head. Thumbing teasingly under his sensitive slit, tracing delicately along his veins. 

And by God does it do something to you to see the great Gojo Satoru falling apart for you, hair tousled, lips kiss-bitten, and eyes looking at you like he wanted to positively eat you alive. It made your cunt throb so desperately, slick forming a dark wet patch on his trousers. 

Not one to be left behind, his long fingers deftly snake down to your dripping cunt. Not wasting any time before bullying his fingertips past your swollen folds, curling expertly to press down against that one spot that has your fist faltering on his cock. Hard. 

Pretty little moans left your lips at the way Satoru so easily matches your pace. Thrusting knuckle-deep into your pussy in and out - hitting that spot over and over.

“Shit, Toru- s’deep inside me. I’m- hngh-”

Satoru was in heaven, really. You were so warm and wet around both his fingers and his throbbing cock. 

Only two thoughts running through his mind right now - 1. He was right, your hands were softer and more sinfully delicious around his swollen cock. And 2. The hardest battle he’s ever fought was probably right now - at your mercy, trying not to spill all over your hands because he’d be damned if he finally scored the girl and came in two seconds.

Shit, he thinks fingers almost erratic now, he needs you to cum. Right now. 

As if sensing his urgency, your moves become more frantic, Satoru’s brows furrowing at the way you increase your pace. His hips twitch, as if trying to thrust into your fist. matching your pace as you start stroking him harder, faster. 

Ah, but alas, the great Gojo Satoru’s reputation precedes him. 

“Oh, fuck- M’gonna-” And soon enough, you’re seeing stars behind your eyes - or maybe those were tears - as you cum. Hard. 

Body moving before your mind, you’re clenching around Satoru’s fingers, grinding down so ferally as you edge him closer and closer. “C’mon, Toru. One more, right?” you whisper brokenly, lips ghosting his ear.

Breath coming in short, strained gasps of what sounded like your name now, “Oh- fuck ngh- so close.” he warns, voice hoarse. “If you keep doing that, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

You smirk, raising a brow, “Is that a threat, Satoru?”

Willing his fucked-out eyes open, they bore into yours as he utters, “No, ah- it’s a p-promise.”

Without warning, Satoru clasps your wrists, forcing you to stop pumping him. The disappointed mewl threatening to spill from your lips is cut off just as your back hits the ground.

Slam!

You think you could almost get whiplash from how swiftly Satoru had you caged and splayed out so shamefully beneath him. 

You whine, “But you didn’t even get to-”

“Fuck, not now. Gotta feel you or else m’gonna cum so embarrassingly all over your fist.” He rests his throbbing erection laid out so enticingly across your stomach, leaking hot precum onto your skin. And that makes you shut up, eyes mapping where it ended and realizing that yeah, you might’ve faced more mercy with the curses outside of this box. “Besides. One more, right?”

And before you can respond, Satoru’s spitting on you once. Twice. Thrice.

You flinch as the wads of saliva hit your dripping cunt, mixing with your slick so obscenely as Satoru smears it across your swollen folds. Your mouth drops into a soft oh! of disbelief as he promptly pops his thumb into his mouth, groaning at the taste. 

“Shit.” Satoru hisses lowly, “One more might just not be enough.”

Not wasting a moment longer, he’s bullying his throbbing cock into your snug cunt. Head thrown back as your plush walls desperately try to accommodate his size.

“Oh. Oh shit hah- should’ve been locked up here ngh- sooner.” he groans, words straight from his cock. “Feel s’heavenly around m-me.” Because God Satoru thinks he wouldn’t even mind staying here for the rest of his life if it meant he got to have you like this.

You moan at the positively delicious stretch of your pussy, plush walls unable to decide between pushing him out and milking the soul out of him. “Hah- Toru s’too big. I can’t-” 

“You will.” he grits out, teeth clenched and brows furrowed as he focuses on letting you adjust. Pressing inch by fucking inch. Eyes rolling to the back of his head as he fights that feral part of himself that just wants to plunge into your pretty pussy till his tip kisses your cervix, and you’re drunk on nothing but his cock.

But he didn’t have to - because you’re immediately wrapping your legs around his toned waist, pulling Satoru to you recklessly until his heavy balls smack your ass. Tufts of snowy white hair - already so wet with your slick and his precum - finally meeting your cunt.

“Ah! Shit, s’full Toru.” you keen, body bowing into his.

There’s not even a hair's breadth between your bodies now as Satoru chuckles darkly. “You little minx. Thought you couldn’t handle me, but you really wanted to be split apart on my cock, huh?”

You feel almost shy under his gaze as you mumble out a quiet little, “Well you did say one more.”

Ah, Satoru thinks deliriously, if you aren’t Mrs. Gojo by the time you two get out of this then there’s seriously something wrong with him. 

But he doesn’t tell you that. Instead with a satisfied smirk, he claims your lips in a searing kiss, sucking your tongue so lewdly as he did with your cunt. Parting for only a second before pressing his lips to yours again. And again. And again, as if it hurt to part.

“Mhm. Always wanted to do this, sweetheart.” he hums against your pretty lips. “Fuck ever since you hah- walked in on that first day.” 

Kissing you sweetly with a tenderness that doesn’t translate to his hips as pulls back, back, back. All the way till his angry, hard tip was just grazing your sloppy entrance. “One more.”

Body moving before his mind, his hips start fucking into your dripping cunt recklessly. Satoru doesn’t fuck you with the finesse he imagined he would all these years, rough, harsh thrusts fueled by pure need and all the desperation from these last few years.

In one, fluid movement, the burn of the stretch hits you before the realization that Satoru has thrown your legs over his sculpted shoulders. 

“Ah- So good, Toru. Oh my god- hah-” you mewl at the change in angle. His pulsing dick expertly hitting that one spot inside you which has your words slurring together, body arching off the floor to press so impossibly close against him. 

And, well, Satoru isn’t any better - because he’s slamming his cock into you mindlessly. Hitting that spot over and over. 

With one hand, he caresses your stomach. Whispering out a ragged, “Feel me inside? Feel me right…” Pressing his palm down hard, “Here.”

The other forces you to look up at him, drinking in your whines of “Yes yes yes, can feel you s-so deep hngh- inside me, Toru.” 

You’re so cockdrunk and full of Satoru that you barely notice the hands groping their way down your body. Catching harshly on your swollen clit, starting to draw, quick, frenzied circles that match the cadence of his hips smacking into yours. 

“Look at me.” he murmurs raspily, “Open your mouth.”

And you can do nothing but take it, tongue lolling out so lewdly for the warm stream of spit that hits it. Once. Twice. 

You look up at him with teary eyes, as you take it all -  anything and everything he was giving. And it makes Satoru bow his head with a fucked-out groan, cock twitching so animalistically as it keeps plunging inside you roughly. Deft fingers on your clit becoming more desperate.

Harder. Faster. Balls squeezing so painfully. Like a lamb to slaughter, he was going to eat you up - and you were going to let thim.

You squeal at the overstimulation, hips bucking up for more more more-

“God, sweetheart, you don’t know what you do to me.” he moans, voice strained with desire and the euphoria of getting everything he’s wanted for so long. It was driving him insane. “Now c’mon. One more. Give me one more like my good girl.”

“Hngh- yes- Toru!”

You don’t even know what “one more” means anymore - all you do know is that you’re cumming and cumming all around Satoru’s unforgiving cock. Walls fluttering so snugly, your body convulses as you cream around his cock. Nails dragging down the expanse of his sculpted back, Satoru’s name leaving your bruised lips and into the heady air like a prayer every time his tip kisses your cervix. His new favorite melody.

And that seems to be what makes him snap as well - because with a final, sloppy thrust, he’s painting your walls such a sinful white. Pumping thick, hot ropes of his cum into your quivering cunt. 

“Shit- yeah, my girl. Take it. Take it all f’me.” Satoru shudders above you, head thrown back, chest heaving as he fucks you through your high. Movements nothing more than shallow, mindless little thrusts to get you both off so animalistically. 

It was so fucking filthy - and exactly what you needed so badly. He was exactly what you needed so badly. 

Now, Satoru only had to take one look as you use him so obscenely for your pleasure - eyes dazed, drool trickling down the corner of your mouth - before he thinks he might just cum again. And again. And again until he physically couldn’t anymore.

But first…

Pulling out of your heavenly pussy with a lewd pop! His long fingers delicately collects the mixture of slick and cum now gushing out of you obscenely. 

Aw, what a waste, Satoru muses as it pools below you sinfully. If it was up to him he wouldn’t waste a single drop from your pretty cunt. 

But no matter. 

Abruptly, Satoru bullies two fingers into your mouth - forcing you to taste yourself, to taste him. Pressing right at the back of your tongue in a way that has you choking and gagging around him, teary eyes just begging up at him. Perfect - you were so perfect for him. 

Kissing your forehead with a tenderness that doesn’t match his actions, he hums, faux innocence lacing his words, “What a shame, the box didn’t open yet.”

And oh does he love the excitement lighting up your exhausted eyes. Pretty thighs twitching underneath him as a slow, fucked-out little smile curls your lips. 

“One more? Please?”

A/N. Plagiarism not authorized.

[fragileheartbeats]

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ 𓇼 ࣪ 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ⭒⠀

♡ ⭒ㅤ𓈒 白鳥 ㅤ𝅄ㅤ ㅤ྄

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀꒰͡ ⠀ ִ 𝐽 𝐽 𝐾 𝑀 𝑒 𝑛 𝑥 𝐹 𝑒 𝑚 𝑅 𝑒 𝑎 𝑑 𝑒 𝑟 ⠀ׂ ⠀ ͡꒱

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ♡ㅤ𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘦𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘢𝘺ㅤ۫ㅤ𝅄ㅤೀ

— 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘶, 𝘔𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘮𝘪, 𝘠𝘶𝘫𝘪, 𝘒𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘰, 𝘚𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘶, 𝘊𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘰, 𝘠𝘶𝘵𝘢, 𝘛𝘰𝘨𝘦 <3

˚꒰🌼꒱‧ Hi there! Before you read this, you should know that English is not my first language. Hope you enjoy!

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 | 五条 悟 ─ 𓇼 . ♡𝆬

He stands in awe, with watery eyes, As she walks down the aisle. Dressed in white, like an angel in disguise, His heart fills with joy and a little bit of surprise. The bride, so radiant and full of grace, A vision of beauty, in every inch and every lace. Her dress, like a delicate flower in bloom, Brings a tear to his eye, as he stands in the groom's room. He remembers the day they first met, And how he fell in love with her, without regret. Now here she is, his future wife, And he can't help but shed a tear in this moment of life. She reaches him, with a smile so bright, And he holds her hand, feeling so right. Their eyes meet, and in that moment they know, That their love will continue to grow and glow. As they exchange their vows in front of all, He can't hold back his tears, they continue to fall. For he knows, this is where he truly belongs, In her arms, listening to their favorite love songs. He takes her hand, to seal their promise, And they share a kiss, so pure and flawless. In that moment, his heart overflows with love, As he embraces his bride, his beautiful dove. He whispers in her ear, 'you look so divine', And she smiles at him, her love so genuine. They dance the night away, lost in each other's eyes, For this is the start of their forever, a love that never dies. And as the night comes to an end, He looks at her, his beloved, his best friend. In her wedding dress, she is a sight to behold, And his love for her, will never grow old. For in this moment, he knows he's found his forever, And he thanks the stars, for bringing them together. As they begin their journey, hand in hand, He knows that she will always be his happily ever after, his love, his bride, his brand.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐌𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐌𝐈 𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎 | 伏黒 恵 ─ 𔒌 . ♡𝆬

He stood in awe, tears in his eyes, As he saw his bride in her wedding dress. Every worry, every fear, they all seemed to disappear, As he gazed upon her with utter happiness. From across the room, he admired her beauty, Dressed in white, she was a vision to behold. A smile played on her lips, her eyes shining bright, Her love for him, a story that never gets old. He couldn't believe that this was his bride, The woman he would spend the rest of his life with. Her dress, a symbol of their love and commitment, A promise to always stand by each other, never to drift. As he walked towards her, his heart pounded fast, His emotions crashing like waves on the shore. With trembling hands, he cupped her face, And whispered, 'I've never loved you more'. He smiled through hid tears, and took her hand, Their fingers interlaced, their hearts now entwined. She leaned in closer, brushed away a stray tear, And kissed his lips with a love so pure and refined. Their kiss was a symphony, a dance of two souls, Overflowing with love, so passionate and true. It was a moment they'll cherish for eternity, As they said 'I do', and began a journey anew. The room seemed to fade, as they held each other tight, Whispers of forever, echoed in their ears. Their love, a flame that would never die, A vow to love, cherish and wipe away each other's tears. So let the tears flow, for they are tears of joy, The man and his bride, their love a beautiful art. Their wedding day, a memory that will never fade, For in each other's arms, they've found their missing part.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐘𝐔𝐉𝐈 𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐈 | 虎杖 悠仁 ─ 𓐐𓎩 . ♡𝆬

Tears of joy streaming down his face, As he stands in awe of her grace. His heart overflowing with love, As she walks towards him, like an angel from above. She takes his breath away, In her bridal gown, she shines like the sun's ray. Every step she takes, a melody in his heart plays, For this moment, he has waited all his days. The veil, a symbol of purity, Hides the tears that flow with such sincerity. He knows she's the one, his soulmate and his guide, His emotions, he can no longer hide. As she reaches his side, He takes her hand, filled with so much pride. He whispers words of love, only for her to hear, In this moment, nothing else seems to be near. Their eyes lock, as they exchange their vows, Promising to stand by each other, through joyful and tough days. Their love, a flame that will forever burn, For in each other's arms, they have found their true turn. And as they seal their love with a kiss, Their hearts meld together, in perfect bliss. For this man, his tears were a testament, Of the depth of love for his bride, so pure and fervent. In this wedding, two hearts unite as one, Their journey of love has only just begun. And as they dance under the starlit sky, That man's tears, forever a reminder of this love so high.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐈 | 七海 建人 ─ ☘︎ . ♡𝆬

The sun shone bright upon the chapel's doors, As the man waited, his heart at war. With joy and nerves, his mind did soar, For soon, his bride he would adore. Her beauty, he had seen a thousand times, But today, it was like a dream, sublime. Her gown, her hair, her gentle smile, Brought tears to his eyes, he couldn't deny. As she walked down the aisle, oh so slow, Each step she took, his love did grow. He couldn't believe she would be his wife, Her love, a blessing, in his life. Their eyes met, and time stood still, In that moment, nothing could break the thrill. Of two souls, bound by love's pure grace, Meeting, in this sacred place. And as she reached his side, his heart did swell, For she was his, oh, how he could tell. Her hand in his, their love renewed, And with each vow, his heart was subdued. But when she spoke her final 'I do', He couldn't hold back, the tears came through. For in that moment, he realized, She was his forever, his eternal prize. With tears of joy, he kissed his bride, Their love, forever, to abide. For in her arms, he found his peace, And in her love, his heart released. So here's to the man who cries for love, For he knows, it's a blessing from above. To find someone to share this life, A faithful companion, a loving wife.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐎 | 夏油 傑 ─ 𓆉 . ♡𝆬

The room was abuzz with excitement and glee, As the bride was getting ready for her big day to be. Her bridesmaids fussed over her, fixing her veil and train, While her mother held back tears, trying not to strain. But amidst all the chaos and flurry, There was one man standing still and blurry. For the groom, gazing at his bride, Was overwhelmed with emotion, he couldn't hide. She emerged from behind the curtain, In a stunning white dress, she was certain. Her beauty took his breath away, He couldn't help but cry, words he couldn't say. The bride turned to him with a gentle smile, And wiped away his tears, one by one, in style. For she knew, in that moment so pure, That his love for her was sincere and sure. The groom took her hand, and they danced, Lost in each other, their love enhanced. The room fell silent, as they swayed, Their love shining brighter than any charade. And then, in a moment so serene, They shared a kiss that was meant to be. It was gentle, passionate, and true, Their love so evident, it could pierce through. As their lips met, time stood still, And all the world seemed to be at a standstill. The bride and groom, in each other's arms, Lost in a love that needed no alarms. The kiss spoke of promises, forever and more, Of a love that would withstand any storm or roar. And as they pulled away, breathless and aglow, They knew in their hearts, that this love would only grow. The groom held his bride, close to his heart, Never wanting to be apart. For he knew in that moment, so divine, That she was his forever, his soulmate and his lifeline. The room erupted in cheers and applause, But to the couple, their love was the only cause. For in that one moment, they had sealed their fate, Two hearts, one soul, forever entwined, their love, so great. So as they took their vows and said, 'I do', The world bore witness, to a love so pure and true. For in that moment, as they became man and wife, Their love had melted hearts, and touched every life.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐎 𝐊𝐀𝐌𝐎 | 脹相 ─ 𖤣𖥧 . ♡𝆬

As she steps into the room, In a dress of pure white, The man's heart begins to bloom, His eyes filled with delight. For this was the moment he had waited for, His bride, his love, his everything, And as she walks towards him, he can't ignore, The beauty in her wedding ring. Tears fill his eyes, as he beholds, The vision of perfection before him, His love for her, a story untold, A love that will never dim. Her dress, like a swirling cloud, Floats around her in grace, He knows in this moment, he's found, His soulmate, in this sacred place. Her eyes, a reflection of the stars, Sparkling with love and joy, He reaches for her, with loving arms, As she becomes his forever's toy. Their lips meet, in a tender kiss, As the world around them fades, Their love, a treasure, they'll never miss, In each other's arms, they were made. He whispers sweet words in her ear, Proclaiming his love, for all to hear, And she, with a smile, wipes his tear, As they embrace, in this moment, so dear. The man was lost in her beauty, Her heart, a pure and gentle soul, He knew that in her he'd found his duty, To love and cherish, till they grew old. And as the tears of joy keep rolling, Down his cheeks, in an endless stream, He knows that in this woman, he's found his calling, To love and adore, in every dream. For the man, seeing his bride in her wedding dress, Was a moment that he'll never forget, For in her, he found his true happiness, And together, their love would forever be set.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐘𝐔𝐓𝐀 𝐎𝐊𝐊𝐎𝐓𝐒𝐔 | 乙骨 憂太 ─ ✉ . ♡𝆬

The man stood there, with tears in his eyes, As his bride walked towards him, in a vision of white. She was the epitome of beauty and grace. A sight that brought a smile upon his face. Her dress was like a dream, flowing and pure, As she took his breath away, that was for sure. He couldn't believe she was finally his, A feeling that filled him with pure and utter bliss. She walked towards him with a radiant glow, Her eyes sparkling, reflecting the love they both know. He couldn't hold back the tears, they flowed freely, As he gazed upon her, his heart beating unceasingly. She reached out her hand, and he took it in his, A gentle squeeze, as if to assure her of this. That she was his everything, his world, his love, A gift from above, a blessing from up above. They stood there, in front of all their loved ones, But in that moment, it felt like they were the only ones. With tears in their eyes, they shared a kiss, A kiss that sealed their love, in pure and utter bliss. It was a kiss filled with promises and vows, A kiss that would stay with them forever, from this day onwards. As their lips touched, it was like time stood still, In each other's arms, they felt complete and fulfilled. They pulled away, with tears still in their eyes, But this time, it was tears of joy and not goodbyes. For they knew that from this day on, Their love would only grow stronger, and never be gone. And in that moment, as they stood there hand in hand, Their love was a symbol, a bond, an unbreakable band. For it was a love that could move mountains and seas, A love that would stand the tests of time, for eternity.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐈 | 狗巻 棘 ─ ♬ . ♡𝆬

As the groom stood waiting at the altar, His heart was full of love, there was no falter. The music played, the guests all stood, Anticipation building in this quiet neighborhood. The doors then opened and in she came, The bride, with beauty that put the sun to shame. Her dress, a dazzling white, her hair in curls, Her delicate steps causing his heart to swirl. His breath caught in his throat, tears in his eyes, As he saw his bride, his love, his prize. She looked like an angel, walking down the aisle, His heart overflowing with love, mile after mile. He couldn't believe this was all happening, A moment so pure, no words could bring. As she drew near, his heart skipped a beat, His emotions, uncontrollable, feeling so complete. He took her hand, they exchanged loving vows, Promising forever, they'd stay by each other's side, no doubt. His heart was so full, he couldn't help but cry, For in this moment, he knew he'd found his life's greatest joy. As they held each other, their hearts beating as one, Their love, like a flame, alight in the setting sun. The groom looked at his bride, with tears in his eyes, For he knew this was the start of their beautiful, forever paradise. And as they became husband and wife, Their love would only grow stronger, brighter, with no strife. The tears that fell, were tears of pure bliss, For his bride, his love, nothing would he ever miss. So here they stood, hand in hand, A symbol of love, the ultimate band. For in this moment, they were a perfect pair, In each other's love, they'd find everything, beyond compare. Tears of joy, running down their cheeks, A love that would last forever, in these vows they'd speak. as their eyes met, filled with so much love, And He knew that this moment was a blessing from above.

MASTERLIST

@fragileheartbeats . Don't plagiarise, repost, or translate any of my works on here or any other websites.

[forlix]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝・h.j.

— stars flare brightest in the absence of light, and you see his clearer than day.

words・6.4k

pairing・han jisung x female reader

genres・college!au, friends with benefits to lovers, snowed in trope, smut, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WILL BE BLOCKED, angst, ANGST, you have been warned, hurt/comfort, i can't write normal fluff to save my life, happy ending!!!, semi-slow burn

warnings・depictions of insomnia, recurring nightmares, graphic violence, character death (in the nightmare), fears of abandonment and falling in love, alcohol consumption, humans helping each other heal. smut warnings under the cut

playlist・stay - acoustic by jonah baker・all of me by big gigantic・babydoll (speed) by ari abdul・oasis by exo・volcano by han

a/n・hi, here's my second installment of winter falls. writing this was immensely challenging and twice as meaningful, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. thank you to my may for being so fucking instrumental in piecing together this rollercoaster—this one is for you, i love you. thanks to my sahar for everything, always and forever. and thanks to all of you for being here. happy new year ♡

smut warnings・spitplay, unprotected piv, please practice safe sex!!!, car sex, dirty talk, jisung's dick game is kinda crazy, squirting, lots of aftercare

Every time Jisung closes his eyes, he sees somebody’s back.

It’s leaving. Traipsing somewhere he can’t follow. He tries to chase it—he always does, he never learns—but the premise doesn’t so much as surface before the ghosts circling around his ankles go for his throat instead. They snare him by the shoulders, force him to his knees, slam his forehead into the permafrost hard enough to break bone. They make sure the next time he tries to move will be the last.

So he remains, keeled over in the cold, until tearwater clings to his lower lashes in small icicles. Until bloodstained snow coats his lips like the manifestation of a curse. Until the back has disappeared.

Who does it belong to? He’s left to wonder. Where is it going?

Why can’t I follow?

Then he wakes up.

No longer does he lay awake for hours afterwards, scouring the dream’s every frame for his answers.

Now, he tosses and turns in clammy sheets until his exhaustion wins.

Now, he welcomes sleep like a miracle granted by some pitying god.

You see him.

Through a living room packed with red-faced partygoers and dissected by oscillating strobe lights, albeit, but you see him anyways. 

Jisung can barely make out the rest of your face—he blames the lighting, or the soju, or both—but your eyes alone turn him to glass. Not a fancy vase through which the world distorts, but a simple pane that puts him and his ghosts on full display.

He hopes you like horror movies.

Felix knows you, because of course he does, and Jisung has never been happier to call the extroverted Australian his friend than when you come over to say hi. You stumble out of the crowd all smudged makeup and sweaty skin, your figure hugged by a short black dress with two diamond-shaped openings just above your hips, your glossy lips curved in a drunken smile. Jisung immediately wants it against his mouth.

Instead, it disappears behind his friend as you pull him into a quick hug. A few wisps of your hair dust over Jisung’s arm, momentarily replacing the smells of grease and vodka with cherry blossoms and vanilla.

“Lix, hey!”

“Darling, it’s good to see you! Feels like it’s been ages.”

“I know, right? How are you? How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Just happy the semester’s over.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Then you go to lift your drink and discover thin air in its place. “Or I won’t. Whoops.”

This prompts Jisung’s first contribution to the conversation—and his first effortless laugh in a long while.

“Eventful night, huh?”

He meets your gaze from all of two feet away this time, and his knees buckle under him. That gaze, fuck. So clear and true, like a prism of glass refracting light into a rainbow. He would let you refract him a thousand times over if he had any light to give.

“Maybe,” you giggle. “Seems I’m a little too happy the semester’s over.”

“Wanna not get a drink to celebrate?”

Your expression flickers. Not in a bad way, more like you hadn’t expected him to ask so soon—or for yourself to have your answer so quickly.

A strobe light catches right under your eye and refracts the color in your blushing face. A rainbow.

“I’d like that.”

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. You give Felix’s elbow a light squeeze before moving past him; he gives Felix a glimpse of his growing smile before falling into step behind you. The blonde shakes his head, throws back the rest of his beer, then swivels at the sound of someone calling his name from across the foyer.

Felix will get drunk enough to forget the sight of you leading Jisung up the stairs, two bottles of pink lemonade tucked under your arm. Nothing stronger, as promised.

Jisung asks his question an entire minute after he intends to. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Somewhere I can see your pretty face without having to squint,” you reply, and his stomach tumbles like a schoolboy with a valentine.

You don’t stop at the second floor. Instead, you nudge open a door Jisung swears just materialized to his left and emerge into the night air.

It’s warm for December, but he’s still met with chilly winds licking down the sides of his neck. That’s not the only reason he shudders, though. Below his feet, he finds a metal platform akin to that of a fire escape. Above his head, a staircase that looks one forceful step away from dropping off the side of the building.

You turn towards it. 

In a hurry, he sputters, “I’m, uh—I’m not sure about this.”

A beat passes. Your hold on his wrist loosens, not to let go, just to trace wordless reassurance down the back of his hand. Your fingers feel perfect sliding into the spaces between his, like drops of honey in the craters of soufflé pancakes.

“It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

Jisung heaves a sigh. It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

You’re right, though. The iron rungs are surprisingly rigid beneath his feet, and the two of you make it to the roof with no trouble. He does stumble when you pull him up onto the gravel, but it’s intentional, a purposeful blunder to have you closer. To snag another glimpse of that blush, another trace of that floral vanilla.

“Sorry,” he whispers almost directly upon your lips. And that earns him all three.

The next hour evades him for the most part, and Jisung is pissed about it. He’s with the woman of his dreams under a sky so clear it’s almost lustrous and he’s too shitfaced to recollect when he gave you his hoodie to wear; what you said that made his lungs capsize with how hard he laughed; how you ended up so close to each other, your legs strewn over his lap, his hands tracing over your thighs.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things. He remembers how frighteningly easy you are to talk to; he remembers your habit of smacking his stomach when you get flustered; he remembers you getting flustered a lot. He remembers the timbres of your different laughs and how your stunning features crinkle with each. He remembers feeling like a pane of glass in front of you, just like he had downstairs, and he remembers liking it, somehow. Liking the way you see through him, the way you allow him to just exist as he is. Liking the way you acknowledge his ghosts with such nonchalance, inviting them over for tea and biscuits.

He wants to remember everything about you.

It’s not often he wants to remember anything.

Eventually, your conversation comes to a natural close. In its absence, Jisung notices that the alcoholic sludge in his brain has largely diffused; with it, the rumbling bass of the party below. The full moon hangs at its highest point, blanketing the two of you with anticipatory silence, nudging you towards the only topic you’ve yet to breach.

He meets your gaze again, from all of two inches away this time, and his insides twist.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

You blink at him, not following. Then he leans his forehead against yours, lets his eyes flicker to your mouth with such unbridled want that you’re instantly dizzy—and no longer confused.

Regret pools in your eyes moments before they close. “Yes, I think so.”

Your lips are so, so close that he can feel the air shift between you when they move, can feel the soft warmth emanating from them. Jisung pulls away before he does anything stupid.

You do the stupid thing for him.

You push his shoulders to the plaster behind him, push yourself onto his lap with a swing of your body and a slotting of your legs on either side of him. 

The plush of your thighs hugging his hips, the curves of your breasts pressed against his chest, Jisung tries to stare up at you, perplexed, aroused. But you’re so close that he can’t, so he settles with whispering upon the underside of your chin, “what are you—”

“Gimme your lemonade.”

The authoritative words come out in a slurred haze, and he all but hastens to oblige. 

You pluck the plastic bottle from his wavering grasp. His empty hand hovers as if uncertain where to go. But matters as trivial as hand placement drop off his mind’s precipice as he watches you unscrew the cap, the slope of your neck illuminated by spindly moonlight, and without thinking he pushes his hands beneath the hem of your—his—hoodie.

The skin of your waist is warm and smooth where his fingertips are cold and calloused, the juxtaposition unimportant in your reciprocal desires to touch and be touched.

“Open,” you murmur.

His jaw goes slack, firstly from pure disbelief. Then, obedience. The dark locks that obstruct his vision of you fall away as his head meets the brick half-wall behind him, as if the midnight breeze itself mandated their removal.

You pour some of the pink liquid past Jisung’s parted lips. Stray rivulets slip down his cheek and vanish beneath his neckline. You break eye contact to follow their path with dilated pupils and fluttering lashes. With unadulterated desire.

He swallows, gently, and feels the sweet substance surround his tonsils.

He swallows, forcefully, when you wrap your lips around the bottle, the plastic still slathered in his spit.

The swig you take is long, deep. Your throat bobs and your eyes close as if you’re savoring a finely-aged nectar. Then your lips are popping off the opening with a soft thwock, leaving a thick strand of saliva to suspend, suspend, suspend until the very second it’s about to drop, which is when you collect the residue with a deft swipe of your tongue.

“A placeholder,” you breathe, and Jisung’s head careens. A shared bottle. An indirect kiss.

“You’re a monster,” he croaks.

You giggle and lean down, curling a hand around his cheek, pressing a wet kiss to his Adam’s apple.

“Tomorrow, if we’re both sober…”

One, two, three pecks up the length of his jaw.

“...and you still remember my address…”

A suckle to the lobe of his ear.

“...you can kiss me, for real.”

A trembling breath.

“And then some.”

Jisung moans, loudly.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things.

He shows up at your place shortly after sunset the next day. You swing open the door, your face already alight with your world-ending smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then he’s kissing you like a man famished.

Jisung learns to love your back, that night. He loves its dips and curves, loves its rise and fall. Loves how it arches into him, how it looks drenched in his cum. It’s the back of his dreams.

The back in his dreams keeps walking.

Jisung has never liked winter.

He has never liked its winds, whispering woefully as if mourning something unnamed and unseen. He has never liked its palette, whitewashing the world as if refracting a rainbow in reverse.

He has never liked cracking open his eyes and seeing the scenery of his nightmare outside his window. Nor does he like trudging over the sleet as if weighed down by the same ghosts that break him time and time again in his dreamscape. They love winter. 

And this winter, he swears, is the bitterest yet. On the nights when he’s allowed to sleep, the nightmare comes in such sharp relief that he thinks he’d rather anything else, the ghosts meaner, the blood redder, the silhouette slower. It’s an act of mercy when he’s still awake by the time bleached sunlight perforates the curtains, resting upon his salted cheeks and balled fists.

This winter, it is not just dislike that he feels towards the gray winds—it’s hatred. A maelstrom of loathing so large and dark that Jisung no longer knows where it’s headed or what it’s directed to. Or who.

When winter break comes to an end, he’s probably the only person who’s happy about it.

His friends certainly aren’t, looking like a line of angry nutcrackers with their folded arms and thunderous faces standing outside Greem Cafe.

Jisung calls out a greeting as he jogs towards them, and cue the grumbling.

“What is there to smile about? Enlighten us.” That’s Hyunjin. “I have to deal with four finals and three essays in the next five days and this guy is smiling.”

“He’s accepted his fate, I reckon.” That’s Felix. “We should do the same, boys. Let ourselves down easy, y’know?”

“No, no, he’s smiling because he remembered to bring me his chem notes.” That’s Jeongin. “You did, right? Please say you did.”

Jisung is stunned into silence. “Can I not be happy to see my friends?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix reply in unison.

“My bad,” he sighs.

“My notes,” Jeongin repeats.

“I have them, dude. Let’s sit down first.”

The younger boy shouts an impassioned “THANK YOU” at the sky like the clouds just saved his GPA. Jisung reaches for the door to the café, then stops at the sound of Felix’s voice.

“We’re waiting on one more person.”

He turns towards the blonde with puzzled eyes. He’d been under the impression the study session would comprise just them four.

“Who?”

Felix’s response falters on his tongue when he catches sight of something in the distance, and his face changes in a way Jisung’s seen before.

“Look behind you.” Felix shuffles past him, raising his voice to shout, “yo!”

Jisung glances away from the newcomer as quickly as he sees her. It’s not until his eyes pivot to the fire hydrant across the street that he processes her identity.

In one second flat, his mind clutters full. He thinks back to that party, when all it took was the sight of your smile for him to theorize you were the most exquisite thing ever made. He thinks back to the next evening, when he kissed you and verified his hypothesis. He thinks back to what followed and would continue to follow in the few days that remained before break: entwined tongues and emblazoned hickeys, whitened knuckles and whiny praise, snapping hips and shaking bedframes.

This winter, Jisung swears, is the bitterest yet.

But seeing you, the scarf wound multiple times around your neck doing nothing to hide your gorgeous smile, feels like catching a fragment of summer in his frozen hands.

“Thank god,” Felix groans before embracing you. Collapsing on you, more like. “I’m saved.”

You reach around to pat the boy on the back, your eyes brimming with laughter. “Lower your expectations, please. I did well on one exam.”

“You aced the midterm. That automatically makes you a rocket scientist,” Felix corrects, his voice muffled into the shoulder of your coat. A few beats of silence pass. Then, “this is comfy.”

“Okay, okay, let’s go get some caffeine in you,” you giggle. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Felix straightens up sleepily. And sadly. “Superb.”

Jisung hangs back as you introduce yourself to Hyunjin and Jeongin. He doesn’t even notice his growing smile until you’re standing directly in front of him and for the first time in three weeks there’s the smell of cherry blossoms in the air and a rainbow shining on his face again.

“Hi,” he offers.

“Hey,” you reply.

Hyunjin is the one to shatter the prolonged silence that follows. “Are you guys betrothed?”

Felix and Jeongin stalk into the café snickering. You and Jisung trail behind with flaming cheeks.

It takes Jisung two and a half hours to talk to you again. At that point in the afternoon, Felix is napping on the second practice test you’ve given him; Hyunjin has downed three shots of pure espresso and is currently viewing his screen with concerning intensity; Jeongin is at another table on a quiet Zoom call with his chemistry T.A., Jisung’s notes clutched to his chest like a life vest. And you’re leaning back against your seat opposite to him, scrolling through your phone in what he presumes to be a well-deserved study break. As good a time as any.

He opens up his texts with you. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

Jisung: do you have plans after this?

Your eyes stutter to the top of your screen, linger there for a moment, and lock onto Jisung’s from across the table.

He presses his lips into a thin line to suppress his smile. You let yours spill over in full form, and with it comes a soft giggle that would be worth getting his number fucking blocked just to hear one more time.

Three gray dots appear before elongating into a prompt response.

Y/N: I was gonna ask you the same thing…

He’s the one who laughs this time. Fuck, you’re cute. You’re so cute.

Jisung: can i take you to dinner? Y/N: Yes, I’d love that :) Y/N: When should we leave? Jisung: 9? Y/N: Sounds good~ Jisung: cool Jisung: it’s a date Y/N: It’s a date! Y/N: Excited 💛

With that, you put your phone face down and return to work, though your lips remain privately upturned. Jisung wants to kiss them again.

He also wants to turn you into a mess on his cock again.

Or both.

He doesn’t get much studying done after that thought surfaces.

Jisung: me too <3

When nine o’clock rolls around, you and Jisung begin cleaning up your work stations in near-perfect simultaneity. There’s confusion written all over Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s faces as they watch you swing your backpacks over your shoulders—but Felix’s expression is a blank slate as he sips from his macchiato. Your ingenuity isn’t the only reason he invited you today.

As you make your way out of the café, your shoulders brush once, twice, and then Jisung drops his hand into the space between the two of you without uttering a word. You scoop it up in your own without missing a beat.

He steps into the freezing night feeling warm all over.

“You know what I realized?” You say as you walk towards his SUV.

“What did you realize?”

“We’ve never had a sober conversation before. Can we change that tonight?”

Jisung has broken hearts before.

There’s no euphemistic way to describe his tendency to abuse the sensitive organs, to wring them out and throw them away like irrelevant trash. To juggle and drop them with a sheepish laugh like they’re nothing more than props in a circus act.

He doesn’t do it to save himself or his partners from getting hurt or any self-ingratiating bullshit like that. It’s for himself, all for himself. All to unload his balls and his mind for fifteen blissful seconds. 

There’s blood on his hands. He never cared to wash it off.

Except you are the one asking for his heart this time around, a dash of hope in your smile as you do so, and he thinks it would be his life’s greatest honor to be discarded by you.

“Sure,” he answers.

He doesn’t even last until he’s inside the car.

Your back meets the door to the passenger’s seat, guided there by his hands on your hips. From millimeters away he watches your surprise morph into understanding, then darken into lust.

“I like when we don’t talk, though.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world to remove so many layers in such a cramped space.

Combined, your clothing forms a tower high enough to block out the driver’s window completely. An unnecessary blockade.

The glass fogs up anyways.

“Fuck, Ji, yes, right there, oh my god.”

You have your legs spread open and the back of your neck digging into the cupholder on the door. It’s not comfortable. You’re too busy getting fucked open to care.

Jisung detaches his lips from your neck to ask, “here, baby?”

The head of his cock hits that gummy spot again, harder, sweeter. You convulse, your hand scrambling for purchase in his raven locks.

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, please.”

Please. The word plays over in his fuzzy mind.

It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

His cock slips out of you and you lament the loss of contact with a high wail.

“W-why’d—where’d you go?”

He can’t help but chuckle at how incoherent you’ve become. He cradles the back of your head with a tender hand and lowers your upper body onto the leather seat, adjusting himself to your new elevation.

“Right here, beautiful. Didn’t go anywhere—promise—” 

He expels the final word through gritted teeth as he slams into you again, and the new angle is glorious. Your bodies keen in flawless harmony. Profanities tumble from his lips in a steady stream before they turn back into syllables.

“Would never go anywhere. Would never leave without making this pretty pussy cream like it deserves—holy fucking shit, baby.”

You clench around him at his words and then he’s setting a new, relentless rhythm, rocking the whole vehicle with every hearty smack of his hips against yours, your wet walls squeezing him so dreamily he thinks he sees nirvana with every thrust.

You’re enjoying it just as much, if the bubbles of spit in the corner of your mouth are any indication, and Jisung is viciously proud to be the cause. Unbelievably lucky to feel your breasts jiggling under his chest and your nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Good?” He whispers, and you nod blissfully.

“So—good, Ji, so fucking good. Your cock is perfect, fuck, I can’t even—can’t even think.”

“You’re the perfect one. Can’t believe how well your cunt takes me, shit. It’s like it was fucking made for this.”

“It was,” you breathe, and he nearly shoots his load into you at this alone. “It was, it was—oh, god, I think—think I’m gonna come—”

“Do it,” he rasps. “Come for me. Come on this cock and it’s yours.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

“Then, I will. I’ll come on your cock—make it mine. Need it so fucking bad, I’m so fucking close, oh—please—”

He anchors himself in place with a hand against the windowsill and the other travels down your body to rub fast, tight circles into your clit. You let out a wanton, prolonged moan, tilt your head back to expose him to your fluttering throat. And then you’re pulling his lips onto yours again, and the following kiss is sloppy beyond belief, the kind that can only antedate the happiest of endings.

“My cock,” you sigh into his mouth. “Mine.”

“Forever,” is the breathy response he doesn’t know if he means, the response he gives you anyways.

And then you curl your fingers in his hair. Clamp your teeth around his lower lip. Clench your thighs around his waist. There’s liquid everywhere. Tearwater spilling down the sides of your face. Release gushing all over his dick and pelvis and backseat.

He catches up the moment he realizes what’s just happened. Pulls out of you. Presses his head against the roof of his car. Spits on his hand. Pumps his pulsating cock. Sends himself over the edge you’ve just finished tripping over.

Eventually, he regains feeling in his limbs.

He opens his eyes, surveys the damage, and grins.

Your stomach is covered in ropes of white, your expression hidden behind your hands. You start shaking your head in profuse embarrassment the moment you feel his eyes on you.

“You squirted,” he says.

“I know,” you almost yell, and his grin erupts into a laugh.

He lowers himself back over you, takes your wrists, and removes them from your blushing face. He doesn’t think he’s seen you so flustered before and it has him palpitating in ways he never thought feasible.

Maybe he did mean the damn thing after all.

He pushes off the strands of hair clinging to your damp forehead and replaces them with a gentle kiss. “It was sexy as fuck and you’re everything.” 

There’s a certain softness in your eyes when he pulls away. He hopes, for your sake, it’s all in his head.

His car is in need of aftercare most of all. You shrug on your clothes with considerable effort and get to work, all while sharing comfortable chatter and easy laughter.

Those things persist during your dinner date at a nearby Chinese restaurant and the drive back to your place, which Jisung knows well enough to no longer need his GPS. Those things persist until he kisses you goodbye on your doorstep, because he would have to be fucking crazy not to after you gave him the best night he’s had in so long.

After you reminded him that he’s still capable of comfort and ease, in spite of it all.

Snow comes a few weeks into the new year. 

This winter, it falls late, and it falls hard, like a gust of breath expelled from drawn lungs at the very last minute. Held there as if lying in wait for something unnamed and unseen. 

The gust of breath is too quiet to be heard over the one Jisung lets out against the shell of your ear. “Wait here.”

He goes to roll off you. You don’t let him just yet, darting your hand around his wrist and bringing his face back within centimeters of yours.

Han Jisung is beautiful. You knew it for the first time at that houseparty and you’ve known it every hour of every day since. But it’s always clearest to you in the afterglow, when his bare skin is golden and sticky and his delicate lips bitten to bright fuchsia. 

When his irises have gone black and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light.

You close the distance that remains between you. Your lips part with a content sigh. Your hands drift over the slant of his neck; his find home in the dips above your waist.

He breaks away once you’re both out of breath, and the pad of his thumb wipes lightly at your lower lip.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you reply shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The smile this brings to his face reminds you of a candle’s flame. Soft on the eyes and scalding to the touch when he presses it back against your lips. Once, twice.

“Can you wipe your cum off me now?” You whisper, and he laughs straight into your mouth.

The mattress lifts. His footsteps grow quieter. You shiver in his absence.

Only then do you notice the blizzard.

You stumble off the bed to throw your curtains aside. Snow descends from the sky like spools of unraveling yarn. The streetlights have been reduced to foggy specks, the parked cars to blurry heaps. Every sidewalk and rooftop in sight has already been slathered in ivory.

Jisung announces his return with a disbelieving whistle.

“Am I dreaming?” You murmur.

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea.”

You don’t even notice the wild smile on your face until you turn to him and catch his reaction to it. He looks like he’s asking himself the same question.

“C’mere,” he hums, and you oblige.

He laves the warm towel over your breasts and stomach, as well as the places his release has trickled since you flung yourself to your feet. All while supporting the small of your back with a touch fatally careful, an expression wholly adoring. All evidence of just how blurry the line between sexual escapade and lover has become in two short months.

Your ribcage fucking throbs.

“You don’t seem excited,” you say.

He finishes cleaning you off. You give him a distracted thank you, noticing the sudden shadow draped over his face like a netted veil.

“I’m not,” he answers, not unkindly.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He circles around the bed to get dressed. You bend to pick up the clothes tossed aside earlier and drop them into your hamper, then slip into a clean pair of underwear and sweatpants.

“It’s a long story.”

Just as you reach for a top, a bundle of cloth travels in an arc across your bedroom and hooks itself around the crook of your arm. His T-shirt. 

You glance at Jisung. He’s already looking elsewhere, but his private smile makes its way onto your face as you slip it on.

“Well, I have time.” You sink into your mattress, now surrounded by his muted musk, his papyrus and petrichor. “We’ll be stuck here a while, after all.”

“Stuck?” Jisung repeats, the lanyard of his car keys dangling from the pocket of his hoodie, his feet turned towards the door.

A pregnant pause commences. His intentions dawn, and you gape.

“You’re not driving right now.”

He breaks eye contact.

“Right?”

That was the plan, you read in his expression.

You know better than trying to reverse a river’s current by kicking up rocks. You know better than trying to curtail the flight of an albatross by clipping its wings.

You know better than asking someone who thinks he was made to leave to stay.

And you won’t.

“I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning,” he stammers, the lines terribly rehearsed. “The snow’s not heavy, I’ll be—”

“Stay.”

You’re not asking.

Jisung looks at you, startled, as you glide across the bed. You place your feet on the hardwood and circle your arms around his waist. Lace your fingers upon the hollow of his back. His pulse goes uneven at your abrupt proximity.

Akin to the drag of a feather, you mouth at his cheek, then the side of his neck.

“You can stay, Jisung.”

He shudders at your words, and you’ve got him.

It’s oddly normal, the sight of him clambering into your bed in your clothing—a pair of old sweatpants and your favorite crewneck—like this isn’t the first time you’re sleeping together in your two months of sleeping together.

In fact, the only indication of anything unordinary is the floaty feeling in your stomach when your head hits the pillow and discover Jisung’s face only inches away. He drapes an arm over your waist, gathering you close. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

The inevitable question follows.

“Can I save the story for another time?”

“Sure,” you return, keeping your voice small. He doesn’t hear your disappointment this way. “Should we go to sleep, then?”

“We should.”

Your foreheads touch. Your noses bump together. Your eyes cross, watching the adoration pull at his. You dimly register your hand threading in his fluffy locks, his thumb running over your cheekbone. Your lashes narrowly miss the surface of his eyes, and then he tips your face up by millimeters.

You don’t remember when you fall asleep. You only recall the hour beforehand that you spend with Jisung’s lips traversing yours, like you are the ocean and he’s uncovering new waters with every bruise he prints against your throat, every suckle he leaves around your tongue.

In your dream, the roles reverse and you are the one exploring him, mapping out his constellations with wide-eyed wonder.

You wake to a black hole.

For the first five seconds, you see nothing. You hear nothing. You feel nothing. You only blink in the darkness, your mind kicking into groggy gear to ask the very good question of why you’re conscious again.

Instinct moves your hand across the mattress. Empty space greets you where Jisung should be. Unfounded dread shoves your back off the bed. You gasp, the sound seeming to echo in the cavernous silence.

Your eyes adjust enough to discern light in the crack beneath your door, and you’re wide awake.

The following events go by in a blur. You stumble out of bed and into your closet, fastening your fingers around the thickest piece of fabric you find. You fly into the living room, where the lamp by the couch is left on and the pair of worn black Converse on your doormat have gone missing.

The front door is cracked open, and through the narrow inches you spot someone hunched on the stairs outside, his dark hair dyed platinum by the awning light’s fluorescence.

Your heart stills in relief, then quickens with anxiety.

You’ve tried wearing this crewneck in January enough times to know you can’t. In fact, you suspect that it somehow soaks up the temperature, lets it seep in between its every seam until it becomes one with the bitter winds. 

But he isn’t shivering, you notice as you take a seat next to him, draping the puffer over both of your shoulders on your way down. He’s simply staring off into the bleak storm, snowflakes sitting atop his head like a coating of ash, their color matching that of his frozen skin. He’s becoming one with the bitter winds. 

At first, you don’t recognize the man in front of you.

You’re well familiar with those ring-laden hands and the whetted jawline thrown into shadow, those remnants of cologne clinging to his frame. But you have never seen that gaze before, bloodshot and bleak and belonging to somebody new. Somebody who isn’t completely here, straddling the partition between the realms of people and phantoms.

Then he lifts his eyes and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light. Your stars.

And you recognize him for the first time ever.

You drop your hand to your hip, and his fingers feel stiff and cold and perfect, sliding into the spaces between yours.

“Why don’t you like snow?” You ask.

Jisung’s eyes return to the swirling sleet, but he moves your interlocked hands to rest on his thigh, and you know that he’s with you.

He’s been having this nightmare.

It takes place in a small clearing. It’s winter, and everything is covered in snow. Not the gentle kind that you can catch on your tongue, but the unyielding kind that’s hard and dense and covered in cracks, like a lake newly frozen over.

Somebody is in front of him, walking away. He can only see their back. He wants to chase after them. He doesn’t want to be left behind. But there are ghosts nearby, and they’ll split his skull open on the permafrost and tie his windpipe into a pretty bow if he so much as dreams of pursuit. He always does. He doesn’t know how not to.

Normally, the back leaves, and he can do nothing but remain. He can direct his loathing only to the snow into which he bleeds. 

Normally, he waits for the dream to end with something bordering on boredom. He’s seen this movie too many times. He fucking hates how it ends.

This time, though, the snow tastes like something.

After the flavors deliquesce upon his tongue, his head shoots up, his eyes blowing wide as they latch onto the retreating figure. He knows who it is.

His feet scrabbles against the ice with his attempts to rise to them. He lunges forward with frenzied resolve, and that is when the ghosts snap his neck.

He wakes up.

“Cherry blossoms and vanilla.”

You blink, tearwater streaking from your eyes in silent, steaming trails.

“That’s—”

My shampoo.

A broken sob escapes you in lieu of the rest of your sentence, and Jisung laughs, a flimsy facade that crumbles when he lifts his hand to dab at your moistened cheeks and it’s trembling.

“Silly,” he murmurs. “I’m used to it now.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“I don’t want you to cry for me.”

“You died.”

“And I would do it again.”

This response comes without an shred of hesitation.

You first realized you had something to confess, that night in the the back of Jisung’s SUV. You’ve kept it locked away for your sake and his, even moreso. You see how fear clings to him like an unshakeable wraith, and you refuse to feed the parasite.

Now, your confession explodes from its fortress in the center of your soul and rises up your larynx. You panic like an inept security guard letting their only prisoner bolt free. Is it really the right time? Do you know what to say? Have you really thought this through? 

Too late. It’s rushing to the point of your tongue already. You suppose you’ll find out.

He saves you the trouble.

“Honestly?”

Your confession stills. 

“I don’t know if I’m okay, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You’d call my bluff. You’re good at that.

“But everything feels okay when I’m with you. You see me. You allow me just to exist as I am. You make me feel human again—you make me want to feel human again. You empty my mind.”

You feel as if you’ve been ejected into space naked, griping for air where there is none.

“I never believed in having somebody to lose,” he utters, gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I would rather disappear than watch you go.”

You cradle his jaw with shaking fingers, trying and failing to quell the violence of your emotion.

“Don’t go,” he exhales.

You kiss him.

It should feel the same as before. You reach for the slant of his neck, him the dips above your waist. You sigh into him, parting your lips, and he moves into you deeper, harder, dipping into your mouth with his tongue’s pliant swipe. But there’s something new in the way you hold each other, in the seal of your mouth against his.

The line between sexual escapade and lover vanishes as if swept off the sand and into the sea. His stars come out of hiding at last and they bathe you in their residue, light your heart aglow.

Your confession resurfaces. It wants to stargaze also.

“I love you too,” you breathe.

The night comes and goes.

The two of you spend it entangling, sweating, your lips glued the expanse of his neck and the arcs of his shoulders, writing over the ghosts’ injuries with bruises of your making.

Only when the winds have faltered outside do you attempt to rest again. You are curled up in balmy bliss, utterly depleted. Jisung’s arms around your middle and legs threaded among yours bring you that much closer to slumber’s cusp.

You attribute it to your exhaustion when he mumbles something against you, and you have no idea what it means: “Thank you for refracting me.” 

Your confusion is palpable in your silence. His laugh hits the nape of your neck with a gentle puff, and he kisses the spot just beneath your ear. “Never mind.”

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© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[scuderiahoney]

Stick Around

Oscar Piastri x bestfriend!reader

Masterlist

Summary: You’ve been searching for your soulmate your whole life. Maybe you’ve just been looking in the wrong place.

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: alcohol/intoxication, cheating/infidelity (not by a main character I promise) mild swearing, excessive use of italics

|Age 20|

“You can’t seriously still be reading that stuff,” Oscar says.

You peer at him over the top of your magazine.

“What stuff?” You ask, playing innocent.

“Your horoscope,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Haven’t you outgrown that yet?”

You shrug, directing your gaze back to the page in front of you. Today, you should avoid the color pink and embrace your skepticism. Oscar’s doing enough of the last part for the both of you. You could gain a great deal of information from social interactions. That’s helpful- you’ve been in search of some gossip. Your soulmate is just a click away- wait, no, that’s an ad. You huff and set the magazine down on the table. Oscar nods in agreement.

“I just think maybe it’s better to live your life without worrying about what the stars say,” Oscar says, waving his hands around in a way that you think is supposed to represent the stars. “Just, like… do what you want to do.”

“I do,” you mutter dryly. “Doesn’t hurt to have some advice, though.”

The two of you have always been like this. Oscar is a skeptic, you’re a believer. He calls it being easy to brainwash, says it in a teasing way that makes you glare at him every time. He’s taken it as his responsibility to keep you from falling for things. You’ve told him time and time again that you’re fine on your own. You just like the idea of predestiny, that what’s going to happen was always meant to.

Oscar is just worried you’ll join the first cult you cross paths with.

|Age 5|

It’s the day after you turn 5 when you first hear the word soulmate. Sol-meight. You sound it out through your lips, sticky with jam from your breakfast. Your best friend at the time, a girl whose name you’ve long since forgotten, had said it.

“S’when you’re meant to be,” she explains, in that all knowing tone that only little kids who know nothing at all seem to have. “Like, my mum and dad say they’re soulmates.”

Oscar, who’s sitting next to you, scoffs. “Everyone’s parents say that. Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

He’s taller than you, even sitting down, hair cut short after one of his sisters stuck gum in it a few days ago. His cheeks are rosy red, and there’s cream cheese on his nose. Years later, Oscar’s face will be one of the first ones you ever remember meeting. Right now, he’s just the boy in your class whose mother knows your mother, and because of that, he’s the boy who rides to school with you in the backseat. He’s not the worst, you guess. He’s… okay. Sort of just… always there.

“Is too!” Your friend says, shaking her head, pigtails bouncing. “Mum says there’s signs.”

“What kinda signs?” You ask, and Oscar turns to look at you in disbelief.

She shrugs. “Dunno. I’ll ask later.”

She comes back to the breakfast table the next day with a magazine page, torn haphazardly and slightly crumpled. On it is a list of signs someone could be your soulmate. The two of you pore over the page at every available opportunity for at least a week, barely able to read all the words.

Your friend forgets about soulmates a month later and moves on to an obsession with Barbie dolls. You carry the magazine page with you for years after that, until it’s worn and falling apart. Then you copy down the list into a safer place, worried you’ll lose it forever. 15 Signs He’s Your Soulmate, written with magic marker on pink construction paper and stowed away in your desk.

|Age 10|

“I hate olives,” you sneer, staring at the very last slice of pizza.

It’s a birthday party. You can’t for the life of you understand why there’s pizza with olives on it. Olives don’t belong on pizza- not much does, in your opinion. Just pepperoni, really. Maybe a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, if you’re feeling fancy.

Katy, one of your classmates, is standing next to you. “I love olives. Here, I’ll pick them off for you and you can have the last slice.”

The pizza still tastes a bit like olives in the end, probably baked into the cheese, but it’s better than it would’ve been. Katy is your best friend after that. The two of you are inseparable from the moment you get to school until the moment you leave. You beg your mothers for sleepovers on the weekends, for day trips during holiday breaks. YouandKaty. Your names melt together until they become one.

Oscar still rides to school with you in the morning. Sometimes, Katy does too. Katy doesn’t like Oscar. She doesn’t like most boys, calls them gross. Since Katy thinks boys are gross, you do too.

“Be nice to Oscar,” your mother tells you one morning. “He’s not done anything to you.”

You’re in the backseat of the car, on the way to his house. “He’s a boy. Boys are gross.”

Your mother sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. She says your name sternly, and you shrink in your seat. When Oscar gets in, you say hello and force a smile.

Oscar’s the one who finds you crying on the playground. You thought you’d chosen a better hiding place, really- nobody had bugged you in your spot between the two large myrtle trees. But Oscar finds you anyways. You can’t even bring yourself to tell him to go away, too busy feeling sorry for yourself.

“Wha’s wrong?” He asks.

His cheeks are red- he’s likely been running around with the other boys. You shrug, pulling up another clump of grass and letting it fall from your fingers. Oscar sighs, scuffs his toe in the dirt.

“Katy doesn’t wanna be friends anymore,” you say, rubbing at your bare knee. “She says I’m not cool enough.”

Katy likes olives. You don’t. It’s on the soulmate list. You’re meant to be best friends.

Oscar’s quiet for a moment. Then- “That’s stupid. You’re like, the coolest person I know.”

You look up at him with wide eyes. “Shut up.”

“M’serious,” he says. He holds his hand out to you. “Wanna come play cricket with the gross boys?”

You take his hand, wipe your tears with your other hand. “Yeah. I do.”

|Age 12|

“Are you and Dad soulmates?” You ask your mother one morning, before you even leave the house.

She’s standing at the counter, a piece of toast in her hand, half eaten. Her coffee is half drank, too.

She tilts her head at you. “What do you mean, love?”

“Like, when you met, did you just know he was the one? Did it feel meant to be?”

She laughs. “Oh, god no. We were polar opposites. Barely spoke to each other for the first year after we met.”

You stare at her in surprise. “What changed?”

She sighs, wistfully, staring into her mug. “He asked me if I wanted an orange. I said yes. And when he handed it to me, he’d peeled it for me.”

You blink. “Because you hate peeling oranges.”

“I do,” she agrees. “Love isn’t just a feeling, it’s an action. I think love is more about the choices we make and the things we remember about each other than whatever is written in the stars, honey.”

|Age 15|

There’s a boy on the football team- Ryan. Ryan has dark, curly hair and long, long eyelashes and this smile that makes your heart melt and your brain all fuzzy. Ryan doesn’t like olives, either, but he has a birthmark on the back of his right hand in the shape of a lopsided heart, and if you squint hard enough, you have one that matches on the back of your left arm. You stare at in the mirror for hours after he points it out, his hand on your arm.

You stare at your lips in the mirror for hours, too, after he kisses you for the first time. You think maybe you look different. You must. You’d never been kissed before, but Ryan hadn’t minded.

You go on group dates with him, because you’re nervous and your parents think you’re a bit too young to really be dating. You go to the mall, the movies, the diner down the street from the school. It’s your first taste of freedom.

Oscar asks you if you really like Ryan, like- “like like him?”, one day when you’re sitting in his backyard. Your mothers are inside, drinking wine. His sisters are in the pool, you’re laying out in the sun. Oscar sits under an umbrella and squints at the brightness of the world around him.

“Yeah,” you say, in the same tone you’d say duh or of course. “I think he’s my soulmate.”

“Why’s that?” Oscar asks tilting his head.

“We have matching birthmarks,” you say, again, in the same tone.

Oscar forms his mouth into a little o shape. You squint at him, pushing yourself to sit up.

“Why’re you so worried about it, anyways?”

“M’not,” Oscar says, crossing his leg over his knee. “S’just. He’s kind of an arse, isn’t he?”

He whispers the curse word so his sisters won’t hear. Oscar’s big into karting and racing right now, and the older boys at the tracks swear like sailors. There’s a swear jar stuffed to the brim sitting on the kitchen counter inside, right next to the half empty wine bottle.

Ryan is a bit of an arse, you’ll admit. To almost everyone.

“He’s nice to me,” you shrug. “He brought me flowers, yesterday. Isn’t that what matters?”

Oscar shrugs. He doesn’t ask about Ryan again.

Oscar is the one who brings you flowers when Ryan cheats on you and the other girl tells the whole school. He brings them to your bedroom door and you let him in. He sits with you, even as you cry, the door open the parentally required six inches. He doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t tell you he warned you. He just stays.

When Oscar moves to England, you wave goodbye with a smile. Then you lock yourself in your room and bawl your eyes out for a week straight, harder than you ever did about Ryan.

|Age 18|

Your university roommate, Emma, was born on the same day as you, at the exact same time. Down to the minute. You find it out on your second day of living together. It’s fate, kismet, meant to be. The stars and planets were aligned exactly the same way when you both took your first breaths.

Oscar laughs when you tell him, though he does admit that it’s a pretty cool coincidence. You’re chatting with him on the phone, telling him about your first week of university. You talk a lot, despite the distance. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever.

You and Emma aren’t in any classes together- you have completely different majors. Despite this, you still become fast friends. You study together in your room and in the library, meet up for meals, and join a book club together. When Emma gets invited to her very first uni party, she brings you along with her. Your closets become shared.

You visit her family over the winter break for a week. She lives closer to the beach, and you love getting to soak up the sun with her and meet all the childhood friends you’ve heard stories about. Oscar comes home for his break and texts you, wondering when you’ll be back and if you’ll even have time for me, or are you too cool for me now?

You tackle him with a hug when you see him, standing at the kitchen counter in your house when you get there. He’s laughing and pushing you off of him, acting like he didn’t miss you just as much. You know he did. It’s written all over the smile on his face.

Emma visits your family later in the break, and that’s when you have your first fight.

“He’s definitely in love with you,” she insists from her spot on the air mattress on your floor.

She’s talking about Oscar, who she just met today. You’d brought her with to a barbecue at his family’s house. You’re regretting that choice. She’s spent all night afterwards pointing out all the signs that he’s in love with you- his hand on your shoulder, the look in his eyes, the way he smiled at you.

“He’s not,” you say, cheeks burning hot. “He’s- we’re friends.”

“Friends, right. Guys and girls can’t be just friends,” she says.

“Yes, they can!” You say indignantly.

Emma ignores you, rolls over, and goes to sleep. She leaves for home the next day- not earlier than she was supposed to, but it feels weird anyways. When you get back to campus, things feel different. You never really talk about the fight, though there wasn’t much to talk about, anyways. It’s not like she’s mean to you- the two of you still hang out, still see each other often. But Emma makes new friends, and you do too, and you stop doing everything together. It’s alright, you suppose, it’s just…

You were supposed to be destined to be friends. But soulmates shouldn’t be this easy to let go of. It’s written in the stars, it’s shouldn’t fade away like this.

Months ago, you and Emma had talked about spending the holiday break somewhere far away- somewhere tropical, exotic, so grown up and chic. But it hasn’t come up lately, and then she mentions a trip she’s taking with some friends from her classes. You book a flight to England instead and see Oscar in his new home for the first time.

You have new roommates next year. None of them have the same birthdate as you. You think that’s okay.

|Age 21|

There’s a stain on your dress, someone’s wine or sangria or cranberry juice that they’d been too clumsy with. You suppose it could be yours- you’re really not sure. It’s your fault for wearing such a light color to a club like this.

It’s your birthday. You’ve been able to drink for a few years, but it’s still your birthday, and for once, Oscar is there for it. Or really, you’re there for it, there being England. You’re on yet another trip to visit him, money saved and scraped together from your job on your breaks from school. Oscar helped pay for the plane ticket as a birthday present, and your parents got you a new luggage set to take along.

Oscar’s disappeared- at the bar, you remember, closing out his tab. You check your phone- 2:22 am. It’s really time you should be headed home-

You’re jostled from behind, and moments later, you feel cool liquid deep down your back. You turn, and there’s a guy standing there, sandy blonde hair and a terrified look on his face.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, British accent smoothing the words over. “I didn’t mean to-“

“S’okay,” you tell him, though you wrinkle your nose at the feeling of what was likely beer running down your back. “The dress was stained already.”

The man sighs. “It’s not okay- let me make it up to you. Can I buy you a drink?”

You frown. “I think I’m supposed to be leaving. My friend just went to pay.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.” The guy’s eyes light up, then. “Wait, how about I take you on a date?”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. 2:22, you remember. Angel numbers. You are in the right place at the right time.

“I’m only here for a couple more days,” you say, cautiously.

“I’m free tomorrow if you are,” he suggest. “Well, more like later today, but-“

“Yeah, okay!” You’d at brightly, and hopefully not too eagerly. “I’m free.”

He’s holding out his phone for you to put your number in when Oscar pops up. He looks between the two of you with raised brows. “Everything alright?”

“He’s taking me on a date later today,” you explain, tapping the last number. “Because he spilled beer on my dress. Can you check if I put my number in right? My fingers aren’t working right.”

Oscar laughs, leans forward, and nods. “That’s right.”

You don’t remember getting back to Oscar’s apartment. You barely even remember the guy from the bar until Oscar brings it up that morning, a teasing tone in his voice. Suddenly you’re checking your phone every minute, looking for a text from him. You name him Angel Boy, mentioning the angel numbers you’d seen just before you bumped into him. Oscar, well versed in your obsession with things that are just meant to be, rolls his eyes affectionately.

When the sun is trending towards the horizon and Angel Boy still hasn’t called or even texted you, your mood sours. You plant yourself on the couch, an episode of some stupid reality show playing. You’re not paying attention, only staring at your phone.

By the time 7:00 rolls around, you know it’s a lost cause. You can hear Oscar in the other room, shuffling around, and you feel tears well up in your eyes. There’s got to be someone out there who’s actually meant to be yours, right? One of these times the signs will be right, and it’ll all work out. It’s just… you’re getting discouraged.

Oscar appears in front of you and slips your phone out of your hands. He shoves it into his own pocket. He hands you a jacket, one of his, and you stare up at him with wide eyes.

“I’m taking you out to dinner,” he says, as he reaches to brush the tears from your cheeks. “Just because he’s not going to text you, doesn’t mean you should just sit here all night.”

You could cry even harder at that, at the fact that Oscar cares enough to try and break you out of your moping. You don’t really want to go out, but he has this hopeful look on his face. Both of you don’t need to be sad today. So you stand up, pull the jacket over your arms, and take a deep breath. You walk out of the apartment, your arm linked with his.

The ramen bar you go to is probably better than anywhere the guy would’ve taken you, anyways. If you’re being honest, the company is better, too.

|Age 22|

Oscar flies you out to the Netherlands to see him race. You’d been at the Melbourne Grand Prix, of course, but he’d insisted he’d fly you out for at least one race in his first season- promised it years ago, when Formula One was just a dream on his bucket list. Zandvoort works well- it fits into your schedule, and the summer break starts right afterwards, so he’ll actually have time to spend with you.

In the days leading up to the race, he’s extremely busy and extremely apologetic about it. You reassure him that you understand, that you knew what you were getting into, knew he’d be busy. You wander around the paddock, say hi to Logan- who you know only slightly better than all the other drivers- and keep yourself entertained. You spend time with Oscar when you get the chance- between interviews and practices, stolen moments of privacy in his driver’s room. It’s nice, it really is, but it’s also… weird.

You’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about what your mother once said about soulmates and love. For all the soul searching you’ve done, all the stars you’ve tried to read, you’ve come up empty. You’ve resigned yourself to the fact that maybe there’s just not anyone out there for you. Maybe you’re not meant to have a soulmate.

The thing about letting go of that pressure, though, is that it leaves space. Not a hole, not an emptiness, just… space. Room for other things to sneak in and make their home and grow. Somewhere along the lines- you don’t know when, maybe it’s been there all along- a seed had been planted. Now the roots are digging cracks in your heart, the leaves are shading out every other thought, and there are flowers blooming.

For months, now, your heart has been jumping in your chest every time Oscar texts you. You can’t wipe the grin off your face when he calls. You’ve been following every race, waking up at odd hours to cheer him on, sending him selfies with the tv to prove it to him, to make sure he knows you’re watching. You feel a little crazy, because suddenly he’s all you can think about.

Maybe love is about choices. You start making them, start choosing him. The only question now is if he’ll choose you, too.

The whole weekend is chaos. Oscar crashes in practice, sending himself and your heart spinning. He’s okay, thank god- though his mother texts you frantically, asking if he’s really okay. Then the race itself is even more chaotic, between the rain and the crashes and all the stuff in between. Oscar ends up in the points, though not as high as he’d hoped to be. You cheer for him either way.

You stick around the paddock all the way through his debrief, even when he tries to say you can head back to the hotel without him. Eventually, you leave with him and Lando, his arm around your shoulders the whole way to the car that’s waiting. It’s nice. He’s warm. Lando is making small talk, trying to get to know his teammates best friend, the one Oscar never shuts up about. You feel your face grow hot and hope Oscar doesn’t notice.

In the hotel lobby, Oscar makes a stop at the complimentary snack bar. Lando says something about Kim, his trainer, getting after him, which Oscar ignores. The three of you ride up together in the elevator, with Lando demanding most of your attention as he begs for stories about Oscar as a kid. Oscar’s quiet- you wonder if the weekend is weighing on him more than he’d previously let on.

You say goodnight to Lando and then Oscar scans you into the hotel room. Two beds, a couch, and a balcony that the two of you had eaten breakfast on that morning. You walk over to your bed and sit on the edge, flopping down onto your back.

Something lands on your stomach, softly. You look down, and your throat suddenly feels tight. It’s an orange. It’s a peeled orange. Oscar is standing at the window, pulling the curtains closed. His back is to you.

You blink, picking it up delicately. “You peeled it for me.”

“You hate peeling them,” he says. It’s very matter of fact. The same tone he’d use to say duh or of course.

You stare at his silhouette, the slope of his shoulders, the soft puff of his hair. You sit up, stomach turning. Suddenly, you need to be close to him. You stand up, orange in hand, pulling one of the pieces from it. You hold it lightly between your fingertips. Love is an action.

You hold it out to him. He takes it, smiles down at you.

“I love you, you know that?” You say, before you lose the courage.

“Yeah, I love you too,” he says, giving you a goofy look.

“No, like-“ you pause. Maybe you shouldn’t do this. Maybe you should just-

But it’s too late, because a wave of understanding washes over his face. His eyes go wide, lips parting. His hand pauses halfway to his mouth, the orange slice still in his fingers.

“Oh,” he says, voice cracking. His face splits into a grin. “Jeez, took you long enough to catch up, didn’t it?”

When he drops the orange slice on the floor so he can grab your face and kiss you, you’re somehow still so startled that you also drop the rest of the orange. That’s okay, though. He’ll peel another one for you without you even having to ask. Stars light up behind your eyes at the feeling of his lips on yours, and you realize then that maybe soulmates are just the people who choose to stick around.

…..

Deep in your desk in your childhood home, there’s a piece of paper. It’s been unfolded and refolded a million times. At the top, the title says, 15 Signs He’s Your Soulmate in messy, primary school handwriting. You pull it from your drawer and uncap the gel pen that sits in the cup on the desk.

At the bottom of the list, beneath your faded magic marker scrawl, you add:

#16: He peels your oranges.

#16: childhood best friend??

#16: YOU JUST KNOW

little bit of a different format for this one. as always, feel free to check out my other fics and tell me what you think!

[limitlessgoddess]

your guide to manifesting your desires in 2024.

i have manifested getting into my dream college, straight As every semester, visiting NYC, and a HUGE glow up (nourished hair, clearer skin, beautiful body, pretty face, emotional intelligence, baddie mindset, and supportive friends + family) in 2022. here's all the things i did that worked for me! i understand everything does not work the same for everyone, for example i find visualization fun and easy to do while affirming, even though natural to me, seems like work to me so i use it as an aid to fuel my visualization. i have had bad mental health days but i persisted in my desires regardless because i know i always get everything i want. 

1. understanding yourself and your thought processes:

this is not necessary for you to manifest what you want but it helps in creating self-awareness in the long term. i used to overthink a lot (manifested it away) so i affirmed and visualized during any free time i had, and eventually my doubts faded away. even if they pop up sometimes, i'm just like meh that's not true and brush them aside. for me, processing all my complicated emotions is essential to me because i get to know my patterns and start working on changing them. it does not matter what triggered them, you've to live with them for the rest of your life if you don't feel them and let them go.

2. discovering new things:

you should get out of your comfort zone. there are thousands of things in the world you haven't experienced. desires can change and you aren't obligated to stick to this one dream when something else lights up the fire inside you in the present. i had the dream of living in NYC for a long term but I became more open to DC, LA, Philadelphia, and other cities after visiting them. i have explored new hobbies too and they've become an important part of me now. being adaptable is important!

3. never settle:

a dream might be small for someone while the same dream might be unattainable for someone else. it's all about persisting in your desires and making them seem attainable to your subconscious. you don't have to lift a finger to manifest, so why aren't you being stubborn about what you want? why are you settling for less when you deserve to have so much more? don't settle for bread crumbs when you can have a WHOLE DAMN LUXURIOUS MEAL.

4. self-concept:

the qualities i find most attractive in a person are communication, efforts, dedication, honesty, and loyalty. so i start affirming for those qualities in myself! i embody them by telling myself, "i am dedicated, honest, and loyal", "i am irreplaceable and unforgettable just because i exist", "i communicate and put in efforts for the people who have the greatest in mind for me." we love people who are secure in themselves and so, we naturally gravitate towards them. i don't care if someone has a pretty body or a pretty face. if they have the drive to succeed in what they're doing and they're giving me princess treatment, i'd immediately fold. it's the inner qualities that stay in the longer term (though you can forever be ageless and youthful, but to complement that you need a beautiful mind and heart - those make you more attractive). 

[cordeliawhohung]

Leftovers [2/3]

Simon Riley x fem!Reader | a non-canon addition to my mafia!141 series

part 1 | part 3

warnings: unhealthy relationships, anxiety and depression, minor smut, possessive Simon, abusive behavior

you're his, now

wc: 4.6k

It had been months since the night your life ended and started again.

For the longest time, you were livid. Inconsolably upset at everything. A special type of betrayal festered in your chest where it rattled and raged against the hollow cavern between your ribs. That betrayal quickly revealed itself to be grief as the days went on. That utter melancholia threatened to suffocate you every time you thought about your old partners, The Prices. How they kept you like a pet, to be played and toyed with. How they decided to have a child without your input. How they only told you when they announced it to all their friends, like you were nothing more than a guest in their lives.

Then, there was Simon. Your savior. Or, at least that’s what he liked to call himself. It didn’t feel like salvation when he ripped you from the grasp of your old partner's bitter and unloving hands, not when you realized the cost of it. Lying wasn’t supposed to be synonymous with loving, and yet it was the very thing that had put you in the palm of Simon’s hands, made you so pliable for him as he fucked and marked you that night, making it impossible for you to ever return to your old life. 

There was nothing but poison waiting for you with your old lovers, if you could even call them that. But being force fed the antidote hurt just as bad when that corruption had become the only comfort you had ever known. 

Simon had a way of making things feel better, which usually consisted of him being anchored between your legs. If there was an issue he couldn’t fix by talking or kissing it away, then he would fuck it out of you, and you hated that it worked as well as it did. When you wanted to be mad at him for lying to you, for tricking you into giving yourself to him, his cock always ended up burrowing into your cunt. Your breath would be lost, stolen from your very lungs, and your words along with it. He had grown to know you so well that he was able to pull orgasms out of you with his eyes closed, rendering your brain numb and incapable of argument or resentment. 

This cycle continued for what felt like forever. Your days would pass by with you rotting in bed in frustration and anguish as you choked on that antidote and feeling of betrayal, and when Simon had enough of your unresponsiveness, he would fuck you into submission. Coo and embrace you like a true lover would. It created some sort of dissonance within your very being. You were supposed to be mad at him for tricking you, and yet it felt divine being held against him. You couldn’t get enough of the searing sensation of his lips along your skin, or his breath caressing your ear as he slept. 

It was agony being torn apart; forever caught between the gravity of your old lovers and the man that stole you from them. 

Eventually, you woke up one day and it didn’t hurt anymore. Whatever frustration or anger that burrowed underneath your skin dissipated; vanished into thin air as if it had never existed in the first place. Things seemed brighter, you cried less, and Simon looked at you with adoration rather than pity for your shattered mental state. 

Perhaps it was the ignorance that made things better. Without any access to the Prices, you had no knowledge at all of how they handled your absence, if they even cared at all. All you knew was that you had managed to find solace within Simon, despite the terrible start to your relationship. He really did take care of you, just like he said he would. He insisted on paying for everything, refusing to let you work, and provided you with everything you would ever need. 

After all, you were his now. 

Which was why you found yourself in front of a boiling pot of water in the kitchen of his apartment. Without the use of your phone, Simon had given you an old CD player to keep you occupied as you cooked or went about your day. Radiohead’s album In Rainbows droned on in the background as you mixed the pasta around the pot to keep them from sticking together. Spicy marinara bubbled on the next burner over, and its heavy aroma hung thick in the air around you, leaving you in a mouthwatering stupor. 

Just as the alarm on the stove went off signaling the pasta was cooked, the deadbolt began to jingle behind you. After you turned the burners off, you quickly slipped out of the kitchen to greet Simon, who flashed you an entertained smirk. Exhaustion pulled at his eyes, yet they always seemed to light up when they landed on you, and you couldn’t help but grin up at him. It wasn’t often that he got home before ten, as his new job often kept him late, so you were ecstatic that he arrived just as you finished cooking up dinner. 

“Smells like you’ve been busy,” he chuckled as he locked the door behind him. 

“I thought I would have to leave some out for you again,” you admitted. His hands found your hips and he drew you closer, catching you in his gravity. “I’m glad you’re home.” 

Before he allowed himself to respond, Simon squeezed your hips as his lips descended onto yours. It was the way he always greeted you when he arrived home from work, like he couldn’t get enough of you, or more accurately, like he knew you couldn’t get enough of him. You could taste the stale cigarettes on his breath, and the slight hint of mint that he used to attempt to cover it, and it took everything in you not to moan at the flavor. He was the one to pull away first, and your lips curved into a smile as his thumbs rubbed soothing circles along your hips. 

“Let’s eat, yeah?” he prompted. 

It didn’t take long for dishes to be served and for both you and Simon to settle on the couch in the living room while some programme droned on in the background. Even during meals you always huddled close to him as if you would die without his heat. Your leg laid pressed against his as you leaned into his side, and had Simon not been as large of a man as he was, you certainly would have smothered him with your presence. 

“How was work?” you questioned once half your plate had been emptied. 

“Was alright,” Simon replied with his mouth full of pasta. “Bit slow.” 

“That why you’re home early?” 

“Mhm.” 

Simon never seemed like much of a talker, and neither were you until recently. A majority of your life had been spent in silent pining for your basic needs and desires, but once Simon had stolen you away, it was like all you ever wanted to do was talk. Perhaps it was because he genuinely seemed to care about what you had to say. Or maybe it was because some sort of loneliness still managed to creep into your life, like a ghost that haunted you. 

“I’m glad you’re home early,” you admitted. “I’ve been missing you all day.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart. I always try to come home as soon as I can,” Simon assured you. 

A twinge of exhaustion lurked underneath his tone, screaming at you that despite the fact he got off early, he certainly had a long day. He always seemed drained after arriving home, proving to you just how hard he worked in order to support you, to give you the life he  told you that you deserved. You always had someone who would crawl into bed with you, someone who wasn’t ashamed to show you affection and love, someone to truly take care of you. Despite the circumstance, Simon was everything you could have ever asked for. Everything you would ever need. 

So why did it feel like something was missing? 

That night after the dishes were washed and the lights were turned down low, you and Simon hid underneath the covers where your limbs intertwined with one another. For some reason he always insisted that you sleep naked, and though you weren’t sure why, you didn’t really mind. In fact, feeling the warmth of his body seep into you was so intoxicating you probably would have come to that conclusion even without his prompting. You couldn’t get enough of his scent, or how his skin felt against yours, and even though the two of you had laid in bed for nearly twenty minutes you buzzed. 

Nothing could satiate your need for him. You wouldn’t be satisfied until you were able to crawl into him and hide yourself away underneath his very flesh. You wanted to shrink yourself down, become some small thing, and tuck yourself into his pocket to be forever stuck with him. A vile yearning for him tainted your very essence, and yet you wished it would destroy you all the same. 

“What’cha so wiggly for?” Simon questioned, half awake yet still teasing. 

“I missed you,” you whined as you buried your face further into his bare chest. 

His chuckle sounded low and grumbly in his throat as his arms wrapped firmly around your center. Wandering hands caressed along your hips and down your thighs, traversing and memorizing every single dimple of your flesh like it was the only story he ever wanted to know. 

“I’m here now, love,” he hummed. 

“I know, I just get so lonely when you’re gone,” you admitted with a pout. “You’re gone forever at work, and I just wanna talk to you. I was thinking that maybe if I had my phone back I could message you-” 

“What did I say about your phone?” 

The tone Simon used to cut you off was sharper than anything you had ever heard from him before, and it stopped you in your tracks. There was a fatigued sort of frustration that drenched his words which left a part of you wishing that you had never opened your mouth in the first place. He was too tired, too irritated to have a conversation, especially one like that, and you were afraid you had pushed his buttons a bit too much. 

You swallowed hard as Simon’s hands moved to your chin, forcing you to look up at him through the dim light rather than keep your face hidden in his chest. Darkness obscured his face, making it near impossible to truly read his expression, and yet you found your bottom lip quivering all the same. 

“Sweetheart,” he urged, softer that time, “what did I say about your phone?” 

“That it’s… better if I don’t have it,” you answered as your teeth bit into the inside of your cheek. 

“Yeah?” His hand moved from your chin to your cheek where his thumb gently rubbed at your skin. The notion was comforting, soothing even, yet you knew he was truly checking for tears. “And why’s that?” 

“Because then the Prices won’t be able to contact me.” 

Just like that, your mood was ruined. Any reminder of your past lovers was a painful one. Even after all those months they still seemed to have some sort of control over you, and the fact that they could sour your mood with just a simple memory was dehumanizing. Your somberness was so potent it exuded from your body like fine mist, and Simon’s caressing of your face increased tenfold in an attempt to calm you before things became catastrophic. You were his sweet, fragile girl, after all. 

“Right. And it’s better that way, isn’t it sweetheart?” he concluded softly. “It’s better here with me, because I take care of you, don’t I? I don’t neglect you, or treat you like some pet.” 

Although he was right, it didn’t make the bitter ache in your chest go away. Simon did his best to sooth the pain with his hands and words, and you shivered as his fingertips traversed from your face, to your shoulders, and down your waist. He had to find some way to distract you, some way to remind you that he was the only one you needed, and that you had to stay far away from Price and his trophy wife. You were too good for them; he needed you to know that. 

“You’re mine, and I’m yours, that’s what we agreed on, yeah?” he continued. His hand began to dip lower, moving from your waist, over your stomach, and between your legs. Your breath caught in your throat as his fingers burrowed between your thighs, searching for access to your not quite slick cunt. Your emotions were too high for you to be wet, Simon was well aware, but you both knew he could change that within an instant. “They’ll never see you again, never get to abuse you again because I’m here to protect you. I love you in a way they never did.” 

Right as he spoke those last few words, his fingers greedily swiped against your clit, and your legs had no choice but to fall apart and grant him greater access. A gentle tremor shook the bed as Simon repositioned himself, pushing you on your back so that he could hover over your exposed body like it was a fresh meal just for him. Famished lips descended onto your neck as his fingers prodded against your entrance, forcing your mind to go blank with longing. 

“Needy thing, aren’t you? Need my full attention? I’m sorry, sweetheart, shoulda fucked you the moment I got home, huh? I’m all yours, and you’re all mine. Say it,” Simon urged as he still withheld himself from you. 

Squirming, you reached out for him with wanting hands as you snaked your arms around his neck. This was how he healed you, with his fingers teasing your cunt and his saccharine words plugging your ears. There was nothing else in the world you needed besides Simon. Every chord of your body yearned for him as if he was the only sustenance your body craved. This was how he healed you. With honeyed words and a worshiping mantra reminding you of who you belonged to. 

“I’m yours.” 

That night only added on to the other countless evenings spent with Simon tucked between your legs to voraciously consume you whole. There was no thinking to be done when he could mercifully do it for you, and you were content with that. At least, you thought you were. Things always became difficult when Simon vanished off to work, and he would do his best to make it up to you when he arrived home, to distract you from the empty feeling that seemed to fester inside of your chest. But no matter what he gave you, what he did for you when he was home, your mind always wandered when he was away. 

You couldn’t help but think back to when you lived with the Prices, how cold and lonely that house was, and how colder still your lovers were. Mr. Price — no, John — had sent you over to Simon like a bitch; some obedient pup meant for entertaining but not for loving, and it didn’t make sense. He had sent you over to comfort Simon so flippantly, yet acted as if the world had ended when you never returned back to them that terrible night. Was there some sort of miscommunication? Was that never his intention at all? And still, they left you out of the imperative conversation about their pregnancy like it never concerned you at all. 

You were spiraling again, and Simon was able to pick up on it just as easily as he could sniff out a bad wound. He could only keep you caged up so long, and he knew he needed to remedy it before he was back at the beginning with you. So you shouldn’t have been surprised when he arrived home one day with a gift. Beautiful, blush pink cloth sewn into a perfect sundress sat underneath delicate tissue paper, and you had a hard time hiding your awe and surprise when you revealed the astonishing dress. Simon’s eyes seemed more dilated than normal when he saw you hold it up to your body, and you caught onto his small smirk. 

Without hesitation, you slipped into the dress at his prompting, and you were ecstatic to find that it fit perfectly. Simon had gotten used to your sizing after having to buy you a whole new wardrobe after you escaped the Prices, but even then you were impressed at how well it formed to your measurements. It was as if Simon had every inch of your body memorized after the months you had spent together to the point that there was no way he could mess up your sizing. You couldn’t help but smile knowing that no one else had ever done that for you before.

It didn’t end there. With Simon having to work longer hours that night than normal, he insisted on taking you out to lunch, which was something you couldn’t ever recall doing. Ages had passed since you had even stepped foot out of Simon’s apartment, and you couldn’t remember the last time you felt the sun on your skin. You didn’t know why he hadn’t taken you out sooner, but if you had to guess, you were certain it was for the same reason he did everything else; to keep you safe from the Prices. 

The restaurant Simon took you to was the fanciest you had ever seen before. Several art pieces adorned the walls with such vibrant shades you were convinced that the art itself cost more than whatever it took for them to construct the building itself. Crystal chandeliers hung high above your heads, and before either of you could order the waiter had filled your glasses with the finest of wines. The menu itself didn’t even have any prices, but Simon didn’t seem at all concerned with it, and insisted that you ordered whatever you wanted. 

There was something deliciously domestic about being there with him. You belonged to him, and he belonged to you, that much was evident, but there was something exciting about being able to show that fact in public. To prove that someone loved you enough to show it off, rather than hide you away. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t wipe that grin off your face as the two of you talked about nothing while eating the mouthwatering meals on your plates. For a moment, you two were the only beings in the world. 

For a moment. 

A flash of something caught your attention. Maybe it was a giggle, or the cooing and awing, but all you knew was that your eyes suddenly glued themselves on the patrons a few tables away from you. For a split second, you thought you saw them. John and his wife. It wasn’t them at all, but you realized you only feared that because this woman, this beautiful woman with her glowing skin and healthy laugh, was pregnant. Obviously so, too, as her stomach swelled and stretched with the growing life inside of her. Her husband could hardly take his eyes off of her, constantly reaching across the table to hold her hand despite her attempt at trying to enjoy her lunch. It was… stomach lurching. 

By that point, Mrs. Price would be four months along. Or, no, more than that for sure. It had been four months since you had been taken from them, since you had even heard from them. Four months without closure, or the opportunity to talk and get answers. A part of you needed to know why things happened the way they did, but you were completely in the dark. All you had received was whatever Simon spoon fed you, but it wasn’t enough. You weren’t sure if it would ever be enough. Maybe you had been empty for too long to ever be full again. 

“Everythin’ alright, sweetheart?” 

Your eyes tore away from the unsuspecting couple and landed back on Simon. He studied you carefully with a neutral expression, but you saw the slight press of his lips. Dark red wine faintly stained his pale skin, yet you couldn’t find yourself able to appreciate the beauty of it. All you had was a rotten feeling in your stomach and the sudden urge to vomit. 

“Yeah, of course,” you lied. 

Things got bad again when Simon left for work that night. Maybe it was the knowledge that he wouldn’t be home until late that made your brain ceaselessly buzz. Or maybe it was the image of that pregnant woman at the restaurant, the one that reminded you of the suffering you had to endure all those months ago. You attempted to silence that incessant sound in your mind as best as you could, because you knew you couldn’t afford to blow up, so you did anything to distract yourself. Music blasted through the CD player louder than it ever had, certainly to the annoyance of your neighbors, but for once you found yourself incapable of caring about anyone but yourself. 

When that didn’t work, you put on a movie instead. It wasn’t one you recognized, just something you had flipped to when you were browsing through streaming services. You had gotten dressed in one of Simon’s plain tees in an attempt to drown yourself in his scent, and yet that didn’t dull the ache either. All you could think of while the images flashed in front of you on the screen were the movie nights at the Prices. How John would make you cuddle up next to Simon, how the only comfort you could find was in his beating heart as he held you close to him…

There had to be a reason for it all. 

When the movie ended and there was nothing to accompany you but silence and the sound of your own breathing, that’s when you knew you couldn’t handle it anymore. You needed something. You needed answers. 

Like a feral rat, you began to search every nook and cranny of the apartment for your phone. If you could find it, maybe you could get some answers from John. Even if Simon said it was bad for you, you knew you needed closure, no matter how much it hurt. Wherever Simon had put it, it was well hidden. You nearly tore apart his dresser, every drawer in the kitchen, the corners of the bedroom closet; everywhere you could think of, and it wasn’t there. 

Just when you were about ready to tear the floor up, you finally found it. Really, you had half expected him to have thrown it away, yet there it sat underneath the bathroom vanity, hidden behind a myriad of cleaning supplies so far back the overhead light couldn’t illuminate it. When you finally had it in your grasp, you nearly cried, and you weren’t sure why. A fit of emotions bubbled in your stomach, each of them violently conflicting, yet frustration took over when you attempted to turn the phone on and the screen wouldn’t light up. Of course it wouldn’t, it hadn’t been used for months. 

Rushing off to the bedroom, you quickly borrowed Simon’s charger and let your phone sit on the nightstand as it ever so slowly charged. Answers almost within your reach, and yet your anxiety bubbled up more than ever as you waited for that black screen to flicker to life. 

It took ages for the thing to fully load up once it was charged enough to turn on, and you held the device in your shaking hands. All your old apps appeared on the screen, countless pictures that you had taken over the years, but the most eyecatching of them all was the amount of notifications you had for your text messages. 172, all within the last four months. 

When you clicked on the app, you quickly realized that all of those messages had been sent by John, and you hated the way your stomach dropped. But this was what you wanted, wasn’t it? Answers? To have him explain why he did what he did? To make it stop hurting? With a heavy breath, you clicked on his name, and the app instantly scrolled up to the very first message he had sent in his cluster over the last few months, and it was then that you noticed something was wrong. Just before his onslaught of messages, there was a reply sent by you, one you didn’t remember sending. 

Don’t contact me again. 

This wasn’t you. That had to have been Simon, because he had taken your phone from you before you ever got the chance to respond to them yourself. Their worried messages, their pleading for you to come home, to know that you were okay. It didn’t work, obviously. The next few messages after that one was full of John pleading to speak with you, of several missed calls, of him apologizing for anything they did to upset you. The texts dated back only hours, sometimes minutes apart, and it was strange. You had never seen him so desperate before. Not for you. 

Eventually they seemed to stop for a while, only to start back up again weeks later. There were plenty of comments saying how much they missed you, how they wished you would change your mind and come home, and it felt… wrong. Hadn’t Simon told them that you were with him? He told you he did. He had even quit his job with Price because he didn’t want any bad blood, so why did they act as if you were lost? Like they didn’t know where you were at? 

Confused, you continued scrolling, eyes glossing over at the repetitive messages, until eventually you stumbled across pictures. Baby clothes. Cute little shoes. Ultrasounds. Pregnancy announcements. A gender reveal. They were having a girl, and they painted the nursery a cute shade of pink, just like the dress Simon had gotten for you that day. And then there was a video. It was short, and though it wasn’t visually stimulating, it had a rhythmic pulse accompanying the audio. The baby’s heartbeat. 

Wish you were here to share these moments with us. 

You weren’t able to stop the tears streaming down your face, or the food that came back up to say hello. Indignifying as it was, you sobbed on the cold bathroom floor as you vomited and continued to dry heave the emptied contents of your stomach. Everything crashed down on you all at once, and yet you felt numb at the same time. Nothing made sense. Why were they still trying to talk to you after all that time, like there was still a chance you would return? 

Then, you suddenly thought back to the morning Simon admitted his lie to you. How he had done it so easily and without remorse. How he grabbed at your cunt like he… owned you. You would have thrown up again at that thought if you had more food in your stomach, but you instead rose from the cold tile to rinse your mouth. You didn’t feel like a lover. You didn’t feel cared for. For the first time in months, you felt like a pet. 

So you did the only thing you had ever been good at doing: you ran. You ran just like you did back at John’s club, and every other time your emotions conflicted so bad you swore you would die. After you gathered a small bag full of personal items, your phone and wallet included, you rushed out the door and didn’t bother to look back as it closed behind you. 

an: this was only ever supposed to be a one shot, but i decided to expand on the story a little more, as i felt the first part wasn't able to fully convey the story i was trying to tell. once the 3rd part is posted though, that'll be it, so please don't harass me about more parts again (: gives me anxiety

[futureplayboibunnie]

Heartless Pt.1

Mafia Boss! Miguel O’Hara x fem! reader

You and Miguel are married to each other…and it wasn’t because of love.

okay i’ve redirected this fic and made it into a slowburn multi chapter series, in hindsight my last idea was too abrupt. i feel like this storyline is wayyyy better. I LOVEEEE SLOWBURN. i hope ya’ll like this one better! Part 2 up now!

PS. if you don’t like this type of stuff, don’t be stupid and comment on it because I really don’t care enough to hear it, use ur fingers and scroll. it’s not that hard.

You thought your wedding day would've been more romantic than this.

More personal, more involved, a consolidation of the many moments you shared with the man you were going to love forever, but free will and liberation were something that you gave up when your parents decided that it was in your family's entrepreneurial interest to participate in a partnership with the O'Hara Dynasty.

You weren't mad. It was just...different. You knew this day was coming but it was all wrapped together quite nicely, in a neat little bow.

Everything was done with the utmost sensitivity and respect, the O'Hara family's Consigliere placed piles of paperwork in front of you, NDAs were rarely ever necessary, and guns and fists normally did the trick but Miguel personally wanted all of this to be clean. He was getting married for the sole purpose of extending his power and influence, being a part of the 5 Families in this city wasn't something that was done without shedding blood. And Miguel shed a lot. This was a very important occasion to him, marriage was important in all generations of his family, and almost every single Don arranged a marriage with a woman from another Dynasty just for the purpose of spreading influence and agendas. Miguel and his brother talked for hours about it and in the end, he had to do what was necessary for his family and his capos. He needed to conserve what was his whilst also inserting his power.

Dealing with ill-tempered men and being a sounding board for their last scraps of sanity wasn't new but Miguel wasn't that. He was just silent in a way you didn't like. It was almost unsettling. Maybe it would be easier to hate him if he was an asshole, but he was very kind and respectful in the little words he said to you.

All of this was strictly professional, a beautiful show for the underworld. It was ridiculous and you felt like a fool, and after the day you had, it felt perfectly reasonable to feel that way.

It was your wedding day and word got around fast.

The dress he picked was fine.

The ceremony was fine

The ring was fine

Everything was just fine.

Now you were in his cold, lavishly destitute penthouse at an ungodly hour, sitting around, still in the wedding dress that you haven't taken off for some reason- maybe to compensate for the fact that you'll throw it in a corner, leave it in the cold and black dark, collecting dust for you to never see it again. Miguel's capos had to scamper around and follow you just about anywhere but for once, they left you alone with Miguel shooing them out.

Is this what your life would be like? Sitting around, waiting for something to happen? Was everything meant to be so banal and grey?

“You looked lovely today.” A low voice grumbled behind you, you whipped your head around to see Miguel leaving his study and entering the living room, he was still wearing his tux with that unknotted ugly bow tie that was crooked the whole ceremony. He looked tired. You gave him an agreeable smile in response.

"Thank you.” You said politely, there was just nothing purposeful behind your voice. All there was between you and Miguel was agreeable conversation, polite and meaningless drivel to distract from the very true and real fact that you were betrothed, you both owed each other something. Miguel gave you protection and you gave Miguel his pathway to influence- it was a business transaction, that was all, but it didn't mean that all of this wasn't abnormal. “I can't reach the zipper, can you please zip me down?” You asked as if it was a normal question- it wasn't for your kind of relationship but what the hell was normal nowadays? For Christ's sake, you were married to a man you barely knew and you slept in different rooms.

Miguel approached you in silence, watching you stand up from the couch and turn around. He liked the dress, he picked it out himself, you looked nice. His fingers found the zipper and pulled down slowly, watching the slivers of skin appear with every small tug down.

As far as women go, Miguel wasn't really that interested in sleeping around, every woman he shared himself with became a target or an opportunity pry into his head- he didn't want anyone messing with his internal affairs. Sometimes he'd cave and fuck one of the women serving him drinks at private poker nights, they always made eyes at him, begging him with fluttering eyelashes and wet lips to fuck them senseless. He was a man after all, sometimes it was enjoyable, sometimes it wasn't, he just needed to get off.

You on the other hand, you were unreadable in a way that he didn’t know how to approach.Though sometimes he did find you talking to him like an acquaintance vaguely irritating he would definitely be a hypocrite for calling you out.

It felt like you were holding your breath when he was finished, you settled baxk into your senses, he gazed over the patch of skin peeking out of your dress. He stopped his gawking when you turned around and gave him a weak smile like you would a friend or a neighbour. "Thank you. Goodnight Miguel.” You walked passed him and went to your designated room. Miguel did the same

You never really thought of yourself as an incurable romantic, but this was truly dull and you contemporary marriage like this. Even if it was to one of the most dangerous men in the city.

-

You awoke to a cacophony of sizzling and rustling noises coming from outside your room, your dreary eyes lulled by sleep couldn't fight against the delicious smell wafting from outside. Before you could fully register that breakfast was being made, the first thing you noticed was the heavy feeling of dread resting on your chest, you raked a tired hand over your face and rubbed your eyes awake. Opening them up fully, you saw the white fabric on the floor. In another life, the husband you actually loved would be laying next to you, whispering sweet nothings. Your wedding dress and veil were strewn about as if it was an article of clothing a teenage girl would carelessly discard while figuring out what to wear for a date with Tommy or Billy or Jason or whoever. But this wasn't high school drama, this was the type of life you were conditioned into.

Blood, war, and money.

You weren't complaining, the protection it offered you was immense. Miguel was a corrupt man dealing with equally corrupt politicians and people of interest, he had to adapt in his work but a part of you didn't believe he was the poisonous person everyone always made him out to be. Maybe it was because you hadn't seen him in his raw, primal ways, beating people bloody. That's what made you weary.

You shifted up and headed over to the walk-in wardrobe. This was the part that really stunted you, Miguel wanted you to wear what he specifically liked, everything was picked out by him and you still didn't know how to feel about it, but it made you grimace. You stepped in and glanced at the hangers, they were all ordered out by color and style. You noticed that he seemed to like satin and silk, and he was very particular about color, he liked black, silver, grey and even a baby blushed pink in certain articles. Your fingers grazed over the silk of the nightwear dresses, and the fabric of the gala dresses- you didn't like the idea of having to play pretend in front of too many people. You idled towards the drawers and wondered what he preferred when it came to underwear. You raised a cynical eyebrow and your lips pursed in curiosity as you let your finger pull it open.

Your mouth unhinged in a surprise you expected, but not in the way you thought of. He definitely had a thing for lingerie. God, there was a pair of everything, lacy, strappy, padded, unpadded, sheer garters, sparkly garters, knee highs, thigh highs. He was very particular indeed. It was tailored to your perfect cup size. Fucking hell. He liked Brazilian underwear but he seemed have an affinity for a thong too. You sighed and closed the drawer, you didn't want to read into it. Your eyes wandered to the muted pink silk robe hanging next to the drawer. Hm. That'll do for breakfast.

Miguel looked up from his newspaper to see you padding barefoot to the table where a spread was laid out. His maid, although young, ditzy and so obviously desperate to fuck him, was a very talented cook but the coffee she made always tasted like dirt. “Thank you.” He said to her plainly, he couldn't even look at her due to him being distracted by your presence. Your face creased into a light frown as you stared at the eye candy handing Miguel his coffee before she left as Miguel waved his hand. Of course the women who worked around him had to be insanely beautiful.

“Good morning.” Miguel grumbled before taking a sip. You were wearing the silk robe he liked. Good. Good girl.

You didn't say anything back, acting aloof and nonchalant seemed to be the only way of conserving whatever sanity you had left. The back of your throat had back drool when you stared at the delicious spread in front of you. You didn't know what you wanted to eat first. You grabbed a few pickings of everything, topped off with a mimosa. You ate in polite silence, minding your business, uninterested in anything he had to say at this point. Miguel settled down his newspaper and glared at you, you weren't particularly bothered by his presence, and that made him...unsettled. It went on like this for a solid few minutes.

“What?” You asked him, not even giving him the decency of looking him in the eye. Miguel was silent for a moment, contemplating your presence before he opened his mouth.

“We're leaving the city tonight.” He said oh so casually in that deep, low voice of his.

"And why is that?”You sighed tiredly, a slightly amused smirk twitched at your lips at this out-of-the-blue statement.

Miguel clicked his tongue and cooed at you, “Because cariño, my Consigliere has informed me that our marriage is not boding well with the other 5 Families, they think it's a covert attack in some sort of way, a questioning of power or sorts. And also..” He cut himself off for a reason unknown to him. “He also thinks it's a prudent idea to have a honeymoon, to hone everything in and make this...real.” He murmured as he rolled up his shirt sleeve.

Your eyes pricked up at the word 'real.' Wasn't this real? The papers were real. The ring was real. But the actual connection…? You glowered at him, your eyes narrowed.

“Do you think this is real?”

Miguel didn't know how to answer that. “Isn't real relative?”

“No.” You replied thickly like you didn't even need to think about it.

“Look. I don't want to discuss this.”

“So you can't compromise.” You shot back.

“No, I won't.” He pushed his chair back aggressively and sat his coffee down hard, he looked irritated by all of this. He didn't like that you thought you had the power to interrogate him.

Miguel walked past you as he went to exit the room but then for some reason he halted in his tracks. Compromise. Miguel is not known for compromising. The people around him know that for a fact, but he doesn't want this marriage to be another agenda that he has to put up with. He didn't want to hate you.

He sighed.

“Choose where we go. Tell my brother and he'll tell my pilot.” Miguel said coldly, his tone clipped and gruff even when he was trying to build a bridge of some sort.

It didn't seem like you had a choice, so now you were just another lackey he ordered around.

[hotpinkstars]

PREGNANCY CONFLICTS - boothill x reader

- boothill "passes" a few days after you announce your pregnancy. he's soon returned to you as a cyborg, and has a rough time with all of the realizations he discovers during your pregnancy.

- thank u guys sm for all the compliments im getting in my inbox about my idea and my writing i love every single one of u guysssss 💋 💋 and now the fic for my idea is finally here! i hope you guys enjoyyyyy

- mentions of insecurity, PREGNANCY, boothill is sad in this shdjfjsks so pretty much hurt no comfort in a very mild way, "M,d,y" means month, day, year, his way of death is not canon i made something up!!! wc 1.5k

Boothill has always talked about being a father. With how optimistic about your guys’ future he was, you could already tell he’d be a great, great father. So when you announced your pregnancy to him, he was ecstatic.

He spun you around in the air, putting you down to kiss you passionately. To him, all of his dreams have come true. As if you’ve given him a strong purpose in life, to not only protect you but to protect his little, and hopefully more to come.

“Thank you,” he mumbled into your shoulder as he held you tightly. “Thank you for giving me such an opportunity.”

But then a few days after you announced it to him, he went missing. You spent day and night trying to contact people, get cops on the case, and go out there with someone yourself and try to find him. The cops brought a necklace, splotched in blood, with your initials on it. Saying they found his body and it was barely recognizable. They knew it was him because of the necklace around his neck and the wedding band that was stuck on a stray tree branch.

As both of those were returned back to you, you felt as if you couldn’t look at them without absolutely breaking down. You were set under the impression that he was gone forever. You felt horrible- not only for yourself, but the life you assumed your baby would have, being born into a world where they only have a mother who's trying her absolute best to provide and make sure their life goes as smoothly as possible.

On the 16th week of your pregnancy was when you heard a knock on the door late at night. Who could it be at this hour? You irritatingly got up and walked over to see who would be there.

It was who you were least expecting.

Boothill.

You stood there, unable to register what was happening. You had a hand on your stomach and the other was gripping the door handle. He stopped and stared at you back before beginning to speak.

“Y/n,” he said, nearly a whisper before he took a step closer to you. You didn’t step back, which was a good thing in his eyes.

“Boothill? What- how- huh?” You were absolutely speechless, unable to register the man standing in front of you. He’s dressed a lot differently then how you last saw him- he looked so western. He was western before he was pronounced dead, the accent is what got you in the first place. He’d always go to bars and all of that.

But he never looked so… out of place.

You’ve never seen the boots he had on before. You’ve never seen those pants (why do they look so slutty?) and his shirt was a whole other thing.

But the thing that intrigued you the most was that he was still standing, alive in front of you, but with a fully metal body.

“Come in and explain yourself,” you sighed, turning around and leading him into the all-too-familiar place. It still smelled the same way it used to, flowers and vanilla. He sat down on the white couch, leaning back into the same fabric he knew all that time ago.

But the difference was, he couldn’t feel it.

“How are you here? There's no way you’re real,” you shake your head, standing up and leaning into his face. You grab his chin lightly, turning his head both way before running your hands through his still silky hair. “Answer my questions.”

“Alright, shoot em.”

“When did you get me pregnant?” You ask, still looking into his now different eyes.

“Four months ago. You should be 16 weeks now.”

You nodded. “When's my birthday…?”

“M,d,y.”

You nodded. He was on it, and it’s convincing you even more that he was your Boothill.

“Lastly, why are you metal?”

“My body was destroyed. Y’ probably remember it,” he looked down at his hands before bringing them up to your cheek. You slightly flinched from the chill before nodding for him to continue his story. “I don’t remember th’ exact details, but jus’ say it was a failed mission.”

You looked at him up and down before sitting beside him.

“D’you still… love me?” He mumbled, almost soft enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention.

You took a moment of silence before responding to his question. “Of course I do. You’re my husband, Boothill.”

To that he smiled and brought you into a strong kiss. One passionate and greedy- he’s been starved of you as you have of him for the past four months. Once he broke it off, you both connected your foreheads before going back into a full blown make out session.

Your pregnancy is incredibly taxing for the cyborg to handle. Instead of flesh and blood he has metal. He can’t feel you, and to him, it’s the worst feeling in the world. He truly wishes he could turn back time to right before the night of the accident.

He wishes he was able to return home safe, so he could be there for your whole pregnancy. He basically missed the entire first trimester!

At this point, you marked 32 weeks. Your pregnancy was very noticeable and Boothill took a lot of pride in being alongside you, shedding his insecurities as soon as he left the house.

He’s always been a very clingy man. He’s always wanted your touch and attention whenever he’d get home from whatever it was he’d do for work during the day, and he’d always receive it.

But now, he needs to use his head to feel you. He’s always found lying down on your stomach in his free time, so he can feel his child. He is unable to feel kicks with any other parts of his body, so he relies on that.

“‘Hill, I need to go to the bathroom. You might need to move in a second here-” you started, but he looked up at you and began to speak over you.

“Alright, alright… but’cha better come right back, please?”

You nodded before shuffling out of the bed, motioning for him to get up and help you off of the mattress and up on your feet. Once he easily pulls you up, he flops back down as he watches you close the door connected to your room.

He thought hard in those two minutes you were gone. Very hard. To the point he thought he was going to have a breakdown.

He regretted everything. He regretted engaging in the enemy's tricks. He regretted leaving you lonely for so long. And what he regrets most is returning to you like this.

A hunk of metal, who can be destroyed as many times as possible. He’ll always be able to have his body replaced. His head and hair were the only human thing about the man.

He believes you deserve so, so much better. You deserve a man who can live his life to the fullest and actually be able to be there for you during your vulnerable times, and not let grief get in the way. You deserve someone capable of giving you more children in the future, and he believes your baby deserves a dad who can be there for him and be normal.

He might even be worried about judgment. He’s not sure. He feels so emotional yet so dull at the same time.

“Boothill? Is everything alright? You’ve been staring at the same spot on the wall for the past minute,” you said from next to him. How did he not even realize your presence?

“Hah? Yea, I’m fine. How’re ya’ feeling?” He says in his usual tone, trying to swiftly play off his thoughts not even ten seconds ago. “How’s baby doin’ in there?”

You let out a soft giggle before placing your hand on his cold knee. “We’re well. I’m concerned about what just happened with you though. Tell me, what is on your mind?”

The man sighs and shakes his head before resting it back on your belly. “Nothin’ to worry your pretty head off about.” He simply left it at that and nothing more.

When it came time for labor, he was truly nervous. Every attempt he made at trying to make physical contact with you in that time failed, because his hands were either too hard or too cold. He backed off and watched from the sidelines as you brought his little baby girl into the world.

He so desperately wanted to hold her, and you could see the urge in his eyes. She looked so much like him. She had his gorgeous silky black and white hair with your eyes. He thought she was an angel brought from heaven.

Once he finally got to hold her, he was told to keep her swaddled in the blanket she was wrapped in. All was well until she started crying due to the cold of his arms, and the baby was taken off into tests before he could even blink.

[81folklore]

heaven - OP81 - part 5

pairings: oscar piastri x private!reader (fc: gracie abrams)

summary: australian adventures of yn and oscar

type: social media au (smau)

authors note: IM BACK WRITING MY FAVORITE ANGELS!!! ive been feeling slightly more motivated so i thought id just continue a story instead of creating a new one (at least whilst im in this slump) i do hope you enjoy!!

heaven masterlist masterlist

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant and 7,191 others

oh australia how ive missed you and your gifts 💫

view comments

user3 whats the best gift australia has given you??

yourusername oscar!!! liked by oscarpiastri

user3 SHUT THE FUCK UP WHATTTT?!?!??

user62 i feel SICK THEYRE SO??

oscarpiastri oh my goddd

oscarpiastri 😍😍

user4 you cannot separate oscar from that emoji

yourusername not even i can😕😕

oscarpiastri you can pry it from my cold dead hands

user81 that dog is so stinking cute

user22 yess but that dress is GORGEOUS

user5 right shes sooooooo pretty liked by oscarpiastri

user88 australia is the one whos lucky!! liked by oscarpiastri

user67 like they are being blessed with the yn ln

yourfriend3 you are oh so lovely liked by oscarpiastri

yourfriend3 i take it back stop your boyf from liking my comments abt you

yourusername he loves me🥰🥰

oscarpiastri i do!! its true!!

oscarpiastri 📍location home

liked by yourusername, lilymhe and 52,281 others

my favorite lady in my favorite place

view comments

user18 SHE IS HIS FAVORITE LADY OH MU GOD😭😭

user17 AND HIS FAVORITE PLACE IS HOME😭

user24 oh my god she is gorgeous liked by oscarpiastri

user84 i will never ever get tired of them

user28 i hope theyre in love forever and ever liked by oscarpiastri

user55 oscar liking this comment☹️☹️

yourusername my babyyyy

yourusername oh how ill always love you liked by oscarpiastri

oscarpiastri 🩷🩷

twitter

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 8,729 others

the day you entered my world you changed my entire view on life and myself, you help me find love and happiness in things i never expected and showed me how to appreciate the smallest things in life.

sometimes i wonder if im being selfish, how can i be worthy of all the love and time youve given to me? surely there is someone more deserving, someone who needs everything youve showed me more? i think about what i must have done in a past life to be gifted with you and then i wonder if we are destined.

maybe i dont deserve you in this life, maybe i dont deserve you in a thousand other lifes. but i believe we are meant to be which means for every universe we dont find eachother, we find eachother in a hundred more

im so glad we found each other, i dont know if i deserve you but i promise i will cherish and appreciate the way i have done for 6 years and the way i will continue to love you for as long as this universe allows and then i will love you even longer in another

six years used to feel like forever but now ill never have enough time, happy anniversary lovely

view comments

oscarpiastri you continue to help my heart keep beating

oscarpiastri i didnt think love was real until i found you

oscarpiastri we will find eachother in every universe i promise

oscarpiastri you are the prettiest and most lovely person i have ever met and you deserve everything and more

yourusername my good looking boyyyy🩵🩵

user29 i have no words i cant comprehend what im reading

user10 i feel so violently ill they are so sweet

user62 my parents everyone!!!

user53 is that an engagement ring?!

user33 wait pause

user5 theres no way right??

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, arthur_leclerc and 62,379 others

you’ve impacted my life in more ways than you will ever know and im so thankful that i get to love you for all eternity, you have such a beautiful soul and i can’t believe i get to hold it

happy six years and to a lifetime more

view comments

yourusername you are so so incredible

yourusername i dont know how many other ways i can say it but i love you

oscarpiastri i love you too

user66 they are sooooo

user7 oh my gooooood i am a puddle of tears

user56 you just dont get them like i do

user32 anyone else sad we didnt get a long caption like yns was beautiful

yourusername oscar said more than enough in his letter☺️

user43 OH MY GOD HE WROTE HER A LETTER😭😭😭😭

user3 six years.. six damn years and they are still so in love

user48 guys are they engaged or not😭

yourusername not!! we are still young and exploring ourselves and the world and we are still grow into better people. we didnt want to rush when we still have so many things to do but we will when we know we are ready🩷 liked by oscarpiastri

user65 i didnt know it was possible to love two random strangers so much☹️☹️

yourusername added to their story

seen by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 9,372 others

text on story reads: 🩷🩷🩷

oscarpiastri added to their story

seen by yourusername, aussiegrit and 105,482 others

text on story reads: sunshine ☀️☀️

twitter

[jewelleria]

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be. 

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate. 

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified. 

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map. 

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle. 

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more. 

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop. 

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments. 

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on. 

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not. 

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways. 

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine. 

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war. 

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this: 

I am a Jew. 

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love. 

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners. 

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee! 

Then they sent me this: 

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die. 

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind. 

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake. 

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired. 

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people? 

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews. 

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like. 

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for. 

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war. 

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why. 

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be. 

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

[bakugoushotwife]

𝖘𝖔𝖚𝖑 𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 // 𝖘𝖚𝖐𝖚𝖓𝖆 𝖝 𝖋𝖊𝖒!𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

↪↪↪ cw: minors dni, dark content ahead. each chapter will come with its own set of specific warnings. true form sukuna, yuujikuna, timeskip/reincarnation themed. heian era into the modern storyline. gore, murder, cannibalism, weapons, blood, slight blood/knife play, reader is lowkey crazy, made up technique for you, very selfship coded at that, pregnancy, death of characters including reader but we come back, miscarriage/infant loss, i'm just making up sukuna lore, smut, uh he's sukuna please be serious, proceed with caution!

↪↪↪ summary: you welcome the feared sorcerer ryomen sukuna into your settlement, hoping he'll spare your village from his conquering streak. what you—and he—did not expect was a wedding two weeks later. sukuna never does anything halfway, and marrying you is no exception. he is a doting husband and then expecting father, until you unexpectedly pass away...the grief turns him from a raging sorcerer into a scheming and scorned widower. he can't stand the idea of anyone living if he doesn't have you. he comes up with the idea of turning himself into a curse on his war for revenge, and patiently waits for his time to return—to burn the world down forever. one thousand years later, his energy sings to life again, in a miserable excuse of a sorcerer—a boy named yuuji itadori. sukuna is ready to enact his plan, to exterminate everyone and hopefully find you somewhere on the other side of things when it's all over. what he didn't account for was you; again. he doesn't believe it at first—but yuuji's best friend was...you?

↪↪↪ notes from the author: hi hi!! i have been dreaming this dream for a while now, and i get to live it every day thanks to my beautiful and amazing roleplay partner and overall wifey extraordinaire, @suguru-getos . we've played with this idea when we wanted to figure out a way to give sukuna and myself something to stand on because in all reality he'd likely squash me like a gnat if he met me so this was something fun we came up with. i love the idea of sukuna the human having some redeeming moments and knowing love and pure happiness and for that to be a driving force for him to become a curse! once again this will have dark content so proceed at your own risks and read the individualized content warnings for each chapter!!

𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖆𝖓 𝖊𝖗𝖆

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖓𝖊: 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖔: 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖗

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊: 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖓…

𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖒𝖔𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖓 𝖊𝖗𝖆

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗: 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖓...

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 ��𝖎𝖛𝖊: 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖓...

⇝ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖘𝖎𝖝: 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖓...

↯↯↯ comment to be tagged!! banners are by @/cafekitsune