#Europe: who the fuck is this man
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Watching the bloopers from 1930s-1940s Hollywood movies make me laugh so hard. The way all the actors automatically drop the fake-ass transatlantic accent and go back to their natural American accent when they mess-up is simply so funny.
I find myself really loving the idea of Alfred using the transatlantic accent throughout the 40s. Until one day he shows up to Europe in like the mid-50s and half the European nations- many of whom really didn't "know him" pre-1940s- are shocked to find out that he was faking his accent the entire time they have known him
#1955 Alfred showing up speaking in a Philadelphia accent#Europe: who the fuck is this man#also its really cool to hear the “original” American accents in the bloopers#looks of southern midwestern or eastern accents that really don't exist anymore#hws america#historical hetalia#alfred f jones#hws#hetalia
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Me trying so hard not to sob in class rn bc what the fuck do you mean kpop lux has been cancelled? And just a week prior? With an unprofessional sorry ass ‘apology’ tweet? I’m literally so upset rn I was so excited for txt to finally come to europe IVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG and they’re literally not coming bc of unprofessional incompetent ass organisers literally like die I’m so sad I’m going to cry
#I’m so upset rn like I’m literally going to cry#I WAS GOING TO SEE TXT#who knows when the hell they’ll be in Europe again and if I’d even be able to get tickets bc they’d probabaly sell out in minutes#I better got a full fuckingn refund man fuck you#imagine all the people who booked flights and hotels#I Just knew some shit like this was going to happen though with how unprofessional they’ve been from the start#not even announcing the full line up until like two weeks ago#cutting out Sunday at short notice#they’re so shit
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alright gang 🫡🫡🫡 we die like women out here
#i have faith in my club#but not in that clown#man fuck all of europe other than catalunya#(not counting anyone from europe who sees this i love you)#fc barcelona#ucl
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//Well it's been a while since I posted, so it might as well go to figure, but there's a good chance I might be on hiatus for a bit since my computer up and decided to drop a fat nuke on itself. I'll see if I can make do with mobile in the meantime but... I dunno. I already have some money stashed and am getting a few connections around to help, so hopefully it shouldn't take forever, but... A bit.
//in the meantime, I'll be here and looking at my lockscreen like a WWII vet lighting a cigarette and wistfully taking one final look at the last picture of their beloved taken before they were separated and drafted into war and then running off into the bloody and chaotic battle that will inevitably claim their life
///HEAR ME OUT-
#||ooc||#{/i once chatted with a fine chap from East Europe who sent me this in our Leonard photo trade}#{/i was like 'OH. oh.... hmmm. huh.' *quietly saves*}#{/we kinda fell off after that and lost contact before I could ask}#{1. WHERE they got this photo (I'm guessing Pixiv since that's where all the good Leonard content is; but I haven't been able to find it)}#{2. is there more}#{/So I've been steadily losing my sanity ever since trying to figure out WHO FUCKING MADE THIS}#{/This special little man will live on in my lockscreen (and dreams.)}#{/...... but if anyone has any ideas; PLEASE let me know. I'm begging this has tormented me for nearly a whole YEAR now}
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finally finished s2 of the alienist... uhmm why was this season abt everyone BUT the alienist. hello. daniel brühl turn on your location i just want to talk
#WHERE was laszlo#literally they only gave him a bunch of scenes with lara pulver so they could?? send him off to europe at the end???? huh#he barely did anything at all the entire series. even for the case he was barely there to offer assistance#i get wanting to do a little more for sara's character but now it was HER show more than his#and no offence. but im watching the alienist. for the alienist.#my sister and i were SO disappointed by the last ep too#john marrying a woman he doesn't truly love just so he can? have a child?#laszlo fucking off to europe and leaving his whole ass institute behind?? WITH THE PATIENTS HE CARES ABT???#sara ending up in that classic 'strong independent women don't need a man they can be successful without them' hashtags feminism#as if wanting to be in a relationship with someone. makes you anti feminist or something.#society has progressed past the need for the independent strong women trope#where are the women in loving relationships with men who agree with them and their views and who wholly support them#women don't need to be alone/unhappy in their love life to be feminist characters. please.#i can't believe i dropped s2 ages ago and then finished it bc of daniel brühl and he's actually barely in it at all. incredible#if he's not in a possible follow up season i am not watching it. again it's called the alienist and that's what i am here for#curry rambles#ALSO WHY DID THEY KILL MARCUS?? that was totally unnecessary esp in a last ep like that.#cheap effort to get the audience emotionally involved#AND SPLITTING UP THE MAIN THREE CHARACTERS?? if you want your series to succeed. NEVER split up the#found fam at the end#is2g nothing kills my goodwill for a piece of media faster#the alienist
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Apparently I'm feeling very strongly about language once again atm. Like just. I have to eat it. I have to let it wash over me and through me. I need to read good opinions on like. The connection between the heart and the soul and the language they are expressed and the language they developed and grew up in. Like. it is so intricate and so complicated and so personal and yet so simple and such a universal experience.
#plus idk like. me writing this in English on speak your language day. instead of German.#idk I guess the 'a language different from my native language is spoken around me' got me once again#I really would've liked to stay in prague tonight. I feel like I would've had a very good time#but as they say. all good things must come to an end. und man soll ja aufhören wenn's am schönsten ist#plus halt das buch das ich gerade lese das auch die interaktion zwischen sprachen als großes Thema hat#und. like thinking about europe once again. the european idea. the european project. the flaws inherent to it.#and the flaws that have hope. but that are not being worked out at the moment.#I'm so fucking tired of all the stereotypes. and all the east-west conflict. it's so extremely stupid.#we have so much to learn from each other. if only us in the west would manage to get our fucking heads out of our asses#and be open to it. the whole idea of europe is so very doomed continuing on this path.#maybe bc we live in political systems that mostly encourage people who think they have it all figured out and that everyone else#must be doing something wrong can really make it to the top of power#it doesn't allow for nuance. and I don't know how to fix it. I'm not sure it can be fixed or if this is just part of the human condition.
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"No need to collect a mass of facts. We have just considered societies which are ignorant: the first, of our conception of fate; the second, of our conception of birth; the third, of our conception of exchange; the last, of our conception of death. That's enough.
"Between the men we have just mentioned, and the Greek, or the Gothic man—or anybody else—and ourselves, what is there in common?"
Lowering his lizard-skin eyelids slightly, [Möllberg] paused for a moment, to give more weight to what he was going to say:
"Whether we are talking of God in the religious civilizations, or the link with the cosmos in the preceding civilizations, every mental structure considers as absolute and unassailable any particular sign which directs life, and without which man could neither think nor act. (A sign which does not necessarily guarantee a better life for man, which can equally well, of course, contribute to his destruction!) It is to man what the aquarium is to the fish swimming inside it. It does not enter his mind. It has nothing to do with the search for truth. It seizes and possesses man, while he never possesses it entirely. So much so, in fact—and now I come back to Mr. Vincent Berger's argument—that men are, perhaps, more thoroughly defined and classified by their form of fatalism than by anything else."
"Which is ours?" my father asked.
"it's not easy for a fish to see its own aquarium. . . . First and foremost, one's country, don't yo think?"
Walter raised his hand with the same conductor's gesture as before and said with a kind of bitterness:
"There is a truth, gentlemen, to which we do in fact submit, in the same way as those kinds who appear on the fringe, if I may say so, of the most distant past used to submit to the stars . . . without which neither the idea of country, nor that of race, nor that of social distinction, would be what it is. We live in it, as the religious civilizations lived in God. Without it, not one of us—I merely say: 'not one'—would be able to think. It's our only realm: it's history."
"And behind history," Möllberg went on, "perhaps there's something which is to history what history is to the country, to revolution. Perhaps our consciousness of time—"
from The Walnut Trees of Altenburg, André Malraux, tr. A. W. Fielding
#pearl diver#this is like... a so so book with one extremely good scene#an anthropologist coming home from Africa- so thoroughly shaken by the range of different possible human societies which until Africa he+#+had never before considered that he loses all faith in his life's work and his field of study- in Europe as a project#so he comes home and starts a fight among a society of preening pseudointellectuals who are decades behind the times- a fight+#+over what man is *fundamentally*#all as set up for the carnage of WWI. with WWII overlaid on the whole novel#Malraux really had something here. like he really had a fucking book. just needed a little more work
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have any of you ever hated a player so much that you don't want your team to win any trophies or leagues for as long as that motherfucker plays in your team???
Like you love your team so much, been supporting that club for 15+ years/since childhood because it's your dad and granddad's club, you love the other players immensely, but this one player grates on your nerves so much, like you fucking hate his guts, so now you don't want your team to win in the upcoming season because you don't want that one guy you despise to lift the trophy, get a medal, celebrate happily, or be on a winners bus parade ever.
I know this is soooooo irrational and ridiculous, i'm fully aware this is such a shitty thought, like why don't you want your childhood club and 25 other good players to win but you can't stop your brain from having this negative thought and intense hatred. The manager is stupid af too so they are going to lose on their own accord.
#can't stand some of their fans too bcuz they are such mean bullies#rude and racist af#the absolute irony of u yelling about racism allthetime is u yourself being racist af towards people; national teams & players u don't like#like bitch please you being a POC does not mean u can be racist af to other countries & where u live#i'm half black half asian. i can attest to the fact that many Asians are racist af#my skin tone is the same as naomi osaka. your privileged ass don't know the astronomical amount of racism i experienced growing up in Asia#And the vile racism as a dark-skinned person travelling in Asian countries#people like you call me hak kwai#went on holiday with mum's side cousins to mainland & your racist scums were taking photos of me like i was a zoo animal#my cousins are all chinese. my mum is the only one who married a black man. her sisters & brothers all married Chinese spouses#i still live in Asia & did not fuck off to Europe like u did bitch#english premier league#la liga#champions league#bundesliga#serie a#ligue 1#EPL#FA Cup#UEFA Champions League#Europa League#i don't have to worry about Euros & the World Cup because he will never win those with his country#they suck#EFL Cup#community shield#UCL
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When and how did Tolkien become this super woke anti capitalist anti racist icon? Anyhow it's time to stop.
#this is insane it used to be only the vaguely to explicitly white supremacist academic gatekeepers who Defended his Legacy#but now its more and more minority fans who I guess are fighting back against that by saying NO ACTUALLY tolkien was WOKE#he.. wasnt? he was complex sure and had some good ideals#but also eeeeeeesh he was a pied noir he was a rich english man he was an intense catholic he had Some Ideas on western civilization#im def not the most literate on his life but even just looking at the text????#lotr has a LOT of extremely criticizable material#the whole dwarf thing... like ok he was anti nazi it doesnt mean he didnt have antisemitic ideas and concepts!!!#half of europe was anti nazi AND violently antisemitic. if you know an ounce of history you realize that this famous letter means fuck all#except that. there are reasons why that nazi publisher was so interested in his novels lol and like. oopsie. but still true!
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The other day I told a friend of mine that I never forget to take my ADHD meds because I fucking love my ADHD meds. I'm in my late 30s, I didn't finally get a diagnosis and meds until less than two years ago, and they have changed my entire life.
And he raised his eyebrow at me. We'd been discussing addictive medications a few minutes before, like the Tramadol I finally got from the pain specialist to take once a week or so to give me a break from my chronic pain, so I reassured him that methylpenidate (Ritalin/Concerta) is not addictive (at least not in people with ADHD).
His response? To raise his eyebrow even harder and say "Well it sure SOUNDS like it's addictive!"
And I had to explain to this man - who works in a healthcare related job by the way - that just because medication makes you feel good and helps you, just because you look forward to taking it, that doesn't make it addictive or dangerous. And he wasn't convinced.
The simple fact that I was excited to take a daily pill that has literally changed my life, after decades of fighting to get that medication, made him think I shouldn't be taking it so often. That it must inherently be dangerous.
I'm not even in America, but I'm pretty sure this attitude began there and then spread over here to Europe. This Puritan idea of "if something feels good, you must beware of it. Pleasure is dangerous, it is sinful, it is addiction, it is evil."
I know too many people who subconsciously believe that pleasure = addictive = dangerous = bad. Joy is a slippery slope to hell.
So here is your reminder for today that you don't need to be afraid of feeling good. If something improves your life, use it. Even if it is addictive - learn what that addiction means, whether the addiction is inherently dangerous or not, and whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and risks.
My ADHD meds are, in fact, not addictive. But I will take them every day because they make my life orders of magnitude easier. I will enjoy them every time I take them.
My tramadol is addictive. I will still take it. I will keep it on a schedule to avoid becoming addicted, primarily because addiction in this case would mean reduced effectiveness. But I am not afraid of my painkillers. They are life changing.
Take your meds, everyone. Don't let anyone scare you away from doing something that improves your life.
#adhd#medication#ritalin#concerta#methylphenidate#addiction#puritan values#neurodivergence#actually adhd#take your meds
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national personifications are funny as a concept
like you have a polity, with a bunch of people in it, and you try to sum them up in an individual humanoid entity
and you see, they're depicted either as purely perfect or as a set of national stereotypes
obviously the first characterization is implausible and boring as fuck, but the thing with the second characterization is that groups cant be monolithic, and stereotypes of the same group can and often are contradictory, which would reasonably suggest that a personification of them would be similarly inconsistent and paradoxical
i think more personifications should be bizarre and messy and deranged actually
#what if your entire political community was represented by florida man?#or whatever your local equivalent is#who thinks theyre the hot shit#there are also real life heads of state historically and currently who represented their states#mostly royalty#imagine a personification fighting their monarch for representation of their people and fucking losing#special mention to the 3000 minervesque goddesses that were super popular in 18-20th century europe + other god-like nps in general#i think they make up the majority of the wikipedia entries on national personifications#they tend to be more idealized#another big category of nps are cartoon personifications#unlike the first group they're mostly male#and they're usually get the stereotypes#i think there's good drama from the tension between the idealized goddess versions and the flawed stereotypical cartoon versions#national personfications#man theyre conceptually weird
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Eddie stands at the bar, sipping at the whisky in his glass, eyes flickering over the crush of bodies and dark mahogany. He's at a premier party at TIFF, doesn't remember what movie it's for, is supposed to "mingle" according to his agent. And sure, he's charismatic, got a big personality and a loud mouth, but he's not good at networking; resents having to perform when he's not playing a role. Resents it more that he's an Oscar nominated actor, that his work doesn't stand for itself.
And then there's the Steve Harrington of it all. Heartthrob. America's Sweetheart. The boy next door. He's across the room, deep in conversation, but his eyes--they keep finding Eddie, scanning him with unmistakable heat.
They starred in a movie called Dying on the Pass. Played life-long best friends who became elite chefs and opened a restaurant together. The movie follows the dissolution of their friendship as the stresses of pursuing a Michelin Star drive them apart. It was a critical and commercial hit, cue awards noms, and offers pouring in, and--
Steve Harrington is his bed.
They promised, when filming wrapped. They swore it was the last time. They promised--
They basically shared a hotel room during awards season, woke up tangled together every morning.
They spent a torrid weekend in Atlanta after Steve wrapped on a Netflix action movie.
Six months after, they had a quick, furious fuck in the bathroom at a club in London.
Dangerous, stupid, but no one caught them. And here Steve is in Toronto, surrounded by press, staring at Eddie like he wants to eat him.
Eddie tries to ignore it. But every time their eyes meet, warmth pools low in his abdomen, and he wants.
They meet up eventually, pose for a couple of pictures, Eddie trying to ignore the way his skin tingles everywhere that Steve touches. Steve slings an arm around his waist, lets it linger.
After, Eddie goes out for a smoke, the patio blissfully deserted. He's half way through his cigarette when Steve steps out the sliding door, wrapping his hands in Eddie's hair, pulling him into a kiss. The cigarette drops as he grips onto the other man, a whimper slipping from his lips.
He should stop this, they're outside, anyone could see, and Steve isn't out--isn't--he's straight to the entire world, the straightest man alive. And Eddie, he's open about his preferences, identifies as queer, though lately he's been more interested in men--in one man, specifically-- and Steve isn't out, isn't ready to be and--
"Come back to my room?" Steve asks. Their mouths are still pressed together.
"Uh-huh," Eddie answers.
Steve whispers his room number before disappearing back inside. They're in the same hotel, on the same floor, like the universe wants them to keep hooking up. But Steve is being reckless.
Eddie goes to Steve that night with every intention of telling him they need to stop, to slow down, that they're going to get caught and he knows Steve isn't ready, but he doesn't. He doesn't that night and he doesn't two months later when they bump into each other in Venice, or four months after that in New York, or--or --or
It's dangerous, impulsive, too many close calls for them to keep it up and then--and then he's at a house party in the hills, an industry thing, the host is a wannabe big shot producer trying to get in good with the Hollywood elite. Steve is out of town. In Europe filming or maybe Australia for some event or--
Striding through the party, eyes locked on Eddie, and they're in a hallway, in a hallway where anyone could see them, but Steve is kissing him. They're kissing and it's rough and possessive and it stings.
Steve pushes him through double-doors, to the room at their backs, and Eddie wants to protest, to remind him they don't know if it's empty. But Steve is tugging the tie out of Eddie's hair, digging this hands into the now loose curls, and Eddie whines, lets himself be lead.
He's pushed against a table, and in the weak light from the windows, he realizes they're in the dining room. Steve grinds against him, muttering, "missed you so much, baby. God, it's been too long. Need you so bad."
Eddie moans, shifting to press more against Steve. "Missed you too, sweetheart, fuck."
They're kissing and Eddie's high on it, on Steve, can't get enough.
There's a loud burst of laughter outside the door, and reality smashes back into focus.
"Stop," he whispers to Steve.
Steve does in an instant, stepping back. Even in the darkness, Eddie sees the confusion and hurt mingling in the squint of his eyes, his light frown.
"Steve we--this is dangerous. There are people everywhere. Anyone could come in. There's a TMZ guy here, and we--need to be careful."
"Fuck," Steve breathes. "Eddie I--fuck." He presses his hand over his mouth, eyes squeezed shut. "I can't get enough of you, man. Whenever I see you I just--I don't think--I see you and I want you so bad it hurts. Once every few months isn't enough. Hookups aren't enough. And I know that's not what we agreed to, and--"
"Steve," Eddie gently cuts him off. "I'm crazy about you. It hasn't been hookups for me for--" ever, it had never been, but he shakes his head instead of saying that. "But we've been reckless, sweetheart, and I don't want to see you hurt."
"It's not fair to you, though, right? Hiding and sneaking around with me."
"You need time, Steve. You deserve to come out on your terms, when you're ready. And if that means we're not public for a while, then we're not."
"What if I'm never ready?" He whispers. It breaks Eddie's heart, but it's a fair question for a man who got famous as an angelic child star in a series of fantasy-adventure movies before playing a quarterback with a heart-of-gold on the CW for seven seasons. He's always kept up a squeaky clean image, never in trouble, name rarely in the tabloids.
"Then we'll deal with it together."
"Okay," Steve whispers. A smile spreads slow across his face. "I'd like that."
--
Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson are seen around town together often. Getting lunch, at parties, shopping. In an interview Steve says that Eddie's his best friend, they do everything together. There's speculation online, of course, but it's pretty quiet. So, they go to premiers and award shows and events together.
A year goes by and it's easy, light, fun. They're in love.
Eddie's messing around on his guitar, not with any intent just for the joy of it. He's on the loveseat in the office of their apartment--their apartment. Steve is in the kitchen, he thinks, or puttering in the garden.
They haven't talked about Steve coming out; haven't needed to.
"Hey," Steve says from the doorway. Eddie jumps.
"Hey yourself."
"It's Bi Visibility day."
"Is it now?" He's not sure where this is going
"I want to come out."
He puts the guitar down. "You sure?"
Steve nods. He doesn't seem nervous, just calm and steady.
"How do you want to do it?"
He crosses the room, climbing onto Eddie's lap, making Eddie laugh. "Works for me." Eddie gives Steve's ass a playful squeeze.
They start kissing then, Steve snapping pics on his phone randomly as they make out.
Steve won't let Eddie peak as he crafts his Insta post, not until it's done and live for his 15 million followers.
The picture he picked, it's a soft kiss, mouths open but lips only just brushing, noses pressed together in a sweet little bump. But the thing about, the thing that makes Eddie's stomach swoop, is the way they're both smiling, the way it's obvious just how in love they are.
Steve's captioned it with the words "Witness Me" and the bi flag.
He pulls his boy into another kiss, says, "Hey,"
"Hmm?" Steve doesn't pull away.
"Wanna go be visibly bisexual with me in the bedroom?"
Steve hops off his lap, strides across the room, turning to flash Eddie a devious smile. "Thought you'd never ask."
#steddie#steve x eddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#ficlet#actors steve harrington and eddie munson#costars#hooking up#fluff#costars to lovers#idiots in love#feelings confession#coming out#bisexual steve harrington#it's not bi visibility day but i liked eddie using it as a come on#famous steve harrington#famous eddie munson#i don't totally know what this is
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Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World
1993
"The Man Who Sold the World" is the title track of David Bowie's third studio album, which was released in 1970 in the US and in 1971 in the UK. Although no singles were issued from the album, the song appeared as the B-side on the 1973 reissue US single release of "Space Oddity" and UK single release of "Life on Mars?".
In his journals, Kurt Cobain of the American grunge band Nirvana ranked the album The Man Who Sold the World at number 45 in his top 50 favourite albums. Nirvana subsequently recorded a live rendition of the song during their MTV Unplugged appearance at Sony Music Studios in New York City on 18 November 1993 and it was included on their MTV Unplugged in New York album released on November 1, 1994, nearly seven months following the death of Cobain. The song was also released as a promotional single for the album in 1995.
Nirvana's cover received considerable airplay on alternative rock radio stations and was also placed into heavy rotation on MTV, peaking at number 3 on MTV's most played videos on 18 February 1995; it also peaked for two weeks at number 7 on Canada's MuchMusic Countdown in March 1995. Nirvana regularly covered the song during live sets after their MTV Unplugged performance up until Cobain's death. In 2002, the song was re-released on Nirvana's self-titled "best of" compilation.
Bowie said of Nirvana's cover: "I was simply blown away when I found that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and have always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering 'The Man Who Sold the World'" and that "it was a good straight forward rendition and sounded somehow very honest." Bowie called Nirvana's cover "heartfelt", noting that "until this [cover], it hadn't occurred to me that I was part of America's musical landscape. I always felt my weight in Europe, but not [in the US]." In the wake of its release, Bowie bemoaned the fact that when he performed the number himself, he would encounter "kids that come up afterwards and say, 'It's cool you're doing a Nirvana song.' And I think, 'Fuck you, you little tosser!'"
At a pre–Grammy Awards party on 14 February 2016, Nirvana band members Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, and Pat Smear teamed up with Beck to perform "The Man Who Sold the World" in tribute to Bowie – who had died the month before — with Beck performing vocals.
"The Man Who Sold the World" received a total of 77,6% yes votes!
Dave Grohl has previously been featured in the polls with Foo Fighter's "The Pretender" at #111 and as a drummer on Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows" at #87, and David Bowie has been featured with "I'm Afraid of Americans" at #33.
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brother's best friend | lance stroll social media au
pairing: lance stroll x fem schumacher!reader
there's something about the guy your brother tells you is off limits...
MASTERLIST | MY TIP JAR
mickschumacher
liked by estebanocon, lancestroll and 1,099,458 others
tagged: yourusername
mickschumacher: happy birthday to the biggest pain in my ass
view all comments
user1: y/n is so mother that her birthday really should be a national holiday
yourusername: what ass? babe you built like an ironing board
mickschumacher: you're talking real loud for someone who has a smaller ass than me 🤨
yourusername: you wanna get the tape measure out ???
user2: I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE
liked by lancestroll
yourusername: HAH
mickschumacher: i'll give you this one FOR ONCE only because it's your birthday
yourusername: you're SO generous
user3: both mick and y/n really got the unhinged gene from michael
user4: now we know why toto separates them in the paddock LOL
lancestroll: mick you were such a cute kid, what happened?
mickschumacher: EY stay out of it this is schumacher business
mickschumacher: or at least call y/n ugly too ugh 😩
lancestroll: my dad taught me that it's wrong to tell lies sorry
mickschumacher: BACK UP ??? what's that supposed to mean?
yourusername: is no one allowed to compliment me anymore?
mickschumacher: NO. especially not a man. especially not an f1 driver. they're all whores.
estebanocon: ????
maxverstappen1: ????
lancestroll: ????
yourusername: is that why you got dropped? too bitchless?
mickschumacher: HOW DARE YOU? I PULL. I DO.
yourusername: sure you do
mickschumacher: that's it. if you're going to use my loneliness against me, then i invoke the kat stratford rule. you can't date until i do
yourusername: that is so horrifically tragic. who says i'm not already seeing someone?
this comment has been deleted
mickschumacher: I SAW THAT
user5: everybody pray for y/n
user6: for real i think mick lost all of his patience at haas 😭
yourusername
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yourusername: all my birthday wishes came true
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user7: cue the mick meltdown
mickschumacher: WHAT 😭 THE 😭 FUCK 😭
yourusername: yes?
mickschumacher: does ten things i hate about you mean nothing to you?
yourusername: no ! but i like [redacted] more
mickschumacher: you can use [redacted] all you want but i will literally break in to your house I'M GETTING IN THE CAR
yourusername: soz girlypop but i'm at [redacted]'s house xoxo
mickschumacher: don't think i won't call sebastian i know he has you on find my friends
yourusername: go for it buddy i am completely confident in mine and seb's relationship
mickschumacher: @sebastianvettel pick up your phone
sebastianvettel: leave me be mick, i have met [redacted] and i think he's a great match 👍
mickschumacher: WHAT
user8: well that was dramatic
user9: get that man back in the car before he genuinely runs across europe looking for y/n
user10: i love how they're all going along with the [redacted] nonsense
user11: i know seb was having way too much fun with it
estebanocon: happy birthday y/n, i hope [redacted] treated you well !
yourusername: why thank you esteban, i have had a great time
mickschumacher: do not tell me you know as well :(
estebanocon: i don't but saying [redacted] is super fun 🤩
lancestroll: [redacted] does make them sound like a criminal
mickschumacher: when i found out who it is, they may become part of a criminal trial
lancestroll: okay buddy...
yourusername: thank you lance, at least someone here is talking sense
mickschumacher: don't use my friends against me 🤨
yourusername: maybe he's my friend too dumbass
user12: or more 😏
mickschumacher: do not even speak that into existence
user13: i need it to be lance or at least another driver just for mick's reaction at this point
lancestroll
liked by estebanocon, yourusername and 1,077,487 others
tagged: yourusername
lancestroll: just appreciating the birthday girl
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user17: WAIT !! let me grab my popcorn 🍿
user18: i am sat for this mick meltdown
user19: it might be an all-timer
yourusername: before mick inevitably throws all his toys out of the pram... i love you sir lancelot !! thank you for the amazing birthday and for being the best boyf eva xxx
lancestroll: i love you too darling, glad we could spend all this time together before the season starts again
yourusername: booooo i don't wanna share you :(
lancestroll: you could just join me ...
yourusername: do NOT threaten me with a good time
user20: i think i can hear mick having a tantrum from all the way across the world
mickschumacher: ABSOLUTELY NOT. NO. NOPE. NADA. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING. DELETE.
lancestroll: you done?
mickschumacher: NO I AM NOT. TAKE YOUR MOUTH OFF OF MY SISTER. THE ONLY SCHUMACHER YOU WILL BE KISSED BY IS MY FIST
lancestroll: bit too late for that
mickschumacher: HALT. i do not need to know that :(
yourusername: have you got it out of your system? because i really love lance and i'm sorry we kept it from you, but we thought it was best while we figured it all out
mickschumacher: i am happy for you. all i want to see is you happy, and if that is lance so be it. just no pda in front of me
lancestroll: you're saying this like i'm a monster? i'm literally your friend, surely that's a good sign?
mickschumacher: wait. i thought we were best friends :(
lancestroll: yes! we're bffs ! best friends forever + este
estebanocon: yes we love you mick even when you scream all the time and call us whores?
yourusername: gosh you're such a drama queen, have this heart to heart in the group chat this is a birthday post for ME
user21: well this got suprisingly heartfelt
sebastianvettel: happy birthday y/n, i'm happy for both of you!
yourusername: thank you seb ! x
lancestroll: thank you seb, wingman of the year
mickschumacher: WHAT
yourusername
liked by mickschumacher, lancestroll and 923,766 others
tagged: lancestroll
yourusername: my boyf just won point with broken wrists, what the fuck are y'all doin?
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user24: this was so sexy of lance honestly
maxverstappen1: winning the race bozo
yourusername: the question was clearly rhetorical genius
maxverstappen1: i don't care 🤷♀️
user25: i always forget that these two technically grew up together
lancestroll: the doctors said i still need to be looked after, will you be my sexy nurse?
mickschumacher: EW this is exactly what i was talking about. keep this shit to yourselves
mickschumacher: PLUS, i don't think that would be wise with broken wrists
lancestroll: gotta ruin all of our jokes now?
yourusername: so me being a sexy nurse is a joke :( ?
lancestroll: no! you can definitely look after me and you're definitely sexy
yourusername: good good. sit back and relax baby
user26: what if we also want to be seen by sexy nurse y/n?
mickschumacher: choke
lancestroll: choke
fernandoalo_oficial: so no mention of my podium 🤨
yourusername: bore off old man you've got completely functioning wrists
fernandoalo_oficial: still impressive no?
yourusername: cry me a river
lancestroll: it was very impressive fernando
fernandoalo_oficial: at least one of my kids respect me
yourusername: god i think being a drama queen is a requirement for being an f1 driver
user27: she's not wrong
fernandoalo_oficial
liked by lancestroll, yourusername and 1,452,887 others
fernandoalo_oficial: accidentally acquired two kids this season
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user28: grid dad fernando is back baby
user29: who is the mum and can i be her?
yourusername: soz mark beat you to it
oscarpiastri: does that make us all siblings?
mickschumacher: absolutely not. the schumacher gang is very exclusive
fernandoalo_oficial: who said i claimed you?
mickschumacher: as if you wouldn't want to claim me
yourusername: soz mick, looks like only one of us slays
lancestroll: fernando has taste 💅
mickschumacher: i hate you both
yourusername: love you too x
user30: golly gosh these girlies are so dramatic
user31: lance, y/n and oscar is the chill trio we need
yourusername: also thanks pa for the cute pic x
lancestroll: and for not complaining the whole time
yourusername: SOME people could learn a thing or two ....
mickschumacher: hey! i am a good photographer you're just ugly
lancestroll: you take that back
mickschumacher: you were my friend first you should be on my side :(
yourusername: you snooze you lose mickster
lancestroll: :p
user32: so glad that this relationship is bringing out lance's sassy side
user33: now all we need is the return of the racing point hair
yourusername: i'm on it 🫡
yourusername
liked by estebanocon, lancestroll and 1,099,432 others
tagged: lancestroll
yourusername: the romance books didn't lie, there really is nothng like your brother's best friend
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user34: boyf!lance got me going feral
user35: third pic is defo going platinum on pinterest
lancestroll: all the turmoil was worth it :)
yourusername: turmoil being mick pouting at you for like three hours
lancestroll: i am a sensitive man! i don't like people being upset with me :(
yourusername: mick is just a drama queen, probably his way of hazing you, or distracting himself from being lonely
mickschumacher: for that lonely comment you just got yourself stuck with a third wheel
mickschumacher: FOR LIFE
estebanocon: and me !! don't forget about meeee
user36: my fave unproblematic foursome
yourusername: hold your horses babe two of that four are siblings maybe we should reword this
sebastianvettel: is mick finished now? can i safely go back on my phone without getting ten billion calls about you and lance?
yourusername: yeah i think he's got it out of his system
sebastianvettel: good. but you and lance are still on babysitting duty for putting my through this
lancestroll: not the punishment you think it is we love those kids
yourusername: plus lance is cute with kids and gives me major baby fever
sebastianvettel: oh no...
mickschumacher: WHAT ABSOLUTELY NOT NO BABIES YET I ONLY JUST ACCEPTED YOU DATIGN I DON;Y WANT TO THINK ABOUT... THAT
yourusername: but baby lancelots would be so cute :(
lancestroll: baby y/ns would be cuter
yourusername: that's it. seb sorry we will be a little late
mickschumacher: DELETE
fin.
note: this request has been in the bank for a while and i know i took a lil creative liberty but i hope you enjoyed!! also thought lance deserved some love after the recent tomfoolery ... alas! happy new year and i hope everyone has a great new years eve xx
#f1 imagine#f1 x reader#f1 instagram au#f1 x you#f1#f1 social media au#lance stroll imagine#lance stroll#lance stroll x reader#lance stroll x you#lance stroll social media au#lance stroll instagram au
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𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠・h.h.
— you're uninviting, there's no doubt about that, your resolve like unpolished diamond and tongue like broken glass. but hyunjin finds you're not half as impossible as everyone assumes you are.
words・11.1k
pairing・idol!hyunjin x female stylist!reader (inspired by this)
genres・fluff, angst, eventual smut so MDNI, some hurt/comfort, some humor, mc is a bad bitch and hyunjin is a #simp, enemies? to lovers, sexual tension, workplace relationship, mutual pining, slow burn, nonlinear narrative, alternating perspectives
warnings・cunnilingus, overstimulation, creampie (practice safe sex!!), mild dacryphilia. again, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WITH THIS POST WILL BE BLOCKED.
warnings (cont'd.)・reader vividly remembers an anxiety attack. alcohol is consumed. lots of compartmentalization and imperfect communication. latter half is just kind of sad in general tbh but what do u expect from a fic based off alex turner lyrics
playlist・farewell, neverland by txt・like crazy by jimin・black friday by tom odell・collide by justine skye・crying lightning by arctic monkeys
a/n・call me victor frankenstein bc i've given birth to a MONSTER (except i actually love and care for mine ofc). this was easily the greatest challenge of my fanfiction-writing career and it feels like my magnum opus; i hope it's worth the wait! also a huge shoutout to sahar for being my voice of reason and my biggest supporter :’) i don’t deserve u i love u
Present day. Cannes, France. 5:54 P.M.
You’ve long made peace with the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is incapable of shutting up for more than five minutes.
As it is, the man has a mouth that runs like a cross-country marathon; then throw in his uncanny aptitude for annoying you, and what do you get? A nonstop slew of terrible jokes and teasing quips, tailored according to his thorough mental manual of what gets under your skin hardest and fastest.
This is the reality you live in, presumably because you were evil in your past life, and you’ve steeled yourself to see it through.
But twenty minutes have passed since you and Hyunjin ducked into the back of a cab and gave the driver the show’s address—and, as stunning as the red rooftops and lazuline coastline of Cannes are, you find you’re more interested in Hyunjin’s peculiar silence.
You move your gaze to his face. He’s looking outside, his chin resting upon the palm of his hand, the afternoon sunlight dusting over his chiseled features like polish on pottery; his complexion an exuberant gold against the cream-colored linen that makes up his clothing.
Maybe it’s because you opted for a simpler makeup look today, leaving the most telling contours of his face warm and bare, or maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last year committing his every mannerism and expression to memory. Nevertheless, you see through his pursed lips and tight brow right away.
“Nervous?”
Hyunjin’s head swivels towards you with a small snap, like he’s forgotten you’re here. His lips fall open, their glossy peach color glinting with the small shift.
“No,” he replies reflexively, but then his facade flickers. “Fuck, maybe a little. It’s just hard to believe, you know?”
You do know. It was a huge honor for both of you when Hyunjin was named the newest global ambassador of Versace. For you to be attending the brand’s pop-up show in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, among some of the world’s most prolific creatives, is truly incomprehensible. Even you’ve been feeling antsy since you landed; you can only imagine Hyunjin’s anxiety.
You have never been good at consolation. You think your mouth is too coarse, your propensity for honesty too strong. But you’ve always known just what to say when it comes to him.
“Just remember who you are.”
Hyunjin takes a few seconds to process your words, but his understanding washes over his whole body; straightens his back; hardens his gaze. You don’t see this change in posture, though. You’re too busy looking anywhere else, all of a sudden feeling quite embarrassed.
Nor do you see the private smile that disperses across Hyunjin’s lips; his eyes softening so, so marginally when they peer at your profile; his hand twitching where it rests on his knee, as if contemplating reaching for you with a mind of its own.
Thirty seconds. That is the amount of time you have left to bask in this otherworldly tranquility. And then he speaks.
“I want you to meet my parents.”
Your arm reacts before your mind can. Without having to turn your head an inch, you smack him squarely in the bicep, sending him crumpling against his door with a bark of a laugh; “please,” he adds, and you’re biting back a smile as you hit him again, with less conviction this time.
The cab driver nearly misses an exit, too busy wondering about the peculiar pair in his backseat and the nature of your relationship. He can’t tell if you hate each other or if you’re married.
One year ago. Seoul, South Korea. 8:42 A.M.
“I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”
“For my newborn daughter.”
“Yeah, okay. I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me for your newborn daughter. What does that brat have that I don’t?”
“My genes, to begin with.”
“That’s unfair. She’s using—”
An important-looking pair of women step out of the nearest elevators, the clacking of their heels ricocheting sharply off the lobby walls. Hyunjin straightens his back so quickly he thinks he pulls a muscle. He and Seojun incline their heads in perfect sync, their “good morning”s prim and professional.
“She’s using cheats,” Hyunjin hisses the second the women are out of earshot again, and this wrests a laugh from the older man at last.
Around one month prior, Seojun confided in Hyunjin that he and his partner were expecting their first child soon, and that he would be putting his career on indefinite hiatus to welcome her into the world.
Hyunjin had never felt so conflicted in his life. On one hand, he’d grown closer to his stylist over the last two years than he’d thought possible, and he knew it was stupid to be anything but delighted for him and his expanding family. On the other hand, it was precisely because they’d become so close that he wanted to grab the man by the ankles and shake the decision clean out of his body. He couldn’t imagine a dressing room or tour bus without him.
Today is a Saturday, but it’s also Seojun’s last day with the company. Hyunjin dragged himself to the JYP building at half past eight with much less reluctance than he let on. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
“Fourth floor,” Seojun instructs after the pair enter the elevator, and Hyunjin presses a knuckle to the according number. “Thanks.”
The doors slide shut; the floor numbers tick upwards.
“What was her name again?” Hyunjin asks.
“Y/N,” Seojun returns. “Y/L/N.”
“Is she here already?”
“No, she’ll be here at nine.”
There’s a small pause.
“Hyung.”
“Hm?”
“I feel like I’m being married off to another family for political reasons.”
“God, I can’t wait to be free of your theatrics.”
At this, the two men make eye contact; exchange smiles. The elevator announces their arrival to the fourth floor, and they step through the doors.
“You’ll be in good hands,” Seojun reassures. “She’s the best of the best. I hear she’s basically running the industry these days. I’m surprised she agreed to take you on.”
“I’m surprised an old fry like you knows someone like her,” Hyunjin replies, and the look Seojun gives him is so withering that he thinks he pulls a muscle again with his apologetic bow.
“You’re not wrong, though,” Seojun concedes. “We happened to work on the same project back when she was still a small name, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. She’s a great kid. Ambitious, hardworking, strong as hell—”
They arrive outside their destination, and Hyunjin holds open the door to the conference room. Only to find that Seojun has stopped in his footsteps, temporarily stunned by a new realization.
She reminds me of him.
“He’s forgotten how to walk,” the him in question whispers like he’s narrating a nature documentary, and the moment is over. “Is this what fatherhood does to a man?”
Seojun kicks Hyunjin into the room by the seat of his pants.
The minutes pass slowly. Seojun moves his eyes between the door and his phone every few seconds, visibly antsy about the imminent meeting. In the meantime, Hyunjin makes the groundbreaking discovery that these office chairs are absurdly and almost suspiciously comfortable. All it takes is a chin upon his palm and a few seconds of shut-eye, and he’s suddenly slumped over the table, snoring softly into the crook of his elbow.
At 8:57, Seojun’s phone lights up with a new notification. At 8:58, he notices that Hyunjin is asleep, and closes his hand around the crumpled receipt in his pocket. At 8:59, he scrunches said receipt into a ball and launches it in Hyunjin’s direction. It hits him squarely on the head, and the boy is nearly knocked to the floor like a bowling pin.
“For that,” Hyunjin sputters, “I’m the godfather.”
“Absolutely the hell not.”
Then, it is 9:00.
When the door of the conference room opens, Hyunjin is still trying to gather his wits, wondering if the bastard is leaving the makeup industry to secretly pursue a career in professional basketball. He just barely notices the unfamiliar figure who steps into his line of vision.
“There she is,” Seojun greets warmly, rising to his feet right away. “God, how long has it been? Two, three years now?”
You’re not doing anything remarkable when Hyunjin sees you for the first time, simply walking across the room and bowing graciously in Seojun’s direction, but he is immediately under the vague impression that you’re cutting through space as you move, scorching the particles of air that dare obstruct your path.
With his head cocked slightly to the left, like a fascinated puppy, Hyunjin watches the stunning smile that forms on your lips when you take Seojun’s hand; your finger as it tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear with the elegance of rippling silk. His mind feels impossibly slow, like you’ve tapped open his skull and robbed him of his ability to think.
Then, you toss Hyunjin a look over your shoulder, and he’s reminded of lightning forking towards the earth. Terrifying, volatile, beautiful.
“Something like that,” you say, turning back to Seojun, and time starts to move again. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Lee. Congratulations on the baby.”
“Please, Seojun is fine,” he answers hastily. “And thank you. Thank you for all of this, actually. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have you.”
“You’re too kind—I’m excited too.”
Upon uttering the word “we,” Seojun delivers Hyunjin a fleeting side-eye; he takes the hint and pushes himself to his feet, feeling uncharacteristically clumsy as he moves towards you.
The second time he meets your gaze, it feels wrong, almost, for him to hold it for as long as he does. Like he’s approaching your throne with his chin held high and eyes fixed forward instead of his head sweeping the ground.
Except he swears he senses a strange warmth within the rings of your irises, and he spends every second of eye contact following, chasing it, almost craning his neck with how badly he wants to get a closer look. Until he’s as close to you as is socially acceptable for a first meeting and comes to a halt.
He ends up losing its trail, but he won’t forget that it’s there.
“My client, I’m guessing?” You say, extending your hand. “Y/N. It’s a pleasure.”
Your fingers are freezing cold where they meet his, and Hyunjin already knows that melting the permafrost that coats your flesh and guards your soul will be the tallest task of his life.
But he finds his next words accompanied by an involuntary smirk; he’s nothing, if not tenacious.
“Hyunjin,” he returns. “Pleasure’s all mine.”
Nine months ago. Paris, France. 6:16 P.M.
Hyunjin isn’t sure why—maybe you forget that he can still steal glances at your reflection over your shoulder or through the gaps of your fingers—but he’s learned over the last four weeks that you’re different, gentler, when you’re doing his makeup.
Your cold hands request instead of demand that he angle his head a certain way or suck in his cheeks. Your syllables are rounder somehow, your voice never traveling above a murmur. Even your eyes mellow out when you move in really close, your pupils dilating as you detail the final touches to the fresco you’ve painted upon him.
Your expression doesn’t give you away (it never does), but his hunch is that there’s a sprinkle of doting somewhere among the intense focus. That would explain why he feels like a flower in the moments when your fingertips and gaze move so carefully over his skin, like you’re touching his petals, trying not to tear them.
Too bad you never let him daydream for long.
“Close.”
“Huh?”
“Your eyes. Close them.”
His lashes have hardly brushed his lower lids when you begin to empty what feels like an entire bottle of setting spray on him. At the moist surprise, Hyunjin’s features scrunch up around his nose and he lets out a distraught hack like an old man.
A few seconds later, the barrage stops, and he cracks open a wary eye to scope out his surroundings. You wait until he does this to give his face one last spurt.
“Witch,” Hyunjin mutters, clawing back up the vanity chair.
“Thank you,” you reply, completely earnestly.
And whatever Hyunjin was going to say next suspends instantly on his tongue when you bring the pad of your thumb to the very edge of his lower lip and drag it across the soft flesh. He wonders if you know how hard he tries not to look at your mouth whenever you tend to his. He wonders if there’s anything you don’t know.
“You smudged your lipstick already.” There’s a small streak of coral pink on your hand when it falls back to your side. “See? That’s why we need the setting spray.”
“Uh huh.” And Hyunjin spots a ghost of a smile flit across your face, gone nearly as soon as it appears. The only evidence of it ever existing is the quickened heartbeat it leaves behind within him.
“You’re done, by the way,” you say, stepping aside. “Take a look.”
He slips out of his seat and moves closer to the vanity, peering at his reflection as curiously as if he’s never seen it before. But that’s how he’s felt since he started working with you.
Seojun was right: you are the best that the makeup industry has to offer. Hyunjin has come to understand this for multiple reasons. Your phone screen is incessantly illuminated by new notifications and incoming calls. The other stylists heed your advice like it’s the law. Brushes and pencils move like water when it’s you maneuvering them. And then some.
He would call what you have “talent,” but he knows it’s more than that. You show him a new version of himself every time you turn a mirror in his direction, like there are facets of him that are visible to you and you only. As much as he delights in the notion that you have such intimate knowledge of him, it should be impossible, considering you’ve only known him for two months. So no, it’s not just talent that you possess. It’s some combination of talent, hawkish perception, and raw artistry that is utterly inhuman—and sexy as fuck.
Speaking of sexy. Hyunjin’s look is relatively rudimentary tonight, the makeup light, the outfit a simple black tank top beneath a jacket and pants made of bright red velvet. But it’s the details that tie the whole thing together: the wide, loose sleeves causing the jacket to slip continually off his shoulders; the inner layer tight in all the right places. His face doesn’t look half bad either, with the sultry carmine powder that fringes his eyes and the intentionally mussed state of his hair. He pushes a hand through the dark locks, regarding himself with thorough appreciation.
You appear in his periphery as you start cleaning up your work station. “You can just take the jacket off when your sweat glands start malfunctioning, by the way. I thought you’d appreciate that detail.”
At this, his smize cracks into a laugh, the sound loud and uninhibited and uniquely yours to hear. “You suck.”
He looks away from his reflection just in time to glimpse another of your phantom smiles, and he thinks it’s so painfully on brand that the two times it’s appeared tonight have both been from you making yourself laugh. You might be the most insufferable person he’s ever met. He might be obsessed with you anyways.
“Well?” You implore. “What do you think?”
“No notes.”
It’s the answer you’re expecting. You survey him from head to toe one last time, decide that you, too, are satisfied, and slip your makeup into your bag; hike its strap over your shoulder.
“I’ll see you after the show, then.”
You have an important conference call to attend before tonight’s concert, hence why Hyunjin had to come in early for hair and makeup. This is also the reason why the two of you have been the only people in the dressing room for the better part of an hour.
It’s rare that he ever gets you alone, and he doesn’t want it to end. Not just yet.
“I lied, actually,” he calls. “I do have notes.”
You already have one foot out the door when you hear this, and you turn around so slowly and in such disbelief that he has to fight to constrain his laugh—the concept of imperfection is truly unthinkable to you. Insufferable, like he said.
“Do tell,” you say, dropping your bag back onto the floor.
“You have any jewelry for me?”
You chew on this for a moment. You did have a selection of necklaces prepared for tonight, but they were heavy and numerous, not exactly the best-suited for the group’s dynamic sets. You still like them, granted, and you know Hyunjin would as well.
You articulate all of this to him, and he asks if he can take a look at them anyways. “Come here, then,” you say, the words so tantalizing when they fall from your lips that nearly trips over himself trying to obey.
You take out a flat rectangular box from your bag and set it down in front of the lightbulb-studded mirrors. Hyunjin observes quietly as you show him its contents: three thick, gold chains with varying lengths and boasting different pendants, plus a beaded bracelet and an assembly of rings of the same material. His devious plan aside, he does love the selection.
“You’re sure you won’t be uncomfortable?”
He nods, and you pick up the longest of the three chains; turn to him expectedly. He takes this as his cue to move closer to you, except he overshoots a little, and he feels the tips of his shoes accidentally bump into the ends of yours; discerns the warmth emanating from your body against his own. He expects a withering glare, a kick in the shin, maybe, but you don’t seem bothered by the proximity at all, unblinking as you bring your hands around the either side of his neck and fasten the first necklace with a soft tap. Your fingers then brush over his collarbones to adjust the pendant, and he thinks your hands would have to be numb not to perceive the frantic heartbeat threatening to burst straight out of his skin.
Entire minutes pass before Hyunjin musters the courage to actually look at you. By then, you’re already working on the third and final necklace. It’s not a surprise that your face is mere inches away from his; he’s been watching your reflections out of the corner of his eye; he knows you’re closer to each other than you’ve ever been. But there are parts of you that the mirror doesn’t show—the soft curve of your lashes, the concentrated narrow of your eyes, the shapely protrusion of your pursed lips—and these surprise him so thoroughly that he slips and slides out of his right mind.
You are the type of beautiful that’s been around longer than humans have, the same as that of the true blue color of forget-me-nots. And Hyunjin feels enveloped, intoxicated by you from this minuscule distance. The idea forms numbly in his head that maybe, just maybe, he was put on this earth to admire you.
In this inebriated state, he makes a venturesome decision.
When you finish centering the last pendant upon the his chest, you are about to take a step back and review the updated look, but you’re debilitated by the feeling of fingers grazing over your hip—lightly, so lightly that you mistake them for a gust of wind at first, but the contact is enough to push the small of your back against the edge of the counter. Then, both of Hyunjin’s hands reach behind you, pressing flat against the marble surface, and, just like that, he has you right where he wants you, ensnared between cold stone and hot flesh.
And so begins an equilibrium so fragile that it’ll shatter if one of you so much as blinks the wrong way, your rattled breath fluttering against his lips, his eyes dark and hooded and out of focus as they survey the fine lines of your expression. It still doesn’t give you away (it never does), but he finds that in this moment he just doesn’t care.
“Let me take you out,” he murmurs. “One date.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” You reply under your breath.
“You know what I’m talking about, beautiful.”
Upon uttering that last word, he angles his head almost imperceptibly, the movement challenging, daring you to say something about it. But you don’t. You merely hiss out a whetted “you’re fucking crazy,” and that’s his opening to drag this on a little longer; push your limits a little more.
“About you? Damn straight.”
At this, finally, fucking finally, there is a semblance of something in your face that isn’t just your usual mildly-irritated nonchalance. Instead, he detects surprise in the whites of your eyes as you widen them; as you part your lips with a response that only comes much later.
And he’s surprised by your surprise. Surely, with your skills of observation, you would’ve noticed long ago how his world shrinks down to only you and your gorgeous voice and your confident glare and your shitty sense of humor whenever he’s been granted the privilege of your presence.
This might be the first time he’s admitted it out loud, but he hasn’t tried—hasn’t been able—to hide how he feels about you, not now, not ever. It’s been that way since the moment the sole of your shoe met the carpet of that conference room on the fourth floor of the JYP building.
“Hwang—” You begin.
“Hyung!”
At the sound of a third, new voice, your arms tense like you’re about to shove Hyunjin off of you, but he only leans in further, so that his lips almost graze your jaw and your hands have nowhere to go except the taut surface of his chest. The surprise is gone; now you’re just pissed. He can feel the heat of your furious eyes and the tremor in your hands as you form fists around the fabric of his top. But he takes his sweet time in scooping up the bracelet and rings, and only afterwards does he pull away from you and straighten to his full height.
“Hey, Innie!” Hyunjin chirps, and Jeongin materializes in the doorway, looking thoroughly perturbed by the older boy’s sunny tone. “What’s up?”
In the meantime, you turn around to snap the lid of your jewelry box shut, and it takes a singular glance in the mirror for a truly horrible realization to settle upon your shoulders. You don’t think anybody would be able to tell even if you announced it outright, but you know yourself and the little nuances of your face all too well.
You’re flustered.
You feel like a horror movie heroine breaking the fourth wall.
“Nothing, weirdo. I was just announcing my arrival,” Jeongin says. Thank fuck you did, Hyunjin thinks to himself, completely unaware of the epiphany you’re having behind him. “Chan-hyung mentioned you were here already? Why?”
“She’s in high demand.” Hyunjin points out the she in question by jutting his chin in your direction. “The usual.”
“Ah.”
Jeongin inclines his head towards you in polite greeting. You return his hello, but your expression starts to feel tight when his eyes dart between the strange smile on Hyunjin’s face and your awkward stance (still glued to the edge of the counter) as he drops his duffel by the couch. The boy isn’t stupid, unlike his older counterpart.
“I saw a vending machine on my way here,” Jeongin says, turning to leave the room again. “You want anything, hyung? Noona?”
“I’m okay, thank you,” you say.
“I’ll have whatever you have,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin flashes a thumbs-up and dips out of the room, perhaps a little more hastily than he intends to come across. And then there are two. Again.
You wait until you can’t hear his footsteps anymore, and then you turn to glower at Hyunjin so intensely that he thinks you’re about to place a curse on his whole bloodline.
Then, your phone starts vibrating, and he knows he’ll live to see another day.
“You still owe me an answer,” Hyunjin calls as you turn around and leave the room.
“Don’t hold your breath,” you reply.
One day, I’ll break her, is the predominant thought that resides in Hyunjin’s head as he slips on the remaining jewelry; watches your figure disappear around a corner. One day, I’ll break his face, is the predominant thought that resides in yours as you stalk away. That’s the two of you, in a nutshell.
Six months ago. Osaka, Japan. 3:03 P.M.
When you walk into the dressing room, you find Haeun hunched over an overflowing photo album with her hands forming fists in her hair, muttering to nobody in particular, “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”
There’s an amused look in your eye as you set your bag down by Hyunjin’s empty vanity chair. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet; approximately three hallways down, the members are rehearsing for tonight’s performance on the main stage of the Kyocera Dome, and the music is so loud that you think you actually saw the walls vibrating while you were in the hallway moments ago.
You rise to your tiptoes and encroach upon her, waiting until she’s within reach to tickle the back of her neck. She nearly flies out of her seat with a shriek that can be heard over the heavy bass.
“Never gets old.” You hand her the photo album that went soaring also, and Haeun snatches it back with an affronted flourish.
“I can’t remember the last time you said hi to me normally, unnie.”
“Me neither, now that you mention it.”
Haeun and Han are your favorite stylist-idol duo in the world because they’re so eerily similar—and it’s adorable. They both illuminate every room they walk into; they both have grins too big for their faces, laughs too loud for their lungs. You always regret leaving your sunglasses at home when you catch sight of the effulgent pair.
But today you cannot detect the usual radiance in Haeun’s voice, nor so much as a hint of her easy grin. Then again, that’s another quality that she and her client share; they’re both well acquainted with the burdens that come with unwavering passion.
Every stylist has their own modus operandi. Haeun’s is a scrapbook of images that she cuts out and saves from catalogs, advertisements, newspapers, et cetera. You’ve seen it many times before, but never in such a state: messy handwriting stuffing the margins to their very brims, numbers and symbols like clusters of rainclouds over a sea of different outfits, arrows and circles and squares highlighting pant cuffs and cascade collars and dangling earrings. Telltale signs that Haeun hasn’t a clue as to what Han will be wearing tonight.
You gnaw on your lower lip, deliberating your next move. You end up placing a firm hand against the album’s cover and pushing it closed.
“Come with me,” you say. “We’re gonna try a new approach.”
Haeun opens her mouth to protest, but unfortunately you have an extensive track record of being right.
“What do you have in mind?” She sighs instead.
“You’ll see.”
With that, you stand up, tuck a small towel under your arm, and angle your head in the direction of the music.
The two of you make your way through the labyrinth of hallways that comprise the venue’s backstage. Eventually, the color of the floor changes from speckled white to solid black, and you step onto the part of the stage that is concealed from the audience by drawn curtains and heavy equipment. You say a quick hello to the group’s manager as you dip past him, and eventually reach the edge of the curtains, where you and Haeun have a good view of the eight members as they run through their setlist for tonight’s concert.
Haeun settles into the spot beside you, still confused as she follows your gaze.
“Let me ask you this,” you say, just audible over the din. “Can you style a performer if you don’t know how he performs?”
And understanding seeps over her features like poured tea.
“I want you to watch him,” you continue. “Tell me how he performs.”
Han’s part begins, as if on cue. His voice rings out through the empty stadium as he ducks to the front of the formation, a microphone held loosely to his lips, his face taut with focus. Haeun stares at him for some time, silently trying to fathom her observations, but she sees you shaking your head in the corner of her eye.
“Don’t think, Haeun. Just speak.”
She blows out a deep breath before obliging. “It’s hard to picture Han doing anything but laughing or making other people laugh, he’s so goofy and lighthearted most of the time. But he’s like a different person on stage. He’s so intense, it’s almost intimidating. Not intimidating in a douchey way, though—you just get the impression that he’s very confident in himself and his music.
You don’t say another word, but don’t need to. She’s hit her stride.
“His voice and enunciation are so clear. It’s crazy how he sounds exactly like the studio recording. Plus, his delivery feels genuine; he’s not just reciting lyrics, but speaking straight from his heart.
“And this is gonna sound bad, but I didn’t know Han could dance. Like, yeah, I knew that he could dance, but not like this. His movements are so sharp that I feel like my attention is being—”
Right there.
She cuts herself off, reaching the same conclusion.
“It’s his turn to talk, and he wants you to cling to his every word," Haeun articulates slowly. "He’s demanding your attention. He needs you to listen. That’s how he performs.”
A satisfied smile bolts across your face like lightning. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Haeun pictures her scrapbook again, and there are now only a few articles of clothing and accessories that fit the framework you’ve helped her forge. She’s almost dizzy with disbelief, tearing her eyes from Han to look at you instead.
“You’re brilliant, you know that?”
“I do, but I appreciate the reminder.”
She can’t help but giggle. It’s a you answer if she’s ever heard one. “Do you do that with all of your clients?”
Haeun asks the question arbitrarily, without thinking. But you respond in a way that she doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed before, and she’s momentarily baffled by the sight: you hesitate.
As the song’s final chorus approaches, Hyunjin is the one folding himself into the center of the eight-person throng. You can only see his back from this angle, but even then it’s palpable how expertly and effortlessly he molds his body to the modulations of the music; how much fervor and feeling he expresses with every jerk of his spine and flex of his hands.
Within a few short seconds, innumerable descriptors and sensations skim the surface of your mind—but one word knocks the rest clean out of the water, the way it always does when you watch Hwang Hyunjin perform.
Artistry.
“No,” you reply. “Not all of them.”
And where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?
Haeun furrows a brow, understandably puzzled by this response, but you don’t elaborate. Partially because you feel like being coy, but mostly because you know that any explanation you offer will sound like a confession.
The song ends, leaving your ears ringing with the abrupt absence of sound. The members hold their poses with heaving shoulders, staring out into the empty stands until the stage manager’s voice comes through the monitors.
“And that’s a wrap! We’re all set for tonight. Good work, everyone.”
There is a ripple of movement around the stage as the boys relax. Jeongin jogs over to Minho, hoping to review a particularly challenging dance break; the manager asks Chan if he has a second to discuss travel logistics; Seungmin plops onto the edge of the stage and downs the rest of his water; Hyunjin beelines toward you the second he sees you, because of course he does.
You get a good look at him as he skips closer. Stray blonde locks plastered against his damp skin, tank top dyed several shades darker by the perspiration rolling down his neck, the muscles of his arms actually rippling as he swings them around stupidly, a shit-eating smile plastered across his stunning face.
You’re annoyed before he says a word.
“I didn’t know they were letting fans backstage now,” he hums happily. “Want an autograph, gorgeous?”
“Put a sock in it.” You whisk the towel you’ve been holding in his direction. “Wet freak.”
But he catches and tosses it over his shoulder straightaway, and your heart sinks to your fucking ankle. You’ve seen this movie before. You know how it ends.
“No.” You take a shaky step back. “No, nope, don’t even think about—”
The next thing you know, Hyunjin is lunging towards you and winding his arms around your waist, nearly sweeping you clean off your feet as he pulls you into his sweaty embrace. To your complete dismay, your face presses flat against the clammy plane of his chest. “Call me a wet freak again, go on,” he manages to say through his laughter.
In response, one of your hands wriggles free of its slippery prison and snatches the cuff of Hyunjin’s ear with impressive accuracy. He yelps and loosens his hold on you, but doesn’t relent completely, not even when he catches sight of the murderous expression on your face and cackles so forcefully his whole head is thrown back.
You tighten your grip. “Wet,” you seethe, “freak.”
“Ow—okay, don’t make it hot, what’s wrong with you?”
“Wha—what’s wrong with YOU?!”
As the two of you dissolve into your fatuous arguing, Haeun is no longer sure that she’s still standing here. She’s not even sure if she’s in her right mind anymore. She thinks she might be hallucinating the way everything about Hyunjin softens next to you, or the way your biting tone only seems to nibble when it’s him on the receiving end.
“Psst. We’ve been placing bets on them. You want in?”
Han suddenly materializes next to Haeun, and she would have been jumpscared into a different dimension if she wasn’t so fixated upon the bizarre occurrence before her.
But what if she’s not hallucinating?
No, not all of them, you’d said, like you were disclosing a forbidden secret.
“Yes,” she says, and Han beams. “Absolutely.”
Three months ago. Seoul, South Korea. 2:26 A.M.
On a tranquil Saturday night, you’re sitting at your desk, your knees tucked to your chest, the newest episode of your drama playing quietly on your laptop, a half-empty glass of rosé and open sketchbook laid before you. This is your happy place—a safe haven that the trials and tribulations of the real world can’t reach. But you think you’ve really gone and lost your mind when you find yourself thinking about your job.
Well, not your job, exactly. More like the man who makes your job feel fucking Sisyphean.
You know your way around fabric and foundation better than anyone, but you have never struggled with anything as much as you have trying to navigate Hyunjin. You show up to work every day ready to just put some makeup on the man; instead, you wind up stumbling around the potholes of his dimples and the hills of the veins that run over his forearms and hands like a hopeless drunkard. Scouring the creases of his smile and the oscillations of his voice like they’re topographical maps. Mentally replaying your interactions with him time and time again like you’re monitoring security footage, trying to detect illicit activity in every casual touch he leaves on your shoulder or waist; every babe or gorgeous he throws your way, seemingly without a second thought.
You’ve been trying to understand him and his intentions for seven months now, and your efforts have yielded no fruit whatsoever, save for a few theories that you feel insane for even humoring.
You down the rest of the blush-colored liquid, and as you set down your empty glass you notice your fingers itch with a familiar urge. The pen that you’ve been twirling over your knuckles stills, then swivels; its tip hovers over the last free corner of the sheet of cartridge paper below you. And then it presses upon the surface and starts to move, as naturally as if on its own.
When you were little, you came across a children’s book that you no longer remember the name of, about a little girl with a magical pen that brought her every drawing to life. You decided then that you would one day be that girl.
At some point, the subjects of your incessant sketching became almost exclusively runway models and makeup advertisements. You cemented that you wanted to work in fashion as early as your high school graduation, and by then you already possessed the conviction and charisma of the industry’s most experienced members. Your portfolio was stellar; your personality prophesied of wild success. So your career took off, propelled by the neverending positions and projects that various companies continually laid before your feet.
You stand and pad to your kitchen to refill your glass, only to bring the entire bottle of wine back to your room instead. With one hand, you flick the cap off and lift the whole thing to your lips; with the other, you seize your pen again, not wanting to lose momentum.
For the year or so after you joined the industry, you basked in your idyllic prosperity. Even the doodles you scrawled on random napkins during banal business lunches would appear on some of the world’s most renowned faces the next week. You had indubitably become the little girl from your story; made a career out of giving your imagination tangible form. And what a fruitful career it was going to be.
If only you knew how it would strengthen you in ways you never wanted.
The first time someone called you cold, it took you a while to realize that they were talking about you. The phrase was said so casually and lightheartedly that it sounded at first like a piece of unimportant small talk. But the whisper of cold bitch was then followed by a bout of stifled laughter and what was undoubtedly your name. Your heart stopped along with your footsteps, and you looked towards the source: two interns whose names you had yet to learn, while yours was already in their mouths.
You felt nothing until you were three stops away from your apartment, and then the bottom of the subway gave out beneath you and suddenly you were feeling everything. Only confusion, hurt, and rage at first, but then the other emotions that you’d been smothering tirelessly for who-knows-how-long tore free of their cerebral shackles too, and together they formed an amalgamation of anxiety that closed up your throat within seconds.
As your pen studs details into a shapely jawline, you remember how you’d shoved your way off the subway and made a mad dash into the night air. You remember how you collapsed against a utility pole in an unfamiliar neighborhood, how your knuckles paled around the ashen wood, how your tears tumbled over your lips and salted your tongue. You remember wanting to go home so badly that you thought your ribcage would cave in on itself with the weight of it. You remember begging for air, for you.
By the time the oxygen had returned to your lungs, the streets were empty save for you, crouched on the curb, your face buried in your arms, spent, shattered, and alone. You were only nineteen at the time.
You are now twenty-two, and the word “cold” has become a regular guest in the lodgings of your heart. You never invite it over, but you’re no longer surprised to find it at your door. It’s a thief, swiping pieces of you when it thinks you’re not looking—a fragment above the fireplace, a scrap from the cracks between the couch—and you know whenever you’re being robbed, know that you lose parts of yourself upon its every visit. But better that than acknowledging what you lose.
You allow it to walk away with full pockets every time.
Hyunjin does not.
“Three words to describe yourself. Go,” he said a few days ago, the two of you heading back to the tour bus after a filming session.
You were so used to these irrational inquiries of his that you didn’t bother trying to dodge this one. “You first.”
“Smart, sexy, suave,” he said immediately, but burst into a sheepish laugh at the sight of your weary glare. “Fine, fine, let me think. Ambitious, for one. Introspective, definitely—maybe overly so. And artistic. I’d like to think so, at least. Satisfied?”
The most creative person you knew doubting his own ingenuity was absurd to you, but you nodded begrudgingly. It was a good answer, for the most part.
“Now you.”
Honestly, the thief had surfaced the moment you heard the question, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to inform Hyunjin of its existence. Not because you didn’t trust him—you did, more than you had anyone in years—but because you didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if he agreed. You weren’t sure your heart would be able to take it.
When you met the boy’s gaze, though, the carob brown of his eyes was so curious and so comforting that you suspected that was never a possibility.
“Cold,” you mumbled. “I’ve been called cold before.”
There was a pregnant pause. You found yourself holding your breath. And then—
“That’s a joke, right?”
Hyunjin began to count off his fingers.
“Mean. So mean. Impossibly, infuriatingly confident. Talented, stubborn, strong. Funny, sometimes, I guess, though I’d rather you hit me with a metal pipe than admit that ever again.”
At this, you caved; a laugh erupted from your lips, leaving a genuine smile in its wake.
“Determined. Eloquent. Bossy. Some kind of evil, twisted genius. Contemplative, caring, compassionate. Fearless,” he went on. “You get my point. You’re a lot of things, Y/N, but cold isn’t one—”
He was about to say something mind-numbingly stupid. You could sense it in the air.
“—and not just because you’re hot.”
You smacked his bicep, the smile on your face now an uninhibited, helpless grin. And as he vanished into a fit of high-pitched laughter, you thought you sensed him crack open your door and slip your missing artifacts back to their rightful places.
Hyunjin began to climb into the bus, and you caught the cuff of his sleeve, your feet still planted on the pavement.
“Thank you,” you said.
The tremors of his fond chuckle traveled to your very core.
“Idiot,” he sighed softly.
Idiot, you write, and the drawings are complete.
When you stand up, the bottle is mostly gone—and so are you. You splash some water on your face in lieu of your skincare routine and prod the inside of your mouth a few times using a dry toothbrush, and then you dive beneath your duvet and are dead asleep in minutes. Your slumber is interrupted only by dreams of a world where your theories about Hyunjin aren’t just theories.
If you’d had even one mouthful less of rosé, you might’ve remembered that you picked up your phone and opened your most recent conversation somewhere between steps two and three.
[3:10 A.M.]
To: Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids, JYP)
Audio Message.wav
Hi. I’m drunk and I’m going to regret this tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow’s business. There’s something I need to tell you tonight.
After I moved to Seoul, I used to get these bouts of homesickness. Not in a standard ‘I wanna go home’ kind of way, but in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below me. I was always ready for it to swallow me alive. I would’ve been happy for it to.
But I haven’t felt that way since I met you. I realized this not too long ago, and it threw me for a fucking loop. I’ve never felt seen the way you see me. I’ve never been known the way you know me. Every time I look at you or hear your voice, it feels so much like returning home that I don’t have to dream of it anymore.
You called me fearless the other day, but you’re wrong. I’m terrified. I’m terrified that history is going to repeat itself, that another home will slip through the cracks between my fingers and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. And that’s why I’m so hesitant towards you, towards whatever this is, because I don’t want to go through that ever again.
So the thing I need to tell you is that I care about you. I care so much that I’m scared speaking it into existence will make it real and vulnerable to all the worst parts of the world. But it’s not speaking it into existence if I’m drunk, right? Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ll never even hear this. So it doesn’t count. That’s how that works, surely.
Sorry if this was totally nonsensical. And sorry that I’m so bad at feelings. You must think I’m impossible, and I don’t blame you.
Good night, Hyunjin. Thank you, again.
One month ago. Los Angeles, United States. 12:37 A.M.
When Hyunjin steps out of the hotel’s tall glass double doors, he’s wearing a teatree facemask, and his bags are draped over the crooks of his elbows like he’s an upper-echelon socialite on his way back from a lavish shopping spree. And then he sees you standing next to the curb, and the situation dawns on him in bits and pieces.
You’re the only one here. The vans that were supposed to take you to the airport are nowhere to be seen. Boarding begins in four minutes.
A soft flinch crimps his features. Oops.
“Tomorrow night,” you’re saying into your receiver, but your attention is on him only, your penetrative gaze putting the dead in deadpan. “The absolute earliest. You’re sure?”
When you finish listening to the manager’s response, you heave a sigh that sags your shoulders and end the call with a jab that should’ve splintered your screen protector.
Then, you start walking towards him.
“Hi,” Hyunjin says, his eyes pleading for mercy. “You are so talented and beautiful. I don’t tell you that often enough, do I?”
He expects you to grab him by the cuff of his ear again, to throw him a retort that’s twice as mean as it is witty, something along those lines. But you merely push your suitcase in his direction, and it is then when he notices that your face is hard enough to chip enamel; that your eyes are eerily, entirely empty. The tendril of warmth that’s always dancing among the subtleties of your expressions, that he’s always pursuing to the very borders of his dreamscapes, is nowhere to be seen.
A shiver travels down Hyunjin’s spine as he curls his fingers around the plastic handle.
Something’s not right.
“We’re gonna have to stay here another day,” you say. “Can you check us in? I have some calls to make.”
“Us?” Hyunjin repeats.
“Junghan could only reserve one room,” you reply, your phone already glued back to your ear. “The hotel is fully booked for the next few months.”
With that, you’re already preoccupied with the next thing, turning to the side to reschedule a meeting. But Hyunjin can only stare blankly at your profile, trying and failing to grasp that he’s going to spend a night with the subject of his every daydream. Though you might be leaning more towards the nightmare end of the spectrum at the moment, considering the way your head snaps back in his direction like a woman possessed.
Go, you mouth, and he obliges.
A few minutes later, Hyunjin is in the elevator by himself. He speculates it’s an ingenious, intentional choice that the lights are turned off, so that whoever’s inside can watch the psychedelic lights of Los Angeles sprawl further and wider the higher they go. But he can’t think of anything except for the subzero nothingness where your irises should’ve been.
Hyunjin’s initial guess was that he crossed a line with this missed plane, but the more he thinks about it the clearer it becomes that this isn’t an isolated issue. It’s the culmination of something bigger. Something continuous.
You have become as familiar to him as the lines of his eyes or the ridges of his knuckles. He’s learned where to look for your feelings when he can’t find them in your face; studied your words and the undertones of your voice like they’re verses of scripture. Yet, it was around two months ago when Hyunjin looked at your side profile and couldn’t recognize you. He’d blinked, startled, and then you’d asked why he was looking at you so strangely, and everything returned to normal. He wrote it off as a side effect of sleep deprivation and paid it no more mind that day.
Except it happened again a few days later; again, not too long after, and Hyunjin began to suspect that he was losing his mind. You didn’t seem all that different—a bit more taciturn than usual, maybe, but you’d been busier than usual, too, your workspace always full of empty coffee cups by the end of the day, the pages of your planner more colorful and crammed than ever. The minor variances never struck him as a reason for worry.
“Stupid,” Hyunjin whispers bitterly.
He replays your interaction one more time. You, shoving your suitcase against his palm, telling him to go check in. Him, fastening his hand around the handle, sensing the bottomless void within you, feeling like he’d been dismissed from before your throne.
As he steps off the elevator and walks towards your designated room, he doesn’t understand how or why—but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s failed you.
Nearly an hour passes. The room only has one bed, so Hyunjin turns off the lights, folds himself onto the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window, drapes a complimentary robe over his shoulders, and tries to sleep. He doesn’t know why he even tries. He’s exhausted, but he knows damn well there’s no hope of him getting any rest until he has you in his proximity again.
He doesn’t look at the door when he finally hears it open, but the knot of tension in his chest comes undone as soon as your silhouette appears in the hallway. He takes out his first real breath since leaving you at the hotel’s entrance.
You hear the sound it makes. You fall still.
“Hyunjin?”
His heart physically aches at how tired you sound. “Yeah?”
“Oh, you’re awake,” you answer. “Move to the bed. You’re not sleeping on that thing.”
He remains where he is, his chin resting on the side of his fist, his eyes glued to the flickering panorama of neon lights below him. You crouch to unzip something, and there’s a heavy thud of metal meeting cloth, presumably your laptop being tossed onto the bed’s mattress.
“Hello? Did you—”
“Is everything okay?”
A short pause follows his interruption.
“I still have a few emails to write, but everything’s been rescheduled, so as long as you don’t miss tomorrow’s flight, too, we should be—”
The robe slides off his lap as he pushes himself to his feet. “That’s not what I mean.”
The only source of light in the room is the lone light above the entrance, but it’s enough for him to see your face and the surprise etched upon it. You open your mouth, utter one syllable, and stop yourself immediately after, stunned into silence by the sobriety in Hyunjin’s expression.
“Enlighten me, then,” you say finally.
“You really don’t know?”
“What is there to know? That you missed a flight and pissed me the fuck off? Trust me, I’m aware.”
“No, that’s not—”
“So what are you talking about, then? Why are you talking in riddles? Fuck, what is it that you want from me?”
There’s real frustration in your voice, and it’s the first time you’ve shown him any emotion in pure, unadulterated form. With this, Hyunjin understands that he was right; this conversation is heading towards a culmination of some kind, and so are you, with the devastating force of a natural phenomenon.
He wonders if you’re prepared to destroy yourself, too.
“I know how you are around me,” you whisper. “You’re always acting like you’re trying to unearth something, and I figure this ‘something’ must be wonderful, because you look at me like I’m made of stars; you speak to me like you’re serenading a lover. But I am constantly, ceaselessly haunted by the possibility that this ‘something’ doesn’t exist, that you’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong person.
“I know it’s selfish to ask for anything more than what you’ve already given me—you’re so kind, Hyunjin, and you’ve been nothing but since the day we met. But grant me one more wish, even if it is the last time you ever do.
“Tell me what you see in me,” you plead. “Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my life mourning the months of yours that you wasted on me.”
With that, it occurs to Hyunjin, falls upon and cracks open his mind like a piece of firewood, that you have never been aware of—never asked for—the throne you sit upon.
For an indeterminate amount of time, the two of you stay there, standing in silence on opposite sides of your dark hotel room. You haven’t felt anything like this in a long time, your chest heaving with your heavy breaths, your vision muddied by both the lack of light and the desperation searing through your windpipe.
When Hyunjin finally begins to speak, his words wrest the oxygen from your lungs.
“After you moved to Seoul, you used to get these bouts of homesickness.”
Your mind careens; your heart reels.
“They came in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below you.” He takes a tentative step towards you. “You thought it was going to swallow you alive. You would’ve been happy for it to.”
You never got to listen to your voice note. You were blacked out when you recorded it and horrified when you discovered it in your chat logs the next morning; the wretched thing was unsent so quickly that you couldn’t check for a read receipt.
But there’s not a doubt in your mind that these are your words falling from Hyunjin’s lips.
“You haven’t felt that way since you met me, though.” He is only a few feet away from you now, and getting closer still. “You’ve never felt seen the way I see you. You’ve never been known the way I know you.”
God, you said that? Did you propose to him too?
“You’re terrified that another home will slip through the cracks between your fingers and there will be nothing you can do to stop it.” Hyunjin flattens his left hand upon the drywall next to your ear; pushes you back ever-so-gently against the hard surface. “I must think you’re impossible.”
And he brings his face so, so close to yours; looks at you with so much adoration, so much tenderness, that you feel the final bulwark around your heart fracture—
“I don’t,” Hyunjin breathes, cradling your cheek, “because you’re not. And I want to prove it to you, even if it takes me the rest of my life. That’s what I see in you.”
—and crumble.
You form fists in the lining of his hoodie. Hyunjin’s hand tightens where it lays over the curve of your jaw.
When you crash your lips upon his, he tastes the metallic sheen of electricity and the salt of tearwater both; he witnesses crying lightning, for the first time in human history.
Present day. Cannes, France. 9:15 P.M.
Hyunjin never thinks when he fucks you.
One part of it is that he physically can’t; his cognitive facilities shut down when he has you quivering beneath him, like his desire to pleasure you is too overwhelming for his mind to bear. The other part is that he doesn’t want to. He’s afraid that the voices of cynicism and trepidation that plague his mind every waking moment will taint the actualization of his wildest dreams.
Lucky for him, you manage to erase his mind on a daily basis with only one accidental touch or an apparition of a smile, so he doesn’t stand a chance whenever you let him between your legs.
“Trust me?” He whispers, imprinting the words upon the inside of your thigh.
“More than anyone,” you breathe, and just this has him tenting against his satin slacks.
Hyunjin used to see you scolding managers or moving racks twice your weight and think that was you in your element—tonight, he learned otherwise. You were so confident that even just the way you puffed your chest out prompted heads to turn and low voices to ask for your name; so charming that even by the end of your self-introduction you had every guest you spoke to eating out the palm of your hand.
Eating out your pussy, though, is Hyunjin’s privilege alone.
He wraps his fingers around the hem of your dress and pushes it upwards, creating a halo of red fabric around your midriff; slides your panties off your legs and tosses them over his shoulder. All obstacles out of the way, Hyunjin winds his arms around your thighs and pins your hips to the mattress, slotting himself between your knees as they fall apart. Your ankles fold over the top of his head, and you’re about to ask if he’s okay like this, but then you feel the hot muscle of his tongue trace over your dripping folds—and every word of every language you’ve ever known is dispelled from your brain and your mouth in the form of a stuttered, euphoric moan.
He teases you first, drags his mouth over you so that he’s lapped up all of your slick, and just when you feel your patience thinning he pulls you apart with reverent hands and begins to suckle on your clit, as attentive to your every solicitation as always. You arch your back so high off the bed that your ankles knock Hyunjin’s head down a few inches, but the new angle is even better; grants him access to more of you.
He reinforces his grip around you, presses his torso right up against the side of the mattress, and gorges: sluices your labia until you’re spilling from his chin onto the sheets; flicks against your bundle of nerves until it’s pulsating and swollen on his mouth; fucks his tongue against your favorite spot until you’re curling your toes, seeing the whole solar system.
“Coming,” you blabber after some time. Tell me something I don’t know, he thinks to himself. “Coming, Hyune. I’m—fuck—”
Hyunjin is aware of the way you clench so hard around nothing that your pelvis hurts. He is aware of the way you’re so dilapidated from pleasure that you’re genuinely struggling to breathe. He doesn’t care. He wants to get the cadences of your climax tattooed into the gray matter of his brain, and there can’t be rests in the sheet music, can there?
He presses a hand flat on your stomach in preparation for your body’s protest, then returns his face to its place between your thighs; starts to leave kitten licks around the edges of your puffy folds before you can finish riding out your high. You press your tongue against the back of your front teeth, emitting a pained hiss as you draw a sharp breath, tears stinging at your eyes.
“Son of a bitch—”
“Trust me?” He asks again, his voice vibrating against your sore cunt, and your complaints quiet into whimpers as you bring a hand over your quivering mouth, and nod.
At least Hyunjin bridles his thirst the second time he eats your pussy open, his lips smacking openly and slowly over your every inch except the one that would be truly unbearable for you right now. He’s so rough and so fucking careful at once like he can’t decide between obliterating and worshipping your cunt.
He’ll end up doing both.
Within a few minutes, your legs have gone slack on either side of Hyunjin once again, and another coil has begun to tighten behind your bellybutton, equal parts pain and pleasure—but he knows your pussy just as well as he does your person by now, and it’s not long before the former is compounding with the latter.
Round two has a faster ascent and a steeper drop. He finds your spot again with the precision and ease of a trained marksman and fixates upon it like a man starved. It has your cries devolving to incoherent profanities and, to his unfettered delight, your foot actually shaking, your heel tapping against the back of his neck every time it comes down.
As if referencing a metronome, Hyunjin matches the rhythm of his tongue to your accelerando. Only when your leg is nearly convulsing does he wrap his lips back around your clit; slide two fingers into the place he leaves empty and pumps them into you until you are liquifying, igniting around him, your mewls lamenting the second orgasm he plucks from your core.
After your body has stilled, Hyunjin lifts his head, his face drenched in perspiration and saliva and you. His eyes travel over the slopes of your arms and the hills of your breasts, over the tears streaming from your eyes and staining the pillow you lie on. It is this last bit that has him shrugging off his shirt and undoing his dress pants with one hand, palming his throbbing cock with the other.
He clambers over you, and the kiss that follows is filthy, your mouth falling apart when he rolls your nipples between his fingers, strands of spit suspending between your tongues before dripping down onto your collarbone. You can sense what he wants in his craving lips, his pleading tongue—and you know he won’t ask for it. He’s tested you enough tonight; he’d rather your comfort than his pleasure.
But you guide his leaking head to your entrance, returning his stupefied look with a watery smile.
“Love me?” You ask this time, for the first time.
There is not even a nanosecond of hesitation when he answers, “with everything in me.”
He comes inside you the moment he bottoms out, your name leaving his lips in breathless, desperate repetition like a broken prayer as he topples off the same cliff he’d dropped you from moments ago. You curl a hand in his hair as he stutters against you, bring your lips flush against his ear, and whisper that you love him too—and the sight of you beneath him blurs he also starts to tear up.
This is the reality Hyunjin lives in, presumably because he was a saint in his past life, and it would be his utmost pleasure to see it through.
Two years later. Milan, Italy. 11:28 A.M.
For the last half hour, a ray of sunlight has repeatedly struck the diamond that sits between the second and third knuckle of your ring finger, and the Vogue journalist on the other side of your desk thinks he is slowly losing his vision. But when he asks his final question, your hand comes to a much-appreciated stop, the fountain pen you’ve been twirling around clattering to your tabletop.
“Where do you find your inspiration?”
As the journalist blinks the phosphenes from his eyes, he finally manages to get a good look at the face of Versace’s newest designer, and he detects something ineffable and warm in your expression.
“My inspiration, hm?” You fall silent for a short time, thinking. “If you asked me this at the start of my career, I’d have said ‘people.’ Their postures, their expressions, their wardrobes. I knew I was a goner when I watched a fashion show for the first time and noticed how the models’ attire helped them harness their innate power and grace—I wanted to orchestrate that kind of symbiosis, too. In that aspect, nothing has changed, actually. I still find wonder in human beings, and not just the ones on the runway. I think it would be difficult not to, don’t you?
“Some time ago, a good friend of mine was having trouble with an outfit for her client. She asked me a similar question, and only then did I realize that it was no longer just people that inspired me most, but a singular person. I had always been skeptical of the idea of a ‘muse’ until I met him. But I could only spend so long denying how he ventured closer to my soul than anything ever had, how he knew me and saw me like nobody ever could. He understood my art. He was my art, so—”
Your eyes dart over your ring, and the journalist would’ve flinched out of habit if he wasn’t so mesmerized by your eloquence.
“—where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?”
A few seconds elapse, and then you clear your throat and straighten your back, returning to your office from your trip down memory lane.
“That’s the long answer, anyways. The short answer would be my fiancé.”
The journalist laughs, and he doubts you’ll give him this next piece of information—but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.
“And who would that be?”
He’s right. You don’t answer the question. But you do flash him an enigmatic smile, and for some reason it reminds him of lightning.
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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 works here. thanks so much for the support ♡
#hyunjin x reader#stray kids x reader#stray kids smut#skz x reader#hyunjin smut#skz smut#k-labels#hyunjin imagines#stray kids imagines#skz imagines#hyunjin fluff#stray kids fluff#skz fluff#hyunjin scenarios#stray kids scenarios#skz scenarios#stray kids#hyunjin#*writing#*oneshot
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