#I am genuinely thrilled with how this dress turned out
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So the Éponine from my Les Mis production had her school ball recently, and I sewed her ball dress out of the stars fabric that we used in our set.
#I am genuinely thrilled with how this dress turned out#it took over a month but every pierced fingertip was worth it#Éponine#Les Miserables#Cait Makes#Cait Directs#Cait Sews#On My Own#Sewing
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A little sappy - Enzo Berkshire
Week 4 of @thatdammchickennugget hogmarch challenge! Used the prompt "May I have this dance?" and slipped in the fireworks too tehe. A wee little blurb of Enzo making your dreams come true. Pretty divider from here
Warnings: female reader, fluffy mostly, implied smut, few mentions of divorce.
“There you are. Hope you’re not hiding from me now, dove.” Enzo’s large frame pops round the bend of the door, his brown eyes taking in your pretty appearance. Hunched over the dresser, knees pulled up to your chest, bunching your elegant dress. Not exactly appropriate for the type of party you were at, which was why he loved it.
You roll your eyes once spotting Enzo, placing the book down on the dresser, meeting his eyes. “Of course not, just needed a little space.”
Enzo steps into the room, allowing you to see the full reveal of his dapper outfit, dressed in a full three-piece suit, looking quite the gentleman. Such an optimal disguise at hiding his usual scoundrel appearance, making everyone in sight gush over him.
You had disappeared upstairs to your old room, hoping the memories of your childhood would calm yourself from spiraling. An overwhelming sensation had filled your head the moment you stepped back into the house, the tension stirring below becoming palpable to all of your parents' recent divorce.
His eyes glaze over your mopey dismay, before spotting the brightly covered novel enticing a groan. “What is that, a muggle romcom? Don’t tell me I'm just finding out now, you're into sappy shit.” His voice held a slight mocking disappointment as he reached, inspecting the cheesy title. Cocking a brow, he uttered, “You ditched me for this?”
Heat rises to your cheeks as you roll your eyes again, stifling a laugh. “I am. It’s not sappy, it's romantic.” Sighing, your eyes shift, moving to the mirror, you fix a strand of your hair falling from your unwanted perfect hairdo. “I’m giving you my full attention now, berk.”
“Romantic huh.” the sounds of the music float through the open space, the clear sign your father has turned on the gramophone downstairs. His head quips towards it, chuckling, “looks like your family is starting the annual dance.”
However, you make no effort to move, having no interest in showing face any longer. The idea of contorting your face into a flawless appearance of perfection for your family’s reputation revolts you. It bothered you that it had led to this as you enjoyed the free feeling of dancing. The thrill of intimacy with a person for that mere moment of dance, no words spoken, bodies pressed close. It was the closest thing to a romantic gesture you could get.
“I’m not going back down.” You state your tone laced with melancholy.
An amused snicker falls from his lips, sensing your unpleasantness at his suggestion. “Want me to ask you to dance and all that proper shit, cuz I'll do it”. He extended his hand, bowing slightly, his head raised, meeting your eyes. “May I have this dance?” His lips curving into a dampened smile, truly wanting to see you mirror his affection.
A laugh escapes you, brows shooting up at Enzo’s sudden chivalrous manner, an unusual demeanor for him. But notherthanless, you appreciate his seemingly genuine offer and beam at him, standing to give him a playful curtsy matching his formalities.
Fingers meet as he holds your hand, his other sliding down to grip your waist. Faces inches apart, your gaze acclamatory, appreciating his way of cheering you up. You rest your other hand on his tall shoulder, feeling his defined muscles tightening under his blazer.
The two of you start to move, swaying in harmony, shuffles of feet on the wooden floorboards. A burst of warmth engulfs you as the two of you spin, circling in synchronisation, slow and embracing each other’s rhythm. It differed from how you usually felt when dancing, an extra sense of amour dipping into the action.
Enzo twirls you, his arm extending as you duck underneath it, pulling you back against his chest abruptly. A small oof is exhaled from you, Enzo’s brown orbs twinkling with amusement before seizing your chin and smashing his lips onto yours.
The warmth within you only spreads, heat rising like a flame inhaling gasoline as your lips press back against his. It was everything you dreamed of. While it had Enzo’s flare added into it, the moment was completely romantic to you. Your stomach whirled, the butterflies flapping rapidly within the pit. A scene straight out of one of your muggle books.
As he pulls back noticing your awestruck expression, he sniggers lowly his hand still resting on the nape of your neck. "Don’t tell me you felt like a donkey kick or whatever it is.”
You’re too happy to feel any offence by his reaction, a giggle rippling out of you. “You mean fireworks?” Hints of a red hue adorn your cheeks. “Will you still kiss me if I did?”
He cocks a brow, an arrogant smirk spread on his lips as he crows, “makes sense when you’re kissing someone as handsome as me.” Tousling his hair unsettling the gel out of place, his smirk stretches into a tantalizing grin, “only if you let me set off fireworks elsewhere.”
His lips are back on yours once again, spurring another burst of passion exploding within you. As Enzo feels the growing burst of light within himself too, he can’t help but admit that maybe this sappy shit isn't too bad.
Masterlist
#Enzo berkshire#lorenzo berkshire#enzo berkshire fluff#enzo berkshire blurb#enzo berkshire x female reader#slytherin boys#hogmarch challenge
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always
pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader (also kina platonic!joel x ellie)
description: things didn’t exactly end up the way ellie wanted them today, but she wouldn’t give it up for anything.
warnings: UNEDITED, swearing, slight nsfw implications (i literally just mention that r and ellie have had sex), alcohol and marijuana consumption, slight angst
words: 1.1K (super short but i like it)
date posted: 10/01/24
For the first time in her life, Ellie longed for it to be wintertime. She wished for cold air to cut through the bitter warmth, allowing her a breath of relief for even a moment, having stepped out onto the front porch of the Tipsy Bison to take a moment for herself. To be fair, it had been partially her own fault, winter had ended only a few months prior, why hadn’t she asked sooner? It had been under a gentle descent of snowflakes that she had fallen in love with Y/n, after all, but she also hadn’t expected there to be anything official beyond the trading of a few vows, the sharing of a joint, and completed with the rest of the night rolling in the sheets together. Though, it would seem that that was far too much to ask for.
She really should have known better than to expect that Jesse would keep his big mouth shut, though she really did try to keep it a secret until the ring fell out of her pocket and onto the cold floor of their outpost. Jesse had teased her relentlessly, but seemed genuinely happy for his friends, promising to keep the secret until he knew that Jesse asked. However, as soon as she had, Dina was pounding on their door, demanding to see the ring and to know exactly when the wedding would be.
She was not overly thrilled for the wedding to have become such a large spectacle, but Maria had been just as enthused as Dina had been, stating that there was a desperate need for something like this to boost town morale. Ellie had immediately declined their offers of throwing a party for them, she was suddenly aware of the twinkle in her fiancée’s eyes at the idea of wearing a pretty white dress and dancing the night away at the Bison, leaving her little choice but to agree.
She had to admit, her heart had never felt quite as content as it had when she first spotted Y/n striding towards her, dressed in a horribly ugly wedding dress that was probably found in the attic of one of the houses, her smile radiating nothing but happiness as she met Ellie underneath the large willow tree.
Even now, watching her get passed around on the dancefloor, now wearing a simple white blouse and a pair of jeans that she had cut into shorts, but still as beautiful as ever. Ellie shook her head, letting out a large puff of smoke as a smile broke through her normally monotone expression.
A figure sidled up next to her, letting out a low whistle as they both stared through the large glass windows, eyes following the bride’s joyful movement closely, “I never got to say congratulations.”
She huffed a laugh, not taking her eyes away from her wife, “Thanks, I think I got pretty lucky.”
“You sure did. So did she,” Joel quipped, “You’re a real catch there, kid.”
“Please,” Ellie shook her head, “I’d be dead if it weren’t for her,” She was quiet for a beat before she continued, “And you.”
“Now I don’t know about that…”
“Shut up,” She chuckled, “What you did…I was–am angry with you. You took my choice away from me.”
“I know,” He nodded, “And you’ll never know how sorry I am for making you feel that way, but I’ll never feel sorry for keeping you alive.”
She nodded, “I know. I both hate you and–”
He sighed when she paused, “I know kid, me too.”
Ellie turned her emerald gaze to the man, her vision growing fuzzy as tears gathered along her waterline, “I wish you could have been here.”
His figure seemed to begin to fade into the darkness, but his voice was clear and true, “Me too, baby girl.”
“Ellie?” Y/n’s voice drew her attention to the front door, where her bride was standing with curiosity on her face, “Everything okay, babe?”
When Ellie glanced back at the spot next to her, “Yeah, everything’s good.”
The girl came closer, a smile growing on her face. She wrapped her arms around her wife’s neck, playing with the wispy ends of her short auburn hair. Ellie had also dressed up for the occasion, wearing a youth sized button up top and a poorly-tied tie hanging around her neck, which had been loosened throughout the night, even more so as Y/n pressed her body against hers. Ellie’s long fingers dug into her fabric-covered hips, leaning her head forward to accept the kiss that was being offered to her forehead.
“What are you doing out here on your own?”
The redhead shrugged, “Just needed to get away for a second. It’s hot in there.”
Y/n nodded, plucking the joint up from where she had set in on the railing next to her and taking a long drag, “I know this isn’t really what you wanted, but it really does mean a lot that you put in some effort to enjoy it.”
“I did enjoy it,” Ellie responded, “Maybe not all of it, but I wouldn’t trade today for anything.”
She leaned forward, capturing her wife’s lips with her own in a long and slow kiss, a small moan vibrating through her throat at the taste of cheaply made whiskey and cake from her lips.
“How much longer do I have to wait to get you in bed?” Ellie whined as they parted, earning a loud laugh from her wife’s lips.
“A little longer,” She shrugged, “Maybe after you come in and dance with me.”
Y/n made a break for it, only glancing back at Ellie once before disappearing behind the doors of the bar, leaving Ellie alone on the front step. The auburn haired girl chuckled at her, mentally trying to figure out a way to get her out of the bar sooner rather than later. As she stalked towards the door, her ears perked up at the sound of the voice once more.
“I’m happy for you, kid.”
The figure did not appear when she turned to look over her shoulder, but she knew he was there, watching over her. He always would be. A small smile graced her lips, uttering one last sentence before pushing through the doors and allowing her wife to drag her onto the dancefloor.
“Thank you, Joel.”
#reader insert#x reader#imagines#lesbian#ellie williams x reader#ellie x you#ellie x y/n#ellie x fem reader#ellie x reader#ellie the last of us#ellie williams#ellie tlou
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Requited Love
Pairing: Jenna Ortega x Reader
Requested: Yes/No ~ request
Summary: Y/N is cast to play Mia Reed in ‘The Fallout’ and her feelings for her costar, Jenna Ortega, start to resemble those of her characters. Love. ~ Word Count: 1887 ~ Warnings: tiny bit of angst if u squintttttt
A/N: Hello everyone!! Firstly I want to say thank you for all the support shown on my first few posts, and I also wanted to give you guys an update. I’m currently travelling overseas with very busy days so my time for writing is limited but I am writing I PROMISE. This one took a little longer than expected but I hope you enjoy it <3
It's your first day working on the set of ‘The Fallout’, your newest film in which you play Mia Reed. You are a little nervous despite having an impressive collection of films under your belt. When it comes to new sets, new environments, and more importantly new people, you were always anxious about how you would fit in. Your nerves certainly weren’t helped when you learned that Jenna Ortega had joined the cast. You are a huge admirer of hers. Since you've seen pretty much everything she's been in and respect her as an actress, the idea of sharing the screen with her was undeniably daunting.
You pull up to the ‘base camp’ of the film, where all the trailers are located, in an attempt to find yours and get a head start settling in. As you get out of the car your Y/E/C eyes scan the area in search of your trailer, your eyes instead landing on a girl. She appears to be about a foot shorter than you and has long, dark hair. She is dressed in baggy pants and a black singlet with headphones around her neck. Your breath hitches in your throat as you realise, “Holy shit… it’s her oh my god ok” you breathe as you hesitantly start walking in her direction, attempting to calm yourself down. ‘Relax Y/N it’s fine you got this just don’t be weird’.
The sound of your approaching footsteps catch her attention as she turns her head in your direction. Her brown eyes meet yours causing your breath to catch in your throat once again. To your surprise, a genuine smile crosses her face as she too starts walking towards you. “Hey, I’m Y/N. I’m your costar it’s really nice to finally meet you.” you start, giving her a little wave, thrilled you somehow managed to not stumble over your words. “It’s amazing to finally meet you too! I’m Jenna, and I have to say I’m a really big fan of your work” she smiles at you as you feel your cheeks start to burn. Your brain can’t even fathom the idea of THE Jenna Ortega knowing who you are, let alone being a big fan.
“Really?!?” “Of course I am I’ve seen almost everything your in.” she giggles at the disbelief painted all over your face. “And here I thought I was going to be the one fangirling. I’ve also seen pretty much all your stuff and you are incredible. Im still in disbelief that I get to work with you.” you rant, the words flying out of your mouth faster than you ever thought possible. “You are so adorable” she giggles, your cheeks at this point on fire. “Trust me the honour is all mine” she concludes.
You spent the remainder of the day talking to Jenna whilst walking around set, meeting all the important people who you will be working with over the next few weeks. To your delight, whilst exploring the set, you discover that Jenna’s trailer is right next to yours. If there was one thing you were sure of in this moment it was that you couldn’t wait to get to know her better.
*time skip*
You jump as you are awoken suddenly by a loud banging on your trailer door. “Sh*t what the hell” you mumble, rubbing at your tired eyes as you sit up. Your eyes glance towards the clock hanging on your wall, the hands reading 9:17. That’s odd your supposed to be at hair and makeup by 9. “Oh sh*t. I’m coming!” you launch off your trailer couch realising you must have fallen asleep whilst memorising your lines, meaning you didn’t set an alarm. You quickly attempt to fix your disheveled hair as you swing your door open, met with the disappointed glance of your makeup artist. “Sorry! I’m so sorry give me five minutes I’ll be right there I swear” you apologise rapidly, chucking on a random hoodie and running into the bathroom to check you don’t look too much like a corpse.
*small time skip*
Jenna jumps slightly as the door to the makeup trailer swings open, revealing a very cute and disheveled Y/N wearing… wait is that her hoodie? “Morning sleepyhead. I like your hoodie I’m surprised it fits you” Jenna chuckles as you look down and realise that you are actually wearing one of her hoodies. “Huh. I didn’t even notice.” “It looks cute on you” she flirts, your cheeks gaining their familiar warmth, one you often feel when you are around her. You drop into your makeup chair letting out a sigh as you allow your slightly irritated artist to get you ready for your scenes.
“You ready for today?” Jenna asks, smirking as she makes eye contact with you in the mirror. “As always. Why wouldn’t I be?” “We are filming the kiss scene today remember”. As soon as the words left her mouth you felt your stomach drop. “Oh. Right. Yeah I totally forgot about that haha” you chuckle nervously. Being completely honest with yourself, you had been harbouring a crush on Jenna for quite a while now, and whilst the idea of kissing her should fill you with excitement, you can’t help but be terrified. “You okay?” she asks sincerely, noticing the slight change in your demeanour. “Yeah! yeah no I’m fine I just had a rough sleep last night. I feel asleep on my couch memorising my lines so it wasn’t the most pleasant.” you ramble, trying to cover up your nerves, your attempt appearing to work.
“I think the way Megan has set the scene up is really smart.” she says whilst glancing towards you. Noticing the slight confusion on your face she elaborates, “I mean the way she has us kiss whilst we are both lying down. It gets rid of the whole height difference issue. Not that I have anything against it, I love it.” “Good to know” you reply, attempting to diffuse the tension by jokingly winking at her causing her to laugh and quickly hide her face with her hands. ‘Is she flustered?’ ‘Is there a chance she likes me back?’ you thought. However, just as quick as the thoughts came to your mind, you shut them down, ‘No Y/N stop. Don’t get your hopes up’.
*time skip*
“Action!”. You are lying on the floor of Mia’s bedroom as Jenna, or Vada, rolls towards you. You stare deep into her eyes as she can’t stop giggling. Once she finally settles down, her face is only a few inches away from yours. She starts, “What?… ok I know your a woman of very little words… but I know you got some deep shit happening in this nice little head of yours.” she recites her lines perfectly as you giggle on cue. “God… ugh” you sigh. “Anything? Ok. Lets say this. Lets say you die tomorrow, ok, and what if you die sad because you regret not saying what you wanted to say… then what?”.
Those words, although scripted, make your heart sink, because as true as it is, you can’t tell her. You can’t ruin what you have with Jenna over some stupid crush. They say you should always pick roles you relate to, and you hate to agree that you relate to the fear that Mia is feeling right now, absolutely terrified of losing her best friend. You lie there in silence for a few seconds whilst your mind races. “I can’t say it” you whisper, drawing your eyes off of her. “Why?” she immediately responds. You can feel her eyes burning into the side of your face which both comforts and unsettles you.
When you finally pluck up the courage to face her, she looks almost ethereal in the ambient lighting of the room and you regret ever taking your eyes off of her. You aren’t able to seperate your own feelings from your characters, all you feel is love. You notice Jenna glance at your lips, as she is directed to, and the next thing you know she is leaning in. Your heart is racing faster than it ever has before, so much so you are worried she can hear it. When her lips touch yours, you feel warmth blossom in your chest. She pulls away slightly asking “Is this okay?” to which you nod softly. As she connects her lips to mine once more, her lips part slightly allowing my tongue to slip inside. Before I know it she is climbing on top of me, our bodies pressed together as our lips moved passionately against one another’s. Her hands begin exploring your body as your fingers travel through her hair as you breathed her in. It was utter bliss. Until it wasn’t.
“Cut! That was perfect girls well done. The chemistry was amazing, very believable.” “Thanks” you murmur as you seperate yourself from Jenna and get to your feet, avoiding all eye contact with her. “I think we got it guys you can head back to your trailers”. With that you made your way swiftly out of the room, attempting to avoid Jenna’s concerned stare and get to your trailer as quickly as possible. “Y/N! Y/N wait!” Jenna calls from behind you as you hear her rapidly approaching footsteps. She eventually catches up to you, stopping you when she grabs hold of your hand, swinging you around.
“Hey what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand still holding yours with concern written all over her face. You couldn’t help but think about how pretty she looked which didn’t help with your current predicament. “Nothing. I just… I need to be alone right now” you say, turning on your heels attempting to avoid having the conversation you have been dreading. She grabs ahold of your other hand in order to pull you back, not allowing you to avoid her and suffer in silence. “Hey.” she comforts softly “You can talk to me you know. Just tell me what’s wrong we can figure it out together.” “I can’t say it” you quote Mia as a tear rolls down your cheek, the weight of the conversation finally taking its toll on you as the fear of losing your best friend overcomes you.
You witness the moment it clicks in Jenna’s eyes, her gaze immediately softening as she wipes away your stray tear with her thumb. You see her lips twitch into a smile as her hands land on your cheeks, the two of you having a silent conversation with your eyes. Her eyes flicker down to your lips which doesn’t go unnoticed, but before you can comment on it she is guiding your face down to meet hers as her lips brush against yours tentatively. You were taken over by pure desire as you close the remaining distance, leaning into the kiss as you place your hands around her neck. The familiar feeling of her warm lips against yours makes your heart flutter as you begin to comprehend what is happening, she likes you back. Your lips slowly parted as your foreheads remained against each others. “I love you too Y/N” Jenna intimately whispered, placing a chaste kiss on your lips before pulling back completely. “So you really do love the height difference?” you joke, unable to take your eyes off of her. “Of course I do. I love everything about you”.
#jenna ortega#jenna ortega x reader#jenna ortega x fem reader#jenna ortega x fem!reader#jenna ortega imagine#the fallout#vada cavell#mia reed#jenna ortega request#wednesday addams x fem reader#wednesday addams x reader#simp4wom3n
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Reverse Crush
Anddd here is today's second chapter :). I hope you like it! I am forever tormented by how little reverse crush we got in the show. I always want more haha. Lemme know what you think <3
AO3
Adrien sighed quietly, leaning on his fist as he craned his neck back to stare blatantly at Marinette. It was study hall so he could finally get away with just focusing on her. Not for the first time that day, though did he wish he sat behind her. That way, he’d be able to peek up at her periodically through the day rather than having to crane his head back awkwardly to look at her.
She looked adorable. Just like she did every day. Her tongue was stuck out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated on whatever it was she was drawing.
Cute.
Clearing his throat, Adrien leaned forward, tapping her desk to get her attention. She looked up, her pretty blue eyes wide with shock.
“What are you drawing, Marinette?” he asked, hopeful to hear her soft voice as she directed her attention to him alone.
Her surprise at his sudden question melted into a warm smile, and Adrien couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement.
"I was actually just sketching some of my ideas down for fashion. It helps for inspiration when I’m creating." Marinette replied.
Adrien leaned in a bit closer, intrigued by her creative process. "Can I see?" he asked eagerly, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.
Marinette hesitated for a brief moment before nodding. She turned her notebook towards Adrien, revealing a series of intricate designs that showcased her talent and unique style.
The first page held numerous sketches of her and her friends in beautiful gowns. They all looked amazing. When he looked at the next page, however, his mouth dried. It was him. Or, well, Chat Noir, in a few different designs from Marinette.
Suddenly, Adrien was struck by the urge to commission her. He’d wear those designs every day. He bit it back, however. As much as he might want to, he couldn’t reveal his secret identity. Not even to someone as perfect as Marinette.
"These are beautiful, Marinette!" Adrien exclaimed, genuinely impressed. "You're so talented. I especially liked the way that you drew Chat Noir." He winked up at her.
An adorable red blush lit up her face at the compliment, and she smiled gratefully. He needed to figure out how to get her to do that more often. She looked so cute with a flush on her cheeks. "Thank you, Adrien. That means a lot coming from you, being the son of a famous designer and all."
Encouraged by her positive reaction, he couldn't resist teasing her playfully. "You know, if you ever need a model for your designs, I'd be happy to volunteer."
Marinette's eyes widened in surprise, and then she burst into giggles, her laughter like music to his ears. "Sure, Adrien. I'll keep that in mind. If ever I make one of these frilly dresses, I’ll make sure that you’re the first one I call." She winked.
His heart quickened at her reaction, feeling dizzy with giddiness.
Wink! She winked at him. How was he meant to mentally function after that?
Adrien’s grin must have looked completely ridiculous as he couldn’t stop it from stretching wide across his cheeks. “I’ll be looking forward to it,” he replied, his voice filled with genuine excitement.
As the bell signaling the end of study hall rang, Adrien reluctantly tore his gaze away from Marinette who was laughing softly at his words. He made a mental note to find a way to bring up the topic of her designs again soon, maybe during their next study hall.
After all, she had winked and laughed at him! That had to mean something... right? He wracked his brain, trying to remember if he had ever seen Marinette wink at anyone else. He couldn’t think of any which was a very pleasant thought.
As he walked to his next class, Adrien couldn’t shake off the image of Marinette’s sketches, especially the ones featuring Chat Noir. It was both thrilling and nerve-wracking to see himself depicted in her designs, knowing that she had no idea of his secret identity.
Maybe... maybe he could sneak over to her room one night, just to commission one of those designs. After all, if Adrien was able to take a peek at her designs, he figured she’d certainly let Chat Noir, a superhero, see them as well. With that plan in mind, Adrien’s grin stayed on his face for the rest of the day.
#adrinetteapril2024#adrienetteapril2024#adrinette#adrienette#miraculous#miraculous ladybug#ml#mlb#ml fic#fic#fanfic#reverse crush#reverse love square#adrinetteapril#adrienetteapril
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You shook me all night long, part 2
Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem!reader
Summary: You and Eddie hang out again and you tease him as much as you can while he stays oblivious. Confessions are made and smut is had.
Warnings: 18+, p in v sex, fingering, grinding, praise kink, light choking, horny insatiable Eddie.
Authors Notes: I hope you guys like the conclusion to this story! This is the second and last part, the first can be found here if you are interested. As smutty as this is its also so fluffy and romantic, pls give me this man.
Eddie is woken up by the sound of the kettle boiling, scrunching up his face at the intrusive noise and turning over on the couch to stretch as he slowly wakes himself up. His heart flutters as the memories of last night with you come flooding back to him. But then his heart drops as he realises you’re no longer laying here with him. He sits up quickly and eyes his uncle, who had been the one to wake him up. He was smirking at Eddie knowingly, clearly amused by something.
“Morning Ed. Had a good night?” he asks with a smile, leaving Eddie confused for a moment before he nods his head towards a note sitting on the table beside him. Eddie scrambles towards it, heart beating out of his chest as he sees your cute scrawl on the paper. ‘Morning Eddie, I have to head off for work now and I didn’t want to disturb you, but I had to thank you for such a lovely night. I had so much fun with you, I really hope we get to do this again soon. Y/n.’ Your phone number was also written at the bottom of the page and Eddie’s heart fluttered happily as he read your words over and over. Wayne peeked over at him, smiling to himself as he saw the dreamy look on Eddie’s face. He knew that Eddie had trouble making friends, particularly ‘lady friends’ so he was thrilled to see that Eddie had seemingly found someone. Since taking Eddie in, he’d seen how just the way he dresses makes people have such a biased and cruel opinion of him. It saddened him because Eddie was genuinely such a kind and caring kid, but he was just glad Eddie had found someone to look past that, to see the brilliance in him as a person.
“She sounds real nice” Wayne mutters, smiling gently over at Eddie. Eddie looks up and meets his smile with one of his own, eyes shining.
“Yeah, she is.”
After grabbing a quick breakfast and driving like a lunatic, Eddie practically sprints into school, gaining a few raised eyebrows and judging stares as he raced through the halls. He didn’t care though, he had only one mission in mind and that was finding fucking Wheeler or Henderson and finding out as much as he could about you. He runs into the canteen, where he sees the boys sitting at their table, all laughing as they discuss something together. Dustin catches sight of Eddie bounding towards the table and waves happily, before stopping when he catches sight of the determined expression on Eddie’s face. It was never a good thing when Eddie was revved up.
“You okay man?’ Dustin asks as Eddie approaches the table, eyebrows raised questioningly.
“Oh I am more than okay” Eddie exclaims loudly, slamming himself down at the head of the table. “I am doing absolutely incredible in fact” he grins widely as the boys look at each other in confusion. “And that is exactly why I need your help” Eddie says seriously, turning to look right at Mike and Dustin expectantly as they sink back into their chairs with nervous laughs.
“Uh, with what man?” Mike asks cautiously, not wanting to provoke Eddie again after the hellfire rant from the other day. Eddie leans forward on his elbows, getting closer to the two confused boys as he clasps his hands together.
“I need to ask about y/n” Eddie says seriously, eyes flicking between the two boys as he waits to see their reaction. What Eddie doesn’t expect is for them to smile at each other knowingly, Gareth and Jeff erupting laughter from the other side of the table.
“Oh, so this is about your crush on y/n” Dustin says with laugh, brow cocked in amusement.
“I don’t- how did you, what?” Eddie exclaims in bewilderment, looking at them in confusion as to how they already knew.
“Dude you literally flirted with each other all night, it was gross” Mike chimes in, answering Eddie’s silent question. Everyone agrees to this nodding and muttering about how obvious it was while Eddie sits completely still, brain trying to process what Mike had just said.
“Wait, with each other??” Eddie shouts suddenly, wide eyed and fists clenched towards his chest. “You guys think she was flirting with me??” He asks in shock, gawking around the table as his friends sigh at him.
“Are you joking? She was giving you goo-goo eyes all night!” Dustin laughs in exasperation, Eddie staring wide eyed back at him. “She even laughed at all your bad jokes, she was definitely flirting” Dustin says sarcastically, but still assuring Eddie a little bit more when he thinks back and remembers you did laugh at most of his shitty jokes. Eddie grabs him by the shoulders desperately, looking into Dustin’s eyes deeply to determine if he was telling the truth.
“But are you sure Henderson? I mean, am I even her type? What is her type? Is she even single? I never actually asked her, what if she isn’t? Even if she is I’m just Eddie the freak, I definitely wouldn’t be her typ-” Eddie rambles frantically, mind whirring as the insecurities spill out of his mouth before he was interrupted by Dustin placing his hands on his shoulders.
“Eddie” Dustin says gently, “Firstly, you are a great guy and any girl would be crazy not to be into you.” Eddies face softens at this, a smile tugging at his lips at Dustin’s kind words. “And secondly, yes she is single, and that is because she rejects any guy that even attempts to flirt with her. Believe me, even Steve tried and got let down and that man is gorgeous. So she must really like you” Dustin says reassuringly, and Eddie’s heart swells at his words. Eddie seems satisfied by this, patting Dustin on the shoulders and nodding gratefully as Dustin does the same before pulling away to turn to Mike.
“And what do you think Wheeler?” Eddie asks chewing on his lip, wanting the reassurance from them both. Mike sighs and laughs, shaking his head at Eddie’s naivety.
“Dude she is definitely into you, I say go for it” he assures Eddie, looking over pointedly at Gareth and Jeff and signifying for them to say something to reassure him too. Eddie follows his eyes and looks at the boys with puppy eyes.
“Yeah she was all over you man” Gareth chimes in, nodding in assurance at Eddie.
“Plus, we couldn’t help but notice the two of you left together after the game” Jeff says, trailing off with a raised eyebrow to insinuate what could have happened. Eddie turns his head coyly with a smirk, pouting and giving a little shrug as if to playfully say ‘I’m not telling.’ Jeff laughs and raises his hand to shake Eddie’s in respect, nodding with impress as Eddie laughs with him.
“I’m sorry, you did what?!” Dustin interrupts, leaning between the two boys and blinking at Eddie. But Eddie placed his hand on Dustin’s forehead and slowly pushed him back to his seat, shaking his head and putting a finger to his lips.
“Don’t you worry about that kiddo” He says with a wide grin, patting Dustin’s cheek before jumping up from his seat with a newfound vigour and confidence. His heart was still tearing itself apart in fear of you rejecting him, but the ego boost from his friends had convinced him that you could possibly feel the same way. Eddie rests his hands on the table, leaning down towards the boys with a wide grin. “Maybe ’86 really is gunna be my year” he says hopefully, eyes lit up in delight. He swipes his tongue over his lip as the boys cheer in agreement, Gareth clapping him on the back and saying to ‘go get her.’ Eddie smiles at the support, taking a deep breath before standing up straight and pulling at the collar of his jacket cooly. “The fair maiden awaits me” he grins, nodding at the boys before striding off to the exit, heart racing as he plots his next move.
Eddie decides that he’d call you later that day when you’d finished work. He’d deliberated on whether calling you this soon came across as too desperate, but ultimately decided he didn’t care because quite frankly he was desperate to see you again. And he didn’t care if you knew it, he figured if you felt the same connection he did you would want to see him again as soon as possible too. Eddie was a mess of nerves the rest of the day at school, excitement and anxiety swirling in his chest, eyes constantly flicking to the clock to count down the hours. He felt as though he was about to explode from all of the raging emotions in his head by the time he did finish, stomach fluttering while he drove home. What should he even say? Shit he hadn’t thought about that, should he invite you out somewhere? Back to his? He definitely wanted the intimacy of being alone with you again, and smoking with with you was so fun, but maybe it would be weird to ask you back to his? Maybe he should play cool about it, just call to say hi and see if you suggest doing something? Eddie groans aloud at his overthinking, willing his brain to shut up and just be chill about it. You’d left your number for a reason, you wanted him to call you, he had to remind himself of that. It was just so hard to process for him, something he was so unused to, a hot girl actually wanting to be around him. And that left his stomach turning at the thought he could have misconstrued your politeness, that the boys were just humouring him in saying you flirted with him. He gulped as he parked up outside the trailer and strolled inside, throwing his bag onto the couch and sinking down into it. Eddie sighed deeply, running a hand through his messy hair as he eyed the phone, chewing his lip as he tried to muster up the courage to go over to it. He fished the note you wrote him from out of his pocket, smiling to himself as he read through it again, eyes hovering over the number and the little kiss next to it. His heart thumped in his chest as he exhaled and forced himself up, stiffly walking over to the phone and swallowing the lump in his throat. Just be cool Eddie, you got this, he assures himself. He fingers the digits in and holds his breath as the phone begins to ring, leg shaking in his anticipation.
“Hello?” Comes a familiar sweet voice, making Eddie let out his breath as his heart began to race again.
“Hey y/n, its Eddie” he says shakily, trying to hide it with a lazy drawl.
“Oh hey Eddie, I’m so glad you called! I guess this means you found my note then, sorry I had to leave without saying bye!” You say apologetically with a soft laugh, your sweet tone already calming him down.
“Don’t worry about it sweetheart, I appreciated the lay in” he says with a laugh, letting you know it was all okay. “And to quote your note, I had a really lovely night too” He says softly, smiling to himself as he absentmindedly twirls the phone cord around his finger.
“Aw I’m so glad” you say warmly, and Eddie can practically see your gorgeous smile over the phone. “Since you hosted me its only fair I invite you over to mine. Whenever you’re next free of course” you say kindly, and Eddies heart almost bursts out of his chest that you were actually the one asking to see him again.
“Well I have no plans tonight if you’re down?” He tries to say casually but it comes out quick, his excitement evident in his voice.
“Yeah I’m free tonight, that sounds great” you say softly, and Eddie notes the slight breathlessness in your tone. “Grab a notepad I’ll give you my address” you say, and Eddie scrambles to grab one from out of his bag before running back to the wall and grabbing the phone, tongue poking out while he notes down the address. “I’ll just be chilling from now so come over whenever you’re ready” you tell him with a smile, biting your lip in your excitement.
“Okay sure thing” Eddie says, cheeks burning from how much he was smiling.
“See you soon Eds” you say cheerfully, making his heart leap at the nickname.
“See you soon sweetheart” he says tenderly, staring dreamily at the phone until he heard you hang up. Eddie let out a shout of joy, jumping up and pumping his fists in the air at how well that went. He was overjoyed that he’d get to see you again, and you having asked him to is playing on his mind. Could you actually, genuinely be into him? Eddie smiles and lets out a shiver of excitement, biting his lip as his heart and mind raced. He ran to the bathroom to freshen himself up quickly, half because he just wanted to smell nice around you, but also in the little glimmer of hope that he could actually get some action tonight. Eddie’s experience was very limited, which made him equal parts nervous and absolutely insatiable. His mind whirled as he stepped into the shower, hormones stirring up excitement and anticipation in his loins. His mind drifted to thoughts of you, your soft thighs in the skirt you’d been wearing, your sultry curves, your supple lips. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and let out a moan as he recalled how you’d looked in his hellfire shirt, how he could just about see your nipples through the thin fabric. He’d wanted nothing more than to rip the shirt off of you and see those perfect tits. His hand slips to his hardening cock, hissing as he grips himself tightly and starts slowly pumping it. His mouth falls agape in a whimper as he imagines it’s your hand wrapped around his length instead. He speeds up as he starts to imagine taking off your clothes, having your gorgeous body revealed just for him. He just knows you’d have a perfect fucking pussy, thighs like yours are made for being buried between. He steadies himself against the wall with a palm while his other hand tugs himself ruthlessly, groaning loudly as he imagines your pussy slick for him, legs spread and waiting for him to fill you up. He salivates at the thought, heart racing as he feels his orgasm approaching. His face twists in pleasure as he imagines laying you down on his bed, climbing between your spread thighs and kissing you deeply as he slowly pushes his cock into you. He chokes out a moan as he spills over his hand all too quickly, hips bucking into his hand frantically as he rides it out, thinking about filling you up with his cum instead. Eddie pants as he tries to catch his breath, letting the water run over his hands to clean them before splashing some in his face. Fuck these feelings were getting fatal, he didn’t know how he was going to be around you without going crazy. He was touch starved, completely unused to this kind of attention, and now that he’d had a taste he was absolutely obsessed. Feral and desperate for you. He cleaned himself off and stepped out to get dressed back into his clothes, giving himself a quick once over in the mirror to check how he looked. Satisfied, Eddie went to his room to grab his keys and his ‘special’ tin, just in case you fancied something a bit harder for today’s sesh. Eddie never liked to turn up to someone’s place empty handed. He smiles to himself excitedly as he locks up and heads to his van, barely able to contain his happiness as he slams the door shut and puts a cassette in to play. He takes a deep breath as he looks down at the address in his hand, before exhaling and starting up his car, butterflies filling his stomach as he heads to yours.
After hanging up the phone with Eddie you felt giddy, so thrilled that he’d called you and wanted to hang out again. Leaving his that morning had physically ached, especially when you’d woken up snuggled into his chest. You’d stayed there for a little while enjoying his warmth and watching the rise and fall of his chest, admiring his gorgeous face in its peaceful state. You ended up late for work but you couldn’t give a shit, being in his arms had felt perfect. You couldn’t quite believe how quickly you’d fallen for him, one meeting and you were a complete sucker. The connection was undeniable, you and Eddie were destined to be friends considering all you had in common. You just hoped he felt this connection on a deeper level too. You decided to change before Eddie came over, slipping into something a bit more attractive than a baggy t shirt. You wanted to impress him and there was no shame in that, if you wanted to wear a cute little dress to make him notice your curves, you were going to do it! After you got dressed you perched by the window, peeking out through the blinds to keep an eye out for his van, too excited waiting for him. You’d already rolled a joint for both of you, which sat ready on the table with some snacks for once he arrives. Your heart races as you see him pull up outside, getting up to adjust yourself one last time in the mirror.
Eddie gulped as he knocked on your door, trying to settle his nerves now that he was actually about to see you again. It was one thing to have his friends egg him on earlier, but now standing on your doorstep he was unsure again about if he should go for it and ask you out. Before he could deliberate further the door swings open, and there you are gleaming up at him and looking more beautiful than he remembered.
“Hey Eddie!” you say, pulling him into a quick hug that he melts into. He wraps his arms around you, big palms rubbing your back comfortingly before he forced himself to pull away with pink cheeks. “Make yourself at home” you say sweetly, tugging his hand to lead him into your apartment. Eddie appraises the room, noting that you actually had some really cool stuff.
“Nice place!” He exclaims, nodding as if to give it his seal of approval. He excitedly went up and awed at some of your band and movie posters, and poked around your little trinkets as you sit down to light up your joint and laugh at his wonder.
“Holy shit, you like lord of the rings?” Eddie pipes up excitedly as he shakes the book around in his hand. You laugh and nod as he flips through it, before his interest is taken by the xenomorph figurine on the bookshelf, muttering a ‘so cool!’ as he turns it round in his hands. You loved how animated Eddie was going from item to item, and you loved that he found your stuff so exciting. Eddie ends his investigation and comes to join you on the couch, happily taking the joint from your hands and lighting it.
“You have some seriously cool stuff” he says with a smile, glancing back around the room again. “You live here alone?” He asks, genuinely curious considering this all seemed like your decor.
“Yeah it’s just me” you say with a small sigh, “I love it, but it does get kinda lonely sometimes” you say, smiling wistfully at the floor. Eddie furrows his brows, heart aching to see the sad expression on your face.
“Well then I’ll have to come hang with you more often” he says playfully, nudging you gently as you smile happily at his words.
“You better” you tease back with a giggle, heart warming at this sweet man and his lovely words. Did he know what he was doing to you? You and Eddie decided to put some tv on while you finished smoking, skipping through the channels in an attempt to find anything good. You pause at the music channel when you see ‘Jump’ by Van Halen is on, not because you particularly liked the song but because Eddie van halen looked enough like your Eddie that you found yourself staring up at the screen longingly. Eddie scowled as he noticed this, not realising he’d done it aloud until you turn to laugh at his reaction.
“Sorry is this too glam rock for you?” You tease, poking Eddie in the ribs softly. “I don’t care for the song, I’m just looking at Eddie” you say with a smirk and shrug, hoping Eddie would get the blatant hint. Eddie responds to your turned back with a grimace, chest tightening in jealousy.
“What’s so special about him? He’s not even that hot” Eddie tries to say nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders and puffing on his joint before folding his hands defensively over his chest. You turn to stare at Eddie with an open mouth, almost wanting to laugh at how oblivious the poor boy is.
“Are you kidding? He’s so hot!” You say laughing as Eddie rolls his eyes and tries not to seem jealous. God you hoped your next words weren’t too on the nose but the weed had given you confidence and by fuck were you going to use it. “Also you look just like him, so if you’re insulting him you’re insulting yourself” you say playfully, shaking your head as you begin to flip through the channels again, watching Eddie through the corner of your eye. Eddie had half a mind to think he misheard you, mouth agape as he stares at you trying to process it. There’s no way you just inadvertently called him hot, you had to be being polite?
“Do I?” He asks quietly, a shaky tremor in his voice from his nerves.
“Yeah you do! In fact, you’re much hotter than him” you say casually, eyes glinting as you look up at Eddie through your lashes. Eddie has to actively stop his eyes from going wide and his jaw dropping at your words, his face heating up to his ears at your compliments. Eddie was officially sinking now, he had never been called hot before and here you were just casually throwing it around when he was crazy about you and too high to know how to function. His chest heaved as his heart rate quickens, licking his dry lips as he tries to come up with something to respond with. You could see Eddie was lost for words at your teasing so you continue, taking pity on him but also loving how flustered he got by you. “The girls must go crazy when you’re playing at the hideout” you say with a wink, smiling warmly at Eddie. Eddie looks up at you and laughs bashfully, shaking his head in denial.
“Oh I can assure you they don’t. I’m not the kind of guy girls are usually in to” he says with a small laugh to try not to make his admission sound so pitiful.
“No way, I don’t believe that. You’re literally the sweetest guy ever, you’re in a band and you look like that!” you say motioning him up and down with your palms, shaking your head at Eddie ludicrously. “What’s not to like?” Eddie was humbled by your praise, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling bashfully, cheeks burning now. Eddie’s emotions were going haywire, not wanting to read into your compliments as more than just a friendly ego boost in case that’s all this is. But like, you literally said you find him attractive, could it get more flirty than that?
“My satanic tendencies, apparently” he jokes, a cautious answer to test the water. You throw your head back and laugh, hand reaching out to softly touch his arm.
“Seriously Eddie, there are definitely people who’d want to date you” You say softly, eyes gleaming as you look over at the flustered boy.
“Oh yeah? Who? Tell me one person who’d actually be into me” he bites back, almost daring you to give an answer, willing you to say the words he so desperately wants to hear. Well it was now or never.
“I am” you say quietly, eyes softening as you stare deeply into his, biting your lip nervously. Your knuckles are white from how tightly your fists are clenched from your nerves as you watch Eddies face crumble into shock. He couldn’t believe his ears, wondering if you’d said it so quietly he imagined it. He stares at you wide eyed and motionless for a moment, seemingly unable to form any coherent words as your words sink in.
“You- you… Do you mean that?” Eddie manages to stutter out, voice strained as his wide eyes search yours to see if you’re really telling the truth. You smile at him gently and his heart softens, turning to mush as his literal daydreams play out.
“I mean it, Eddie” you say taking his hand in yours gently, making Eddies heart race at the contact. “I’ve been dropping hints since yesterday but I didn’t want to be too forward in case you didn’t feel the same” you say with a small cheesy smile, eyes gleaming at him. Eddie laughs at this, throwing his head back and squeezing your hand harder in the euphoria of hearing you say that.
“Are you kidding me, you thought there was a universe in which I wouldn’t be into you?? You’re literally smoking hot and one of the coolest people I’ve ever met” Eddie gushes with a wide grin, cheeks pink and eyes shining at you. You blush at his words, covering your smile with your hand and turning away from him bashfully, making him raise a big palm to your chin to turn your face back towards him and move your hand. “I’m still in shock honestly, I never thought you’d actually be into me too” he admits, staring lovingly into your eyes as he smiles at you.
“Me too” you laugh breathlessly, eyes falling to his lips as he slowly moves closer to you, rubbing your thumb gently on his hand. Eddie’s heart races at your closeness, cheeks pink as his eyes longingly drift to your lips, breathing softly as the gap slowly closes between you. When his lips touch yours Eddie feels like he’s gone to heaven, his heart full of warmth as you kiss him tenderly, cradling your jaw in his hand. You gently wrap your arms around his neck, playing with the hair on the nape of his neck and drawing a breathy gasp from his mouth against your lips. He deepens the kiss, beginning to get lost in the taste of your lips and the feel of your hands on him, living out his literal fantasies. You pull away slowly, tugging gently on his lip as he pants and rests his forehead against yours. You smile at him and he smiles back widely, looking happier than you may have ever seen him. He links his fingers through yours, breathing deeply as you stay pressed there together, heart alight with emotions he’s never felt before. You both begin to giggle, pressing your face into his chest as he pulls you into a hug and laugh at the absurdity of this situation.
“Fucking hell, I’ve got to thank Sinclair for skipping out on hellfire” he jokes, making you start laughing again and pull him by the shirt back into your lips. Its more urgent this time, your hand grabbing at his shirt wantonly, making him groan and place his shaking hands on your waist, revelling in the softness of you. You push him back against the sofa, climbing into his lap and kissing him feverishly, and Eddie whimpers into your mouth kissing you back sloppily as his hands roam your lower back and hips. He cheeks were beet red as he felt you brush against his straining cock in his jeans, mind going hazy as you grind yourself harder against him. Eddie was putty in your hands, absolutely melting into the contact, hands desperately grabbing your hips as you move on top of him. Eddie pulls back from your lips to throw his head back and let out a loud groan, and you bite your lip as you see the blissed out look on his face. Eddie would do absolutely anything for you right now, he decided, as he looked at you bite swollen lips and moan as you grind into his lap. You looked like a goddess, and he wanted to worship you for the rest of his fucking life.
“Lets move this to my room” you whisper sensually, eyes lidded as you climb off his lap and tug at the flustered mans hand. “I don’t want to fuck you for the first time on the sofa” you say, making Eddie groan desperately at your words as raises from the sofa. Fuck him?? Holy shit he was going to get to fuck you?? Yeah you’d officially killed him, Eddie felt as though he was floating on a cloud as you led him by his hand to your room and sat seductively at the edge of your bed, biting your lip and looking up at him with doe eyes. Eddie knelt down and pushed you gently onto your back, swinging his t shirt off his head and crawling over your body. He kisses you like a man starved, all moans and whimpers into your mouth as you wrap your legs around his waist to pull him back against you. Your dress had bunched up at your hips and exposed your panties to Eddie, driving him absolutely mental his lidded eyes find your soft mound through the clothes. He licks his lips as his hands creep up under your dress to your stomach, shaking as he feels your soft delicious skin, heart beating out of his chest as he slides them up your ribcage to rest just below your bra. You mewl and Eddie groans, pulling away to trail gentle butterfly kisses down your jaw to your throat and then your collarbones. He pushes your dress over your bra and you happily take it off while Eddie stares at your tits, practically salivating as his hands hover in front of them, looking up into your eyes to ask this was okay. You moan and nod and Eddie gulps as he reaches his hands under your back to unclip your bra, impressing himself as he manages it without fumbling too much. He pants as he looks down at your chest as he pulls the bra off of you, eyes full of awe as your breasts are exposed to him. You’re more perfect than he could have imagined, Eddie mutters some curses under his breath as he tries to calm his breathing, hands softly coming up to cup them. Your mewls urge him on, his cock now painfully hard in his jeans as he drags his hips over yours while he plays with your tits.
“Fuck Eddie” you moan out, making the boys heart stops as he hears his name falling off of your lips like its a prayer. “Please touch me” you beg, hips bucking up into his desperately. Eddie moans breathily, a smirk falling over his features at your pretty begging.
“I am touching you sweetheart” he breathes in a low tone, teasing your nipples softly with his big hands. You mewl and keen, furrowing your brows at his teasing.
“Play with my pussy, please” you beg breathlessly, hips swirling as he dry humps you feverishly. Eddie groans at this, eyes clouding over in lust as he lays on his side next to you to teasingly run his hands down your stomach to your hips. You whine and bite his neck softly now he was close enough that you could, making his eyes roll back in pleasure and slip his hands into your panties. He hisses through his teeth, panting hard as he meets your soft flesh, a long, low growl coming from his lips as he feels how wet you are.
“Holy fuck baby, you’re so wet. Is this because of me?” He asks in a deep voice, dark eyes watching your lips part in a moan, his knuckle white as he holds onto the bedsheet while his other hand toys with your core.
“Its all for you Eddie” you manage to get out, head rolling back as he slowly slides a finger into your tight heat. The sight before Eddie was so hot he could’ve bust then and there, you completely bare for him, legs spread as he fingers your wet cunt. It was straight out of a dream and he wanted to keep going until you came, but Eddie couldn’t wait any longer. He felt feral, desperate, his cock was aching to be taken out of its confines and stuffed inside of you. He takes his finger out and brings it to his lips, eyes flickering as he licks of your delicious taste while you whine at the loss of contact.
“I can’t take it anymore baby, I need to fuck you” he grunts out.
Eddie stands up, eyeing your squirming figure on the bed while he finally takes off his trousers and pants and releases his cock. He crawls back on top of you, absolutely entranced by you laying pliantly below him, biting your lip as he lines himself up with you. He chokes out a moan as he rubs his tip up your soaked slick to give him some lubrication, grunting as he pumps his cock to spread it over him. Eddie felt white hot pleasure as he sunk into you, a broken moans falling out of his mouth at the feeling of you wrapped around him.
“Oh god, oh fuck” he manages to get out, sweat beading down his forehead as he bottoms out in you, teeth grit as you clench deliciously around him. “How are you this tight?” He grunts out, head falling back as he draws his back just to push into you with a slow thrust, making both of you moan in ecstasy.
“Fuck me harder Eddie” you whine, swirling your hips and making Eddie’s knees weak as he feels himself move inside you. Fuck he wasn’t going to last long. He picks up his pace, curses spilling from his lips as he begins to fuck you harder, his hands finding your tits again and grabbing them desperately. You tangle your hand in his hair as he takes your nipple in his mouth while he continues his hard pace, eyes rolling back as you feel him moan and pant against it.
“God you feel so fucking good. So fucking perfect” Eddie coos as he watches your tits bounce, looks at the fucked out blissed expression on your gorgeous features. “Better than I ever imagined” he grunts, thrusts beginning to get sloppier as he feels himself get closer, the tight warmth of your cunt proving too much for him. He groans as you reach down between your legs to play with your clit while he keeps his pace, hungrily watching himself slide in and out of you. You clench around him and Eddie hisses in pleasure, hips stuttering as he tries to keep himself from cumming so he’d get to fuck this perfect pussy some more.
“If you keep clenching around me like that I’m gunna cum baby” Eddie grunts out, wrapping a hand gently around your pretty throat as you cry out in pleasure. You bite your lip as you feel yourself cumming, breathily moaning out his name as you pulse around his cock. Eddie scrunches up his eyes and groans loudly, the feeling of your walls tightening around his cock pushing him over the edge, burying his face into your chest as his hot ropes of cum fill you up. Eddie pants as he rides out his orgasm, softly grinding his hips into you as he basks in the pleasure. You both lay there breathless in each others arms, enjoying the feeling of being intertwined before Eddie eventually pulls out with a dreamy sigh, rolling onto his back to catch his breath. He pulls you towards him, laying your head on his chest while he cuddles you closer. Eddie stares at you adoringly, a bashful smile on his gorgeous features that makes you blush and smile yourself.
“That was incredible. Like, I’ve never cum that hard in my life” Eddie confesses with a goofy grin, rubbing his thumb softly over your cheek. “And holy shit are you hot, your body? 11/10” He says cheekily, smirking and grabbing your ass as you bite your lip and jokingly hit his chest.
“You can talk. Who’d have thought the dungeon master had such a big dick” You tease back, squealing as he squeezes your ass harder.
“Shit why is it actually really hot to hear you call me that?” He says, biting his lip as he imagines you moaning it out for him.
“Save it for next time big boy” you coo, placing your palm on his chest and tracing his chest hair.
“I can’t believe there was a this time let alone a next time” Eddie says softly, a serious look in his eyes as he thinks about how fucking lucky he’s been.“Seriously, how are you into me?” Eddie asks in disbelief, shaking his head as he grins at you.
“Because you are literal perfection” you say genuinely, making Eddie turn his head shyly into his shoulders.
“Your flattery is very appreciated, but I’d say it’s you who is perfection” He says adoringly, kissing your forehead softly as he tucks your hair behind your ear. “Really, you’re amazing. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve gotten” he says seriously. You lean up to peck his lips softly, smiling against them as he rubs your arm lovingly. Eddie sighs happily, throwing his free hand up to rest behind his head as he takes a moment to appreciate this bliss with you. ‘86 baby, who’d have thought.
#Eddie Munson#Eddie Munson smut#eddie munson fanfic#Eddie Munson x reader#Eddie Munson x you#stranger things s4#stranger things fanfiction#st4#eddie deserved better#stranger things imagines#stranger things smut
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Yui doesn't care (Ep. 221)
We live in a time when a lot of people think plot twists are things that come out of nowhere, weren't foreshadowed or hinted at, because it's the cheapness we've been served by a lot of media for years now.
They feel cheated when a story properly builds and foreshadows, rewarding its audience with that delicious "aha" moment when their theories are finally confirmed.
Many people think you're not supposed to see plot twists coming. That's false. Good writers will clue you in early on so when that juicy, explosive moment finally arrives, you're rewarded for piecing it all. It's beautiful and wonderful; this was exactly that kind of episode for me.
For a very (very) long time I have said that Yui doesn't love Kousuke. Many in the fandom insisted she did—that her actions were based on twisted love. I never bought it.
She is also not just a “scorned woman” out to get revenge on her trash, unfaithful husband.
Yui is more than that; she always has been.
The moment when I knew she didn't care for Kousuke was when she invited Shin Ae (who was still a minor at that time) to his apartment on his birthday. She had planned to put Shin Ae in a revealing dress, but when that didn't work out, Yui put her in one of Kousuke’s shirts.
This wasn’t some harmless prank either. It’s how she set up Shin Ae to look—hair messy and without bottoms—that really chilled the spine. Shin Ae looked like she had just gotten out of bed after a romp and got into her lover’s shirt. That was the visual she went for.
Yui did this for her own amusement. Quimchee often says, “She’s bored” and I think people dismiss this too easily.
Yui wanted to unsettle her son for the thrill of it.
Because seeing Kousuke bothered was amusing.
Because playing with a young, vulnerable girl was amusing.
And she could get away with it. She can always get away with it. She’s lived so long doing all these terrible things and has gotten away with it every time.
Regardless of any deeper, ulterior plans she has, Yui moves while trying to maximize her amusement.
She loves playing with people.
She loves using them as personal entertainment tools.
She has spent her married life trying to break Rand’s cold facade because she wanted to see him in red. This is why Rand has tried maintaining such an indifferent attitude. If he’s unable to overcome her then at least he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him respond to her many aggressions and instances of undermining his authority (especially as a parent to Kousuke.)
All her actions throughout have shown us she doesn’t care about Kousuke. Not as a mother or even as a person. He is a tool, a toy, and a powerful blackmail piece.
This thing is her most precious, priceless pawn.
Kousuke is the key to her having power back entirely into her hands and not needing Rand. She has done everything in her power to make sure he is hers. She has purposefully isolated and manipulated him so that the only person he has to turn to is her. She makes him doubt the sincerity of every relationship to prove only she is real when she is the fakest of them all.
[I am not absolving Rand of anything, but to claim that Yui hasn't had anything to do with his deteriorated relationship to Kousuke is a huge disservice to the story and the complex layers in all their dynamics.]
Consider how even Shin Ae has been presented to him as someone who comes around for money. She went to his apartment for money, she went to the formal for money. Whatever positive opinion Kousuke can form about Shin Ae, she tries to underscore that in the end, she came into his life because of money and will stay because of money.
She even makes him doubt Hansuke, the only relative and person openly caring and worrying for him. The only one who might genuinely stand by his side through everything.
This isn’t a mother’s twisted love.
This is far worse.
And so, finally, after years of seeing so many people defend Yui in this fandom—claiming she has done everything out of love—I can say you are wrong.
You have always been wrong.
The signs were there.
You've just chosen to ignore them.
This has nothing to do with Rand's affair. Having an affair does not make a person—a mother—not love her own son.
The way she has manipulated Kousuke was there before Rand even had an affair. This has always been Yui's goal with her offspring.
[And it might be the reason why Rand was never with her again or willing to "have more kids"—putting aside the whole theory of him not being Kousuke's biological father.]
This chapter shows us that Yui is not afraid of drugging or murdering to get her way. She's not afraid of exposing perhaps the truth that he isn't Rand's son (if that turns out being true) so long as she gets to keep control of her priceless pawn.
If Rand were to show Kousuke love now, if he were to stretch out that hand in spite of Yui's threats and her only recourse was killing him or revealing he's not the father, then she will do it.
She has said it with her own mouth.
She is not on Kousuke’s side. If Rand is gone, he will have no one—because she’s not on his side, actually.
This is what Yui wants.
She wants to surround him with people loyal to her, obedient to her, and serving her interests. If not, she will cut them out. She will not allow anyone to steer Kousuke away from her agenda and she has laid the threat very plainly, once more.
This is not the first time she's given Rand an ultimatum.
The difference now is their age, perhaps their power levels being a lot more matched, and the kids being essentially adults so Rand is willing to risk more.
[We could also argue that Yui wanted Shin Ae as Kousuke's assistant because Jayce has always been Rand's man, but that's a whole other post for a different time.]
Yui has never cared.
And she’s not beyond tossing Kousuke when he’s no longer useful to whatever she needs.
The people who think "I want what's best for him" is genuine have really missed all the clues laid for us before this decisive moment.
She's always taken pleasure from Kousuke's discomfort. Back at his birthday, in those flashbacks at the park when Kousuke comes back from meeting Nol and Nessa, and even through Meg's harassment.
That she would be amused by Rand, Nol, or Shin Ae's misery wasn't surprising, but what gave her away was when she was tickled by her own son's suffering.
And now nobody can argue otherwise because episode 221 exists.
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The Sweetest Taste | Chapter 19 - "MANDO!"
When Din Djarin meets a beautiful cake seller from Nevarro, do you think he’s just going to stand back and let her suffer at the hands of her abusive boyfriend? After a lifetime of heartache and pain, Lysa Kane realises she’s not on her own any more and finds an unlikely friend in the Mandalorian. And Din Djarin does not like men who treat women like that, not one tiny bit. Friendship/comfort and maybe something more…
Masterlist
Chapter 19
----
It took Din, and the others, six long days to try and track down the Mandalorians.
With their mission a success, Bo-Katan had asked if him had wanted to join them on Mandalore for a while. But with his mind firmly on other things, Din had politely declined.
“Well if you ever need to talk you know where I am,” Bo-Katan had told him pointedly as he had made for his N-1 with Grogu, ready to go back to Nevarro.
Din had thanked her, with a gracious nod of his head.
“And if you want my advice-” she had told him. “...just give her time.”
And with that she had gone, walked away leaving Din with those words to ponder on his long journey home.
It had been good to get off-planet for a few days. The thrill of a challenge and new adventure taking his mind off Lysa’s decision not to go with him.
Not that he had stopped thinking of her for barely a second.
But now, after arriving home, along with a good sleep and some breakfast, Din and Grogu found themselves here. In amongst the tall civic buildings of Nevarro, taking a stroll through the busy cobbled streets with Greef Karga.
“-and that’s when I knew he’d done it. I had the Marshal send him on the first express ship to the New Republic Prison Complex the next morning,” muttered Karga, as they walked side by side, with Grogu floating in his pram beside them.
After being away for a few days, Din always considered it good form to check on how things were doing when it came to his now-home planet.
But he was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new Marshal had been doing wonders for the morale of the City and its inhabitants. Working on cracking down on crime and improving communications between the local and not-so local tradespeople that flew in and out of the now-bustling city.
“Y’know, while we're on the topic of trouble, I’m actually glad I bumped into you,” Karga continued, with a raise of his brows. “A little birdy told me that your name is on the hit list of quite a few of the scum propping up the bars around here all of sudden.”
He looked to Din.
“So you wanna tell me what you’d done to deserve such an honour?”
His comment was wry and sarcastic, but there seemed to be genuine concern behind it.
Din gave a long sigh, scuffing his boots slightly as he walked. His hand lingering on the hilt of the blade at his belt, absent-mindedly.
“I thought I was doing the right thing” he began, giving a shake of his beskar-covered head as his helmet glinted in the afternoon sun. “...helping out a friend.”
Karga stopped, giving a knowing smile, as Din slowed and turned to look at his old friend.
“That friend happen to be a baker by any chance?” Karga muttered, suddenly giving a nod at something over Din’s armoured shoulder.
Din turned suddenly to look at what Karga was gesturing at, seeing a familiar face chatting to a stall-holder across the way.
Lysa.
Today she was dressed in a pale cream belted tunic dress that fell to the floor, with that same old large wicker basket swinging from the crook of her arm. Her hair was down, flowing behind her, catching the warm sun, making her look like a mirage to him.
A feeling of painful longing washed over Din.
A feeling that he tried to suppress as best he could.
Lysa was talking to the stall-holder with a small smile painted across her lips, her face bright and inviting. Like the warmth of the sun on a cold day.
“Well?” came Karga’s voice from his side as came to stand beside Din. “You gonna go talk to her?”
Din gave a huff through his modulator. “I don't think she’d want to see me.”
But Karga at once let out a tsk. “What? A strapping guy like you?” he said in a tutting voice. “Nonsense. “I’ve seen plenty of women over the years try and throw themselves at you, Mando. I doubt she’d be an exception.”
Din continued to watch as Lysa purchased four large bags of flour, before moving onto a fruit stall nearby, her hips hypnotically swaying beneath her long skirt as she walked.
She still hadn't seen him standing across the square from her, and for that Din was thankful.
“It’s not-” he began, giving another shake of his head and huffing more audibly this time. “I upset her and I just don’t think she’d be ready to talk to me again.”
Din noticed Karga stare up at him for a long few seconds, before he turned back to look at Lysa giving a shrug of his robed shoulders.
“Well maybe I might go and introduce myself,” he said suddenly, with a smirk playing across his bearded lips.
And before Din could do anything to stop him, Karga had strode forwards, over towards the heart of the Bazaar.
“Karga!” hissed Din, through gritted teeth, his eyes suddenly widening, watching as his friend cut a path through the small crowd and approached Lysa.
“Excuse me, Miss,” Din heard him say from where he was standing, with his same old booming tone.
At once Lysa turned to him, holding a horned melon which she was squeezing to test its ripeness. Din saw her eyes widen suddenly, and she gave a deep bow, her gaze finding the floor.
“High Magistrate,” she said quickly, her tone modest.
But Karga merely smiled her way.
“We’ve met before, right?” he said in a friendly tone, giving a small frown as though remembering. “You were looking at that little store for lease -the one on the corner of Orizo- I think it was just a couple of days before Life Day last year.”
Din saw Lysa give a hurried nod, as Din watched them, desperate to run and yet somehow rooted to the spot.
“Yes, we did,” she said with a humble smile.
“So…did you get it?” Karga asked, making conversation.
Din noticed Lysa flush at these words, and instantly lose eye-contact with Karga.
“I…um…” she gave a swallow. “My savings couldn’t quite stretch to it in the end…”
But Karga who blatantly wasn't there for mere idle chit-chat, moved the conversation on quickly.
“I think you know my old friend, Mando,” he said suddenly, gesturing with his hand and turning his head, gazing over to where Din stood.
In that second Din could have killed him.
Lysa lips suddenly parted as she turned her head, seeing Din suddenly for the first time.
But Karga oblivious, or perhaps not so oblivious, to the awkwardness between the pair, merely raised a hand and beckoned Din to join them.
“MANDO,” he yelled in a jovial manner, causing more than just a few market-vendors and customers to turn to look at him. Not that he wasn't already noticeable, standing there in full beskar armour.
Din gave a swallow, knowing he would have to go over. For what would it look like if he walked away from her now?
Din looked quickly to Grogu, only to see that his son, who had obviously already clocked Lysa, was already four of five feet ahead of him, zipping speedily over Karga and the blonde woman in his hover-pram.
The Mandalorian could feel his heart start to thump inside his ribs, and his palms become suddenly sweaty.
How was it that he could stay cool when it came to violence or the horrors of this galaxy? But put him face to face with Lysa and he just crumbled to pieces?
He approached slowly, watching as Lysa took a deep breath, tucking a strand of long golden hair behind her ear almost nervously.
“And this little one you must know too,” said Karga as Grogu arrived with them.
Immediately, Lysa smiled at Grogu, stroking his tiny cheek with her two fingers as Grogu gurgled up happily to her.
But she looked up quickly as Din came to stop a couple of feet away, completing the circle.
Her smile diminished a little but didn't disappear completely.
She looked apprehensive and a little nervous - very unlike the Lysa he had last walked through the marketplace with all those weeks ago.
From here Din could just about see the last of the faded bruise poking out from her collar, but he didn't doubt there weren’t fresher ones hidden beneath the layers of fabric she was clothed in today.
This raised Din’s hackles a little as he thought of Crix and what Lysa had continued to allow him to do, just by agreeing to stay with him.
But he immediately softened again, as his eyes met her green ones.
To him she was perfect. Skin smooth and creamy, if not a little tanned by the sun. Hair golden like the sweetest of honeys. And between her brows sat a small vertical frown line that lingered there even when she was happy and smiling.
When Din pictured her face in the darkness of the night when he couldn’t sleep, that frown line was always there, helping to fully form the image of her in his mind.
One day Din would press his lips to that space just above her nose. To that frown line. A simple thing like that was what he longed for these days, above anything else.
The simplicity of being able to touch her…
…hold her…
….kiss her.
To treat her exactly how she should be treated. Like something angelic…something that should be loved and cherished.
But the masked Mandalorian shook himself from these thoughts suddenly, dragging his gaze back to Karga who was speaking - even though Din had barely heard him.
“Mando and I go way back,” Karga commented conversationally, leaning in towards Lysa slightly as he spoke. “You should have seen his armour before all this beskar though. Like he’d picked his way through a scrap heap-”
“Maybe if you’d have paid better for some of the bounties I collected for you-” snipped Din, in a low voice.
But Karga gave an easy wave of his hand, cutting Din off.
“Let’s not talk old business now,” he said with a chuckle, before turning fully to Lysa. “I have to be getting on. Lots of things to attend to today. But it was lovely to meet you again.”
And with that Karga reached for Lysa’s free hand, pulling it to his lips and pressing a kiss to her smooth knuckles neatly.
He offered her one last charming smile before patting Din suddenly on the back.
“I’ll see you soon, Mando” he said in a low voice, uttering the next part just loud enough for Din to hear as he passed behind. “Don’t do anything I wouldn't do.”
Din clenched his jaw in annoyance and embarrassment.
It was typical Greef Karga to do something like this. Wouldn't be the first time he’d double crossed him.
Din paused for a long moment as Karga disappeared off through the crowds before turning back to Lysa.
She was staring up at Din now, mouth open as though she was going to say something, but quickly closed it again, obviously changing her mind.
A silence fell between the pair, Din desperately searching for something to say.
“Sorry about Karga,” he said finally. “He thinks that being High Magistrate means he can bother anyone he wants to.”
But Lysa just smiled at this. “It’s ok. I wasn't busy,” she said in a kind voice, glancing down to see that she still had the horned melon in her hand. She turned and placed it neatly back on the pile over her right shoulder. “Just picking up some supplies ready for the week.”
Grogu at the couple’s side gave a chirp, eyeing the fruit on the stall behind her, his eyes suddenly becoming very round.
“I’m sorry, I haven't bought any fruit yet,” said Lysa sweetly, noting his hungry look and tapping the top of Grogu’s ear affectionately, as she stepped back a little, allowing the child space to see what was on the stall behind her. “What do you want? I can get you some of these yellow berries-“
She bent low next to Grogu and began following his gaze, pointing at the fruit on the table one by one.
But Din gave a quick shake of his head.
“I’ll buy him the fruit,” he said in a firm tone, shooting a reprimanding look to Grogu, who merely ignored his father. “You don't need to do that for him.”
But perhaps his tone was too stern sounding, for Lysa looked up at Din suddenly, her smile faltering and her cheeks turning pink.
“O-Of course,” she said, sounding utterly embarrassed, standing up straight and taking a sudden step away from Grogu. “Sorry.”
But it had never been Din’s intention to tell her off for buying something for his son.
“No, I just meant-” he began, but Lysa gave a lick of her lips, shaking her head.
“I get it, it’s fine,” she said offering him a small understanding smile, she blinked a little and turned herself half away pointing down the long strip of stalls. “I’ve actually…um…I’ve got to go get some pitted beans from Trefden’s stall before they sell out….so I’ll see you around….maybe.”
She looked to Grogu and gave him a final smile before turning and making to head off.
But before he even realised what he was doing, Din opened his mouth.
“Lysa, I-”
But he faltered, as she immediately turned back to him, her chest rising and falling hard beneath her dress.
She almost looked expectant now. Not like someone looking for a grand gesture, but like seeing the person you love on your wedding day after their veil was lifted.
Her perfect marsh-coloured eyes met with his behind his beskar, and for a moment it was like the entire world stood still around them.
Din noted, in that second, how plump and parted her lips looked. How her beautiful her hair was caught in the sunlight behind her. How her pretty eyes darted back and forth across his helmet, as though searching for him.
To him she was a goddess. And nothing more perfect had ever existed.
Lysa waited patiently, but when no more words from Din came, she merely smiled sweetly, and took in a shaky breath before turning away again. And with that she was gone, swept away within the crowds.
Din merely closed his lips once more, his mouth dry, as he swallowed with difficulty.
Even if he had had something to say planned. He knew he would never have been able to say the words.
For here he was, a bounty hunter, a Mandalorian, and not a young one at that, lost for words, awed by Lysa.
And despite knowing that she wasn't his…he couldn't help but dream about what life would be like if one day she was.
And as much as Din knew that he should forget about her. Respect her choices. Just walk away. He knew that that was now impossible. He was too far gone.
But what Din Djarin didn't notice as he stared after Lysa Kane, was a surly-looking Quarren stood in a brown leather robe, leaning against a wall on the far side of the square, watching him.
The Quarren punched in a number into his wrist comm before lifting the device to his mouth, uttering just four words, his eyes still locked on Din.
“The Mandalorian……he’s back.”
………………………..
@its5-15wakeup @thecraftyartist @crazypaine @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @marysucks-blog
Gifs are not mine.
Let me know if you would like to be tagged in this fic to be told when the next update comes out.
#din djarin#the mandalorian#din x oc#pedro pascal#din reader#din smut#din djarin fluff#din djarin oc#mando#din Djarin smut#din djarin imagine
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wip thursday (idk)
before i go back to prompts (SEND PROMPTS), thank for to @nullcanary for the wip tag! i am zagging on y'all with a snippet from my most recent dip into my modern AU for Maeve and Gortash.
Reminder: In this AU, Maeve is a Gwyneth Paltrow/Ivanka Trump mishmash nepo baby health guru influencer and Enver is her husband of fifteen years who started as a genius engineer in aviation/rocketry and is now an executive in a weapons manufacturing company. They have an agreement that they each go to one event a quarter to support the other and this is when Maeve makes him go with her to a movie premiere. They have a big house in north NJ that neither of them live in but their three kids (via surrogate) are there.
Anyway y'all ever do good drugs at an afterparty and end up reconnecting with your estranged husband?
In the dark of the room, it’s easy to lean back against the same strong chest, to breathe in the same rich cologne that he has always worn. It settles around her just as his arms settle around her and she feels her own body relax, a combination of success and drugs and heat and dark folding them back together into the shape that they always seemed to end up in. They talk in an easy way, a way that does not stick in her mind in terms of what is said but how it is said, soft smiles and genuine interest, questions and follow ups, eyes that, when they do meet, seem to see each other for the first time in months.
Finally, she feels hot breath on her ear and through the haze, she hears him ask, “Do you want to get out of here?”
She is transported back fifteen years to another party, one with louder music and much stronger drugs, one where she was the one who asked the question, a socialite with dreams and a low cut dress, and he was the young genius that she had taken a shine to.
She takes his hand without a word.
As they wait for the driver to bring around her car, he puts his jacket around her shoulders and she finally feels the chill that he had noticed before she had, the gooseflesh running up her bare arms and back. She closes her eyes and only the light of a flashbulb brings her back enough to realize that they are kissing. She can imagine the comments already, how her fans will gush about her perfect life and her perfect family and her perfect marriage to a perfect man. Neither of them stop, if anything he pulls her closer as another set of flashes go off just before their Escalade blocks them from view.
When her car stops at his hotel for the second time that evening, he offers her his hand and she takes it again, letting him lead her inside. The lobby is gleaming old Hollywood, lights reflected a million times on crystal and brass, and she is happy once they are in the elevator and away from it, happier still when he motions her into his hotel suite and closes the door behind them.
In the dark, they can be hands and hearts. In the dark, they can drop it all, clothes and scars and armor. In the dark, she can focus on the feeling of his hands trailing down her flat stomach that did not bear his children, his somehow still calloused fingers as they open her up, break her apart in the casual way that only someone who has done so a thousand times can manage. In the dark, she can be like she was the first time, drunk with love and the thrill of claiming something for herself, something she was not supposed to have, this man from nothing who built with his hands and saw a future where he owned the world, not because it had been given to him like it had been given to her, but because he had reached out and taken it. In the dark, she can offer herself up and be taken.
When Maeve finally opens her eyes the next day, she can already tell from the light sneaking through the windows that it has to be well past the afternoon. She goes to the bathroom, sees the mascara under her eyes and the marks on her neck under the harsh glow of the vanity light. She turns on the faucet and sets to putting herself back together.
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TW for uhh..vent, I guess? And a lot of sensitive topics. Scroll with caution.
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Does anyone else just get WAY too stressed and completely shut down? Like..have a kind of, Momentary, Pseudo-braindeath? You’ll just..keep taking information in, and you can’t do it, and you stop functioning like a ‘normal’ human being, and you can’t even nod or shake your head in response to things. And everything either gets ‘muted’ or turned to ‘100 volume’. Hearing everything, feeling your own blood pumping beneath your skin, but it’s nothing but static— and then when you come back, you missed whatever was going on? 4th time this week. I’m REALLY not excited for this to end. I mean, 7 siblings waiting at home. None of them are nice. Dads always at work, moms either stoned or drunk— I just needed to talk about things, even typing this I feel sick. I feel guilty, because, oh! At this age I don’t have anything to be bloody ‘worried or stressed’ over. When I’m not at Hogwarts, I’m taking care of breathing creatures that I didn’t even create. And that’s not even talking about the bloody intrusions. I enjoy taking care of those I love. Those I’m related too, despite being a sour apple about it, because most of the work wasn’t even done by the people who ‘made me’. I would’ve rather died in some fucked up accident then do this, sure, but then I wouldn’t have met them. The people that basically— saved my life. MY life.
I wouldn’t be alive, without them, genuinely. And I’m so thankful they’re here— but I get so frustrated with myself when I still can’t understand the answer to; “ Why do you enjoy being around me so much. “
I don’t know if I was just, entertaining. Like a jester infront of a large crowd. I don’t want to care for my own needs, but to cling to those people, would mean caring for how I look, How I dress, and how I act. I act upon intrusions, because, countless times— Robyn has had to chase me down all because I saw a frog. Or Kevin having to correct me because I didn’t word something correctly, or having to have one of the FREY’S remind me that I was ‘too close to the edge’. I don’t understand why people worry so much when I run into death and life situations, that’s all the time for me. The basilisk, the trolls, myself, and amongst other things people are concerned for— why and how I haven’t been stricken with the might and tyranny of the gods yet. A part of me, still can’t believe that someone still unconditionally wants me, so I sabotage myself into depressive episodes until I freeze in place and don’t move until things are over. Because it’s ‘better’ this way. I make the meals. I bathe them. I dress them. I have multiple jobs just to feed them, am I NOT doing it correctly? Why do they hurt me. Why do they call me ‘MOM’. I’m not a woman. I’ll never be a lady, I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I’ve stopped caring for myself so long ago, that even the people who claim to DESPISE me, have to tell me what is and isn’t dangerous. For Merlin’s sake— I’m exhausted. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, I’m only in the 3rd year. I don’t know if I even WANT to keep this up. How do I know what comes next? How do I know if I’ll even have the energy to keep turning the pages? I’m not thrilled with my life. Most of the joys in it, only consist of people I’ve known for such short spans of time I can’t believe it. But I know the sinking feeling I get every time that makes me get worse, “ what if they leave eventually. “ kind of deal. I know they wouldn’t, they’d never. Right? I’m likely just overthinking again, it’s a bloody pain to deal with. I want to remain happy for them, I do. But it’s rare enough for me to be able to physically cry around people. I feel like a fake when I do. Like I don’t deserve to, and it just keeps ripping at me like an enraged Cerberus.
I don’t trust myself alone in a room for more then 10 minutes. There are so many things that cross my mind, some of them could get me out in a mental institution, and it’s not that I CRAVE death. I’m afraid to do it myself, but I consistently second guess it when I do think in such a manner. “ what if I slipped from the window and fell to my death? “ wouldn’t work. Can’t swim, why not drown in the lake? Get mauled brutally by some kind of vicious man-eating plant? Who knows.
I must be ‘perfect’ to continue to have people like and enjoy my presence. Even if it makes me tear at my own arms like they’re thin tissue sometimes. I have a hard time remembering people after long periods of time. I never want that to happen to them. I don’t want to forget, but eventually it’ll occur. Like the moron I am. All I ever was, is an object.
I could die tonight, tomorrow, the day after that. Who knows. Maybe I’d finally do it, and put an end to the fact people just have to- ‘put up with me’. Maybe I just need to sit down and breathe. I don’t know anymore. I get a break from these thoughts SOMETIMES, but who knows! Maybe I’ll be gone by morning.
…It’s funny isn’t it? I tried once. Didn’t work that first time. She wasn’t comforting at all when she found out. Those words were always left in the back of my thoughts after that. “ if you’re this miserable here, maybe I SHOULD let another family have you. “ but then again. She doesn’t need me when it doesn’t have to do with the kids. And with the recent accidents, all of them? Sometimes I wish one of them actually, finally, just…kicked me down hard enough. So I didn’t have to get up. But it’s for them, I can’t leave. It’d hurt them. I did have broken ribs, I did dislocate my arm. Severely. I don’t have upper body strength, but it’s fine right? She wouldn’t need nor feel the need to keep me around if her kids didn’t exist. Oldest of 8 in total. What a big joke.
I feel guilty when someone shows me unconditional love, so I constantly feel the need to give back to get it. And I try. And sometimes I fail, i barely eat as it is. I know it could be alarming to others around me, I understand why. I just don’t feel hungry anymore. The lack of it decreased my appetite to the point where I could eat half a bowl of cereal, or eat a small bag of granola, and I’d be full for hours. If I eat more then that I feel the need to vomit. I feel disgusting, and greedy. “ I can see your ribs! “ I know. But I physically can’t take more. I cannot eat more. It’s not fun. It’s not silly, it’s not any of the other STUPID phrases I use for ‘good’. I wish I could look myself in the mirror and genuinely mean the compliments I give myself. I’ve gone to the hospital wing so many times I’ve lost count, because I didn’t just fall asleep. I past out in the middle of class, and I’m not trying to sound melodramatic, but I take in so little nutritional value for my body that I have been close to having a reaper knocking on my door. I know what it’s like. I can only HOPE to the gods, that those kids NEVER turn out the way I did. That my friends don’t need to know what being uncomfortably grabbed or harassed for your suddenly ‘small’ body size is by a few of the more vile older students. Or your own blood, Or being forced into a position you can never forget and being overly ‘sexual’ because of it. I cried for hours after what happened to them. Not because I just, felt bad. I could’ve noticed. I could’ve done something for them. Because I’ve seen and dealt with it to extremes I shouldn’t dare mention, but I didn’t. I was blind. I was fucking BLIND, and I wanted to paint the floors with that horrible man’s blood. I should’ve known. It isn’t the first for me either.
But I’m not allowed to give him what he deserves. He’s ‘gone’ now. But it doesn’t change anything, you can scrub until you bleed, but it still feels it’s not gone. I wouldn’t wish this shit on my WORST enemies. It stays with you forever. Even if you want to stop remembering it.
I’m so sorry, that I didn’t see it.
#hpma oc#harry potter#roleplay#harry potter oc#harry potter magic awakened#magic awakened#tw vent#Basil sprootley#in character (dw)
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The week of the autumn harvest festival:
With Papa responding to an emergency call in, and dear Lock valiantly battling a minor cold, there is really no other option.
They have to pick up mama!
...
...
...
...and they are so very thrilled about this :)
---
They have no reason to drive. Papa is the one with an ageing flatbed from way back when he used to transport hay bales. It was agreed all around that Lock shouldn't drive whatsoever, and- well, papa only tried to get them to learn how to use it once. Once.
Why bother with a clunky machine when they can just step a forward and slip to the left into the glittering Between, walk a few feet through the languid golden swirl of time and space, and slip right back out exactly where they wanted to be in the first place?
It's not for everyone, of course! The Between was very disorienting for most not raised in it. Even those that visited, like mama in the past, tended to keep it brief. So, they used it as a shortcut for themself and no one else.
(Technically, they were not supposed to tell anyone what they were. Dragging someone with them could constitute as outright telling, so they refrained.)
They step out when the taste of smog permeates the Between and land just where they need to be: within the city airstrip parking lot. Early as they meant to be, they pull out their phone and unlock it to the screen that already has the taxi's number open, saved there before they left.
By the time mama finally makes it outside, the taxi is waiting, and Wes is ready with a smile and a wave.
"Over here mama!" They say, and vibrant green eye-lights snap to them.
Mama always dressed sensibly, so the bright scarf wrapped around her skull stood out in bright red and orange flowers. The white blouse and dark skirt make more sense, especially paired with the dark flats that flash in and out of view as she quickly walks over.
There is a few seconds of silence as they simply look at each other, Wes patiently waiting as those vibrant eyes pick them apart piece by piece. Whatever she was looking for must be there, because she gives a short nod before opening up her arms, and Wes obliges by kneeling down for a quick hug.
"It's good to see you darlin'," she murmurs against the side of their skull before pulling back just enough to pat their cheekbone. "Bless your heat, comin' here to get me."
"No problem at all, mama. The city ain't as bad as it used to be for me!" They make sure to open the door for her before they get in themselves. It's only proper after all.
(And if they take a small moment to make a face where she can't see it, well, that is just their little secret.)
---
Idle chatter about her flights- wait times in terminals, the woes of traveling places built for people much taller, an intense hankering for some real sweet tea, dagnabbit- last quite awhile before mama finally gets to the meat of things.
"Your words are sounding a bit stilted again hun."
Wes sighs with a smile and glances out the window. They had nearly lasted until their stop. "I know mama."
They can practically hear her frown. "Have you not kept it up? Y'know that pappy and Lock'd be more than happy to help you practice if- oh, who am I tryin' ta kid, I know better than that."
She cuts herself off, arms crossing as she shakes her head. Wes can't help but think her insistence on them maintaining an accent is silly nonsense, but they also hate the way disappointment radiates off her whenever they stop trying to fit in.
"Mama, no one really cares one way or another. It's such a small thing, it really doesn't matter." Exasperation leeks out in their voice, but they try their best to enunciate the words the way she'd want even still.
She turns and looks at them, and genuine annoyance floods them before she even speaks.
"Darlin', y'know most everyone in town talks like this! I don't want you ostracizing yourself, I want you to make friends-"
"Mama please-"
"-form some real bonds with your peers, and I know ya haven't been doin' that with or without takin' like the rest a us-"
"Mother, we're here!" They say somewhat shrilly before practically throwing themselves out the door.
---
After paying the somewhat amused taxi driver, they still have a bit of a walk up their long drive before they get to the dubious safety of the house and their sick sister. And, now that they're really alone together... well-
...at least they're getting this out of the way :)
---
The long, drawn out sigh from their mama gets blown away by the crisp autumn breeze. They shiver, shove their hands in their pockets, and look down at the gravel path crunching beneath their feet.
"You're my lil flower, Wisteria. Y'know I just want you to be happy, right?"
They know it's important.
They know finding love is necessary.
But love is difficult to wrap their hand around.
"What you're doin' now seems to make you happy... but findin' someone to settle with, here-"
It isn't difficult to love in some ways. There are many that they would kill for, even if they didn't feel the need to protect the entire town from threat already. It isn't as if they don't have friends or loved ones.
They flirt. They have dated. It was fun, finding what would make someone want to dance and swinging them into step. Human and monster alike were fascinating in how similar they could really be.
So far, no one had loved them back. Not in the way that mattered. Not in a way that made them stop thinking, humans and monsters and me.
" ...wouldn't that make you happy too?"
Their silence rings a touch to long. When they look over, their mama's sockets look so tired and sad, it's like seeing Lock in a bad headspace, and they know they messed up. So they smile and reach over, gently touching their mama's back.
"I'm sure it would mama. But I can't force these things to happen!" They could, but that would be walking off the opposite side of the line their mama wanted them to cross. "Please don't fret, it's not good for you. I'm sure to find someone in due time."
Mama sighs again, shaking her head. "You and your mouth full of honey." She mutters, and they take it as a sign that the matter has been dropped for now.
Home draws near in the silence that follows.
They're sure the matter will be brought up again come her next visit. It always does.
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T !!! 🗣️ HII !!! 🗣️
I’m finally stopping by again after being dead for such a lonnngggg time 😭🥹
I started off by rereading your last response to me, which was super heartwarming (very much older sibling vibes 🥹💜), and I can now say I did end up passing the AP Chem exam!! I got a 3, which I was SO relieved to see that I passed 😅😅
I’m now taking AP Bio tho, along with 3 other APs, so I’m back to square one again… And our first unit is covering chem, which ASDJFJSJS *war flashbacks* 😔
Prom was alrighttt; the boy drama didn’t turn out the best for one of my friends during the middle of the event 😬 (very complicated, as most teen drama often is LMAO), but it’s fine now for the most part. I’m happy we at least had fun dressing up and dancing together ☺️
Aside from that, ty for all the lovely advice/support and positive vibes you gave (it means a lot)!! 💜💜
I also want to say that I’m so sorry I was inactive all summer! 😔 Imma be honest, mine didn’t go the best.. Nothing bad happened thankfully, but my mental state took a pretty steep nosedive, mostly due to the looming knowledge of this being the last year of my childhood (legally), time flying by way too fast, and the upcoming stress of college apps 😓
However, near the end of the summer I watched the movie Soul for the first time (just by chance), which actually resonated so deeply with me?? I’m so grateful I watched it because it genuinely helped pull me out of the state of limbo I was in, and I’ve can honestly say I’ve been doing much better since then (it definitely hammered home a lot of the advice you gave as well 🫶). A bit cheesy, but nonetheless ironically fitting for what it was lmao 😅
Now, how have you been??? I scrolled down a little to see that you injured your knee?! 😰
Super glad it wasn’t a torn ACL, but a sprain it still quite inconvenient and painful (been there 😔). Remember to take it easy and rest, and I hope it heals soon 😤
Other than that, hope you’ve been well overall? 🥹
- 💜
Hii bby !!!!! 🤯😍 I'm so glad you weren't actually dead, and am thrilled to see you in my inbox again !!!!! 😂🫶🏽 You've nothing to apologize for inactivity wise; you had a lot going on, which is 100% understandable! 😵💫 I haven't watched Soul, but I liked its trailers, and am happy it accomplished what I (personally) feel art should — made you feel something !! 🥺
Congratulations on passing AP Chem !! 🥳🤓 I only took 2 AP classes in high school (Language & Composition + Government), and didn't take any of the official exams (I did get A's in the classes themselves tho), and I purposely avoided the STEM AP classes lmao — props to you !! 😤😎
Prom and drama seems like an appropriate (albeit unfortunate) combo 🥴, but I'm relieved that everything's generally ~okay! 😮💨 I hope you yourself had a drama free and enjoyable night? 😅 What color was your outfit? 👀
My knee's doing well, albeit still a bit stiff, and I can def tell when I've accidentally pushed it too much throughout the day (i.e. walking too fast + standing for too long). 🤪 Besides that, I'm basically just on the semester grind: classes, work, hw, writing, exercising, and hanging out w/ my bf + friends. 🫨
Sending you fabulous Friday vibes, and a bonus bowl of pho! 🍜💝
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love me or we both go down | kth
summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.
{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}
pairing: kim taehyung x female reader
genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?)
word count: 32k
warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow
a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much.
also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!
Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.
The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either.
With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless.
Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?
If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now.
Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual.
You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.
As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans.
The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.
The doors open.
You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent.
Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.
Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned.
When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway.
This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.
There can be no sneering here.
“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”
This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.
The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you.
“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”
Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration.
But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face.
Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse.
The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway.
When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place.
He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”
And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”
When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened.
The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to.
“Ugh, finally.”
The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.
“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”
“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”
You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”
“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on.
The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence.
You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks.
If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey.
You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice.
“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up.
“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”
You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life.
“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”
“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is.
You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you.
Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever.
Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street.
Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other.
To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.
Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable.
“But the place is nice, right?”
You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one.
“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here.
“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”
His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man.
“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical.
“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”
“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is.
“I mean…”
“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”
As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever.
He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night.
If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that.
“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”
Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be.
You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.
Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do.
It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been.
And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line.
And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t.
It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?
You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.
Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.
You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media.
What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish.
You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.
Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless.
Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras.
Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day.
Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you.
When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good.
Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes.
Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.
By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition.
If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.
But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers.
“What’s our plan for tonight?”
Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”
You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”
“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised.
You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move.
“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?
Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”
“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”
Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”
“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died.
He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”
“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.
“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss.
The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big.
Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost.
The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go.
You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again.
For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.
Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.
“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”
The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way.
Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding.
“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”
“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”
You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family.
“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”
Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable.
“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”
Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart.
Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”
You resist the urge to scoff.
“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you.
“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”
If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”
“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if.
“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband.
You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”
It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him.
The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear.
“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense.
“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”
“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”
“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”
“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”
You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down.
Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.
“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.
“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.
“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”
“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”
“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”
Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”
“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”
“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”
You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself.
Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”
You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap.
Then, a camera flashes.
Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case.
You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring.
You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other.
“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant.
“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments.
“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”
“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now.
Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”
“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it.
“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain.
“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite.
“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”
“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”
“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”
“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined.
You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”
“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?
“Your grandmother.”
Your mouth shuts.
“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.
“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”
You freeze in your tracks. The will?
“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?
You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”
Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“But—”
“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”
She hangs up.
Well.
There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked.
At least the feeling is mutual.
Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin.
“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”
You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?
“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls.
“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”
“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”
“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”
Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”
“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”
That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with.
“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff.
“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”
“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”
“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”
“As in…?” Your interest in piqued.
“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone.
“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less.
“Public only,” Taehyung specifies.
You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”
“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”
“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing.
“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”
Fair enough.
“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features.
Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room.
“Deal.”
For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful.
Like right now.
“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash.
“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond.
“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes.
You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other.
“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well.
Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”
You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway.
Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”
“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?
“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car.
“Okay.”
You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months.
By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else.
Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather.
“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue.
“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”
“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised.
Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours.
You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye.
“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip.
“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”
“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans.
“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”
Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”
“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”
“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”
You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged.
The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name.
You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself.
“Y/N!”
You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does.
“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”
“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs.
“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”
“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink.
“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?
“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer.
Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”
“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds.
“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him.
“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”
You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone.
“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd.
You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say.
Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts.
“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive.
“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”
“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours.
“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”
You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright.
“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”
You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home.
Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly.
When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it.
But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller.
Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him.
To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind.
“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own.
“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”
“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad.
You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”
Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?
As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway.
He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all.
“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”
“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.
The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
Oh, have they, now? Interesting.
“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices.
“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear.
Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”
“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet.
“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house.
“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”
“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says.
“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook.
“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms.
“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”
The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you.
“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”
Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement.
“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”
“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges.
“Deal.”
Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them.
The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love.
Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?
“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again.
“Hey,” you respond.
“You look nice.”
You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is.
“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night.
“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car.
You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?
He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway.
You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary.
“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic.
“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement.
Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”
You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention.
“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you.
“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he���s still got that same sense of humor.
You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster.
At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table.
If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.
It’s just life.
Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things.
And that makes you happy.
The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back.
Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”
The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car.
“What?”
“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”
Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble?
“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”
“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”
Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue.
The rest of the ride is pretty quiet.
When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you.
“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”
You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?
“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”
“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else.
“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”
“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous.
You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”
Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor.
You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration.
“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change.
You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet.
Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on.
When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly.
Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands.
“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off.
“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness.
You fall asleep instantly.
When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages.
“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor.
“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”
“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”
“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper.
“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.”
You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”
It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen.
You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name.
He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook.
“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious.
“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”
“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud.
“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical.
Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”
“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug.
Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”
“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good.
“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself.
You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”
“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.
“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day.
“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.
“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly.
“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests.
“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies.
“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip.
“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”
“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire.
Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God.
“There,” he says, a moment too late.
“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise.
You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next.
After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”
“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side.
You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again.
Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike.
“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours.
There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started.
For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life.
Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?
Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you.
Until—
“Y/N? You still up here?”
You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless.
“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong.
“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?
“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks.
Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different.
It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore.
“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead.
“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father.
“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant.
You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs.
Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up.
The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them.
When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless.
By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”
“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him.
“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork.
You grin.
The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better.
Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you.
And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home.
“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door.
“That sounds nice,” you force out.
“Okay. Your usual?”
“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months.
“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen.
What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with.
But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?
“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”
His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you.
“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”
“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”
You look at him skeptically.
“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself.
You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”
“Maybe a couple of years ago.”
You narrow your eyes.
“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“That’s called empathy,” you point out.
“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”
“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes.
“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”
“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”
Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?”
You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome.
“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband.
He’s your husband.
“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise.
You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next.
But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually.
Tomorrow will be better.
Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed.
Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today.
You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat.
Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter.
Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge.
Taehyung.
You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself.
Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer.
And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.
An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?
You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it.
Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from.
It’s an art studio.
A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green.
Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?
You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way.
Who knew he loved it so much?
You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself.
That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early.
“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door.
“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”
“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit.
Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”
“Didn’t we both agree on that?”
He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”
“The fine print of what?”
“That deal we made.”
Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much.
“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.
“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.
“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly.
“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”
“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised.
“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out.
You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do.
But you do know his Chinese takeout order.
And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least.
Who’s to say you can’t learn more?
“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”
Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions.
“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make.
His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal.
Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”
The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.
The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?
For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline.
To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night.
“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”
“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks.
The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”
“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other.
“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement.
“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up.
“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure.
One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another.
Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do.
“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here.
“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely.
“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”
“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”
You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”
“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you.
“You are?”
Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”
You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”
“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”
“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”
Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued.
You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”
“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”
“Bingo.”
“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart.
Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling.
“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive.
“A museum curator.”
It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all.
“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”
“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you.
“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”
Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”
You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.
“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.
Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with.
In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand.
“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks.
“Bathroom.”
“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”
“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation.
“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”
“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother.
“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”
“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother.
“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”
Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own.
Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room.
“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”
You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake.
“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”
For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all.
But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned.
You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas.
“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you.
“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest.
Taehyung grins.
Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background.
You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him.
“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling.
“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles.
“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”
“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”
You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”
“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily.
“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort.
He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”
“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch.
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know.
“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”
“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started.
“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”
“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff.
“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking.
Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him.
“And what did I say?” You demand more.
Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”
“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?
“You did. Don’t you remember?”
You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too.
Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?”
Of him saying—
“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”
Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”
“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”
“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not.
You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background.
“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused.
“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”
Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer.
And closer.
And a little closer.
Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television.
Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation.
Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be.
You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack.
“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out.
Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”
“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”
“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”
“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.
“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”
“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.
“What?”
“Us.”
There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other.
And he understands that now, things are different.
“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”
You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder.
You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.
There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable.
This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to.
The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat.
“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table.
You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”
“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd.
“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace.
“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin.
“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised.
That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly.
Something that makes you want more.
You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”
Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”
He doesn’t need to tell you twice.
You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins.
Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you.
There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips.
“Tell me something,” he demands.
“What?”
“A fact. Something I don’t know.”
It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”
It’s enough for him.
This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting.
Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new.
Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all.
When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.
"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.
It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.
You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.
"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.
Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.
You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.
Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.
Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly.
You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.
You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.
You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.
"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.
"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."
He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"
Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...
"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.
You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.
You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.
The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.
Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.
He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.
There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.
You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.
"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.
You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.
You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.
"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."
Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking.
He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.
Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.
Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.
Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.
He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.
"Open up for me," he orders.
And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?
Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.
"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.
It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.
A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.
You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.
Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.
"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.
You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.
Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.
"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief.
He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?
"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."
"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly.
"Fuck's sake."
You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.
Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness?
Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless.
You both are.
Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable.
"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?"
Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle.
"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking.
He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.
"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.
To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.
You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation.
You want him.
You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.
"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.
"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.
You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.
You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."
Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.
"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."
You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.
Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.
"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.
You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.
You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.
He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.
"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"
He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.
God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.
"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.
You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.
You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.
You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.
"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.
If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.
Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.
You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.
Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.
Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.
"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.
"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.
"I’m grateful, too."
"Huh?"
"I’m grateful for us, too."
Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly.
You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”
Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call.
You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock.
A late morning call, then.
Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine.
After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday.
You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself.
You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—
“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”
And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise.
You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound.
He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock.
“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already.
“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”
“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”
“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”
“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”
“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”
Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”
Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”
“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”
“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”
“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”
“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”
“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”
“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!”
You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?
The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away.
“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”
“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him.
Well, that makes two of you.
“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”
They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light.
Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could.
When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”
“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”
“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?
“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him.
A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care.
“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”
“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?
“I know,” you whisper back.
You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight.
Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it.
“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks.
“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.
Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it.
Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts.
You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life.
It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer.
But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life.
All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do.
“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes.
You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”
“Have you even called your parents?”
“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least.
“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole.
There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late.
Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love.
And then there is nothing.
“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”
Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did.
“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight.
You peer over.
It’s Taehyung.
Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?
He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean.
“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”
Oh, God.
Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”
“Can you tell us why?” They shout.
“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention.
“Huh,” Victoria says aloud.
Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.
So why not lie?
You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.
“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors.
Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything.
You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?
Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him.
The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want.
Why would he lie?
Why would he do that?
You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank.
So then, why do it at all?
Could it… could it be?
Is it true?
You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries.
Does he really love you back?
Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant.
When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him.
Almost.
Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.
Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least.
You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay.
Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you.
Or so he thinks.
You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.
My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.
And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way.
Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there.
And there he is.
“Wait! Taehyung!”
Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk.
And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then.
You know that everything will be okay.
“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up.
Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you.
And goddamnit, you will kiss him back.
It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home.
You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile.
“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear.
“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back.
You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow.
The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again.
One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny.
But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now.
The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along.
“I missed this,” you say softly.
“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”
“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn.
“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”
“They always do,” you muse with a grin.
“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”
“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin.
“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”
You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too.
“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”
“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”
“I am, too,” you say. And you are.
You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become.
Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay.
It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress.
There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.
The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.
Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.
Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?
It makes it all worth it.
"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.
You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.
Taehyung swallows.
"Do you?" You tease.
His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you.
Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.
"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.
You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow.
"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too.
"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.
"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.
"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."
"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.
You giggle.
It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed.
"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.
"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."
“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure.
"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."
God, you love this man.
You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display.
"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.
Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.
"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.
Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.
"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.
Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?
Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.
"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.
"Yes, please."
The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.
Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.
You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.
"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.
It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.
You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.
Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.
He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.
"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.
His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.
His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.
“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.
Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.
“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman
Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.
“Taehyung?”
You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.
Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.
“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.
You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love.
“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.
He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.
Faintly, you realize.
That was the first time you had ever told him that.
You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells.
“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.
Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.
It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.
You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.
Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.
You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know.
Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.
Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.
“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time.
“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart.
Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”
“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”
“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”
“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says.
“And you are mine,” you murmur.
As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball.
“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small.
He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”
And so it was.
don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!
#taehyung smut#v smut#bts smut#taehyung fluff#taehyung angst#bts fluff#bts angst#bts scenario#v fluff#v angst#v scenario#taehyung scenario#bts imagine#taehyung imagine#v imagine#bts au#taehyung au#w: love me or we both go down#ITS FINALLY DONE YOU GUYS HOLY SHIT#this fic honestly has plagued my thoughts and my dreams#since AUGUST
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nerd!armin x popular bimbo girl!reader?
the reader needs a tutor so she asks the smartest boy on campus and they have a “study session” in the library
Thank you for your request! I hope you like it! (ALSO: I’m so sorry this took so long to write omgmgg please forgive me) ~ I also would like to write a better version of this later. Though I'm in love with this prompt, I feel I didn't write the smut part that well.
Minors DNI! NSFW below the cut. Fem!Reader, FemBodied!Reader.
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At this point, Armin’s legs were burning, his heart racing and hands uncontrollably shaking, while you were practically out breath, your lungs tightening as you released yet another hearty laugh and not caring about the sweat running down your forehead. Neither you nor Armin expected to be running away from the librarian at 2am in the morning on the cold, campus sidewalk, your hair and makeup questionably messy and his shirt noticeably unbuttoned with hickeys staining his neck. However, the thrill of it all was something you didn’t know you both needed…
Earlier:
“Y/n?” Armin questioned, waving his sharpened pencil in front of your face. “Are you paying attention?” He awkwardly laughed as he scratched the back of his neck. You look up at him, battering your mascara-covered eyelashes at him. “Ahh… I have no idea what’s going on,” you sighed.
Armin wanted to bang his head against the library table. He knew it would be difficult teaching the ‘campus bimbo,’ but he didn’t know it would be this hard… yet there he was. 1am on a Thursday, the test tomorrow, and you still couldn’t grasp the basics of quadratic functions.
“Why don’t we take a break?” he suggested, loudly dropping his pencil on the table, leaning back in his chair, and adjusting his disheveled collar poking out of his blue sweater.
“Okay!” you giggled mindlessly, turning to face him in your chair as you twirled your hair in your fingers. “Even though I’ll probably fail the test tomorrow, thank you for teaching me!” you exclaimed, fiddling with your compact mirror and checking your dolled-up face.
Armin tensed up at your backhanded words. Pushing his hair back out of frustration, he cursed the fact he was wasting his time with such an ai-headed girl.
“Y-you’re welcome,” he hastily said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Why didn’t he say no to your study session - if you could even call it a study session - ? Even though Armin was the school nerd, it’s no surprise to him that you came and asked him for help because, well… Everyone does that - always taking advantage of Armin - only talking to him because they want to use his neat, color-coded notes, only inviting him to parties so that he would later help them study.
You felt bad for Armin. Though you couldn’t deny he was way too uptight, everyone did make fun of him for every little thing; the way he dressed like a professor, how he was always so punctual, the way he was the first to raise his hand when the teacher asked a question, how he came extra prepared to class with extra pencils.
But being so close to him now, this was the first time you realized how handsome he actually was. His turquoise veins protruding from his soft, pale skin… his slender fingers gently holding his flashcards, his toned muscles peeking their way through his rolled up sleeves and making his clothes just a little tight, the sharpness of jawline contrasting with his kind, bright smile, the way his ocean blue eyes stared intently with such passion, and his thick, golden hair growing to his eyebrows, allowing his cute ears to shyly show themselves while his undercut beautifully shaped his face… he was beautiful.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” you suddenly asked.
Armin was taken aback by this question. No one had ever asked him this nor did any one seem to have any interest in his personal life whatsoever.
“No,” he paused, “I don’t have time for that stuff…” he trailed off. Armin never had a girlfriend, and thinking about it now, he never really had any crushes. He was way too busy keeping up with his grades, extra curricular activities, and student council. It would be practically impossible for him to keep such close relations with his kind of responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean he’s not lonely… his arms aching for someone to hold, his heart cold due the absence of warmth of a person he loves.
Armin didn’t bother asking you if you had a boyfriend. You were the most popular person on campus, partying with countless dudes every weekend, hanging out with a large group of girls at the mall nearly every day, your phone buzzing so much during class that your professor told you multiple times to turn it off, and you were pretty - your hair was always done in a pretty style, your makeup (though a bit slutty) always brought out the best features of your face, your nails were always painted, your skin was smooth and silky, and your perfume scent was addicting. Not only that but your clothes showed off your body so well; your skirt that was just a little short allowed people to see your cute panties when you bend over to pick something up, and your shirt that was barely even a shirt was always cropped above your waist and showed off your bouncy, plush cleavage… so of course you had a boyfriend. But even though Armin was an incredibly focused nerd, he couldn’t deny that your sweet smell, tight clothes, and lipstick-covered lips made him lustful.
“Too busy for that stuff?! Aren’t you lonely? It’s like you don’t even know how to have fun,” you chuckle, jokingly hitting his shoulder which happened to be really muscular underneath his sweater.
“Haha yeah,” he said, seemingly uninterested in where you were going with this.
“If you’re so busy, does that mean you don’t have time to masturbate?” you giggled, covering your plump mouth with your hand and fluttering your eyelashes at him.
Armin became extremely flustered as tints of red washed over his body in waves.
“W-what?” he stuttered. “Why are you asking me these questions? We are supposed to be studying!” he quietly shrieked, looking away to break eye contact with you and playing with the watch on his wrist.
“Haha, I am just joking. You’re such a nerdy boy, just want to make you blush,” you sincerely smiled.
“W-well I am a young college student, so obviously I - I do that from time to time thanks to p-porn,” he stammered.
“Woah woah wait. Someone as uptight and rigid as you watches porn?” you harshly laughed, genuinely shocked. You scooted your chair closer to him and leaned into his neck, your hot breath caressing his skin and your hair resting upon his shoulder. “What kind of porn does this nerd like to watch?” you inquired, widely grinning as you saw how embarrassed Armin had become.
On the inside, Armin was fuming, mostling frightened that he had gotten himself into an embarrassing loop with no escape that would most likely be gossiped about amongst the popular students, but mostly angry that some dumb, slutty bitch was wanting to pry into his personal life, not even appreciating the fact that he spent countless hours in the library helping you study to no avail because you couldn’t pay attention if your life depended on it… that this same dumb, slutty bitch was just getting her fun from teasing some nerd who is taken advantage of and forgotten by everyone… angry that you - with your pretty makeup, plump lips, short skirt, and overflowing cleavage - weren’t paying the price for your teasing.
Suddenly, Armin sat up in his chair, his muscles tensing through his clothes, and an aggravated look forming across his face, wrinkling his brows. He quickly takes a fistful of your hair and pulls you close to his face, allowing you to see the different shades of blue in his eyes and his soft, blond eyelashes. His innocent, geeky look is nowhere to be found on his face as he intensely stares into your eyes.
“It just so happens that this nerd likes to watch useless, empty-headed bimbos like you get their pussies abused,” he said, dominance seething from his teeth as his mint breath hits your face. Before you even have time to think, Armin unbuttons his slacks and practically forces your mouth on his hard, pretty cock.
Watching you gag and choke on his cock with saliva dribbling down your chin made him laugh. “You’re gonna have to be a little quieter, slut, we’re in a library remember?” he coos. He abruptly pulls you off his cock, taking in the sight of his lipstick-stained tip and the mascara tears streaming down your face. His treatment was so harsh and so sudden, making you miss the ‘nicer’ and ‘quieter’ Armin, but you couldn’t deny his sudden dominance made your aching cunt flood with arousal.
Before doing anything else, Armin scans the library, making sure no one is around. Grabbing your wrist, he forces you to sit on his lap, facing him on top of the library chair. Everything happened so quickly, barely even leaving you time to think, barely leaving you time to think that Armin was using your body to relieve his anger and frustration, not leaving you time to realize how sopping wet your needy cunt actually was.
Sitting atop his lap, he spreads your plush, soft thighs, exposing the fact that you didn’t wear any panties to this study session, causing Armin’s eyes to widen.
“I don’t know why I’m so surprised that a whore like you wouldn’t wear anything underneath your short skirt to our little ‘play date,’” he snickers. He leans close to your ear, softly biting your neck. “It’s almost like you were asking to be fucked by me.”
You don’t know what to say. Your mind is so empty, fuzzy, and shocked that the only thing you can do is comply when he demands that you ride his cock. Armin lets out a low groan from the bottom of his throat as your tight, warm pussy encloses his thick cock. You let a pathetic whimper as he begins to thrust up into you, and Armin gives you a glare, reaching up and tightening his hands around your throat. “Remember, you have to be quiet, or are you too dumb to remember that?” he sinisterly smiles.
Armin begins to harshly thrust into you as you wrap your arms around his neck, holding onto dear life as he deeply penetrates your spongy, sensitive walls. He slithers his slender hands into your shirt and starts toying with your nipples and pinching them when you’re being too loud.
Groping your ass, he whispers in your ear, “you know, I don’t even know why you’re in college… you’re so dumb. Why don’t you just drop out and be my little slut for when I come back after class, huh?” You sink your head into the crook of his neck, embarrassment coming over you at the same time as pleasure fills your walls when he tells you those mean words.
He grabs your hair, forcing you to look at him. Your hair is a tangled mess, your makeup completely smeared, and your eyebrows furrowed as your innocent-looking eyes beg for some type of release.
“F-fuck, you look so dirty,” he groans, leaning his head back.
“And you look like two students who are going to be in so much trouble…”
Both of you tense up and look behind you to find the librarian staring daggers into your souls.
Immediately, you hop off of Armin’s dick, gathering your things as he struggles to pull up his pants. Both of you at an ungodly speed bolt out of the library doors. Yeah, getting potentially banned from the library would suck, but maybe it was something you both needed. Armin needed to learn to loosen up, have some fun, and you needed to learn to take things seriously and maybe just put in a little more effort.
“Ya’know, it’s kind of late. We can go back to my dorm, and I can help you study for maybe another half hour… if you want,” Armin shyly asks as you both continue running down the sidewalk.
“What about the other half hour?” you questioned.
Armin’s face grows red. “We can finish… chemistry…”
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Inspiration
Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader
Requested by anon: Could you do a Fred Weasley imagine where he falls in love with Harry’s younger sister. (Maybe a after the war where he lives)
Word Count: 3.3k (my hand slipped oops)
Genre: Fluff, childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining etc.
Warnings: Slight innuendo, Fred being cute and hot simultaneously
Tags: @self-ship-love @susceptible-but-siriusexual @hufflexpuff @neovannii @jenniweasley @elf-punk @heart-of-tempered-steel @itseatyourdamnapples
Message me if you'd like to be added!
Masterlist
Ottery St Catchpole, Devon, England, July 16, 2000
It was a chilly Sunday evening. The summer air buzzed with excitement and the tender aroma of magnolia as tiny white and pink petals were gracefully falling from the huge cherry trees, carried by the light breeze. Twilight painted the horizon in liquid gold and fiery red, soon followed by mellow shades of dark blue that brought countless sparkling stars.
It was getting the slightest bit colder, but it did not matter; nothing else mattered but the loud cheers and cheerful music, celebrating the official bond between a Potter and a Weasley under the wide night sky.
You couldn't have been happier for your older brother, Harry, who was currently dancing with Ginny, his now wife - now and for the rest of his, hopefully, but not really likely, peaceful life. For the longest time you've been wondering how he'd always manage to get into trouble even as a small First year with no experience in the wizarding world whatsoever. Or, perhaps, that was the exact reason as to why evil-battling and rule-breaking were such common practices when hanging out with him.
However, there was no fighting that day. There was no room for worry and fear when the entire Weasley family and their loved ones were gathered on the clearing in front of the Burrow, chatting, laughing, dancing, singing, drinking, celebrating and living for what seemed to be the first time since Lord Voldemort's fall. Danger was practically nonexistent in that blissful moment which was frozen in time, once having looked agonizingly distant and impossible to hope for. But that dream was no longer just a foolish fantasy to heal wounded hearts. It was there, and it was happening in the most beautiful way imaginable.
And suddenly, all those clichés of a married life weren't even clichés. They were simply humble wishes of people who had witnessed far too many horrors in such a short period of time, and only craved stability among the massive chaos. So when you glanced at Ginny, a twirling blur of flaming red hair and a gorgeous wedding dress, you didn't feel the need to comment on how banal the color white was. You genuinely smiled, admiring the pure, exuberant joy, visible in her eyes and scarlet cheeks. Harry looked just as, if not even happier than his wife, dancing in the ridiculous but wholehearted way that only he could, and old memories of him winning the golden egg, training Dumbledore's Army and kissing Ginny in the common room for the very first time flooded into your mind.
It had truly been a long time since you had seen Harry careless and free like that.
You yourself had spent an ungodly amount of hours preparing the yard for the ceremony all day; rearranging chairs, decorating, making sure everything was going by schedule, only to then dance your tired feet off, and though you wanted to continue having fun with Hermione, Luna and the rest of the girls waiting for you, you really needed a break. And a drink.
Excusing yourself to leave the particularly interesting conversation you were having with distant Weasley relatives, you slipped off your black flats that, despite looking absolutely stunning, hurt your feet terribly after an entire day of fussing over the color of napkins and flower bouquets. Barefoot on the grass, you walked over to a chair next to a table which seemed to have been occupied, but judging by the mostly empty glasses and plates, the guests weren't coming back anytime soon.
You tossed your shoes aside with a sigh and rushed to rub your aching toes, hissing from how sore they were.
How has Ginny been dancing like that for hours?
"Enjoying the party, I see?" a familiar deep, slightly husky voice commented, causing you to look up.
It was none other than Fred Weasley, dear friend from childhood, staring down at you, his ever-present charming smirk resting on features and hands shoved into the pockets of his dragonskin suit. But it was his flaming red hair that made your eyes widen - it was carefully smoothed back, shining under the moonlight like liquid iron.
Fred's eyes still contained their famous, loveable mischief, except now slightly tamer and calmer. His firm biceps had visibly grown in size, stretching out the fabric of his coat just a bit to give you a prominent silhouette that caught you off guard.
It had been two years; he had changed so much.
And you were afraid to admit you had too.
You blinked in surprise, processing his uncharacteristically sophisticated appearance before realizing what he had asked you.
"Would've enjoyed it far more if my legs weren't killing me," you groaned half-heartedly and leaned back on your chair. "What's with your hair?"
"What's with your feet?"
"I asked you first," you cut him off. "I bet Ginny is responsible for this."
"Actually…" Fred trailed off, and, whether on purpose or not, ran a hand through the ginger locks to keep them in place, unaware of how you suddenly wished the hand doing the graceful motion wasn't his. "Mum insisted that I looked my best. What can I say, it's not like George and I usually listen to her, but we thought we'd make an exception this time; our sister doesn't get married every day. But honestly, Ginny couldn't care less about how we looked as long we showed up."
"So like usual, you mean?" you giggled. "Showing up is an achievement for you even if you're underdressed?"
Fred beamed, pearly white smile complementing his formal outfit. You wondered if he used that exact smile to effortlessly allure costumers and business partners at work.
He rested an elbow on the table as he leaned forward.
"Come on now, darling. I know you find my messy hair irresistible either way."
His cockiness only caused you to laugh, though Fred was quick to spot the flash of nervousness in your eyes; it brought him immense pride to know he was the one to turn you from confident to adorably bashful and flustered in the matter of seconds.
He was looking at you intensely, expectantly waiting for you to deny his flirty accusation despite your shyness.
"Nah, Weasley. It only reminds me that even at twenty-two you still do not know how to use a comb."
Fred's eyebrows shot straight up to his hairline, mouth agape. For the first time, he actually needed a second to form a reply.
"Didn't see that coming, I give you that. Courageous one, you are."
Your heart fluttered with joy and you openly grinned, shrugging in half-hearted humbleness.
"Perhaps I am."
Speaking to him felt unusually energizing, as though you had jumped headfirst into a chilly lake. It was unfamiliar and it set your nerves on fire, causing your stomach to twist and turn with sensations that left you dizzy, but unbelievably thrilled. And you wanted more of it, you wanted more of him.
"Fancy a drink?" Fred offered, already pouring champagne into a glass before handing it to you, and you keenly took it.
"Thanks, I've been thirsty with all the preparations I was doing."
"Is that why your legs are killing you?"
"Exactly, I've been running around all day, making sure everything was in order… you know, a lot of organizing and the like."
"It must hurt quite a bit then," Fred commented with a pained grimace. "But I absolutely get you, Georgie and I are just like that when it comes to the shop. It's a lot of accounting if I'm being honest, though I admit he's way better at it. We need to be completely precise; we can't allow any mistakes."
"Woah," you laughed. "Control freak much?"
He wettened his lips, never breaking eye contact.
"Perhaps I am."
You tilted your head to the side, gaze piercing into his in hopes of finding out what those gorgeous brown eyes were hiding. The tiny playful flames in them were eloquent.
Shifting slightly in your seat, you smoothed out your bridesmaid dress and raised your glass, the ghost of a smirk playing on your lips.
"Cheers to us control freaks then."
Fred mirrored your smug expression and your glasses met with a clink. The bubbly liquid tingled your throat, undoubtedly refreshing you and cooling you off. You glanced at the people dancing in the centre of the clearing and giggled - Ginny had apparently thrown away her white shoes long ago, bare feet stepping elegantly on the grass.
"You see, I'd like to chat a bit more with you, but I'm afraid it's a bit too loud here. What about we go to the pond across the field?" Fred suggested, pointing at the woods behind his back. You had visited them countless times when staying with Harry at the Burrow during holidays years ago; the tall trees and the glistening waters had never ceased to bring you comfort.
The noise started to become bothersome, and you felt it even more necessary to continue your conversation somewhere private, the unknown causing butterflies to erupt in your stomach. Fred's presence could only be compared to a shot of whiskey, or the sensation of anticipating a tidal wave to crash into you in less than a second. It was wild and the tiniest bit terrifying, but oh so tempting as it pulled you in.
"I'd love that, but… you know," you grinned and playfully swang your sore feet. "Can't really walk."
But this didn't at all seem like a problem to Fred Weasley who only shrugged and stood up, "You don't have to. I'll carry you."
"Merlin, no! Please, it's not necessary."
Fred frowned, but his confused expression was soon replaced by an amused one.
"You said it yourself that your feet hurt like hell. And even if carrying you around isn't necessary, it doesn't mean I don't want to."
You attempted to tame the butterflies.
"No, no! You seriously don't have to, I promise," you frantically protested as you held up your hands in front of you to reassure him, but he only gave you a weird look. "I can walk on my own. I'll be too heavy for you."
"There's only one way to find out."
Fred walked over to you and leaned down, one hand sneaking around your waist and the other slipping under your knees. You shrieked in terror, arms flying to clutch at his shoulders, and heat rose to your cheeks from the abrupt contact. Your chests were pressed together, and you were afraid he'd be able to feel your racing heart. His skin was warmer than you had thought, and it successfully fought off the night summer chill.
"Are we going?" Fred whispered down at you, lips so close to yours that you recognized the nuance of champagne in his breath, mixing unbelievably well with the scent of cinnamon and sandalwood of his cologne.
Not only is he sinfully attractive, but he smells heavenly too?
"Yes," you breathed and let Fred effortlessly walk across the meadow with you in his arms. They brought this new, odd, yet familiar sense of security, and you allowed your head to rest against his chest, nervous gaze wandering off into the distance in hopes of not meeting his. Nevertheless, curiosity eventually took the best of you, and your eyes would occasionally flicker to his, which were now completely black under the night sky. They could swallow you whole, you swore.
Minutes later, you found yourselves in the company of old, enormous willows which surrounded the pond you so vividly remembered from your teenage years. You thanked Fred as he carefully let you down, and took a few steps forward to look around and drench in the misty moonlight that enveloped the area. The waters were crystal clear and completely still, reflecting the moon and its majestic silver glow. The bushes had grown significantly over the time you were away, and you fondly looked back at the moments when you would pick up colorful wildflowers in the summer before your fourth year.
"Shall we sit?" Fred asked quietly from right behind your shoulder, and you followed him with a nod. You found a comfortable spot on the fresh grass to sit, a few feet away from where the water met the soil and moved back and forth ever so slightly.
"It's more beautiful than I remember," you noted, lips curled up in a barely visible smile. Fred hummed in agreement.
"That's why I always make sure to come here every chance I get when I return. But, unfortunately, that's very rare in my case."
For a moment, there was only the chirping of crickets and the soft bubbling of water.
Fred turned to you.
"Remember when mum used to call for us to de-gnome the garden and we'd hide here? We could stay in the bushes for hours before we eventually came back," he recalled, seeming deep in thought. It was an extraordinary sight; for once the playful spark in his eyes was more mellow, there was no cockiness seeping into the way he was holding himself. He was just Fred, the man who was currently thinking with so much adoration and love about his childhood, the most significant memories of it being marked by you.
You wondered, given you ever had the chance to spend with Fred as much time as your older brother did, if the charismatic prankster would have fallen for you like you had done. You wondered, given the chance you had let Fred get to know you better all those summers ago, if his heart would have belonged to you by now just like yours did to him.
Had you possibly missed your chance?
"Oh, I do," you sighed, the tension in your chest vanishing as warm nostalgia crept in like an old friend. "I also remember when I got this really bad nightmare that night. I was so terrified that you took me on a ride with your broom in the middle of the night to cheer me up."
"That's true! My parents don't know about it to this day," he replied smugly. "I can still hear you screaming like a lunatic."
You jokingly smacked his arm, "I was twelve!"
Fred's grin grew wider.
"Excuses…"
This only caused you to stare at him in disbelief and cross your arms, managing your most serious expression, but Fred was aware you were on the verge of failing to keep your stern facade. He squinted his eyes as a teasing attempt to provoke you, smile threatening to split his face in two.
"Alright then, that's enough about me," you announced, and Fred nodded in mock agreement as he studied your playful pretence. "If you're so much better than me, Mr Darcy, what else do you do aside from stealing ladies away?"
"Stealing their hearts," he said confidently, flashing you a seductive smirk, reserved only for special girls back in your Hogwarts days. You giggled, finding his antic utterly ridiculous, but you hated to admit that it still turned your blood into liquid fire. Fred apparently saw right through you, because when your eyes landed on his, they appeared completely dark once again, but, you suspected, for a reason other than the lack of light.
Your throat went dry, and you found it hard to swallow down the lump that cut your breath short.
He ran a hand through his ginger hair as he began to explain, "I'm kidding, you know. But to answer your question, George and I have been working on this potion that should be able to change the color of the eyes and hair. Fun for those who enjoy experimenting with their appearance, but it can also be useful to the Ministry. They're actually going to send a team of a couple of aurors to visit us next month so we can update them on our progress and negotiate the details."
"Wow! That's certainly exciting!"
"Is it? I mean, it probably is, but I've been having second thoughts lately if I'm being honest." He scratched the back of his neck, and you realised you had only witnessed him being anxious when it came to his greatest passion. "I'm afraid we might not be done on time, there's still plenty left to improve."
You put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and said, "I'm sure you'll figure it all out eventually. Keep working as you normally do, try not to stress too much over the deadline, and even if things go wrong at some point, don't go too hard on yourself. It wouldn't take away any progress you've made so far."
Fred's body relaxed just a bit and he looked down at you. He couldn't deny the sense of serenity that he felt only when he was with you. Even as a careless young boy, he was able to pinpoint the way his midriff would clench every time you'd laugh at his jokes or ask him to play with you, without knowing what it all meant.
But now, as a grown man, he had a word to describe the bittersweet fire within.
"You know what?" He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. "I could really benefit from having someone like you around to give me motivation."
"Motivation, huh?" you raised an eyebrow, fighting back a smile. Fred sneaked a hand around your waist and pulled you closer.
"Yes, motivation."
"Motivation for what?"
"Marketing strategies, work projects…" he shrugged nonchalantly, "...among other things."
You quickly caught on, suddenly becoming way too self-aware of the way you were practically cuddled into Fred's side, hand resting on his shoulder while his were wrapped around your waist. But his shining confidence seemed to rub off on you, because you asked.
"What's with you offering me a job all of a sudden?"
His bottom lip was tucked between his teeth as he took his sweet time devouring you with his darkened gaze. You didn't know whether you wanted to hide from it, or expose yourself even further to the way it burned its way straight to your core.
"Well…" Fred dragged out in his low, hoarse voice, and caressed your cheek with his thumb before slipping it under your chin to guide it towards his face. You could nearly taste the remaining flavour of champagne on his lips. "I've certainly been feeling…"
Fred went quiet as he got lost in the way you fit so perfectly in his arms; you had always meant to be there, he realised. His mouth crashed into yours, hands tightly gripping your waist, and you let out a gasp. Fred's lips were soft, although slightly chapped, and they moved gently but firmly against yours, turning you into their slave. Your palms naturally slid up his chest and he closed any remaining distance between your bodies by placing you to straddle his lap. The kiss was a dance of pushing forward and pulling back, two lovers having finally found their rhythm after years of living in fearful desire. You were positively drunk on his taste, on him, and you wished to never become sober.
When your need for air overcame the one for physical contact, you pulled away. Your chests were heaving with rapid, shallow breaths, hearts beating in synch like they had always done. You let a finger tenderly trace his cheekbone down to his jawline, then it came back up to draw different affectionate patterns on his face.
"What were you saying?" you asked, clearly out of breath. "How were you feeling?"
He fondly took your hand that was caressing his skin, and lifted it up to press feather-light kisses on your knuckles. His lips retraced their path until they reached the tips of your fingers, and he kissed those with the gentlest of touch.
You heart ached pleasurably from the way he was handling you with such care, much more than you ever believed he was capable of.
After minutes of worshipping you by the moonlit lake, Fred looked back at you as though you were his entire world. And replied with a smile.
"Inspired."
Reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated!
Masterlist
#fred weasley x reader#fred weasley x reader fluff#fred weasley imagines#fred weasley imagine#fred weasley fluff#fred weasley angst#fred weasley fanfiction#fred weasley oneshot#weasley twins x reader#weasley twins#fred and george weasley#george weasley x reader#george weasley#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter imagines#james phelps#oliver phelps
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caught in the middle (1); m. barzal
SYNOPSIS: For the sake of your friend’s wedding with Tito, you and Mat agree to maintain the facade of still being the happy couple everyone sees you as. But the act comes with its consequences, one more taxing than the other.
WARNINGS: language.
WORD COUNT: 11.2k
A/N: I am so excited for this because it contains some of the tropes I enjoy seeing in fics, and I was dying to also put out some new content as opposed to only reposting my old writing. I wish I wrote this when I was still decent at doing the thing, but I hope that this is still an enjoyable read that makes you look forward to the next part! Title is based off Alexander 23′s Caught in the Middle which is such a good song and I really recommend. Sections in italics represent flashbacks.
PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
“We’re getting married!”
You gasped, bringing both hands to cover the lower half of your face as your jaw dropped at the announcement. It shouldn’t be so surprising – you would’ve bet even your most prized possession that this was bound to happen at some point eventually – but knowing this was actually now a sure thing sent a thrill through you. It didn’t take long for the shock to wear off and in place of it, your expression mirrored that of your best friend’s: the wide grin, the bright eyes and of course, the giggles of sheer excitement as soon as the news sunk in. Elise was glowing and next to her, Tito embodied the idea of what the world’s proudest man would look like.
“Oh my god!” you gasped, and Elise burst into laughter, not hesitating to jump out of her seat at the same time you did so that the two of you could embrace. Among your squeals and giggles, you could faintly make out the sound of hands being clapped, then caught sight of Mat and Tito hugging. Over Elise’s shoulder and over Tito’s, you and Mat exchanged smiles and you couldn’t help the chuckle that left your mouth as soon as he winked at you. “Congratulations!” you said as soon as you broke apart, though the two of you still held hands. Immediately, your gaze fell down to her hand where a ring now rested, and you couldn’t help but wonder how you hadn’t taken notice of it earlier. “Just—when? How? Where? Who else knows?”
“We don’t have a date or venue set yet, but we wanted you and Mat to be the first to know,” Elise informed you as soon as you took your seats again.
“We have a favour to ask from both of you,” Tito supplied. As soon as he said it, you felt Mat’s hand wrap around your own and the two of you exchanged a brief look during which he squeezed your hand gently, before diverting your attentions back to the soon-to-be newlyweds.
Newlyweds. The immensity of the word sent a discrete shiver down your spine.
“I can’t imagine asking this of anyone else: I want you to be my best man,” Tito directed at Mat.
“You shouldn’t even think of asking this of anyone else,” Mat responded immediately, and the two shook hands on it. You couldn’t help but think that if they weren’t as comfortable as they were now, they’d probably hug again, do their typical pats on the back or fist bump as they usually did, but Elise’s head now rested on Tito’s shoulder and Mat’s hand was so warm, so firm atop your own.
“Be my maid of honour, please?” Elise asked. “I can’t think of anyone more suitable than you and Mat as best man and maid of honour. We’ll return the favour of course,” she added playfully.
“I’ll hold you to that,” you warned without hesitating because after all, you had no reason to – and you knew Mat would agree with you.
Although the two of you hadn’t touched on the subject yet, there was an unvoiced knowledge shared between you that eventually, this would also be you. Eventually, Mat would ask you and your heart would grow and your soul would warm, and you would say yes. Yes, yes, yes.
As you all settled down to hear a replay of how Tito popped the question and Elise accepted the ring, Mat’s thumb began caressing the back of your hand. Though the gesture wasn’t a novelty, you couldn’t help but take notice of the way your heart fluttered each time he seemed to linger more on your ring finger. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a ring wrapped around it but neither of you were in a rush: you simply waited for the right time to take your relationship to a point in which it would become a forever thing, fully confident it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ but rather, ‘when’.
*
This was anything but the right time.
You frown as you cast a glance down at the phone resting on your lap, eyes narrowing a little at the name which brought the display to life for the second time in the space of less than a minute. You click the side button twice, silencing the vibrations of it and from your side, your colleague leans in to whisper to you.
“You can take it if it’s urgent. I’ll fill you in afterwards.”
“Thanks,” you whisper back. “I think it can wait until the meeting wraps up though.”
Luke gives you a well, if you’re sure look as he leaned back in his chair and you flash him a grateful smile.
Still, it is difficult for you to settle comfortably in your seat again and much to your chagrin, you find yourself crossing and uncrossing your legs as if the call had sent some sort of signal to your entire body kickstarting jitteriness you can honestly do without. Not long after you find some comfort and energy to draw yourself back to the present, your phone buzzes again – only once this time, indicating a message.
I’m waiting for you in the lobby.
Fuck, you curse inwardly, locking the phone in frustration. As quietly as you can, you gather your notebook and work tablet then lean in towards Luke who met you halfway. “Have to run but let me know if I miss anything important.”
“At the current rate, I wouldn’t count much on it but will do anyway,” he states as quietly as he can and the two of you exchange sly, conspiratorial smiles before you excuse yourself quickly and very quietly while making a swift exit.
Internally, a string of curses follow without a break in between, and you have to physically bite down on your lip out of sheer fear one might unconsciously slip out. If anyone would be in your shoes, though, they wouldn’t blame you for it. You are the type of person to stick closely to any plans and agreements made, so the fact that he just chose to turn up so unexpectedly doesn’t sit right with you. Not anymore, that is. Besides, you had both agreed to do this after your workday ended as opposed to midday and definitely not in this place. Now, you have to brace yourself for coping with a foul mood on top of whatever else the rest of the day would throw at you.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Rachel announces quietly in a sing-song voice from behind the reception desk as you approach. She doesn’t bother masking the giddiness in her tone and you struggle to work up as genuine of a smile as you can when she nods her head towards the waiting area.
“Thanks, Rach.”
“Bet he must be so happy your redeployment to the Baltimore offices was cut short so quickly,” she coos.
“Sure is. We’re still on for tonight?” you ask quickly in an attempt to drive attention away from the subject before she can try to lead into it too far for your own comfort at the moment.
Rachel’s smile falters a little, her expression somewhat quizzical. “Don’t you want to postpone so you could spend some time with him? You only just got back yesterday, after all.”
You swallow uncomfortably before shrugging. “We’ve got plenty of time to do that. So tonight, okay? I’ll catch you later.”
“Your call. See you then, Y/N!”
You only had just a split second to brace yourself for what is ahead of you, so you draw in a breath then slowly exhale it as discreetly as you can while cutting your way across the lobby. Since agreeing to this meeting, you prepared yourself as best as you could, imagining every single scenario and devising the appropriate plan for it: from the way you presented yourself to what you said, you had a mental plan for everything including a few backups just in case. The only thing you hadn’t factored in, apparently, was how little was under your control and you hated that. Each step you take made you feel less and less prepared for what is ahead, and the thought rattles you. If you were swift enough on your feet, you could just about make a quick turn and dip into the hallway leading to the visitor restrooms. All you need is just a few more seconds. A little alone time for you to run over your lines in your head.
Except—
Mat looks up at the same time you take a step sideways, ready to bolt towards temporary safety. His eyebrows rise a little as if surprised by the sight of you, but you refuse to appear outwardly deflated by the turn of events. Instead, you square your shoulders, tip your head back a little and arch an eyebrow. You can do this. You note he is dressed casually, and his hair is pushed back underneath a black cap.
Unless there was a change in schedule, Thursdays were scrimmage days.
Your jaw clenches ever so slightly as you recall that with so much ease. Then again, you basically built up a collection of information that was practically helpful or useful to exactly no one over the course of the past few years. It’ll probably take just as much or maybe more to replace that with something different, so you try cutting yourself some slack whenever you are willing to.
“I thought we agreed on five thirty,” you state coolly, pitching your voice at just the right tone to also express surprise.
Mat pushes up from the armchair, returning whatever magazine he’d picked up back on the nearby glass table. “Sorry, I tried calling earlier this morning to ask if we can reschedule but it went straight to voicemail.”
Oh. You mentally curse yourself for not charging your phone as soon as you made it home from the airport the previous night or bothering to check the voicemail message you’d been notified of once it did begin charging earlier this morning at your desk.
“They rescheduled the viewing of the new arena for this evening, and I was in the area, so I thought I’ll drop by just in case,” Mat continues, throwing a cursory glance around the place though to you, it seemed more like a way of having a break from the eye contact. You don’t complain; you welcome that.
You open your mouth, ready to berate his poor timing but even you could admit you carry some fault here too. Only a little. You bite down lightly on the tip of your tongue, before nodding towards the seats though you didn’t wait for Mat; you sit, deciding he could make up his own mind if he wanted to follow or not.
“How was Baltimore?” he asks after a few moments of awkward silence while settling in the same armchair he previously occupied.
“Mat,” you say, hoping it comes across as more of a warning than a plea. You can’t deal with small talk and a part of you thinks that’d make the entire deal even more difficult to go through with. He presses his lips together into a thin line and you take that as your sign to continue. “Elise told me she’d like us to be at the venue a day in advance of the rehearsal dinner if we can. I’ve already arranged my leave for that, so it’s not a problem for me. I’m planning on making my way there sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“We can go together then. I can pick you up after work.”
“There’s no need—”
“Y/N.” The sharpness of his tone catches you off guard and you can swear Mat was equally surprised by that, though only for the briefest of moments. He slides forward a little in the seat almost as if he is more than ready to leave but Mat has never been one to back down so easily and you doubt any of that changed during the course of the past three months or so. “You were the one who insisted we go through with this and I’m trying. I really am, but you’re not giving me anything to work with. So please. Let’s just put everything to the side, do what we need to do and then it’s done.”
Done. Like it is a task, like it is something you needed to cross off a to-do list, scrunch it up then trash it.
The finality of the word is so heavy that it feels as if it had managed to knock out all the air in your lungs. You and Mat were running headfirst towards a fork in the road, and deep down you knew that was truly it. If until now the two of you have been dancing around each other, playing pretend as if you were kids living in a world of fantasy, you know that eventually, you have to let light shine on the truth: whatever lay ahead, you and Mat could no longer walk the same paths. It is just a matter of admitting it not only to yourselves, but also to the people you were lying to.
Lying for, you prefer.
Defeated, you slump in your own seat a little, legs crossing and fingers tapping lightly against the back of your notebook. “Be at my place by two. I’ll have everything that I need ready the night before so we won’t need to wait around.” A pause, and then, “how’s Tito?”
Mat lifts a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Excited. Nervous. It’s the only thing he talks about in the locker, outside of it, on ice and off ice. How’s Elise?”
“Same deal with her. I never knew there were so many shades of blue before, but I’ve been proven wrong before.”
A pause follows that could easily be attributed to the group of people rushing into the building and allowing noise from the street outside to filter in while the doors were kept open, but you can tell there is more to it than that if you are to go by the shift in Mat’s expression. His expression changes and you find you can’t quite read into it or guess what could be going on through his head. You try not to focus much on the little voice inside your mind that was bothered by it but find it takes a considerable amount of effort to do so. Force of habit, you conclude.
“You don’t say,” Mat finally responds. There is a hint of accusation in his tone. Or regret. Maybe both.
Your lips press together firmly, a light frown forming on your face but chose to let that slide. Not only is the lobby of your workplace the least suitable place to have an argument about the two of you, but you find that even those short moments of seeing Mat face to face months after you called it quits appears to take a toll on you. You feel tired, worn out and willing to be the first one to back down for once.
It is cruel irony that a big red neon EXIT sign is visible from the corner of your eye.
You release a quiet, long sigh then stand up from the seat. “Well, I guess we’re done here? I do have another meeting to prepare for, so…” You trail off, already backing away a few steps.
Mat opens his mouth as if ready to say something else but promptly presses his lips together, deciding against it. He gives a swift nod of his head then stands up. It’s then you notice the two Styrofoam cups in front of him and the neon EXIT sign imprinted in your mind starts flashing temptingly at you. Mat is a step ahead. He holds out one of the cups towards you and you are ready to tell him off for it, but he cut in.
“Thought I wouldn’t drop by empty handed.” When you don’t make a move to accept it, his eyes briefly peek behind you. “Rachel’s all eyes this way, by the way,” he informs you and a brief glance over your shoulder confirms Mat hasn’t been lying.
As soon as you turn to look towards the reception desk, Rachel grins, waves quickly at you then turns back to her computer screen. Begrudgingly, you accept the cup of coffee and force a tight smile.
“See you soon,” you say by way of greeting and didn’t wait to hear a response from Mat.
It isn’t until you scan your pass to cross the security barriers and make a turn out of sight that you take a sip from the drink and almost immediately wish you didn’t. It’s your order to a T. The two of you even brought a coffee machine that would let you replicate it on days when you didn’t feel like leaving the comforts of your apartment, especially days when Mat didn’t need to get up early for practices or scrimmages or evening games. It stayed with Mat when you left and the memory left a bitter taste in your mouth, despite the gentle sweetness of the beverage.
Without thinking twice, you throw the cup in the nearest trash can.
*
As soon as your order is set on the table, you ignore the basket of fries and reach straight for your glass to take a long sip from the straw, letting out a content sigh as soon as you felt satiated enough.
“Long day,” you state in response to Rachel’s raised eyebrows but she seems to accept that by raising her own glass. You clink yours against hers, take a smaller sip then set it back down on the table. “What time do you think you’ll make it over to the hotel?”
“Well, I was thinking of trying to get there by midday on the day of the rehearsal dinner but it’s starting to look more like late afternoon. I’m…” She trails off, and you can just about pick up on her hesitation and the way her gaze shifts over to the side momentarily as if avoiding something or considering whether to continue that. You move in your seat, peeling your back away from the plush backrest to lean in a little closer.
“You’re…” you trail off, voice peaking just a little into a question in an attempt to prompt her to continue.
Rachel takes a deep breath in, shoulders visibly drooping and when she looked back at you, she did so with a look that could only reflect…shame? Embarrassment?
“Luke and I are sort of thinking of coming along together.” At the sight of your widened eyes, she quickly adds, “just as friends! We’re still working out through a few things and we’re taking it slow. As in, much, much slower than the first time around.”
“No way! That’s… Rach, that’s so good. I’m happy for you both, seriously.”
You find that you truly believed that, though it wasn’t a surprise to you. You had introduced Rachel to Luke while she visited you in Baltimore and at the time, he worked with you there also. Initially, you didn’t think much of it - you simply invited her to come along to a few after work drinks and the two kicked it off easily that night. Very easily apparently, because as the night started coming to an end, Rachel prompted you to go ahead without her. Ready to say you weren’t going to leave her own her own, you shortly found out exactly why: you watched with plenty of amusement and fascination as she and Luke climbed into a taxi together and whizzed off to his place, undoubtedly. That was pretty much their start and continuation. Her visits to Baltimore were more frequent and though you were seeing her often enough, it definitely wasn’t as much as Luke saw of her. And you were fine with that. They fit almost perfectly and it only took a few more meetings for them to label themselves as a couple.
Things began crumbling as soon as Luke had moved to the New York office just a few weeks before your own return. While he seemed fine with the idea of Rachel working in the same place, that wasn’t also her take on things.
“It’s weird,” she told you through the phone. “It just… It’s so weird. I’d be seeing him at my place or his and in the office? No thanks. That’s way too much for me, you know?”
It made sense, of course, and though you rooted for them, you didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with. Yet, there was a tremble to her voice, a sort of uncertainty that made you think otherwise. It wasn’t that Rachel didn’t have any feelings for him - maybe she was simply shocked to see him walk through those glass doors one morning to pick up his brand new ID and claim what would soon become his permanent desk across from yours.
“Thanks,” she tells you, pulling you back into the present. “But like I said, slow and easy does it. We’ve been talking more and that makes a huge difference.”
“For sure. If communication isn’t the backbone of a relationship, I don’t know what is,” you agree and wasn’t that ironic? You’re hardly in the position of giving any relationship advice at all or saying what is good for one and what isn’t. Not anymore. Not when your own had fallen apart.
Rachel grins. “You’d know. You and Mat have been together for… how long now?”
You should’ve seen it coming a mile away. You swallow uncomfortably, take another sip of your drink and take a few fries just to buy yourself a little more time. “Maybe four years? Don’t really keep track of that anymore,” you said as casually as you could muster, lifting your shoulders in a shrug.
“I think I’d stop doing that eventually too at the rate you two are going. Honestly, I would’ve bet anything you would’ve been the first to tie the knot. Actually, thinking about it,” she says, clicking her fingers in recollection, “Elise said the same thing to me the other day when we caught up on the phone. She went—“
You don’t really register her words. There is a low ringing in your ears and an uncomfortable draft sweeps in the locale as the entrance door somewhere behind you is being kept open, no doubt a large group making their way in; it sends shivers down your body, but really, you are pretty sure you can’t only attribute them to a brief gust of wind. After all, your sweater is keeping you sufficiently cosy and warm. In front of you, Rachel continues praising your relationship with Mat, talking about how anyone took a look at you both and would say, whatever they have going, I want it too and you are trying so, so hard to block out as much as you can of it. You can stop her, of course; distract her with whatever random topic and you know she’d go with it but your jaw is locked in place, teeth clenched uncomfortably. You blame that and the way your nails dig into the palms of your hands on the sting behind your eyes and the sudden heaviness weighting down on your chest.
It isn’t so much the pain of your relationship ending that was rendering you in a state of daze, but the shame of what you and Mat agreed to do: pretend the two of you were still the happy couple Elise, Tito and everyone else thought of you as just to not spoil whatever luck they thought you’d be passing on to them by being their main witnesses. And then, once the event passes and they would return to New York from the honeymoon you and Mat would soon gift to them on their wedding day, you’d tell them the truth. Or part of it anyway. Definitely no mentions that the two of you were childish enough to play pretend; just a simple, clean break timed just perfectly with your request to be permanently redeployed elsewhere. Preferably, as far from New York City as possible so that you no longer have to walk the streets you once both did or yearn to once again visit that perfect pie place the two of you once dubbed your own.
“We’re not together anymore.”
The words stumble out of your mouth in a desperate now or never manner. Despite the anxiousness that came with the act, you find relief in it also. It feels freeing to be able to admit the truth to someone that isn’t only yourself though perhaps you should’ve thought of this more carefully: the idea of now needing to come fully clean to Rachel is somewhat daunting, mostly because of what she might say in response to the front you and Mat are trying to uphold. But for the first time in what feels like too long, you no longer feel like a fraud; like a person lying to everyone around them.
“Wait.” Rachel frowns, and it was obvious she doesn’t quite know what to do with that information or how to best process it. Her head tilts a little, palm idly rubbing against the side of her neck so you take the initiative to come across as unbothered by this as possible by leaning into the seat, legs crossing as you fiddled with the drink’s straw. “What? I’m confused. Didn’t Mat just drop by earlier? You two seemed okay. He was…fine when he came in. We didn’t talk much, sure, but he was all smiley and just…normal.”
You laugh quietly and shortly. “It’s been a while now. Maybe two or three weeks before I left for Baltimore, I think. It’d be pretty worrying if he was still hung up about it. After all, we both agreed on it. And this,” you add, a little more disheartened and embarrassed. “This…thing we’re doing. We promised Tito and Elise we’ll be there for them on their big day and we will. But they had this… I guess, idea of us being an ideal couple. Whatever that is,” you continue more quietly and with a roll of your eyes. “He wanted to tell Tito, but I didn’t want to spoil Elise’s day, you know? So he agreed. Took some convincing because it feels so… Gosh, it sounds so stupid, doesn’t it? Pretending we’re still together just to spread some fake cheer around.”
“Oh, honey…” Rachel whispers and you read the sympathy in her voice. Not that she makes it particularly difficult to take note of. “But… I thought everything was okay. Actually, way more than okay. Perfect, even. What…uh—“ She trailed off awkwardly, but you could easily fill in that gap.
What happened?
You bring the beverage to your mouth, this time drinking from the glass directly as opposed to using the straw. The mixer stings your throat this time around but the small ice cube you take into your mouth numbs it away pretty quickly. Slowly, you chew it to small pieces and speak only when you finish it.
“I thought long and hard about this the first few weeks after we called it quits,” you admit. “We always talked about what bothered us or if there was something on our mind, but at one point we just… We stopped wanting to compromise. When I was put forward for Baltimore, it was going to be a permanent thing. Mat was happy, sure, but I could tell he wasn’t being entirely honest with me, you know? When I called him out on it, he asked me well what about us? And I said we’d be fine. Baltimore isn’t a different continent. It’s not even a different timezone. He could come over when he had free time and if he didn’t, I’d always spend weekends in New York anyway. It’s Baltimore, Rach. Not fucking San Francisco or whatever. Eventually, he told me exactly what was on his mind: he couldn’t do long distance. Not even for a short period of time while I figured out if Baltimore is really what I wanted. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical, though?” You question, but it’s clear Rachel feels a bit awkward about giving her take on it right now, so you make it easier for her by responding to your own question. “I felt lonely too when he was on the road. I was worried he’d find someone different, someone much better while away. He never gave me a reason to doubt him, but a small part of me still thought what if. This happened right before he was on the road again, actually. We didn’t call, barely even texted those weeks and then when he returned, we decided it’d be best to break up. Didn’t take us a long discussion to get to that conclusion because at that point, it just… I don’t know. It felt like we didn’t have much to say to each other.”
Rachel presses her lips together, the frown still on her face and hesitantly, she asks, “who said it first?”
“I did,” you respond without hesitating. “He wanted a break while we work it all out but come on, Rach, a break? Look me in the eyes and tell me people really believe in breaks and they come back to each other as if nothing happened.”
“I mean…” she trails off, pointing at herself by way of explanation. “Look at me and Luke, I guess.”
You shake your head. “Nope. Not the same thing, trust me. This was for the best, Rach. It’s much neater to call it quits. That way, neither of us will feel obliged to hold back if life puts something different ahead of us.” You pause for a moment, teeth biting into your lower lip. “They said they’ll always have me back there if I decide on it, so who knows. Once I wrap up the project their called me back for, I might just take them up on it. Not quite a promotion, but it’ll be a good sidestep and maybe a change of scenery is what I need.”
“And do you think it’s good? What the two of you are doing right now?” Rachel questions, not at all deterred by your weak attempt at trying to divert conversation to a more work related topic. “And I don’t mean it just for Elise and Tito’s wedding, but for you and Mat generally speaking. I mean… the two of you have been together for a pretty long time. Doesn’t it… Isn’t it odd?”
“It’s not normal, that’s for sure,” you confirm. “But it’d be weirder for everyone if we were to tell them we’re no longer together given we’ve been asked to do what we need to do. Rach, promise me this stays between us, okay? Promise. I know how it sounds, I know how it’ll look but trust me on this, okay?”
She fixes you with a sceptical stare, a look that holds yet more questions than certainty but eventually, she nods her head and relief washes over you at the gesture. “I’m sorry it happened, Y/N,” she offers, voice warm and sympathetic as she places a hand on the table palm up. “And I’m sorry you went through it alone.”
You smile softly and reach for it, returning the squeeze she gives you. There is comfort in the gesture, comfort in her words and you find yourself rooting for it, so grateful to have received it. “The worst part is over, but thank you, Rachel. “It means a lot.”
“Feel like carpooling with Luke and I?”
“I’m good,” you assure as you both relax back into your seats. “Elise wants us there the day before the rehearsal. I guess just to have some familiar faces around that aren’t just wedding planners, so Mat and I agreed to go together tomorrow. Promise I won’t lose my shit if our song plays on the radio,” you add jokingly and find yourself laughing along with Rachel.
“What song’s that?”
Too many, you think, although one in particular stands out to you. “Brett Young’s In Case You Didn’t Know.”
*
A tray containing an assortment of dishes is set on the table and shortly after, an ice cold pitch of sangria accompanies that. Eager to cool down, you reach for one of the empty glasses to pour yourself a drink but Mat’s quicker. He takes them both, filling your glass first before his own. You laugh to yourself and Mat grins at that, briefly looking towards you as he fills his glass. You’re about to take a sip, eager to both quench your thirst and cool down but Mat takes the initiative of initiating a toast by raising his glass a little, elbow resting on the table.
“What’re we toasting for tonight?” You ask, imitating his pose by leaning forward a little. “To our first holiday together? To how perfect the weather’s been so far? To how I mastered paddle boarding way before you did?”
Mat laughs, lowering his head as he did so but when he looked back up at you, he clinked his glass against yours and held it there. “To all of that. To one of the many, many holidays we’ll have together. To this moment right here, to us, to you.” He pauses and the strobe lights of the bar switch from dark blue to hot pink, and the way Mat stares at you in this moment makes your heart race inexplicably. “To how much I love you.”
He takes your breath away. Draws it right out of your lungs and you feel heady. It’s the first summer with Mat, the first I love you from him and it suddenly feels as if this bar is too small for the both of you. You love him, and he loves you too and the only thing you could imagine doing is jumping in his arms but there’s a table between you and sangria topped wine glasses in your hands, and he’s wearing a pristine white shirt that looks incredible against his tanned skinned and there’s a lot of people around (the majority significantly older than both your age and Mat’s combined) so you simply grin and carefully lean forward more, pressing a kiss to his mouth.
“I love you,” you murmur against his lips and even if your voice is low compared to the loud, cheesy country music blasting through hidden stereos, you know Mat catches on to that.
“I love you,” he says right back and before you pull away, he bumps his nose against yours gently, making you giggle.
You both take a sip of your drinks and you smack your lips together, content with the turn of the night.
You and Mat had been dating for a few months, but this was the first time the two of you will spend back to back nights and days together without needing to rush somewhere. Of course, a part of you was anxious about it - while it was easy to spend a few hours together now and then, maybe even the odd night together, it was entirely different being together pretty much all the time. There were habits and quirks you each had that might get in the way, but your worries were soon put to rest. You and Mat had wonderful chemistry together, easily able to spend your time together but also still enjoy each other’s company while doing separate activities. You didn’t want to rush into things and you made no move to do so, but it was ever so easy to imagine what living with Mat would be like. And sure, you were well aware of the fact that it wouldn’t always be sunshine and rainbows; the two of you would eventually transition out of this honeymoon-type period of your relationship, but something told you life would Mat would never bore you. It’d never make you wish for anything different.
“Give me a second,” Mat says and before you could ask him what he meant, he’s out of his seat and you follow him across the bar, a little confused.
He makes his way past the bar, past the pool tables and stops in front of what is undoubtedly a jukebox. Curious, you arch an eyebrow and watch as he fiddles with finding the right amount of change before inserting the coins in the slot. It takes him a while before he finds whatever song it is he wants and it takes enough time for him to make it back to your table before the jukebox and sound system registers the request. You don’t recognise the first few notes at all, much less the accompanying guitar strings but you don’t have time to search your memory for a title.
Mat stops by your side, holding a hand out to you. “Dance with me.” It’s more statement than question and under any circumstances, you may have felt a little awkward about doing this, but it’s the heat of the moment and your giddiness that pushes you to your feet, hand in Mat’s.
The two of you are beaten to an emptier area in the establishment by two other much older couples that were closer to it anyway, and you find that gives you a bit more of a boost also. Mat pulls you to him, wrapping one arm around your waist while holding on to your free hand while you hold on to his shoulder with the other. Your fingers lightly clench and unclench the soft material of his shirt, lowering your head a little and you smile against the back of your hand. It’s so painfully cheesy and there’s nowhere near enough other people dancing along to the song but you love it much more than you thought you ever would.
“Know what I’d invest all my money into?” He asks you suddenly.
You pull back a little, still swaying along with the song. “Cryptocurrency seems like a safe bet right now.”
Mat laughs, that big hearty laugh of his that makes your smile wider and when it passes, he presses a chaste kiss on your forehead. “Well, I’m glad one of us has a good head on their shoulders, but no.” He shakes his head, then laughs again, shorter and quieter as if recalling your response. “A time machine. I want to stop time right here and right now so that we can be as we are for a little while longer.”
“Cheesy,” you joke, despite the warmth coursing across your entire body and the jelly-like feeling forming in your knees. “But perfectly understandable.”
“Eventually, we wouldn’t need it, but it’d be nice to have one for tonight.”
“Eventually? How so?” You question, then narrow your eyes a little, the gesture playful. “You plan on getting bored of me and breaking up?”
“What!” He exclaims and pulls you in just that much closer. He lets go of your hand only so he could bring his to your chin, tipping your head back a little. “Never,” kiss, “say that,” kiss, “again.” The final kiss you share with him is a little longer and you take the liberty of bringing your hand to his chest, palm pressing against it to feel the thump of his heart against his ribcage momentarily. Then, slowly, you graze the tips of your nails along his exposed collarbone and peck his lips once more before pulling away. It’s then that the song’s name and artist comes to your mind, almost as an afterthought. From hidden speakers, Brett Young declares I couldn’t live life without you and Mat gives you a pointed stare. “Damn, he said it before I could.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” you assure him. “Either way, I think I prefer hearing it from you, Barzal.”
“I’m pretty sure I couldn’t live without you,” he recites and wraps his arms around you, pulling you into a hug. He sways you both in a more exaggerated manner that makes you cling to him more out of habit than necessity. You’ve known you’d trust Mat with anything, but each day, he seems to do something that makes that thought solidify more and more in your mind. The comfort and safety that brings wraps around you like a warm blanket.
Be it the hot weather, the somewhat stifling interior of the bar, the sips of sangria on an empty stomach, the euphoria of the moment or all things combined, you nod quickly. And from somewhere in the depths of your mind, the very bottom of your heart, you respond with, “I can get used to this day after day. So don’t let me go, baby.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispers, tone full of care and love and warmth. He gives you his promise without hesitation and you know it’s bound to stick.
*
Your phone buzzes once.
I’m downstairs. Need help with your bags?
You push up from the comfort of your couch and make one last round of your apartment to make sure you had everything you definitely needed from where it was placed.
I’m good. Will be down in a minute, you text back but don’t pocket your phone right away. Instead, you stare at the screen for a little while longer, half tempted to scroll through the thread of messages. They’d provide a stark timeline of when things started going wrong and you would probably be able to see exactly how things changed between the two of you from the moment you suggested a mere break wouldn’t do it. But doing that would be like breaking a streak you had going for sufficient time to earn a pat on your back. The journey of getting to a point where you were sufficiently okay with being in Mat’s presence without any other company was a long one and the last thing you needed was to recall how it once was.
You and Mat started out as friends after Elise introduced the two of you just a short while before he started his professional career with the Islanders. She talked about how the two of them met in school and how great of a guy he was; real down to earth, funny and incredibly ambitious - traits she also assigned to you, and therefore thought the two of you would get along great. She wasn’t wrong about it. You knew a little about hockey, going to games every now and then mostly whenever Elise dragged you along but you found that Mat made the game more enjoyable. He explained it to you in a manner that didn’t make you feel belittled or as if it should be something you already knew of, and didn’t mind explaining some things more than once. On the other hand, you introduced him to your own hobbies and the little world you created for yourself in a city as big and busy as New York. You showed him the more lowkey but homely establishments, including your favourite pizza place that - unbeknown to you at the time - would become yours and his, and even took him to a few student bars where you regularly beat him at pool while he showed off at darts. Occasionally, it felt weird to watch him unwind in such…normal places and ways while on other days, he shone on ice and was easily one of the best rookies emerging from one of the country’s most well known sports leagues. Yet despite that, you found that athlete Mat wasn’t all that different from Mat the person.
He never put a front and his genuine manner was refreshing to you, particularly during a time when you were still a college student and a good portion of the guys around were textbook frat boys. Being around Mat was comfortable and safe. You didn’t feel the need to speak a certain way or be a different person, and retrospectively, the way you felt towards him developed almost organically. You felt yourself gravitating towards him and were pleasantly surprised by the moments when he’d seek you out first. A day off here and a day off there until eventually, you found yourself spending much of your free time with him and vice-versa.
Falling in love with Mat was easy. Being without Mat was difficult. But, thankfully, not impossible apparently.
Convinced you packed everything you needed, made your way out with a duffle bag on your shoulder and a suitcase at your heels.
True to his word, Mat was parked in front of your place and as soon as you pushed open the building’s door, he looked up from his phone and made his way over to you. The last thing you needed was to make the journey any more awkward or difficult for the both of you, so you didn’t argue when he took the bags from you to stow them away in the trunk.
“Are you going across the country?” You ask, peeking into the trunk while he plays Tetris with the bags.
“What?” He questions, evidently distracted by the task at hand but straightens up when you delicately place a hand on his arm, pushing him to the side a little.
“You’d think you’re going across the country for like, two or three weeks rather than a couple of days,” you repeat. “Maybe put that smaller bag sideways? That might let the bigger suitcase fit.”
He follows your guidance and sure enough, that does the trick: the suitcases fit perfectly in the trunk and you grin to yourself, triumphant.
Mat steps back, closing the trunk and brushes his hands together. “Thanks,” he says and you nod, heading towards your seat in the front. He follows you inside just as you click in your seatbelt. “I don’t think it’ll take us more than two or three hours to get there if traffic’s as good as it was when I checked it a little while earlier. Got everything?”
“Everything important that is. Everything else, I’ll just worry about and pull my hair out when we get there,” you tell him and you can’t help feeling proud for being able to keep conversation light and as normal as you can.
After all, you’ve known life before Mat and you’re rediscovering it after him too.
Mat laughs ever so quiet, and from the corner of your eye, you catch him brushing his hand across his mouth though he’s a few seconds too slow in trying to mask his smile.
“I think I’ll need to fill up soon, but let me know if there’s anywhere else you want to stop along the way,” he tells you while pulling out of the parking spot.
You nod even if he probably might not see it and take the liberty to scroll through radio stations. Mat doesn’t seem to be against it, so you continue switching to them until, a little frustrating that nothing seems to work for you, you connect your phone to the car and play one of your playlists. A mix of upbeat pop and an assortment of viral tracks fill in the silence for a while, and the act of singing along in your head takes your mind away from how it almost feels as if you’re sitting on needles. It takes a conscious effort on your behalf to remind yourself to loosen your shoulders and stop fiddling too much with your hands, and you’re glad Mat seems to be plenty preoccupied with driving. Once upon a time, he would’ve immediately picked up on even the most mild of your discomforts and tried to do anything he could to alleviate them. You don’t know how much, if at all, Mat changed during the time you spent apart but you want to think that you no longer wear your heart on your sleeve as much and your emotions are much more guarded, especially in his presence.
Apparently, though, there’s only so much he can take with silence filled in by music because once he’s off busier streets, he leans in his seat more comfortably and you can tell he very briefly turns his head towards you. “Think they’ll like their wedding gift?”
You direct your gaze away from the flashing scenery outside to Mat. “Absolutely. Who wouldn’t like it? Trust me when I say Bali’s been a place Elise always wanted to visit and I can’t think of a better time than now,” you assure him.
“If they don’t, it’s on you,” he says and it takes you a beat longer to realise he’s just joking so you huff out a laugh, relaxing back in the seat.
“If they don’t, they can give one of the tickets to me and I’ll happily go there.” You cast a glare out at the scenery ahead, eyes narrowing upwards towards the overcast sky. “I don’t think summer will ever come at this rate. I’m starting to hate it here.”
“Doubt Baltimore was any better,” Mat points out.
“Hardly,” you sigh. “Maybe I’ll ask them to send me to Miami instead. That’d be much better.”
Mat clears his throat quickly, shifting a little. “So, are you planning on going back to Baltimore or... Why are you back?” You catch sight of the frown forming on his face, and he quickly shakes his head as if trying to rid the hint of accusation from his voice. “That sounded wrong, sorry. But just genuinely curious. I thought a permanent move was on the table?”
“It was. Still is, but they needed me back here to wrap up a project. It was a pretty bad move on their behalf to send me there before we had that wrapped up nice and neat, bow and all, but I guess…” You trail off, shrugging a shoulder. “Guess we’ll see what’s next after that. They do want me back there, though. It just depends how long it takes for things here to fall into place.”
“Fair enough.” Another pause, another moment for him to press his lips together in silent deliberation. He did that often, and you wonder if that remains a habit still. “Was it a promotion? I forgot, sorry.”
“All good,” you assure, brushing off the apology. “Not a promotion per se, but a sidestep with just a slightly bigger paycheck. The office there is a bit smaller than the New York one so maybe there’s a higher chance of getting promoted sooner, but I don’t want to jump the gun on that yet. How did things work out for you guys this season?”
The Islanders had a good season, making the playoffs but fell just short of making the semi-finals, you knew that. After all, you hadn’t removed the Islanders game and news alerts from your phone and you put that on your laziness. You wouldn’t shy away from admitting to him you still followed the team’s progression, but you preferred not to.
“Could’ve been better but there’s lots to learn from it,” Mat tells you and there’s a trace of excitement and determination in his voice. “Next season will be even better, I guarantee.”
It’s a staple Mat response, one he always gave if he felt a game didn’t end in their favour or he didn’t do as much as he thought he should have. Sometimes, it took him some time to accept it. Usually, it came to him after pushing himself in training, after going that extra step in the gym, after re-watching highlights or coach videos and always - always, you’d assure him that it takes a team to move forward, not a single person. Always, he’d kiss you and tell you he loves you and always, you’d spend those moments wrapped up in each other’s arms, more often than not with Mat’s head resting against your chest and your leg slung around his hip.
“Plenty of time to lift that cup, Barzal,” you assure him. “Sure, the sooner the better but there’s always a right time for everything.”
“I hope so,” he agrees pensively, and lingers on that thought.
You let him to it, directing your attention back to the view outside and only now and then picking up your phone either to switch songs or browse through a few applications. A part of you feels almost obliged to try and push for conversation but you avoid doing so. The last thing you need is to make it painfully awkward for the two of you and you figure Mat could always do that himself if he feels like it. So, you let your mind wander to better things - to the upcoming rehearsal and the wedding itself, to how good Elise will look and how Tito will be so proud to watch her walk the aisle towards him. You imagine their reaction to the gift you and Mat contributed towards and smiled to yourself, knowing it was a perfect pick for them both.
You don’t think about telling Elise you and Mat had lied to them. You don’t think about passing this hurdle - the final one before you two will become strangers to one another. You don’t think about how the next time you might both see each other again, you’ll both have such different lives that for a brief moment, the surprise of it will knock the air out of your lungs before you remember: that’s him without me, and this is me without him. And you won’t be the first or the last people to break up, but a part of you is certain what the two of you had was unique and could’ve been grand. So much grander.
You become more alert to your surroundings when he starts slowing the car and you notice you’re pulling up into a gas station. As much as space allows you, you stretch out a little and Mat stops right by one of the pumps.
“Want something for the road?” You ask him, unplugging your phone and taking your card from your bag.
“Hold on, I’ll come with you,” Mat tells you and it doesn’t take long for the refill to happen before you both walk into the station’s store, beelining for the snack aisles even if you have only two hours or so until you reach your destination.
“Oh gosh, those are going to be a nightmare to clean up if you spill any in the car,” you groan quietly as he browses through the variety of Nerds flavours.
“But they’re so good though,” he shoots back and flashes a smile that is nothing short of sly when he picks up two boxes instead of one.
“Yeah, until the flavour runs out literally two seconds after you put them in your mouth. I mean, enjoy that but I’m different,” you boast and pick up a bag of sour candy.
“You just like obliterating your taste buds.”
He’s not wrong. Sour candy and spicy foods are your guilty pleasures, and have been for the longest time. You don’t try to look into how easily he recalls that because, you tell yourself, there’s nothing to look into. It’s a mere fact that anyone who knows you would easily recite.
“You’re wrong and you know it, but admitting that is difficult so it’s fine, Barzal. No hard feelings,” you throw back, snickering as you head over to the fridges for a bottle of cold water. Instinctively, you grab another for him and instinctively, he takes your candy and the water to pay for them but you still tag along with him in the queue.
“No shot. I like some spice but to the point where I literally can’t taste anything else? Hey, remember that one time when you made something… Can’t remember what it was but it was so…” He purses his lips and you laugh because yes, yes you remember it so clearly.
“So good you ended up crying over it?” You offer.
“More like, I wasn’t crying but it was so fucking spicy, Y/N, holy.”
“You survived though, didn’t you?”
“I only did because there isn’t a thing you do I don’t like,” he says and then, seems to catch himself but a second too late. “Didn’t like,” he corrects quietly but the damage is done.
You swallow uncomfortably, directing your gaze away from him but don’t hesitate to nod towards the outside. “I’ll head over to the car. I’ll text Elise to tell her we’re close.”
“Y/N—“
But you’re already taking steps towards the exit and out of ear shot, making a beeline for the car. Your heart thumps rapidly and uncomfortable in your chest and find that pressing a palm to your left side doesn’t make it any better. You know it’s an innocent mistake and there are some habits that die hard, but the way he phrased it triggered your fight or flight instinct instantaneously and despite yourself, you leaned towards the latter. You enter the car and take the time to compose yourself as much as you could. The last thing you need is to have a conversation with Mat about this because you didn’t want to have it - it shouldn’t happen for the sake of avoiding making the situation even more uncomfortable. It was an innocent slip up, no doubt, and you should’ve braced yourself to speak of Mat in present tense as opposed to past tense in the presence of others but it comes to you harder than imagined.
It’s odd how you both once knew so much about each other, everything even, and now the two of you are reduced to dancing around all that and making conscious efforts to keep your conversations as short and banal as possible.
You try and busy yourself with formulating a message to Ellie, one that’s long enough to try and make you seem as busy as possible by the time Mat returns to the car, but every line you wrote, every mini paragraph going into dull details about the trip and where you guys currently are seemed like an overthrow. So, you delete that also and simply text her an OTW just as Mat sets the sweets on the centre console and the bottles in the cup holders.
He doesn’t start the engine immediately and your mood quickly switches to frustration. Sure, you hadn’t handled it in the best way possible but trying to have a conversation about it wouldn’t make it any better. Or at least, it’s just something you didn’t want to have to think about for the remainder of the journey.
But he does just that, because that is what Mat always did: he talked with you.
“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable,” he begins, “I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. It’s force of habit more than anything else.”
“It’s whatever, Mat, so just move past it. I did, simple as that,” you tell him neutrally.
There’s something in that response he must have not liked because you pick up on his small huff and shortly after, the car starts and you’re both on the road again. This time, with silence between you and an atmosphere so heavy it makes you wish you weren’t speeding down an Interstate just so you could open the window and let some of the air in.
-
The hotel the wedding will be held at lies in front of you, sprawling and secluded and perfect for an event like this. Tito is already at the entrance and when he spots Mat’s car, he waves quickly while Mat quickly flashes the headlights before pulling into an available parking spot.
“There they are!” Tito says by way of greeting and you walk right into his outstretched arms, hugging him. “Can’t believe so much time passed since we last saw each other. What is it, two months? Three?”
“Three,” you confirm once you pull away so that Mat could hug him also. “It’s good to see you too. Where’s Elise?”
“She wanted to check on some small details and said she’ll meet up with you guys in a bit. So here I am, the welcoming committee,” Tito explained and when he and Mat stepped apart, he reached out to give you another short hug which you accepted. “So how was Baltimore? Don’t suppose you liked it all that much if you’re back so soon. This guy was happy about it,” Tito adds, nodding his head towards Mat who was already busy emptying the trunk.
You press your lips together, displaying a small smile. “Baltimore wasn’t too bad but they missed me here, apparently. Can’t complete a damn thing without my two cents so here I am for now.”
Tito frowns, but the expression is very brief. “For now? We’ll need to talk more about that later so Barzy doesn’t mope around as much as he did back then.”
You throw a quick glance towards Mat but he’s looking away towards whatever interesting spot on the ground he found, pointedly ignoring you. “I’ll have a word with him about it later,” you tell Tito lightly and together, the three of you make your way inside, towards the reception.
“I think Elise is in the room at the end of the corridor if you want to say hi,” Tito informs you and you jump at the opportunity.
You follow the corridor, making a right turn and continuing along the dimly lit hallway leading to what the signs informed you to be Conference Room 1. The door is slightly ajar and you begin picking up on the buzz of activity coming from within and soon enough, you’re face to face with a spacey room boasting an array of flowers and various arrangements tastefully decorating tables and drooping down from the ceiling. No doubt, the effect will be lovely during the night when colourful neon lights can be turned on. You spot Elise easily: she’s in the midst of the room with what is undoubtedly the scrapbook of ideas she’d been carefully putting together since Tito asked her to marry him. Outwardly, she’s all smiles and laughter but you can imagine the amount of effort and planning putting all of this together and working with planners takes.
When she spots you, she squeals in excitement, sets her book down and dashes across the room to engulf you in a hug, making you stumble a few steps back.
You burst into laughter and wrap your arms around her, squeezing her with just enough force to try and communicate how much you missed her but not so that it was uncomfortable.
“I missed you! You’re here!” She exclaims, stepping back to look at you in disbelief then hugging you again. “Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you’re here! Where’s Mat? Is he here too?”
“Of course he is,” you assure her with a laugh. “I missed you too.” You throw a curious glance towards the room over her shoulder, nodding your head towards it. “How’s it going? Need me to take over for a bit?”
“Maybe later. Definitely later. Come on.” She wraps an arm around yours and leads the way out of the room, undoubtedly back to the reception area where you left Mat and Tito. “Please tell me Baltimore is off the table. FaceTime is fine, sure, but it’s not great, you know? I need the real deal next to me. Besides, I’m not sure if you heard, but Mat wasn’t Mat without you.”
“So I heard, but forget about us!” You said in a desperate attempt to try and steer attention away from the subject. “Tell me about how everything’s going. Are you still nervous about it? Because trust me, Elise - you have absolutely nothing to be nervous of. What I’ve heard of so far and what I’ve seen will make it the absolute best day, surely.”
“Of course I’m nervous,” she tells you and to demonstrate, she holds her free hand in front of you and sure enough, there’s just a slight tremble to it. “Please lend me some of those nerves of steel of yours, Y/N, I’d do anything to have even a small percentage of them right now.”
“Pft, as if. Those are all show, trust me.”
“I’ll take even that. Oh, Mat!” She greets as soon as the two of you reach the reception area and Elise spots Mat.
Much like you and Tito, they hug and when she steps back, she immediately stands next to Tito who doesn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. They exchange a quick kiss and you smile at the happiness and bliss they’re clearly surrounded by.
It’s the slight pressure on your lower back that makes you jolt a little on the spot and it’s then you realise Mat had gently placed his hand there to encourage you a little closer. It takes effort on your behalf to follow his guidance but you move towards him, though you wish you could physically wince at how undoubtedly stiff the two of you must look. Or hopefully, not greatly so because neither Tito nor Elise comment on it or shoot you any funny looks as the four of you engage in brief conversation, mainly surrounding the trip here and any other guests they expect to receive today.
You don’t hang around much, though. Elise’s phone begins buzzing incessantly and she’s whisked away by the message received, but not before she fixes you with a pointed stare and demands the two of you have drinks later in the evening. Tito follows her also, even if he informs you and Mat that he feels as if he’s running around in the right places only because of Elise and the wedding planners, but you encourage him on by joking he could maybe turn a few candles on the tables this way or that for some extra oomph.
“I can’t imagine how she does it,” you admit to Mat once the elevator doors slide shut soundlessly and the car begins moving upwards to your floor.
“Pretty sure it’s not that big of a deal to her, given what all this is leading to,” Mat tells you and you detect a hint of detachment in his voice.
You don’t welcome it, of course you don’t, but you choose to not point that out to him. The last thing you want is an argument to break out the relatively okay mood the two of you have managed to hold, recent events that could be erased from memory aside. Instead, you simply stand back quietly, eyes glued on the red digital numbers aside until they come to a halt on the ninth floor where the elevator stops and you’re both left in a silent, dimly lit hallway.
Mat has the key to the apartment Elise told you the two of you would be in and just before tapping in, he hands you your own copy of it. Up until this very moment, you hadn’t thought very much of the overnight arrangements. You were pretty sure you meant to ask Elise a bit more about them at some point but both your attention and hers were pulled in different directions and here you were, stepping into your place for the next couple of nights, Mat trailing a little behind you.
You stop, arms folding across your chest and you feel Mat stop somewhere close behind you, looking into one room.
“I didn’t think this through,” you state neutrally.
Ahead of you lay only one bed.
#mat barzal#mat barzal imagine#mat barzal fic#nhl imagine#nhl fanfic#nhl fic#*#the synopsis sucks but i'm bad at short summaries lol#i had this idea since i first joined hockeyblr and i'm happy to have finally found the motivation to write it#anyway i have a vague idea for some scenes#and there will probably be three MAYBE four parts to it
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