#I do not get very political on here often. But when I do it is for a reason. Gosh i am so tired of texas bigoted white men and women...
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Repeating myself but "no one can save Westeros because the system bad" being such a popular buzzword/enlightened political take makes me insane to this day because it is literally so fucking dumb. It dismisses every single choice our main characters ever made, rebranding them as pointless, futile, naïve or self-interested when asoiaf's main theme is precisely the gravity, impact and responsibility of individual choice. Yes there is a system and yes characters are often crushed in it but their individual choices are always at the very center of the narrative. You are talking about a book series that became famous for its POV structure, for the love of god. "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself" like here is not the place for pseudo-marxist think pieces. I do understand that your investment in asoiaf starts and ends in a pretty princess getting her happy ending (preferably with a pretty prince) in her pretty castle but it would be more authentic to just say so instead of trying to discredit characters that both can and are actively trying to save Westeros at a great personal cost.
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Tragedy of the Jade Nightingale. Or: My thoughts on Vol. 11 of the Apothecary Diaries.
Given that this volume just came out in English a few days ago, spoilers under the cut!
I usually think of the Apothecary Diaries volumes as pairs - usually two volumes make up an arc. If so, Volume 11 will be the first half of the arc with 12, but it also functions beautifully as a tragedy in it's own right.
** I will be only discussing information appearing officially through Vol. 11. Yes, I have read the fan translations of the web novels, but given that details can change, until it appears in official English translation, I won't yet be including it here.
The Hero
Gyoku-ou. Talk about someone who thinks he's smarter than he actually is. We knew this guy was a threat all the way back in Vol. 8, with how Gyokuyou reacted to her brother's letter and his veiled insult of sending a younger version of herself to catch either her husband's attention or the Imperial Brother's. Now we get to see him in action and he's scary - right up until he's not.
This man is charismatic as anything - he understands what makes people tick on both an individual level as well as a social level. His ability to wield a mob effectively makes him extremely dangerous, but I'm oddly put in mind of Lakan's initial impression of Fengxian. "This woman is strong, but she only knows how to fight in her own, small world."
The world Gyoku-ou inhabits is a very small, petty one. You can see it in his conspiracy theory about Jinshi's birth.
Jinshi is one of two people Gyoku-ou fails to read. When he brings Lakan and Jinshi to his puppet council to gauge support for attacking Shaoh, he thinks he's got a young malcontent in his hands, someone who wants power and is prone to the flashes of temper and insult that often drive young men. Someone who is easily manipulated. Instead, Jinshi mops the floor with him in that meeting, cutting Lakan's support out from under Gyoku-ou and making it clear that his priority is peace above war.
This doesn't take away from Gyoku-ou's political genius - this meeting teaches him that Jinshi has to be maneuvered around, rather than maneuvered directly. If the Imperial Brother doesn't want to play his part, then too bad. Gyoku-ou will see to it that Jinshi is hedged in all directions except where he wants him to go - which is to war. And even then, he's got a fight on his hands as Jinshi fully takes advantage of Empress Gyokuyou's information to undercut Gyoku-ou's support within his own family.
It's a mark of Jinshi's political skill that Gyoku-ou's move in that family council is to flirt with treason. If he can't maneuver the Imperial family through Jinshi, then he shifts tactics to turn Jinshi (and the rest of the Imperial Family) into the villain of his piece - a prince born and raised into utter depravity.
Let's just sit with what Gyoku-ou suggests to the rest of his siblings (minus the Empress) in that meeting. He implies that the Emperor impregnated his own mother in order to produce an heir. A son that he loves so dearly (and unnaturally) that he would willingly look the other way while Jinshi murders his other children in order to make sure that his brother-son-lover succeeds the throne.
This is a brilliant examination of how the bare facts of the situation can be construed by people with very different motivations to fit whatever worldview is most convenient for them. I'm a fan of the palace politics in this series because they feel very real.
Gyoku-ou doesn't lie once. But boy does he create a narrative that suits his purposes and dares anyone (namely Rikuson) to tell Jinshi. He is escalating the situation and he's doing it fast, while also challenging the legitimacy of the Imperial Family. A fact which, if it does get back to Jinshi (or the Emperor), could get the entire new You Clan wiped out just as fast as the Yi Clan was. This scene functions as a microcosm of Gyoku-ou's two fundamental character flaws; his short term thinking and his utter self-absorption.
Becoming The Wind
Since Rikuson was introduced in Vol. 5, he's been a mirror for Jinshi. He's a "pretty boy," calm under pressure, fundamentally kind and decent to other people while also being extremely competent at his job. Unlike Jinshi, he's also a bit older and more mature. He also clearly admires Maomao and sees the qualities that make her exceptional, despite her various masks.
As it turns out, Rikuson mirrors Jinshi in another important sense too - he also has a secret identity. The Yi Clan were the de facto royalty of the Western Capital and Rikuson is one of the direct survivors of the clan. He was never in the line of succession given the Yi Clan's matrilineal structure. But they were quick enough to save some of the children, namely Rikuson and Empress Gyokuyou's three ladies in waiting, Haku'u, Koku'u and Seki'u.
Rikuson, who was Gyoku-ou's excuse to trick His Former Majesty into giving him the authorization to destroy the Yi Clan. Rather than truly being an bastard Imperial prince, he's a young pawn in Gyoku-ou's hands to whip up an armed mob to hunt Rikuson down - and his mother and sister give their lives to ensure his survival - not for vengeance, but so that the Yi Clan's mission of protecting the west will live on even if the named clan itself dies. So, like Jinshi, he is dedicated to the welfare of the people above all else.
The trouble with relying on an unruly mob is that it's sloppy. Gyoku-ou left multiple survivors and they have absolutely no love for him. He's left weapons at his back.
Rikuson is the other person Gyoku-ou utterly fails to read. He spends well over a year back in his homeland, working for Gyoku-ou as an aide ostensibly from the central region, patiently waiting for an opening - even as Gyoku-ou, who knows that Rikuson has to be assigned to the west with some kind of ulterior motive, is so blind that he thinks he must be a secret member of the La Clan, rather than the Yi boy he tried to kill seventeen years earlier.
Rikuson represents the culmination Gyoku-ou's short term thinking in that he doesn't bother to think about the threat of any surviving Yi clan might pose to him.
He will not insult his mother's memory, or his sister's. But if his mission of protecting the west coincides with vengeance for his family? Sure enough, Gyoku-ou's insistence on going to war (and dragging the Imperial family's legitimacy into his motivations) gives Rikuson his opening; especially because he isn't a vigilante.
He is acting under orders.
The New You
Rikuson's point about Gyoku-ou's life being a tragedy hits home when you consider Gyokuyou's thoughts of how she knows her father loves her - but would also abandon her in a heartbeat if she is no longer valuable to him. Unlike her older brother, she has a very clear-eyed view of how their father operates and focuses on making sure that her value never drops in his eyes.
Gyoku-ou's value to Gyoku'en plummeted the day he destroyed the Yi Clan - Gyoku'en's family. He was given a second chance to show that he could still perform the single function of the men of the Yi Clan - to protect the west. When he endangered it instead, Gyoku'en sent the weapon he'd spent seventeen years preparing (Rikuson) with an execution order.
By first destroying the Yi Clan and then following it up with a proposed invasion of Shaoh, Gyoku-ou proved to Gyoku'en that he was no son of his. Given how desperate he was to be his father's son, this whole book is a tragedy in the classic sense. The Jade Nightingale was so desperate to reinvent himself as a Jade Eagle that he destroyed himself in pursuit of the one thing he never lost - his father's love. But, to be his father's heir, what he needed was Gyoku'en's trust and respect, not his love.
And he killed that seventeen years ago along with the Yi Clan.
Ironically, the foreign born girl that he despised and attempted to undermine at every opportunity, emerges as their father's true heir and mother of the nation, with the rest of the surviving Yi clan as part of her loyal retinue.
In her triumph, the Yi Clan is reborn as the You Clan as Gyoku'en, a Yi man, is given a clan name on the strength of Gyokuyou's role as Empress. So much of their history has been lost, down to the matrilineal succession and family records, but their mission lives on through the Yi men who will continue to protect the west, no matter the personal cost to themselves. There is no room for self-absorption here, therefore Gyoku-ou has no place in their new clan.
Also, a parallel to pay attention to is how the destruction of the Yi Clan and the Shi Clan are mirroring each other with the children being saved. The Yi Clan is reborn with a new name, which leads one to wonder what the consequences of saving those Shi children will be long term.
A Dagger In The Dark
Gyoku-ou sucks up a lot of air in Vol. 11 because he is driving the action - Jinshi, Maomao and their party are all stuck reacting to him, except for one character; Chue.
We see Chue attach herself to Maomao starting with the ship and it's not difficult to guess that just as Lihaku is serving as a discreet bodyguard for Maomao on Jinshi's orders, Chue is also there as protection. Chue doesn't try to conceal that she is clearly trained in espionage either.
Rikuson's proposal to Maomao is not a serious bid for her hand, but nor is it a joke - it's a message to Chue that Jinshi needs to tighten security around Maomao. As he puts it, he knows the "hyper protective" elements around her will close ranks. Because he's foreseen a strategy that may not have yet occurred to Gyoku-ou (who tends not to pay attention to the bit parts of the play), but if it does would almost certainly push the country into war.
Maomao is the lever that could move both Lakan and Jinshi.
All he has to do is kill her and make it look like a foreign attack. Lakan's instinctive ability to read a situation and Jinshi's formidable investigative skills would likely be dulled in the face of their rage and grief. Especially since they are technically Gyoku-ou's guests and don't have freedom of movement to push the issue.
Rikuson seizes his opportunity before Gyoku-ou can continue to escalate, but he realizes quickly that Chue arranged the stage and was there as both spy and backup assassin. (I think it's safe to say that Gyoku-ou's conspiracy theory AND that Yi family ledger will be reported, given that we know there were ladies-in-waiting at the meeting and that's how Chue was disguised - and she didn't actually promise to dispose of it).
Gyoku-ou doesn't bother to think that while the Emperor may be far away and the Imperial Brother is a manageable threat, that the people surrounding Jinshi may not be bound by his strictures. Hence, Chue was on standby. No matter what, Gyoku-ou was never going to make it to that ritual. He was never smart enough to realize that his crossing the line would be never be forgiven.
While Jinshi would order an execution if necessary (and has in the past), he would never order an assassination. Therefore, it's evident that Chue reports to someone else. Who that someone is, we don't know, but there's only one person further up the Imperial tree than Jinshi, so it would be reasonable for Rikuson to assume that the Emperor has placed additional protection around not just Jinshi, but Maomao.
Exclusive: Baby Swap!
Jinshi's birth is not a secret to the audience and while Maomao doesn't have confirmation, she's pretty certain of her suspicion. This volume made it patently obvious that there are others out there who are perfectly capable of putting the pieces together, even if the details are twisted.
Let's return to Gyoku-ou's conspiracy theory.
He's put together all the correct pieces. The Emperor's attitude toward Jinshi makes no sense in a traditional palace setting - a much younger, handsome, charismatic and competent brother? That's a threat to the Emperor and his direct line. But Jinshi is never treated that way - instead he's indulged on many fronts.
He's allowed to duck most of his official duties as Ka Zuigetsu (except for a few he can't, where he appears masked).
He's allowed to pretend to be a eunuch for six years and run the Rear Palace.
When he finally reveals himself to the court to put down the Shi Rebellion, he's described as "hale" and "just as proficient in the military arts as the administrative." (More proof that Jinshi is NOT the best judge of his own abilities). He emerges fully formed into court politics - a perfectly trained Crown Prince - only to have a newborn given the title instead.
Gyoku-ou deliberately put the worst possible spin on these facts. I suspect the rest of the You siblings are going to keep their mouths shut about Gyoku-ou's ugly theory, but if he could think of it, if Maomao could think of it with just seeing Jinshi standing next to Lady Ah-Duo, then so can others.
Maomao can be mad about Jinshi branding himself all she wants, but it's currently looking like an absolutely BRILLIANT move on Jinshi's part. Whatever doubts Gyoku-ou managed to plant about Jinshi and the Emperor's motives with the rest of the You clan siblings, Empress Gyokuyou is not likely to entertain it.
Also, it got the Emperor to essentially "banish" Jinshi to the edges of the Empire shortly after his new Crown Prince was born, which makes it look to other members of the court like the Emperor is taking steps to rein in his younger brother and balances the factions that have to be forming back in the capital.
This is not a secret that can be kept forever. No matter how careful Ah-Duo and Anshi were, the information is starting to leak out around the edges, as we see that the Empress' ladies in waiting that were dismissed clearly had eyes and ears - and in at least one case, a loose tongue.
The next arc is being seeded and Jinshi is inching closer and closer to that throne. He ran the Rear Palace for years (essentially managing the nation in microcosm) and as of the end of Vol. 11, he's now stepping up to govern a province and gain actual ruling experience while also having suppressed a war.
I've said before that Jinshi ascending the throne is the bad ending - if there is a single person who is more trapped by the palace than the prince, it's the emperor. We'll see what happens!
#the apothecary diaries#kusuriya no hitorigoto#jinshi#maomao#jinshi and maomao#apothecary diaries meta#long text post#no really#very long text post#jinmao#jinshi x maomao#apothecary diaries#gaoshun#taomei#chue#basen#bayrou#suiren#character analysis#kusuriya light novel#volume 11#gyoku-ou#rikuson#gyokuen#lady gyokuyou
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Platonic yandere Jonathan Joestar with a childhood friend darling, please and thank you ^_^
Ah yes, your new bodyguard. Hope you like this and sorry it took so long!
Yandere! Platonic! Jonathan Joestar with Childhood Friend! Darling
Pairing: Platonic
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Slight manipulation, Violence, Blood, Dubious companionship.
I called Jonathan something similar to a bear in his original concept.
Well, that's true here.
Towards you Jonathan is very respectable and polite.
He's also a man who would want to defend the "honor" of his best friend.
Jonathan isn't very popular despite his attempts to be a gentleman.
Everyone always saw him as the rich kid in school.
So he was actually often a target of bullying rather than being popular.
Except with you.
Jonathan met you at school when you were young and you both became childhood friends.
As a result, while you grew up he was often protective.
You were one of his only friends except his dog and his girlfriend, Erina.
Honestly, as much as he wanted to get along with Dio, it wasn't happening.
This made you one of the few people Jonathan still talked to from his youth.
Which meant you were always under his protection.
Jonathan doesn't mind bullies picking on him, but you?
If he sees you being messed with he intervenes.
I'm talking Jonathan would get into huge fist fights if it meant defending you and your honor.
By the time you pull him out of it, he's bloody and you have to drag him off to get cleaned up.
To you both, you're childhood friends.
To others, it looks like he's a bodyguard.
Perhaps he is when it comes to you.
When you two were young you were originally of similar builds.
Although, as you got older, Jonathan's size dwarfed you.
When you're in Highschool, both Jonathan and Dio dwarf you, actually.
Before Dio came along, Jonathan often played with you and Danny outside.
You loved being around him and the dog, when Erina came over you often invited her to join you and Jonathan.
When Dio moved in, there's the canonical clashing he and Jonathan have.
Although the moment Dio slanders you or picks on you in your youth, Jonathan steps in.
Jonathan often keeps you away from Dio due to this.
When you're in the mansion, Jonathan is never far behind.
When you're at school, he's there too.
Jonathan is aware of Dio's tendency to prey on you.
He can't do it without going through Jonathan.
Dio intends to make Jonathan suffer, which often includes sabotaging relationships.
Dio would definitely try his best to make you hate Jonathan.
Yet it's not very successful since Jonathan is always around.
On a more light-hearted note, Jonathan probably likes to carry you around due to his size.
You're more of a sibling to him than Dio.
Jonathan's protective nature towards you continues even after Dio becomes a vampire.
He actually hates the fact he's bedridden due to the fire, you could be vulnerable.
But Erina always manages to meet with you upon Jonathan's request so you can both visit him as he recovers.
Jonathan is still tamer than most JJBA yanderes, just being a bit overbearing.
He'd want to get stronger and take on Dio for the sake of both you and Erina.
He wants to marry Erina and have you alongside him.
As usual, you can imagine he'd be devastated if you were harmed by Dio.
It's not just bullying or teasing anymore.
Dio could easily kill you and take your blood.
Jonathan often worries about you.
He knows his strength should be used to protect those he loves.
You may not like him violent... but he'd do anything to protect you.
Jonathan does not kill out of jealousy.
He does not kill out of sadism.
Even when obsessed with you, he only kills if he'll lose you.
The blood on his hands is for your happiness.
In fact, Jonathan would love to see his best friend fall in love and get married like him.
He wants to support you.
He doesn't want you scared of him, he's protecting you.
If anyone threatens your happiness, he'll be there.
He actually isn't that bad with you.
If you get a partner, then he judges them to make sure they have your best interests at heart.
If they break your heart then he'd probably break them.
Jonathan may be clingy and overprotective... but he's a hero, isn't he?
He protected you from Dio just like he always has.
When you were injured, he stuck by you.
Every hug he gives is caring.
It doesn't matter if he has blood on his hands for you, right?
He just wants the best for you...
So he'll never leave you alone.
#yandere jojo#yandere jojo's bizarre adventure#yandere jjba#yandere jonathan joestar#platonic yandere
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Hey lily, how're you doing with the current "Texas situation"? Because that shit is so fuckin dumb
Greg Abbot is a piece of shit Governor. Literally so many things are going wrong in Texas that I didn't even know what you were referring to. I looked up the news and currently its about the Texas-Mexican Border Dispute. [News Article]
"The fight between Texas and the federal government over the control of the US-Mexico border has further intensified after state governor Greg Abbott announced he will defy the Biden administration and US supreme court by ordering the installation of even more razor wire to deter migration." - Erum Salam, 26 Jan. 2024
Due to this, the Texas authorities actively allowed a woman and her two children to drown in the Rio Grande this month with witnesses. It is disciple to hear such disgusting acts in my state and they are not the only deaths. Many have died from being caught in the barbed wire or shot. Horrific things like this are not uncommon to hear about in these border areas. I do not want to scare people with this information, but I think it is important to understand.
RAICES is a good Texas-based nonprofit to donate for as they provide many free and low-cost services to immigrant children, families, and refugees.
#I do not get very political on here often. But when I do it is for a reason. Gosh i am so tired of texas bigoted white men and women...#I hope Greg Abbot goes to federal prison#bread#ask stuff#us politics#texas politics#politics
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while aaravi remains firmly within "yeah miranda has a difficult personality and isn't very easy to get along with + has many rough edges which are slowly being worked on but still going to be an issue" after having been very much so within the camp that miranda is a Vexing Bitch upon first contact/getting to know her, she DOES go from "miranda is unpredictable and dangerous as a merfolk and large macropredator and her emotions are inscrutable and random" to "merfolk aren't very hard to understand or predict and it's very easy to stay on the safe side if you keep basic rules in mind and don't freak out the second something unexpected happens"
#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#miravi.txt#just. thinking about it!#thinking about specifically how merfolk (like most other animals) growl/hiss specifically as a deterrent#like if you start really upsetting miri and she wants space and you to Please Stop#she will probably turn her face away from the other person or turn her body away from them#while growling or hissing and pulling her fins back#and will open her mouth to bare her teeth or gape her mouth open to show her teeth (including heavily panting)#where the point is ''i will hurt you if you touch me/get closer/dont stop so please dont do that''#but a lot of people read it as her being either obtuse (if she turns away from them)#or outright aggressive for the showing of teeth and growling#when shes really not. shes being very polite in merfolk terms in giving multiple chances to avoid violence#shes going ''i am worried i might have to hurt you so please reconsider'' in a way thats very readable if youre another merfolk#who will then step away or give her her space and switch the tone of the conversation#to see whats wrong#whereas her being more deliberately aggressive/violent usually comes with minimal vocal cues at all#or (if shes specifically threatening someone such as in the case of getting aggressive over perceived threats to her social bonds)#she will often turn towards them and open her mouth and flare her fins#often deliberately closing the distance and making herself appear Extra Large#she WILL growl here but will never hiss (hissing being a more defensive sound)#and will often smack her tail against the ground or show her claws or otherwise demonstrate how large and how scary she is#as a deliberate point of ''you crossed a line and this is what is going to happen to you if you dont make it up right now''#which! both require VERY different responses but might look similar to a human!#and might end up coming off as unpredictable or random in her actions and cruelty!#when shes not! shes just doing things the way a merfolk does them#which means aaravi realizes VERY quickly after learning about all of this#just how many cues miranda gives that people are starting to make her uncomfortable and feel Not Okay#that are ignored or written off because theyre merfolk cues#merfolk are very tolerant of stress but have basically no concept of escalation of violence for that reason#because if youve ignored every chance to prevent something dangerous up until the point it goes too far
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#I get tired of people trying to explain what lens I should view the world through; what way I could think that would make everything better#forgive me but I don't care; I do what I do and I do what I can and you don't see the work I do under the hood#I don't want advice on self validation or whatever; I want... I want someone to hold a mirror up so I can actually see myself#by which I mean I want input on how I'm doing; if it's good enough; if it's worth anything; if anything I make is good#everyone things I'm nice; everyone has always thought I'm nice#but given nice leaves me profoundly isolated I don't think I care#not to mention in my opinion what nice in this instance means is that I'm capable of listening#it's mostly that I have manners rather than some quality about me#I'm well behaved and polite and can listen; and that's perceived as nice or even sweet#and it's not like I'm offended by people seeing me that way; but maybe you can get why... I can't do anything with that information#but if I'm doing enough... if I provide any value to the world... I might have heard that less times in my life than years I've lived#that's where I'm totally blind#people don't tend to offer any input; and also people don't tend to let me know what they're thinking#and I in fact am not a mind reader; I can often accurately infer things; but no of that means a thing till it's confirmed#and... well... hopefully no one reads the stupid shit I say and especially not the tags so this is safe and hidden#but truthfully people just like to hear that stuff they're doing is wanted and matters#and I do not#I don't know... gotta go do more cleaning cause I need to#and I have no idea if... I've got a reason for fighting so hard to clean; but I get very little input so... I expect... well...#and thankfully I don't think they read my tags so I can say this#but I really expect they won't take me up on my offer to come out here and get away from their parents; so there will be no pay off#not that I blame them in the slightest... it's just the only possible pay off for this cleaning would be helping someone I like out#and a scrap of company#but then again... in many ways anyone coming out to live with me is the worst thing they could probably do#sorry... I have a rather bleak outlook on many things surrounding myself purely cause of what I infer from the past#there is never pay off; only more shit I need to get done#I will never be loved; I will never be wanted; I will always just kinda be an afterthought that's occasionally worth venting to#no one will ever be particularly interested in anything I'm interested while I'll chase their interests or at least try to#certainly let them talk about them when they want#...though I take that over my normal total isolation... better to at least be permitted to follow in someone's shadow than have nothing
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ppl will just reblog posts w outright historical misinformation in them
#source: just trust me bro#text post#if a claim sounds strong and compelling you should still fact-check it#bc ppl will make very specific statements like 'oh this specific thing happened after this thing happened as a result of--' and#theyre getting the order of the timeline messed up#and no one is pointing that out. like. ok#i dont like to get my hands dirty on tumblr dot com so you know it wont be me doing that#it tends not to really do anything bc by the time it gets out there... it's already out there#there's already a mistruth on however many ppl's blogs. i've never seen someone directly comment misinfo on my dash#but ppl happily REBLOG it all the time.#and i get it like i get it we all wanna reblog stuff that affirms our world view#this is why i tend not to blog much about social/political issues very much anymore#bc this happens all the time when ppl try to make objective claims#or when they do cite sources the sources will often have their own problems and/or be misquoted#im very skeptical of information i find or see shared on here#which is not to say that my own personal politics are changed or even that theyre vastly different from ppl partaking in them on here#but. like. geez you know it feels like there's no way to win or participate in a useful discourse anymore#idk how to talk about serious issues online in 2024 and it's quite dispiriting honestly#there are no standards anywhere anymore.#everything moves too fast and we want easy satisfaction and that's a huge reason why misinformation is so effective#all across the political spectrum but especially on platforms where it's easy to form an echochamber
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I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.
Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.
It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.
It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.
How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.
It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.
It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.
It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?
It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.
Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.
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You need more free art.
I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.
You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.
We all need more free art.
So what am I going to do about it?
This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.
I'm going to do this:
1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.
This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.
Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.
2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.
Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.
Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.
I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.
2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY
To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.
On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.
You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.
3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS
Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).
The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.
4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE
I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.
tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!
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I know the joke is that Ghost Trick fans can't tell you why to play it, just that you should, but here's some spoiler-free reasons to play it:
It's an incredible puzzle game. The puzzles are basically Rube-Goldberg machines, where you manipulate objects in a series to effect change in the overall situation. Do you like complex mechanisms and the concept of the butterfly effect? Play this.
The basic gameplay: you are a ghost. You have the ability to posses and manipulate objects, and move from object to object. Someone bas died. You can go to four minutes before their death to change their fate using your Rube Goldberg powers. Also! The puzzles do a great job of ramping you up in difficulty and teaching you the gameplay, but wow do they get HARD in late game. You can replay any puzzle, and also rewind time as you wish. You can't lock yourself out of things by doing it wrong, since you can redo.
The story is SO GOOD. There's a reason why everyone tells you as little as possible -- it's a compelling mystery that sucks you in. The basic idea: you are dead. You need to figure out who you are and who killed you. This spins out into a tale of political intrigue.
It's by Shu Takumi, the creator of Ace Attorney. It has very similar vibes, in that it's absolutely bonkers characters and situations but also WILL make you cry once it's all revealed. Great mix of serious and humorous tones. Seriously, someone dies when a giant roast chicken statue falls on them and the root cause is because of [serious political events]
The aesthetics. Great music, great character design, have you SEEN what the game looks like? Really good use of color and stylization. Character animations are often hilarious.
Missile is there. You WILL love bestest boy. Don't google him. Just trust.
#ghost trick phantom detective#ghost trick#please play ghost trick#if you saw this reposted from twitter#no you didn't
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Hot Tatted Uncle Pt.2 (Uncle!SukunaAu x Teacher!Reader)
Thanks so much for the love and support on pt.1 you guys are the besttt lol, honestly might be a 3 parter we'll see! ANyway, enjoy :0
Also pleaseee excuse any spelling errors yall
Link to Pt.1
PART THREE HERE!!!
_______________________________________
You stared at the text message, throat tight with excitement but dread. It had been a few months since the last incident with Yuji and his Uncle. The roguish male often picked up the young boy, tagging along with Yuji’s father. You’d usually just give Jin a rundown of his son’s day, ever so often catching Sukuna’s gaze as he leaned against the door frame. And every time it happened, you’d choke, clearing your throat and focusing your attention on Yuji and his father.
It didn’t help that he was always texting you, asking his his nephew was behaving. Even though it was cordial and polite, you still felt giddy getting texts from him.
This comes to the next point, why you’re sitting here practically gawking over the most recent message request from Yuji’s father.
-YOU HAVE A NEW MESSAGE:
Hello Miss Y/n! Do you babysit? I know Yuji loves having you as a teacher and I was wondering if you’d be interested in babysitting for him along with his Uncle while me and my wife go on vacation. Of course, you will be paid as well.
-Jin Itadori @ 6:28pm-
You wait to open it, pacing for a moment, thinking, first of all if you were available for the weekend and second, why couldn’t his uncle handle it?!
Well, given the man’s track record maybe an experienced hand in childcare could be useful. With a heavy sigh, you respond and you'd have to quickly come to terms with the fact that you would be essentially babysitting over 2 days with your students' hot uncle.
-----------
It's Friday now, and arrangements for you to simply drive Yuji back home and meet up there with his uncle were already in place. You were trusted with a spare house key, and their precious baby boy, who so seemed to be happier than a fly on shit that you would be spending even MORE time with him.
You gather your things and a few activities to pass the time, loading them into your car. Yuji insists on helping, carrying a small container of building blocks with his chubby hands. And god damn does he not stop talking while he does. It's adorable really, whatever comes off the top of the boy's head simply flying free.
"My-My uh uncle, he doesn’t have no girlfriend." He speaks, the statement making you choke.
"Ahaha is that so? He tells you to say that?" You joke, setting the pink-haired toddler in his car seat, and buckling him in with ease.
"MHM! My uh-" He coughs, quickly covering it with his elbow as you give a small 'good job' seeing as he's learning to keep his germs away from everyone, including you.
"My Uncle says uh he says that you got pretty eyes." He explains, your heart fluttering.
You sit in the driver seat finally, the boy still rambling on and on about what his uncle thinks about you. Though all you can do is respond with a simple, "Oh that's very kind, or a awee", Yuji is nonstop.
It’s quiet for a moment and as you’re pulling into the driveway when he says it, clear as day.
"Uncle says your ass is fat too."
You slam the brakes, the car jerking a bit when you do. What. The. FUCK-
The culprit is already awaiting you, arms folded over his chest as they flex. He’s got a white tank top on and a pair of black basketball shorts paired with slides and ankle socks.
Yuji squirms, growing ever more excited as Sukuna takes him out of the car seat and lightly jabs his knuckles to the boy's sides with a 'Rahhhh', as if he were some kind of tickle monster. Yuji of course laughs and if ALMOST makes you forget about what he'd just said a moment ago.
"Wanna help Miss Y/n put this inside?" Sukuna asks the small boy, handing him the block container from before. Yuji is quick to nod and scurry to the front door.
"I can bring the rest of this, Jin gave you the housekey right?" He asks, leaning against the frame of the car, your neck snapping towards him as you swallow thickly. Fuck you can see even more of the tats now in that shirt.
"U-Uhm yes, yes. I'll go get the door. I can get some of this too I-" You speak, fumbling to find the key. He only puts his hand up and shakes his head, the silver chain around his swishing a bit.
"Nah I gotchu. Yuji knows how to turn the TV on so he can watch his lil show for a bit.”
Sure enough, the minute you unlock the door, Yuji crawls atop the couch, using the remote to try his best to navigate. It takes a while, and he mispresses a few buttons but after about 5 minutes he manages to play something entertaining for him.
Sukuna had finished bringing your bags in as well as the one with activities in it, setting it on the stairs. He rolls his shoulder, pointing at Yuji who was immersed in the show.
"See." Sukuna hums, leaning against the countertop next to you, also skimming over the note. His body heat is practically radiating off of him, just standing by him is warming you up.
You nod in response, looking over the brief note Jin left for you both and according to what it said, your next step was to head up some leftovers for Yuji and then run him a bath.
"There’s two bathrooms so I can get the boy.” He offers, resting his hand behind his neck as you give a nervous laugh. FUCK this nervousness was most likely only on you. There’s no way he could be just as filled with anticipation as you were?!
You take the offer, giving a small thank you before fishing the shower and taking one considering you did just get off of work. Packed away in your bag was a set of comfortable clothes and a book with you figured would help pass the time once Yuji went to sleep.
You could hear footsteps and Yuji fussing back and forth with his Uncle.
“Hush man you’re making me look bad.” Sukuna groans, throwing the toddler over his shoulder as he giggles but continues to thrash, pounding tiny fists against the older male's back.
“No! NO BATH! I don’t wanna!” Yuji whines, his Uncle only growling in response.
“I’ll give you candy if you stop.”
And just like that it was quiet.
-8:30pm-
The night had gone smoother than you thought, you and Sukuna both interacting with Yuji as it’s beginning to be time to wind down. His eyes were beginning to get heavy and before you knew it he was slumped against the couch, clutching an unfinished sucker in one hand and a white puppy plush in the other. You smile, scooping him up and patting him when he stirs.
“Be right back, let me tuck him in.” You whisper, seeing Sukuna look up from his phone and nod, one arm slung over the sofa while he practically manspreads
-9:00pm-
Turns out, Yuji took a bit longer to fall asleep when he realized he was being put down and so you had to sit and pat him for an extra 30 minutes. And once you returned to the living room, there was Sukuna, still scrolling. Well, that was until you came in.
“Sorry, he wouldn’t go back to sleep.” You explain, sitting at the farthest end from him, picking up your book in the silence.
“So you like working up there? At the school?” He asks, putting his phone down to hold the conversation with you.
It takes you by surprise for a second but you are quickly to respond.
“Well yeah, I love the kids and I love working there and teaching them things. Yuji is a sweetheart and it’s definitely kids like him that make it all worth it.” You explain, a smile making its way to your lips.
“You got kids?” He asks, eyes on your frame as you laugh a bit in response
“Nah, don’t really plan on it right now either. Kids are difficult.” You answer, now facing him a bit more, body relaxed.
What was there to be so scared of?! He’s a chill guy who just so happened to be hot as fuck asking you about your career and life?!
“How about you? Kids? Working?” You flip, seeing him shift a bit uncomfortably.
“Hell nah. I see how Jin deals with Yuji and I’m not really cut you to be a dad. And for work well, I’m a priest.” He states, smirking at the surprised look on your face.
“R-Really??” You question definitely surprised.
“Nah I’m just fucking with you.” He laughs and you do the same, trying to keep your volume down since Yuji did just fall asleep.
-11:08pm-
It was crazy to believe you’d spent about two hours just talking back and forth, with him about his past, his brother, and his nephew. You about your own life and current living situations. Somehow the conversation took…a turn.
“Y’know, it’s funny because Yuji keeps telling me about these things you say and I think it’s so funny. Like he’s tone little wingman.” You laugh, seeing him grin right back at you.
“Yeah like what?” He asks, more teasing than anything.
“Well he said that you said I have pretty eyes and on the way here he goes, ‘uncle says your ass is fat’” you explain with a laugh that he doesn't return.
Instead you see his lip tuck between his teeth after he licks them.
“I did say that.”
Suddenly the room is hot, and you’re very aware of how sharp his canaines look in that stupid grin. How his hand is grinning the back of the couch cushion. And for some goddamn reason you just had to look down, that fucking print so visible against his inner thigh.
Your breath falters, eyes wide and you swallow back any doubt. So he had said all that stuff and it want just Yuji repeating something or just talking.
“I-Well I…Thank you? I-I mean I’d be lying if I said hadn’t looked at you too.” You admit, his body shifting to face you more, almost caging you in on the couch.
“I figured. Every time I come to pick up you can’t seems to form a sentence correctly .” He notes.
“Suku-“
“Ryo.” He corrects. Lifting the strap of your nightshirt over your shoulder, playing with the fabric for a moment.
“Ryo.” You test, hearing his exhale heavily.
“Let’s stop pretending there’s nothing happing and has been happening here. No rule against fooling around with me is there?” Sukuna tests, his hand trailing up to rest no on your neck, his thumb pulling your lower lip down.
“No.”
And with that your make the hood move to connect your lips, his arms immediately going to lift you up ans set you against his lap.
Damn does that bulge feel to much better resting between your legs than just looking at it.
___________________________________
Authors note: OKAY YEHA ITs gonna be a 3 parter with smut in the next one I cant resist lol yall know smut is my specialty! LMK if you wanna be added to the taglist shawty!
Taglist: @manikosii @ya-boi-v @tergyri @ninacutebee16 @minaloq @kriegsumire-blog @samisfunky @peachhiz @teupaidecalcinhasblog @khaotic-luca @gurutoru @molita111 @snail-squasher @rowrowrowyourboat13
#x reader#reader is black#sukuna x reader#unkuna#sukuna#sukuna ryomen#jjk au#jjk headcanons#uncle sukuna#jjk x reader
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I now love you, is it too late? (Yandere Fiancé x F. Reader)
Summary: Heartbreak and romance are two sides of the same coin. They both deal with love between another. Your heart is broken but you are trying to move on, but someone is preventing you from doing so.
Notes: I never thought that the previous story would blow up like it did. You can read the first part here.
Warning: alcohol consumption, drugging someone, forced love, obsession, stalking, mentions of violence, I don't condone it, I just write it.
The days after his conversation with you, he should had been elated. For the first time in his life, he wasn't bothered by you and your antics. He could finally get work done without you bother him at every corner to come visit him or play with him. For the first few days, he was able to finish everything for once in his life instead of having a pile to do the next day. But overtime, somehow he was dreadfully bored.
His office felt quiet. Almost too quiet. The only sounds he could make out were the papers shuffling, the clock ticking, and the the voices that came in and out of his office.
Also, overtime he had completed work for the month. He was used to working more the next day and having work stacked up to the point that he needed to catch up, that now he has no idea what to do once he finished work for a month or two.
Alaric thought he could read. He has always enjoyed reading in his free time. But once he got to reading, he felt bored once again. He never realized that the books he read were nothing but boring. The books were full of political theory, history of the most boring topics, and informative information.
His lunches were quiet, his dinners were quiet, and his stomach often rumbled when he forgot to eat.
Life felt repetitive, boring, and dull. He was stuck in a routine of eat, work, and sleep. Nothing ever happened.
When (y/n) was here, she would always drag him somewhere, she had wanted to go to. To go shopping, a picnic, a play, an opera, to watch duals, or to eat. He always felt tired after those things, but at least it brought him excitment.
(y/n) often made sure he would eat flavorful foods and her favorite foods, to the point that he knows everything she likes.
(y/n) often made a ruckus in his home. Always talking, calling servant’s, squealing at her romance novels, and chatting with everyone.
'At least the manor was never deadly quiet whenever she was around...' he thought of as he smirked.
Wait. Why is he thinking about her?
He should be happy that she is no longer bugging him as often as she did.
He saw you outside. He was shopping for new cufflinks. His were "getting out of style" his secretary had told him. Maybe it was just a ploy to get him out of the manor, but he still went out nevertheless. He was in a jewelry shop. Unconsciously, he went to the one you often visited. The man knew who he was anyways, so might as well cut to the chase.
"Ah?! Your Grace!"
The man seemed to be looking for (y/n). "Where is Lady (l/n)? Doesn't she often accompany you?"
He just stood quiet for a moment before his secretary popped in. "His Grace is here to get cufflinks."
The man's eyes brighten. "Ah. Lady (l/n) has already thought of that for you. Please wait here Your Grace."
He brought out a box that he had gotten from a certain part of the store. He opened it, and there were square shaped, dark blue jewels, bordered with small diamonds, the metal gold. It looked like it suited him. Very well. She knew his taste well. She knew what he liked.
"If Your Grace does not like it, you can commission another..." said the man selling him the product.
Alaric shook his head. "No, it's perfect."
He signaled at his secretary to give him a generous check in his name as he left the shop, only to find you, looking at the ocean view from across the shop.
Why did it look like you were looking for something?
More importantly, why did it look like you were looking for someone?
You wore a bright dress, your favorite lace gloves, your prettiest sunhat and carried your favorite parasol.
He was confident that he was the only man who has ever had a very close relationship with you, other than acquaintanceship.
Wait, why was he thinking this?
Why should he care if you saw another man. This is an engagement of convenience anyways. There is no point in scrutinizing every man that either comes or came in your life.
But if you were going to be talking to men after him, they better be better than him. He was not going to be beaten by some half-rate man, who has never held a sword in his life, who has never had to train often to live up to your a standard(s), who has never had to deal with the responsibilities of being a duke from the moment he was born, who has not needed attention from you, and who has never lived up to your ideas of love.
He wasn't going to lose to a man who never even knew you like he did.
But he saw you were being accompanied by a maid after his thoughts had raged through his head. He walked closer towards you. He saw you.
Your eyes had seemed like the eyes that often looked his way when he greeted someone. Not like their lively selfs that he was so used to from you. Your eyes always shone brightly when he was in your presence.
Your smile, one of formality, not your genuine one. You smiled the brightest whenever he was around. Anyone could tell with that smile that you loved him.
You looked like any other person he had interacted with. Formal and in-line with etiquette.
Even your speech was formal. It was no longer bright and cheerful. It was no longer, "Alaric! What are you doing here?", it was now, "Pleased to see you, Duke Caius."
"It's pleasant to see you too, Lady (y/n)." he responded back.
You nodded you head while a wave of silence came through. He didn't talk, you didn't talk, both of you were looking at the distance of this port.
'She is rather quiet. Too quiet..." he thought in his head. Often she was the one who started up a conversation.
"I'm very sorry Duke Caius, but I must leave. I am shopping with a friend, and I wouldn't want them to keep on waiting for me, so, please excuse me."
You started walking off slowly, but then he spoke. "Would you like for me to escort you?"
You turned your head. He thought you would be smiling and agreeing to his suggestion immediately, holding his arm in a loving manner and chatting with him the entire way, like you used to do whenever he had brought out that idea.
But you had shook your head. "No, but thank you for your suggestion, Duke Caius. My guard is nearby here anyways."
You walked off as he could only look at you and your maid walking. He didn't even realize that his secretary had came back, as he only chased after you in the same direction.
He saw from a distance, you holding the arm of some man. A dull man. He was mad at that moment, but his anger wasn't towards you, it was towards the man you were with.
You had became more distant with him. Avoiding him at every moment, like he was the plague. Every time he noticed her, she had seem to always step away from him, with every step she had taken, walking away from him instead of towards him like they used to do.
At parties, you would often avoid him, while his arm was being stuck onto by Lady Thompson.
Social events had you talking to the ladies, sparring no time for him.
Outings with no small talk.
Every little thing you had done to distance yourself from him, almost drove him insane. His head now full of questions for your sudden change in personality. In the span of a few weeks, you had all of the sudden became the most formal person on earth, to the point people started questioning the legitimacy of the relationship.
"It seems like they will break up soon..."
"Are we sure they are engaged? Lady (l/n)'s sudden change in personality must mean something..."
"How sad this relationship had to come to. It feels like they are in a married’s quarrel!"
"I heard that Marquis (l/n) is planning on annulling their engagement..."
"Really?!"
These nobles and their chatty lips. These rumors meant nothing. (y/n) would never let something like an annulment happen to them.
He was bewildered. Shocked. Almost appalled with this letter.
He thought that she had delivered a letter to write to him once again, but this time, this letter was from Marquis (l/n).
Dear Duke Caius,
I regret to have informed you, that I am making a selfish and personal decision to annul this engagement between you and my daughter. I have came to this decision after her reaction and my bewilderment at the Royal Ball from 4 months ago, after you had escorted Lady Alina Thompson instead of my daughter.
I could see the heartbreak in her eyes, and as a father, it is painful to constantly see your daughter in constant heartbreak from the very boy you had known since he was young.
When your late father and I had planned this engagement for the both of you, I knew I would have to give up my precious daughter to a man I could trust, not a little boy who has yet to grown up.
You have yet to proven to me that you could be a man I could trust you with my only child, my daughter.
I wish you well and hope you will continue to collaborate and see the (l/n) house positively and as allies.
Sincerely,
Marquis (l/n)
The letter came with the annulment papers with it. He quickly looked through the papers too see your signature on them and your thumb print.
He stood quiet for a minute, before chuckling. "(y/n)...oh (y/n)..."
He felt like ripping the papers to shreds in the very moment.
You were happy for once in your life. You had met someone special to you. Arthur Johnson.
A stableman who engaged in conversation with you when he was working for your family. He always had a kind demeanor. soft spoken, and was often willing to hear you. Despite your age gap with him (being 10 years), his status as a commoner, and his rugged appearance, you felt like for the first time in your life, you had actually met your prince charming.
He took on dates to the crowded places like small festivals and the farmer markets. Your first present from him being a cheap pendent necklace from him.
His personality was well liked by everyone as he seemed to have a good relationship with everyone.
His voice was deep and attractive, smothering your ears and causing you to blush around him whenever he talked.
He always called you 'princess' or 'my lady' whenever out and about with you, causing you to be flustered at such comments.
He had introduced you to his ailing mother. You never felt so bad for anyone. You had offered to help him, but instead he rejected such offers from you. "My lady, you really don't need to help us..."
"Nonsense Arthur! Your mother is sick and-"
He always shook his head. "I do not want to rely on my lady to always help us. Thank you for the idea though."
Elliot was boring.
Gregory was pretentious.
Adonis was suspicious.
Adrian was paranoid.
But Arthur, was a gentleman.
Until you never heard back from him one day.
He had holed up in his manor until something had happened. He had gotten news of you being spotted on dates with other men.
Afterwards he had a reason to leave the manor from this point onwards. You were with a man after man often times. Talking, chatting, flirting, and being brought around with. He had his secretary look at the backgrounds of those men.
Low-ranking noblemen, and sometimes even commoners.
The perfect people to direct his anger at. After all, what are those families and people associated with them, are going to do against the wrath of Duke Caius and the Caius Duchy.
All of the sudden, these men had been riddled with debt and their families in financial ruins.
A son of a baron, tricked by a scammer he had paid for. He had fell for it, meaning he was too naive and not needed for (y/n), who was just as equally naive.
A son of a viscount, conned and arrested for the possession and the selling of forged art. The real artwork, costing millions, and in his own manor. He "might" had hired an artist to help him with it, paying off their own debt and giving them money. He was too irresponsible that he didn't even check to see if the artwork was genuine. (y/n) would had lived a life of cleaning up after him.
Another son of a baron, swallowed by loan debt after taking out loans to do his playboy schemes. He often bought expensive stuff in order to impress the women he was trying to bed with. Where did he get the loans from? He sure doesn't know, does he? He had troubles with infidelity. He will he constantly cheating on (y/n) if Alaric didn't catch it early enough.
A son of an earl, swallowed in gambling debt by him. He had seen him in the casino houses, and he thought why not taunt him. Plus, he paid off the casino house to always make him win no matter what. He was a gambling addict, spending his days holed up and gambling his money away. (y/n) would be left to die on the streets with nothing if she had been with him.
A stableman, in loan debt as well, after he had offered to help him with his ailing mother. But now his mother dead, and the loans still needed to be paid off. Otherwise, he could just kill him and sell his organs to the black market to get all the money back from him. Guess what option he did. He was poor, and poor men don't deserve her love if they cannot give her what she wanted. Plus, he might just brag often about his now, new lifestyle if she were to be with him.
The stableman was the most annoying in his eyes. His last words before he had slain him were, "Protect her for me, please, for this old bachelor..."
All of these men strengthen his point overtime. That he was the perfect man for her.
He is skeptical and less naive.
He is responsible.
He has never had issues with infidelity that he has known of.
He has never been financially irresponsible with money, nor has he gambled.
He has always had the ability to give her everything she has ever wanted.
He came to the eventual conclusion.
No man could replace him.
You felt trapped.
A rumor had spread around about Duke Caius's wedding day coming up. You thought he was just going to get married to Alina, but instead you and your father were summoned by His Majesty.
He was congratulating you and your soon to be wedding day. "Congratulations Lady (l/n)! You must be a happy bride. And you too Marquis (l/n)!"
You and your father were confused, but still acted like everything was normal, until you brought it up. "Excuse me Your Majesty, but who has told you about this. I thought I had wanted it to be a smaller event..."
His Majesty let out a gleeful laugh. "Duke Caius came to me last week, talking about how now he had decided to plan his wedding. I thought it was a splendid idea! And thus I had given him permission to use the chapel. He seemed elated at the idea, and thus was willing to plan the wedding himself."
Your eyes widen as you nodded. Your head blanking out the entire time. 'Isn't that impossible, unless...'
You went running out of the palace, finding a carriage to use to get to the Ducal Manor. You needed an explanation of what was going on.
Once you got there, you immediately asked the butler where he was, only to see Alaric, looking happy to see you as he came down the stairs to the front of the manor.
"(y/n), my bride! You are just in time for your dress fitting."
He snapped his fingers to have the servants taking you somewhere as he followed, you resisting. "Wha-? No! Alaric, I have to ask about something!"
He smiled in front of you. The previous you would had elated and been happy at his smile. But now it felt uncanny. Like something was off.
"You have finally called my name..."
You gasped as the servants kept on dragging you to your dress fitting. His hand over his heart as he looked like a sad puppy all of the sudden. "Do you know what it feels like to be called one name for my whole entire life with such endearment, only for it to be taken away?"
"No! That's why I'm not here! LET GO OF ME!"
He snapped his fingers as the servants let go of you. He walked towards you, as he placed his hand on your cheek. All you could feel was how cold it was. Like it was ice. You looked directly at him. "I am here to ask, why are we getting married?!"
His puppy face came back, as both of his hands cupped you face. "(y/n), I thought this is what you had wanted..."
Your eyes widen as he looked directly at you. "A big fairy tale wedding, your dream dress, your knight in shining armor sweeping you off your feet, true love's first kiss...isn't this what you had wanted all your life?"
This is what you had always wanted, but not like this. Not while Alaric had this sudden shift in personality and when he felt completely different form the Alaric you had knew.
But also, when your feelings for him had wavered like tides in an ocean. "But I thought the annulment had gone through..." you had said to him.
He chuckled, soon going onto full blown laughter. "(y/n), I know you still want to get married to me. So let's have the wedding of your dreams." he said while placing a kiss on your forehead, something you would had blush at, if everything about this wasn't sketchy.
"But! But!"
"No buts. We are getting married in 9 days anyways. Now, let's go to your dress fitting!"
Everything was too sketchy these past 7 days. Alaric had a sudden change in personality. An extreme one in fact. He all of the sudden became loving.
Following you everywhere.
Bringing you onto his lap while he works.
Having picnics with you.
Having tea with you.
Being your dance partner for practicing.
Locking you in his manor and giving you a splendid guest room while at it.
Coming into your room and reading you to sleep.
Increasing security around you.
Feeding you himself, personally.
Disciplining the male servants if they had touched you.
And the most weird one, not leaving your room, even while you slept.
He had changed, but for what? Now all you felt was creeped out by his sudden shift in behavior. Every single little thing done by him almost felt suffocating. Like he so desperately needed you to either be beside him or to in this manor.
You wanted to see your friends again. You wanted to talk to people again. You wanted to see your father again. You wanted to go shopping again. You wanted to see Arthur again. You wanted to do the things you did. You wanted to leave this suffocating manor for once and do something other than being restrained by him.
So you snooped. When he left, you went around his office. Previously, you had always barged into his office, always running your mouth in a tasteless way. But this time, you had avoided his office, unless he dragged you to it to be with him.
You looked around with something on your mind. "He must have the annulment papers somewhere..."
There was a family portrait of him and his father in his office. A portrait must mean that there's something behind it. Touching the frame, you opened up a secret compartment that was full of bank statements. "Elliot Lancaster, Gregory McClain, Adonis Lovesett, Adrian Hill, Arthur Johnson..."
All the men you had been with. The bank statements had shown how their wallets had gone empty in the span of a week or two.
Elliot and his family had gone bankrupt and sent to an island in the north.
Gregory had been charged with forgery and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Adonis had been bankrupt and charged with assault against a Marquis for mingling with his wife.
Adrian had been cut off from his family due to his gambling addiction, and has now gone further in debt.
And Arthur. The nice man Arthur. His body was never founded when his mother reported him as missing.
Your eyes widened in horror as you looked at the other pages. He had planned it. From the financial debt to killing Arthur and selling his body parts on the black market. Each paper described the reports of the deeds he had done.
Especially for Arthur. His was the most gruesome one. Chopping him up into bits and selling his innards to the black market while dumping the rest to the ocean on Beckett's Beach, where you took your first date with him.
You couldn't help but squat out of fear immediately. Were you responsible for all of these mens' demise?
Would Elliot and his family still be living in the capital in peace if he never met you?
Would Gregory go back to being his artistic and art loving self if he didn't buy from that one painter you had told him to buy from?
Adonis was already kinda shitty.
Would Adrian change if you had stayed with him?
Would Arthur still be alive if you never noticed him?
You didn't know, and that's when you started crying. Your tears fell down rapidly like waterfalls. The papers, the bank statements, the pieces of news, the reports, all of them now wet with your tears on the paper. You couldn't help but feel for them, especially Arthur.
Arthur was now dead, and his mother soon meeting him.
And it felt like it was all your fault.
"We'll always be together, my lady, this old stableman promises."
Crying alone in Alaric's study, you thought about the moments you had with Arthur. They were all going to be a faded memory of the past. If only you weren't so naive and if only you knew.
"Why is my bride crying?"
Your head turned to see Alaric at the door of his study. You gulped as you got up, dusting your dress while at it. "I-it's nothing, Alaric..." you stuttered, trying to hold back your tears.
He came close towards you as he looked at all the papers on the ground and the portrait, open. He chuckled for a bit. "Did you read these?"
You shook your your head. "I just...found them, that’s all. I swear I didn't read them!"
He looked at the papers, then at you. You could tell he knew that you were lying. He always said you were an open book and how you wore your heart on your sleeve. "Don't bother lying (y/n)."
He pointed to the part on which you had stained with your tears. The paper transparent as he put the papers down on his desk, walking closer to you. Each step growing closer, each step he took feeling like he was mad. Each step felt like an eventual punishment for your actions. "Why were you snooping around in my office, (y/n)?"
You answered with the first thing on your mind. "B-because! I just...w-wanted to l-look around, Y-your Grace..."
"I told you..." He gently pushed a piece of hair behind your ear. "Call my Alaric once agin, (y/n)."
His words laced with anger. He was speaking almost like he was threatening you. He looked at the pendent around your neck. Almost like he never noticed it before. Taking the pendent in his fingers, he looked at it obsessively. "Who gave you this necklace, (y/n)?"
You gulped instead of speaking. His hands felt cold when he touched your cheek, looking at you with his angry eyes. "I said, who gave you this necklace, (y/n)?"
"A-Arthur..." you mumbled.
"Who?"
"ARTHUR!" you said even louder before he started laughing hysterically.
"That peasant? Why bother keeping something cheap around your neck. I thought you hated these things?"
You used to, but now this necklace represented Arthur. "I-it's none of your b-business, Alaric!" you yelled out.
"It is my business. Considering you are to be my wife soon, something like this is unacceptable for a Duchess..."
He slowly got closer to your ear. "Especially if it came out that a peasant gave you such a thing...I wonder what would happen to your father...for allowing you to be romantically involved with a man of dirty origins..."
Your eyes widen. "Arthur isn't like that! You don't know him!"
You tried to walk out, only for Alaric to hug you from behind, holding you in a tight grip. You felt like you were losing air by the second once he held onto you. "He's never told you? His mother was apart of a brothel..."
You breath stopped as he whispered more into your ear. "He was the illegitimate son of a noble...people like that deserve to be killed for grasping an ounce of your attention..."
You tried to get out of his grip, but instead he had ripped off the necklace on your neck, letting it fall onto the floor and walking off to his desk, letting you go. You cried as you turned back to look at him. "You-you monster!"
He opened a velvet box with a diamond and sapphire necklace, placing it around your neck, smiling. "My beautiful (y/n)..."
He gripped you arms tight, dragging you to the mirror in the study while putting the necklace together, smiling.
"We will be together forever and this necklace, is to symbolize your new life as Duchess."
You only looked at yourself wearing the necklace as Alaric's hands kept you still.
"You can never leave me now..." he said, as he kissed your cheek.
You in your wedding dress as he went out into the hall.
Walking down the aisle with your father.
The flower petals dancing around you.
The songbirds singing their songs.
And your once dream husband at the alter.
"Do you take Duke Caius's hand, in sickness and in health, in wealth and or none, in forever lasting love?
"...I do..."
The final words of your previous life.
A/N: A part 3 for married life or not?
Taglist
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#yandere oc x reader#yandere male#yandere male x reader#yandere x reader#x f reader#yandere childhood friend#yandere duke#yandere duke x reader#yandere#tw yandere
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Propaganda
Jane Fonda (Barbarella, Sunday in New York, Barefoot in the Park)—Feminist icon, LGBTQ+ rights activist since the 70s, Civil Rights and Native American rights advocate, environmentalist… she really is THE woman ever
Rita Hayworth (Gilda, Cover Girl)—Absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous. She steals every movie she’s in; she was Fred Astaire’s favorite dance partner, as you can see in clips from their movies [link][link]. Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, Rita's story had its tragedies—her father was awful and had her performing in nightclubs way, way too young; the studio totally remade her look because they were afraid of her hispanic image, putting her through painful treatments and diets; she had a string of failed marriages. But beside all that, I think there's something about Rita that still glows through—an inner beauty that has nothing to do with the studio, or the men who pinned their dreams on her. Rita brings an incandescence to roles that's impossible to replicate, and was truly a great actress in that she could switch from herself—shy Margarita—into a bold and glamorous femme fatale so convincingly everyone fell in love with her as Gilda. She's my favorite movie star, and I think she was a beautiful human through and through—Rita, gorgeous and real and shining bright.
This is round 5 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.
[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]
Jane Fonda:
" I assume she's already been submitted but I gotta make sure. I think there's an element to movies like Barbarella or her segment of Spirit of the Dead of those having been directed by her husband, who famously made movies about her being hot, and the incredible costume design also helped, but good lord. Look at her"
"She was so pretty, dear lord! She was and still us stunning. She’s great at comedy and drama."
"Shes so hot im so gay for me i will let her hit me with hers car"
"Gorgeous and also still getting arrested at climate protests, which is sexy behavior"
"Watching her in Barefoot in the Park seriously made me, a straight woman, question things"
"PLEASE I LOVE HER SO MUCH"
"Her vibes in these movies are so interesting because she, the daughter of an Old Hollywood star, went on to make both poignant dramatic movies and the some of the silliest things you've ever seen but even in the silly space adventures and sexploitations there's always this undeniable gravitas to her. It's like she's able not to take herself very seriously but at the same time never stops having this grace and elegance and makes it all work together. And she's always been very politically active which is also sexy. Her famous mugshot is from 1970 so right at the cutoff mark but come on"
Rita Hayworth:
Do you need any other propaganda? Here’s the video.
youtube
She was not called "the love goddess" for nothing: beautiful, glamorous, despite playing sexy and provocative roles her inherent shyness somehow also would shine through sometimes, creating this contradictory and incredibly attractive image
Often played "the bad girl" who tempted the male hero away from "the good girl"; but did have roles that broke her out of that mold. She was also the inspiration for Jessica Rabbit. THE pinup girlie.
HELP
youtube
She was soo beautiful when she was young and she MAINTAINED that beauty into her later years and I think that old lady glamour is hot. bombastic sex appeal
every line she delivers in gilda is so flirty and passionate or absolutely desolate and it's so good
I just have a lot of feelings about her
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BLOOM FOR ME
PAIRING — finance major!mingyu x law major!reader
WORD COUNT — 18.1k
SYNOPSIS — even though you and mingyu share the same friends, there’s a clear distance between you. when you make a drunken mistake, he suddenly becomes increasingly aware of your lack of a relationship with him, and he takes on the challenge of changing it — not expecting to fall for the ice princess who turns out to be less cold than he thought.
TAGS — college au, slice of life, strangers to fwb to lovers, angst, fem!reader, slowburn-ish, rollercoaster of somewhat unrealistic events, minor use of the fake dating trope, not proofread, explicit sexual content, inexpressive!reader, fear of intimacy, once again a fic that seemed better in my head than the finished product but idc!
♪ — pearly drops - bloom for me,, kid cudi - kitchen,, the fugees & ms lauryn hill - killing me softly with his song
NOTE — sooo this fic is pure self-indulgence because i wrote mc as a character very similar to myself! some of these scenes are based on my own experiences :D my personality type is intj which i incorporated a lot here, do with that what you will x
you and kim mingyu just don't work.
to be honest, you don’t think you’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like him or get along with him. most people on campus either wanna be him or be with him — which makes sense, ‘cause he seems to have it all. he’s smart, talented, and awfully good-looking.
and in hindsight, you have no clue as to how or why you landed in his little clique a few months ago, which is composed of a bunch of guys who appear to have very little in common.
all you remember is how joshua, a pre-med student with a soft voice and a passion for playing guitar, introduced himself to you as you were both assigned to help out with student orientation week at the start of the new academic year, and the rest became history.
you’re not sure how he managed to wiggle his way into your personal life, or why he seems so goddamn keen to be there for that matter. the same goes for his friends — chan, seungcheol, soonyoung, minghao, seokmin and mingyu. you’re closest to joshua and seokmin, though you get along well with most of the group.
soonyoung is pursuing performing arts, and he’s loud — extremely loud. you like his sense of humor though. chan does theatre and has mentioned he wants to have his own dance studio later in life. seokmin also does theatre and is arguably the biggest ray of sunshine you’ve ever met. cheol is a business administration major, a great debater, has quite the fire in him, and he looks great in a suit. minghao is more reserved — a psychology major. very sweet and polite, likes to meditate and is surprisingly good at martial arts as well.
and then there’s mingyu.
he studies finance, though he’s considerably less obnoxious than most of the students who pursue said degree. from what you’ve gathered, he has quite the range of talents, which, in all fairness, is pretty impressive.
the guy might as well be the complete opposite of you. he’s popular, loud, outgoing, smiles a lot, known to have a real heart of gold. an entertainer.
you find yourself at the other end of the spectrum. much more on the quiet side, usually only speaking up if you deem it necessary with a sarcastic quip, more often skipping social gatherings than actually attending them.
yet in spite of your closed-off nature, the majority of people closest to you are extroverted, always trying to pull you with them in their adventures, though remaining respectful and understanding when you don’t come with — because that’s just the way you are.
perhaps that’s the sole reason why your relationship with mingyu can easily be described in a single word.
non-existent.
neither of you have anything against each other — it’s just that, out of the group, you seem to have the least of a connection with him. you certainly never do anything together or talk to one another when you’re not with the rest of the guys, and even during the moments you are, saying you’ve had a proper conversation with him would be an overstatement.
for the most part, aside from saying one-worded greetings and goodbyes, you pretty much just disregard the other’s existence.
or, well — that used to be the case.
because there’s this dirty secret the friend group doesn’t know about — and that’s that you and mingyu slept together.
it happened only a few weeks ago. it was supposed to be a simple, fun night dancing and letting loose at soonyoung’s party, which he hosted right after midterms were over. everyone got drunk, including you — way more drunk than usual, it was terrible — and the only thing you remember is waking up in a room you’d never seen before, a bed that definitely didn’t feel like the one you wake up in every morning, your clothes discarded on the floor, and his warm body next to yours.
had you been even the slightest bit sober back then, you absolutely wouldn’t have gotten into bed with him.
it’s not that you don’t find him attractive. on the contrary. he’s sex on a stick, with his strong arms, small waist, sharp jawline and beautiful tan skin — it’s no surprise he’s done several modeling jobs for some extra cash.
but despite all of that, casual hook-ups with people in your circle are not your thing. they’re not his either.
neither of you remember much of that night. you two are rarely ever alone together, so it’s practically been impossible to talk to you about it, and you’ve never been close enough with one another to even text or meet up.
after the incident, you just continued living your life like everything was the same as before. honestly, for the most part, it was.
but mingyu likes to take risks in life. that, and being open about his feelings is just who he is. so he wants to talk to you, privately.
when he finally does manage to catch you alone, which happens to be right after you’ve walked out of your criminal law class, you’re not exactly welcoming to him.
“what are you doing at the other side of campus?” is all you greet him with.
“i’m good, thank you for asking.” he jokes in an attempt to make things more light-hearted, but you don’t pull a single muscle, face remaining the exact same, so he swallows and clutches the strap of his shoulder bag a little tighter. “i, uh... i felt like we should talk about what happened the other night. soonyoung’s party.”
“what’s there to talk about?”
“what we did. together.”
“we fucked. so what?”
oh. that’s a much more blunt response than he expected, even if he is used to those kind of remarks from you.
“well—” he cuts himself off, really cursing himself for not properly thinking of what to say to you before showing up outside of your lecture hall all of a sudden, “don’t you think it’s something we gotta discuss?”
“you want a professional analysis about how much i enjoyed it or something?” you ask with a furrowed brow. “not that i’d be able to give you one, considering it was all just a blur.”
“yeah, i can’t exactly remember much of it either. look, i... i don’t usually hook up with people i’m friends with—”
“except we’re not friends. i don’t think you’ve ever said as much to me as you have in this conversation.”
even though it’s true, it does feel like a slap across the face for a reason he can’t pinpoint. he’s aware you can be blunt sometimes, but this is more than people usually get out of you.
“fine. we’re just acquaintances. but we do share the same friends.” he says after a moment of awkward silence, his tone sounding a little colder than before, subconsciously trying to compensate for your unwelcoming attitude. “doesn’t that matter to you?”
sucking at the inside of your cheek, you sigh. “did your roommate notice me?”
his roommate being jeon wonwoo, the cute computer science major who likes to spend his free time working out and playing video games, always walking around campus with headphones stuck in his ears and a pair of glasses up on his nose. he and mingyu are both on the football team, you’re pretty sure.
“no. he didn’t see a thing. not as far as i know, anyway.”
“good. so that means we can both just pretend it never happened, yeah?” the smile you put on your face is so painfully fake that it makes him clench his jaw.
“yeah.” he mumbles bitterly, and you move away from him, going down the stairs, and mingyu rests his head against the wall, huffing in annoyance and embarrassment.
to be completely honest, he’s not sure why the whole ordeal bothers him so much. what you said was all true, even if you could’ve worded it differently.
many, many questions pop up in his mind. do you have something against him? do you not like him? if that’s the case, why? has he ever said something that caused you to get a bad impression of him? what do his friends have that he doesn’t, aside from considerably shorter legs?
he’s not sure what it is about you he finds so weirdly intriguing, but whatever it is, he’s discovered a fresh determination in him to find out.
mingyu is unsure of how to handle the situation with you. every time you look at him, all he sees is utter disinterest, though there’s very little he can make out of your facial expressions in the first place.
he finds himself seated at a table in the library with minghao, seungcheol and chan, pondering over the exam he’s got coming up at the end of the week, said thoughts coming to a halt once he spots you at the other side of the hall.
his gaze involuntarily follows you as you appear to be scanning a few bookshelves.
if he’s being honest, he’d already noticed you before the drunk-sex incident. he always thought you were pretty, and based on your your vocabulary and the way you spoke, he figured you were intelligent as well, so he silently admired you from afar.
and now, those feelings have only increased.
his eyes linger on your figure. it’s such a fucking shame he doesn’t remember his hands on your skin, the touch of your lips — he could actually cry just imagining it.
then he feels he’s getting too far in the sexual innuendos in his head, so he tells himself to stop right the hell now before his excitement starts to show in his pants.
god, he’s never like this. why is it irking him so much?
it’s chan — the youngest of the group — who grabs your attention, beckoning for you to come over to the table.
when you move to sit down on the empty chair between him and seungcheol, they begin to talk about how the shitty assignments they’re working on are so not worth their time, how one of cheol’s professors didn’t bother showing up for his lecture yesterday morning, and minghao mentions something about a new group project of his—
—and the whole fucking time, you feel mingyu’s gaze burning on you.
it both confuses and intrigues you. what the hell does he want now?
then when two of the boys get into a discussion, you stare right back at him, almost as if to tell him you’re aware of him watching you and you’re watching him as well, and a very thick yet silent tension rises between you.
he swears he catches the smallest glimpse of amusement in your features before you get up and tell them you’ve got to go to your lecture.
cheol raises his thick brow at his friend. “you’re uncharacteristically quiet.”
mingyu shrugs as he watches you walk out of the hall. “yeah, sorry. been a little preoccupied.”
“i can tell, ‘cause aren’t you supposed to be starting football practice right now?”
that snaps him out of it. he checks the silver watch sitting on his wrist, cursing to himself before grabbing his things and hastily throwing them into his bag before sprinting to his dorm.
the following day, as he’s working on his assignment, he decides to take out his phone, typing your username into the search bar on instagram.
your social media profile is as mysterious as you are. zero posts, some pretty aesthetic pictures found in your highlights as well as one or two with you on it, though blurry or with your face partially hidden.
it’s usually much easier for him to get close to people, yet with this, with you — it feels like the way is blocked, and he doesn’t know where to start.
tapping his finger on the table, he tells himself to make some kind of conversation with you the next time he sees you.
which is several days later, when the friend group is meeting up at a restaurant for dinner and drinks.
by the time he arrives — later than planned due to a study session running behind — everyone is already seated, including you. he’d hoped to secure a spot next to you for once, but you’re seated between joshua and seungcheol instead. the only vacant spot is at the other side of the table.
well, shit.
the worst thing is that you don’t seem to spare him a single glance. every time he looks your way, you’re either zoned out or intently listening to the boys around you as they tell their stories, with you throwing in a sarcastic little quip every now and then, making them laugh.
what he doesn’t notice is that you do look at him — he’d be surprised by the amount of times your eyes wander back to him, subtly observing him from a distance when he rambles about something his professor did during class or what went down during football practice.
he’s so handsome that it almost gets annoying to look at him.
it’s an hour before midnight when you decide to get going — you have an unnecessarily early class tomorrow and still gotta get back to your dorm. so you grab your coat and bag, announcing you’re leaving, after which they say they don’t like the idea of you going back on your own, but you refute it and tell them you’ll be fine like always.
“i can take you. i just remembered i gotta catch up with some things anyways before class tomorrow.”
mingyu’s sudden statement makes you blink at him a few times.
it’s not that he’s never offered to take you home before, ever the gentleman, but the situation always ends up with you either going home on your own with them keeping an eye on your location or one of the other guys taking you back, so his sudden eagerness to escort you to your dorm catches you by surprise.
it’s mainly joshua and minghao who catch onto your slight change in demeanor, but their puzzled looks are gone as soon as they came. they’ve had quite a few drinks, after all, and you’re pretty sure soonyoung is so drunk he’s on the verge of tears at the other side of the table, distracting them.
both you and mingyu say your goodbyes to the rest of the group before exiting the restaurant, embracing the fresh air outside.
it’s early october, your favorite time of year. you’re fond of the cloudy skies, the temperature right between warm and cold, and the leaves changing colors.
mingyu walks next to you on the sidewalk, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark denim jacket.
“i’m sorry for being rude the other day,” you speak up, breaking the silence, “i have a habit of being too straightforward for my own good.”
oh.
he didn’t expect this from you, but it’s a pleasant surprise, even if you’re not looking him in the eye at all.
so he shrugs. “it’s okay. looking back, i didn’t really know where i wanted the conversation to go, anyways.”
“i assumed you were just gonna ask me to keep it between us.”
“i didn’t even think about that, to be honest. i just don’t do stuff like that with friends, so... i guess i was just curious about your thoughts or something.”
you bare your teeth in a bitter smile, still refraining from looking in his direction when he’s clearly looking at your face. “you called me your friend again.”
the comment doesn’t sit right with him. “do you mind me asking why that bothers you?”
“it bothers me ‘cause it’s not the truth.”
god, you certainly do not sugarcoat things.
“do you... is there anything i did to make you dislike me?”
mingyu watches the way you clench your jaw at his question. it intrigues him. “i never said i disliked you, mingyu. i’m just picky about who i consider close to me and i don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. sharing friends doesn’t make us friends.”
“not even a little bit?”
you chuckle again. he wonders what he’d have to do to elicit a real, genuine laugh from you. “name one of my hobbies. something i like to do in my spare time. the basics don’t count.”
he eagerly starts his sentence. “well, you like to... y’know... hang out with us.”
“i said no basics.”
“okay. fine. you got me. but, to be fair, you also gotta admit you don’t exactly share much.”
“you know who i do share things with? my friends.” you tease him, after which he laughs. you like the sound of his laugh.
“you’re evil.”
“thank you.”
he turns around, walking backwards in front of you so he can face you, finally getting the eye contact he’s been waiting to get. “i wanna be friends.”
“congratulations.”
“oh, c’mon. work with me here.”
“i would if it wasn’t so much fun to see you acting like this.”
mingyu feels a certain excitement rushing through his body when he sees how you look at him. “let’s get to know each other better. how about twenty questions?”
“oh, you mean like a conversation?”
he chooses to ignore your sarcasm for now. “i’ll go first. what’s a hobby of yours?”
“such depth,” you snicker, “i like to ice skate.”
“really? that’s cool.” he smiles, tilting his head. “okay. you gotta ask me a question now.”
“which of your friends is closest to you?”
yeah, he should’ve seen something like that coming. of course you wouldn’t go for small talk.
he ponders over the question before giving his answer. “minghao.”
“hm. interesting.” you just hum, clearly having no intention of explaining it, so you gesture for him to come up with another question.
“do you think you’ll ever be close with me?”
“no.”
“why?”
“not your turn.” you tell him, simultaneously trying to find out how far you can take this. “how many girls have you slept with?”
“four. why do you think we won’t ever be close friends?”
“because we’re too different. you can’t stand the fact that i give nothing away, i can sense it a mile from here.”
“it’s not that.”
“what is it then?”
“i’m… i don’t know, a people person. i want to get along with everyone, want everyone i like to like me. maybe that’s selfish, but… yeah. i like you and i wanna be your friend. it bothers me that you don’t.” he feels the words suddenly tumbling out of his mouth are taking the conversation elsewhere, so he tries his best to not come across as too intense. “i’m sorry for pestering you about it, i’ll just... walk you to your dorm and leave you be.”
he wants to increase the distance between you, but you don’t let him. your hand moves to his upper arm, touching him, but it’s gone before he can even look at it.
physical touch has never been one of your strong points, despite craving it at the same time. “i’m gonna say it one more time and that’s it — i don’t dislike you. maybe… i don’t know, maybe we could have a strong friendship, who knows. if you wanna prove me wrong, be my guest. i won’t stop you.”
“okay. anything i should know?”
you pout your lips as you think of things to mention. “i’m not a huge fan of texting. i prefer calling or meeting up in person. i’m more of a listener than a talker. i’m also a bit of a control freak so i’m not big on surprises. that’s all you’re getting for now.”
he thinks over your words and smiles. “i can work with that.”
not much later, you arrive at the university campus, and you use your card to enter your building, walking out front.
mingyu clearly feels it’s mandatory to follow you all the way to your door.
once you’ve arrived at your dorm, you lean against the doorpost. “thanks for taking me home.”
“you’re welcome. see you tomorrow.” he says. normally he’d give his friends something like a hug when saying goodbye like this, but he has a gut feeling you’re not very fond of physical contact with people who aren’t close to you, so he lets that go for now.
“bye.” the playful smile is audible in your voice before you close your door, and mingyu leaves your building with a sickeningly nice feeling in his stomach.
and he remains on your mind, especially once you watch him walk towards his own dorm from behind the window, unaware of your gaze.
it makes you scoff to yourself. you’ll give it to him — he’s sparked your interest.
“hey. mingyu.”
he’s roughly pulled from observing you in his secure spot in the university library by jeonghan, his partner for a project he’s working on. “what?”
“what’s going on? you’re awfully distracted.”
“it’s—nothing.” he responds, voice an octave higher. maybe he should quit this habit of looking at you every time he comes here.
“has anyone ever told you you’re a shitty liar?”
“many times, actually.”
“good. ‘cause you are.”
jeonghan is shorter than he is, with more of a lanky physique and slightly longer hair. he’s also the most annoying little shit mingyu knows — despite the guy being older than him — because he somehow. knows. everything. all the time. he knows things about mingyu before he knows them himself. if anything, it’s a talent.
“so who’s the girl?” jeonghan then asks in a more hushed tone, using his pencil to point at the girl in question.
mingyu looks in your direction again, taking notice of how nice you look today, and he just gives in to his friend, not even bothering to try and act stupid. “friend of a friend.”
“what does she do?”
“law.”
“she nice?”
“to a specific group of people, yeah.”
“oh, she’s a little mean to you, huh?”
“not mean. just distant. very distant.”
“that’s new.”
“what is?”
“you going for girls like that. it’s refreshing.”
“yeah, well—she doesn’t go for guys like me.”
“what do you mean?”
“i’m pretty sure she doesn’t like me at all. she’s wildly unimpressed by my presence, anyway.”
“how do you know?”
mingyu sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “she’s very close with joshua and seokmin, likes the rest of the guys too, but me… i don’t know. we’ve been in the same friend group for a year, and it’s like i’m the only one she doesn’t feel comfortable with. bothers me.”
“you’ve known her for a whole year and it’s only bothering you now?” jeonghan senses there’s more going on. “what led up to this? got into an argument?”
the younger of the two scoffs. “not at all. the contrary, actually.”
jeonghan jokingly throws in the first thing he can think of. “what, did you accidentally kiss her when you were drunk or something?”
“not entirely. we were both drunk, for starters.” mingyu comments, the next sentence muttered much more quietly. “and we had sex.”
a scoff of surprise leaves jeonghan’s mouth. “you slept together? when?”
“soonyoung’s party.”
“that was weeks ago. haven’t you talked about it? at all?” he asks, clearly invested in the story now.
“i brought it up, she brushed it off and said it meant nothing. told her i wanted to be friends with her a couple days later, but she said she doesn’t think we’ll ever be good friends ‘cause we’re too different, and it’s fucking killing me for some reason. she still said she was… open to friendship though.”
“ah, you like her.”
“yeah, obviously. problem is that she hates me.”
“no, i mean, you like her. you don’t just want to be her friend.”
mingyu is somewhat taken aback by his words. “i don’t have a crush.”
“don’t fool yourself. you’d never get this worked up over someone not wanting to be friends with you — you’re worked up because you wanna get to know her better and she doesn’t seem like she wants to get to know you at all.”
“i can’t be in love with someone i hardly know.”
“debatable. you still have a crush on her.”
“fine. whatever. say that were the case — purely hypothetical of course — what should i do to get her attention?”
jeonghan has that knowing smile on his face, the one that makes him look like he’s up to no good. “you gotta get a little selfish.”
“could you be a little less vague for once in your life?”
“create a circumstance where she spends time with you without it being planned.” he shrugs, as if that answers it. “something like getting stuck in an elevator for a few hours. you know what i mean.”
“well, unless you were planning on hijacking the elevator somehow, i don’t think i have all that many options.”
right there and then, the two recognize another student from their statistics class sitting a few tables further. she’s giggling to her friends about something, hesitantly looking their way, pointing at them.
“speaking of crushes, she’s got one on you.” jeonghan mentions, raising his brow.
it doesn’t interest mingyu all that much. “yeah, she asked me out a while back. i told her i was busy. didn’t have the heart to flat-out reject her. in hindsight, maybe i should’ve, ‘cause she acts like that every time i see her around.”
jeonghan can’t help but take advantage of the opportunity currently presenting itself like a fucking birthday cake. “are you thinking what i’m thinking?”
“probably not, since i have no idea what you’re getting at.”
he leans a bit closer to his taller friend, speaking in a more hushed tone this time. “you could reject her — subtly.”
mingyu frowns at that. “how?”
and jeonghan smirks a little to himself before he’s about to tell him his plan. “you’ve heard of fake dating before, right?”
the following day, you find yourself in the library of the law faculty, reviewing the slides of the lecture you didn’t feel like attending this morning.
someone drops their bag ever-so-subtly on the table at the empty spot next to you, and when you look up from your notes, you recognize your dearest acquaintance.
you huff, removing one of your earbuds to engage in the conversation you didn’t ask for. “what do you want?”
“you have got to stop saying that when you see me.”
“no, i like it this way.”
“of course you do.” mingyu merely scoffs at your words, sitting down next to you. “you look busy.”
“gee. it’s almost as if i am busy.”
“what’re you working on?”
“undoubtedly nothing you have any knowledge of.”
he rolls his eyes when you grin at him, clearly ready to dodge his questions with more of your sarcastic comments.
“are you always this much on edge?”
“mhm. i hope you are too — otherwise you’re taking up too much space.”
the comment has him frowning at first, and then he gets it, making him let out a vaguely impressed scoff. “you’re cute.”
“not exactly the word i would use.”
“really?” he says, taking the cap off his water bottle, “i think it suits you.”
you squint your eyes at him, finally taking the bait. “what do you want? seriously.”
he shifts in his seat, clearly happy you’re finally going along with him here. “you know the senior gala on thursday, right?”
“yeah. i’m not attending.”
“okay. here’s the thing — i kind of have this girl in one of my classes who won’t stop bothering me about going out on a date with her and stuff.”
“gosh, poor you.”
“i’m serious. it sucks.”
“what does this have to do with you bothering me?”
“well, i figured if she finally saw me with someone else, she’d back off.” he explains, leaning a bit closer to you. “meaning i need a plus-one who’s willing to play my girlfriend for the night.”
“so?”
“so, i’d like you to be my plus-one.” he grins.
“why?”
“why not?”
“you’re saying you wanna pretend to be dating?” you ask, and when he nods, you shake your head. “no one’s gonna believe that.”
“yeah, they will. it’s perfect. same friend group, completely different majors so she probably doesn’t know you — c’mon, consider it.”
he’s surprisingly convincing, as if he already knows how to crack your demeanor. you remain stubborn, though. “out of all the girls you’ve got in your contacts, you’re asking me?”
“you’ve made it clear we’re only acquaintances — i wanna change that. become friends. just like i told you.”
you finally lock eyes with him again, taking your pen away from the paper, refusing to back down once you notice how close he is. “i don’t know what you’re expecting, but you’d get nothing out of a friendship with me.”
he keeps his eyes on yours. “i’ll be the judge of that.”
when you roll your eyes at him, he can tell you’re considering it. “when does it start?”
“ten.”
“dress code?”
“go for a cocktail dress.”
twisting your lips, you push your tongue against the inside of your cheek, and even you are a little weak for those big, brown eyes of his. and you said you’d give him a chance, after all. “fine.”
“great!” he nearly jumps in excitement. “text me when you’re ready and i’ll come and pick you up.”
“yeah, yeah. now go. i got shit to do.”
and once you’ve watched him cheerfully skip out of your sight, the tiniest smile rises to your face, after which you chuckle to yourself.
mere days later, on thursday, mingyu finds himself at your doorstep. it’s not like him to feel nervous — so why the hell is he this time?
you open the door hastily. “hey. you can come on in, i’m all ready except for the pair of earrings i can’t seem to find.”
he watches as you search through small drawers in the cupboard by the wall. maybe he should be glad you’ve got your back faced to him, because he’s subconsciously staring at you, checking you out.
the velvet red one-shoulder dress hugs your features just right, and he’s stunned in his place before you notice he still hasn’t closed the door behind him. “mingyu. the door.”
“uh—yeah. sorry.” he stumbles, stepping inside, doing as he’s told before his eyes wander around your room. “don’t you have a roommate?”
“i used to have one, in my first year. got a single room after.”
“must get quiet after a while.”
“i like it that way.”
your words remind you of his roommate, wonwoo. he figures you’re someone who prefers solitude after a day of being around others, which he keeps in mind.
once you’ve found your earrings, you’re putting them in, and you notice him stepping closer to you. he actually looks criminally good in the black suit he’s wearing, his half-long hair sitting just right. the fucker might as well be a real-life prince charming.
you’re glad you went with smokey eyes. your look compliments his.
as you subtly watch him in the mirror, he comes to stand behind you, holding out the modest bouquet of red roses he’s been holding behind his back. “these are for you. i appreciate that you wanted to come with me tonight.”
the gesture makes your eyes soften. “thank you. oh, they smell nice.”
mingyu feels a little giddy inside when you give him a little smile before putting the flowers in a vase with water. it might be the first time he’s seen you give one that is genuine.
the gala is taking place at a fancy hotel close to university. the walk there only takes a few minutes. once you're nearing the entrance to the party, dimly lit chandeliers catching your eye, he gently puts his hand on your back, just underneath your shoulder blades. you raise a brow, looking over at him, and he shrugs. “i’m your fake boyfriend for the night, remember?”
which has you chortling for a second. “that’s not where to put your hands if you wanna make this believable.”
before he can change the position of his hand, you’re already doing it for him, pushing his hand lower with yours, watching the way his face drops when you allow him to go lower than your hips, breath hitching in his throat.
“that’s better. you can hold me and kiss me on the cheek if you have to. not too much, it’s not the right time and place for it anyways.”
“noted.”
once you’ve arrived inside and given your coats away, you notice most people here are strangers to you, anxiety kicking in, internally wishing you’d consumed some alcohol before coming.
and your companion takes notice of this from the way you’re suddenly squeezing his hand, which you’re undoubtedly not doing on purpose.
“you okay?”
“sure, i’m fine.” you faintly smile back at him.
he’s honestly considering saying fuck it, ready to ask you to just get out of here with him and go anywhere else instead — that is until one of your friends comes up to you.
“am i imagining things—”
“we’re fake dating, josh.” you answer him, increasing the distance between you and mingyu as if to emphasize your point. “his idea, not mine.”
joshua appears all kinds of confused. “okay. um… just—why?”
mingyu presses his lips together. what he said about the girl bothering him was all true. could he handle it on his own? probably. is fake dating slightly unnecessary and a little dramatic of a solution? undoubtedly.
but he just wanted you as his plus-one so bad. he saw it as an opportunity he couldn’t miss out on.
what can he say? jeonghan is weirdly persuasive.
“there’s this classmate of mine who won’t get off my back about dating, so i figured she’d quit if i showed up with a girlfriend. girlfriend being her.”
in spite of the explanation, joshua still looks at the two of you with a frown. “right.”
“i’m gonna go get us a drink. be right back.” mingyu says, almost regretting doing so when he realizes he has to take his hand off your back.
you watch him walk off to the bar, suddenly hearing your best friend chuckle softly next to you. “can’t believe i never considered you two before.”
“what are you talking about?”
“you and him. you’d be a nice match.”
“what, me and mingyu? we’d be a disaster.”
“why?”
“we’re too different, josh. and don’t even try to give me that opposites attract crap.”
his soft facial features melt into a smile that gives off the impression he knows something you don’t. “i think you’d be surprised. that’s all.”
whatever the fuck that means.
your fake boyfriend returns not much later with a drink for the two of you. despite your clear disagreement with joshua’s words, you just can’t help but think about what he said, especially when mingyu’s arm remains looped around your waist for quite a while as the three of you discuss the whereabouts of your friends.
the worst thing is that you don’t even mind him touching you. you’ve always been picky when it comes to the people who are allowed to as much as stand close to you, and mingyu was not one of those people until you grabbed his wrist after he took you home from dinner, which was only last week.
and that’s not the only thing you’re becoming increasingly aware of.
mingyu’s popularity is a bigger thing than you thought. either that, or half the people here are from his faculty. which is highly unlikely.
being as observant as you are, you’ve noticed several girls as well as guys pointing your way, making you feel uneasy.
so your hold on him tightens as you stare back at them, as if to silently tell them to fuck off and focus on someone other than your fake boyfriend.
you’re not actually jealous. no, that’d be ridiculous. you can’t be jealous of others wanting something you don’t even have in the first place.
chan and seokmin arrive half an hour later, having pretty much the same reaction to the situation as shua. but they play along.
though not without noticing how comfortable the two of you are together.
after several hours of drinking, dancing and socializing, you feel in need of a break. “hey, i’m just gonna get some fresh air outside, okay?”
mingyu’s lashes flutter as he nods. “would you mind if i came with?”
you gesture that you’re okay with it, so he takes your hand to guide you through the mass of people without losing you, the littlest of touches sparking an indescribable feeling in your stomach.
the air feels much colder now that you’ve been inside the warm hotel for several hours. you sigh, leaning back against the brick wall behind you, the surface feeling slightly uncomfortable on your one uncovered shoulderblade.
mingyu takes fake dating very seriously, as it seems. he’s practically been unable to keep his hands off you, and you’re going to indulge in it for however long it lasts.
as you’re standing outside together, you notice he’s loosened up more around you, not hesitant to get close either. he’s certainly not afraid to put his hand on your thigh, and you make zero effort to push him away.
his lips ghost by the skin of your neck, alcohol clouding his thoughts. “it’s nice to have you here. i wasn’t all that excited about going at first.”
“yeah, yeah. i made your night ten times better.”
he snickers. “you hear that often?”
“every now and then. don’t sound so surprised.”
“it doesn’t surprise me. i was just hoping i was special compared to the others.”
“doesn’t everyone?”
“you’re a little cryptic, anyone ever told you that?”
“maybe.” you respond, chuckling, allowing his lips to touch your bare skin.
mingyu bites his lower lip, not afraid to look you in the eye to match your playful gaze with a similar one. “do you not remember a single thing from the night of soonyoung’s party?”
he almost smacks himself for asking the question, seeing your expression falter a little. “no. neither do you, as you’ve told me.”
“no, i don’t,” he says firmly, mentally trying to slap himself for consuming so much alcohol that it makes him say things he usually wouldn’t, “but i kinda wish i did.”
“why?”
when he remains quiet, still trying to figure out the best way to respond, you gently take a hold of his chin to lift it up, making sure he keeps his eyes on yours. playing with him is fun.
“i...” he tries to utter the words, but god, he might as well be hypnotized.
before he can give his answer, seokmin loudly stumbles out of the building, catching your attention. he’s clearly had a bit too much to drink, his boisterous laughter echoing through the courtyard. seungcheol follows closely behind, a hand on his shoulder.
whatever moment you and mingyu were having is gone in an instant. cheol spots you, keeping his friend somewhat upright in the process.
“i’m gonna go take him home, couldn’t find the other guys. i think soonyoung might be next, though.” he says, doing his best to keep seokmin upright in the process.
so mingyu nods. “okay. i’ll go check.”
they say their goodbyes, after which he proceeds to looks at you again. you let your head rest against the wall again. “you go ahead. i’ll meet you back inside in a few.”
he silently agrees, returning to the people inside. you appreciate the silence, mentally drowning out the sound of people talking and cars driving into the background.
it’s then that some girl you’ve never seen before walks up to you. “hey. you’re mingyu’s new girlfriend, right?”
the crease between your brows becomes apparent. “have we met?”
“no, no. i’m in the same faculty as him. i was just curious. didn’t know he was dating anyone.”
she’s clearly had a bit to drink, though not enough for her speech to be incoherent. you’re not sure what to give her other than an awkward smile that looks anything but genuine.
but either she’s too far gone to catch the hint or she simply doesn’t want to. “was kinda surprised to see him end up with a girl like you.”
and since she’s probably not gonna remember this conversation tomorrow, you decide to engage in it for once. “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“i don’t know, ‘s just... you seem a little distant. just different. he’s never really gone for someone like you. no offense or anything.”
you keep your composure despite a certain emotion brewing hot inside you, whatever the hell it may be. the sheer audacity of some people to stick their nose in business that’s not their own. “gee. hard to fathom i landed a guy like that, huh?”
the sarcasm dripping from your tongue finally seems to get it through to her that her opinion is anything but wanted, so she mumbles something about going back inside, after which you lean back against the wall, closing your eyes for a moment.
worst thing is that she’s probably right.
you and mingyu just don’t work.
and you don’t even have feelings for the guy, so why does it bother you?
the whole thing upsets you enough for you to go back inside, rushing to find him to tell him that you don’t feel like staying.
when you return to him, he’s so used to his role that his hand finds your waist and his lips touch your cheek, but you smoothly back away this time. “i’m gonna go back to my dorm. you guys have fun.”
even over the noisy music and chatter in the background, he notices the change in your tone and behavior, which gives him the hint that something has upset you. “why? is everything okay?”
“i’m fine.”
“i’ll take you back.”
“i’d appreciate it if you didn’t.” you tell him, sounding harsher than intended. again. god, you keep messing up. you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose for a moment. “i’m sorry.”
mingyu is still processing your words as you’re leaving him behind.
then when you’re walking towards the exit, a girl accidentally bumps into you, spilling her drink over your dress.
goddamn. you wonder what the fuck you did to the universe for it to give you a night as shitty as this.
she begins to profusely apologize, very obviously sincere, but you just curtly tell her it’s fine, annoyance rising.
mingyu notices the situation from afar, deciding to go after you when he sees you walk to the bathroom instead of the exit.
the bathroom is awfully fancy, but it seems only fair for a hotel like this. clenching your jaw, you grumble while getting some paper towels, hiking the dress just a bit upwards.
god, you’re never agreeing to do that fake dating shit ever again. what a joke.
you huff as you keep trying to get the now barely visible stain out of your dress. you’re rubbing over the fabric on your thigh when someone walks in.
of course it’s him.
“any luck getting it out?” he asks, and you clench your jaw, throwing the wet paper towels into the trashcan beside the sink. your hands hold onto the cold surface, knuckles growing white as you focus on them instead of him.
“why am i here?”
“what do you mean?”
you turn your gaze to him, abandoning your quest of getting the stain out of your dress, annoyed that he’s acting like he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. “why did you invite me here? out of everyone you could’ve gone with, why did you wanna go with me?”
“are you angry at me?”
“answer the question.”
“i just…” he trails off, trying to think of the right words. “i just figured it was a way to become friends.”
you’re actually going to lose your shit if he as much as utters the word ‘friend’ to you one more time. “oh, jesus. cut the bullshit. why do you wanna be friends with me so badly?”
“i don’t know, because… because it occurred to me — y’know, after the party, after what we did — that we have little to no relationship and i wanted to change that.”
“oh, right. you just had to sleep with me before thinking of that.”
“no, i didn’t. i just haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that night, and i—”
what the hell is he even supposed to say? he’s not even sure what exactly it is he wants from you. sure, he wants to be friends — but god, he spends so much time wishing he remembered what it was like to touch you that night, what you looked like underneath your pretty little dress, what you sounded like.
you’re quiet for a second before your whole demeanor changes, agitation shifting to intrigue. “so that’s what this is about.”
“well—what?”
“if you wanted to fuck, you should’ve just said that. instead of dragging me to this shit.”
“i—” he suddenly feels suffocated by the small size of the room and your body getting closer to his, backing him up against the door. “that’s not why i—”
“does it matter?” you ask, and he tries to hide his ragged breathing now that you’ve pressed your front against him, clenching his jaw.
it doesn’t help that you’re watching him like a hawk.
“not to repeat myself all the time, but i—i normally don’t do this with friends. i don’t want you to have the wrong idea of me.” he exclaims, cursing himself for looking down at the way your red dress is accentuating your curves so well.
so you begin to unbutton his shirt, and he breathes heavily because of it. “well, i guess you’re in luck. ‘cause we’re not friends.”
he’s about to tell you that he genuinely wants to be when you finally kiss him. it’s fast and intense and hungry.
whatever he expected, it wasn’t this — but he can’t find it in him to not give in.
his hand moves to the back of your head, pulling you closer, then proceeding to help you with unbuttoning his shirt, all without breaking the kiss.
mingyu shivers when your cold hands finally touch his bare chest, the faintest hint of your sharp nails nearly making him beg for you to dig them into his skin until he bleeds.
there’s a shift in control when his feet no longer feel locked in with the tiled floor, his hands trailing up your legs, fingers gripping the skin of your thighs. he lifts you up, allowing you to wrap your legs around his waist, only to have him pushing you up against the door, pressing his body against yours.
you’re rubbing your front against him, taking notice of the hard bulge in his pants, nearly crying out from his sheer size.
holy shit. no wonder you were sore after you slept with him — he’s fucking huge.
“gyu,” you break the kiss, “can i suck you off?”
the way you breathily call him by his nickname for the first time is nearly enough for him to bust in his pants. “wanna taste you instead. please?”
with your back resting against the surface behind you, you watch him as he sinks to his knees, kissing the inside of your legs, goosebumps erupting on your skin.
“are you sure?”
“yeah. please let me.”
“okay. just make it quick.”
in hindsight, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say.
because he’s diving in faster than you can comprehend, lace panties pulled down in less than a second, making you gasp in surprise. your fingers grab onto a few strands of his hair, accidentally tugging on them, only to have him moaning in response, which is most likely the best thing you’ve ever heard.
your teeth sink into your lower lip as a way to suppress your moans, only deeps hums and groans escaping you, much to mingyu’s annoyance, because he wants to hear you.
his fingers slide into your dripping wetness, your muscles tightening up from the sudden intrusion. he looks up at you while kissing the inside of your leg, a sight that’s so fucking hot that you have to tell yourself not to get lost in it.
another surge of adrenaline rushes through you when he spreads your legs even wider, causing you to let out a broken moan, much to his satisfaction.
“you can pull on my hair. i like that.” he breathes out with a genuine smile and lust-blown eyes, refusing to wait for your reaction and getting right back to what he was doing.
it doesn’t take him long before he’s got you squirming above him. tugging his hair really does get him going, but you’re nearly at your limit, feeling the familiar feeling building up in your lower belly.
“gyu—fuck, ‘s too much, too much—” you try to push his wrist away and make him look up at you again.
you swear you might lose it when you see he’s actually pouting over the fact that you’re pulling him away from something he clearly enjoys doing.
“but, baby, i wanna make you cum.”
the pet name turns you on even more. “you can. i just want you inside of me, right now.”
he’s rising to his feet, towering over you with his tall frame as you push him back against the door, kissing his jaw, neck and collarbone while undoing the buttons of his white shirt.
mingyu is surprisingly vocal, which you thoroughly enjoy. his lips find yours again, relishing in the remaining taste of you on his tongue.
“god—want me to fuck you?”
pulling your dress over your head, you’re left in your matching set of lingerie that you just so conveniently put on tonight. “are you seriously asking me that right now?”
“fine. bend over the sink, then.”
the difference in his tone and words makes you shiver with excitement. once you do as he says, a new shot of adrenaline courses through your body — because you completely forgot about the mirror that’s now right in front of you.
so you’re able to watch him push his pants down, positioning himself behind you. his big hands are warm on your skin, the silver ring on his finger making you shiver.
his shirt is half unbuttoned, his hair a mess, trousers down to his ankles — but none of that matters now that he’s got you bent over in front of him, fingers trembling in excitement as he takes the condom from his pocket to slip it on.
all he can do is hiss and groan when he feels your heat wrap around him so nicely as he pushes into you. “you’re so tight, jesus—”
you huff. “not my fault you’re so big.”
it makes him laugh and simultaneously turns him on. “you’re all bite, even when i’m trying to fuck you.”
“don’t act like you don’t like it.”
he then finally bottoms out, both of you moaning, and he chuckles. “never said i didn’t.”
god, he’s so fucking attractive. he bites his lower lip as he throws his head back, his strokes slow but hard.
his girth feels so good inside you — and his touches are electric on your skin. his hands go from your ass to your hips, your stomach, everywhere.
and he’s certainly not afraid to get loud. especially when he feels you’re pushing your hips back against his. he’s convinced this is what heaven feels like.
“gyu, a little harder, please.” you plead, slightly beginning to struggle with holding yourself up by the edge of the sink.
“how hard d’you want it?”
“as hard as you want. i can take it.”
he gestures for you to turn over, lifting you up and pushing you up against the wall, burying himself inside you again before you can even comprehend it.
his fingers feel almost painful on your thighs with the way he’s digging into your skin. he’s sucking and biting right above your collarbone, leaving some pretty marks that will definitely be visible tomorrow.
you push his jaw upward so you can kiss him, and he sighs into it, tilting his head to get better access.
it’s like he’s trying to match his thrusts with your heartbeat at this point. pressure builds in your stomach when you whine his name. “oh my god—gyu—”
“i love it when you call me that,” he breathes out, so into it that he’s confessing everything on his mind, “you don’t know how much i’ve thought about this — been fantasizing about this for ages.”
you hold onto his shoulder blades, nails digging into them. “then you better make it worth my while.”
“such a brat.” he teases, a moan slipping out right after when you use your legs wrapped around his waist to push him deeper into you.
mingyu’s stamina is admirable — but he’s a simple man. you’re so hot and you just feel so good around him, and he knows he’s getting close to his release already.
you notice his pace becoming slightly uneven, his breaths erratic, a layer of cold sweat forming on his back.
he’s doing his best to hold out for you, to make you hit your peak first, but you actually need to see him come undone first.
“are you gonna cum, gyu?”
you have to refrain from biting your lip when he’s stuttering out a response. “n—no, not yet—”
“i want you to.”
“jesus, don’t say that—”
oh, he’s cute. he’s responding so well to your words, so you indulge in it a little bit more.
“wanna fuck me again later? without a condom? you can cum inside me. i’ll let you do anything you want.” you tease — your words being the complete truth, because if he’d want to fuck you again, you’d sure as shit let him.
his brows scrunch upwards while he lets out another whine. “anything?”
“mhm,” you nod, “anything.”
his fantasies about you, the way you’re looking at him, the things you’re saying, the way you suddenly clench around him — it’s all too much. his release spills into the condom, his muscles flexing from the sudden rush of adrenaline shooting through him.
it’s enough to make your legs tremble, and you reach the climax you’ve been aching for.
he’s still coming down from his high, face buried in the crook of your neck when he hears you chuckle. “so much for being friends, huh?”
he then smiles as well. “are we close enough for you to consider me as your friend now?”
“you’re quite literally inside me.”
“knowing you, that doesn’t really have to change anything.”
“oh, is that so?” you retort at his cheekiness. “sure. you’ve made it to friend level 1. congrats.”
“great. level 2 is next, then.”
“god, forget i said anything.”
“no going back now. you’re stuck with me.”
something’s very clearly changed between you since that night. mingyu has, in a certain way, changed your relationship.
because you’ve successfully upgraded from strangers to fuck buddies.
and truth be told, he wants to rip his fucking hair out.
the sex is great. there’s something thrilling and exciting about your secret relationship, both of you skipping lectures and sneaking away after classes with no one around you having a single clue.
and yet he’s come to the conclusion that this isn’t what he wants.
he wants you. all of you, completely. but every time he tries to get even remotely close to you, you somehow manage to dodge it and change the topic.
it bothers him. but he’s scared to just put all his feelings on a platter — because he doesn’t want to lose whatever he has with you.
something he’s also discovered is how utterly weak he is for even the slightest bit of your attention, the smallest of touches.
so when he’s typing away at his laptop in the study hall, noticing the screen of his phone light up as a message from you comes in, he can’t bring himself to ignore it.
20:23: you look cute when you’re focused
the message makes him frown, and he looks around, trying to figure out where you are, since you’ve clearly got your eyes on him.
so he texts back.
20:24: i always look cute ;)
tapping his fingers on the table, he waits for your response. the three buttons that indicate you’re typing suddenly go away, and he pouts, only to then be greeted by your voice close to his ear. “bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”
“fuckin’—” it almost makes him jump and screech out of shock. “christ, don’t sneak up on me like that.”
you chuckle at his high-pitched reaction. “bad conscience?”
“no. you’re just scary.”
“thank you.” you grin with pride, moving to sit on the table, right beside his laptop. “you busy?”
“just going over some older lecture notes to prep for an exam.”
“wanna come over to my dorm?”
“fourth time this week. what’s gotten into you? well, aside from me, obviously.”
“hilarious. really.” you remark, watching him laugh at his own joke, unable to help the smile rising to your cheeks. “what can i say? it’s a great stress reliever.”
“i know. give me a sec and i’ll pack my things.”
as he closes up his laptop and textbooks, you look around the other tables — which are mostly empty, except for the one by the window, which is where you notice a girl shooting you a bit of a weird look once you make eye contact with her.
“mingyu.”
“hm?”
“the chick by the window with the shitty earrings. you know her?”
he subtly looks into the direction of said window, recognizing the girl from his advanced statistics class. “yeah, i have a class with her. can’t really remember her name though. why?”
“she likes you.”
“oh.” he just shrugs, continuing to zip up his bag, standing up from his seat. “i didn’t notice.”
“sure.” you chuckle sarcastically.
that makes him raise a brow. he feigns shock, causing you to look at him.
“what?”
“you’re jealous.”
“excuse me?” you monotonously ask, brows furrowing in disdain.
“it’s actually kinda hot.”
“oh, please. i have nothing to be jealous of.”
“and yet you are.”
“either you shut your ass up or i’ll find someone else to relieve my stress, kim.”
he laughs and you roll your eyes. then he slings his bag over his shoulder, his hands in his pockets as he follows you out of the study hall.
as soon as you’ve entered your dorm room, he’s got you pressed against the wall, nipping at your skin. he makes you feel sickeningly good, putting your former boyfriends to shame — you’re certainly not complaining.
once he’s done with you and you’re completely worn out, you lay with your head on his chest, his fingers softly stroking your naked back.
you seem more on edge than usual today. less playful. tired, even. his voice sounds hesitant when he speaks up. “is everything okay? you look stressed.”
“i’m fine.”
he figures you either don’t want to open up or you simply don’t feel comfortable doing so with him, so he chooses not to pry, opting to let you know he’s there for you. “okay. well, if you need anything, someone to talk to, you can always come to me.”
you frown a little. refusing to act impulsively, you swallow your words, not saying a thing.
mingyu takes your silence as his cue to leave you be. a feeling of unease creeps into his body, and the room suddenly feels smaller than before.
so he gently moves away from you, sitting up to put his clothes back on. “i should probably go. wonwoo will be pissed off if i don’t have the kitchen cleaned up once he gets back.”
he’s buttoning his jeans when you speak up behind him, admitting your reasons for feeling more stressed than usual. “i’ve got two exams next week. they’re extremely important, i have to pass them, i just… i can’t focus for some reason.”
when he turns around, you’re not facing him. he leans against the tabletop, looking at you. “anything in particular that’s bothering you?”
“i don’t know. it’s just…” you shrug your shoulders a little, unsure of how to explain it, “i guess i haven’t been feeling great in my own skin lately, even though i don’t actually have a reason for it.”
“maybe i can help you study. could work as a nice motivator.”
“gyu—” you chuckle a little to reject him politely, but he sees it coming at this point, persisting.
“why don’t we just try it? if you don’t feel like doing it again, then, fine. we can always just restrict our activities to solely physical stuff again.”
“do you even have the time to help me?”
he’s smiling, able to tell you’re thinking about it. “are you kidding? i can do anything.”
“always so humble.”
“yeah, that’s why you like me so much.” he laughs. “that’s why i’m your friend.”
“whatever makes you sleep at night.”
mingyu wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to help you, nor when he mentioned he wanted you two to be closer.
he’s putting in effort to make you like him, that’s for sure. buying you coffees and snacks, offering to study with you whenever you mention difficult topics you have to cram for exams — he’s certainly establishing his presence in your daily life.
and you hate how easily you get used to it.
for whatever reason, you haven’t had sex since that day either. you’re pretty sure he wants to prove that he likes you for you and not just your body.
which is sweet. but you also have needs, and they’re worse now, knowing he can fulfill them extremely well, as he’s proved many times at this point.
so you text him to ask if he wants to come over later.
as he’s seated at a picnic table on the campus square, he notices your text, grabbing his phone to respond to you.
“your girlfriend texting you again?”
mingyu looks up at joshua, who’s sitting across from him with a pen in hand. he shakes his head. “not my girlfriend.”
“she might as well be.”
“she doesn’t like me enough to be.”
shua wouldn’t call himself nosy, but he’s determined to get a better idea of what exactly is going on between you. “what’s up with you and her?”
“it’s complicated.” his friend responds, eyes narrowing from the rays of sunlight. “i’m not even sure, honestly.”
joshua has this ability to pry people’s hearts open and let their feelings pour out without breaking a sweat — how easily he does it should be studied.
“are you friends with benefits or something? situationship?”
ironically, those words are the complete opposite of what you and him are. mingyu huffs out of frustration, voicing his thoughts. “she doesn’t like it when i call her my friend, she appears to have an exceedingly low daily quota of emotions, i’m busting my ass off to get my own assignments done and spend as much time with her as i can and i’m pretty sure she doesn’t even like me. at all. worst part being that i like her, shua. i like her.”
“have you told her you like her?”
“sort of. in a friendly way. she just glared at me.”
joshua finds mingyu’s inner torment a little amusing, but he feels for him. “maybe she’ll warm up to you. give it a while, she’s a tough nut to crack.”
“is she open with you?”
“sort of. i don’t think there’s a single soul out there she’s completely open with.” he sucks on the inside of his cheek for a second. “she has mentioned in the past that she’s actually very sensitive but just doesn’t, like, really express it. and you gotta keep in mind that people show love and affection differently. give it time.”
mingyu takes a breath as he thinks over the words.
give it time.
which he does. he notices you’re gradually getting closer to him over the course of time, still not showing too much — but it feels different. you choose to sit with him more often than not when you meet up with the other guys, you’re spending a lot of time with him, and you’re showing initiative to make time for him. every time he lands in your bed, it feels more intimate than ever.
you’re starting to make him feel like he matters to you. his crush on you is getting out of hand to the point he needs to stop himself from gazing at you every time you look him in the eye.
just like right now. you’re smiling at him over something he can’t remember — it’s a genuine smile, he cherishes those every time you flash him one as they’re rare — and you just look so pretty.
a text message from one of the guys on the football team pulls him out of it. which sparks an idea in him.
“hey, i have a football game coming up this saturday. do you wanna come? you could finally see me in action.” he asks. when he notices the puzzled look on your face, he tilts his head. “oh, come on. friendship works both ways, you know that, right? team effort and all that jazz.”
his wording makes you chuckle. “fine. i’ll be there.”
“you won’t regret it. our team is great.”
“really? then you better prove it. can’t be cheering for the losing team.”
with a raised brow, he points at you. “wanna bet?”
“what do you have in mind?”
he considers his options for a moment. “if my team wins, i get to choose what we do in bed next time. as long as you’re into it too, obviously. if the opposite team wins, you get to choose.”
now that’s an offer you’re certainly not gonna reject. taking on the challenge, you nod. “alright. deal.”
he shakes your hand ever so professionally, gathering his books since he needs to get to class. “oh, and, just so you know — my team’s won regional championships for the past two years in a row. i’m just saying.”
you tilt your head. he winks at you before walking away from the table, and you smile to yourself.
damn that asshole for making you like him this much.
saturday arrives, and you find yourself walking by the green football fields, surprised by the amount of people who showed up.
mingyu mentioned he was heading here earlier so you just told him you’d be there, sitting with the crowd.
it seems like it’s going to be a cold-weather match today. it’s already dark out, and the rain just started coming down from the sky. you’re glad the bleachers come with shade canopies so at least you won’t be soaked by the time the game is over.
your eyes are fixed on mingyu’s back as he stands by the sidelines with the rest of his team, enthusiastically discussing what’s most likely gonna be their strategy for the game.
then he turns around, still very engaged in the conversation, the wet strands of his hair framing his facial features. gosh, he’s incredibly handsome.
before running out onto the field, he looks back at the bleachers, scanning the masses before his eyes lock with yours.
he ever so dramatically makes a little heart with his fingers, teasingly motioning it towards you, and you put your middle finger up, making him laugh.
mingyu’s a real sweetheart, you have to admit. he’s growing on you.
watching the game is more fun than you anticipated. despite not being into football all that much, it’s great to watch the boys work together as well as they do.
you’re certainly not complaining when mingyu throws his vest on the bench halfway through the match, leaving him in a black compression shirt, emphasizing his strong figure.
shit. maybe you should watch him play more often.
it’s his team that seems to be on the winning side tonight — until the opposing team scores ten minutes before the end. both teams have the same score now, which is bad. ending with a draw would suck.
you’re now completely sucked into the game like the rest of the audience, desperate for mingyu’s team to score another goal.
the universe must be on their side today, because they do. three minutes left on the clock and none other than jeon wonwoo himself is able to kick the ball into the net, escaping the hands of the keeper.
it’s all yells of happiness on the field.
the referee blows his whistle to call the end of the game. everyone at your side of the bleachers stands up from their seats, yourself included, to cheer and clap for the boys, happy that they won the game.
you watch them congratulate eachother, some of their friends walking onto the field to do the same.
following the masses, you also leave your seat in the bleachers, walking down the stairs.
mingyu notices you coming his way and runs over to you, surprising you by lifting you up, giving you arguably the best hug you’ve ever had in your whole damn life. he holds onto you so tightly, his big arms and tall frame caging you in — in the best way possible.
when he gently puts you back down, his one hand briefly finds your cheek, which catches you off guard, but you don’t shy away from it.
he’s so tempted to just say fuck it and kiss you right now. you look so pretty, and your eyes — your eyes. he could stare into them forever and love every second of it.
but there’s too much at stake to get impulsive. “thanks for coming.”
“you’re welcome.” you blankly respond, making him smile a little.
“how did i do? good enough for your standards?”
you shrug at him, taking a brief look at his teammates celebrating in the distance behind him. “i was mostly focused on wonwoo, actually, but you were doing a good job too.”
he rolls his eyes before making a sarcastic comment. “you’re hilarious.”
“something i’m very aware of.”
he fake smiles at you, and you reciprocate the gesture, patting him on the shoulder.
“wanna go catch a drink with me?”
“don’t you wanna celebrate with the rest of the team?”
“not tonight.” he shakes his head. “i just gotta go get my bag. come with me?”
he intertwines his fingers with yours and you hardly notice it. which is bizarre if you consider how you had no relationship with him to begin with several months ago. “okay, yeah.”
you head to the men’s locker room with him, which is dark and empty. all the other guys are still out on the field, as you noticed when you were walking over here.
“the lights haven’t been working since yesterday, so watch your step.” mingyu tells you. the rays of moonlight coming through the high windows are enough to at least light up the room enough for you to see where you’re going.
you suddenly get an idea. “do you think the guys are gonna be out there for long?”
“they usually do. ten minutes, give or take.” he answers absentmindedly while taking his black duffel bag out of the locker with his name on it.
once he turns around, you push him back against the locker, taking him by the surprise, your finger pulling at the elastic waistband of his pants and boxers.
“i give credit where it’s due, you know.”
oh. oh. he only then understands what you’re getting at.
you always manage to make him a little nervous somehow — he lives for it. “in public? here? we could go back to your—oh, shit—”
you make him stutter the moment your hand moves underneath his clothes to take a hold of his dick. “but you’re already hard, gyu.”
christ. you’ve got some nerve, putting up that soft and sweet voice as if you’re not fucking responsible for getting him hard in the first place.
he doesn’t protest when you sink to your knees in front of him, pulling his boxers down his thick thighs, his cock springing free.
you grin a little to yourself before taking him in your mouth. he’s so hot like this, all hard and panting and begging.
“h—holy shit, that feels good.” he gasps, the warm sensation of your mouth making him go dizzy.
his hand moves to the back of your head. you take him as much as you can, using your hands for the part you can’t take. he slowly becomes a mess, his head resting against the locker.
you look up at him when he’s shamelessly moaning at the feeling of your tongue swirling around him, his hands subconsciously pushing your head just a little bit forward, making you take just that little bit more of his cock.
arousal begins to pool between your legs, and you suddenly curse yourself for choosing to wear jeans instead of a skirt tonight.
“fuck, fuck, baby—”
you release him with a pop, a mix of spit and his arousal coating your lips. “wanna taste everything. can’t make a mess here.”
it’s such a shame he’s still wearing his clothes. his stomach caves in so nicely whenever you’re sucking him off — like he can’t catch his breath. it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen.
his legs are trembling, and he’s embarrasingly close to his release already. “you don’t—ah—have to do this here if you don’t want to—”
“‘m not leaving ‘til you cum down my throat, gyu. you can do that, though, right?”
he nods, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, his voice all soft and submissive. he can’t help it. “yeah, yeah, i’ll do whatever you want, baby.”
“good boy.” you tell him, entirely unaware of the effect it has on him.
the moment you hollow your cheeks, it’s over for him. the salty taste of his release sits in your mouth before you swallow it, and his chest heaves while he pulls himself together.
both your eyes widen when you suddenly hear the voices outside getting closer, and mingyu knows it’s time to get the fuck out of here. he quickly pulls his pants back up, his bag in his one hand and your hand in the other as he drags you with him to take the back exit before anyone can notice either of you.
you both take a breather outside as you lean against the wall of the building before you burst into laughter together. he feels on top of fucking cloud nine, if he’s being truthful.
“you’re insane.” he laughs, looking to the side to find you laughing and blushing at the same time. “you’re blushing? after doing that? wow. who are you and what have you done with my friend?”
“you’re getting special treatment, you know. i don’t suck off my other friends.” you tease, shrugging your shoulders.
maybe he should consider pursuing a theatre career with the way he dramatically puts his hand over his heart. “does this mean i made it to friend level 2?”
“you did. now you’ve been downgraded back to level 1, though. what’re you gonna do about it?”
he plays along with you. “well, shit. can’t have that. we can go get a burger with fries at that place near campus. my treat?”
“sounds good.” the words have left your mouth and that big smile is right on his face again. you playfully push his shoulder, cheeks hurting from the smile on yours.
he’s getting closer to you than you anticipated, and that’s not a good thing, but for now, you tell yourself it’ll be fine. how much closer could he possibly get?
another month passes by when, for the first time in a while, mingyu doesn’t drop by your dorm. he doesn’t text, doesn’t call — and you find yourself worried about him.
it’s been nothing but complete radio silence from his end, which isn’t a good sign.
you’ve already left him several voicemails when chan lets you know he’s been having a terrible fever for the past two days. it leaves you with the urge to go and check up on him, so once you’ve had all your classes for the day, you find yourself knocking on his door.
it takes a moment for him to answer it, wonwoo seemingly not present in the dorm.
when mingyu opens the door, surprise is painted across his face, the heavy bags under his eyes making him seem awfully tired. shit, you hope you didn’t wake him. he’s wearing a plain white shirt with thin black pyjama pants, his hair an utter mess.
the surprise on his face is gone once you open your mouth. “you look like shit.”
he snorts at your words. “would you say that to me if i were on my deathbed, too?”
“absolutely.”
he smiles at your attitude, finding it strangely refreshing. “wanna come in? i promise i’ll stay at a distance so you won’t get it.”
you didn’t think he was going to invite you in, but you accept the offer nonetheless. “i was wondering why you didn’t call. then chan told me you were sick.”
he shuts the door behind you. “yeah, i’ve been sleeping, mostly. watched some netflix too but it quickly gives headaches. i’m sorry for not letting you know — didn’t think you were worried.”
you pause for a moment. “well. you thought wrong. friends worry, don’t they?”
the words make him smile. he didn’t think you cared all that much about him for some reason — this changes that. “fair. what’s in the bowl?”
he’s referring to the black bowl covered in foil you have clutched between your arms. you shrug. “soup. i don’t know if you already had some, but it worked wonders for me when i was sick a while back, so… yeah. i figured you could use it.”
his face lights up when he realizes you went out your way to make this for him. with gratitude, he accepts the bowl. “thank you, i appreciate it. looks really good. you can sit by my desk if you want to, by the way.”
as he’s walking across the room, you notice the mishap in his steps, like he’s about to lose his balance. “are you okay?”
“yeah, ‘s just—i’m a little dizzy.”
your hands find his shoulders — a touch that feels heavy compared to the usual skin-to-skin contact you share with him — to put him down on his bed. “don’t force it. if you’re about to faint, you might as well be lying down.”
his lids hang low, eyes nearly closed when you pull the covers over his body. you touch his cheeks and forehead with the back of your hand to get an indication of his temperature.
as soon as you’re about to tell him he probably has a light fever, it seems he’s already half asleep. you pull the covers up to his chest to ensure he’s comfortable.
you gaze at him for a moment as he snores softly, biting your lip as you curse yourself for giving him a treatment he doesn’t deserve.
maybe mingyu likes to think he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but that’s far from the truth. even you have noticed he’s been looking at you a certain way recently, and that’s saying something.
one look at him and you’re already feeling like a big softie. it’s ridiculous.
you’re scared of what you feel for him, but as long as you can keep your relationship like this, it’ll be fine.
now that he’s asleep, you wander around his room. you know wonwoo must be at football practice, since mingyu is normally there with him at this time of the week.
you usually take him to your dorm, so you’re not in his all that often. your eyes rake across the framed pictures of his friends, family, loved ones, memories he’s made.
they stop, though, when recognizing yourself in one of the pictures. he promised you he’d frame one up as a way of ‘solidifying your friendship’ as he so politely put it.
still, you didn’t think he’d actually do it.
smiling to yourself, you proceed to notice his laptop screen is still on. he must’ve been working on something when you knocked on his door.
out of curiosity, you check the screen, figuring he was working on the essay he’s been postponing for two weeks because he had difficulty getting started.
you take a look at the assignment and decide you’re gonna try to do it for him. luckily, the necessary paragraphs that ought to be studied beforehand and referenced in the essay itself came with the mail, so that makes everything a lot easier.
when mingyu wakes up hours later, he finds himself alone in his room. you’re gone, though he notices the glass of water on his nightstand has been refilled, his laptop is flipped open, and there’s a sticky note attached to it.
slowly, he rubs his eyes and moves toward the desk to grab the laptop before sitting back against the pillows.
you must’ve written something on the note, he figures.
‘hopefully the essay is up to the standards of your class. i did it in a separate document so you can just get rid of the whole thing if it’s not what you want it to be. let me know if you need anything else. x’
he frowns, turning the device on to see what you worked on — and the screen lights up, only for him to realize you wrote the essay due for tomorrow. and with a few of his own additions here and there, it’s good enough to submit, which is impressive for someone who’s not actually taking the class.
and right now, all he can do is smile at his screen like an idiot.
you’re at the university skating rink when you hear someone calling your name from the bleachers.
looking up with a frown, you suddenly notice a tall man sprinting your way, so you skate towards him. “mingyu, what the hell are you doing here?”
“i got 87/100 for the essay. for the one class i always hate. you’re a genius.” he exclaims, absolutely beaming at you.
you suddenly remember doing the essay for him, snorting at his reaction. “so i’ve heard. good to see you’re doing better.”
“is there anything i can do in return?”
“don’t worry. i like writing essays. besides, you already helped me out plenty of times. it was the least i could do.”
the words coming out of your mouth hardly match your facial expression, but he finds he’s gotten used to it now. he understands you better than ever before. “you know how you said i’d get nothing out of a friendship with you?” he recalls, biting his lip for a moment, “you were wrong.”
a mere chuckle escapes you. “right. you get top-notch essays and bowls of chicken soup.”
your comment was sarcastic, but he remains serious. “you’re wonderful, you know that?”
it’s not often people use a word like that to describe you. it feels weird hearing it, but your attitude remains the same. “am i?”
“yeah, you are,” he nods, pushing out more compliments, “and i’m glad to have you in my life.”
the playful expression on your face falters — like a glitch occurring in your system. mingyu is starting to break through your hard exterior remarkably easily, and that’s beginning to scare you a little.
he leaves without saying another word, but the look on his face is enough to tell that he’s feeling the tension too. whatever relationship you have is becoming more intimate by day, most definitely passing the friendship it was supposed to be, and to you, that is very alarming.
and you suddenly refuse to let it go any further.
whenever he texts you, you either tell him you don’t have the time to come over or nothing at all. you avoid him like the plague, ensure not to go to social gatherings if he’s going be there and stay well away from all the places you and him studied together. it hurts, because you do miss him, yet you manage to keep it up.
but you can only do so much. unfortunately, mingyu is smarter than you hoped.
after two weeks of you avoiding him, he decides he’s had enough.
when you’re almost about to leave the dorm for your lecture, you hear someone knocking on your door. you open it to find him standing there, and he walks right by you, not bothering to ask whether he can come in.
“why have you been avoiding me?”
“i gotta leave for my lecture, i don’t have time for this.”
“so make the time.” he says sternly, jaw clenched. “answer the question.”
“i haven’t been avoiding you.”
“sure. so it’s a coincidence you suddenly stopped talking to me?”
you huff in frustration and close the door, leaning with your back against it. “no, it isn’t.”
he raises his hands in defeat. “so, why?”
“it’s been fun. i don’t know. but you’ve proved what you wanted to prove, so… good for you. we can both move on now.” you shrug, hardly sounding convinced of your own words.
“you’re lying.” he breathes out, scoffing to himself. he’s baffled that you think he’d consider it believable at all. “four months ago, i would’ve bought that. but not now.”
“believe what you wanna believe. i don’t really care.” you give him the cold shoulder, attempting to open the door so you can leave, but he immediately shuts it to stop you from doing so.
“don’t bullshit me. you care. i don’t know why the fuck you’re so hellbent on not admitting that, but it’s the truth.”
he’s beginning to get on your nerves. “what fucking answers are you even here for? since you claim to know everything that’s going on inside my head already.”
it’s then that he starts to show how genuinely upset he is at you pushing him away. “what makes me so different from the other guys? joshua, seokmin, chan—all of them. why is it so easy for you to be close with them but not with me?”
“because you keep trying to get closer to me! from day one, you’ve been saying you wanna be friends with me like the rest of them, but your actions don’t line up with that.”
“so what? i like you and i’m pretty damn sure you like me too.” his voice is softer, face closer to yours, those brown eyes of his working their way straight to your heart. “what are you so afraid of?”
either you’re imagining things or he’s leaning in to kiss you. his lips are so close before you feel them on yours, a sensation you missed like nothing else.
your fingers touch the back of his neck. it’s hard not to get lost in the feeling of his mouth on yours, the smell of his cologne making it even harder.
kissing mingyu is the closest you’ll ever get to heaven, but right now, all it’s making you feel is guilt and shame.
so you pull yourself away from him, breaking the kiss, hands feeling heavy on his chest. “close the door on your way out.” you whisper, leaving him alone in your dorm.
he stands perplexed in his place for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose, processing what just happened.
“fuck.”
it’s been a week, and he hasn’t called nor texted you since that conversation. you assume that he’s decided to move on.
which is understandable. if you were him, you’d be done with it too.
it feels strange to be going about your day without him dropping by or talking to you. like he left a void you’re unable to fill. and it hurts — you miss him.
you’re having lunch with seokmin and minghao in the cafeteria when he’s suddenly standing in front of you by the table. “i just got a call from the gallery manager — we’ve got it to ourselves this friday evening!”
minghao smiles widely, the sweet sound of his excited laughter intriguing the rest of you. he turns his head to explain. “me and mingyu have been trying to rent the gallery so we could finally be able to put our work on display. apparently, it was just confirmed we managed to pull it off.”
hao is a passionate painter — mingyu a photographer. their love for art is one of the things that binds them together, and they’ve mentioned wanting to have their own exhibit for a few months now. despite the things that have happened, you’re happy for them.
“that’s great! we can come, right?” seokmin asks, already grabbing his phone to put it in his agenda.
“yeah, you guys better.” minghao answers, his gaze shifting to you. “you have to come too. you’re free, right?”
he’s aware of things between you and mingyu being tense right now — though he doesn’t know why — but he still thinks it’d be good for you and him to see each other.
your eyes meet mingyu’s for the first time since your last conversation a week ago, and hao follows your actions, looking at him as well.
mingyu subtly looks away, hoping his friend didn't catch him staring at you. before he can utter the words he wants to say, you tilt your head, already speaking up. “sure. i'll be there.”
he unintentionally gives you a puzzled look, and you pop a piece of gum in your mouth, looking at your wrist as if there’s a watch there.
there isn’t. “won’t you look at the time. i’ll see you guys later.”
they briefly say bye to you, very much used to the way you dismiss yourself, and mingyu watches the interaction as if it’s the first time witnessing it — as if he hasn’t known you to be like this for several months.
he watches you walk out of the cafeteria, confronted by his two friends staring at him. “what?”
“you’re deep in it.” minghao remarks. “when are you guys finally gonna admit that you wanna be together?”
“it’s not that easy.”
seokmin frowns, connecting the dots before gasping. “wait. you and her are a thing? since when? why didn’t anyone tell me this?”
the other two just deadpan a stare at him.
on friday night, you attend the art exhibit. you know he’s been working hard on the collection, and you certainly figured you were gonna be confronted with mingyu as well, but this is one gathering you couldn’t afford to miss. so you choose to try and forget the drama for one night.
you’re wearing a little black dress with lacy tights and sleek ankle boots, an outfit you feel nice in.
the gallery is buzzing with friends of the artists as well as people who frequent the place whenever a new exhibit is up. perhaps some pieces will be sold tonight.
as you’re passing some of mingyu’s framed photos, you hear his familiar voice behind you.
“i was surprised when you agreed to come.”
when you turn your head, he’s standing there with his hands in the pockets of his fitted black pants, the deep cut of his white blouse exposing just a bit more of his upper chest than usual, a silver chain sitting all pretty on his neck and collarbones.
personally, you find it’s relatively rare to find men with good taste in fashion, but he’s definitely got it. he looks good. really good.
biting your lip, you give him nothing but a cool response. “came to see if you were any good.”
“and? what’s your judgement?”
“haven’t made up my mind yet.” your tone turns into a more teasing one, seeing as he appears considerably less hostile than you. “does my judgement really matter that much, though?”
he nods so quickly, almost as if he were hypnotized by you. “more than you know.”
him showing you affection actually makes your heart shatter. he’s so genuine in it too — and you just don’t know what to do with all that love he so easily gives you.
people pass you left and right, completely unaware of the heavy feeling currently bubbling inside your chest. you’re crumbling under his gaze and he fucking feels it.
and this situation is precisely the one thing you were so afraid of. you know he knows how to poke into your heart, he knows when you’re lying to him, he knows when you’re upset or hurt — and the idea that there’s someone out there who can see all of that just by looking at you utterly terrifies you.
in moments like these, your expression doesn’t gradually change. it falls hard and quick, sometimes very visibly, just like right now. the blank stare is gone, your lips parting, eyes blinking erratically — it’s like you received a slap to the face.
“your photography is beautiful, mingyu. you’re talented, but you didn’t need me to tell you that.” your voice breaks in the middle of your sentence and you leave him behind, heading into the ladies’ room, hoping he won’t follow you.
you exhale when he doesn’t.
knowing it’s way too early to leave, you pull yourself together, and once you get out of the bathroom, you make it your mission to avoid him for the rest of the night. if that means talking to god knows how many new people, so be it.
minghao’s paintings are beautiful. you’re in awe of his talent as you walk past his artworks, admiring each of them.
as the evening nears its end, the artist himself comes up to you with that gentle smile he often wears. “so, what do you think? do i have potential?”
“are you kidding? you’ve got more than just potential. these are gorgeous. you should be proud of them.”
he thanks you, his hands sitting in the pockets of his trousers. “what’d you do to mingyu?”
you cross your arms over your chest. “why’re you assuming i did something?”
“because he’s been looking like a kicked puppy for the past few weeks. and i heard you and him suddenly stopped hanging out, so...”
taking a deep breath, you shake your head to yourself. “honestly, i’m not even sure what happened between us. it came out of nowhere.”
minghao keeps his eyes on you even when you look away. “he came out of nowhere and you started liking him.”
the comment makes your eyes widen, but you don’t bother hiding the truth from him. he might be the most trustworthy guy you know. “yeah. so i pushed him away.”
he’s aware of your fear of letting people in beyond a certain extent. “what did he do?”
you could cry, honestly. your face is blank — your voice trembles. “he said he was happy to have me in his life. god, i’m so fucking insecure.”
hao softly rubs over your shoulder blade for a second, a gesture you appreciate. he shrugs. “you’re not obligated to do something you don’t wanna do. but talking about it is better than leaving it unsaid. gyu’s a good guy. he’ll understand it, but only if you give him the chance to.”
with that sentiment, he leaves you be, and you rub your arms, staring at the painting that’s currently in front of you, only to realize it’s about two lovers.
there’s a thin line between laughing and crying. you feel like you’re somewhere in the middle right now.
“christ, i need a fucking drink.” you mutter to yourself, running a hand through your hair.
“mind if i join you?”
of course. why are you even surprised?
without looking him in the eye, you respond to his question with one of your own. “sure you want my company?”
“beats going drinking alone.” mingyu shrugs next to you.
you let out a sarcastic chuckle at that. “whatever you say.”
luckily for you, the nearest bar is around the block. the walk there is quiet. you’re not sure what to say to him, and you feel him subtly looking your way.
he holds the door open for you to go in first. the place is not all that crowded yet, only a few tables occupied, probably because it’s still relatively early in the evening.
since no one else is seated by the bar top, you choose to head to one of the high stools there, ordering two shots of vodka before even sitting down.
the bartender puts two shot glasses in front of you and pours the liquid in both until they’re completely filled. mingyu looks at you as he picks up the small glass, and you just lightly tilt your head as a toast.
his facial expression is as bitter as the alcohol burning in his throat. he hates the way you look at him — like you don’t give a fuck about him.
you look down at your glass. you still haven’t exchanged a single word since leaving the gallery. what the hell are you even supposed to say? you didn’t want to be here with him in the first place.
liar. the little voice in your head creeps in.
the silence feels as painful as trailing your nails down a chalkboard. surprisingly, it’s you who ends up speaking first.
“if you’re trying to make the situation more awkward, you’re succeeding.”
“i’m just trying to find the words. don’t know where to start.”
your voice is hostile and sharp as a blade. “then don’t.”
of course you’re aware you’re being mean. but it’s to serve a purpose. every time you show this side of you, people always leave. better sooner than later, right?
mingyu, instead of feeling insulted by your attitude, looks at you as if he’s deciphering a puzzle. “i will. because i care.”
that makes you remain quiet. you just scoff instead, not knowing what to say next. he shifts in his seat to be able to look at him better — you do the exact opposite, turning your face away from him.
“can i ask you something?”
you don’t actually respond, save for the blank stare you give him. which he takes as a yes.
“you not showing much… is it a front you put up or something you just do?”
an interesting question — one you actually have to think about. “the latter. having a resting bitch face doesn’t really help my case, i guess. but i also enjoy keeping people in the dark a bit. can’t have everyone showing everything.”
“why not?”
blinking at him for a moment, you gently smile at him. it’s not a genuine one. “do you wanna know why you feel at a disadvantage right now?”
“because your alcohol tolerance is better than mine?”
“because you can’t tell what i’m thinking.”
he then puts his chin up to look at you better. you tilt your head a little, as if you were following his gaze, and he feels like he’s on the right track here.
“maybe i kinda like that disadvantage.” he suggests, but you shake your head knowingly.
“no, you don’t.”
“how would you know?”
you suck at the inside of your cheek for a moment, taking a breath. “my mom once said to me that it bothered her she couldn’t tell what i was thinking.” you pout your lips as if you’re thinking about it. “i told her i liked that. being an open book is my worst nightmare.”
“why?”
“putting your thoughts and feelings on display make you vulnerable. being vulnerable makes you weak.”
“so you think it’s better to isolate your feelings completely — discuss them with no one? ever?”
“unless it’s necessary, yes. besides, feelings aren’t black and white. do you know how difficult it is to convey them through words, let alone getting the person at the other end of the line to actually understand them?”
mingyu looks—no, gazes at you. “how will you know if you don’t try?”
“how do you know i haven’t? you think you’re the first person who’s tried to get close to me like this?” you ask, tilting your head. “speaking of which, i’ve been having a real hard time trying to figure out what it is you want from me. i’m not buying the whole ‘i-just-wanna-be-friends’ façade. never did. i thought it was the sex, but i initiated it more often than you did.”
“it wasn’t for the sex.” he shrugs his shoulders. “i like you.”
“so you’ve mentioned. since when?”
“since… always.”
“we never even talked before soonyoung’s party.”
“no, but i liked you.”
“bullshit.” you fire back at him, scoffing sarcastically. “i’m hardly likeable — nothing i’m insecure about. just a plain fact.”
“and yet i like you a lot. must be shocking.” he jests, the vaguest hint of a rising smirk on his face. “do you like me?”
“i can’t stand you,” you reach out to push his chin upwards so he looks up at you, only realizing how physically comfortable you’ve become with him after doing so, “but at least you’ve got a pretty face to make up for it.”
it’s unbelievable, mingyu thinks to himself. the way you keep teasing him, keep being a little mean to him, and he just eats it all up.
every moment he spends with you has him wondering what on earth it is about you that draws him in so much.
but, fuck, he just can’t get enough.
another shot is poured into your glasses, which you take between your thumb and index finger, nodding at him so he’ll take his.
the liquid burns in his throat, making him feel hot, and you get awfully turned on when you notice the way he wipes off the drops that accidentally ran down his chin.
“i think i’ve got you all figured out.”
his bold statement and matching attitude has you raising your shoulders. “oh yeah? go on. try me, i’m curious.”
the words tumble from his lips as if they’re part of a monologue he’s been rehearsing for weeks. “you feel so much, express so little. i bet it must be hard to keep up with your own mind sometimes. i think you often feel judged and misunderstood because of your attitude, but you don’t mind that much, since you prefer a smaller circle anyways. you simply don’t like wearing your heart on your sleeve, but it’d be a big mistake to think you don’t have one — and honestly, i’d do anything to be close to it.”
it’s not often you’re speechless.
he describes you almost perfectly, and your body language subconsciously changes, confident and playful demeanor gone — the cold and distant side of your personality coming out again.
“good job,” you tell him softly, moving to grab a few bucks from your wallet to pay for the drinks, “i guess i should say congratulations. you know what makes me tick. that means we’re done here, right?”
he finally spots the shift in your behavior. “wait—”
“have a good night, gyu.”
you curse yourself for accidentally using the nickname as you walk out of the bar, putting your coat on, feeling raindrops on your hair and skin once you get outside.
as you’re trying to make yourself remember where the nearest metro stop is, you hear him utter your name behind you. “what did i do? was it something i said?”
letting impulsivity get to you for once, you scoff, muttering a response. “it was everything you said.”
“why?” he asks, the tension running thicker. “why won’t you just let me in, for once? just this time?”
you hate how desperate he sounds — you hate how much it’s tugging at your heartstrings.
“why do you even want me to?”
“‘cause i like you.”
“no, you don’t. you just like whatever chase this is, just a little fun to keep things interesting for you.”
“has it ever crossed your mind that maybe i like you for you?”
“i’ve given you no reason to like me.”
“what, you think that no one out there will like you unless you act differently?”
his words feel like a growing tear in your heart. your self-esteem is so ridiculously low that it makes you believe no one would love you if you were to be unapologetically yourself — and hearing someone say it out loud hurts.
mingyu watches as the emotion flashes through your eyes, one of the few glimpses of what you feel underneath that cold exterior.
“it’s not true,” he says before you attempt to answer, “because you… being around you makes me happy. when i’m not with you, i think of when i’ll see you next. you matter to me.”
you’re not sure what’s worse — the fact that you reciprocate his feelings or the words that are coming out of your mouth.
“you’d do best to try and get rid of that feeling.”
but he knows there’s more lingering behind your words. “tell me you don’t feel the same way.”
“what i feel means nothing.” you state, voice laced with hurt, though not from his words. “let it go.”
“why don’t you wanna try?”
“because it’d be a disaster. for both of us.”
“c’mon,” he pleads, gently touching your fingers, “please don’t push me away.”
“god—i have my reasons, mingyu.”
“then explain them to me!”
“i can’t give you what you want!” you cry out, needing him to understand you. “someone like you just doesn’t work with someone like me. it might sound stupid, but it’s the truth. i wouldn’t tell you i love you, i’m fucking—bitter and cynical, if not misanthropic, i like my own peace and quiet, i fucking hate talking about what i feel — and you are the complete opposite. i’d make you miserable. you’d grow to hate me.”
“no, i wouldn’t.”
“you would. you... i do like you. i don’t know what the hell you did, like—it’s bizarre how much i’ve grown to like you. but at the end of the day, we’d never work, because i cannot give you the love that you deserve. i know you. you want someone spontaneous, easygoing, sociable — those are all traits that i don’t have. i wish i did, but that’s just how i’m engineered. we wouldn’t work.”
“how do you even know that?”
“i’ve had two boyfriends before this. both broke things off with me ‘cause i didn't show love the way they were used to, and even when they called it quits, i didn’t show a thing. because i don’t do that. no matter how often i say it, no one ever appears to understand what they’re getting themselves into when they get close to me, so i’m telling you now. this? you and me?” you ask, finger pointing between the two of you. “we’d be idiots to try.”
“fine. then consider me an idiot.” he breathes out, just barely registering how close he’s standing to you. “i’m willing to try. please.”
the crease between your brows is the sign of your inner conflict. “i’m sick of getting hurt. sick of people making me feel like my feelings aren’t valid solely because i don’t like expressing them.”
“i’m not gonna hurt you. we can take things slow.”
“gyu—” you plead, almost like you’re begging him to stop tearing your walls down despite knowing he won’t.
and perhaps the other part of you does want to let him in. it’s so scary, so tempting.
“i don’t wanna lose you.”
he adores you so much — it’s ridiculous. “you won’t lose me. please…” he touches your fingers so gently, getting closer to you as you barely make an effort to push him away, “please let me in.”
his heartbeat rises when you look him in the eye — he wonders how the hell a person so strong can look so afraid. but he’s determined to show that you have no reason to be anymore.
it’s raining even harder now. instead of backing you up against the wall, he takes a few steps away from you as if he’s leaving, only for him to turn around and gesture for you to come with him.
mingyu’s smile shines even in the heavy downpour — a bright light that balances out your dull one.
he extends his hand, and you finally get over the edge of your fear, finally able to take control of your own body and slide your hand in his.
you and kim mingyu shouldn’t work — perhaps that’s exactly the reason why you do.
thank you for reading. let me know if you enjoyed it x
® SANAKIRAS — do not repost, remake or copy my work in any way whatsoever. translations are not allowed.
#seventeen x reader#svt oneshot#svt x reader#kim mingyu x reader#mingyu angst#mingyu smut#mingyu x reader#kim mingyu ff#kim mingyu fanfic#seventeen fanfic#seventeen smut#seventeen oneshot#seventeen imagines#mingyu x you#svthub#svt fic#svt fanfic#seventeen imagine#svt angst#svt imagines#kmg: bloom for me#original post
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His Best Girl.
Pairing: Anakin x Jedi!Fem Reader
Summary: You two used to be thick as thieves but The Council split you up. Anakin isn't having that go on any longer.
Warnings: 18+ !!!! SMUTTY !!!! Taking virginity, jealousy, restraint, dirty talk/praise kink, hair pulling, dominance, "master" kink, neck kissing, biting, unprotected sex, cunnilingus, etc.
A/N: Y/N/N means your nick name! Inspo from a drabble by @skywlker-sluvtt about the reader being a virgin/inexperienced. Surprise! It's a long one again. I haven't ever written one shots this long idk what's come over me. (It's Anakin. Anakin has come over me.) I love the anakin x jedi reader trope and I can world build forever with it. Anyways, enjoy you filthy animals and thank you so much for the love!! <3 Y'all have made me feel very welcome here.
Word Count: 4.4k
You were just a little girl when you were taken in by the Jedi Council. You remember how wide your eyes were as you watched the planet of Coruscant get closer and closer. You were 8. Anakin was 11. You both clicked quickly and were essentially glued to each others hips. You’d talk yourselves into trouble, sneak out to go stare at the stars at midnight and throw food at each other in the dining hall instead of eating.
When you were children that was fine, it was nothing a stern talking to couldn’t fix. As you grew older, the council began to take strict measures to ensure you two would only be together when absolutely necessary. They decided it was in both of your best interests to stay away from each other and the bond you two shared eventually dwindled. Instead of whispering while a Master was attempting to do their teaching, the two of you would barely exchange glances. You’d walk silently in a single file line to the dining hall, no longer bothering to take the heat for walking next to each other.
The whispering and laughing turned into polite nods and common greetings said in passing. You’d walk right by him and bow your head at him, he’d reciprocate with a fairly neutral expression gracing his features. You’d always feel his head turn to look back at you as you walked in opposite direction, he found himself often wishing he could call over his shoulder and tease you and tell you your form needed work or that your footwork was a mess like he used to when you were young.
You were 19 now. Anakin was 22. You’d barely looked at each other or spoken for longer than a few moments in years. The fear of going against the Councils wishes outweighed your nostalgia for the friendship you once shared. You wanted to be great and so did Anakin. So the two of you focused on becoming the people you’d both dreamed of being.
It wasn’t long until Anakin was knighted. The ceremony was filled with toasts and speeches. You sat with the small group of girls that you had become friendly with over the years and ate your meticulously prepared meal. Anakin sat next to Obi-Wan, along with the other Jedi Masters at the long table at the front of the room. You wished you could give him a hug, congratulate him, tell him he deserved the praise he was getting. He had grown so much you often had a hard time recognizing the little boy you once knew.
You did your fair share of filling out as well. Anakin didn’t let that go unnoticed as his eyes would trail over you when you’d find yourselves in a shared space. When he thought you weren’t looking his eyes would take in every inch of you but you could feel him. You felt every movement of his eyes on you and you could never bare it so you’d often excuse yourself.
That trend continued tonight and as you sat in the large dining hall you felt eyes looking over you. It was such a strong gaze you could practically feel it like fingers touching on the skin under your Jedi appointed uniform. You shivered as you placed your fork next to your plate. Your eyes darted over to Anakin who, to no surprise, was looking right at you. Your tongue darted out to soften your suddenly dry lips and you pressed them into a hint of a smile. He returned the small smile and looked back at Obi-Wan who was proudly speaking to him about their last mission together.
The feeling of his gaze made your stomach flip and you stood up, excusing yourself politely. The need to use the bathroom as a safe space to calm yourself grew within you. You walked through the rows of tables, still feeling a set of eyes on you, and felt a hand lightly grasp your arm and your head snapped to look down at a boy you had trained with once before smiling up at you from his chair. He had dark short hair and piercing green eyes.
“You look nice tonight.” He smiled at you and you raised an eyebrow. “I look the same as I always do.” You muttered, confused and still feeling eyes on you. The gaze harshened and you dropped your head, ignoring it. “Yeah but.. Your hair. You left it down. It’s nice.” He smiled again, he was handsome but this really was not your prerogative. You smiled politely at him and mumbled a thanks to get the interaction over with before scurrying to the bathroom.
Anakin looked between you and the boy as you two spoke, desperately trying to read lips, focus on your voices through the Force, anything to know what was going on. When you smiled he felt his hand tighten around the glass he was raising to his lips. There was a level of possessiveness that Anakin held on to when it came to you. Growing up you were his best friend. His favorite. His best girl. Now you were effectually strangers and it killed him a little every day when you’d curl your perfect lips into a shy smile at him, or wave your soft looking hand at him in passing. He didn’t act on it now when he saw the way the guys would look at you and talk to you but he sure as hell felt jealousy bubble up within him every time it happened. He placed the glass down a little harder than even he expected, his hands pushed against the table so he could stand up. He adjusted his robe as he stood and looked at Obi-Wan. “I’ll be right back.” He muttered as he stepped away from the commotion in the dining hall. He made sure to slip past the boy who had been speaking to you, standing tall and walking confidently. The quiet washed over him as the door of the dining hall closed behind him.
You were standing in the bathroom in front of one of the giant mirrors at the sinks. Your hand combed its way through the ends of your hair, as you tried to make the soft natural curls you had look more presentable. You sighed in frustration when they simply stayed the way they were. You pulled your Jedi robe down and tucked it further into your utility belt to make it look less lumpy from sitting down. The small amount of makeup you had attempted to put on looked alright but it made you mad regardless. Why couldn’t it just look perfect? You thought. You groaned and placed your hands on the corner of the counter, leaning toward your own reflection. You’d never cared about what you looked like before but something about that boys words made your mind go straight to over thinking. “So stupid.” You whispered to yourself.
You felt something, or somebody near you. The Force wasn’t hard to navigate when it was this quiet and your eyes darted to the reflection of the door behind you in the mirror. You watched the door crack open and a sandy blonde head peered in. Anakin pushed the rest of the door open and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He made sure to lock it incase somebody came in and gave him shit for being in the women’s lavatory.
“What’re you doing in here?” You whispered, turning around to face him. You took a few steps toward him, only enough for your voice to travel to him without having to raise it. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the beam next to him. His broad shoulders raised and dropped and he looked over you again. “Just wanted to check on you.” He spoke with a small smile on his lips. Maker, you could tackle him to the ground when he did that.
You took a deep breath and looked around the room as you thought of what to say next. “Why would you check on me?” Your eyebrow raised slightly. “Wanted to make sure that little creep didn’t come in here with you.” His words were laced with an emotion you weren’t familiar with and you were taken aback. “Little creep? What are you-“ Your head raised a bit as you realized who and what he was talking about. “Him? He’s just somebody I practiced with one time. I wouldn’t- I’ve never..” Your brain found it increasingly hard to find the right words as you watched Anakin. His strong arms were still crossed over his large chest and he tightened his jaw every time you stuttered.
With a prompt shake of his head he took a step forward, his tongue pushed against the front of his teeth as he smiled with an unbelieving expression. “You’ve never what?” He said, his voice was surprisingly venomous as he spoke to you, you hadn’t gotten a chance to realize how tall he’d gotten until he stepped closer and towered over you. “Done something like that.” Your eyes dropped to gaze at the floor as you muttered the words that he had forced out of you.
There was silence for a moment. His thumb and pointer finger slipped under your chin and grasped it gently to make you look up at him. His blue eyes were a bit darker than normal and your heart skipped a beat at the close proximity you were in now. “Never?” He asked, his interrogation was completely unexpected. You opened and closed your mouth and decided to nod your head instead of let yourself try to speak again. He continued to stare down at you, his eyes searching yours for even a hint of dishonesty. He never found it. “Still my best girl..” He mumbled and your eyebrows pushed together. You hadn’t heard him say that in years though now, it seemed to have a bit of a different meaning to it.
“You’ve grown so much, Y/N/N.” He whispered as his face neared yours. You gulped the access saliva in your mouth down as you responded. “You have too, Ani.” Your words came out weak, you didn’t have the same confidence you normally carried yourself with and it made Anakin smirk. Your soft voice saying the nickname he only allowed you to use made his length twitch in his pants ever so slightly. He hummed and it was almost inaudible. Something about being the only one to know you as well as he did ignited something within him.
“You’ve grown.. But you’ve never had anything special.. Have you?” He whispered. “Something that made you feel good..” His words wrapped around you like an electric blanket and his hand moved to cup your cheek while his thumb caressed it. Your breathing shook and your eyes widened at his words. “N-no.” You muttered through your labored breathing. You could sense how excited this was making him and it was making you feel like you could throw up from anticipation of his next moves. Your cheeks reddened and your ears burned as he looked between your eyes and your lips. “Nobody’s ever gotten to feel those pretty lips? Or hear what could fall from between them?” You gasped quietly at his words and shook your head, your eyes never left his. His thumb moved to trace your lips gently and your eyes rolled back for a fraction of a second. His expression seemed to get more and more intense, his own breathing became a bit heavier.
“And those hands… Nobody’s ever felt how soft and useful they can be?” His free hand traced a finger down your arm before grabbing your hand. Your head was spinning as you shook your head again and he laughed softly. “Can’t even talk.. So fucking innocent.” He growled into your ear and your breath caught in your throat loudly. He smiled at the reactions he was getting from you. He used his grasp on your hand to turn the both of you around so your back was against the wall and he pinned your hand above your head.
“Anakin..” You muttered, your face was bright red and your breath just couldn’t be caught. His warm body pressed up against yours and you whimpered involuntarily at the feeling. He smirked at the reaction and began to place the softest of kisses on your neck, jaw, cheeks, and corners of your mouth. You bit your lip and took deep breaths through your nose. “Please kiss me.” You whined and his head lifted, eyes shining at you. He seemed physically unable to wipe the cunning smile off his face as he pressed his lips against yours. They were hot and soft, causing you to practically melt into him.
It was deep and longing, the feeling behind the kiss. He was smothering you and you couldn’t breathe but it was all worth it. Small breaths were caught between kisses and he stopped to whisper against your lips. “Open..” And you did. You opened your mouth for him and he immediately sucked on your tongue. You gasped and your eyes snapped open to see his still fluttered closed as he tangled his muscle with yours through open mouthed kisses. Your eyes squeezed shut again when his free hand palmed your breast, pushing upward, grabbing it and repeating. His name left your lips and his hips bucked toward yours ever so gently.
“Master Anakin.” He groaned, correcting you against your lips and you complied. “Master Anakin..” You whispered as your head bounced back against the wall in pleasure and you kept it there because he immediately moved his lips down to your neck. He left bites and sucked gently, even blowing on where he left his saliva and you flinched harder causing your free hand to snap up and grab hold of his hair. Your legs squeezed together as you stood against the wall for some kind of release and he stuck his knee between your legs.
“That’s my job.” He growled against your neck. He pushed your pants down with aggression and you kicked them off your feet. He sat on his knees in front of you and grabbed onto your hips, his fingers squeezed into your ass and you moaned. Your legs felt shaky as he sat with his face mere inches away from your heat. You eyed him with wide, curious eyes. You’d never felt like this before. Your now unrestrained hands pushed his hair back from his face and he peered up at you as he slid a finger between your folds. You let out a sound comparable to a squeak at the new feeling and he smirked.
“So wet… All for me, hm?” He whispered as he slid a single finger into your tight hole. Your eyes squeezed shut and you let out a breathy whimper. He laughed when you weren’t able to respond, your innocent nature made him feel dirty and perverted. He was eating it up as he slid in and out of you slowly, getting you used to the feeling. He pushed himself against your legs to keep your knees from buckling when he felt them shake even more, his free hand reached up and fondled your tits and it doubled as a way to keep you standing. His thumb pressed against your clit and he could feel it pulsating, causing another chuckle to leave his swollen lips. “So fucking eager.” He said with his eyes staring deep into yours as he slid a second finger inside of you. A yelp escaped your lips and you squirmed while he pushed his thumb against your clit and fingered you with one hand and rolled your nipple between his fingers with his other hand. You clenched around his fingers and he shushed you gently.
“Breathe, just let me make you feel good. Relax..” He whispered as he kept a slow and steady pace. You took a few breaths through gritted teeth and it made the pleasure feel all that much better as you relaxed around him. “That’s my girl.” He cooed as he circled his thumb around your clit and curved his fingers toward him causing him to push against the sensitive top wall of your pussy. A gasp escaped and you whined his name as he left kisses all over your hip bones. The warmth sent shivers down your back. Anakin removed his thumb when your eyes squeezed shut and you felt something warm and wet replace it on your clit. A louder gasp escaped your lips when you opened your eyes and saw his mouth on your clit and one of your hands gripped his hair tighter while the other flew toward your mouth in shock at the noise you made. He groaned at the feeling of you pulling his hair and the vibrations made another moan leave your mouth, barricaded by your hand.
“No need to be quiet. Nobody’s coming here..” He whispered and you remember he’d locked the door. You dropped your other hand back into his hair as he lapped away at your clit. The taste made him want to absolutely devour you and he tried his best to get as close as he could to doing so. His fingers moved quicker when he felt you begin to clench again and his tongue went from soft, flat licking to quick, pointed flicking.
“Such a pretty pussy..” He whispered into you. You felt something begin to tighten in your stomach and your back arched, causing you to grind on his face and your cheeks reddened when you realized how good it felt. You swung your hips back and forth desperately and whined his name out as you grinded on his face while he licked and finger fucked you. He smiled when he realized you’d never have known you liked to grind on his face without him, it filled him with pride and he felt his cock press against the zipper of his pants making them feel much tighter now.
One last flick of his tongue and curl of his fingers sent you spiraling over the edge, gasping for air and moaning.
“Oh gods, Master.” You exclaimed with a shaky voice between your moans as your body shook with ecstasy. You’d never felt like this before, your eyes screwed shut as you began to see little dots collect in your vision and you felt a little bit of fluid come out of your pussy, soaking his chin and fingers. He growled at the feeling and pulled his fingers out. He reached his hand to your lips as he stood up in front of you and you opened your mouth willingly. “Such a good girl for me.” He whispered as your eyes rolled back at the taste of yourself on him. When you opened your eyes again after collecting yourself you found his pants were already on the floor and he was working on the tedious layers on his top half. He threw his clothes to the side and caged you in against the wall with a grunt. You felt something long raise up between your legs and hit your pussy and you gasped. Your curious gaze found the culprit and you swore your eyes bulged out of your head.
His hands found their way to your thighs and he pulled on them, you jumped up and wrapped your legs around his hips and your arms swung around his neck, squeezing as if you’d fall if you let go. He chuckled. “I’m not gonna drop you.” He said in the cocky tone you knew and adored. Your arms loosened and your stomach flipped when you realized it was his strong arms keeping you levitating in front of him. Another groan escaped his lips at the flustered look on your face and you looked at him through your lashes with dazed, drooped eyes. He smirked and removed one hand to pump his cock as it teased your entrance. How could something that big fit inside of me? You thought to yourself as you labored your breathing. He sensed your nerves.
“You’ll be okay. You can take this, I know you can. You’re my best girl.” He cooed into your ear as you felt his tip push against your virgin hole. You bit on your lip and immediately felt his lips push against you gently. You let go and reciprocated the gentle kiss as he soaked himself in your juices for a moment and pushed the head in. You sucked in a sharp breath and your eyes stung. He looked at you. “Just like before, Y/N/N. Relax… You’re such a good girl.. You can take it.” He groaned between his own words at the feeling of your pussy around his cock. You took a few deep breaths as he slowly sheathed himself into you, his hip bones hit yours and he stopped to let you adjust.
“Good girl.. So fucking tight.” He whispered again, encouraging you to relax and you did. You let out a few more deep, shaky breaths and nodded to him, words weren’t exactly a possibility right now. He smiled and pushed his lips against yours to distract you a bit before he started to move slowly. In and out. In and out. His kisses migrated down your chin to your neck and you pushed your head against the wall. Your chest was rising and falling quicker and quicker as the discomfort began to feel like pleasure. You clenched a bit and moaned when it began to feel better, Anakin took that as his signal to pick up the pace. He stroked the inside of your pussy quicker and quicker, moving all the way to his head before pushing back into you. His grip on your hips tightened and he moaned against your neck. Your hands reached for his hair again, he seemed to enjoy when you did that and it gave you something to tether you to this plane of existence.
“You’re doing such a good job at taking my cock.” He moaned and your eyes rolled back into your head again. Your jaw went slack when he adjusted you to be a bit higher and his dick slid against your g-spot. The noises you were emitting were uncontrollable now. Gasps, whimpers and moans all fell through with the occasional, “Oh Master..” thrown in.
“So pretty with my cock in you… Nobody knows you like I do… They never will.” He grunted as he began to thrust with more aggression and desperation than before. He wanted to feel every inch of you, every crevice and every ridge. Your brain mustered up the power to respond. “They never will… I only want you.. I always have.” Your words came out in between gasps. You let out another moan and squirmed when his fingers dig further into the soft skin on your hips.
His free hand moved one of your hands from his hair to your tits and he leaned back to watch you palm and pinch away at them. His eyes darkened and his teeth gnawed down on his lower lip as he watched. The sight itself was enough to make a man cum in his pants. He watched you play and squirm while you moaned his name and he began to fuck you faster. You almost screamed at the feeling, your voice echoed through the bathroom and you didn’t care at all.
You felt a familiar feeling build up in you and you pulled your other hand from his hair to rub your clit the same way he’d shown you. “Look at you.. Doing what I taught you.” He groaned as he continued his rampage on your pussy. The feeling of both your clit and hole being ravaged caused you to arch your back again and this time he hit a spot he hadn’t before. “Oh fuck.” You exclaimed as you rubbed away at your swollen set of nerve endings quicker, desperately trying to pull the orgasm out. He leaned in and began to kiss you with an open mouth, tongues fought and you could taste the sweat from his upper lip. You clenched around his cock as you let out another orgasm and your convulsing pussy sent him over the edge. His strokes got sloppy and his breath came out of his nose in short, repetitive bursts. He soaked your walls with his milk and you moaned at the feeling of your mixed liquids trickling down to your thigh as he slowed down again.
He let your legs fall and his hands moved to your waist as he slipped out of you and your feet hit the ground as a way of steadying you. Your vision was slightly blurred as you both attempted to catch your breath. His forehead leaned against yours and his hot breath hit your lips. He leaned in for another kiss and this one was gentle and sweet. You moaned softly into it. “So much better than I’d hoped.” He whispered into your mouth and a blush formed on your cheeks again. He handed your clothes to you and you put them on shakily. When you were both dressed he held you close to him, hands gripping your waist with a gentleness that hadn’t been there when he was fucking you.
“They won’t keep us apart again.” He said softly, staring into your eyes and you smiled. “Never.” You responded and placed another kiss on his lips. He smiled into it and brought you closer by the small of your back before pulling away. “They’re probably wondering where we went.” He chuckled and you smiled in response. He gave you one last kiss on your nose before unlocking the door and slipping out of the bathroom. You waited a few minutes, fixing your hair and now non-existent makeup before following his steps toward the dining hall.
The party had gone smoothly and you didn’t catch a break from the girls you were sitting with about being gone so long. You laughed and brushed them off. The three of you walked towards your own dormitories after taking showers and getting ready for bed. “Goodnight, ladies.” You spoke as you closed your door and got comfortable in your bed. You were giddy and your body felt electric as your mind ran through the memories of the night. It hadn’t been more than an hour before you heard your door open and your head turned towards the light creeping in. Anakin slipped in and shut your door behind him, a smirk graced his face as shock blanketed yours.
“Gods, I missed that pretty face.” He spoke as he approached you. You sat up and smiled up at him. It was going to be a long night.
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OKAY idk if you keep taking thoughts but this IS the dynamic I had thought for Felix since DAY ONE, so of course I need more best friend!felix and maybe this one is a typical one but...
The jealousy??? like this man is very facial and expressive and protective, especially towards the reader.... so I thought about him watching any of his friends flirting with them? And maybe also being way too touchy? You can decide if reader is comfortable in all that or not (I think she wouldn't), but having him like trying not to be a dick but also like needing to, like they're my best friend shush so yeah, I'd love it if you could write something like that! thankss
a/n omg that one scene in saltburn where felix is like 'you're my friend,, you're supposed to be here with me' yeah i knew immediately
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"Sorry, darling." Despite the soft, almost far off cadence of Farleigh's voice, his words manage to cut through the atmosphere of the party. He leans forward, handing off his half finished joint to the girl standing next to you. "This stuff's heavy, and I don't need Felix on me tonight."
You frown. His denial doesn't get to you as much as the way he's framing it. Like you're a child that needs to be looked after. Like you're Felix's property.
If you weren't already a few drinks in, you'd dismiss Farleigh's words with an eye roll. The buzz burning in your veins latches onto that pinch of irritation. The full sounding giggle that comes from the nameless girl by your side only amplifies the feeling. "I don't do everything Felix says."
"No," he agrees, "You do just enough to be a good, little pet." You cross your arms in front of your chest, tilting your head to better glare at him.
The feel of something touching your shoulder cracks the tension. Your head turns. Felix. Despite your annoyance, Felix's sudden appearance at your side has you easing. He leans forward, pressing a kiss against your cheek near the corner of your mouth. "I was looking for you."
You smile, placing your hand over the one Felix still has on your shoulder. "You seemed busy, decided to take a lap."
He brushes his thumb against your shoulder. "Never too busy for you, darling." Felix has a way of making things that should feel just polite sound genuine. "How're you doing?"
"Farleigh's being mean."
"Didn't let her smoke." Farleigh explains flatly, taking the joint back from the girl. "After the way you reacted last time, it wasn't worth it."
Felix squeezes your arm. "That true?" You're not given a chance to respond. "You know how you get. Especially after drinking." You blink at him, eyes wide and lips pressed together. "Don't give me that look." It's too gentle to be a scolding. "We can smoke when you're sober, if you want."
You're not one to crave getting high too often. There's a sluggishness to it that you have to be in a certain mood for. But something about smoking with Felix, in his room with the window open and the two of you lounging like the only things that matter are what's within arm's reach, is unbelievably soothing.
Even in your current state, you're fully aware of the fact that you're getting the better end of the deal. But with Farleigh's smug comment and that random girl that laughed still paying attention, you don't feel comfortable agreeing in front of everyone.
"You're looking for an excuse to argue." Ugh. The way he reads you is almost eerie. You press your lips together to keep from giggling, watching him carefully. You shake your head, a flimsy attempt at denial. "Yes." Felix leans closer, grinning. He drapes an arm around your back, pulling you against his chest. " I can see it in your eyes."
"My eyes are innocent."
His freehand moves to hold your chin, angling your head to better look you in the eye. He's focused, exuding more concentration than the moment warrants. That's the thing about Felix, crowded room or empty dorm, it doesn't matter. He has a talent for making anyone feel like the only person in the world.
"Hm," he hums, "You pass." Despite coming to a conclusion, he makes no effort to move away from you. "Want to get another drink?"
You nod, "Yeah."
"C'mon, then." He drops one arm, waving a halfhearted goodbye to Farleigh before guiding you forward.
Felix keeps an arm around your shoulders as you maneuver through the chaos of the party. It's instinct to accept his lead, a part of you more glad for it than usual. You're starting to feel fuzzy, and with Felix guiding you, it's safer to accept the sensation.
"Oh my god!" A squeal and then your name.
You turn your head, eyes landing on a familiar face from your lit class. "Daphne!" She's a newer friend that you mainly know from exchanging lecture notes and working on essays together. A part of you is surprised to see her here, but you guess you shouldn't be. Now that you're thinking about it, you feel like you've seen her around Felix's friends before. "Hey."
Daphne approaches you with a wide grin. "I didn't know you were here." She then glances to Felix, and then Felix's arm, and then back to Felix. "Hi, Felix."
If he notices Daphne's curious scrutiny, he gives no indication of it. "Hi, Daphne," he greets, confirming that they do run in the same circles.
She smiles politely before turning her attention back to you, "It's been a minute since I've seen you." Daphne tosses a glossy strand of hair over her shoulder. "We need to catch up, I found out the best thing about the girl that sits in the front row that always tells everyone her grades."
"Bragger girl? She's the worst."
"Oh, you have no idea."
Felix squeezes your arm, turning your attention back towards him. "I'll get you your drink, you catch up with your friend." You beam at him as his arm gently moves off your shoulder.
As soon as he's disappeared into the crowd, Daphne gasps, "Oh my god, whatever's going on there is better than my bragger girl story."
You blink. "What?" Confusion and Felix's absence make you feel slightly off balance. It takes you a moment to catch up. "Oh, Felix? We're friend." Daphne presses her lips together, the look she's giving you not entirely convinced. "C'mon, tell me about bragger girl."
"Okay." Daphne gestures to an empty coach that's been pushed against a wall. "Let's sit?"
The two of you make it to the edge of the room. Daphne's not shy about taking up space, letting her long legs extend into the start of where people might walk. She trusts the world to move for her. It hits you then that your friendship with Daphne, like your relationships with a lot of people you've been spending time with recently, doesn't make make sense on paper.
You sit, grateful for the chance to lean against something sturdy.
"Alright," Daphne starts, angling her body towards you, "Bragger girl--never's gotten an imperfect score girl--" She cuts herself off with a soft, tipsy giggle. "Is hooking up with the TA."
Oh, you're fully hooked. "What?" Daphne nods, expression satisfied. "No way." There's no way to prove the connection between that girl always managing to beat your scores by a few points and any of her personal relationships, but come on. "Wait--with--with which one--the tall one or--or the one with the--" You're too out of it to recall a good descriptor, "Hair."
Daphne laughs again, "Hair?" You shrug at her. "Doesn't matter how little sense that makes, because that's the--the best part of the story." You nod, urging her. "She's hooking up with both of them."
You gasp. Oh my god, you cannot wait for Felix to get back so you can reiterate every detail of this. "Really?" Daphne giggles, nodding her head. "How do you know?"
"Okay," she crosses her legs, "So, I was at this ba--"
"Hey, Daphne," the voice is low and clumsy, over extending the second half of Daphne's name. Daphne looks up in time to see a guy sit on the couch's cushioned arm. "Who's your friend?"
Daphne throws you an apologetic look before turning back to the stranger. "Hi, John." She then introduces the two of you politely, presenting you as a friend from her intro to western lit class and John as someone from her econ class.
John doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that he's looking you over. You're not sure if it's the slightly glazed over quality to his eyes or his lack of shame gets to you. All you know is that some instinct tells you to be wary.
He tries your name on his lips, slurring slightly. "Why've I never seen you around?"
"Oh, I don't know," you try, tone much more sober than it was a moment ago, "I'm around, I guess. Here and there."
It's not your best small talk, but the only part of you that seems to be clinging to sobriety doesn't feel right. He's friends with Daphne, you tell yourself, you have no reason to believe he has bad intentions just because seems like he's had too much of whatever he's been having tonight.
John laughs, like your words were some obscure joke that he wants you to know he decoded. "So what do you do when you're not getting out?" He angles himself towards you, disregarding Daphne entirely. "I'm having a hard time picturing you in a library."
It's almost ironic enough to get you to laugh. John sees you here, he sees how you're dressed, and who you're with and just assumes that this is your regular state. And while there's nothing wrong with being the party girl type (some of your favorite people are that kind of person), it's just not who you are every night of the week.
"Actually, John," Daphne interjects, "She's really smart, like basically certified genius smart." You throw her a not so subtle look that says you feel like she's exaggerating. "What? I said basically." You don't look like you agree, "C'mon, even Dr. Alvero's said it, and he can't stand anyone."
"Really?" John moves to stand. "Dr. Alvero. His class is bloody murder." He takes a step towards you. "Maybe you could help me study sometime." You're too aware of the length of your dress, of your legs. "I'd pay you for your time."
There's something about the way he tacks on the reference to finances, an implication that burrows beneath your skin. That's the worst part of Oxford's elite, they assume that if you don't run in the same circles...that if you don't come from generational money, you have nothing. That you're in a position to bend to their every whim for what they consider petty cash.
"John," Daphne tries, voice hard.
"What?" John takes another step forward. "I said I'd pay her."
Indignance and nerves bond uncomfortably in the pit of your stomach. As much as you want to tell him off, the way he's looking at you leaves you frozen, and it's not like the two of you are in a private area. You don't want to be labeled as a hysterical drunk.
"Sweetheart." Felix is within reach.
You turn your head instinctually. He's less than a foot from the couch, holding a solo cup. Despite directly addressing you, Felix's attention is fully focused on John, who seems to have finally remembered the concept of personal space.
Felix walks past him without a second glance before sitting next to you. It's a squeeze, Felix's knee pressing into yours. "They ran out of cups, so I thought we could share." Felix extends his arm slightly, gesturing to his drink. "Have some."
You lift a hand to reach for the cup, but Felix shifts before you can actually attempt to take it. Confusion has you dropping your hand back to your lap. You don't get where he's going with this until he gently tilts the cup in a silent question. You nod.
Felix brings the drink to your lips, gently tilting the cup until its contents are down your throat. The alcohol burns slightly, but not overbearingly so, and the flavor is familiar. Your favorite drink.
He pulls the cup away, a drop of liquid sliding down the corner of your mouth. Felix's thumb wipes it away before it can reach your chin. He then brings his still damp thumb towards his mouth to clean it.
Heat roots itself in your chest and crawls up your neck. All of your discomfort, all of your worry from before feels far and abstract until Felix asks, "So, who's your friend?"
"Oh, uh--this is Daphne's friend, John."
Daphne nods, leaning forward to join your conversation, "Yeah, I know him from my econ class."
"Yeah, good to finally meet you, man. " Felix finally looks back at John. "I think my step-mother's friends with your mum."
Felix places an arm against the back of the couch, giving you space to relax against his side. A more sober you would have thought twice about giving in so quickly, but you're starting to feel light again. "Uh--Cindy Marin."
"Right!" John exhales, relieved, "Right."
Felix nods once before turning his attention back to you. "You ready to get out of here?" There's an assuredness in the way he asks the question that makes it seem like there's nothing of value left at a party that hasn't at all since he sat down. You nod. Felix leans towards you so that he can better look over your shoulder. "See you around, Daphne."
"Yeah, see you."
Felix gets up, immediately stealing the warmth and comfort he'd been providing while next to you. Something that you only very minorly resent him for. He offers you his hand as you stand, and that makes up for most of it.
You turn your head to say goodbye to Daphne. Now that Felix isn't looking, she grins at you before mouthing: that was hot.
You roll your eyes, hoping your feigned irritation is enough to cover any signs of being flustered. Especially when Felix pulls an arm around your shoulders.
"Bye, John," he mumbles, "Congratulate your step-mum for me, yeah?"
Felix guides you out of the party. Once the two of you are exposed to the cool, night air, Felix lets go of you. There's a stiffness to his release that gets to you.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box of cigarettes.
"Can I?" Your voice is smaller than you thought it'd be.
Felix pauses, thinking through your request before handing you the box. You smile as Felix leans towards you. You don't smoke--with the exception of an occasional drag from one of Felix's cigarettes--but you like lighting them for him.
You pull one from the box and place it between his parted lips. He hands you his lighter next. You spark it to life, bringing the flame to the cigarette's end. Felix takes a deep breath, letting the smoke fill his lungs before exhaling. He doesn't attempt to take your hand or place an arm around you again.
"Are you--" You're not even sure how to word it, "...Okay?"
He takes the cigarette between two fingers as he breathes out. "Fine." Felix inhales another drag. "Just didn't love the way that guy talked to you."
"If it helps, neither did I."
Felix glances over at you, eyebrows pulling together. "Then it's a good thing your best friend was there."
You roll your eyes fondly, fighting a grin, "You're always a good thing."
He looks down, his fingers brush against yours. You intertwine them, pulling his palm against yours. "Someone loves me."
You attempt to glare at him, but the look feels too sickeningly fond to come off as menacing. "Don't start."
His smile broadens. He squeezes your hand, thumb brushing against your knuckles. "Want to stay over tonight?"
"Yeah." You grin, body subconsciously leaning against his a little more. "Are you tired?"
Felix eyes you with exaggerated skepticism, "Why?"
"Wanted to know if you were in the mood to read to me tonight."
He smiles, angling his head to press a kiss against the top of your head. "Anything you want, lovie."
----
felix: oh my god,, i can't believe people treat you like that!! maybe you should borrow my last name for a little, just so that they leave you alone
taglist; @vader-is-hot @spiritofbuddha @getosangie @freyafriggafrey @ilovehyperfixating @aryiannarae @willowpains
#bestfriend!felix#bestfriend!felix x reader#saltburn x reader#saltburn imagine#felix catton x reader#felix catton#jacob elordi x reader#jacob elordi
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