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#I would have given him a coke nail here if I thought I could’ve make it look good
ottiliere · 2 years
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i am absolutely obsessed with your alpha dave because you just hit that itch for me when it comes to the idea of guardians being the worst version of what their kid version could become. i've always wondered that, if the alpha guardians had the same concept the beta guardians did, how would they be-- especially dave, cause the striders relationships with their guardians are always so like. volatile? just the idea of dave growing up with no one to give him proper attention or care or love, (1/2)
and instead of bettering himself he just turns to the constant attention and eyes of the public when he becomes famous, because he NEEDS attention, he needs people to want him and crave him and look up to him and shit. and alpha dave just going down this spiral of doing more and more wack shit to get the public's attention, doing hard drugs with nasty circles he shouldn't be getting himself in, cause he's constantly chasing after the euphoria of people "loving" him. thats all thank you for listening to me go on and on like a maniac. tldr alpha dave being the worst version of who dave can be is an idea i am absolutely obsessed with partially due to your interpretations of him. ur art and ideas are stellar about the striders (2/2)
oh my god I love you. yes this very much how i envision alpha dave to be and it really falls into my stringent devotion to the concept of "universal karma" i.e. where beta dirk strider was so aloof and in his own head alpha dave strider must exist as an extreme direct inverse of that. needy, demanding, overbearing. this man, much like beta dirk, was not built to be a guardian. I think he kind of sucks super bad and it's so awesome. i could go on and on and on about this but I already have another ask in my drafts about him that’s hit 1k words with no end in sight and who knows when that’ll be ready. thank you for your kind observations. picture me smiling at you right now.
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#alpha dave strider#ask#lucy art#I would have given him a coke nail here if I thought I could’ve make it look good#and also. like. tangentially. but very related.#the reason i view him as a cocaine addict isn't just because ohhhh hollywood superstar of course he does drugs#though that definitely enables his access#coke is a death trap for those with no spine and no self esteem because it makes you feel on top of the world.#if you're miserable and spiralling if you're insecure whether or not everyone in the room hates you you can snort a line#and abruptly perceive yourself to be the hottest shit ever#have read stories of many doing coke and thinking they're the life of the party only to be told afterwards that they were being a jackass#there are many such cases of diffident actors becoming cocaine addicts for these reasons#and that everyone hated them for being there#that's fundamentally dave to me#definitely a product of the environment. I think he has ALWAYS been quite insecure but in an environment like this the stakes are amplified#like it's a social game. everything is a social game there. and he is NOT a naturally confident man#the thing is with a lot of the high-profile coke addict actors the thing is like. they're alone. or they perceive themselves to be alone.#alone in hollywood afraid they're just not cutting it not fitting in with the scene not making ''friends''#which is really more attributable to the social scene being so cutthroat and highschoolesque#a bunch of self-centered preps who would be nobodies if they hadn't grown up in wealthy families and shit like that#and I don't think dave would've come from an upbringing like this at all. alienated this guy craves attention and peer approval#doses and mimosas.flac#this is almost opposite of my view of dirk and i often use dave as a tuning fork for him#i had typed up a whole essayramble here and when i saved tumblr wiped out half the tags. did not realize there was a limit.#i suppose i will save to topic i discussed for its own post. thank you all for reading my tags as usual#sorry i edited your three asks into two asks so this post wouldn't get super long. hope you don't mind.
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timextoxhajima · 4 years
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Member: PWARK SEONGHWAbs
Category: playlist feels one shot
Genre: fluff and smut (idk how this is gonna turn out lol i just couldn’t get the visual of boss/ceo? seonghwa out my head and you’re his secretary and i just--)
Word Count: 5.7k
A/N: if you haven’t noticed by now, most of my one shots/work don’t really have cliche plots? there are certain tropes/cliches that i don’t really like or i’m just not tuned into being comfortable writing them like eg. boss and employee is pretty nasty, that’s why the chaebol juyeon series turned out like that (i’m not gonna spoil it but if you know, you know that y/n wasn’t just an employee.) so in here, i guess it’s not going to be an exception? i don’t know when the day will come that i will write one that is EXTREMELY cliche and be able to be satisfied/happy with it. 
this is the first smut i’m writing for seonghwa; i’ve only been writing it for san and a tiny bit for mingi and the rest’s literally for juyeon ;_; so i hope i don’t butcher it. 
see you on the other side :D
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“니 맘 전부 알고 있어”
“I know your heart”
“oh god--” you shove the food on your spoon into your mouth, nearly throwing it on the table just as the music starts ringing in the room, and he was already resting his chopsticks on the bowl. “please don’t--”
“seonghw-- ugh.”
too late.
“forget it, do whatever you want at your own dinner table. i can’t believe you invited me over just so i have to watch you have your own concert,” the food calls you again, and seonghwa acts like he’s in a drama or a music video. 
“have you finished compiling the contracts from the previous year and making sure everything tallied?” he raises a candid brow at you, his hands reaching out to you as the lyrics ran its course. a frown draws into your forehead, and you swat his hand away, reaching for a piece of fried egg instead of watching him act his heart out. 
“i’m still working on it, but i’ll have it in by the end of tomorrow,” the egg finds its way between your teeth and you push some rice in along with it, fingers finding your phone when it lit up.
“wooyoung’s asking if we’re going to hang out anytime soon.”
you look up through your damp hair and glare at seonghwa, hands still flailing around and his torso following along with the movements. 
it really was a wonder you’ve been friends with him since you were teenagers, and somewhere, somehow, some deity really thought making you the secretary of one of your best friends was a good idea.
initially, you were relieved that your boss was someone you knew as well as you did the back of your hand, but within the first six months of being seonghwa’s secretary, you literally couldn’t help yourself from hurling a file at him once in awhile. 
it wasn’t difficult to catch you screaming at him in the office because he passed out from overworking himself, telling him to go home. not because he was taking a nap, but because you found him sprawled across his desk after working through the night.
that was the day everybody in office found out you were friends from the same circle. 
so whenever anybody had the slightest issue or complaint about their boss, they’d come to you in hopes that you would smack -- or yell -- some sense into him. 
seonghwa had his shitty days and it didn’t stop him from being a terrible boss; you could empathise. but otherwise, he’d be strutting around office and annoying the hell out of both you and your colleagues by giving them sweets, to the extent that someone would wonder just how he was the one everybody needed to address as ‘boss’.
“wooyoung? but hongjoong’s overseas and mingi practically vanished off the face of earth. if he wants to have a meal together, he needs to hunt mingi down first,” the fishcake in the soup suddenly contained enough power to make seonghwa stop rolling his chest and send it into his mouth. 
“i’ll tell him no then,” the message sends and you put the phone back down onto the table. “anyway, the security told me when i left the office that the camera in your office is down and they’ll have someone sent over to fix it over the weekend, so they just told me to relay the message to you.”
“why wouldn’t they just email me?”
your tongue digs into the gap between your gum and your upper lip sa you reach for the glass of coke. “i’m pretty sure they’ve given up emailing you, especially since you don’t use that email address often.”
“hey, i have one for office operations and one for business, is that so wrong?” his defensive tone causes his voice to crack and go off tune, striking a funny bone in you despite already hearing it a billion times over. 
“i didn’t say there’s anything wrong, it’s just annoying when you give someone your email but you don’t even check your inbox,” you finish your last spoonful of rice and chicken, downing the soup to wash down the food. “but anyway, point is, don’t do anything dumb in your office.”
he scoffs, finally returning dedicated focus to his food. the food that he bothered to prepare for you before even telling you he was cooking dinner. it made you obligated to show up, else you’d get an earful from him for being ungrateful. 
“name me one dumb thing i could do in my office,” his cat eyes widen and the whites around his pupils glare at you under the lighting. 
“how would i know?” sucking the grains of rice from the hidden spots in your mouth, letting the water droplets on the side of the coke glass run over your nails and drip off the base. “like have a heart attack and pass out tomorrow, if you choose to stay over time?”
seonghwa stretches his legs under the table, and his sock-covered feet jab you in your ankles. a sharp ‘tsk’ slides out from gritted teeth, and he laughs at your reaction. 
“it’s not peak period for companies to be contacting me now, so that probably won’t happen.”
“well, don’t leave your office door unlocked or something, someone could waltz right in and find your shit and that’ll just might be the end of you.”
“honestly, i thought it  would’ve been funnier if you encouraged me to do more dumb things in the office, since there wouldn’t be any footage of it.”
wincing in disgust, your hands wipe the water off the surface of the coke glass and you flick it at him. a loud snicker blocks out the music for a moment when he ducks and uses his arm as a shield. 
“god forsake i recorded that and told the office you said that,” the coke glass empties itself down your throat, and you help yourself out of the seat to help him clear the dishes. 
“it’s a good thing you’re worth trusting then,” you hear him say loud enough for you to hear while you rest the plates in the sink. 
a chair drags across the floor and the soft clinking of the porcelain plates from the dining table mixes with the water gushing out of the tap. 
if you had to describe your friendship with seonghwa, it’d be an open book. 
one of the best things about being friends with him was that he was always mature enough to look past little arguments or conflicts that shouldn’t have an impact on your friendship.
sometimes he was whiny and pouty and it nauseated you, but he was always one to have your back whenever you needed it. his shoulder was always there for you to cry on, not the mention the hugs he gave. 
so why ‘open book’? 
“i’m only worth trusting because you kept my secret and prevented anybody else from blowing shit out of proportion.”
a gentle chuckle rings by your ear, and seonghwa refuses to fill the sink with more dishes while you were still standing there. there wasn’t a time when he’s hosted a dinner and let his guests do the dishes for him. 
the water runs the dishwasher soap off your skin and you step away for him to take over. 
“it didn’t blow out of proportion only because i didn’t tell anybody else,” he turns and flashes his smile at you, and it reminds you of the first time you fell for it. 
you guessed it. 
park seonghwa was the love of your life at some point of time, and he knew. 
in fact, nobody else knew besides the two of you. 
you had made it so painfully obvious that if anybody was observant enough, they’d be able to pick it up. luckily for you, hongjoong was too busy making sure mingi wasn’t sticking a pen down his throat just to prove a point, and seonghwa was the only one who noticed you staring at him. 
so ‘open book’ in some sense... for the both of you. not so much anybody else outside your exclusive friendship.
the fear in your chest and entire body was so overstimulating in that moment he caught you staring at him, with eyes you assumed he would’ve found creepy, that you could’ve cried in that instant. 
it wasn’t likely that he’d stop being friends with you just because you had feelings for him, but it was likely that he’d start distancing himself from you just so he wouldn’t hurt you. 
~~~~~~~~~  FLASHBACK ~~~~~~~~~~~
“don’t fuckin’ let him swallow the pen!” he yells at hongjoong, who was struggling to use his relatively shorter limbs to hold mingi’s long limbs down. your stressed vision was darting back and forth between the little wrestling match and confusion and fear start to swallow you like waves on a stormy day when seonghwa gets out of his seat and walks towards you. 
“come on,” he shows you a hand. everybody was seated in his living room, pizza boxes empty and coke bottles neatly thrown into a trashbag in the corner with the flashes of light from the television brightening the room every few seconds. “let’s go out and grab some fresh air while these two idiots settle themselves.”
seonghwa literally pulls you to your feet, and he must’ve guessed how much shit you thought you were in, for you to require someone else to tear you away from the ground. 
the sliding doors rustle open, and the cool autumn air outside greets you as if to mock you. the street lamps outside his house prevent you from seeing any stars, but you remember why you were out here in the first place.
your fingers find each other, your nails automatically starting to pick and peel at the skin on the other hand as seonghwa pulls the doors shut, muffling the whining and the screeching mingi was polluting his surroundings with. 
your forearms were rested on the surface of the wooden barriers, and your eyes looked dead straight in attempt to avoid his. the wooden barrier creaks, and you catch a glimpse of his hands gripping the rough surface, his torso leaning over it at an angle so he could meet your eyes without needing to shift you.
the thumping and racing in your chest was so rapid and aggressive, you wish you were dead instead. your lips parted, already prepared to say sorry and get the hell out of his life before he breaks your heart first.
“seonghwa, i--”
“no, it’s okay,” his voice was gentle in the almost-quiet atmosphere. “i was already suspecting it, and you only confirmed it.”
the blood rushes from your feet into your face, and your knuckles whiten from the amount of effort you channeled into holding the wooden barriers to support yourself. the last thing you wanted to do was to pass out infront of him. 
“i know you don’t feel the same, but i don’t want this to ruin our friendship,” mustering enough courage, you turn to him and lock pleading eyes with his. 
“well, neither do i. i wish i could ignore it, and if you were just any other girl, i wouldn’t have bothered having this conversation with you,” he turns and leans his lower back against the wooden boards. “but it’s you and you’re one of the few things i can’t risk losing.” 
silence. 
“this friendship is more important than whether or not you reciprocate. so even if you did, i’d be terrified to even start one with you... in fear that we’d break up and everything prior wouldn’t mean anything,” the words roll of your tongue with such fluidity, it surprised you even more than it did for seonghwa. 
“if that’s the case, then i’m relieved,” he pushes himself off the wooden planks and digs his fingers into the top of your head, ruffling your hair. “i don’t want our friendship to finish so pathetically either, so i take it that you want this conversation to be just between us?”
the nerves in your body tell you to nod, and you carry it out before the thoughts even get processed.
a weak smile curls his lips upwards, and he removes his hand from your head. “okay. you have my word.”
~~~~~~~~ NOW ~~~~~~~~~
so just like that. 
you and seonghwa made a silent deal never to tell anybody, and you made an effort to shove your feelings for him so far down your heart, you think you might’ve shat it out into a random toilet bowl in the last six years or so. 
“anyway,” you recall how you even got to this part of the conversation. “so don’t do anything remotely dumb in the office. if anybody encourages you to do it, i’ll murder them myself.”
his teeth glimmer in the light and the water starts running its way through the bubbles and foam on his hand and the plates in the sink. 
you stay long enough to remind seonghwa not to do anything stupid in his office the next day and to lock the door whenever he wasn’t in, at least five times over. seonghwa forces you to eat some strange concoction of ginseng and peach juice before you had to run out the door and straight home. 
the next day at work passed strangely quicker, and much quieter than you thought. 
seonghwa didn’t spend much time outside you office, and your colleagues handling external liaisons were busy too. it wasn’t difficult to figure out that despite seonghwa saying that companies wouldn’t be approaching him for new partnerships, one big one must’ve come by to keep him in his little box in the corner of the floor. 
but more often than not, being seonghwa’s secretary made you feel obligated to stay until he actually chased you home. and even if he did, you’d try to peel him away from his workspace too, well aware that he’d probably spend the night in his office if you didn’t.
today wasn’t an exception. 
the last external liaison officer left the office and waved goodbye to you, leaving you at your desk in the cubicle nearest to seonghwa’s office. 
you gather the contract summaries and place them into a clear file, throwing your phone into your suitcase and pulling your blazer over your shoulders. after you hand him the contract administration file, you’re going to make sure he went home today, even if it meant shoving him off his seat. 
you stretch out your arms to straighten the sleeves of the blazer, one hand clutching onto your suitcase and the other holding the file. turning off the light at your desk left seonghwa’s office light as the last remaining source of illumination of the area. 
“seonghwa,” you call out, trapping the file between your elbow and your rib as you knocked on the door.
“door’s open,” his voice sounded so tired and strained, you wish you could scold him for being so hardworking, but that was just the way he is.
“i thought i told you to lock the door,” seonghwa’s eyes were plastered to the computer screen, sheets of paper strewn about on the desk. usually you’d be surprised, given how neat and organised seonghwa had to be. but since this must’ve been one hell of a contract, you could understand that he lost some of his bearings. 
“i’m in the office, there’s no reason for me to lock it,” his eyes tear away from the screen and look down at the papers. 
the office smelled like febreeze, which you already were used to. seonghwa sighs a loud sigh and he gets out of his seat, stretching his limbs while you walk around to his desk, placing the file down and picking up some of the sheets he was just looking at. 
you drop your suitcase to your feet and your eyes naturally begin to skim through the brand new contract he spent the entire day obsessing over. seonghwa shifts and you hear his shoes pace up and down the space behind you, probably trying to get the blood circulation going from the hours of sitting down. 
the lamp sitting on his desk illuminates the papers in your hands into a bright white, and the printed black words become so much shinier under it. 
“oh? samsung?” your eyes widen slightly at the name printed on the sheet. “no wonder you’ve been in here the whole day.”
he hums, and you start to feel his torso looming over you from behind. 
“what else do you have to do though?” you flip through the sheets, and he pushes your hair aside, his fingers lightly brushing against the skin under your ear. 
“not funny, seonghwa,” the frown deepens into your forehead when you notice all the sheets had already been filled up. “are you clearing emails? if you’ve filled up the contract sheets then there’s no reason for you to be her--”
the pressure on your lower back combined with the soft breathing on your neck cuts off the oxygen from your nose to your lungs. the air hitting your skin causes goosebumps to erupt all over your skin, and you start to cringe from the ticklish sensation. you flinch and your shoulder shrugs up to your ear as you turn around, taken aback to realise he was standing right behind you, barely giving you any space to turn. 
“uh...” the air was eerily still, and there was a strange look in his eyes that you don’t find familiar. your rear rests against the edge of the desk, and you pass the sheets to your left hand, right hand reaching up to wave it infront of seonghwa’s face. “are you okay?” 
“i’m more than fine,” gently wrapping his fingers around your palm, you raise a brow in confusion. 
you sigh and return the sheets back to the middle of the desk, hand still in his. “you look like you’re going to pass out, is there anything wrong?” 
naturally, your other hand finds his, and you pat the back of his hands like you were petting a dog.
“i need to ask something, and you gotta promise to answer me honestly,” there was a hint of fear and anxiety in his voice, and you didn’t like it. 
nonetheless, he was one of your best friends and he wouldn’t ever hurt you, no matter what he said.
he was probably going to ask something you would find offensive.
“alright,” you release his hands and cross your arms over your chest. “hit me.”
seonghwa shoves both his hands into his pocket and straightens his back, the change in posture making him look taller than what you were used to seeing. 
“do you still feel the same?”
the muscles in your neck snap your head backwards, and both eye brows lift themselves further away from your eyes. a small snort escapes your nose, and you start to nibble on your thumb. 
“‘still feel the same’? about what? about what happened seven years ago in your living room?” 
the smile doesn’t disappear from your lips, and it only gets wider when seonghwa nods. 
“park seonghwa,” you chortle, lifting your hand up to his forehead and pressing so hard into his skull that his head tilts backwards. “are you sure you’re okay? because i’m pretty sure that’s your juiced-out brain talking.”
one foot was already turned to walk out from between him and the desk, but he slams his left hand onto the surface of the expensive wood, and the loud slap of skin against wood startles you. 
your head whips to the left to look at him, and it dawns on you that he wasn’t messing with you. not a single feature on his face twitched, and you could see his soul crawling out of his eyes and threatening to squeeze into yours. 
“an honest answer.”
the most vital organ in your body starts to race, and the sensation yanks you back seven years to when seonghwa figured it out for himself. 
you haven’t felt the same kind of panic and worry since then. 
“i’d like to believe i’ve gotten over you, why?” the neurons in your brain struggled a little to piece that sentence together. 
“so it’s not a definite ‘no’?”
straightening yourself, you pat down your blazer and jab a finger into his shoulder. “did you not hear a word i just said?” 
“y/n,” this time he grabs your wrist, and you could feel the groves and bones of his fingers. “it was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.”
a pause, and you start hearing your heart in your ears. 
“do you still feel the same?”
everything inside you screams ‘no’, but you were well aware that if you had to even convince yourself that that was the case, then it was obvious the answer is ‘yes’. you start screeching at yourself in your own head, knowing that if you kept quiet any longer, seonghwa’s sharp eyes and extreme situational awareness was going to help him crack the code. 
“i--”
“so it’s a ‘yes’.”
fuck me.
“seonghwa, let me explain, okay? it’s not that i didn’t try, i’m just letting those... stupid feelings wear away on its own,” you writhe yourself out his hold and he releases you, but you couldn’t prepare yourself for what he said or did next. 
“there’s nothing to explain, just let your heart tell you what’s good for you.”
there wasn’t a single cell inside you that could tell you why you were so scared, so when seonghwa cups your cheeks with his hands and presses his lips against yours, the realisation pulls your eyes wide open. 
red and white sirens go off violently in your head like declarations of war, and your palms press flat against his chest to push him back.
“what are you-- seonghwa, if you think this is funny, then you need to know that it’s not. at all.”
“no, please, i didn’t mean to make you think i’m messing with you,” his eyes soften, and you were relieved to realise that the seonghwa standing in front of you right now was the one you recognised.
“really? because if we weren’t friends for like ten years, i’d think you’re just another playboy.”
seonghwa offers a weak chuckle, and he rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment. you take a few deep breaths to steady your heart, the mind-boggling situation not exactly resting in a comfortable spot in your head. 
“is that how you really see me? a playboy?” he raises a brow with mischief, and the slowly diminishing gap between the two of you alarms your senses all over again. 
“i’m well aware of how the girls in school used to look at you,” his breath starts to hit your upper lip again, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand. 
“okay, but that was seven years ago,” you watch with the slightest pinch of horror when his hands run up your arms and rest on your shoulders. “but now we’re both adults and i’m sure you’re mature enough to understand your own feelings, regardless of what i was treated as in school.”
“could you hurry up and get to the point?” you frown when he leans in again, your head slowly inching backwards. “all this beating around the bush is going to piss me off and i’m going to leave you here alone and go home.”
the sound of his laughter landed in your ears like music, and you let it run through you that it was one of the many things that led you to fall for him. 
“okay, well...” he licks his lips ever so subtly, and he tilts his head so you didn’t need to. “if you still have feelings for me then i want you to know that i have feelings for you too.”
the confession rests on your skin like a layer of silk, and your eyes somehow become comfortable closing this time round. 
he tasted exactly the way you’d expect him to: strawberries.
your hands were still awkwardly gripping the edges of the table, so when he finds them and pulls them around his own neck, that was when you lost all sense of reality. 
you couldn’t decide between kissing him because you still had feelings for him or because you’ve spent so much time being comfortable around him, some part of you felt so at home.
the line was so thin that you physically felt it disappear. 
the thought of it was kind of messed up, but it was seonghwa, the one who stayed your friend despite knowing you had feelings for him, the one who stayed and protected you by not telling anybody else. 
not wooyoung, not hongjoong, not mingi. 
the feeling of your entire existence, and the last seven years, melt into that kiss was so heartfelt, and it may have been your feelings for seonghwa talking, but his lips against yours felt like heaven-born puzzle pieces meant for each other. 
seonghwa picks you up and places you on the desk, the kisses soft and gentle, and his fingers on your cheek made you feel like heaven all on its own.
if hongjoong were here, you just know he was going to yell at the two of you for choosing intimacy over your friendship, but for two people who had mutual feelings for each other, there wasn’t much anybody could do about it. 
seonghwa breaks the kiss and he gives you a gorgeous smile, the sight shoving a hundred butterflies into your stomach while the strawberry taste lingers on your lips. 
“tell me if you’re uncomfortable--”
“we’re in the office--”
“camera’s not working.”
a small scoff runs off your tongue, and he dips his nose into your neck. kisses the weight of feathers land on your skin, and your heart starts running through your chest like it was in a competition. his hands push your legs open, the sudden jerk shooting little bolts of shock up your spine.
whines start to drip over your lips upon the kisses on your neck, and seonghwa drags his palms up your thighs, the pressure slightly but never overwhelming.
he wraps his arms around your waist when he returns his attention to your lips, pulling you so close to him that your chest was pressed against his, and your nose starts to pick up on his scent. 
your weight begins to shift backwards as his hands messily push all the things on his table to the side, laying you on your back but never once breaking the kiss. 
“this is so not okay,” you huff embarrassedly, arm finding your forehead when he pulls away. you heard him gulp, and it reminds you that he must be as anxious as you were, if not even more.
“are you really okay with letting me do this?” he presses a kiss into your cheek, fingers caressing your knees that he held on either sides of his hips. “you can say no, and we’ll be fine. we let it go once, we can let it go again.”
the look in his eyes were so dangerously comforting, you felt your mind glitch a little trying to process them. seonghwa was so genuine and sincere about your feelings that it made you nauseous. the pricetag the both of you were putting on tonight was your friendship. 
one wrong move and it could all go down the drain.
“i’m okay as long as i know that you’ll still be here, even if anything goes wrong.”
seonghwa looks at you with slightly sorrowful eyes, before he kisses you again, and the amount of comfort and promise that you absorbed from it was enough to make you tear up. 
“i’ll never leave you, even if we aren’t a couple and if we’re just friends... even if we stop talking fifty years down the road, i’ll still want you to be by my side in the afterlife.”
your nose sours at his little speech, and your heart shatters without warning. pulling him back to your lips, you kiss him like life was going to tear him away from you. 
seonghwa drinks your love and need for affection with ease, fingers trailing down your stomach and under your skirt to play with the rims of your underwear. 
fingers slide under the material and he smiles into the kiss when he realises your body needed him more than you’d like to admit. you would’ve slapped him across the face if he pulled away just to tease you, but he doesn’t.
he swallows a loud groan from you when he slips a finger in, and your grip around his shoulders tighten upon the blissful sensation. 
your fingers start to fumble with the dress shirt he was wearing under his blazer, and bit by bit, the whiteness of his skin start to remind you of milk. 
seonghwa removes his finger and sucks it like a lollipop, his eyes flying up to the dress shirt around your chest and he does the same for you. 
you couldn’t contain the mewls that slipped through your teeth when he undoes enough buttons to expose your cleavage, and the kisses on the curves of your breast felt like you were already one foot into the afterlife. 
the last button on his dress shirt comes undone, and you marvel at his torso. for a split second, you felt so proud you fell for him not because of his face or body, but because of his personality. yet, now with the knowledge that he looked like that under the layers of clothes, it was too difficult a task to hide the lust that overcame you almost instantaneously.
“hold your horses, kitten,” he pulls away from your chest, at the same time removing your underwear from under your skirt. your eyes involuntarily lock with his, and again, you couldn’t recognise them.
“who are you and what have you done to park seonghwa?” you mock him in attempt to calm your own bundle of nerves. a smirk pulls his lips up in the corner, and he yanks you to the edge of the table where his groin was dangerously near your exposed core. 
“i’m yours and he’ll come back once i’m done with you.”
you throw your head back into the table when he kneels down, and his tongue finds your sensitive nub. your fingers run through your own hair when he starts flicking against you, occasionally lapping your dripping neediness up. he doesn’t push into you, which was both frustrating and pleasuring at the same time. 
you start to lose your grip on reality, and just as you were about to protest against him being such a tease, he removes his face from your south and begins undoing his belt. 
your lids were droopy with lust, and watching him undo the button and zipper of his pants made it so much more worth it. 
“i wish i knew this day was coming,” you whisper to him as he leans over you again, one arm holding his torso above you and the other, you assume, pulling his underwear low enough to release himself from the material. 
“so you can tell the girls that you’re having sex with me in the office?”
the line sounded so lewd, blood began rushing both down to your south and up to your cheeks.
“what, you’re shy now?” the brow he raises was so smug, you would’ve bitten down on his bottom lip if you didn’t suddenly gasp when he plunged into you without warning. 
your chin tilts so sharply towards the ceiling, he had to pull it back down for him to shove his tongue into your mouth, and a pinch of pain seeps through your entrance into your thighs. 
the harsh, rougher kisses were pulling inappropriate noises out from your throat, and he starts thrusting into you when he assumes you’ve gotten used to him. his right hand was supporting his weight by the side of your head, and his left palm was gripping onto your thigh with such immense strength, you were sure he was going to leave marks by the time you were done. 
seonghwa finally pulls away, beads of sweat forming on his forehead and his pants becoming more apparent. your arms grip onto the edge of the desk above your head, and tears start to form in your eyes when the pain completely dissolves into pleasure and bliss. 
“my pretty, pretty, secretary,” he huffs into your ear and licks the edge of your skin, the contact sending you over an edge and the friction in your abdomen drilling dirty thoughts into your head. 
“seonghwa--” the thrusts get deliberately harder and rougher, the sudden bucking of his hips enough to jerk the entire table. “oh-- shit--”
the tip of him starts to ram into a magical spot inside you, and your eyes roll into the back of your head when he doesn’t stop.
“be a good girl and come for me.”
every word literally gets hammered into you, and it sends you into an abyss of bright light while your legs shiver in ecstasy, and seonghwa pulls out shortly after, his speed allowing him to grab some napkin from the corner of his table so that he wouldn’t release anywhere on his desk. 
you struggle to catch your breath, and seonghwa reaches over to clean you off the table. 
“oh, no,” you cover your mouth and give a painful chuckle. 
“what is it?” his voice was soft and smooth again, and the gears in your head stop to process that this was the same person who just called you a good girl a few moments ago.
he pulls your hand away and gives you a light kiss on your lips, eyes scanning your face with worry and concern. 
“i told you not to do anything dumb, but i ended up doing it with you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: WHOO ok that was kinda long for a one shot. anyway, it’s super mellow compared to what i did for pilot juyeon so i hope you (smut)readers don’t mind heh. i’m still working on HOSTIS chapter 2, so look out for it! it should be up any time in the next few days. 
thank you for reading, and stay safe!!
- love, dana
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howrry · 5 years
Text
ice
a/n: finally! i’m settled into skool lyfe and bella is back in business bitch (we love alliteration) here is that full fic of ice i’ve been hinting at :~)
w/c: 4.2k
warnings: this fic has an age gap of about 4 years and one of the characters is an older teenager! this is totally legal where i’m from but if it’s not where you are or it makes you uncomfortable then maybe don’t read this? also smut
***
Waiting for that one Facetime was like watching a huge pot of water boil. It was cliché, but you were running out of mundane things to do since you’d gotten home from uni. Seriously—laundry, reorganizing your soulless childhood room, even fully unpacking despite having weeks to get comfortable. Of course, as soon as you came back, you had your reunion with your parents and other family, but you hadn’t quite reached the seeing-friends phase of coming home.
At least, not until that lovely ringtone hummed through your room and you pounced on the bed, swiping on Gemma’s beautiful face. “Babe!” you cried.
“Hush,” she joked, crunching on a red apple on her side of the screen. You could hear her turn down the volume by clicking the buttons on her phone.
“Are you ready for me, then?” you asked, bouncing up and down on your tippy toes.
“No, don’t want to see you,” she crunched again, “just wanted to call to see how your mum’s doing. Of course I’m ready, twit!”
“Watch your language!” you chastised. “But I’ll be over in a New York minute.”
Getting ready was a rush—at this point you were just ready to get down the street. You shoved your feet into your Birks and grabbed your phone and keys, and once you’d padded down the stairs, your parents merely got a “be at Gem’s, later!” before you slammed the door.
When you got there, it was Harry who greeted you. You’d knocked and waited, since their house was always locked anyways. He threw the door open so fast that his cross necklace was still swinging when he rested his head on his forearm propped up on the doorframe. “Sorry, we don’t want any Girl Scout cookies,” he joked, smirking around his own jab.
“Ha ha ha,” you sarcastically bit. “Move it, Fisher-Price, I’m here for your sister.”
“I had a great semester, thank yeh for askin’,” he smiled, moving back and letting you in. “What about y’self?”
“It was productive, actually. Good to see you again, H,” you responded congenially. Ahh, the smell of your friend’s home was so nostalgic and inviting. It was fall all year round with the pumpkin in the living room, vanilla in the foyer, pine needles upstairs…
“Likewise,” he winked just before you went upstairs to your friend’s room.
Harry had always been a little charmer. Anne raised him to be very polite and he was naturally entertaining despite his introverted tendencies, but he’d always been Gemma’s annoying little brother to you. He always tried to butt into your hangouts with her, as far back as when he was four and you were eight and he wanted to play outside with you two, up to when he was 15 and you were 19 and he tried to buy beer from Gemma.
But soon, things changed. Harry got taller and his voice dropped and his skin got clear, and suddenly he wasn’t just the annoying little brother anymore. He was almost an adult, and he certainly developed a way with girls. The first time you went to see Gem and Harry had a girl over, something you couldn’t describe churned in your stomach. There’s no way Harry didn’t notice the way you cut your eyes when you initially saw her.
Ever since then, he just took a different light in your eyes. Going to Gemma’s house suddenly had double the benefits since you were seeing your best friend and her stupid hot little brother. If she left you alone for any period of time, you’d do anything to get Harry’s attention. He would chat with this amused smirk, one hand in his pocket and the other fiddling with his cross necklace, as if he knew you were subtly pining.
It was honestly kind of pathetic. He was still in high school, and you were in the home stretch of university. You had a potential hook-up pool that was at least five times the size of his and a much better selection, yet you were yearning for a guy who can’t even buy his own cigarettes.
But you didn’t care, and obviously Harry didn’t either. He humored your goofy flirting and gave it right back to you. For the most part, it was just harmless compliments and light schoolyard jabs and never escalated past that, until, well, it did.
You were going to go to brunch with Gemma that day. She’d gotten a part-time job as a photographer’s intern downtown that year, and invited you to try a new café with her. It was the perfect excuse to wear that flowy Free People dress you got, so you agreed.
While getting ready, Gemma called you in a panic. “Y/N! I forgot my wallet on my vanity at home,” she breathed. “Do you mind getting it before coming over?”
“Not a problem,” you hummed, checking your lipstick.
“Thanks, love. My mum left the front door unlocked when she got in this morning so just make yourself at home looking for it. See you soon!” Gemma blew a kiss into the phone before hanging up.
Her front door was open, just like she warned, and you hopped up the stairs to her room. Unfortunately, Gemma was more of the messy type, so finding her wallet was no easy task. Her vanity was covered in makeup and hair care bottles and papers from the previous semester. Where the hell could the wallet possibly be?
“Looking for somethin’?” Harry asked, leaning on the door frame with a Coke can in hand.
You looked up, pushing the hair that had fallen in your face to the side. “Need your sister’s wallet. It’s brunch time.”
“Ooh, bring me back a ricotta toast,” he ordered, reaching into Gemma’s Louis purse hanging by her door and pulling out her black wallet.
“You’d be lucky if I brought back a napkin,” you sneered, taking the wallet from him and going to shove past him.
He blocked your exit and held a hand up to your shoulder. “Wait, doll. Your earring is twisted backwards.” The hand that stopped you trailed up to softly ghost across your face and fix your earring, which must have gotten tangled in your wild goose chase.
Fuck, he was close. You could hear the soft breaths fanning out from his nostrils, his almost disinterested gaze slowly morphing into his classic smirk, and hand not leaving your skin in a timely fashion. His piercing green eyes rendered you stupidly frozen.
And the tension snapped. Within minutes he had you out of your dress and was fucking you into Gemma’s floral duvet. Everything was happening so fast; you didn’t even stop to think about how wrong it was. The feel of his teeth dragging across your neck and the stretch of his cock inside you were really the only things on your mind at that point.
It was rough and quick and dirty (and quite possibly the hottest thing you’ve ever done) but by the time you two were adjusting yourselves and catching your breath, you were twenty minutes late to lunch. You blamed it on traffic and Gemma didn’t care to push it.
So that’s how it started. It wasn’t anything exclusive, it wasn’t intimate, and it certainly wasn’t something you talked about outside of the bedroom. “The bedroom” being figurative, of course, since Harry and you liked to get it on whenever you had the chance. It wasn’t weird if you ended up bent over a washing machine or on your knees in front of him pressed up against the wall in a hallway.
When you thought about it, like reallypondered in a hot shower, you knew it was fucked up to be doing what you’re doing. It’s not like it was illegal—you just felt like you were betraying Gemma. You were closer to her than anyone else in the world and you were sneaking around with her brother.
He didn’t make it fair, though. He was so poised and smooth and fucked like he wasn’t still in AP Physics. The way he bantered with not only you but his sister and mother was definitely more witty than most boys his age. It only made sense to let him rearrange your guts.
So you had a bit of an internal dilemma. Frankly, if your little affair is well kept from Gemma, it shouldn’t be a problem at all. So you thought.
***
“So, do you have lice or something?” Gemma asked, raising an eyebrow from behind her magazine. The two of you had finally settled into winter break time and were taking turns spending at each other’s houses. Today, it was girls’ night at the Styles’ home.
You froze, one hand ruthlessly digging in your hair. “What? No. There’s just a wicked knot in my hair and I can’t get it out.” It was in the most unfortunate location on the back of your scalp, and your fingers could make no sense of the mat of hair.
“Do you need some help?” she offered, setting down her literature.
You reared back even though she was sitting at her desk across the room. “Gross, you just painted your nails! No thanks. Besides, I think I’m getting it.”
She shrugged and blew on her soft blue nails. “Whatever. I’m getting a yogurt.”
“I want one too,” you hummed, sliding off her comfortable duvet and gently pulling out a few strands of broken hair. A tiny plopaccompanied your feet on the rug and you spun in confusion. The noise was too soft to be a phone, but you still checked that yours was in your pocket. Barely visible in the fibers of the shag rug rested a solid black metallic ring. It was Harry’s.
You stared at it in horror. The ring had been in your goddamn hair. Earlier that day you’d given Harry a blowjob that left him slack-jawed and pink-cheeked and his hands had been so tangled up in your hair that your hair stole his ring. Which just fell out onto the floor in Gemma’s room.
“Is that Harry’s ring?” she hissed, gaze locking on the ring standing out from the white rug.
Oh no. Oh fuck oh fuck fuck fuck—
“He’s such a twat. Why does he leave his jewelry everywhere? You could’ve stepped on that!” she continued, reaching down to pick it up. “I’m gonna throw it in the trash.”
When she moved to her trash bin, your eyes widened and you squealed a “don’t!” That ring was really nice and you knew Harry would be devastated if she threw it out.
Gemma turned slowly. “Why?”
Your mind raced to think of a good excuse. “Because, if you throw out a ring he wears all the time, he’ll throw out something of yours that youcherish.” You gestured towards her vanity where the Tiffany box sat. She’d just bought herself a necklace for doing so well on her exams and you knew that Harry would retaliate with it.
Your best friend eyed the necklace and then the ring in her fingers. “You’re right,” she finally agreed. You let out a huge breath—there was always the risk of being too weird about Harry and blowing your own cover, but once Gemma ducked into her brother’s room and pinged Harry’s back with the ring, you knew the cover was totally intact.
***
God, you didn’t want to party. The break ended next week and soon it’d be books and schedules and debt again. Who could be shotgunning 4Lokos at a time like this?! Plus, none of the bars were open this day of the week so the only option was a freakin’ house party. What uni students over the age of 21 go to house parties?
But Gemma wanted to, and what she wants, she gets. Though you loved her tenacious attitude at times, all you cared about right now was taking off your revealing top and climbing into bed.
You nursed on straight Coke in the kitchen and absentmindedly watched Gemma go hard. You trusted her and vice versa; she knew her limits but still could have a really, really good time. The men of the party were in awe as she threw back tequila and slapped the bag right after, and even the inside of yourmouth was feeling withered just watching her.
“Hey, there,” you heard from off to the side. You casually lulled your head over to see a shockingly attractive guy. He had thick, dark hair with a sprinkling of light brown freckles on the bridge of his nose.
“Hi. You lost?” you joked, moving to make room on the upholstered bench next to you, where the mystery man joined you.
“Not anymore.” Mm. The faint scent of alcoholic breath wafted to your face but this stranger was keeping his composure quite well. “I’m Russell.”
“Y/N, pleasure,” you hummed, shaking his hand.
He started chatting you up, but to be fair, it was in one ear and out the other. He was clearly throwing words to the wind, and not even his good looks or nice cologne could draw your attention. It wasn’t like Harry, who could entice you with conversations about chopped liver if he so wanted to.
Ahh, Harry. You wondered what he was up to right now. He was probably at a party himself, drinking watery beer and flirting with any bird with eyelash extensions that gave him attention. God, why were you getting so jealous of him? You certainly didn’t owe him any loyalty and neither did he. In fact, if you so desired, you could go out and get laid right now and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it!
Your attention drifted back to the cute boy next to you. Somehow, as Russell droned on about his recent physics prof, you started to see Harry in his features. Certainly not in anything coming out of his mouth, but the curls that flopped down into his face were just like H’s after he’s played footy all day. Russell’s hands had prominent veins on them, just like Harry’s hands when they were grabbing at your skin and smacking your ass. Even the way he toyed with his bottom lip while thinking aloud.
Though H was really the last person you wanted on your mind right now, all these physical thoughts were making Russell more and more attractive by the minute. He wasn’t Harry, but maybe he could be Great Value Harry. You reciprocated his flirty chatter and got touchy with him, and things quickly devolved into kissing in the corner of the kitchen you two occupied.
Things were happening surprisingly fast for how sober you were. You went upstairs with him, you made out with him on a random bed, you undressed each other, and before you knew it he was rolling on a condom and pushing himself into you.
It wasn’t necessarily that it was bad sex. Russell had soft lips that kissed your neck as he thrusted and he certainly wasn’t small, but it didn’t really blow you out of the water. Your toes didn’t curl and your eyes didn’t roll back into your skull. He even lasted a decent amount of time, but once you made your mind up about not getting an O, you kinda just wanted it to end.
Once it did, he got busy falling asleep and you tried to not take it personally (c’mon, it’s pretty taxing for a guy to cum). You tugged your clothes back on and went out to look for Gemma, and of course she was upstairs as well, throwing up into a bathroom trashcan.
“Hey, Gem, how you feel?” you asked, rubbing at her back and tucking your hair behind your ears.
“Better now that this is out of me. Wanna go home?” she mumbled, sighing and wistfully staring at the toilet that she was seconds from making it into.
“Yep. C’mon, I’ll call an Uber,” you said to no one, hoisting a lackadaisical Gemma onto your shoulder and out of the house.
Once home, getting Gemma situated was the most difficult part. Her mother worked late and Harry was probably out, but even without the chance of running into one of her family members, she was still heavy. Her choice to not use her legs at all certainly didn’t do you any favors, either.
When the front door opened and the familiar smell of her abode hit Gemma’s nose, she perked up. It became minimally easier to hoist her up the stairs and into her bed. You did your best to scrub at the makeup that had lasted through her dancing and puking without waking her, but she was so tired and lulled to sleep by her drinks that an earthquake wouldn’t make her stir for at least eight hours. You nodded at the unopened cheap water on her nightstand, reminding yourself to get her a reusable bottle.
Your work was done. Gemma was snoring smoothly within minutes with a clean face and a drink waiting for her in the morning. You got laid, even though you were completely sober, it wasn’t exactly a great dick review, and you’re a 21-year-old who got fucked at a house party. Maybe it was just time to go home and accept the night for… whatever it was. You padded downstairs softly despite the minor coma your best friend was in. Common courtesy, you supposed.
Thump.
Face first into a chest. It was totally dark in the house and you definitely didn’t expect there to be a solid torso in Gemma’s living room for you to bump into. A sharp gasp filled your lungs and the figure reached behind and clicked the lamp on. Harry, of course.
“Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” you breathed, slapping a hand to your chest.
“It’s my house,” he grumbled. As your eyes adjusted to the light, you saw his puffy eyes and messy hair and wrinkled clothes. He’d been sleeping.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you? I thought you’d be out.” Just seeing him in such a soft state made your lower belly swirl.
He shook his head a bit. “What are y’doing here?”
“Went to a party with Gem. She got too wild so I put her to bed,” you bluntly explained.
Harry pursed his lips, crossing his arms and eyeing you focusedly. “Did you have a good time?”
“No,” you answered quickly, because you didn’t. “I didn’t drink and I had to take care of Gemma and I fucked someone.” That last part fell out of your mouth before you had a chance to think twice.
There were a few beats of a heavy silence and you wondered if you made a mistake. “Did they fuck you good, baby?” he finally asked, no emotion inflecting his words.
You couldn’t have been less prepared for that response. “No,” you whimpered, face getting hot at his critical stare.
“Oh, doll, they couldn’t fuck yeh like I can, huh?” His voice was pure sex—every response he had to you threw you off more than the last. Everything he said just floated off his tongue and danced into the room and onto whosever’s ears they were around.
“No, they couldn’t,” you choked out. You felt like your throat was closing. “No one fucks me like you do and I can’t understand it. I shouldn’t be seeing you because it’s so wrong but...” God, shut up shut up shut up. Your word vomit amused Harry beyond belief. The smug look on his face was making you feel even smaller than his height already did.
“Oh, I know what you’re sayin’, doll,” he laughed. “You wanna do the right thing by m’sister but yeh just can’t. Deep down y’know you’ll always come back to me, hmm?” Harry took a step towards you, and you completely froze. You thought that he was about to bend down and kiss you but he surprised you yet again by snapping a hand up and gripping it around your neck. “I own you, y’hear me?”
You nodded, or at least the best you could with his vice grip on you. Every breath you tried to take stopped short in the back of your throat, and it almost felt like your feet were about to lift off the ground. Your own hands flew up to claw at Harry’s hand before his grip finally softened. A thick gasp sucked in and your legs threatened to not support your body, but he grabbed at you and steadied you. His fingers grazed your quivering lips. “Who’s mouth is this?” he asked, intently staring.
“Yours,” it came out as a whisper. Normally he’d be much meaner and wouldn’t accept such a quiet response, but he was feeling generous, apparently. He leaned down and kissed you, sucking in on your bottom lip and biting the red flesh.
The two of you made your way down to the couch, such that you were straddling Harry and he was cupping at your ass. Your hair kept falling in your faces, but he didn’t care and continued to kiss you and grab at your throat.
He took a break and leaned back on the couch, taking his time to lazily cup at the soft skin behind your thighs. “Mmm, and who’s ass is this?” When you breathed out another “yours” he smacked it audibly. “Goddamn right, pet.”
He didn’t take your shirt off, nor any of his clothes. He lifted you just enough for you to tug your shorts and panties down, and for him to pull his leaking cock out of his dark sweats. You tried to tease for a moment, grinding your bare center against him, but he put a stop to that. “Do I even have t’ask if this is mine?” he growled, assertively cupping your cunt with his big hand. You shook your head and he smirked, guiding his tip up and down your slit.
“Nope, because I know it’s mine,” he whispered, letting you slip his whole length inside your wet pussy. He shoved his hands up the back of your shirt, dragging his nails down the soft skin. Once you’d bottomed out and you were desperately grinding your clit against his pubic bone, he put a hand flat on your chest. “Lean back and ride me, pet.”
You obeyed to the best of your ability. You put your hands behind you on his knees and shifted your weight back, allowing him to fully watch himself disappear into you. The coarse, dark curls at the base of his member lightly stimulated your clit on the downstrokes, making you helplessly whimper while you fucked yourself on him.
“Are yeh sure you fucked someone?” he grunted. “So fuckin’ tight, I just don’t believe it.” His fingers snaked down and played around with your clit, which undoubtedly threw off your bouncing. Your hips begged to stay down and enjoy the circles he was tracing over your button, but he wouldn’t let you. His free hand went to your hip, just above where it bent into your thigh, and guided you to start moving again. “Uh-uh. Keep ridin’ me, love. I know yeh can keep a rhythm, hmm?”
So you kept riding. The pressure of his tip ghosting around your G-spot combined with him stimulating your clit was making it difficult to stay quiet. Sure, Gem was asleep, but she wasn’t dead, and if you made a ridiculous amount of noise, she’d definitely investigate.
“Gonna cum, aren’t yeh?” he asked, and fuck, he was right. That knot was already starting to form in your lower belly.. “I can tell. Yeh gonna let go, all over m’cock? Gonna make a mess fo’ me?”
His words caused you to spill over, and you were no longer able to hold yourself up leaning back. He was very forgiving of this, and let you grab at his shoulders while riding out your high. Once you’d stopped shaking and panting into his neck, he thrusted his hips up into you once, twice, three times and came inside of you with a grunt and some more nail-digging, this time into your thighs.
And then it was silent. You meekly got off of him and shakily pulled your shorts back up. You two quietly redressed, Harry nearly dead from his draining orgasm and you weak in the legs from your sexual workout. The only noise was the scratch of fabric on fabric and your shared heavy breathing. Finally, when you were gathering your things to leave, Harry spoke in his sultry, hoarse voice.
“I like when you come around,” he smiled, and you immediately returned it. It didn’t seem like much, but this was Harry’s way of expressing affection. Regardless of how good he was in bed or how witty and charming he came off, he was still a goofy teenage boy who had trouble talking about his emotions.
A little giggle came out of your nostrils. “Thanks, Haz.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, hmm?” he asked, pinning that unconfident noise at the end despite knowing you’d be back. He was already relaxing, crossing his arms behind his head and lazily eyeing you scramble towards the front door.
“Yeah,” you dreamily affirmed, giving a quick wave to Harry (which he goofily returned) and floating out the front door. “Tomorrow,” you said to the empty street in front of you, toying with your car keys in your hands.
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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years
Video
youtube
KHALID - BETTER
[3.75]
I guess we just care a lot less about this guy when he doesn't have a female duet partner.
Taylor Alatorre: "With love, to the 915," reads the single cover, a dedication to Khalid's hometown of El Paso. Yet the lyrics contain no reference to El Paso or Texas or any place at all other than "down the street," and the music is 2010s urban contemporary that bears no regional hallmarks. What gives? Well, I've lived in Texas virtually my entire life, and I've never been to El Paso. It's 600 miles from where I am, separated by long stretches of highway with no gas stations or rest stops. In a state where road trips are part of the secular faith, the Trans-Pecos is so isolated that it may as well be on another continent. Khalid has chosen to breach this isolation not through detailed Drake-esque travelogues, but by distilling a homegrown romance into a cozy song that sounds like it could've come from anywhere. In part this is in keeping with his American Teen persona, but it also could stem from a desire, like his collaborator and kindred spirit Lorde, to have his reminiscences of life in a fringe town validated by mainstream exposure. All across America, and the world, kids are falling in love with each other right now, living through the same storylines with minute variations. Here is an end credits-worthy R&B jam, complete with vocoder, to celebrate that fact. The 915 could be your hometown, too. [8]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: A spiritual successor to "OTW" right down to how crucial the drums are in lifting this from bedtime music to bedtime music. The sappier tone and lack of features make it less interesting though and transforms any sleeping together back to sleeping, period. The vocoder'd outro is a nice touch but it's at odds with the nostalgic intimacy of the sampled talking that opens the track. It feels excessive and brash, betraying everything the song was slowly building up to; if we had simply been left with another sample that found two people talking together then Khalid would have been able to complete the narrative arc, bridging a gap between the plea and its evidence, between platitudes and truth, between art and life. [3]
Alfred Soto: To listen to "Better" and expect euphoria or even the pleasant feeling that you scratched an itch is to hope for moderation from Donald Trump's supporters. Self-loathing in the VIP room ain't what it used to be, nor are house piano and trap beats. [1]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Khalid's weaknesses as a performer -- his disengaged tone, his inability to emote in any direction without sounding at least a little weepy -- were covered by his deft songwriting and interesting production choices on the best tracks off of American Teen. But shorn of the Southwestern-tinged guitars of "Cold Blooded" or "Location" or the dancing melody of "Young Dumb and Broke," the Khalid of "Better" just seems boring. The problem is exacerbated by the beat itself, which is the kind of thing that a more adept performer like Jeremih or Ty Dolla Sign would tear up without second thought -- when the vocoder solo comes in at the end, it swallows our singer up rather than elevating him. [2]
Will Adams: "Nothing feels better than this" slurred as if he's just finished a fifth rum-n-Coke has to be ironic, right? Either way, "OTW" nailed the feeling of cruising together in the back of a called car, both in a late-night haze but excited by the promise of the night continuing on, while "Better" is lethargic and needs to be put to bed. [4]
Alex Clifton: I feel like somewhere out there there's going to be one of those YouTube caption videos where they try to discern what exactly Khalid is singing, since it sounds like he's drunk with a mouth full of marbles for much of the song. It's a shame because the rest of the song is so well-produced but they've done his vocals a real disservice here. [4]
Stephen Eisermann: The chill, laid back R&B production and beat serve Khalid's voice well, but this is just an elongated interlude. Nice to listen to, sure, but it should serve as nothing more than a thematic transition between album tracks because it's not very interesting. [4]
Katherine St Asaph: Khalid's normally a distinctive vocalist and songwriter; why does he sound like he's been given a Bieber song? [4]
[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]
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