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typograpic · 2 years

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Elizabeth Holmes seeks leniency for her Theranos fraud by arguing she’s someone ‘who tries to do the right thing’ and has few future prospects

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is casting herself as a Silicon Valley scapegoat who overcame an abusive relationship to become a loving mother in an effort to avoid a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors in her failed blood-testing company. In an 82-page document filed late Thursday, Holmes’ lawyers tried to persuade U.S. District Judge Edward Davila that sending Holmes to…

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taylorrepdetective · 6 months

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Since you like to say you’re always right, tell us what is next. You say you don’t make predictions, but you actually do, even if you don’t call them that.

Ok so I’m absolutely not always right. There have been some really big things I’ve been wrong about and a lot of small things too. And what I learned from that is to keep an open mind, and when I’m wrong about something, to figure out why I got it wrong and shift my world view in some ways to try to understand and guess better the next time. But it’s not even really about being able to guess. It’s about understanding when things happen. It is fun to be right on a guess though, when that happens.

The biggest thing I’ve learned, and luckily I learned it pretty early on in my time in this space, is that trying to figure out the timing something big will happen is absolutely a fools errand. And another thing to avoid is trying to come up with the exact, specific way Taylor (or others in her cinematic universe) will do something to get a point across. Like I can predict she will try to get a point across (set up a timeline, create a narrative, shore up a brand point) but I cannot predict exactly how or when she’ll do it. I also can predict she’ll set something up but then she never does. That’s because I think of lots of options. Some happen, some don’t. So this is the kind of thing I’m often wrong about. But I see them and always try to present them as options, not predictions. And if one of the options I think of happens, I have already spent time thinking about it, so it already makes sense to me.

I don’t know what’s next. She could drop TS11 at midnight. She could break up with Travis tomorrow, or announce her engagement next week. But I do not think any of those things is likely.

So here’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to me making a specific, timed prediction, because to me it seems quite clear:

What I do think is likely is that her jet will go to KC, ✅she’ll go to the game on Sunday✅, and her jet will then leave KC sometime between next Tuesday✅ and next Thursday. Why? Because it’s a home game, and she likes to go to home games and get the exposure and publicity that comes with that. She is working really hard at becoming an icon in KC, seem like her relationship is very serious for those who want to believe it’s serious, and she wants to shore up that relationship by spending time with him, his family, and his friends (also KC icons - the Mahomes mostly.)✅ All of this is so important to the story she’s creating. However, she won’t stay long ✅because that’s been her pattern. She also seems to be establishing that she also has her own busy, fabulous life✅ (she’s bejeweled and he lets her be✅) and when he’s busy with his football week (generally Tuesday-Sunday) he doesn’t have much time for her and she has her own life.✅This gives her the opposite option of the relationship being very serious. In other words it gives her an easy out for it to end. And Wednesday is her birthday. So she’ll either stay till Tuesday ✅and we’ll see or hear about birthday celebrations Sunday night/Monday, ✅then she’ll head out for further birthday celebrations with her other friends and family✅, or her jet will stay through her birthday, solidifying the seriousness of the relationship. But she will leave KC.✅ And then she’ll probably go to the game on Dec 17 in Boston✅. Why? Because it is a short hop from NYC, she has a huge fanbase there✅ and can expand it and shore it up, the patriots are bad so a win is likely✅, but they are a very popular team, so viewership (publicity) will be high✅. After that? Well she’s likely to spend more time in NYC✅/Nashville. Then she will probably go to the Christmas Day game in KC✅. This is a huge opportunity to “take the relationship to the next level” by spending the holidays together ✅, something the public absolutely loves to see and will further fuel the “engaged by the end of the year, after the Super Bowl at the latest” fire. Hopefully we’ll get something reputation-related for new years❌, so the extra publicity will help with that. Additionally all of this corresponds with the Eras film being released to streaming, another huge money making opportunity for her, and her attendance is an ad for the film.

After the new year, there will be some huge games with high viewership. They will be playing for playoff seeding. Then they almost assuredly will be in the playoffs✅. She will go to those games✅, which have even higher viewership, and will give her more free marketing for reputation and eras movie and anything else we don’t know about. After that, it will depend on how deep they go into the playoffs. They are no longer favored to be in the Super Bowl, but it is still a strong possibility✅. We all now know she can fly across the world after a concert to attend an event (she flew to the US during her time in SA, planned to a second time but couldn’t because of the events in Rio, and flew to London for 24 hrs for bey). The precedent has been set for her to fly from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. ✅There is no bigger stage than the Super Bowl (outside of the World Cup final, if you’re thinking internationally.) The free marketing potential there is something that would be very hard for her to pass up. And if Travis isn’t playing, Jason’s team might be, and they can go together to support him. Imagine the potential of travlor in a suite together with mama and papa kelce cheering on a retiring Jason❌✅ . And even if neither of them are in the game, they could still all go together and stand in a suite as a big happy family in front of an audience of 115 million Americans. Why wouldn’t she do this?✅

Will all that happen for sure? Of course not. But you can see the logic, right? Will there be other things that happen that I haven’t thought of? Most likely.✅ I don’t actually have a crystal ball. What kinds of things could derail this? Well there’s always the possibility of the black swan, but a more likely scenario is they lose again against a team they should beat✅ and/or Travis has another bad game✅. There is a real danger of people turning on her as a distraction ✅and I think they have their fingers on the pulse of this very closely. As long as KC keeps winning, and there’s a good chance they will win the rest of their games, all will be smooth❌✅.

Also I am not even thinking beyond February. I have one interesting thought about it, but it’s just too speculative to even mention here. But as we move through the next two months, I’ll get clues to be able to guess at what will happen after she goes back on tour after the Super Bowl✅. And if I’m wrong about all of this, which I may very well be because she is notoriously unpredictable sometimes, I will simply take it as a learning opportunity to understand her better.✅

#I’m editing the tags as time goes on to note what I got right and how and adding checks and can writhing the post #People mag confirmed they celebrated her bday Monday in KC and he’s busy and she’s busy and she will have a party w/o him in nyc #and were sure to mentioned he is focused on football #and he’s gotten some criticism for dropping passes and that flop #he had a bad game vs patriots and hasn’t had a good game in weeks #she’s still doing fine other than the Mahomes continuing ick #Travis essentially confirmed she went to Gillette. decide of her strong fanbase. bad team means cheap tix for swifties to take over #don’t know for sure but looks like she wants everyone to think she’s in KC for the week #a big football analyst tweeted she’s a distraction after the Christmas loss #they didn’t win the rest of their games and they struggled at the end of the season there and Travis struggled but #he miraculously hit his act together in time to help lead his team to the Super Bowl cementing his place as the elite TE and saved the day #and happiness is everywhere because the goal (SB and adorable power couple of the year) was met #next Grammys and Super Bowl for her and him going to shows in Australia I’m guessing #got the kelce family plus Taylor importance right but didn’t mention the possibility of Jason not in SB but in suite with tay.#obvious but sonce I didn mt mention it I gave myself a partial green check #one thing I didn’t know was about TTPD instead of a new re-recording #we already got our People article that he is looking forward to joining her on tour in Europe

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thesolutionpark · 10 months

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What is Digital Marketing? Benefits of Digital Marketing? Why should You hire a Digital Marketer?

Digital marketing refers to the use of digital channels and technologies to promote products, services, or brands to a target audience. It involves various online marketing tactics and strategies to engage potential customers, increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately boost sales and revenue.

Some common components of digital marketing include:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing websites and content to improve their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Content Marketing: Creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.

Social Media Marketing: Promoting products and services on social media platforms to reach and engage with the target audience.

Email Marketing: Sending targeted emails to nurture leads and maintain customer relationships.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Displaying ads on search engines and other websites and paying only when users click on the ads.

Influencer Marketing: Partnering with influencers or industry leaders to promote products or services.

Affiliate Marketing: Collaborating with affiliates who earn commissions for driving traffic and sales to your website.

Online PR: Engaging in online public relations activities to improve brand reputation and visibility.

Analytics and Data Analysis: Measuring and analyzing data to gain insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

Benefits of Digital Marketing:

Global Reach: Digital marketing enables businesses to reach a vast global audience regardless of their geographical location.

Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing often offers a more cost-effective way to reach and engage with potential customers.

Targeted Audience: Digital marketing allows businesses to target specific demographics, interests, behaviors, and locations, ensuring that the message reaches the right people.

Measurable Results: Digital marketing efforts can be tracked and measured using various tools, providing insights into the effectiveness of campaigns and areas for improvement.

Personalization: With data-driven insights, digital marketing allows businesses to personalize their messages and offers to individual customers, increasing relevance and engagement.

Real-Time Engagement: Digital marketing facilitates real-time interactions with customers, enabling businesses to respond promptly to inquiries and feedback.

Higher Conversion Rates: The ability to target specific audiences and personalize messages often leads to higher conversion rates compared to traditional marketing.

Why hire a Digital Marketer:

Expertise and Knowledge: Digital marketers are trained professionals with expertise in various digital marketing channels and strategies. They understand the latest trends, algorithms, and best practices to create effective campaigns.

Time and Resource Efficiency: Outsourcing digital marketing tasks to a professional allows businesses to focus on their core competencies while leaving marketing responsibilities to specialists.

Objective Perspective: Digital marketers can offer an objective perspective on marketing strategies, as they are not as emotionally attached to the business as the owners.

Data-Driven Approach: A digital marketer will analyze data and metrics to optimize marketing campaigns, ensuring the best possible return on investment (ROI).

Adaptability: Digital marketers stay up-to-date with the ever-changing digital landscape and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Access to Tools and Resources: Professional digital marketers have access to premium tools and resources that can enhance marketing efforts.

Scalability: Digital marketing agencies can scale their efforts based on the business's needs and growth.

In summary, digital marketing is an essential part of modern business strategies. Its benefits, including global reach, cost-effectiveness, and measurable results, make it a powerful tool for driving business growth and success. Hiring a digital marketer brings expertise, efficiency, and a data-driven approach to help businesses navigate the digital landscape effectively and achieve their marketing objectives.

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digital-marketin-course · 4 months

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navnath darekar | Business Analyst | About NMD PVT LTD

NMD Pvt. Ltd. is one of the leading company in the field of Business Consulting & IT Services | Navnath Darekar director of nmd pvt ltd

#Business Analyst | About NMD PVT LTD

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leviathan-supersystem · 3 months

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BEIJING — China’s struggling real estate developers won’t be getting a major bailout, Chinese authorities have indicated, warning that those who “harm the interests of the masses” will be punished.

“For real estate companies that are seriously insolvent and have lost the ability to operate, those that must go bankrupt should go bankrupt, or be restructured, in accordance with the law and market principles,” Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a press conference Saturday.

“Those who commit acts that harm the interests of the masses will be resolutely investigated and punished in accordance with the law,” he said. “They will be made to pay the due price.”

That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks published in an official transcript of the press conference, held alongside China’s annual parliamentary meetings.

Ni’s comments come as major real estate developers from Evergrande to Country Garden have defaulted on their debt, while plunging new home sales have put future business into question.

In 2020, Beijing cracked down on developers’ high reliance on debt for growth in an attempt to clamp down on property market speculation. But many developers soon ran out of money to finish building apartments, which are typically sold to homebuyers in China ahead of completion. Some buyers stopped paying their mortgages in a boycott.

Authorities have since announced measures to provide some developers with financing. But the national stance on reducing the role of real estate in the economy hasn’t changed.

This year’s annual government gathering has emphasized the country’s focus on investing in and building up high-end manufacturing capabilities. In contrast, the leadership has not mentioned the massive real estate sector as much.

Real estate barely came up during a press conference focused on the economy last week, while Ni was speaking during a meeting that focused on “people’s livelihoods.”

Ni said authorities would promote housing sales and the development of affordable housing, while emphasizing the need to consider the longer term.

Near-term changes in the property sector have a significant impact on China’s overall economy.

Real estate was once about 25% of China’s GDP, when including related sectors such as construction. UBS analysts estimated late last year that property now accounts for about 22% of the economy.

Last week, Premier Li Qiang said in his government work report that in the year ahead, China would “move faster to foster a new development model for real estate.”

“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.

next time you complain about how things are in America, consider that if you lived in some kind of scary communist country like China, you wouldn't even get to fund a bailout for the real estate company owners who ruined the economy like you can (whether you like it or not) in the good old US of A! 🇺🇲

#china #housing #real estate

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ddejavvu · 1 year

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hear me out... spencer reid with hickeys I can imagine him getting all nervous and reader just gives him like 20 on his neck and he puts on a scarf and the next day Morgan tugs it off and l o s e s it poor thing WHAHHA

"That's... a new look." Morgan raises an eyebrow at Spencer's purple scarf with a confused half-smile on his face, like he's trying to be supportive for Spencer's sake but doesn't know how.

"I'm cold." Spencer blurts, avoiding the man's eyes and staring down at his paperwork. He's a behavior analyst, he'd pick his mannerisms out as shady if anyone else did it, but he can't seem to appear casual for the life of him.

"Okay..." Morgan sits cautiously at his desk, "Something eating you, pretty boy? I know we're not supposed to profile each other and all, but you seem tense."

"Nothing's wrong." Spencer dismisses in that same clipped, tight tone.

"Right," Morgan drawls, "Okay."

There's a moment of awkward silence in which Spencer scrawls in information on the form he's looking at, and Derek stares at him.

Then he tries making peace, "Here, uh, lemme help you with that."

"With what?" Spencer wants to glance up, but doesn't want to see any hidden amusement in his coworker's eyes, "I know how to fill this out."

"No, I mean-" Derek reaches over his desk, fingers outstretched towards Spencer's neck, "The- scarf."

Spencer jerks away like Morgan's touch will sear his skin, eyes wide and panicked, 'No!"

"Reid," Morgan drawls, hand still stiff in the air, "What's your problem, man?"

"I- It's nothing." Spencer huffs, "I'm getting coffee."

He stalks off to the kitchen, but Morgan isn't deterred.

"Pretty boy," He calls, rushing to join Reid at the counter, "Listen, usually when people show up with a giant scarf on and don't let anyone touch it, they're hiding a hickey."

"I'm not hiding a hickey," Spencer pours sugar into his coffee by the pound, nearly emptying the container as he stirs it in, "I'm going to file a workplace harassment complaint against you if you don't stop."

"Sensitive," Derek marvels, keeping the hand that's creeping towards the back of Spencer's neck out of the man's line of sight. Then, quicker than Spencer can stop him, he grabs hold of the purple cloth and yanks, revealing that Spencer was telling the truth.

He's not hiding a hickey, he's hiding twenty hickies. Fifty, maybe, Derek can't tell because they run into each other like someone had sucked him like a leech.

He doesn't care about being dramatic; his jaw drops.

"Holy shit!" Derek whoops, holding the scarf over his head and pushing against Spencer's chest when the man tries taking it back, "You're- Jesus, did Dracula get to you? Oh my god," He laughs, not even bothering to quiet down as Hotch stalks in, a stern frown on his face at the noise level.

"Give it back," Spencer manages to overpower Derek, only because the man is too busy jeering to use his full strength. Spencer wraps himself tight in the scarf once more, avoiding Hotch's eyes as he finishes stirring his coffee.

"I've gotta go break the news," Derek rushes out, headed straight for Penelope's lair, "Babygirl!"

The silence in the kitchenette of the BAU is stifling, and if Spencer weren't hiding an army of hickies so dark that they nearly painted him purple all over, he'd take off his scarf for some relief. He's silent as he finishes stirring his coffee, and tries to drown out Penelope's excited shriek.

Hotch makes quick work of the coffee pot, and stands beside Spencer to put minimal cream into the substance. Before he leaves, while Spencer is still sugaring up his concoction, he clears his throat.

"Congratulations," He murmurs as he claps Spencer on the back once, nearly ramming the man into the cupboards he's weakly clinging to, "I have an old turtleneck somewhere that I can bring you, if this is gonna be a regular thing."

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid one-shot #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid headcanons #spencer reid headcanon #spencer reid hc #spencer reid hcs #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid dialogue #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader fanfiction

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astrocafecoffee · 10 days

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💫Your future spouse's career based on your Juno persona chart 💫

✨ For entertainment purposes only. Enjoy.✨

🌜what to check?

- just check your Industria (389) asteroid in your Juno persona chart.Find out in which house it falls in!!

Why this asteroid?

- Juno persona chart tells about your future spouse and Industria(389) asteroid is a long term career related asteroid. So this asteroid in your juno persona chart can give a insight about your future spouse's career.

🌜SOME SHORT TERMS I USED HERE :

- FS = FUTURE SPOUSE

-JPC = JUNO PERSONA CHART

Leshh go!

🌆 Industria in 1st house of JPC : 1st house represent one's identity, personality and how they present themselves to the world.This asteroid in 1st house suggests that their career may be tied to their personal identity and innovative spirit. Now some possible career of your fs-

*Entrepreneurial scientist - they may excel in entrepreneurial pursuits within the scientific community. They may innovate new technologies, products that have a significant impact in their field.

* Industry leader - they maybe known for their innovative idea and proactive attitude to their work. They can easily be a leader of their respective industry.

* visionary consultant - they may excel in their field as a respectful advisor, who offers solutions to businesses or individuals seeking guidance.

* Creative director- career in creative leadership such as creative director in advising, film, fashion, or design.

* makeup artist

* Model

* engeneering

* design/ work in media.

🌆 Industria in 2nd house of JPC : Their career may be closely related to their values resources, managing or utilising assets and their sense of stability. Some possible career of your fs -

* wealth management specialist - they helps individuals or organizations maximize their financial resources and investments through innovative and strategic approach.

* Creative Financial analyst - specialised in creative or innovative analysis methods.

* Financial innovator- innovates new financial products, services or strategies.

* asset manager

* Entrepreneurial investor

* can sing well

* accountant

🌆 Industria in 3rd house of JPC : 3rd house represents one's communication style, mental persuits, and interaction within immediate environment. When this asteroid in your 3rd house this can indicate that your fs may excel in the career of innovative communication methods or technologies. Some possible career of your fs -

* They may into journalism, media, broadcasting, or public relations where someone uses their creative ideas.

* technology writer/ blogger: their career path may involve writing / blogging about technologies or industry trends or sharing their ideas with wide audience.

* Workshop/ educational outreach programs.

* small business owner

* excel in troubleshooting skills, problem solving abilities, explaining complex concepts in simple terms.

🌆 Industria in 4th house of JPC : their career tied to their home , family roots, and emotional well-being.some possible career of your fs -

* career in real estate - specialize in designing sustainable, eco friendly, or technologically advanced buildings.

* e- commerce, consulting, freelance work.

* Family councillor or therapist - they may help individuals and families navigate challenges, fostering harmony and growth within te hone environment.

* interior designer

* Home renovation specialist

* Family owned business owner.

* childcare provider

🌆 Industria in 5th house of JPC : 5th house is associated with creativity,joy, children and hobbies. It governs one's individual approach to work, self expression and personal fulfillment. So your fs career strongly related to this area of life. Possible careers -

* creative artist/ entertainer - Excels in creative profession like music , theater , film, writing etc.

* event planer- organizing wedding, festivals or social gathering.

* teacher/ coach - inspiring or guiding others in academic subject/ sports.

* youth councillor - natural affinity to work with young people and helping them to discover their talents.

* atrs nd crafts business owner.

* fitness instructor

* dance teacher

* entertainment industry professional.

🌆 Industria in 6th house of JPC : 6th house is associated with employment, daily task, health and service to others. So possible career of your fs -

* health care professionals - career related to healthcare, nursing, doctor, medicine, and pharmacy.

* nutritionist/ dietician - helping others to improve their dietary habits , manage health condition.

* fitness trainer/ coach - motivates others to adopt healthy lifestyle.

* administrative professional - may indicate talent for efficiency, attention to detail, making career in administrative or office management appealing.

* environmental scientist

* social worker

* reasearch assistant

🌆 Industria in 7th house of JPC : 7th house is related to marriage, buisness partnership, legal matters, and one-on-one interactions. Possible career domains of your fs-

*legal professional - career related as mediators, legal consultant, specialization in areas such as contrat law , family law or dispute resolution.

* business consultant - expertise in the area of strategy, negotiation, and partnership development.

* marriage and family therapist - helping couples navigate challenges, improve communication and strengthen their bonds through therapy or councilling sessions.

* international business manager

* foreign affair specialist

* event coordinator

*public relation specialist

* human resources manager

🌆 Industria in 8th house of JPC : 8th house is associated with themes such as mysteries, psychology, healing, emotional connection. So possible careers of your fs -

* psychologist/ psychotherapist - your fs may excel in trauma therapy, helping others to navigate profound emotional experiences , uncover hidden truth.

* forensic investigator/ crime analyst- they may be focused on uncovering hidden truths and solving mysteries.

*massage therapist - specialize in modalities such as deep tissue massage, craniosacral therapy or helping clients release emotional/ physical tension through healing.

* reasearch scientist - may excel in fields such as psychology, quantum physics, or consciousness studies.

* occultist - astrologer, tarot reader, or spiritual councillors.

* healer/ energy worker

* heal others through their respective fields. Can be. Singer too .

🌆 Industria in 9th house of JPC: 9th house is associated with themes such as higher learning, expansion of horizons , seeking truth, broadening one's perspective through travel/ exploration. Possible careers of your fs -

* international relations specialist - involve promoting international cooperation, resolving conflicts, forming mutual understanding between nations and cultures.

* spiritual teacher/ guru- your fs may pursue careers as spiritual teachers, gurus, mentors, guiding others on their spiritual journey.

* tour guide

* philosopher

* religious leader - may pursue careers as priests, ministers, guiding and supporting communities in matters of faith and spiritual growth.

* global NGO worker

* foreign language teacher

🌆 Industria in 10th house of JPC: 10th house is associated with themes such as career aspirations, social status, reputation, and professional achievements. This asteroid influences the individual's approach to career, public image, authority, ambition. So possible careers of your fs -

* media personality/ influencer - television hosts , journalist, bloggers, social media influencer , reaching a wide audience.

* creative director/ artist - artist, designer, performers.

* CEO

* startup founder, business owner, or self employed professionals.

* legal professional/ lawyer

* educational administrator

🌆 Industria in 11th house of JPC: when your industria asteroid in this house your fs may excel in the career of social network, group affiliation, humanitarian causes, collaboration etc. So possible careers of your fs -

* social entrepreneur - creates innovative solutions to adress social challenges.

* Tech entrepreneur, start-up founder.

* content creator - social media influencers, bloggers, using their platforms to inspire/ educate peoples.

* environment activist

* advocate

* community organizer

* designing educational platforms , or promoting digital literacy.

🌆 Industria in 12th house of JPC: 12th house is often associated with hidden strengths, spirituality, and working behind the scenes. So possible careers of your fs -

* they might work in reserch and development, data analysis or logistical planning behind the scenes.

* astro- spiritual researcher

* music industry

* astrologer

*song writer.

* mystical or spiritual advisor.

* environmental conservationist.

⚡ Note : these are only some possibilities of careers of your fs. And guys check the degrees to , it's like cheery on top 💌

🌜Don't forget to check my other observations too 👀

That's it guys , see you soon 💝

- piko 💖

#astro placements #astro notes #astro community #astrology #astro observations #synastry observations #asteroid #synastry aspects #future spouse #future #synastry #composite chart #composite #future husband

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dreaming-medium · 8 months

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Stray Kids Kinktober Day 5

Stray Kids Kinktober Masterlist

Cockwarming - Felix

Word Count: 5.7k

Summary: End of the quarter reports are due and somehow one of the calculations got messed up; it’s nothing you can’t do by hand. And luckily you have a preppy secretary who will stop at nothing to make sure you’re relaxed.

————————————————————

“Felix, can you bring in my incoming forms, please?” you say into the intercom on your desk.

“Right away, ma’am.” His deep voice answers you immediately through the speaker.

Leaning back in your large office chair, you cross one leg over the other and look out of the floor to ceiling windows that line the wall behind your desk.

Your arms cross over your chest and your bottom lip pulls between your teeth in deep thought.

Various different items on your to-do list for the day fly through your mind as you stare out over the Seoul skyline.

Partnership approvals, tax forms, time sheets.

Being the CFO for a large cooperation like this one was never easy. There was never a single day in the office that you weren’t busy. When you think about it, you can’t even remember the last time you took a vacation day.

Once you get this high in the corporate ladder, it’s supposed to get easier, that’s what you thought. It’s what you were told your entire life. But, now that you’re here, you see that it’s the exact opposite.

Every single day is filled to the brim with meetings, phone calls, and business lunches. It’s all chock full of fake smiles and forced laughter.

You worked your ass off to get to where you were now, and nothing was ever going to change that. Sleep be damned..

A gentle knock sounded through the room.

“Come in,” you call out, turning your chair to face the door.

The door opens and Felix walks in with a large stack of papers in his hands. His crisp white dress shirt is tucked into his navy blue dress pants, a matching tie around his neck. A pair of thick black glasses sat perched on his nose, face framed by long, perfectly kempt, blond hair.

“Your inbox, ma’am,” he says warmly, walking closer to your desk.

“Thank you, Felix.” You motion down to the empty desk in front of you. “You can just place them anywhere.”

He nods and gently places them on an empty spot on the wood.

“Do I have any more meetings for the day?” you ask him, flipping through the papers.

“No, ma’am.”

You run one hand through your hair tiredly. “Good, good.” A beat. “What time is my first meeting tomorrow?”

Felix reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He taps on the screen a few times before speaking up. “Ten o’clock.”

“Really? That’s the best news I’ve gotten all day.”

“Your 8:30 was rescheduled to the afternoon.”

“Now that makes sense.”

Your eyes tiredly flick over to the time on your desktop. “Jesus, Felix. Weren’t you supposed to leave an hour ago?”

He shifts his weight on his feet. “Yes, but I don’t leave until you do.”

“I told you that you don’t need to do that.”

“It’s just in case you need me, you know?” A soft blush covers his cheeks, but you pay no mind to it.

“You’re putting these hours on your timesheet, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” You sigh again. “Tomorrow is the day, isn’t it?”

“If you’re referring to the quarterly rebalance, then yes, it is.”

At the end of every quarter, you were in charge of verifying each analyst’s calculations and reading their predictions for the next one before presenting them to the board of directors.

Every single time you end up staying at the office until the wee hours of the morning.

Last quarter, you didn’t leave the office until two in the morning. And, like every quarter, Felix stayed with you.

“Well, then,” You put the forms back down on your desk and push your chair away to stand up. “I’m not going to bother with these tonight when I’ll be here until sunrise on Saturday.”

“Should I have your car brought around?”

“If you could, please.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

Felix briskly leaves the room and you roll your head around your sore neck.

“Fuck quarterly rebalances.”

----------------------------------------

Your hand runs over your face for the millionth time in the last four hours. The numbers are starting to blend together at this point.

The analyses started coming in around 11 AM and since then you just haven’t stopped.

Line chart after line chart, spreadsheet after spreadsheet, everything looks the same now.

You’ve been hung up on one single data set. There’s a random spike in it for no reason at all. Why is there a spike in this calculation?

You cannot move on to the rest of the data until you get over this spike.

Blindly, you reach over to the phone on your desk and press the intercom button. “Felix,” you say after the beep.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Can you please patch me through to Seo Changbin? There’s no way this spike is correct.”

The sound of typing on a keyboard echoes over the line.

“Seo Changbin clocked out three hours ago, ma’am. Would you like me to ring his personal phone?”

“Three hours?” you ask incredulously and look down at the time. “Holy shit.” you murmur under your breath.

8:00 PM. It’s 8:00 PM.

“Ma’am?” Felix grabs your attention after a second of waiting.

You throw your glasses down onto the desk and pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. A headache has been resting behind your eyes all day.

“No,” you say after a few moments. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll just run the numbers myself.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with for now, ma’am?”

You look around the room, the sun is setting over the skyline. A sigh leaves your chest.

It’s hard to believe you were working for nine straight hours on this. When was the last time you looked up?

“Have you eaten yet, Felix?” you ask, keeping your eyes outside.

“No, ma’am.”

“Order whatever you want, make it double. Put it on the corporate card.”

Felix’s deep laugh comes through the intercom. “Right away, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Felix.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

----------------------------------------

Two plus two is four, right? Yes, of course it is. Two plus two has always been four. They wouldn’t just change that suddenly, right?

But you’re so delirious that you still punch it in your calculator.

“Two plus two...” When the calculator says four, you stare at it. “To be honest, I was expecting something else with how tonight is going.”

Laughing at your own joke, you continue to re-input the numbers into the spreadsheet on your desktop.

A knock at your door pulls your attention.

“Come in!” you call out without looking up.

The door clicks open. “Delivery!” Felix’s cheery voice calls into your office.

You look up at your secretary with weary eyes. His mouth pulls into a sympathetic smile.

“That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea.” you groan and lean back in your chair. Your muscles scream from the movement and you grunt. “I just verified two plus two on the calculator.”

“Still four?”

“Surprisingly.”

“I think it’s time for a break, then.”

Peeking at the clock, it says it’s around 9:00 PM now.

With an apologetic smile, you look up at Felix. His white collared shirt is undone at the top, no tie around his neck. A plain pair of tight black slacks hugging his legs. He’s looking at you with nothing but pity in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Felix,” you say while taking the takeout container from him. He just laughs.

“Don’t apologize, it’s all part of the job.” He shifts in place for a moment and turns and looks at the door.

“Where’s your food?”

“Oh, at my desk.”

“Why don’t you bring it in here? I’d love the company. Wayne can only do so much for my sanity.” You point at the house plant on your windowsill.

A little nametag on the front of the pot says ‘Wayne’ in cursive.

Felix’s eyes widen and his cheeks turn a bit pink. “Oh! Yeah! I’ll um… I’ll go grab it and be right back.”

You follow his lithe body as he rushes out of your office with one eyebrow raised.

Strange.

True, this was the first time you invited him to eat in your office with you. But it’s not like you ever had the opportunity to do so.

Typically, you ate in your office by yourself while still working. Truth be told, you had no idea when Felix’s lunch break was. He was always available when you needed him. Did he work through his lunch too?

Your secretary re-enters your office slightly out of breath.

“By the way,” he pants. “I had forgotten to order us drinks, so I got this out of the vending machine for you.”

He comes up to your desk holding out your favorite drink.

“Ugh, what would I do without you?” You smile and take the drink. “Pull a chair closer, you can eat on my desk too. It’ll get all over you if you try to balance it like that on your lap.”

Eagerly, he places his food on your desk and scoots forward. The redness in his cheeks deepened.

Soft lo-fi music is coming through your computer and filling the silence in the air. You crack open the takeout container and dig in.

It’s a stir fry. And stir fry has never looked this good in your life.

“This is so good,” you basically moan after taking your first bite.

“O-Oh, yeah? I’m glad you like it,” Felix stutters back and takes his own bite.

“It’s definitely much needed after today.” You whine and look back at your desktop.

“What’s going on with the numbers?”

“Based on what Changbin gave me, it says our internal earnings spiked massively this quarter. And yes, while this is great, it’s extremely abnormal. If this is true, I need to verify it before I can present it; otherwise, I’ll look like a fool.”

Felix listens intently to your explanation. “I don’t think you could ever look like a fool, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Felix.” You smile at him. He grins back and suddenly it’s like the sun is back up. His pearly white teeth shine in the office light.

“You have such a pretty smile,” you compliment him. “I don’t think I ever told you that.”

Felix squirms in his seat and looks down bashfully. The blush spreads all over his face. One of his hands comes up and rubs the back of his neck.

“Ah, thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that.”

Chuckling softly, you turn back to your calculations.

The gentle, twinkling sounds of lo-fi beats do nothing to help calm the swirling confusion in your head.

Minutes pass and you’re staring at the same algorithm.

Your shoulders are slowly coming towards your ears with all the tension in your body. When you lean forward to use your keyboard, a burning pain runs through your back.

“Fuck.” Your hand flies up to grab where your shoulder meets your neck to massage it and roll your head around.

“Everything alright?” Felix asks.

“Yeah, I just get so stiff sitting at my desk while I work on the end of quarter stuff. Feels like my shoulders are on fire.”

No amount of massaging your own shoulders seems to be working, though.

Felix looks down at his food for a moment, then back up to you. His eyes shift away from you nervously.

“Before this job, I had gone to massage school for a few months. Would you like me to see if I can work those kinks out?”

Normally, you would say no. It would be so wildly inappropriate to have your secretary massage your shoulders while you work. Imagine if someone decided to walk in?

But now? When no one else is here and there’s no end in sight with these analyses?

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” you ask, unsure.

He seems to perk up a bit. “Not at all!”

Another moment passes while you weigh it in your mind, your lip pulls between your teeth before looking at him a bit sheepishly. “If you don’t mind…”

Felix is up on his feet, food immediately forgotten. It almost startles you how fast he’s up and around the back of your chair.

You had shucked off your blazer a few hours ago. Just your button up on, the top few buttons undone and sleeves rolled up to your elbows.

Felix stands behind you for a moment, his hands hovering over your shoulders. “Do you have any lotion?”

“Yes, actually.” Reaching down into your desk drawer, you pulled out an herbal lotion that your one friend had gotten you as a gift.

“‘Stress Relief’, huh?” Felix teases when you set it on the desk.

“A friend thought it would make a great gag gift with everything going on,” you laugh to yourself and stare back at your computer. “She didn’t realize how appropriate it was.”

Once more, Felix moves his hands around your back, his lithe fingers sweeping your hair off the back of your neck. Instead of keeping it down, you lean forward and grab a long pencil out of the cup and twirl it around your hair to then pin it up.

It’s a trick you learned back in college.

Felix watches behind you silently, his breath hitches slightly when he sees your hair settle all pinned up. Strands fall out of the bundle and frame your face and neck a bit.

It’s the most perfect messy hairstyle he’s ever seen.

Felix’s jaw clenches and he gulps, pulling himself together.

“Do you mind if I, ah– lower the back of your shirt a bit?”

“Yeah, here.” You’re already back in word mode; after looking at the sheer number of raw data littering the spreadsheet on your desktop, you were no longer focused on your secretary.

You unbutton more of the buttons and let your shirt slide off your shoulders a bit. Your cleavage was still covered– mostly.

Felix’s brain whites out for a split second and he has to physically force his brain to reboot. There’s a slight twitch in his pants at the sight of your naked shoulders. You’re always in those high-collared shirts, blazers, sweaters, so ungodly professional.

But your clothes are always so skin tight. Or you’ll wear a blouse like this one and a tiny little pencil skirt.

Felix leans down and pumps some lotion on his hands, rubbing it together to warm it up before setting his hands on your wonderfully smooth skin. It takes every fiber of his being not to let out a moan at the feeling.

His breathing picks up as he digs his thumbs into your muscles.

Immediately, you groan at the feeling. “God, that already feels so good, Felix.”

His name, you said his name, moaning nonetheless.

He can only make a noise of acknowledgement while he continues to work out the high strung muscles in your neck and shoulders.

Meanwhile, your brain is completely focused on your calculations. It’s so much easier to focus on everything when it doesn’t feel like your back is on fire.

Felix’s hands are absolutely magical. Everywhere he rubs loosens up underneath his strong, yet gentle, grip. He kneads right at the base of your neck and every knot slowly releases.

Small moans slip past your lips without realizing it.

And just because you don’t realize you’re moaning does not mean that your secretary hasn’t. Every single sound that comes out of your mouth goes straight to his dick. His slacks have tightened significantly, a tent pitching higher and higher each second.

He scolds himself internally. He knows he needs to pull it together, you’re his boss. You sign his paychecks. But fuck, knowing that you’re making those noises because of just his fingers is messing with his brain, he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

Felix runs over a particularly tight knot and you jump with a yelp.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he apologizes profusely, keeping his hands on your shoulders.

“It’s okay,” you soothe his worry. “God, I already feel better. It felt like someone was stabbing flaming daggers into my shoulders.”

Your voice sounds somewhere else. Even though Felix has been your secretary for almost two years now, you’ve never spoken this casually with him. You were always professional, always so put together.

The work in front of you has you so consumed that you don’t realize how much your tongue is slipping.

It’s been like this the entire night. You’re too distracted to care.

“I can’t believe you chose to pursue this instead of continuing with massage school.” you continue.

“Well, I had originally gotten this job to pay for massage school. Then, when I got this position, I realized it paid more than being a masseuse ever would.”

You move your head around your shoulders, “Still.” you write down a string of numbers, click around on your keyboard, punch a formula into the calculator, then write something else down. “God, your fingers are fucking magical.”

Hearing you curse sent a lightning bolt down his back and Felix’s head is shot into the clouds. And you were complimenting him!

“I can’t imagine what else those fingers can do.”

Now he knows he’s dreaming. Did you really just say that? Did he hallucinate it? His fingers pause on your muscles.

Your own words must have sunken into your brain; your entire body goes rigid and you gasp, one hand flying over your mouth. Your heart drops to your stomach.

“Oh my god, Felix.” you say quietly, your tone is horrified. “Felix, I am so sorry, please. Oh, god.”

You can’t even turn around to look at him. It’s like ice water was injected to your veins. How could you have said that? He’s going to report you to HR! Who wouldn’t? You quite literally just harassed him in the workplace.

“I have no idea why I said that.” you sputter.

Say goodbye to everything you worked for. You threw it out the window by accidentally letting your tongue slip while he massaged your bare shoulders.

While you were apologizing profusely, you didn't feel him lean down until you heard his baritone voice was right next to your ear.

“I could show you.”

Like a zipper, pleasure shoots right up your spine. It makes you sit up straighter in your desk chair. Your mouth is suddenly so dry.

“W-What?” you stutter out, still looking down at your desk.

Felix is so close behind you that you can smell his cologne wrapping around your nose. It’s so fresh. It has a cotton-like musky smell to it. You’ve always caught whiffs of it when he came breezing through your office.

So many times you’ve found yourself leaning into the smell, and now here you have it so close to you.

“I could show you what these fingers can do, ma’am.” he purrs in your ear. Goosebumps raise all along the back of your neck, the hairs stand on end and a shiver creeps up on you.

His warm, slippery hands slide from your shoulders down your bare arms to grip them for a second before sliding back up. Felix reapers the motion a few times, letting his hot breath fan over your exposed skin.

“But,” the gravel of his voice makes your insides flutter. “You need to finish these calculations, ma’am.”

You hum in response, allowing your eyes to flutter closed and you lean back into his touch.

Felix chuckles under his breath. “I have an idea.”

----------------------------------------

Oh, it was a sinful fucking idea. Did he really think you were going to get any work done like this?

Felix had sat down on your desk chair, the tent in his pants so painfully obvious. At the same time, you can’t deny the wetness in your panties. It was getting worse and worse during that massage.

It’s only natural.

He grabs your hips and pulls your body towards him, his face level with your lower stomach. He looks directly up at you, his fingers curling into the fabric of your pencil skirt.

Those deep brown eyes staring up at you with a lustful haze covering them. Every freckle was highlighted on his face due to the blush covering his skin.

You bring one of your hands up to his face and softly caress his cheek, letting your fingertips dance over his skin. Felix leans into your touch; he turns his head and presses a kiss to your palm.

“This is crazy,” you whisper down to him.

“The secretary sleeping with the boss is not a new concept, ma’am.”

You roll your eyes. “Yes, but it’s usually the other way around.”

One of your knees comes up and rests on the chair right in front of his crotch. Felix bites his lip and his eyes squint shut for a moment.

His hips stutter, you can tell he’s trying not to roll them to rub against your bare skin.

Your head cocks to the side and you smirk. “Come on then, I need you to be fully hard if I’m going to sit on your cock.”

One of the deepest moans you’ve ever heard pulls from deep within his chest. Felix’s head tilts back and his grip on your hips tightens. In a fluid motion, he gyrates his hips and you feel his cock press right against your leg.

A devious smile crosses your face, you move your hand down to grip his face tightly to bring his clouded gaze back to you.

“Come on then, Felix. You can do better than that.”

He whines and closes his eyes again, his hips stuttering and moving faster, harder. He parts his lips to begin panting. Each breath is hot and heavy, you can barely hear your music over it. The heat from his exhales goes right through your shirt.

Further and further, he descends into a subspace.

“Good boy,” you praise and it goes straight to his head.

Felix gulps and moves his hands around to grip your ass a bit.

In a quick movement, you rip your leg away from his hips.

Felix cries out and his eyes fly open to look at you with astonishment.

“Did I say you could touch me like that?” you hiss down at him.

“No, ma’am.”

Your head cocks to the side and you stare for a few seconds. “I need to get back to work already. Take your cock out.”

His eyes widen and he hesitates, not used to hearing such filth tumble from your lips. You tighten your grip on his face.

“I’m waiting, Felix.”

He’s then fumbling with his pants trying to fulfill your wishes. He’s practically scrambling. Why isn’t the zipper fucking working? Come on, come on.

Meanwhile, you drop his face and pull your skirt up around your waist, revealing your black lace thong. While still fumbling with his own pants, Felix moans, staring at the beautiful sight in front of him. It sounds like it’s punched out of him.

Teasingly, you hook your thumbs around the elastic band and drag it down your legs slowly.

Another whine comes out from Felix’s throat. His tongue practically falls out of his mouth at the sight of your pussy, acting like a starved dog.

“Please,” he pants, not able to tear his eyes away from it. “Just a taste. Just one. Please, ma’am, please.”

Smirking, you lightly slap his cheek twice. “You get three licks, honey.”

He can’t get his mouth on you fast enough. Felix wraps his lips around your glistening folds and runs his tongue up through your juices, collecting whatever he could on his tongue.

You both moan at the same time at the sensation.

“One…” you moan out.

Another lick pulls another moan. “Two!”

After the third lick, he swirls his tongue around your clit, making your knees feel weak. “Fuck! Three!”

You roughly grab his hair and yank his mouth away from you. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes half lidded. It looks like you took a puppy away from its bowl.

His full lips glisten with your arousal.

“Sit back on the chair, hands to yourself.”

Felix reluctantly leans back in your chair, his cock at full mast and dripping with precum. His head is flushed red. He is painfully hard.

He rests both of his hands on the arm rests of the chair and keeps his lustful eyes on you.

A smirk pulls at your lips as you kick your panties off, heels staying on.

You turn around and grab Felix’s cock tightly. His hands tighten around the armrests with a gasp.

“Remember what I said, Felix. No touching.”

“Yes,” he pants.

“Say it, then.” you demand, hovering your pussy over his cock. You both can feel the heat of each other radiating off.

“No touchinggg—!” While he was talking you dropped down onto his length.

Both of you moan out loud, your head kicks back at the delicious stretch. God, it’s been too fucking long since you’ve gotten laid. This job takes everything from you.

You roll your hips a few times, getting adjusted. With each movement, Felix lets out a noise: a whine, a grunt, a moan, a whimper, everything in between. He’s singing a chorus of pleasure in your ear.

“We have to get a little closer to the desk, Felix.”

It takes every ounce of strength, but your voice comes out even and Felix clocks that it’s your professional voice. You feel his cock twitch inside you.

Slowly, he rolls the chair towards the desk and you immediately return to your work. You snap back to it so fast it makes Felix whimper again.

Your heat is wrapped around him in the fucking best way. There’s no way he’s alive right now. For months he’s touched himself thinking about what you looked like underneath all those professional clothes.

You’re always so uptight, what if you just let loose for once? What would it be like?

Your pussy clenched down on him and Felix whines, throwing his head back. Oh, this was going to be torture.

Just until you finish verifying the calculation, that’s what you said. As soon as you verify the numbers, then you would let him have you.

“You just need to behave.” You told him.

How is he supposed to behave when you’re so fucking tight and wet around him? He can feel each breath you take.

Besides the fact that you’re surrounding his cock, your naked thighs are right there on top of his. He wants to grab them so hard it’ll leave his fingerprints in your skin, maybe it’ll bruise in the shape of his handprint.

Felix can’t help his hips bucking at the thought.

You clench again and moan. “Felix,” you warn.

“S-Sorry.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Sorry, ma’am!”

Oh, you love that. You absolutely throb around him. Huh.

The soft hairs on the back of your neck tickle against his nose, he can still smell the lotion that he rubbed into your shoulders.

Felix is grabbing the armrests so tight his knuckles are turning white. His nails dig into the leather painfully.

He licks his lips nervously and he gets another taste of your arousal that was still on his skin. It makes his eyes roll back.

You adjust on his lap. The movement of your heat around him makes his head spin. The drag of your hot, soaking wet walls over his length is the most consuming feeling he’s ever felt.

“Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath.

“Stop moving.”

A small sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead.

Why no touching? Why couldn’t he snake his hand around and up your blouse? He could cup your tit and pinch and pull your nipples until you’re clenching around him so tight that he could scream. He could lick all the way up your neck and pull your earlobe into his mouth while he listens to you panting his name.

Why can’t he touch you? God, he just wants to touch you.

Here he was, living out his wildest wet dream, and he couldn't feel your soft, supple skin underneath his fingers.

Why can’t he turn your head and consume your lips with his own? Shove his tongue down your throat and suck on yours like it’s a piece of candy.

He should’ve taken his pants off. This way he would’ve been able to feel your juices drip down and soak his thighs. You’re so fucking wet he thinks he might die.

Felix’s eyes travel to the desk. He could absolutely bend you over the top. He could pull your hair and make you scream. He could make you forget all about–

“Aha!” When you scream, he jumps in surprise. His hips buck up and your pussy clenches around him. You both moan.

“Did you get it?” he pants out. His voice sounds so much weaker than he wanted it to; he sounds like he just ran two miles.

“Yes! He used net earnings instead of gross in one formula! Oh I am going to kill him.”

Thank the fucking lord. You figured it out. You did it, can he please please please–

Felix must’ve started thrusting up into you before he could even register the movements. His mind is so cloudly with lust that he can barely think straight.

“Easy, Felix.” you whine out through moans. He can just tell you didn’t want him to stop either. “Let me just finalize the chart and then–”

Felix cries out and then slumps his head forward to rest between your shoulder blades. “Ma’am, please, I’ve been so good for you, haven’t I? Haven’t I been such a good boy for you, ma’am?”

You hum and roll your hips ever so slightly. Just this slight amount of movement drives Felix insane. He whimpers loudly and his legs begin to shake underneath you.

“You have been a good boy, Felix. Why don’t I give you a reward?”

“Please.”

“Why don’t you let those pretty little hands roam until I’m done?”

“Thank you!” he cries out with a hoarse voice.

Immediately, his hands fly to your thighs and he grips the flesh tightly. His nails dig into your skin and you cry out under your breath, your walls clamping down on him tightly.

“Can I use my mouth, ma’am? Please please please please–”

“Yesss…” you hissed at him.

Felix attaches his lips to your neck and begins to suck on the soft skin while his hands wander up your body.

One hand goes right under your shirt and pulls your bra down. Those magic fingers pinch your nipple.

Every reaction your body has envelopes him in the most amazing way. He can feel everything your body likes. He can feel how you like when he rubs around your nipple rather than pinching it. He can feel how much you love when he uses his thumb to play with your tit while his mouth bites at your neck and hit other hand teases your soaking wet folds.

“Felix…” you warn. It’s all empty, though. Your typing has completely stopped, work has been forgotten.

“Fuck, you feel so fucking good, ma’am.” He moans when you tighten. “Let me make you feel good, ma’am. Let me be such a good secretary.”

With the gentlest of touches, Felix plays with your clit. Just with that soft touch, your body spasms around him.

“I can make your body sing, ma’am. Let me be of service to you.”

Another gentle pinch of your nipple. It’s going straight to his head how he can feel how much you’re fighting him.

“Don’t you want to cum around my cock, ma’am?”

You break. “Please.” you whine out.

It’s enough for him.

Both of his arms tighten around your body, his feet plant firmly on the floor and he begins fucking up into you like his fucking life depends on it.

He turns into something of a fucking animal with how he’s rutting his cock into your sopping wet heat. He thrusts so hard and so fast, you think he might go through you.

His teeth bare for a moment from the exertion, but he bites down where your shoulder meets your neck.

Your head throws back onto his shoulder. Felix grabs your entire tit to anchor his hold, his thumb brushing over the nipple over and over, each one sends a ripple of pleasure through you.

His other hand rubs harder at your clit, you clamp even tighter over him. Both of you grunt and groan. There is no silence in your office; is the music even playing anymore?

You turn your head to look at him. “Kiss me, Felix.”

He captures your lips without a second thought. It all feels so fucking deliciously good. He sucks on your tongue just like he always wanted to.

Your mouths glide over one another sloppily, spit getting everywhere on your mouths.

With each thrust, each flick, each rub, your orgasm gets closer and closer.

Felix shifts his hips a bit and hits your g-spot so hard you cry out into his mouth, he swallows the noise.

“You’re so fucking tight, ma’am. I can feel you clenching so hard. You’re close, aren’t you?”

All you’re able to do is nod. He’s stimulating you so much that you can’t find your voice.

“Fuck!” he cries out, “Fuck fuck, give it to me, please. Please cum for me, ma’am.” His voice is so low, it's so hoarse from arousal.

A particularly hard thrust launches you over the edge, your orgasm seizes every inch of your body. Felix keeps going, fucking you right through your orgasm.

Deep, guttural moans come from his chest as your body begins to shake in overstimulation. His thrusts grow sloppy and uncoordinated as he gets closer to his own peak.

“Cumming, cumming, cumming!” he shouts and bites your neck again.

Felix spills within you, his hips sputter and he continues to talk through it.

“So good, fuck, thank you, thank you. So fucking good, fuck, oh my god.”

The room begins to settle, both of your pants becoming softer than the music. Felix holds you close to his chest still, not letting you go.

Your eyes flicker to your desktop.

“... I’m only halfway done. Your cock isn’t going anywhere.”

#stray kids smut #skz smut #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #stray kids kinktober #skz kinktober #lee felix smut #felix smut #lee felix x reader #felix x reader

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husbandhoshi · 10 months

Text

title: eat. play. love.

pairing: seungcheol x f!reader

wc: 19.4k

summary: being one of new york's top food critics comes with a lot of perks: free dinners, nice awards, and a linkedin profile your parents could be proud of. that doesn't stop you from wanting a lofty promotion to editor, and the only person standing in your way is choi seungcheol. just one problem: his romance column has half of new york under his grimy little thumb. that, and you hate him.

in which your love language is food. seungcheol doesn't have one.

notes: romcom with mild angst, coworkers!au, slow burn enemies to lovers, playboy!cheol, suggestive (one moment in particular) + mentions of sex (otherwise sfw), swearing, lots of alcohol, also you will probably get hungry reading this. extra special thanks a million times over to my fav person @wuahae for bearing with me through literally all 20k words of this. i love you:')

It's underneath a layer of paper-thin egg yolk pasta where you think you see god.

Spoon meets whipped ricotta, white truffle, sage oil. A sip of 1979 cabernet, punishing and oaky. Rinse and repeat.

None of these words are in the Bible, yet you are having nothing short of a religious experience.

"Well, this seems like good news for the place," Jeonghan says. "Wine's tasty. Three stars?"

At this point, you're fairly sure Jeonghan has tuned the explanation of your elaborate rating process out (he's there for the wine, anyway), so instead you top him up and help yourself to a generous portion of his pappardelle.

"Four, then?" He leans forward on his elbows. "Or critic's choice?"

Candied lemon, pecorino, garlic. Derivative, but it's a good bite.

"You're distracting me." You point your fork at him. "You're like 80% alcohol, anyway. Bad opinions."

"Sue me," he laughs. "I would take a client here, is all I'm saying."

You pass on the opportunity to bring up that Jeonghan once brought a client to a Bubba Gump because he was craving coconut shrimp. But Jeonghan isn't a food critic—he's a business analyst and your best friend from college, back when all you cared about was Friday's house party and writing pizza joint reviews for the university paper.

It's a good arrangement. You appreciate his company, and he's never one to turn down a free meal. The both of you keep a small circle—such is the price of discernment.

There aren't many things that can come between you and a delicious meal. But, you have notifications turned on for just three things (all work-related) and you both watch the linen tablecloth light up under your face-down phone in true horror-movie fashion.

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. "Popular on a Saturday night," he jokes. "Copy on your ass again?"

"Nothing's in production," you reply, letting the evil claws of your terrible work-life balance encircle you once again as you open your email.

URGENT: LIFESTYLE EDITOR TRANSITIONAL PLANS, it reads. It's from Wonwoo, your editor in chief, who has sent it with priority, as if the caps lock wasn't scary enough.

"So Joshua decided to quit. Just like you said," Jeonghan says, but it's like he's speaking to you through a wet paper bag because it takes every working brain cell of yours to read the email.

As you may know, Joshua has decided to step down from his position as our current Lifestyle editor.

Not a surprise, given his wife is having a kid. You had called it six months ago over the paper's Christmas dinner at Eleven Madison Park, when Joshua spent half of it outside on a phone call and the other half browsing the Baby Gap website.

I have decided to hire internally to fill his position. I and upper management believe you would be a good fit for the position. Please plan for a meeting 9 AM Monday to discuss transitional plans.

It's that part that you have to read over three times. And then you read it over a fourth, just for good measure.

"You're starting to scare me." Jeonghan puts down his glass, which is something akin to a baby separating from their bottle.

Sometimes you need a dictionary to understand Wonwoo, but the email seems clear as day to you. Good fit. Transitional plans. Suddenly you wish Jeonghan hadn't had so much of the wine because you're in desperate need of a drink.

"I-I think…I think I'm getting promoted."

How funny to think your lifelong dream would be realized over a 40 dollar plate of pasta. You want to cry and hug the maître d' and eat the entire complimentary bread basket.

"It's about time." The glass finds his relieved hand again. "You breathe journalism. I'm afraid one day you'll text me in AP style."

You read over all of it again, trying to memorialize the words that undoubtedly will launch your wonderful and long career in the upper echelons of media.

Looking forward to talking with the two of you.

Wait—two?

Then the proverbial cherry on top, the laughably convenient other thing your eyes had glazed over before.

CC: Choi Seungcheol.

"Choi Seungcheol?!"

Nothing is ever that easy and it then dawns on you that this is a competition type thing because never in the history of the printing press has there been two editors for a section.

Jeonghan stares at you blankly. It would be funny if you didn't feel like you were being double deep-fried like terrible fair food, all the thrill and elation of the moment boiled down to lead in your chest.

"I—he," you stammer.

Jeonghan mouths check to the poor waiter assigned to watch your table. God bless him.

"Words," he tells you. "You went to journalism school."

You take a syrupy breath that sits in your lungs unhappily. Your food is cold. This is a disaster.

"Well, actually, I'm not getting promoted."

Jeonghan's eyes soften, just enough without making you pity yourself more.

"There's this guy," you start. "He's the love and relationships columnist, the one I complain about all the time." Jeonghan makes a small ahh sound, your predicament finally dawning on him. "I guess we're both under consideration for the position. I didn't-I didn't even think of him. I—"

You slump into your seat, the arancini your only solace despite your complaint that the breading was too salty earlier.

"So? I bet you're a way better fit than him. It'll be a shoe-in. Easy decision."

Jeonghan's confidence in you makes you want to cry.

The problem is that Seungcheol is the human equivalent of Cosmopolitan Magazine. You can't recall the last time he walked into the office with a fully buttoned up shirt. You also can't recall the last time one of his advice columns wasn't in the end of quarter recap for popularity.

It's not in you to explain this debacle to Jeonghan. This whole situation is so cosmically awful that all you can do is ask for dessert in a takeout box and watch Jeonghan calculate tip without a calculator because that's all you learn in business school.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jeonghan asks when you're both in the Uber.

"Yeah." You have a headache. You also can't decide whether or not to give the restaurant three or four stars, and you always know by the time you're out the door. "It's fine."

The tiramisu is cold in your lap. Jeonghan squeezes your shoulder. You refresh your email.

Choi Seungcheol's name stares back at you.

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The meeting goes exactly how you would expect.

Wonwoo, in his lanky taupe sweater vest, says that Joshua is leaving and you and Seungcheol are standing toe-to-toe in the space left behind.

"I'm sure you two are well-acquainted," he begins.

You stifle a laugh, but Seungcheol's cat-like grimace says more than enough. Neither of you have the heart to tell Wonwoo that your very first impression of Seungcheol was that he tried to hit on you at the new recruit party, or that Joshua probably deserves reparations for how often he mediated fights between the two of you during weekly meetings. (Maybe not reparations, but at least an Edible Arrangements.)

For better or for worse, Wonwoo's genius does not extend to social cues, and he follows with a blithe, "Therefore, I hope you two will treat this as a friendly competition between equals."

You almost laugh again, but this time it's because you need the promotion more than you need air, and you cannot allow some Buzzfeed reject with the face of a model take that from you. And you don't doubt Seungcheol wants it as bad as you do, considering how often you've seen him try to schmooze his way up the ranks.

He may have become a columnist by rubbing elbows with the right people, but you'll never forget the late nights you spent sifting through hours of interview transcripts, on the grueling climb up the totem pole to earn your position.

"We'll evaluate an article of your own submission at the end of the month before we decide. Best of luck."

At least Wonwoo knows to quit while he's ahead—he closes the meeting with a succinct nod before returning to his seemingly infinite unread emails.

"Exciting," Seungcheol says. He claps his hands together, Rolex gaudy under the office lights, and sends a nauseating smile your way. "May the best writer win."

He offers you a handshake. You think he has real life cooties, so instead you close your planner and shoot him a very pointed look.

"There's only one writer here. Thrilled to read your next thinkpiece on how men should spend more time on Tinder and not therapy."

That earns you a chuckle from Wonwoo, but Seungcheol is not easily fazed.

Instead he rushes to hold the door open for you on your way out, likely his favorite piece of advice to give his poor, indolent readers.

"I'll book a table for us at Avra next month," Seungcheol gloats. "Consider it a gift from your future boss."

"They don't have a kids menu, you know."

"No problem. I'll have my darling food critic order for me." He places a wicked hand over his polyester covered heart. "Ending misogyny in one fell swoop, huh?"

You wait for the door to Wonwoo's office to close before looking at him right in his wet, cow eyes with the most malice you can possibly muster. You feel it collect in your bones, enough to feel like you can physically hack it up and hurl it at him.

"You have no clue what you're talking about, huh? Do you actually attract women with that attitude? Or are you just a really good liar?"

You are so close to him, you could kiss him if you wanted—luckily for the both of you, you would rather die a thousand fiery, terrible deaths, and then die all over again. Instead, you watch his pout unravel into a grin from hell, and he leans in closer, the scent of Old Spice and break room coffee heavy on him. This morning's matcha latte churns in your stomach, and you wonder if you should have gotten oatmilk instead of dairy.

Up close, he's worse. His hair reminds you of the sad, tired swoop of the washed-up lead of a daytime soap opera. And he has no pores, which is deeply upsetting because he looks like the type to wash his face with Palmolive and a prayer.

"You know what?"

His breath hits your lips and your skin prickles like you have an allergy.

"What?"

"You just gave me the winning idea for my next column." No way, you think. Mind games. Classy. "See you at dinner, sweetheart. Looking forward to it."

The pet name makes you seethe. There are a million things you want to say, all colorful and none workplace appropriate.

"I'd rather starve."

"Better not let Wonwoo hear you with that bad attitude. I'm sure management loves a team player." His cheshire grin somehow gets bigger, all white teeth and pink lip. "Try to smile a little, huh? Have fun writing about snails and black garlic and cwa-ssants, or whatever it is that you do."

you watch all the laminated syllables of croissant go through his paper shredder smile and you think you black out.

He spins on his heel triumphantly, almost bowling over Minghao from Arts & Entertainment, who is undoubtedly wondering if you did, in fact, kiss.

Seungcheol laughs as he walks away, linebacker shoulders rippling under his one size too small shirt.

The metal-red knot of anger swells in your gut as you watch his perfect silhouette and his tiny little waist disappear into the staff room. Then you realize what you've been looking at and let yourself get mad all over again.

He does have a nice ass, though. You'll give him that.

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"You'll never guess what I have."

"Is it better than this lox bagel?" You answer, mouth unattractively full.

Seungkwan's answer is the sound of a straw hitting the bottom of an empty cup and the grating jostle of ice. Phone calls with him are like ASMR because he's always doing a million things at once, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

"Infinitely," he finally says, after procuring the last milliliter of what's likely his second coffee of the day. "Besides, we all know pesto is way better."

"Wrong, but okay," you reply. "What is it?"

"You're not gonna thank me for being the best friend in the world? Me, an editor, keeping nepotism alive for you? A mere columnist?"

"Senior columnist," you laugh between bites. "You need me. Who else would you text during content meetings?"

"Whatever." His eye roll is audible. "I guess I won't tell you."

He shakes his cup again, all ice and no patience.

"Fine! I owe you. My career and my life."

"And a seat at Momofuku."

"And that."

You take another greedy bite, letting the everything on an everything bagel get all over your chin. You love dressing up and going to restaurants that cost more than both of your kidneys, but there's something sacred about eating a $10 bagel behind the shield of your computer screen at a cafe where no one knows you.

There's someone laughing really loudly somewhere, and if you weren't otherwise preoccupied, you would look for the offender and give them a hard glare. You don't know what could possibly be that funny at 9 AM, but, then again, you never were a morning person.

"So, I have intel. About Seungcheol." You can picture the glint in Seungkwan's eyes, glittery and caramel. Unfortunately, the news that it's related to your worst enemy makes you sit up a little straighter. "At today's content meeting, Joshua said that he's working on some kind of challenge to go on as many dates as possible. He might make it a series."

"How tacky," you say, but the information clanks around in your brain like shoes in a washing machine. The indulgent, clickbaity headline just falls together perfectly—I Went On 50 First Dates So You Don't Have To. Exactly the kind of article your mom sees on Facebook and sends to you.

"You have to admit it's a decent idea. Not as good as yours, but it'll get engagement," is Seungkwan's reply, but you can barely hear it over the swell of another sitcom-esque laugh, this time, from a woman. "The other editors are very invested in this whole thing, by the way. Of course, I'm betting on you."

You're about to very openly stress about people gambling on your success when your eyes wander to the backside of the Sports Illustrated model getting napkins at the counter. Not bad at all, you think. It may be too early for the comedy club, but appreciating the male figure has no schedule.

And then he turns around, and you're able to see past the curly hair, muscle tee, beauty pageant smile—it's none other than Choi Seungcheol, fully outfitted with the audacity to trespass on your bagel place. You have never been more disgusted by your heterosexuality.

You hide behind your computer screen.

"Helloooo?" comes Seungkwan on the line. "Are you making out with your breakfast or something?"

"Seungkwan, I gotta go," you hiss. Your eyes follow Seungcheol as he makes his way back to his table. "There's a…situation."

You watch him sit across from a beautiful girl in a sundress and Prada sunglasses, and her lips tumble into a brilliant red smile.

It would be really fucking funny if he was on a date, you think, but then you see him make the kind of eyes you last saw in the deepest, stickiest recesses of a frat house on thirsty Thursday. Then you realize he is on a date, that he's been on a date, and it's his laugh that is equally annoying as it is loud.

Seungkwan works hard, but the devil always works harder.

"Ok, talk to you later. Bye!" You can hear the beginning of one of Seungkwan's protests, but you hang up before he's able to properly complain. Maybe you'll have to do a little better than Momofuku—that's a problem for later.

Over the rim of your laptop, you catch glimpses of their conversation. You notice Seungcheol talks a lot with his hands, and you wonder if that's another one of his tips or if that's just him. Him and those big clown hands, illustrating a story that you're unfortunately too far away to hear.

But you can hear her laugh again, and you try to guess what he's talking about. His childhood dog. The insurmountable burden of being prom king and captain of the football team. This little not-competition and this little not-rivalry between the two of you. How the PB&J bagel is the best thing on the menu (it's not, but you see the berry compote all over his fingers and you know that's the hill he's dying on).

No matter how you spin it, it's a hard pill to swallow. Choi Seungcheol is good at what he does, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

You hear the careening lilt of what seems to be Seungcheol whining, and there's a brief flash of something like endearment in your stomach before the repulsion sets in.

Nothing you can do to stop him, huh?

The question, sinister and burning, writhes in your brain as you chew on the ice from your coffee and stare at a blank Word document, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat.

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Beware the wrath of a woman scorned.

It's number 3 on Seungcheol's article titled Revenge and Other Stories. Unsurprisingly, he must not practice what he preaches, because you currently have all nine circles of Dante's Inferno inside you right now.

Play nice, Jeonghan had told you. Looks better to upper management.

And you did, until one of your photo requests mysteriously got deleted. Then Joshua told you to cut 500 words from this week's column because Seungcheol's just "happened" to be a little longer this time.

The knockout punch was yesterday when Seungcheol told you he was using your January critic's choice pick to take Wonwoo out for a friendly dinner, his treat. If you had known, you would've called ahead and told them to poison the hamachi. (No matter. Any foodie worth their salt knows Thursday is the worst day for sushi).

Now you sit on the C train, dressed to the nines, because you have a date with destiny at Nai. Sometimes destiny is a big pan of paella for one, but this time, it's Seungcheol and his next victim on date night.

Getting him there was so easy, it was almost criminal. An obnoxiously loud elevator phone call in which you name dropped the executive chef, a friend of yours, at least four times. Seungkwan very strategically asking you if a press pass can bypass reservations for a booked-out restaurant. Gossip in the break room with the intentional use of "intimate," "sangria drunk," and "affordable."

Affordable was a lie, but you're learning quickly that a hungry fish will take any bait. And seeing Seungcheol's face is never a joy, but you're not opposed to watching him open the menu for the first time.

"I have a killer Spanish accent," Seungcheol told you on the way out today.

Hook, line, and sinker.

The subway car rumbles under you. You're almost in East Village. You don't normally spend your Friday nights crashing dates—you actually don't really spend them outside your apartment at all, but Seungcheol is the exception to the rule and you're making a lot of them for him. A small price to pay for the glory of dethroning Casanova.

The plan is to "accidentally" run into Seungcheol and his Friday night exploit, and then to casually, non-bitterly mention a, that she is about to become a statistic, b, that his idea of chivalry was birthed in the basement of the Alpha Omega house, and c, that you're surprised he's still single because you always happen to catch him on dates. Something like that.

This is admittedly the best you could come up with. Like you said, you don't really crash dates. You don't really sabotage people either, but Seungcheol declared war the minute his Folgers breath hit your face outside Wonwoo's office.

Then you think of all the ways things can absolutely backfire. Seungcheol's warm, carefree whirl of laughter when he explains you're office rivals, or worse, lies and says you're nothing but a jilted, jealous ex. Or this whole thing could simply be immortalized in his winning article as a jaunty sentence about making the most out of a bad situation, yada yada yada.

You picture watching another girl, spellbound, as you dig into your table-for-one paella.

In your mind's eye, she laughs, floaty like his date at the bagel place, and for a moment you understand what it might feel like to want Choi Seungcheol.

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Friday night at Nai is red and glittering and heady with saffron.

You remember when you first ate here, two weekends after the soft open, early in your career at the paper. After a three hour conversation over wine and octopus with the owner, you wrote the restaurant a glowing review that, to your surprise, helped land it several ritzy awards. Now the dining room is never empty, but they always find space for you.

That was the first time you learned that all of this work meant something. Yeah, you loved an excuse to stuff your face and get paid for it, but what was even better was the chance to tell the stories of a working father's hand-pulled noodles, the drunk, midnight origins of a tasting menu, the caramel-greedy fingers of a well-loved childhood.

This is the long way of explaining how you bypass the two hour standby wait time, and how you walk in on a first name basis with the manager.

You're fully prepared to see Seungcheol mid-churro, perhaps four pick-up lines deep and wondering if he still has a condom in his wallet.

That's why you almost miss him on your way to your table. His is empty, other than a lonely, watered down martini on the rocks and two menus.

"Seungcheol?"

He looks up at you, and something like genuine surprise melts into relief, then intrigue.

"Look at who crawled out of her dungeon," he chuckles. "You clean up good."

Whatever pity you may have felt for him vaporizes instantly. Although, when he beckons for you to sit in the empty seat across from him, you do take the bait—you're not about to pass up a good opportunity to humble your least formidable foe.

"Refreshing to see that our love guru isn't above dining solo," you reply. "I have to admit, your acting is impressive. What an elaborate ruse to get another poor, single diner to pity you enough to sit with you."

"It worked, didn't it?" He takes a sip of his cocktail, which is almost a brand new drink because it's 90% water, 10% martini by now.

"I'm no expert, but pretending to get stood up is not a tip I would give the general public."

"Who said I was pretending?"

No fucking way. Your jaw drops. It's too unreal to believe. Even if the slutty cut of Seungcheol's shirt wasn't persuasive enough, surely the prospect of enjoying a free Michelin star dinner would warrant an appearance, even for you. Breaking News: New York's Hottest Bachelor Ghosted at Top Restaurant. If only that were as wonderful to the average reader as it is to you.

Because waiters are trained to enter conversations at the best possible time, you're forced to pause and order a wine for the table and some tapas. (No paella for one? Seungcheol asks, and you try to reconcile your annoyance with the fact that one, he's read your review of this place, and two, that he looks mildly turned on that you can pronounce all the menu items. You tell the waiter to add a paella.)

"You got stood up?" You cross your arms over your chest. "You may think I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb."

"You have no idea how flattering your reaction is." He laughs, and the air shifts around him, drawing you further into his eyes, inky under the lowlight. "I understand you think I'm irresistible, but, alas, not everyone shares your opinion."

"I never said that."

You hate how easy it is for him to push your buttons. You hate how in control he is, and you hate how he's looking at you like you're on the menu.

The waiter returns with the wine, and you decide you're feeling equally as terrible.

"Truly, you can't be that irresistible. After all this time writing about relationships, you would think you'd actually be in one."

Touché, you think. Normally, it would be too low a blow, even for you, except that his column-related debauchery is one of the four thrilling conversation topics he subjects you to at the office. And who are you to bury the lede?

"Coaches don't play," Seungcheol says, leaning back and popping the martini olive in his mouth offensively, as if he's not at a restaurant that takes months to get a good table at.

"Bullshit." You lean forward and chase his gaze. He doesn't shy away; rather, he meets you with an appraising raise of an eyebrow. "Coaches should at least know how to throw the ball."

"What do you think we're doing right now?"

"Oh, please." Your wrist twitches as you fight the urge to down your entire glass of merlot in a single gulp. You picture the title of his next article: Top 10 Ways To Get A Woman Drunk. And then the oh so charming punchline: 1. Be so insufferable she cannot last a conversation without her real life partner, wine.

"See? I've already got you laughing." He notices the generous sip missing from your glass and tops you up.

"No, you do not get to make this about me."

Somehow, you are laughing, but you chalk it up to the spiteful little man in your brain writing headlines for Seungcheol's column.

How To Antagonize Your Date In 5 Easy Steps.

"Need I remind you I'm only here because your actual date stood you up? Too soon?"

"I prefer you anyway," he answers, his expression half-challenge, half-something else that you don't really want to think about.

"Crazy, because I'd rather be literally anywhere else."

Signs You Are In A Hostage Situation, Not A Date.

"You should stick to food. You're a bad liar." He cocks his head to the empty table next to him. "It's still open if you want it."

"I'm no quitter."

Maybe The Male Gaze Isn't So Bad: A Thinkpiece.

Definitely not that one.

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"So, before I try anything," Seungcheol says, leaning across the table. "Teach me how to be a food critic."

"Why, so you can steal my job?"

"You can keep it," he laughs. "I'm gonna be your boss, not your replacement."

You notice he'll linger on the tail end of his sentences, betting on the response you haven't even come up with yet. He's picking apart the furrow of your brow, the marrow of your brain. It's like one drawn out interview, but you suppose that's all dating really is. Maybe your journalism degree wasn't a waste of money after all.

You won't give him the satisfaction of a fight (plus, you don't want the food to get cold), so you change the subject.

"Well, I take pictures first," you say, waving away his overeager fork.

"Genius. They really scammed you out of your Pulitzer, huh?"

You ignore him in lieu of repositioning the chorizo. Unfortunately, Seungcheol is unrelenting. You hear the snap of his phone camera, clearly taking a photo of you and not the meal—clever, but you won't bite.

"Wanna be in my story? I can tag you."

In your periphery hovers his wry, wanting smile.

"Sure. So the world can know I'm a charity worker too."

He whistles, clutching his heart. If he weren't so annoying, you would find him a little cute. Just a little. You blame the kitchen for whatever aphrodisiac is in the food today.

"Live update: date with food critic going about as well as an episode of Hell's Kitchen."

He says this leaning forward, elbows on the table, so close to you that your knees might touch. You tense at the thought.

"Any date of mine would be on better behavior."

"So you're admitting this is a date?"

"This," you wave your hand over the table. "This is not a date. This is me regretting ever pitying you."

"Well, pity looks good on you."

And there it is again, that accursed, perfect smile. This time, it works, and you fight the losing battle of the wine flush undoubtedly all over your face. It bothers you that there's a little part of you that enjoys this, but that's a confession you plan on taking to the grave.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, because you're not getting any again."

"Fine. I'm still waiting for your grand secret," he says, now biting the tines of his fork like an untrained dog. No rest for the weary, you suppose. "Food is food. Prove me wrong."

Despite the betrayal of your basal human instincts, you're determined to make this a bad encounter. Maybe you hadn't anticipated the full force of Seungcheol's overgrown fratboy persona, but you came here for a reason and you do plan to see it through.

"There is no secret." You split apart an empanada, the guts steaming and fragrant. "You eat."

"Like this?" He crams an entire piece in his mouth, and you watch him recoil and huff the heat out. "Mmm, 's pretty good, though."

Your eyes almost roll back far enough to see the wrinkles of your brain. Of course he wouldn't get it, but you don't know what you were expecting from a guy who thinks Hot Pockets are fine dining.

You put on your most pretentious food critic face. "Eating is about respect. Storytelling. He's retelling the first time someone made him this dish. The ingredients—they're words on a page. An autobiography." Your hand finds your chest and you sigh, a final touch to your Oscar winning melodrama that would certainly annoy anyone with even half a brain.

"Huh. Poetic," he says. He's still fanning his (very full) mouth, but he chews a little more slowly. "I'm respecting. I'm taking it in."

You don't know if he's actually doing any of that, but, when he takes his next bite he asks about what's in it (tomato, raisin, egg) and if someone really made the chef an empanada when he was younger (yes, on the flour-printed counter, every Sunday morning).

You press on. It shouldn't take much to bore him, but with every question, food-related factoid, and snide comment you have, he matches you with genuine curiosity. Either he's an excellent actor or he's secretly culinary school-bound, because you can't actually imagine anyone putting up with any of that, nonetheless I like dick jokes and football Choi Seungcheol.

You spend the rest of the evening like this, spoon to heart to cherry mouth. The wine is abundant, and Seungcheol spends more time listening than talking, which he admits is a first for him.

"You really know a lot about food," he says, likely fighting the urge to use his finger to get the last of the chocolate sauce off the churro plate. "I like that."

It's a cheap compliment in a game of low blows, but it sits warm and content in your chest. You have to force yourself back to the night you met him, when he was all cognac and one-liners and he gave you his spare hotel room key. A good reminder of his true nature, you think, despite the fact that he just listened to you talk about all the different grains of rice, ad nauseum.

"It's my job," is your reply, adequately distant for your liking.

"Fair. You gonna ask me about mine?"

"What more is there to know?" You hold up the check. "You're paying, right? Chivalry and all that?"

You're waiting for him to mention the company card, the only one allocated to your section that Seungcheol couldn't possibly have because it's sitting snug in your purse. The one you'll say you conveniently forgot so you get to see a grown man squirm at paying the bill.

"Already did. Gave the host my card when I got here. You're holding the customer copy." His chuckle disappears under the lip of his wine glass. "Bet you were excited to use the company card, huh?"

If shame were a physical object, you feel like your own personal Atlas. Your only option is to stare at the wasteland of empty plates before you and wonder how deep Seungcheol's pockets really are.

"Hardly. More excited that I burned a hole in your wallet." You click your tongue, out of options on how to ruin Seungcheol's night. You would spill wine on him but there's none left. "Anyway, I'm heading out."

"Running away?"

"Bored," you lie.

He calls you a taxi, and you walk out together, night heavy with the rhinestone glare of Friday night traffic.

"I actually had a nice time tonight," Seungcheol says, emphasis on the actually.

"Unfortunate."

"How do you think I feel?"

The taxi pulls to the curb, and he sighs, weighty with exaggerated relief. You can't even take it seriously because he's looking right at you and badly failing to push down the smile at the corners of his mouth.

It's only now that you notice his eyes are really brown, like he's from a cartoon or something. Worse, you'd daresay they're nice, less menacing, when they're tempered by a good meal and semi-public humiliation.

"Text me when you get back to your villain lair."

"If I were a real villain, you would have a lot more to worry about."

Seungcheol opens the cab door for you, and you catch a whiff of the cologne he undoubtedly smeared on in the toothpaste-streaked mirror of his five by five studio bathroom. Pine, leather, and citrus, which is the most pedestrian combination of smells to exist and yet you doubt it hasn't done him any favors.

"I'm terrified. Shaking." You clamber into the backseat, and he smiles at you again, as if you've forgotten what all his other ones looked like. "By the way—"

You have half a mind to shut the door in his face, but you can't find it within you—maybe it's the wine, or perhaps pure defeat. Probably the former.

"This job. It's—" He clicks his tongue and looks at the tops of his leather shoes. He's actually thinking, and you don't like it. "Never mind. See you Monday."

And then the words are gone. He shuts the cab door, and they're left in a plume of exhaust and Seungcheol's tiny waving figure in the rearview mirror.

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"So you're telling me you went on a date with your worst enemy."

It's 8 AM, and Jeonghan isn't pulling punches. Even through the phone, you can see his lazy grin, the pen he's flipping in his hand, the green ribbon of the Dow Jones on his desktop.

The newsroom is refreshingly near empty, except for Joshua, who hovers around the water cooler like a fly on the wall, if flies wore Armani ties and cigarette jeans.

"It wasn't a date, and I wanted to ruin it so he would have nothing to write about."

"No one goes on a date to ruin it. You could have just left."

"Clearly you haven't seen How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days."

"Are you serious." Jeonghan laughs, crackly and bright. "Care to tell me how that movie ends?"

"Except he isn't Matthew Mcconaughey. He says spaghetti like pah-scetti and doesn't use Oxford commas."

Mid-laugh, you endure another beat of extended eye contact with your editor until he beckons you over. He'd likely been waiting for the perfect time to interrupt the conversation he was so subtly eavesdropping on—oh, how you love a newsroom with an "open floor plan" to "facilitate communication." Sometimes you think the reason Joshua's stuck around this long is because reporters can't stay away from drama, especially if they're not the ones reporting it.

"I gotta go," you tell Jeonghan, whose version of a goodbye is a triumphant cackle.

You find Joshua putzing around, plastic water cup incriminatingly full.

"I take it you had an enjoyable weekend?" he asks, eyes sequined with all the secrets they hold.

"Yup. Just working on that Dining Through The Years article." Not entirely a lie—you are hedging your bets on this story, one where you revisit the restaurants you wrote about when you first got your start at the paper (Nai included, although admittedly yesterday's food was the least of your concerns). "You needed me?"

"Glad to see New York's finest chefs are well-versed in Kate Hudson's filmography," he says, grinning something beastly. If he weren't your boss, you'd knock that little water cup clean out of his hand. "Anyway, if your interview is over, I need you to go on a field trip."

"Field trip?"

Surely you're better than a task for the interns. You wonder if they're off fighting their own demons, seeing as you missed the circus in the elevator this morning, the usual juggle of hazelnut lattes and lemon poppyseed muffins for the higher-ups.

"Wonwoo needs you to help pick out catering for the corporate event later next week." Joshua tips his head back at Wonwoo's glass-plated office, where you see him redoing his tie in the reflection of his computer monitor. "My guess is that Yerim is going to be there, and he wants to make a good impression. Like an 'I consulted a food expert' impression."

Classic gossip queen Hong Joshua, always with the unnecessary but incredibly cogent commentary on office politics. You think you're actually going to miss the bastard.

"Flattered," you remark dryly. "Catering from where?"

"That's the thing. It's from this Thai place like two hours out from the city."

Two hours: code for an all day endeavor. He wasn't kidding when he said field trip.

You graciously resist the urge to groan out loud. No one told you taking the high road is one big slog through the mud, but here you are. You tell yourself this will help your campaign to be editor—the stinky, dirt-smeared silver lining.

"Before you ask—yes, I know you cannot take the subway there." You blink at him, wondering why this all feels like the set-up to a terrible joke. "Luckily, as you probably know, Seungcheol drives here every day and has offered to help."

Ah. There it is. You look for the blinking applause sign hanging above your head and the chorus of riotous Seungcheols making up your own personal laugh track.

"Only back to the office, though—" Joshua adds, as if that provides you any solace. "There's a one-way bus going up there at noon."

"N-not both ways?" you croak.

"Something about funds," he replies, shrugging. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"You're not the one I'm thinking of shooting."

"Who knows? Maybe he is Matthew McConaughey." And when your glare turns sharp as the edge of a santoku knife, he holds his hands up like he's getting arrested. "I'm just saying. As your friend, not your editor."

Whatever.

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You have to admit, Wonwoo does have impeccable taste in Thai food.

Three noodle dishes, two curries, and the best mango sticky rice you've ever had: that's what it took for you to finally say "not all men." Certainly not Wonwoo, who's in deep enough to send his goons cross-state for a girl he's tried to woo for almost a whole year now.

A tamarind sunset blankets the countryside in milk and honey. You're sitting on a bench, ridiculously full with leftovers to spare, waiting for your chauffeur from hell.

Two years and you still don't know what car Seungcheol drives. Your last memory of it is it being flashy, impractical, and loud, much like him.

You know this, and yet you are still surprised when a gnat of a BMW rips into the curb in front of you. The passenger window crawls down, and Seungcheol has the gall to whistle at you.

For someone so predictable, he sure does manage to find new ways to piss you off. Unfortunately, on brand— according to him, Consistency Is Key (number 2 on Keeping the Spark Alive, August 2022 issue). You've done your reading.

"You're welcome," is the first thing Seungcheol says to you after cranking down the volume of the radio and watching you fumble with the seatbelt.

"You really didn't have to." You look at the array of gas station snacks bubbling out of the cupholders—Sour Patch Kids, a Big Gulp, and Flamin’ Hot Fritos. You didn't even know they sold Sour Patch Kids to full grown adults.

Still, you do feel a little bad. You can count on one hand the amount of people you would do this for and still have one or two cheese-dusted fingers left.

"But, thank you."

"Joshua made me," he says, and what happened this morning starts to make a lot more sense. "Plus, I was a little jealous. I would kill for a day frolicking in the sun, eating delicious food, far, far away from the big city. Not trapped like me in the newsroom, exhausted, toiling away on my magnum opus."

The sigh that crawls from his chapped lips practically shakes the car.

"I'm retracting my thank you."

"I'm devastated. Really."

You choose to watch the strip of shitty New York highway unravel through the greasy passenger window. No point in picking a fight when you're in a leather quilted jail cell for the foreseeable future.

It's at the thirty minute mark where Seungcheol casts the first stone of terrible, stilted small talk.

"Why'd you get sent all the way out here anyway?"

The red taillight flush of rush hour floods the car, an unpleasant reminder of the real sunset left far behind you.

"Thought you knew it was Wonwoo."

"Yeah, but why?"

Why does it matter? Is your first thought, but you realize he's attempting to actually have a genuine conversation with you, which you suppose is better than him flinging around another rude remark. Either that, or he's falling asleep, and you'd rather not have the last moments of your life be in Seungcheol's chick magnet car.

"Joshua thinks it's because he wants to impress Yerim at the corporate meeting this week. I guess she likes Thai."

Traffic is slow enough for him to turn to look at you, really look at you.

"Come on, he can't like her that much."

"Yes, he can." you try to read his expression, neon-glossy. "This isn't even that much effort."

"Nah," he shrugs. "There's gotta be some kind of ulterior motive. Maybe he wants to move into corporate."

"Hot take for a romantic." You frown. "Not everything people do is a career move, you know."

You omit the unlike you that sits heavy in the back of your throat, although, his cavalier approach to relationships is starting to make a little more sense. You wonder if this whole thing—the dates, the watch, the Invisalign smiles—is just a long, drawn-out joke to him.

"Seems like a lot of effort to go through for an office crush." His gaze drifts back to the road. "The extravagant birthday present. Always having her favorite flowers in the office. That one cringe voicemail we all heard him re-record ten times. No one likes anyone that much. Come on. Her dad is the CEO of the company."

Suddenly his winning smile doesn't seem so triumphant. It almost feels like a betrayal, but you don't know why.

"Maybe he just likes her," you reply. "I dunno. I choose to believe that. I think it's sweet."

"Maybe you're the romantic." The words come out like an accusation; Seungcheol laughs, but all the joy's been sucked out of it.

"Who hurt you?"

"No one did. I'm just being honest."

You would laugh at the irony if it didn't feel like there was a vine wrapped round your throat. Life is funny, but never so funny as to curse New York's favorite romance writer with cynicism and a lying streak.

"Controversial, but I actually want to do nice things for the person I like."

"And when was the last time that happened?" He's deflecting, which is predictably on brand for him. His grin, now playful, is propped up by a pair of frustratingly well-formed dimples.

You can't even find it within you to protest because he's right—you haven't dated in a long time. Joshua stopped asking if you were bringing a plus one to office parties ages ago.

But it's not that you can't—in fact, the last time you did, you think it broke you a little inside. It's certainly not a story Seungcheol's privy to, though. You already feel strange, cut-open, trying to convince him that people are capable of meaningful relationships.

Childishly, there's also a part of you chasing the truth about him because it takes him further and further away from you. So you do what you do best and deflect again. Two can play at that game.

"Not taking criticism from a guy who's dated half of the city and has nothing to show for it."

"I wouldn't say nothing."

He opens his mouth then closes it again, as if he's revising the words on his tongue. Journalist behavior, which you didn't even know he could still exhibit.

Now you're really thinking. Who hurt him, and how? The development that Seungcheol is more than the playboy slime haunting page 3 intrigues you more than you'd care to admit.

Before you can pry, Seungcheol's stomach growls, almost offensively loud.

"Sorry," he says. "Who would've thunk that corn chips aren't a balanced meal?"

You stare at the takeout boxes snug in your lap. There is a cosmic message being sent right now.

Seungcheol's sad, Frito-filled belly. Fresh noodle that won't keep well in the fridge. Tax and tip for a four hour car ride back to the city. Expanding your repertoire of blackmail so that you can claim your rightful helm at the paper.

These are all the reasons you give yourself for what you ask next.

"You in a rush?"

"How could I be—do you see the blinding speed we're driving at?" He laughs at his own incredibly unfunny attempt at a joke. "No, I'm not."

"I may or may not have an actual balanced meal for you."

That’s how you end up in the parking lot of a random 7/11 off the freeway. In any other circumstances, it would be a cruel and unusual punishment, but you've already been whittled down enough to actually care about Seungcheol, even if just a little.

That's what you tell yourself, anyway, as you watch him finish the last of the takeout.

"So I'm bad at food, and you're bad at love. Why the fuck did Wonwoo even think of promoting either of us?" Seungcheol kicks his shoes off and props his feet up on the dashboard. You notice his socks have dogs on them, little linty brown ones, and you feel a little worse about openly bullying him about his fashion taste in front of the entirety of copy staff.

"I may be bad at love, but you're worse. Especially for someone who does it for a living," you retort. "Don't think I forgot our earlier conversation."

You try to read the tiny text on a receipt he's got stashed in the center console, among his graveyard of snack wrappers. (2) CHEESY GORDITA CRUNCH…8.78. (1) M MT DEW BAJA BLAST…1.00.

Definitely bad at food, you muse to yourself.

"You think I'm not kicking myself right now? That I have a beautiful girl in my car right now, and all we do is argue?"

Now that—nothing could have prepared you for that.

It gets awfully quiet. The noise of the freeway seems to screech to a fever pitch, all horns and the thrum of the asphalt. You wish anything but John Mayer was playing on the radio.

You will the headlines man in your head to make you laugh. Instead, your brain presses the word beautiful into your neurons and you feel all the heat in your body float to your face, traitorously, dizzyingly. John Mayer croons, your body is a wonderland and your stomach knots into itself over and over again.

"Stop that."

"What?" Seungcheol's head lolls to his shoulder so he can look at you from the corner of his eye. " 's not a big deal. Never been called beautiful?"

A grin plays on his lips, expression dancing on something grim, like he's spoken his final words.

"I'm serious! Stop trying to get me to like you." You huff and cross your arms over your chest, like it'll somehow make you feel more normal. "I'm not some experiment for your column."

"Is it working?"

You don't answer. How can you? There's a yes resting on the roof of your mouth, surely the product of the handful of real, actual moments you've now had with him—far too many for your liking. This whole charade has been a balancing act on the razor edge between rivals and something else, and now you're feeling the sting.

"For the record, I have been called beautiful before."

"And for the record, you're not an experiment for my column. You never were."

There's a relief that pulses through your chest, a breathless, wonderful kind of dizziness. You grab hold of it as soon as it's reared its ugly head. You're flying way too close to the sun, chasing cheap validation from the same guy who ate your lunch out of the fridge last week.

He's no better—he looks like the vulnerability cracked him open a little, and you're the one holding the hammer. It makes for a grubby, unflattering portrait of two emotionally inept people trying to play feelings.

However, much like all other things Seungcheol, any glimpse of something real is gone before you know it. He takes a loud, noisy pull of Diet Coke, and the spell is broken.

"Want any?" And when you shake your head, grateful to swallow the words pressed to your tongue, he says, "Should we wait out traffic here?"

This is an easier yes. You tell yourself you're getting sick of brake lights and reading the license plates on the back of other people's cars. Certainly that makes Seungcheol's gaze, lingering and moonlight-warmed, a little more tolerable.

For once, you don't talk about Wonwoo or your job. You don't talk about love, either.

Maybe this is the reason the next few hours slip through your fingers. Three folded takeout pagodas and a secret—somehow this is all it takes for you to hate Seungcheol just a little less.

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Usually, a good eggs benedict can solve the majority of your problems. Today seems to be the exception. The hollandaise is broken, Jeonghan is already laughing at you, and nothing will ever erase the fact that Seungcheol drove you home last night and now he knows where you live. If you wake up one morning and see a sniper laser pointed at your forehead, you have no one to blame but yourself.

"You look exhausted." An eighth of a buckwheat pancake disappears into Jeonghan's mouth. "You literally eat for a living. There is no reason for them to keep you late."

Jeonghan has a funny way of caring about you, but he's right. You did get home at 2 AM yesterday, but that was on you, not Wonwoo.

"I'm not going to let a corporate slug tell me what is and isn't a real job," you sigh, taking a swig of your half-flat mimosa and reminding yourself to figure out which staff writer gave this place 4 stars in last week's paper.

"Says the girl who needs the company card to afford bottomless brunch," Jeonghan replies.

"At least I'm not a slave to my career."

"What do you call this whole thing with your coworker then, huh? It's all you text me about." The smirk on Jeonghan's face is miserably, tragically righteous, and you can't even be mad about it.

"Seungcheol is my enemy, remember?"

"You sent me a five minute voice memo the other day ranting about how he went on a date with another girl." And just like the little shit he is, he even pulls up your mile-long text history, just to rub it in your face a little harder.

"Am I not allowed to wish for his demise? Since when were you the mature one?"

"I wouldn't call keeping track of his whereabouts wishing for his demise." Jeonghan takes a well-timed bite of your hashbrowns. "Something tells me you're wishing for something a little different."

You almost choke on a blueberry.

"Absolutely not."

You watch Jeonghan power down another mimosa, half-fascinated, half-appalled he would even dream of suggesting something so vile.

The memory of Seungcheol, leant back in the driver’s seat, lowering greasy spools of rice noodles into his mouth, crosses your mind. He had laughed until he cried when he asked you if a pineapple had really fried this rice. That was the kind of man you were dealing with. You can't believe you laughed with him.

"I think it'll be good for you to get back into dating again. Mingyu was, what, three years ago?"

And that's the chocolate chip studded, syrup-covered nail in your coffin. Of course all roads had to lead back to you and your relationship trauma Jeonghan considered unresolved.

You had dated Mingyu when you were younger, softer. It was a love of firsts, of sun-washed mornings and farmer's market Sundays, of raw, black currant midnights and whatever long-winded conversation you had spent all day on.

Mingyu was a chef. His hands, his lips, his eyes—that's how you fell in love with food. Strawberry kisses into fresh pasta into the first time someone had ever cooked for you. What a wonderful, terrible thing to see all your history on a plate, the I could never eat peas, the once I ate mangos till I was sick, the guilty spoon in the vanilla ice cream after a bad day and the dark chocolate you keep in your purse. He remembered that you like your noodles just a little bit overcooked, and you don't even think you told him that.

Food, like some shitty piece of home decor would say in that swirling, curly font, really is some window to the soul. It didn't fully hit you until, one day, you were at the grocery store alone, and somehow you knew exactly what brand of everything Mingyu liked.

You opened a restaurant together after you graduated from college. Then it closed, and you lost Mingyu to Naples or New Orleans or Seoul—somewhere, anywhere to escape the corner of 5th and 40th, the December-pleated memory of his hands in yours and a promise you could never keep.

You're sure you're over it by now, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't look for him in a bowl of his favorite ramyun, the one you could never replicate even though he insisted he just added hot water (Food tastes best when it's a gift, he'd say. You never understood until now.).

Jeonghan doesn't believe you because every time you try explaining this to him, you end up sounding like the most chronically lonely person on planet Earth.

"That is the wrong guy to suggest then," you instead reply, feeling all the food dry up in your mouth.

"I'm running out of options."

"Don't you have a hot coworker or something?"

You shut your eyes, pushing Mingyu back to recall literally any face from one of the many swanky corporate parties Jeonghan bullied you into attending. The only person coming to mind is Lee Chan, and even more than his face, you remember the fat platinum band around his ring finger (Better luck next time, Jeonghan had said, mid-cheese cube).

Worse, amidst all the fuzz, a grainy recollection of Seungcheol's wet cow eyes washes up against your eyelids, and it's not going away this time.

"I thought we were all corporate slugs," Jeonghan replies, enjoying the way you glower at him over your fork. "I was kidding, anyway. Relax."

Your entire body heaves with the sigh that escapes you.

You thank god that Jeonghan is never serious, because otherwise you'd have to consider the fact that he really thought you should date Seungcheol. Jeonghan, who knows the pizza column you, the Mingyu you, and now the you that works late because there's nothing else left to do, really might have thought you should date grifter by day, con artist by night Seungcheol.

The fluorescent glaze of the gas station lights. Seungcheol's hand on the gear stick. His voice, warm and gauzy. It's like there's a flash drive of last night plugged into your head, and you can't take it out.

The stem of the champagne glass finds your hand, and you down the whole thing.

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Monday is uneventful. So is Tuesday, and you wonder what good deed you'd done to deserve such a blessing.

Wednesday, you realize you're just three interviews away from what could possibly be the best article of your life. Unfortunately, two of those won't pick up the phone and the third keeps rescheduling on you.

That's fine—Rome wasn't built in a day, and the same hopefully applies to your future noodle empire.

You're using your lunch break to write an email to number two when you notice Seungcheol hovering around your desk, a plastic straw in his mouth and evil in his eyes.

He's taken to publicly annoying you at work more than usual—Progress, Joshua had told you in the elevator this morning. Towards what? you had asked. He shrugged, letting his crafty, knowing look do all the talking.

"Me, you, and date number two?" is today's opening line. Before you can peel yourself away from your computer and give him a good lashing for whatever the fuck he just said to you, he continues with, "How's that for a follow-up text to my speakeasy date?"

"Lame," you reply, hackles still raised but now re-reading your email for typos.

"Wrong. You were supposed to say incredibly romantic, extremely witty, and unfairly charming." He perches his baseball player ass on the corner of your desk, waiting to be humbled. This is the usual order of things, which has shockingly become more of a familiarity than anything else.

"Do you even have a romantic bone in your body?"

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow. "Just one, but it's the only one that matters."

"Ew. Gross." You wrinkle your nose and attempt to soothe your temper with a sip of the terrible protein shake you got for lunch. "No wonder your column sucks."

"If mine sucks, I'd hate to see what people are saying about yours." And when your reply is a tired, hungry swig of your sad drink, he says, "No lunch today? Even I had something better."

"Lucky you."

The bigger truth is that that the deadline for your article, looming before you, is getting to you more than you'd care to admit. Seungcheol isn't helping, not with his bottomless magic hat of date stories that seems to only grow deeper by the day. Now you're forgetting to pack a lunch, and the highlight of your day has been reduced to punching numbers into a vending machine.

Things are bad, but you'll never say that aloud, especially not to the guy who'll spend the next five years dunking on you if you keep this up.

You stare down the lip of your bottle at the faux-chocolate dregs streaking the bottom.

The month before Mingyu opened his restaurant, you were so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right that you also forgot to eat. One day, leftovers from his work started magically appearing in your fridge. Chow fun (miss you!), salt and pepper shrimp (don't forget to drink water!), a gargantuan vat of hot and sour soup (love you most!).

It was a perfect coincidence until you realized there was no way Chinese takeout was coming out of a very French restaurant, and it was then you learned that love is never really a coincidence.

Now you have no coincidences, mapo tofu, or romance. Just muscle milk and a front row view of the struggling inseam of a man who must shrink his pants in the dryer.

He's peeling a tangerine. Your worst confession to date is that it's easy on the eyes. For once, his hands, always made busy with some scheme, now still over the rind, steady, practiced. Plus, it looks like a marble in his huge hands, which is unfortunately both funny and a little hot.

"Stare any longer, and I'm gonna forget how to peel this."

"Don’t flatter yourself. Just hungry," you half-lie.

Hungry, Stressed, And Delusional—The New Holy Trinity.

It's a catchy headline, but not a great look for you. Never in your life did you think you'd be ogling a man peeling an orange. He even takes all the pith off, and you don't have the heart to tell him that's where all the nutrients are.

"Exactly," he replies. Then he plops the naked, shiny fruit right on your bare desk. "Here. Eat."

You’re so taken aback, all you can do is stare. First at the orange, then at Seungcheol, who suddenly cannot make eye contact with you. Instead, he stacks the peel in his hands, dimpled piece over piece.

"Payback for the, uh, Thai," he says, and although you wouldn't equate a tangerine to James Beard awarded pad kee mao, all you can think of is an lime green sticky note in your fridge and a smile.

A gift. A pithless, wrinkly one.

The idea that Seungcheol was capable of being genuinely nice to anyone, nonetheless, you—probably the most undeserving person of it in the world—makes you feel something close to guilt.

You push through the feeling, instead taking the fruit in your hand and splitting it between your thumbs. The flesh caves so easily, and it's then you remember that food, unlike people, doesn't have to be complicated.

You can feel a better person somewhere inside you, someone easier to care for and with less of a bad attitude. You're not there yet, but there's a dark, satisfying comfort in not being good enough for the indulgence of that kind of intimacy. An arm's length was never too far away for you, except now there's someone sitting on your desk and they gave you lunch. Worst of all, you don't think you mind.

You hold out the half—sticky, guilty fingers and all.

Seungcheol wordlessly accepts it. There's no surprise or confusion—he smiles, you say cheers, and you both take a bite.

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On weekends, the Korean place down the street from your college apartment sold corn dogs until 3 AM. That was when words came easy and love came easier.

It was with sugar all over your nose, eyes pressed to the once forgiving half-moon, where you told Mingyu you would become a writer.

The thing about youth is that it can float anything, no matter how holey, desperate it was. So you sailed through college, that gasping hope wound tight in your fist. Then you started freelancing, just in time for Mingyu’s soft open. You wanted to write, but more importantly, you wanted some way, any way to be useful to the person who had given you so much.

In retrospect, there was no way your crude attempts at actual journalism could ever generate real publicity for him. Not in the heart of New York, where a new restaurant opened every two days and someone wanted to get published every three.

So you eventually sank, and so did Mingyu, leaving you with all this creased, no good love in your chest to shrivel up with nowhere to go.

All of that landed you here. A degree, a dream job, and a laundry list of accolades, but the fruit of that love still hangs heavy and joy-rot on the vine, as you wait for it to be good enough for the taking.

Ironically, it reminded you of cooking. No one ever teaches you when to stop, and now every other joint has dry-aged steak and some version of a three-day demi glacé. But at least demi glacé tastes good—you don't even know what the fuck you're doing some days, and the feeling's never been worse than now, waiting on a call you were supposed to get two days ago.

The phone rings, just in time to distract you from the top button of Seungcheol's fitted shirt, which looks like it's holding on for dear life. He's currently deep in conversation with Mina from design, but every so often, he'll glance your way to see if you're just free enough to be bothered.

The unspoken perils of working late—less people around to pester on Wonwoo's dime.

Mina stuffs her laptop in her bag and checks her watch. Strike three for Seungcheol.

Working Hard Or Hardly Working: A Guide To Office Romances. You're surprised he hasn't written that one yet. Maybe Joshua shot it down.

"Hello?" The dial tone breaks into the warm, risen-bread voice of the woman you know to be the owner of one of your favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle spots. The Friday night after your review was published, there was a line out the door. It honestly felt like a no-brainer to you, and you had no hesitation telling the owner that you were sure her place would become a local mainstay. You watched her crow-footed eyes go moony and you couldn't help but picture the day your yellowed newspaper would be posted up on the wall, framed and prophetic.

You're ready to profusely apologize for not stopping by—truthfully, no bone broth has come close to hers. Instead, she apologizes to you, which you aren't sure is flattering or a sign something terrible has happened.

You hope it's the former, but you should have known that hoping has never been enough.

She tells you that she closed the doors to her restaurant yesterday. It all comes spilling out, one gut punch after the other, the bills and the empty tables and how things just weren't the same the year after your review was published. She thanks you for your time, your writing, and your belief, and then she hangs up.

Not a thing in your body feels capable of moving. All the phone static passes right through you until the week's canned up dread balls up in your throat and some darker-than-black feeling swallows you whole.

The fluorescent ceiling lights sear into you. You think you're going to cry, and that's the last thing you want.

To anyone else, it wouldn't be that serious. Restaurants close all the time, and you know an entry in your silly little column is a far cry from a Hail Mary. But all you can think of is Mingyu’s neon sign on 5th and 40th and the two pairs of hands that had to take it down. You think your fingerprints are still on it, right over the blue shock of the I and the N.

One more dream taking on water, and once again, you're at the sad, cruel center of it.

You try to imagine the gumpaste walls, bumpy and water-stained. Maybe a pale square where your review used to hang.

No, you're definitely going to cry.

Fuck this, fuck work, fuck the article. And fuck Seungcheol, who's packing up his annoying, jingly messenger bag and is the only thing standing between you and an empty office to lose your shit in.

You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember if you're wearing waterproof mascara today. Unfortunately, the cowbell of Seungcheol's bag sounds like it's catching up to you, and, like it or not, you are two shaky breaths away from breaking down in front of the last person in the world you want to see.

"Final touches on another titillating piece about pineapple on pizza?"

You have no stomach for yelling at him. You can't even look at him. Instead, you bury your head in your hands and tell him to never use the word titillating again.

"A little too soon to play editor, in my humble opinion."

You don't reply. You're trying to scare him off without really scaring him off because god knows you've done that with enough people. Either way, he's calling you a crazy bitch at the next holiday party. You can just hear it.

But you should've known Seungcheol, of all people, doesn't flinch at a little silence. You still feel him hovering behind you, probably wondering if it's the half-full vanilla protein shake on your desk that's turned you sour. Or if you'll really make good on your threat to shank him with the plastic knife you keep in your top drawer.

Just walk away, you think. Go the fuck home.

Seungcheol, who gets paid to play cupid like it's fantasy football, would never understand that bite of the dial tone. Not like that. Half an orange is a hell of a toll to pay for your unfortunate work-related trauma.

You count the seconds till he walks away.

One. Two. Three.

Four is cut short because instead of doing what he should have done and left, he places a hesitant hand at the base of your neck, between your shoulder blades.

"Hey, you ok?"

Easy, noncommittal words, but something in you cracks. You don't know what it is—maybe it's because it's late and you're running on nothing, maybe it's because you can't remember the last time a hand was so warm.

And so, against your better judgment, you lift your streaky, raccoon-eyed face (definitely didn't use waterproof today) from your hands to look at the same eyes you looked at not more than a month ago and swore at.

You're glad you have no idea what you look like, because it's bad enough that all the corners of Seungcheol's face fall.

"Whoa," he breathes.

Now he'll know when to leave me alone, you think, but then that hand slides to your shoulder and his expression becomes impossibly soft and what you thought was confusion, pity even, dips into affection, stinging and raw.

"Listen, I—," he clears his throat nervously. Perhaps he's running through his repertoire of Wikihow phrases to say to a sad person, but you, inexplicably, don't believe that. "I don't know what's going on, but if you, you know, ever needed to talk…" Then he points to himself because that's probably the longest he's gone without attempting to tell a joke.

You're two and a half shaky breaths into this conversation, and the likelihood you will start crying has not changed. If anything, the odds have gotten much worse because the stubbornness of Seungcheol's expression is fooling you into thinking he actually cares. The illusion is comforting—after all the fighting and sabotage and inconveniences, he's still made space for you. That, or he's keeping his enemies close.

Then his thumb rubs over the plane of your collarbone, and all the little walls and hurdles and dams and shields in you drop.

Close friends, closer enemies, and the infinitesimal space between you and Seungcheol.

You'll blame your sorry state of mind for what you're about to do because you can't really cope with any other explanation. That's a tomorrow problem.

Today, you trust Seungcheol. Today, you tell him not everything, but enough.

"Forgive yourself," he says. And before you protest and tell him, through the waves of tears and snot and lightheadedness, that your heart has yet to catch up to the rest of you, he interrupts you before you even start. "I get it. Just try."

You’re all too familiar with his sugar-floss, candy-coated platitudes that make everything seem so simple, but he looks you in the eye, or somewhere even deeper than that, with so much belief, it's contagious.

The words are ripped out from under you. All you can do is what you wanted to do in the first place. So you cry, and when Seungcheol takes you into his arms, at first tentatively and then all at once, you cry even harder.

"Is this ok?" he asks, so quietly, you almost don't hear him.

"Yeah, I-I think so."

You let him hold you, and all the noise and the heat and the static fades into a hum. His chin finds the top of your head and you let him do that too.

Neither of you say anything more. You don't need to.

All that matters is the welcome sound of someone else's heartbeat, a kind hand in your hair, and Seungcheol, with none of the charms and boasts and failed, half-baked insults he hides behind.

Just him, and you decide you like this version best.

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The emotional hangover you wake up with rivals that of every vodka-flavored morning you had when you were in college, plus another two shots.

There is nothing worse than the aftermath of a particularly bad episode of oversharing. There's a reason you don't talk about your personal life at all, but something about Seungcheol makes every single thing claw its way back up your throat.

A need to prove yourself. A tiny, whispering hope that if you give a little, you'll get a little in return. Or your pride, the familiar knife you keep wedged into your side. A million excuses rattle around in your head, but nothing will ever take away the fact that it felt good.

Shields down, heart bleeding—never did you think that's how you would find yourself in a state where you actually liked Seungcheol. It felt good to be taken seriously, to say that all the talk about foie gras and peppercorns and microgreens was just tableside service for a great love and an even greater apology. And you'd like to think somewhere between the tears and the linen of his shirt, you were finally understood.

Just try. The words, sun-warmed stones, float in the hollow of your chest. It felt a little more possible, coming out of Seungcheol's mouth, with that dumb, resolute expression of his.

You don't even know if you would do the same for him. If he came to you, rosy-eyed and breakdown-adjacent, would you drop everything and listen to him? Clearly his problems ran deeper than a pretty girl not calling him back, but you had never really cared to listen.

And that's something you'll give Seungcheol credit for—he puts up with you, with everything, really, albeit with clumsy hands and the mask of reluctance.

You roll onto your side to reach for your phone. There's a text from Jeonghan asking if you're still up for grabbing drinks this evening. (Always). You have your final interview at 2. (Thank god).

And no text from Seungcheol. (Damn.)

Somehow this is disappointing, which makes your day that much worse. Maybe the runny mascara wasn't as flattering as you thought.

8 Totally Normal Texts To Send When You're Overthinking.

Not a good headline for a worse situation. Honestly, you shouldn't care, but now you're here, staring at your phone and undecided on if you even want Monday to come or not.

You'll order one (or three) margaritas tonight. You'll ask Jeonghan about his upcoming trip to Seoul. You'll make your favorite overnight oats and you'll go to sleep and Sunday will pass just the same.

You won't think about Seungcheol's arms around you or his head on top of yours or the way he insisted he would drive you to the subway so you didn't have to walk. You almost brushed against his hand on the gear stick and the nearness made you want to throw up.

But you're not thinking about it. You can't. Not without falling in love just a little.

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"Here. Drink."

You set two cups on the table before sitting face-to-face with Seungcheol, who decided to roll up to a coffee date in a somehow flattering polo and slacks.

But it's not a date—you're just talking. It's a meet-up. Not a hangout, which sounds too familiar, and definitely not a date.

Yesterday did not go as planned. Margarita-buzzed and under Jeonghan's terrible influence, you texted Seungcheol. Just to clear up some stuff, you told yourself. Friday night's like a scab, and you just can't help coming back to it.

"So, you're a coffee connoisseur too, huh?" Seungcheol says, tipping his head to the side.

"Not nearly," you reply. "Just wanted to pay for something for once. I'm pretty sure I owe you at least fifty of these."

"I'll hold you to it." He's doing that thing where it's like he stares past you. It's the most impressive eye contact on the planet, and it's making you nervous.

Then the silence, once welcome, becomes awkward—the air turns stiff, clinging to all the things you haven't said yet.

You play chicken with the idea of being an emotionally intelligent person and just talking about what most certainly is on everyone's mind right now. The cup between your hands is burning your palms. Seungcheol smiles.

"I'm—" The exact moment you start, the words crinkle up on your tongue and all the walls come back up again. It's a terrible, inevitable instinct. "I'm sorry. For Friday."

"For…what?" Seungcheol pauses mid-sip to say this. "Also, this coffee is really good."

Arabica, orange, and honey, you want to say. But you can't deflect this time. Somehow Seungcheol has cornered you into this tiny cafe chair with that disarming grin and an overabundance of patience.

"Everything, I guess. You were just trying to leave."

"No, I wasn't." And he laughs, which makes your stomach fold over trying to figure out what there possibly is to laugh at. "I actually liked getting to know you. You…care a lot. And I didn't expect that."

Seungcheol's sincerity staggers you. You could ask what the hell he just meant by all of that, but you decide to take him for his word. You think you've experienced the most honesty from him in the past three days than you have in the entire span of time you've known him, and it almost feels like a privilege.

"Thanks…?"

"Don’t let it go to your head, though," he adds, as if to erase what he just said. "Can't have you walking around the office with a bigger stick in your ass."

"Poetic." You sigh. Once again, the illusion is shattered. You wonder if his kindness has a time limit. "How's your article coming along?"

"Nice try," he replies. "I'm not that easy."

"You're literally the definition of easy."

"Is that a compliment?" There's that challenge in his eyes again, that same look that he gave you outside Wonwoo's office. "You did ask me out on a date, despite saying that you'd rather eat glass. So I guess either there's a half-eaten plate in your trash or you've finally come to your senses."

"This is not a date. Dream on."

"You're right. This isn't a date." He leans forward on his elbows. "Just like our dinner date wasn't a date."

"It wasn't."

"Of course. If it was, I'd be asking stuff like…Where you're from. But I already know—h, e, double hockey—"

"Chicago."

"Same difference."

Your conversation continues as such.

Not a date, but where'd you go to college? Not a date, but do you have a pet? Not a date, but can I walk you home?

You realize your talk in his car two weeks ago involved everything but your pasts, but you suppose neither of you are the type to unwrap old wounds. Sometimes the bandaid is better on, but, in your case, there's really nothing left to tell.

You divulge that you went to Northwestern for journalism. You have a family tabby, and no, you wouldn't mind being walked home.

You also realize before today, you knew less about Seungcheol than you thought, but there's some give to his secrecy. He went to USC because his parents wanted him to. Played football for half of it until he tore his ACL and got adopted by the sports section of the school paper. He even captained the advice column for three semesters—something he wants to return to, but you're happy to tell him you wouldn't trust his advice as far as you could throw him. (What was your alias? Samuel. Sounds kinda like Seungcheol, huh? You say no. He laughs.)

After circling the same park three times, you reach the doorstep of your apartment building. You cycle through some one-liners to end on a high note, but none of them seem quite right.

It's not a date, but you've noticed Seungcheol keeps glancing at your lips, and it almost seems like one.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol asks some stupid question about if coffee could be considered tea, which you start to answer before you are rudely interrupted.

First, the bump of his nose against yours, then his lips, slow, insistent, dizzying. Your heart jumps all the way to your throat and you think there's so much heat in your cheeks that he can feel it.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol just kissed you and you liked it.

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The next time you see Seungcheol is in the elevator to the newsroom on Monday.

He sticks his dumb, big arm out of the cabin to hold the door open for you, and his smile bruises your overripe heart.

"Hi," he says, sneaking a glance like a guilty child.

"Hi."

The floor indicators flicker like fireflies, one by one. He sidesteps toward you so that your shoulders touch. You watch the 4 crawl to 5. The air in the cabin is sticky, electric.

And as if taking a great big dive, you kiss him, a fleeting, tender thing that you rolled around in your head for a good thirty minutes earlier this morning—and you never thought the fruit of overthinking could be so sweet.

The elevator dings.

Before the doors open to your floor, Seungcheol slams the close button, takes your face in his hands, and kisses you again.

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You have three reasons to get drunk.

1. It's Friday.

2. You finished your article.

3. You and Seungcheol are no longer mortal enemies, but now you don't know what you are.

(The other day, you both worked late, and he ordered takeout to the office. You sat crosslegged on his desk as he tried to explain what a touchdown was and why he was obsessed with the Steelers. Normally a two hour long conversation about football would be a punishable offense, but that night he made you laugh so hard your stomach hurt the next day.)

After Wonwoo's dinner with corporate, he went to the market across the street and picked up a few handles of soju and the fattest bottle of cheap vodka you've ever seen.

You're all getting a raise—you guess the Thai must have worked out well, although Wonwoo must have struck out with Yerim since he's spending his Friday night drinking with you guys instead.

So you get drunk.

Drunk enough to tune out of Jihyo from Sports giving Wonwoo dating advice—riveting, if not for your near double vision—and follow Seungcheol to the staff bathroom.

"Anyone—," you manage. His lips are hot on your neck, and every dizzy neuron in your body seems to be reaching, grasping for him. "Anyone ever tell you that your forearms look really good when you roll up your sleeves?"

"All the time," he replies, and he swallows the laugh right off of your tongue.

"You are so annoying." Your palm finds his heartbeat, and you revel in how it leaps towards your skin every hurried beat. You don't want to think about how many girls came before you, leant back against the bathroom counter just like this, but having a body against yours never felt so good. You guess that's what a three year hiatus will do to you. "Bet you hear that one a lot too, huh?"

"You got that right."

Another kiss, just a nudge of his nose and you're leaning up to him; your lips feel swollen and warm and somehow they still crave the feeling.

"How is it that we still bump noses," you ask, half words, half air. Seungcheol's hands, skin-greedy, skim over the back of your thighs like they're water and find the swell of your ass.

"You make me impatient." Cheshire grin across heart lips and you're toast. "Anyone tell you that you have a great ass?"

"All the time," you squeak out. It's a lie and a half but who cares. His fingers drag under the seam of your underwear and you've never been so thankful you forgot to wear shorts under your dress.

"Need you," he says, lips flush to the skin behind your ear, and your lower half would give out if you weren't propped against the sink.

The idea of Seungcheol on his knees, your thigh hiked over his shoulder, crosses your mind. He'd probably be really good at head, and that makes you dizzier than any ungodly combination of alcohol would. Or would he press you against the mirror, want your skirt pushed to your waist so he could fuck you from behind?

Anticipation tumbles into anxiety into some primordial, horrible shyness because you haven't had sex in years. You feel hot and damp and sweaty and you can't remember if you shaved or not. Plus, you're already seizing in his arms and he hasn't even touched you for real yet.

"H-home," you breathe. "Let's go home."

"Hm?" His hand slows in the dip between your thighs. "You wanna stop? We can stop."

"No, I just…I just thought it would be better if we went home. To…you know."

"Yours or mine?"

"Mine’s closer," you answer after a considerable amount of mental gymnastics trying to figure out if you're both drunk enough to not mind the mess.

You know your apartment and you know your bed and you know where the bathroom is in case you have to pee. There's a box of condoms under the sink. You have an extra toothbrush for him. Less variables to worry about because nothing else has really gone to plan. You watch Seungcheol misbutton the top two buttons on his shirt and all the fondness in your heart feels like a welcome stranger in your body.

How To Ruin The Moment In One Easy Step!

You feel incredibly horny and guilty all at once, but Seungcheol kisses your cheek on the way out and it's like you're able to breathe again.

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It seems that the car ride to your place sucks all the sobriety back into the both of you.

You're lying stomach-down on your bed, Seungcheol against the headboard with his shirt undone. You're in your bra and your still sticky underwear, and somehow, despite being ready to break your three-year spell, you like this much better.

"Imagine if someone needed to piss," Seungcheol groans. "I think we would have gotten fired. Lifestyle would have no editor."

"I honestly think that's why Seungkwan was standing outside for so long."

Upon hearing this, Seungcheol's eyes shoot open. If your phone wasn't charging, you would take a picture. He fell asleep on your shoulder in the car, and now, even with all the affection you can muster, you can only describe his hair as broom-adjacent. Einstein-core. How far you've fallen from grace.

"Don't worry, he won't say anything." And as you watch the color return to his face, you add, "Also, it's not that I didn't want to have sex, I just…" you trail off, hoping he'll get it even though you're making no sense.

"No, it was the right call. I wanna do it when we're both sober."

It smooths your frayed-out nerves knowing that none of this was a performance or a test, just two shy, touch-starved people stumbling in the dark.

"Lemme guess—this is just a typical Friday night for you."

"Flattering but no," Seungcheol replies, grinning something stupid. "Do you always spend this much time wondering what I'm doing?"

"No!" His hands, once busy with scrunching up the fabric of your bedsheets, now find yours, and he runs a careful thumb over your knuckles. You notice he has the care-worn hands of a line chef, or maybe even a baker, which is funny because you don't even think the man knows how to turn on an oven. "I dunno. You just seem so experienced. What about all of those other girls?"

He flips your hand over, tracing the creases of your palm.

"Just dates. Nothing serious."

You want to ask—What about us? Are we serious? But you swallow it all down. You watch Seungcheol's eyes, midnight-weary, fall back upon you, and it feels like he's trusted you with something important.

"Don’t get it twisted, though," he adds, before yawning big and wide without covering his mouth. "I'm a loser, not a virgin. Definitely not."

You bite back a laugh. Killer journalist bio, but that's something to pitch next content meeting.

"Definitely a loser. I think you make me a loser by association."

"Good. So we're both losers. I like that." He smiles at you with so much warmth, it makes your heart physically hurt. Then he clamps down another yawn. "God, I'm exhausted. I think if we fucked in the bathroom, I'd have passed out. Or pulled my back."

"Then sleep," you chide, shucking a pillow at him. "Also take your shirt off. I don't like outside clothes on the bed."

"Say less," Seungcheol says. "I’ll blow your back out another day. Save the date." Between your almost audible gulp and his unfortunately attractive physique, you almost forget the place you're in-between.

Did everyone fit into his arms? Did he lift a hand for just anyone? Two silhouettes in the lamplight—was that how every day with him ended? Or just you, the only other person competing with him for his dream job? The convenient reality scares you.

The thought never seems to cross Seungcheol's mind. His head hits the pillow, and he's out like a light. But not without a not-so-subtle scoot to your side of the bed, near enough that the heat of his skin plays off yours.

You lean into it, liking how your skin buzzes with the closeness.

You're lulled by the sway of Seungcheol's breathing behind you—probably the most quiet he'll ever be. The moonlight oozes into the room; sleep comes over you like water, a slow, gentle wash.

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You can't remember the last time you cooked for two.

You open your fridge, and the hollow insides stare back at you. Rows of condiments and two water bottles. You have finally reached K-drama CEO status.

"Is this the part where I get kicked out?" Seungcheol says, shrugging his shirt back on as he walks out of the bedroom.

"This is the part where I cook breakfast for you."

"Really? You don't have to." He sounds genuinely surprised, which tips your heart a little off-axis.

"I want to," you reply, double checking the fridge as if opening it a second time would repopulate it. "That's what people do when they care about each other."

"Or if they're trying to poison you."

"Will you just let me do something nice for you?" You yank your head out to glare at him, and he looks stung.

"Thanks." He says it after so much pause that you wonder if this is the first time someone has done this for him. You wish you had a better offering, but surely the man with the worst palate in the world could spare his judgment for one meal. "No really, 'cause I am starving."

You let him bask in the rare glory of the unobstructed refrigerator light while you rummage through the pantry for a plan B.

"Holy shit. You live like this?"

"Not always. It's been…a week." All you have is the ramyun Mingyu likes, which feels like a weird, culinary betrayal. But you're hungry, and Seungcheol is eyeing a strange bag in the freezer that you don't even remember putting there. "You good with ramyun?"

"Honestly, I'll eat anything," he whines, gnawing on the ice straight from the freezer drawer.

At least he's self-aware. But he makes all the spaces Mingyu left behind seem a little less empty, and you can't find it in you to be mad at that.

You wait for the water to boil and Seungcheol finds a seat at your tiny dinner table, a misaligned, wobbly product of Mingyu’s inability to read an Ikea manual.

"I'm hoping your week got better?" Seungcheol asks, referring to your capital W week.

You tentatively nod before dropping the noodles in.

"Of course it did—you woke up to me in your bed. Can't get better than that."

"Actually, it's because I finished my article yesterday."

Seungcheol pauses before laughing to himself. "Congrats," he replies, now wiggling the table on its bad leg. "Can't say the same for myself."

you watch the starch-foam wash over the mouth of the pot, precariously close to the edge. You overfilled it, which mildly surprises you until you consider that you're cooking double the food.

There's a stretchy, anxious tumble in your stomach. It's not like you were expecting him to cheer or anything, but it just reminds you that you are, still in fact, competitors. When all of this is said and done, one of you is losing, and from every angle, it seems like quite the death knell for whatever you've got going on now.

It's a pity because you actually kind of like this arrangement. If Seungcheol was in your banged-up flea market chair next Saturday morning, you wouldn't be mad. Maybe you would even make him waffles. From scratch, even.

"What, too many dates to cover?"

He laughs again, somehow to no one in particular. "Something like that."

Past the bruising swell of his smile is the much sharper, more unforgiving edge of an unspoken hurt that you're neither trusted with nor owed, and yet you refuse to drop it. What about me? It feels like you're almost there, wrapped around something bigger, a scoop you can't pull your stubborn teeth out of.

"Is there a reason none of those were serious? Come on."

"What's so wrong with that?" And when you don't say anything, he says, "Trust me, it is never that serious."

His voice ticks up at the end like a teenager trying to play cool and the noodle water boils up around your chopsticks as you try to get your portion cooked through.

You won't—can't—turn to face him. You committed to the line, and now you must see it through, no matter how bad an idea it may be.

"That's not true," you finally squeeze out, finding the right footing for your voice. "It was serious for me. I'm sorry it wasn’t for you."

The table stops rocking.

"I'm glad. Really." He claps his hands together like a cruel punctuation mark, and it's then you remember that the only person as ill-tempered as you happens to be sitting two feet away.

Like an injured animal, your heart wants to cower back into your chest. You knew this was a mistake—this being everything—but an open wound can't help but bleed and your pride can't do without seeing the knife.

"Look, I don't know what your problem is." The pot hisses, astringent and pleading, beneath your fist. "I don't know what happened with your love life, but don't take it out on me."

"You asked."

"Yeah? Well, what is this?" You turn to face him, feeling the air between you tense, pulled like a rubber band. "You can't sit in my kitchen and tell me you don't care about whatever this is."

After all of the terse meetings, elevator spats, and foul-mouthed encounters in the parking lot, you can now recognize the fresh twist of Seungcheol's mouth and the livewire of a temper you've become so familiar with.

"Who said I didn't care? I'm just tired of you trying to lecture me about my life. I—"

"I'm not lecturing you, I just know you can't really believe what you're saying." Every word stumbles out, trembling and doe-legged, barely audible over his attempts to interrupt you. "There's nothing wrong with admitting you were in love with someone. And if you can't, I just feel really fucking sorry for you."

There’s an incredulous look in Seungcheol's eyes. But it's the worse part of you, ruthless and hungry for acceptance, that makes you say, "Maybe the fact that nothing lasts is your fault."

"Oh, really?" Seungcheol's voice, half-laugh with none of the warmth, rips through you. "You're really gonna act like you're better than me? As if you don't write in your pretentious little column every week, just waiting for your ex to read it and decide he wants you back again?"

There’s a red hot flash behind your eyes and everything inside you feels like it breaks at once.

"You know, at least I had someone who cared about me. Can't say the same about your miserable, sorry ass. Now get the fuck out of my apartment."

"Wh—"

he stands up, table croaking underneath his fists, and you realize you've crossed a bridge that can never be uncrossed.

"Get. Out."

It feels like a stitch in you has come undone. The water has long boiled over the pot and there's no joy to be found in watching Seungcheol stumble over his pant legs on the way to the door.

"I didn't want Mingyu. I wanted you."

it's not an apology, nor is it an indictment. You don't know why you say it, and you guess Seungcheol doesn't either. The door slams behind him, and all you're left with is a bloated pot of ramyun you never really wanted anyway.

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Celery. Red wine. Short rib.

If you had one day left on earth, you think you would go grocery shopping. It was like a prayer to you—you could close your eyes and know exactly what aisle had the beef broth, or feel the stone weight of a can of San Marzano tomato paste.

That's one thing you can thank Mingyu for—it's true that you don't love him like you used to, but you refuse to believe that any love worth having is also worth leaving behind.

Fingerling potatoes, the red ones. A Vidalia onion.

You recite your shopping list, slowly, quietly, a rosary.

Baguette is the next item, with a question mark next to it because sometimes your local bakery sells out after 3.

You pass by, expecting to see the shop window cleared out. Instead you see a familiar crown of cowlicked black hair and a horribly well-worn grin that only looks good because it's on Choi Seungcheol's face.

He's paying for a pretty girl's sourdough, and thyme, rosemary gets washed out by a dizzying riptide of heartache.

It was never personal, you tell yourself. Just another date. That's the angle.

You think it hurts a little less, knowing that it all was a business transaction. A long interview.

The thyme is next to the dill. The rosemary is next to the chives, at the end of the shelf.

You watch Seungcheol lean over the tiny cafe table to take a sip of his date's Americano. Did he always laugh like that? Were you really any different?

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Monday feels tilted.

There's the usual gust of cinnamon sugar and cold brew—today's offering from the interns, who have begun to master the art of pressing the elevator buttons with full hands. Wonwoo is wearing his Monday outfit, a wrinkled cream button up under a navy blue sweater vest. Your cubicle is empty, just the way you like it, save for the ass-shaped spot cleared off on the desk edge.

You like days like this, except today you don't and you know exactly why.

"Today's the day," Joshua says, nose buried in a bakery-style muffin, the top pillowing out of the wrapper.

He stares over your shoulder at your article, locked and loaded for submission to copy.

You are not exaggerating when you say you would die for these four thousand words. You ate and cried and argued for them in what you can only describe as the worst literary coliseum of your life, and now their (and your) fate rests in Joshua’s massive Mickey Mouse hands and Wonwoo's bespectacled whimsy.

"Well, don't let me stop you." He laughs and then totters away, sucking a crumb off a finger. Just another Monday.

Your cursor hovers over the SUBMIT button. You've always been a little scared of it—unsurprising, since you're also the type to triple read an email before sending it—but there's a new kind of fear boxed in those little pixels.

Last night, you emptied out your freezer. Stuck on the back wall was a neon green sticky note, behind all the bags. See you when you get home, it said. You laughed and then you cried and then you ripped it up because that's probably what Seungcheol was looking at the morning you chewed him out.

All of that heartache must have been good for something. To say you wasted it on a no-love situationship wouldn't do any of it justice, not when all that's left is most definitely a crude shoutout on Seungcheol's next listicle. If you weren't already getting one earlier, you sure are now.

You wonder what you'll be:

10 Signs She Is Clinically Insane.

It's Not You, It's Them!

Help! My Friend With Benefits Isn't A Friend Or A Benefit!

At least that one is funny, although if it's the winning line, you don't think you can ever show your face in the office again.

The beginning and the end and the muddy in-between. Entrenched in all of it was this article and this job, and you'll be damned if you let your misplaced faith get co-opted by a sweaty-palmed Casanova.

(8:19 AM; the smell of summer and dried-down cologne. A hand on your ribcage, just beneath your heart. Good morning, Seungcheol says, as if emerging from a long, wonderful dream.)

You picture the byline with editor tacked next to your name. To run your finger over the ink spackled serif of a paper hot off the press, as if somehow it would radiate the misery you had to endure.

(11:41 PM; jajangmyeon and a pack of rice crackers. Seungcheol had given you his chopsticks because you dropped yours. The hum of the broken light outside Wonwoo's office sings in the silence of an empty newsroom. Your eyes meet, and you don't look away.)

There's a sinking feeling in your chest. You close your eyes and hit submit.

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Ask Samuel!

It's 6 PM on a Thursday and if you weren't already on your last thread, you are now. The angry red of the Daily Trojan website glares back at you from your phone as you step into the elevator with none other than your editor-in-chief.

You've resorted to reading Seungcheol's old advice columns. Not because you miss him, but because you want to know if he was ever a competent writer capable of talking about something other than how to score on a second date.

That's the only way he's beating you.

(There's also no way you miss him. The thought would make you laugh out loud if you weren't standing next to your boss).

One column became four became ten. After thirteen you concluded Seungcheol must have sustained a head injury some time before starting his job here—you can find no other explanation for how someone so generous and intuitive could've gotten lost in the chaff of articles with more pictures than words.

"Congrats," Wonwoo says, seemingly speaking into the void.

"Pardon?" You close out a particularly riveting query about estranged childhood friends to look up at him.

"Congrats."

"F-for what?" You get that head rush again, the same one you got a month ago at the Italian restaurant with Jeonghan.

"The job. You got the position." Wonwoo clears his throat calmly, as if he's not delivering the most important news of your life. "I wanted to let you know in person before we sent out Monday’s email."

For once, you have no words. In a wonderful instant, they are all zapped out of your brain. You feel hot and clammy and anxious all at once and you half expect to close your eyes and see either god or the flare of a hospital light, waking you up from an impossible coma.

"Holy shit," the primordial ooze inside you says instead. "T-thank you."

"No need."

"What about Seungcheol? Does he know?"

"I haven't told him yet, but he should be aware." Wonwoo pauses. "He didn't submit anything."

"What?!"

There are only so many surprises your body can handle. You feel like you are being held together by a fast-unraveling string on a poorly made sweater. Your stomach is somewhere in your feet and you don't even know where your heart is. Part of you is waiting for the elevator to stop so the entire office can jump out of the walls and laugh at you.

"I too was surprised," Wonwoo says, now checking his smartwatch for messages. "He must have changed his mind. No matter—I'm confident you will be an excellent fit."

The elevator jerks to a stop at the first floor. You feel boneless, like a can of cranberry sauce.

"Forgive me, I have a dinner appointment." Wonwoo ends the conversation the best way he can—with his trademark parentheses smile and a nod of the head—and leaves you in the elevator cabin alone.

All the times you've dreamed of this moment, you're tear-dizzy, joyous, fumbling with your phone to call your parents.

Instead you stand motionless, waiting, emptied.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

To make croissants, you fold a slab of butter into a square of yeasted dough. You roll it out thin and then fold it into itself before leaving it to rest in the fridge. Then you take it out again, roll it, and fold it. You do this until you've forgotten how many times you folded it and you no longer crave croissants.

When you were five, you pressed your nose to the window of your favorite patisserie and decided this is how your mind works.

You've had ample time now to flatten out Saturday morning, to watch all the little layers of doubt and loathing form, and now you're sick of it. It's not often you're star witness to your own unhappiness, but, as if you were called to the stand, you can easily play back the moment you lit the match and then watched everything explode.

You're not sure what either of you were expecting. A playboy and you, who loves so insistently, almost as if out of spite—there is truly no reality in which it makes sense. The fact that you fought over a literal pot of ramyun only proves this.

And now he's saddled you with the final blow. The position of your dreams with none of the glory because he gave up.

He gave up.

None of this should matter to you.

You're standing outside the office, waiting for your ride to your celebratory dinner (this time, on Jeonghan). The little headline man in your brain is silent for once. Instead, you try to enjoy the breeze, honeyed with late June, and not dwell on the horrible twist in your stomach every time you think about your new position. It's been 24 hours since you found out but it is no less raw.

It's then that you catch Seungcheol, creeping out the double doors of the office like some sort of criminal. You're not sure if it's the plod of his Sasquatch feet or that bag you hate so dearly, but you could recognize that walk from anywhere.

His pace quickens when you turn to face him—he's running away. You won't grant him the satisfaction. Not when he's fucked up what little you had left, and then some.

"You're an idiot, Seungcheol."

That does the trick.

"Funny way of saying hi," he responds, bracing himself on the sidewalk as if you're about to hit him.

"Why didn't you submit anything? What the fuck were you thinking?"

"What does it matter to you? You got the position."

"Look, I—" You shut your eyes, feeling the frenetic ice-cream churn of your brain try to put together a million broken up words. "I'm sorry for Saturday. But I never wanted to scare you off from the job. You deserve it as much as I do, and, as much as I hate to say it, I care about you too fucking much to watch you throw away your shot."

Saying the words is like cutting something loose from your chest, a million strings coming undone.

Seungcheol takes a deep, unsteady breath. You watch the crest and fall of his shoulders and the inescapable tar pits he calls eyes get big and shiny.

"No, I—" He pulls himself from your gaze. "I'm sorry. I should have never said that to you. And I should have never treated you like that."

The silence between you ripples, as if after a long rain.

"I was scared. A long time ago, I threw myself into a relationship. I thought we had something really, really good, and then I found out she was also seeing someone else."

Being right never felt so bad. It's even worse that something you would look forward to—the I told you so, the jokes really write themselves—no longer holds any satisfaction, only a sense of loss and a terrible urge to make it right again.

"And it's not right, but I decided that it was a mistake to take chances like that again. And it was fine, fun even, going on all of these casual dates and getting paid for it. Then you just had to mess it up."

"H-how?"

"You were so dead-set on convincing me otherwise. You wouldn't let it go, not with your weird sayings and the way you talked about your ex and when you told me you were making me breakfast. I started believing you, and it really fucking scared me."

There's a sharp pain in your head. It feels like, at once, you were skinned like a fruit. Like the interlude between dream and waking, all the sheets of sleep yanked from your person.

"What…what about the article?" you ask, scrambling. You don't really want to contend with what he just told you. You don't think you can.

"You deserved it more. And you really love what you do. I used to think it was all bullshit, but I was wrong."

You take a hard swallow. The image of Seungcheol, head bowed, a nervous hand on the back of his neck, swims in front of your eyes.

"Whatever. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore," he laughs, mirthless.

"No, wait," you say. "I-I also…never took you seriously, not even when I should've. You know, I read your advice columns. Crazy, I know."

"I do have to say that is one of your more insane claims."

"No, I thought, they were actually, you know…really good." You watch him blink, mouth already twisting up as he fights a smile. "What I'm trying to say is that I think we messed up. In a lot of ways. But I want to be friends again. Or at least not enemies."

Seungcheol takes a long pause before he sticks his hand out.

"Choi Seungcheol. Writer. It's nice to meet you."

Some force, as if you had always been connected, pulls your skin to his. You shake his hand for the very first time, and starting over never felt so good.

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"You're booking Eleven Madison for the office dinner again, right?"

Wonwoo pops his head into your office, his Monday uniform now festive with a holiday tie. Today, it's snowmen with glasses.

"Naturally," you reply. "Unless you have plans on that Friday."

You're referring to last week, when Wonwoo took a call in the middle of a staff meeting and revealed that yes, he would most definitely be available for drinks with Yerim that evening. He ended the meeting thirty short seconds later, and you think you saw him skip to the elevator.

He laughs, deep and caramel. "Not this time. Also—don't forget to review those job applications. Sent them to your email."

Before you can tease him again, he leaves, and you are forced to look at your teeming inbox, the only unfortunate side effect of your new position. But you've never been happier, and a hundred new unread emails never seemed so wonderful. The first time Jeonghan saw you in your new office, you were so giddy he thought you were coming down with something.

You take a hefty sip of today's coffee (ginger, molasses, cinnamon). On the side of the cup, the one you keep facing away from the door, reads SEUNGCHEOL and OAT, in loopy marker letters.

After you shook hands in the parking lot, you agreed to take it slow. You thought bringing everything to a simmer would cure you of your affection, but it wasn't even a month before Seungcheol was back in that same seat in your kitchen, eating the blueberry waffles you promised him.

But if slow meant long phone calls and the nervous twine of your hands after an ice cream date, then you think you like slow. You could do slow for a while.

He's taken to bringing you coffee in the morning. He claims it's your editorial right, but you think he just likes having an excuse to barge into your office. (And close the door behind him. And kiss you. But that's aside the point.)

Plus, Seungcheol's had plenty of legitimate reasons to be in your office. The newest one is the launch of Ask Sunny! , which you think is the best idea he's had since deciding to get you coffee every day. He spent the last few days campaigning to reuse his old alias, but you're pretty sure he was just looking for reasons to argue with you.

"Afternoon, boss."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. You always seem to learn the hard way with Seungcheol.

He swaggers in, ear-to-ear smile on his face, before taking a seat at the designated corner of your table.

"I think I like this desk better," he says, folding at the waist so he can lean close to you. Instead of reminding him it's the same desk, you just choose to make space for him, you let him press his nose to yours.

"Friendly reminder we're at work."

"Everyone's at lunch, genius."

He interrupts you with just a touch of his lips, which should be considered no less than a war crime by now.

"You are the worst."

"Not what you said last night. Not even close." He places another wet kiss on your nose before sliding off the table edge to his feet. There's a horrible warmth in his eyes as he watches you very clearly remember what exactly he's referring to. (A wandering hand. A cherry. Dark hair, wound through your fingers). "Anyway, I've got serious problems to solve. Or should I say Sunny? I still think we should have gone with Samuel."

"Executive decision," you tease. "Now if you don't need anything, scram. Out of my office."

"Just wanted to remind you I made reservations for us at Avra today," Seungcheol says, lingering in the doorframe with the shit-eating grin he tends to sport nowadays. "I'll even let you order."

There's no fighting the familiar bloom of laughter in your chest. It boils up, sparkling and citrusy, as you roll your eyes and watch Seungcheol return to his desk no less starry-eyed than how he walked in.

If cooking is a language, then love is the words, and you finally think you're learning to speak them.

You open the email at the top of your inbox: Seungcheol's last draft of the article he never published. You urged him to let you consider it for the next issue, and he finally caved (although you're learning that he really doesn't take much convincing when it comes to you).

Eat, Play, Love: A Guide.

Maybe you'd put it through. Maybe.

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#mine #seungcheol #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol fluff #seungcheol x you #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #scoups x reader #scoups fluff #scoups x you #seungcheol imagines #seungcheol scenarios #scoups imagines

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erensonly · 3 months

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thinking about sweet data analyst!reader being quiet as a mouse always scaring the boys. scares them so much they think abt getting her a bell. lets get into some backstory bc this may be a mini series 😈

contains: extreme fluff, ooc writing, love is used as a pet name, no pronouns used, references to DV pls read at your own discretion.

you were the new data analyst for the 141. before, you only worked with Kate, gathering and analyzing data for her but she thought you would be so much more helpful to the task force since their old analyst had retired. you were hesitant at first, not really wanting to be around a group of men. why should you leave your comfort zone?

this did not work with laswell. she had taken you in after you stumbled to the gates of the base, attempting to stop crying to give them an explanation and sporting bruises on your face and hands. luckily she had been there to meet with john when she had heard the guards complaining about a crying woman refusing to leave. she had helped you in more than one way. even allowing you to stay with her until you could find a job and move by yourself.

when she had found out you knew your way around computers, her face lit up like a christmas tree, telling you she had the perfect job for you. you were hesitant to take the job, knowing the work she did involved the military, you didn't know if you wanted to take the job. you had tried to convince her that it was fine, but once laswell has her mind made up, that's it.

thats how you ended up here, wanting oreos. you didn't mean to scare them at first. they were a little scary and you wanted nothing to do with them at first.

you just wanted the oreos but ghost was in the way, facing the opposite way with his head in his phone. you stood there awkwardly at first,not wanting to ask the big man to move but you really wanted those cookies. you stand there for a bit debating if you'll wait for him to leave the room or grow some balls and just ask him to move. you decided on doing neither.

you made your way towards him as quickly as you could; the plan was to just reach up and grab the chocolate cookies so you could go back to your desk before ghost could say anything. trying to get closer to the cabinet, you find yourself pushed up against the counter, a large hand wrapped around your wrist. when he realized it was you, he let you go with a big sigh. "scared the shit out of me. when did you get in here?"

"uh.. not too long ago." that was all you could muster, the man was too intimidating. you awkwardly shuffled towards the cabinet with the cookies and reached up to get them. mission accomplished, you thought to yourself. slithering back to your desk, you leave ghost stunned and only able to mutter a quick "bloody hell" before going back to his phone.

----

the next time you interact with the 141 outside of working it's with gaz. from the small conversations you had, he seemed very nice with a kind smile and calming aura. this time you were trying to make your way to price's office to give him a manila folder with the information he requested. you had walked to the door but heard talking, maybe he was busy. you decided that you would wait to give him the folder so you wouldn't have to speak to whoever was in the office.

it felt like time was going so slow and by the time the person had walked out, you were leaning against the corner of the wall, head against the wall in a way that you had have to almost round the corner to be able to see you. you looked up, and the man look like he just had a heart attack. clutching his chest like he was clutching his pearls and purse and breathing heavily. "Jesus, love,gotta say something. have you been waiting out here long? you could've just came in, y'know?" all the questions were becoming overwhelming when you just gripped his lips to silence him.

it took his look of surprise and a bit of thought to realize what you did. you had just grabbed the lips of a soldier. not just any soldier but a heavily decorated soldier who was apart of The john price's task force. he could kill you faster than you can say you're sorry. "oh my god, i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to, you just kept talking and i didnt know what to do. please don't kill me." you had finished your mini rant only to see him doubled over in laughter. he was in tears.

"did you just silence me?" he asked between laughs. you didn't understand what the hell was funny, this man is going to kill you. while he was still laughing and trying to get soap on the phone, you tiptoed into price's office to give him the folder, telling him that if he found you dead on base it was gaz before scurrying out of his office. john was left looking confused because he had just heard kyle laughing a few seconds ago.

----

next was soap. sweet, sweet soap. he genuinely did his best to welcome you into their group, but you didn't really seem interested. he eventually just took any interaction you two had and replayed it in his head over and over again. you were just so sweet, how could he not? you still got lost on base sometimes since everything was one monotone grey and everything looked the same. and it was just your luck that the only people around were new recruits and other people you never spoke to. turning, you see soap heading toward the mess hall.

when you sped up to catch him, he's surprised. he even did that cartoon cat jump they do before running off. he started saying something in a language you don't understand when you cut him off. "not sure what you're saying but i agree. anyway, where's the gym? i need to ask ghost a question." he was shocked to see you turn around and wait for him to lead the way. he couldn't help the smile that came across his face. such a hasty girl; you always said everything you needed to say as fast as you could before turning away, giving him a look at allat movement back there.

he laughed again before helping you find ghost. and you still don't get why these men find you so funny. there is nothing funny about them being so scary.

----

lastly, we got my husband john. he was made aware of your situation and why you acted the way you did before you started working under him. he couldn't help but think you were a sweet, hard working little thing. never with much to say, and so skittish. he may have told you that he doesn't know how to access the files on his computer just so he can see you come to his office with a folder. is it a crime to want to see such a sweet face?

john had told you he would like to see you after debriefing and that he would just let you know. but you had already finished your work of the day an you spent your free time playing whatever games you could access on your computer. you eventually started to feel restless so you decided to sit in price's office until he got there. there was a couch in a corner of the room, worn but comfortable. you could imagine the boys laying on the couch talking mindlessly to john.

you had sunken into the corner of the couch, curling up in a way that you would have to step completely into the office to see you sitting there. it had been a good 10 minutes of sitting in silence before you heard footsteps approaching the door. you couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but it sounded like john was on the phone. he, not long after, walked into the room, holding his phone between his shoulder and ear with a stack of folders in his hands.

"-exactly. yeah i'll be on it right away. bye." and as he's turning around, you're sitting up straighter and he yells. and i mean one of those old people, "help i've fallen" type of yelps; and he drops his files on the floor. you just give him a blank stare.

"good God. when did you get in here?" you just shrug, brushing over the question. "what was it that you needed from me sir?" that's when he knew, you were going to be the death of the 141. literally.

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venus-haze · 10 months

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Lay All Your Love on Me (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: A communication breakdown has unintended consequences, but it’s all because Homelander loves you.

Note: Gender neutral reader and no descriptors are used. This is based on a request from @judyfromfinance and the ABBA song which is so Homelander coded. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Jealousy, possessive behavior, violence (not toward the reader). We love miscommunication for plot reasons here! Do not interact if you’re under 18.

Homelander had no reason to believe you were hiding from him. Your job kept you busy, and ironically enough, working for the same company didn’t guarantee that you’d see each other nearly as much as he’d like. When his texts went unanswered and he couldn’t so much as hear you during the day, though, his mind went into overdrive presenting him with every worst case scenario it could possibly conceive of.

Cheat. Cheat. Cheat.

His gloved hands balled into fists at his side. You would never cheat on him. He knew that. He did. But sometimes, it seemed like your heart didn’t ache for him the way his did for yours. You had a life outside of him, and as much as you tried to include him in it, he resisted. Things would be easier if it were just the two of you.

Trying your phone again, he called you, frustrated when it went straight to voicemail.

“Hey babe, it’s me. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Give me a call back as soon as you can. I love you,” he said, adding a quick. “Call me back" for emphasis.

He groaned, throwing his phone aside and folding his arms over his chest. It was fine. He didn’t care that much anyway. At least that’s what he told himself as he glanced at his discarded phone every few seconds in hopes you’d call or text back. No dice.

As a last resort, he headed to the crime analytics department. You managed a small team of analysts who consulted with the state and federal government on Vought’s behalf. The two of you had met when Vought was trying to get supes in the military, and as far as Homelander was concerned, it was love at first sight.

Never mind that it took a few weeks to win you over, frustratingly committed to your job and hesitant to date a coworker. Even though he’d hardly consider the two of you coworkers. Sure, you both worked for Vought, but that was it as far as he was concerned. In his determination to woo you, he’d made some valuable connections in your department. At least, people who he knew would have some kind of scoop on you when he needed it.

“Hey Annika,” Homelander said, startling the young crime analyst as he approached her desk. “How’re you doing, pal?

“Hi Homelander,” she said, not quite able to keep eye contact with him. “Sir. I’m good. H-How are you?”

“You haven’t seen Y/N around today, have you?”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Alright,” he said tensely, a painfully fake smile spreading across his face. “Keep up the good work.”

His smile faltered as he heard your name come up in a conversation on the other side of the room. A masculine voice, younger than his, far too much mirth for his liking when he spoke about you.

“Dude, I was in Y/N’s office for like an hour yesterday. I could barely concentrate. They are so fine.”

“You’re insane,” someone else laughed.

“What? Have you seen them?”

“They’re dating Homelander, dumbass.”

“Whatever. It won’t last. He and Maeve will get back together, and yours truly will be there to pick up the pieces.”

“If you say so.”

Homelander hadn’t noticed his eyes glowing red until Annika squeaked. Letting out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, he looked at his…acquaintance.

“See you around,” he said, his chipper tone clearly strained.

Since you weren’t answering your phone and he still had no clue where you were, Homelander had all the time in the world to wait around for your sleazy subordinate to take a bathroom break. He wondered if you were aware of the man’s interest in you. It was a possibility, but he had to assure himself that you wouldn’t do anything to encourage it. He knew you wouldn’t bother with a miscreant like that, of all people, but the point needed to be made. No one could speak so vulgarly about you and expect him not to do something about it.

Fifteen minutes or so had passed, and Homelander spotted his name badge. Josh.

“Hey Josh! You have a minute, buddy?” Homelander asked, voice booming through the hallway, causing Josh to flinch. Homelander smirked a bit.

“Homelander! Is there something you need?”

“Yeah, actually, I just have a question about the crime analytics office.”

Josh nodded. “Sure, anything.”

“Did you see any Greek letters in there?”

“Wh-What?”

“Did you see any Greek letters in there? Maybe a keg and some drunk idiots wearing togas?”

“I don’t—“

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then why were you in there talking about my partner like you were in a fucking frat house?” Homelander asked, cornering the slimy analyst. “You know Y/N and I are dating, right? Your idiot friend told you as much.”

Josh’s mouth flopped open and closed like one of the disgusting fish The Deep crusaded for. “I—I didn’t mean—“

“So either you’re incredibly stupid, or you have a death wish. Which one is it, buddy?”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Homelander.”

Homelander chuckled, empty and hollow, reveling in the way he could practically smell the fear radiating off of the man in front of him. “You will be.”

With the way Josh was carrying on, Homelander would’ve thought he’d actually killed the guy. All he’d done was snap his arm and throw an elbow to his nose. He’d just bought the asshole a free rhinoplasty, far more generous than he deserved after what he did.

Homelander sneered at the blubbering crime analyst, work shirt covered in his own blood. Pathetic, really. And he had the audacity to act like he was worthy of you. Throwing one final glare Josh’s way, Homelander walked off, wiping the blood off his gloves and onto his suit. It could be dry-cleaned out.

The outburst made him feel better than he had all day, though it didn’t answer the question of where the hell you were and why you weren’t answering him. Besides, he swore he heard the familiar sound of your footfall in the lobby.

He supposed you wouldn’t be too happy if you came back to see one of your subordinates brutalized in the hallway. Just his luck, he spotted an intern in one of the unoccupied offices.

“Hey,” Homelander said, pausing a moment to read the intern’s badge, “Sammy, there’s a mess over by the crime analytics office, can you get someone to clean it up?”

“Sure,” Sammy responded cheerfully.

“Thanks, it’s the little things that make this place run. You’re doing great,” he complimented, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Sammy returned his smile, obviously not questioning his sincerity. Homelander knew if he framed the whole thing as a favor, she’d be more likely to follow through. It was always good to have reliable people in his back pocket for things like that, worker bees who thought they were friends or something. She walked off, strides purposeful as she set off to complete her personal mission from Homelander.

Rushing over to the elevator, he listened for you, getting out on the fifteenth floor where he saw you just as you walked out of the bathroom.

As soon as he made eye contact, he melted, making a beeline for you.

You smiled, wrapping your arms around Homelander. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“Where were you?” he asked, almost painfully returning your embrace.

“I told you I was presenting for the security council at the UN all day. No phones, remember?”

He huffed, releasing you from the hug. Fuck. “I guess—maybe that rings a bell. You shouldn’t tell me something so important while I’m distracted.”

“How much did you miss me?” you teased, holding up your pointer finger and thumb to pinch the air. “This much?” You spread your fingers wider. “This much?” Wider again, except before you could ask, Homelander scooped you up in his arms.

“Why don’t I show you?”

“Please do,” you said, tilting your head up to kiss him.

He retreated into the elevator with you, his lips capturing yours in a desperate kiss laced with longing. You giggled at him. You’d only been gone for a few hours, yet he was acting as though it had been days.

You missed him too, resolving to focus your attention on him for the rest of the night.

Until your phone rang.

“I should get this.”

“Now you’re able to pick up a call?” he grumbled, setting you down.

“One minute,” you whispered, grabbing your phone, “then I’m all yours.”

He pressed the button to his suite, having forgotten to do so in the heat of passion. “You better be.”

You picked up your phone, amused at Homelander still clinging to you, kissing your neck. “Hello?”

“Josh from crime analytics?” you asked, tensing a bit when Homelander grazed his teeth on the crook of your neck. “I haven’t heard from him since he gave me the homicide report yesterday.”

Homelander hummed against your skin, and you let out a whimper only he could hear at the way it vibrated through you. He was smug, and it took you a moment to piece together why.

“Okay, talk to you tomorrow,” you said before hanging up. “What did you do?”

“Something chivalrous to defend your honor,” he mumbled, his lips unrelenting on your shoulder as he pulled your shirt down to expose it.

“I guess I should thank you properly, then? My knight in shining armor?”

He lifted his head, grinning, “If you insist.”

#homelander x reader #homelander x you #the boys x reader #the boys amazon #the boys tv #the boys #homelander

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thesolutionpark · 11 months

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What is Marketing? Importance of Marketing. Types of Marketing. The future of Marketing!

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. It is the process of understanding and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets.

Marketing encompasses a wide range of activities, including:

Product development: Identifying and developing products or services that meet the needs of target markets.

Pricing: Setting prices that are both profitable and competitive.

Place: Distributing products or services to target markets.

Promotion: Communicating the value of products or services to target markets.

Sales: Closing deals and generating revenue.

The Importance of Marketing

Marketing is essential for any business that wants to be successful. It helps businesses to:

Reach new customers: Marketing can help businesses to reach new customers who are unaware of their products or services.

Increase brand awareness: Marketing can help businesses to increase brand awareness, which can lead to increased sales.

Build relationships with customers: Marketing can help businesses to build relationships with customers, which can lead to repeat business and referrals.

Differentiate from the competition: Marketing can help businesses to differentiate themselves from the competition, which can give them a competitive advantage.

Types of Marketing

There are many different types of marketing, including:

Traditional marketing: This type of marketing includes activities such as advertising, public relations, and direct marketing.

Digital marketing: This type of marketing uses digital channels such as websites, social media, and email to reach customers.

Content marketing: This type of marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable content that attracts and engages target audiences.

Inbound marketing: This type of marketing focuses on attracting customers to your business by providing them with valuable content and experiences.

Outbound marketing: This type of marketing focuses on reaching out to customers with advertising and other forms of marketing.

The Future of Marketing

The future of marketing is likely to be increasingly digital. As more and more people use digital channels to connect with businesses, marketing will need to adapt to reach these audiences.

In addition, marketing is becoming more personalized. Businesses are using data to better understand their customers and target them with more relevant marketing messages.

Overall, the future of marketing is bright. As the world becomes more digital and personalized, marketing will become more effective at reaching and engaging customers.

Conclusion

Marketing is a complex and ever-changing field, but it is essential for any business that wants to be successful. By understanding the different aspects of marketing and the latest trends, businesses can create effective marketing strategies that reach their target audiences and achieve their business goals.

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thatgirlstrawberry · 1 year

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How to Lie to a Behavior Analyst pt. 2

In which Y/N still thinks her dad doesn’t know about her and Spencer’s relationship. Rossi sets his daughter up on a date at his book signing party….

Warnings: semi-smutty scenes, cursing, you’ll probably get second hand embarrassment, Fluff, cute/horny/loveydovey!Spencer, JEALOUS!SPENCER

Spencer Reid x fem!reader

“Do you think we have too much sex?”

This question caught Spencer off guard seeing as they were literally in the middle of having sex. He paused his movements and looked at her. “Uhhhh no?” He shook his head. “Do you?”

Y/N quirked an eyebrow. “No. But I’m just trying to figure out the societally acceptable amount of sex to be having.”

With this Spencer busted out laughing. “Do you think we have over the societally acceptable amount?”

She shrugged, smiling up at him. “I mean we have sex a lot but I don’t think too much.”

Spencer chuckled. “Where did this come from?”

Y/N wiggled her hips as Spencer continued his movements, pushing into her over and over again. “Oh fu— it’s just my next door neighbor has like a lot of sex— all the time and it’s loud.” She nodded, moaning in between her words. “Like I was up until four am one night because she was moaning like a fuckin’ diseased cat.”

“How come I’ve never heard her?” He asked, groaning loudly.

Y/N titled head. “Oh so you want to hear her moan?” She asked, raising her eyebrows.

“What— no!” Spencer exclaimed.

She rolled her eyes laughing. “Kidding!” She hit his shoulder.

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

The next day, Y/N was at her dad’s house baking a bunch of desserts for his book signing party the next day.

“Dad, how many mini strawberry shortcakes did you need?” She asked as he walked into the kitchen.

“Um… 10, i think.” He nodded. “Y/N/N, sweetheart can I ask you a question?” He asked.

She cleared her throat. “Sure.” She smiled, wiping the flower off of her forehead.

“Are you seeing anyone?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow. She froze for a millisecond.

She remembered the text Spencer had sent her two weeks before at the dinner party her father held.

How to lie to a behavior analyst: Don’t maintain excessive eye contact, keep your voice even, say my name if you refer to me, don’t fidget— I love you

She licked her lips and glanced at him before busying her hands with mixing the cake batter together. “No, why?” She asked, her voice calm.

He shrugged and leaned on the kitchen island. She didn’t turn back to look at him. “Oh, good.” He smiled. “I have this friend and he has a son. I wanted you guys to meet.”

Y/N swallowed hard and let out a quiet scoff. “Really?” She shook her head, turning around and smiling. “You’re trying to set me up now?”

Rossi shrugged. “I just noticed that you haven’t been in a relationship in a while and I think you would love Benjamin Fitz.”

“Your friends with Eric Fitz and his son?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. Eric Fitz was a very… controversial news paper company man. Her shoulders tensed.

“Yes. He always made me look good in the paper.” Rossi joked, strolling over to his daughters side. “So, what do you say? Will you meet Benny?”

If I say no, he’ll definitely catch on.

Y/N smiled tightly and inhaled through her nose. “I-of course! It’s not like I’m seeing anyone so, it should be fun!” She said, internally scolding herself for speaking so fast.

Rossi nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll let Eric know.”

Spencer is gonna fuckin’ kill me

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Y/N shivered as Spencer’s finger tips lightly glided across her back. They were laying in bed just soaking up each other’s company. She had been holding back the fact that she was set up on a date by her father since she saw him.

She could tell Spencer was about to fall asleep because his fingers started to move slower and slowly. “Hey, Spence?” She spoke quietly.

He inhaled deeply, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “Yeah, baby?”

“Uh…” She bit her lip. “So… I um… my dad— he set me up on a date tomorrow night at his book signing party.”

Spencer’s eyes got wide. “What!?”

The woman sighed and sat up, straddling his thighs. “I— my dad asked me if I was seeing anyone and I told him no because then he would find out about us and then he asked me if he could set me up with his friend’s son and I said yes because I thought it would seem like I was seeing someone even though I just told him that I wasn’t.” She spoke very quickly and Spencer found it hard to keep with her words but he got the gist.

“So you’re going on a date with someone else?” He asked, his eyes dropped down.

Y/N tilted her head and she bit her lip. “Aw Spence, no— well yes but no.” She shook her head. “It might be a date for him but it won’t be a date for me. It’s gonna be torture.” She placed her hands on his cheeks. “I’m gonna hate every second of it because I won’t be with you, okay?”

Spencer nodded. “W-well… what are you gonna wear?” He asked, his eyes avoiding hers.

Y/N bit the inside of her cheek. “I will literally show up in sweatpants if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

He pouted a little bit. “You look really sexy in sweatpants.” Y/N giggled quietly.

“I’ll wear a trash bag— a potato sack! Anything you want me to wear, I’ll wear it.” She nodded.

Spencer smiled, his pouty lips fading away. “I want you to wear…” He thought for a minute. “That pretty white dress that I like on you.”

She quirked a brow. “But you said I look sexy in that one.” She traced circles on his chest.

Spencer leaned forward and kissed her. “I want him to see how sexy you look and I want him to know that he can’t have you.” He whispered. A breath left her lips and she smiled.

She was about to lean in and kiss him again but the ‘diseased cat’ who she shared a wall wit started making noises.

Y/N gasped and slapped Spencer’s chest. “Oh my god! Do you hear!?”

Spencer stopped and listened for a moment before laughing. “Holy shit, why does she sound like that?” He asked through his laughter.

Y/N groaned and rolled her eyes. “We’re never gonna be able to sleep now!” She shouted, doubting that cat lady could hear it over her dramatic moans.

Spencer pulled her closer with a smirk. “We’ll just have to show her what pretty noises sound like.”

“Oh my god, please make me scream.”

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Y/N nervously looked around as she clutched her bag in her hands. She stood by her dad’s signing table. He wasn’t there, he was making rounds but she stood there in her tight white dress, waiting for him to show up with her ‘date’. She rolled her eyes even thinking about it.

Soon, her father and a tall blonde man emerged from the crowd of people and headed towards the table.

The first think she noticed about Benjamin Fitz was that he looked her up and down unashamed.

She gave a fake smile to her father and a head nod to Benjamin. “Bella, you look lovely.” Rossi smiled, hugging his daughter and kissing her on both cheeks.

“This is an amazing turn out, daddy.” She smiled, kissing his cheek. They stood in the rental area of a very fancy wine and dine restaurant. She looked at the blonde man next to her father. “You must be Benjamin. It’s nice to meet you.” She smiled, holding out her hand.

“Please, call me Ben.” He winked and instead of shaking her hand, he pulled her in for a hug. His hands landed on her waist and her eyes widened, pulling away quickly as she laughed it off. “And your Y/N?”

She nodded, glancing at her father who had squinted eyes, observing the two. “Y-yes. It’s nice to meet you.” She said again, looking back at him. She had to admit, he wasn’t ugly.

“You as well, sweetheart.”

Y/N blew air past her lips and she looked around. Rossi cleared his throat. “Oh, I see one of my friends.” He smiled, glancing between his daughter and Ben. “I’ve got to make rounds. Have fun you two.”

“Thanks, dad.” She gritted her teeth as he walked away.

Ben looked at her. “Where do they keep the booze?”

Be fucking for real.

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Y/N had been leaning against the wall listening to Ben talk about being a Lacrosse star in high school and college. She nodded along but she wasn’t really listening.

Suddenly, she saw a very familiar face over his shoulder. Her eyes widened and she almost choked on the champagne she was chugging.

“Uh, sorry to stop you there Ben but uh… could you give me a minute?” She asked. She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she pushed off of the wall and walked around him.

Her boyfriend stood in the middle of the room with a book in his hand and a very sexy suit. He looked at her and smiled. “Spencer, what the hell are you doing here?” She asked, looking around to make sure that her father wasn’t there and watching them.

He smiled. “I just so happen to have a book that Rossi hasn’t signed.” He shrugged.

“Oh, really?” She asked, a smile forming on her lips. “That’s the only reason you’re here?”

“Mhm.”

She squinted her eyes. “Not because you want to spy on Ben and I?”

Spencer blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes. “Please. Me? Spying? Nooooo.” Y/N raised her eyebrows.

“Okay.” She nodded. “Well, I gotta get back to my date so… I’ll see you later.” She winked.

She walked back over to Ben, swaying her hips for Spencer to look at. “Who was that?” The blonde asked.

Y/N sighed. “Oh, just one of my dad’s coworkers.” She shrugged.

Ben scoffed. “That twig is an FBI agent? He’s too tiny.” Y/N raised her eyebrows.

That twig’s dick Is most definitely not tiny.

She let out a fake giggle and waved his joke off. “More champagne?” She asked, nodding her head towards the catering woman who walked around with a tray.

“More? Really?” Ben asked. “You must be trying to get me drunk so you can take me home.” He laughed.

Y/N’s tongue slid across her teeth. “Yeah, most definitely not.” She shook her head. The woman walked by her and she snatched a glass off of the tray.

Spencer clenched his jaw as he watched Ben stare at his girlfriend like some porn actress.

I’m gonna kill him, I’m gonna kill him, I’m gonna kill hi—

“Reid! You made it!”

He snapped out of his jealous daze and looked down at Rossi. “Yes, I did.” He nodded.

Rossi held up his pen and his free hand. Spencer opened the book to the front page and held it up for him. He sighed the book quickly.

Spencer sighed before speaking. “If you knew Y/N and I are together then why did you set her up with him?” He asked, heavily annoyed.

He hummed. “I wanted to see how much she cared.”

Spencer squinted her eyes. “What do you mean?”

The man smiled. “I wanted to see if she cared enough about you and your relationship by going out with possibly the biggest pig in the city to to make sure that I didn’t find out about it. I wanted to see if she cared enough to keep you safe.”

Spencer let the corners of his mouth turn up. “Rossi, I love your daughter.” He spoke.

“And she loves you, kid. I Can tell.”

He sighed. “Thank you for not telling her. I don’t want her to be upset or nervous.”

Rossi nodded. “Anything to make my girl happy.” He sighed, watching her roll her eyes as she drank more champagne. “I’ve got more signings to do. See ya, kid.”

He nodded as he walked away, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he saw Ben reach to push her hair behind her ear. She moved away smoothly, playing it off like she had to cough. She kept trying to glance at Spencer without actually turning around.

To: Kool-Aid girl 💘

Meet me in the bathroom in five?

She looked around and saw him before looking back at Ben when she felt her phone buzz. “Sorry, about this.” She shook her head as she dug through her bag for her phone.

From: Kool-Aid girl 💘

Of fucking course

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Their lips were heavy on each other’s. Her legs were wrapped around his waist while she was sitting on the counter.

She moaned so quietly as he thrusted his fingers in and out of her. Her hands grabbed at whatever they could. Her eyes never left his though. That was the one thing he wanted.

“Fuck, Spence—“ Her eyes watered at the immense amount of pleasure she was experiencing.

“This is mine— no one else’s.” He grunted. Y/N nodded and bit her lip. “Are you close baby?”

“So fucking close.” She nodded. “You’re- fuck— the only one that gets me there.” She added because 1, it was true and 2, she knew he was feeling a little insecure because of Ben.

Soon, she came on his fingers and shut her eyes, panting. She didn’t have to worry about getting her dress wet because Spencer had pulled it up as soon as they got in there.

Knock knock knock

“Hey is someone in there.”

Y/N’s eyes widened as she and Spencer recognized the voice. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Uh— it’s just me, dad.” She said, sliding off of the counter making sure that he heels hit the ground silently.

“What are you doing in the men’s restroom and why is the door locked? There’s like forty stall in there.”’

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She whispered. “Uh, I had a woman emergency and someone was in the other restroom.” She nodded her head at Spencer towards the door at the other end of the room. She had no idea what it led to but oh what the hell, right?

Spencer started walking silently towards it as she pulled her dress back down to where it was supposed to be.

She watched him walk through the door and disappear and sighed. She unlocked the bathroom door and smiled at her dad. “Hi, daddy. Sorry.” She mumbled, walking past him.

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Now, Spencer and Y/N laid together in his bed. They were just in each other’s company. Again, his fingers were drawing random patterns on her back as she dozed off.

“Hey, Y/N? Before you go to sleep…” He spoke quietly not to startle her. She hummed and nuzzled her face into his chest.

“Thank you for caring.”

She smiled and squeezed him. “I love you. I will always care.”

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

Holaaaaaaaa

I love this. Thanks to everyone who loved the first one so much!!!!!

You guys are amazing and I wanna kiss all of you.

Also ask me questions in my ask box!! I would love to answer them :))))

Anywaysssssssssss love ya bunches ❤️❤️❤️

#spencer reid #spencer fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid smut #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x original female character #criminal minds #spencer x oc #spencer x reader #Rossi!fem!reader

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ceilidho · 10 months

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prompt: repressed bi ghost who won't admit he wants to fuck his girlfriend and soap so he keeps making soap watch him with reader and thinks he just has an exhibitionism kink. definitely puts on a bit of a performance for soap tho (ns/fw) (ghost/reader/MAYBE soap)

He won’t say it because it’s not true.

He won’t say it because there’s no room for it in his world. He won’t say it because even the threat of it not being reciprocated is enough to make his chest go tight and sharp like a set of claws raking down his front. He won’t say it even though when Soap is assigned to his team, he spends months sitting ramshot straight in the Humvee next to the sergeant, forcing himself to focus on anything aside from the way Soap’s big fingers wrap around the hilt of his knife or the trigger of a gun.

Besides, it’s not like the possibility of love is closed off to him altogether. Ghost knows that from the moment he lays eyes on you; little slip of a thing that works on base, an analyst from a department that doesn’t intersect with his own so there’s no conflict of interest there. It doesn’t take much to get you into his bed and then keep you there—a couple of soft words, arm on the wall next to your head, looming over when he pulls the mask over his lips and he sees the way your eyes go wide at the sight of his mouth and he grins—

Still though, for how deeply entrenched you are in his heart, Ghost can’t shake the feeling that bubbles up in his chest when Soap sneaks up behind him on base or covers him on missions, like they’re a single unit. There's something he needs there, but he can't say it, not even to himself, but it's real and it exists in the fleeting moments when Soap's body is lit by the sun or gunfire or smoke from a cigarette.

Interestingly enough, it’s actually Soap that brings it up the first time. Outside the bar, the landscape is soaked with light in the dusk; there’s a thin trail of smoke from Price’s cigar off in the distance, only the red butt glowing in the dark announcing his presence, far off as it is. They're otherwise alone though, unwinding after a lengthy mission that left the two of them exhausted and aching, but still alive, so good.

They’re standing outside of the bar leaning against the porch railing that wraps around the front, taking turns making little quips between sips of whatever they’re drinking.

Soap makes a comment about you, something offhand about where he can find a little thing like you for himself. Ghost’s face doesn’t so much as twitch, even under the mask, but he doesn’t reply, throat tight. Not jealousy. It’s not jealousy or bitterness because if it was, then that would mean something that he doesn’t want to think about, never mind mull over. Never mind dwell in. Soap can fuck whoever he wants—if there’s a girl somewhere like you for him, that’s none of Ghost’s business.

Doesn’t mean his teeth don’t clench.

“Bonnie lass at home,” he goes on, pausing only to take a deep drink, smacking his lips when he pulls the glass away. “Warming my bed, waiting for me to get back. Gaun yersel' for getting a little thing like tha’.”

Still Ghost doesn’t respond.

“Bet you make her work for it, L.T,” Soap teases with a grin, cockiness belied by the blush that stains his cheeks. He gets shifty once the words leave his mouth, almost like he can’t believe he said it, looking off into the distance instead of up at his superior officer.

Ghost hardly registers the words at first, his brain going staticy, thoughts slipping away fast because he realizes that Soap must have been thinking about—Soap must have been imagining you and him like that to say that.

When he turns to him, his eyes are dark, only a sliver of blue visible around his pupil. “Why? Something you’re interested in?”

Soap goes still and silent, breath rushing out of him. His fingers tighten around the glass and Ghost sees it for a split second. A way in.

He fucks you extra hard that first time. Lays you out and drags your pussy onto his cock again and again, hips bucking back against yours and your screams get hoarse like it hurts a bit. Just on the side of too painful. It’s always on the side of too much for you because he’s near twice your size; even as used to his size as you are, Ghost still had to tuck two fingers into your cunt to stretch you out enough for him. Got his tongue in there too, just to make sure you were nice and wet. His mask and clothes have long since been stripped, laying in a rumpled pile at the foot of the bed.

Soap’s on the other side of the room, big hand around his dick, lube squelching in his hand. Ghost allows himself to glance over once, eyes glazing over when he sees the way Soap’s hand tightens at the sharp whimper you make when he fucks you just right.

“Like you imagined it, Johnny?” he goads. Your soft gasps drag Ghost’s attention back down to you and he says something crooning and delicate in your ear, making your nails dig into the meat of his back.

“Fuck no, Ghost—it’s— fuck, suck her tits, please.” His voice rends Ghost down the middle, makes him hot enough that it’s no trouble at all to duck his head and run his tongue over your berry nipple.

“How’s she takin’ a big yin like you,” Soap grunts, entirely unaware that his words rattle around in Ghost’s head and make him pump between your thighs all the more unhinged. “Tiny thing. Looks fuckin’ tight, Christ. You’d have to drag me offa her—”

He won’t admit that he comes when Soap digs his heels into the carpeted floor and tilts his head back, come striping his belly and tagging across his brown nipples. He watches Soap come and feels something slot in his chest like everything is right for the first time.

Ghost fits a hand around your neck and holds you still, ducking his head into your neck and watching you and Soap through slit eyes. When you come, clenched around his cock, breath coming out in high, tight pants, Ghost knows that he won’t be able to give this up. Neither of you.

#cod mw2 #simon ghost riley #cod simon riley #cod x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #ceil writing #soap mctavish #cod prompts #ghost/soap/reader #simon ghost riley x reader x soap

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