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#also loved drawing confident Sky

mydearlybeloathed · 6 months

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𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐀

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: zoro doesn't dance, but he has no issue in watching you twirl yourself off your feet. so long as you twirl back to him when your feet get tired.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: opla!zoro x fem!dancer!reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: use of Y/N, swearing, dancer!reader, fluff

He was terrified, but not terrified enough to deny that you held his very life in your hands. Zoro didn’t mind that, not at all; you were gentle and funny and lovely and kinder than he deserved. Yet, you were real, as he often was reminded when you carded your hands through his hair with a little laugh and a mumbled, “Dumbass.”

No, Roronoa Zoro was terrified of how much he’d grown accustomed to your entire being.

It was also mildly frightening that you knew fully well just what he would do for you. Zoro admitted, he never tried very hard to hide it, not after your quiet little confession of affection some months ago, under the starlit sky, the wind brushing your hair away to reveal your face.

He’d been yours long before then, but only now he didn’t care to hide his adoring stares and relished in the little way you hooked your pinky with his when you were nervous. How your eyes searched him out when you entered a room. How your kisses grew from shy to ravenous as your relationship progressed.

It was safe to say he was certain you were as infatuated as he was, if not more, though that was a heated topic of debate between the pair of you (“There’s no way you love me more than I love you.” “Wanna bet?” “Zo, I literally took a bullet for you.” “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to bring that up… Why the fuck—!”)

A grin ghosted over Zoro’s face at the memory, and how you’d just laughed as he scolded your reckless affection. His grin grew to a smile before he could cool his expression, and then the warmth of your palm was cupping his jaw, drawing his face closer to yours.

In the low light of the tavern, he swore you glowed. Or maybe it was the three shots of vodka in your system. Either way, you were an angel if Zoro ever knew one. An angel who blessed him with your touch and your teasing little smirk as you asked, “What’s got you smiling?”

“You,” he replied like a reflex. Leaning into your touch, he cast a look around the tavern, scoping out your other crewmates for signs of disturbance. Luffy and Usopp were at the bar, Nami was swindling a woman at the booth across from yours, and Sanji was charming up a brunette in the corner. None of the other patrons minded your crew, so Zoro allowed his shoulders to lose just a bit of their tension, and his hand drifted from his sword to your hand, tugging on it gently to urge you to sit beside him instead of across.

Giddy, you jumped up and hurried to his side, sliding in till your thigh was flush with his. Zoro’s body warmed as you leaned into him, not caring to ask as you took his arm and wrapped it around your shoulder, gazing up at him softly. Your comfortability filled him with confidence; how you moved with such familiarity in his presence, and how it contrasted from when you first met—it was enough to make his ribs crack just to have room for his rapidly expanding heart.

“Good answer,” you teased. You reached up to card your fingers through his hair, gently scratching at his scalp and smirking wider as he grunted and closed his eyes. “Tired?”

Zoro huffed a laugh. “No.”

It was your turn to reminisce, watching as your swordsman melted before you, guard nowhere to be seen. Yours. Never would you have thought you’d actually get to call him that, but here you were, after all the odds and barriers of character.

You particularly enjoyed how he looked just now, eyes closed as you gazed up at him. Once upon a time, Zoro would whip around to make sure you never stood at his back, always ensuring you were nowhere near his blindspot. Now, you mused, he often slept with his back to your chest, your fingers trailing shivers up and down his arms.

Now, his dead eyed gaze didn’t instill you with paralytic nerves; you knew he was more bark than bite, at least with you.

Your dumbass.

“Oi, Y/N!” called Usopp, who had moved from the bar to the wide open space many used as a dance floor. The band of various instruments played a whimsical tune, the rhythm causing your knee to bounce in time.

You raised your brows. “Yep?”

Luffy wrung an arm around Usopp and laughed like a lunatic. “Come dance!”

Your eyes were droopy and honestly, you just wanted some sleep—but who were you to deny your captain? Besides, weren’t you the Strawhats’ resident deathly little dancer?

Casting your boyfriend a look only to find him pursing his lips, you giggled and kissed his frown away, escaping the booth in his brief surprise.

Zoro watched as you leapt to your feet and practically floated with the grace in your steps. As much as Zoro trained and as hard as he tried, he’d never been as graceful with a sword as you were now. Somehow, that made him love you more.

A fiddle and drum, a flute and dulcimer—from what Zoro could tell with his limited knowledge, the music was exactly your style. A lively sort of sound.

And as the music blossomed anew, Zoro spotted that tell tale sparkle in your eye; you had something up your sleeve, per usual, and as your toes started to tap against the ground he knew you’d be amazing, per usual.

Luffy’s enthusiasm drew attention, and soon enough a crowd had formed.

You clapped your hands in a steady rhythm, twirling around in the middle of a circle of people, their gazes trapped by your every move. The crowd soon mimicked your clapping. From the front of the circle, Luffy and Usopp cheered louder than the rest.

Zoro leaned this way and that to keep his eyes locked on you, but it became increasingly difficult as you drew them near like moths to a dancing flame.

With an arabesque leading into a balancé, you glanced over your shoulder and caught Zoro’s eye through the people. His heart stuttered.

You laughed, pure joy in your lungs, and shifted your style from more classical to something looser. You twirled and curved your arms in an “S” shape before pointing your foot and scraping it in the dirt in a wide Rond de Jambe. The movement was swift and agile as you continued to follow the flow of the music, completely in your element.

Mind elsewhere, Zoro hardly realized he’d stood up, not until he had forced his way through the crowd and stopped between Luffy and Usopp. The clapping all around him was deafening, only made worse by the sweet torture of your laugh.

Again, your eyes locked him in place as you swept toward him, only to take Luffy by the hands and twirl him around with you. Zoro scoffed and folded his arms over his chest, unable as ever to hide the smirk tugging at his face.

A giggle left you as Zoro’s face got lost in the whirl of your surroundings. You started a swing dance with Luffy, releasing him a second later to drag a newly approached Nami into the fun.

Your head spun and your feet ached—yet you would never feel happier than when you danced with your friends.

Well, you might’ve been a bit happier when dancing with your special green haired friend, but you knew him well. If you were to drag Zoro into the circle and dance him into the ground in front of all these people, he’d be compliant, but less than pleased.

No. When you danced with Zoro, it wasn’t like this; it was slow and steady, to the rhythm of nothing but the sea. It was deep in the belly of the Going Merry, when the crew was fast asleep, and the moon hung high. When you had the world to yourselves, and could sway in the hold of the other without interruption.

It was simple and plain, but it held a very special place in your heart.

Nami let you spin her around, rolling her eyes before she yelped as you pulled her in and dipped her low. She snorted into a laugh and stumbled a bit, grabbing your arms to keep you from whirling her around again.

Shooting her a wink as she all but ran back to the bar, you danced on light feet once more, starting up a roar of steady clapping.

Your swordsman stood in awe, his eyes desperate to catch as much of your radiance as he could, like you'd disappear at any moment. He always believed good things never last, but he’d die before he let this one end. Because you were Zoro’s best thing, and he refused to grow a similar policy surrounding best things.

So when you had spun off your balance and teetered off your feet, he was there, his arms scooping under yours and catching you against his chest. Out of breath, you looked up and found his eyes, letting the rest of your weight lean into him as he stood a steady post.

“Hey,” you giggled.

“Hi.” Zoro tilted his head. “Ready?”

You were back on your own feet in an instant, thoughts of a warm bed more enticing than dancing through to dawn. So you took his hand and beelined through the crowd, shoving your way through and dragging Zoro along. You winded up collecting Nami by the door, and waited up for Sanji too. The navigator and chef yawned in time, their eyes droopy.

You were no better, your steps lazy as you mindlessly followed after Zoro and the others. It felt as if you’d blinked and you were back on the Merry, gazing up at Zoro who only nudged you with his shoulder. “You up?”

You grunted in reply and promptly led the way to your shared cabin, throwing open the door and letting go of his hand. You plopped into the blankets and at once felt yourself melt into them. The bed dipped a second later. Rolling over, you grinned up at your boyfriend, finding him with his brows met.

“Gonna take off your shoes?” he asked, though it sounded more like an order.

“Yeah, yeah,” you huffed, lugging yourself back up to undo your laces and rip the offending apparel off. You turned to find him under the blanket, holding up one end to make you room, and you settled in beside him. Your head found its natural place on his chest, sleep just on the other side of the mental door, so to speak.

Lost in thought, you barely registered the words spilling from your lips. “I love you.”

It felt natural, like a breath you needed to survive. You wanted to say it again, then once more, and maybe again just for good measure.

Zoro stiffened, his face going an embarrassing shade of red, and he was grateful you weren’t able to see it from your place tucked against his side. He barely even breathed, wondering how much time had really passed since you’d uttered those worldbreaking words. It must’ve been longer than a few minutes; you were fast asleep, none the wiser.

He swallowed thickly and sank deeper into the bed, wrapping his arms tightly around you. He’d deal with figuring out how to say it back in the morning, and decide whether it’ll be the full truth some time later. Or, that was the plan anyhow.

Zoro really couldn’t hold back how you consumed his thoughts—his deathly dancer—and he could deny it all he wanted, but Roronoa Zoro had fallen in love, and apparently, you had as well.

The swordsman grinned, pressing a kiss to your hairline and forcing his eyes shut. How he got so lucky to have you love him, he had no clue. All he knew was you made his life a sweet kind of complicated, and he wouldn’t want you any other way.

735 notes · View notes

agustdiv1ne · 8 months

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ticket to nowhere (but your heart) (m) — cyj

pairing: choi yeonjun x fem!reader

genre: strangers to lovers au, photographer!yeonjun, artist!reader, fluff, angst, smսt

wc: 22.3k

synopsis: twelve days. twelve days is all you have on this godforsaken train to find the spark that will save your dying art career — but you never thought that you would find it in the enigmatic stranger that you can’t seem to stop running into.

warnings: mdni!! ageless + blank blogs dni!!!, mc is bad with feelings, is alluded to have anxiety, and is written as shorter than jjun (i'm sorry to my taller friends, i love you) + the same age as him (24), this takes place in various places across the u.s. (sorry in advance), mentions of food + alcohol, vvvvv brief depiction of potential self-injury when describing a painting, beomgyu + le sserafim's sakura, chaewon, and yunjin (called jennifer here just bc i felt like it) are featured, dom!jjun, sub!mc, soft sex, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), light begging, multiple orgasms, protected sex (hooray!), missionary, praise

note: part of @majestyjun's yeonjun bday event!! REPOSTED bc tumblr decided to not let this show up in the tags (edit: it's now showing up!!) </3 also my longest fic to date, so that's something

*:･playlist･:*

(cross-posted to ao3 here!)

masterlist

everything in your life is bland. gray.

the food that you eat, the people that you become acquainted with, the skyscrapers above you that grasp for the sky and fail to reach it — they have all become so monotone and somber and utterly lifeless. something within you gnaws at itself, aching with pain — though the sharpness of the feeling has been blunted by the passing of time — because you used to adore the city that you call home. you used to find unrivaled beauty in the skyscrapers that spread across manhattan, in the lush green parks scattered amongst the urban landscape that would turn warm and golden as summer metamorphosed into autumn, in the people that would walk by you with their unapologetic, unique fashion and confidence. the very things you used to love have dulled in hue, washes of the vibrancy you once appreciated and took significant inspiration from.

throughout your apartment lay half-baked paintings and charcoal drawings and pieces with odd compositions from that one month where you went through a mixed media phase, staring at you with their paint-streaked eyes, mocking you. finish us, their fragmentary faces scream. they beg for you to provide them with souls, to be their maker, their creator — but not quite their god. you are not pretentious enough to go that far, to paint yourself as that self-important, that narcissistic. you are far from a god. if you were, you would be in a larger apartment, a penthouse worth millions of dollars in soho or maybe the upper east side. if you were a god, you would purchase the finest art supplies in the world, have your pieces be displayed in major galleries to be auctioned off for hundreds of thousands — no, millions of dollars by pretentious art collectors to be hung up in their gaudy mansions, their own slices of heaven. however, in reality, you fall exceptionally short of a higher being; in truth, you are a rather simple woman who had transplanted herself from her suffocating hometown to brooklyn as soon as you completed your undergraduate degree. a tiny little apartment in brooklyn, new york city, new york — an adumbration of purgatory, floating somewhere between heaven and hell. trapped, trapped, trapped. nowhere to go.

sitting on your bed, the balls of your feet pressed against the cool wooden floor, you ponder if these thoughts, this density of emotions burrowing into your stomach, are a symptom of burnout. maybe even artist’s block, though in the past you’ve often remarked that the concept doesn’t exist. you had never experienced it, so in your sorely narrow-minded view, it simply couldn’t be possible, and other artists were simply blaming their laziness on this elusive concept. what a fool you were for ever thinking that. shame hangs like a heavy weight within your chest; who are you to criticize the experiences of other artists when you know how difficult a creative’s life can be? how could you be so insolent?

a raging hypocrite, really, is what you think you must be. a blank, blurry stare scans over your space, the coolness of the floor spreading up into your toes. an easel in the corner, near one of the small windows that allows for a view of mostly red brick, a sliver of blue-brown water where the hudson and east rivers meet, and a few lower manhattan skyscrapers that tower high in the air across the watery expanse. it’s not that far from your bed, which sits on the wall opposite below a second window, the slightest bit larger than the other one. most of your apartment is taken up by supplies rather than actual decor, a jar of paintbrushes on your small, round dining table in the corner near your kitchen instead of a vase of flowers, works-in-progress on the walls rather than posters, pictures.

you live and breathe art, and your entire apartment reflects that, but the oxygen is getting thinner and thinner.

even then, you’re not quite sure how long you have felt this way — it’s not as if you woke up one day and noticed the change. it wasn’t sudden like a car accident, slamming into you one second and leaving you to cope with the aftermath the next. quite the opposite, really, more akin to the tide slowly coming to shore, washing over more of your body with each incoming wave. soothing, flowing along with each ebb and flow, pulling you further and further away from the beach until you have nowhere else to go but down.

weak fingers dig into the white comforter below you, curling into the fabric with a surging desperation — for what, you are unsure. comfort? someone to hold you? you haven’t felt the embrace of another, the warm sensation of lips pressed against your own, in an embarrassingly long time. the dating world had slipped from your hands long ago, shattering on the floor like a snow globe, your wants and hopes and desires to love and be loved soaking your lacerated feet and stinging as it enters your wounds. your mind trails to beomgyu, a fellow artist who you had met when you could afford a private studio in a warehouse one burrow over. he was fun, a sappy romantic, and he made you laugh to no end — but he ruined you. he moved across the country without warning and you’d never heard from him again, leaving you heartbroken and with questions you’d never get answers to. you wonder how he’s doing now, if san francisco is treating him well. his number is still in your phone. you should delete it. you need to delete it. you need to make dinner. you need to finish that commission. you need to do a lot of things.

you need to get out of here.

fuck, you do. the desperation surging within your veins takes the new form of a beast, clawing its way up your throat. you need to leave the city and experience new places and see new things and—

finally, you wrench yourself off of your bed after hours of sitting there. snatching your laptop from the floor, you search. you search and search and search for something that will get you out of this city, albeit temporarily. several different trips to italy — too expensive, and too far away from here. an airbnb in florida — you’ve never been a fan of humidity, and you don’t think only seeing one city will be enough to sate you. come on, come on, there has to be something.

and then you find it: twelve days on a train, across the country. stops in chicago, denver, san francisco, seattle, and even a national park for half a day before looping back through chicago and back to new york. this sounds…perfect. your eyes grow as wide as saucers at the price as you scroll down. for you, it’s expensive, so fucking expensive, but…

“you need to let go and enjoy life for once,” one of your friends told you at a party a few months ago, when you were experiencing a less incapacitating version of the burnout you currently face, when you had thought it was a mere blip in your unending motivation. of course, you hadn’t listened to jennifer and her sound (and moscato-induced) advice, opting to throw yourself further into your art and ultimately fail at creating anything worthwhile. you regret it now, because you feel stuck. terribly, utterly stuck — but this is your chance to change that.

you need this; you can make the sacrifice to your already thinning bank account, you think. let go, enjoy life. let go, enjoy life — you repeat those four words over and over again as you type in your card information, as you click the button to book the trip, as you read over the confirmation email that outlines the steps you need to take before you leave. let go, enjoy life, and you will. you will, and you will relight that dimming, nearly extinguished fire within you while you’re at it. you’ll make damn sure of it.

day one.

your heart is pounding. the rapid ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump roars in your ears like thunder as people upon people walk past, shoving against both of your shoulders as you stand in front of a board full of green and yellow and red. the sounds of voices and rolling luggage echo across the high, transparent ceilings of the station which allow for a view of the sky above. early mornings and you do not agree with each other, and today is no exception; poorly-veiled dark circles sit beneath your eyes, illuminated by the soft, warm light streaming in from above. looking down at your phone and back up at the screen again, you find that your train is thankfully on time, the bright green letters helping loosen the tightness gathered in your shoulders as you roll them back once, twice. your teeth skirt your bottom lip while you nod to yourself, then scan the spacious building for the escalator that will take you down to the correct platform.

you hate that you’re nervous. the feeling twists your stomach into knots and flushes your face, cheeks hot as you stand there and wait out the remaining minutes before you can board. it doesn’t even make sense — you should be happy to get out of town, to go places you’ve never been to before, but all you can focus on is the unease creeping up your throat and blooming sour on your tongue. perhaps this is actually excitement that you are feeling. maybe you’re reading it all wrong — jennifer was more than ecstatic when you told her of your impromptu trip, saying “this is what you need! this might be your breakthrough!”

ever since you met the her, she was always a degree more optimistic than you. looking on the bright side of things, no matter what dire circumstances lay splayed out across the dealer’s table. what’s stopping you from being the same way? several things, but at the same time, jennifer is right: you need this. your hands jitter with an odd combination of excitement and fear — maybe it’s simply the thought of solo travel that is so intimidating. yeah, it has to be. it will pass soon enough — hopefully. you roughly shove your set of headphones onto your head, slipping them over your ears. music will have to do for now, if only to prevent thoughts from racing through your head.

once you board, you learn that your quarters are…small, though that was expected. it reminds you of your studio apartment, almost; cramped, but lacking the scattered paint tubes and canvases and miscellaneous mediums that you have not laid a single finger upon in months now. the small, travel-size tubes of paint sitting in your backpack weigh your shoulders down, begging to be taken out and spread across the small, flat canvases that are tucked snugly beside them. you muffle their pleas by turning up the music streaming through your headphones. closing the door behind you, you softly hum to the current song in your ears, shoving your suitcase in the corner of the room.

once the attendant checks your ticket, you decide to take a nap — who cares if it’s early? you barely got enough sleep last night in the first place, too nervous to allow your eyes to shut. collapsing onto your bed, you pull the curtains next to it shut and allow yourself to drift off into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

*:･

you awake around noon with a growling stomach. with a sigh, you rub your tired eyes and sit up, smoothing out your rumpled shirt. after a quick look on your camera to make sure none of your mascara has transferred below your eyes, you make your way to the dining car that’s not too far from your own.

it’s nice, quaint; simply decorated like the rest, with large, square windows divided by thin pieces of wood lining each side. smaller tables line the wall to your right, two seats at each, while larger, four-person tables sit to your left. you opt for a two-seater towards the middle, tunnel vision blocking out the rest of the people present. you stare out at the greenery that blurs outside the window, listening to the low rumble of the train, mindlessly thumbing the laminated menu laying on the table. while you wait for the waitress to get to your table, a light, feminine voice knocks you from your own little world.

“excuse me?” the voice asks. you flinch in response, blinking hard as you look to your left and find two women sitting at the four-seater next to you. they’re both pretty, brown-eyed with full lips curved into twin smiles. they don’t look like sisters, though — more so friends.

“yes?” you politely say, wondering what they could want with you. the shorter-haired one’s smile grows wider once you speak. she has a rounder face than the other girl, her black bangs ending above her eyes that are currently crinkled at the corners.

“are you waiting for anyone?” the other girl asks, the one with a long wolfcut and wide, hypnotizing eyes. definitely not sisters, you think, they look nothing alike.

shaking your head, you softly murmur, “i’m not.”

“would you like to join us, then?” the wide-eyed one asks, a hopeful glint shining in her eyes.

“i...i wouldn’t want to intrude,” you reply. your mouth curls into something apologetic, as if you’re the one burdening them despite them being the ones to ask you. this interaction feels weird, awkward, and a very large part of you wishes you could melt through the floor and disappear forever.

“you wouldn’t!” straight black bob chimes in, hands clasped together on top of the table as she leans towards you. cheery, excitable. “we wouldn’t mind at all, really.”

you nod with a tiny, somewhat nervous grin as you take the seat closest to you, right next to wide-eyed wolfcut. you offer them your name, unsure what else to give them. your age? your profession? your deep-seated trauma? okay, definitely not that last one.

“it’s nice to meet you,” straight black bob says, while the other chimes in with a soft hum of affirmation. “i’m chaewon.”

“and i’m sakura,” wolfcut adds with a dip of her chin.

hands placed snugly in your lap, you pick at your thumb nail. your back is stiff in the chair, and you hope they won’t notice. “it’s nice to meet you guys too. are you traveling together?”

both of them giggle, glancing at each other for a moment before swiveling their eyes back to you. for a moment, you’re confused. why was that so funny? they look to be decent friends, at least from your limited interactions with them thus far.

“we actually just met a few minutes ago,” wolfcut — no, sakura claims. oh, so they’re not friends, then. “we ran into each other— like, quite literally ran into each other.”

“it was…kinda bad,” chaewon laughs before she takes a sip of water. “my ass is still sore.”

you huff a laugh at that, all air and no sound, and the conversation continues with a light-hearted air to it. as the minutes tick by, you learn that chaewon is a graduate student taking a gap semester, while sakura owns her own makeup line, a small business that is beginning to pick up speed thanks to social media. one lives in brooklyn—

“no way,” you gasp at chaewon. “where at?”

sakura, meanwhile, resides in upper manhattan. even more information about them bombards your brain as all of you begin to eat, but you doubt you’ll remember most of it by tomorrow, even later today — it’s alright, though. the three of you have exchanged numbers (to create a group chat) and have basically promised to be travel buddies for the coming days. your cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, grateful to find kind, welcoming people on this train — you’d think that jennifer would like them. the way they interact with each other is somewhat reminiscent of your and jennifer’s friendship. friends…yeah, you can see the three of you becoming good friends.

“can we see some of your art?” chaewon asks, bob shifting like a wave around her head as she shakes it. oh, yeah. you had briefly mentioned your profession, though shame barred you from sharing your reasons that led you to this train in the first place.

you cringe. “oh, well—”

“i’m sure it’s great!” she continues. “c’mon, pleaseee?”

with sparkling doe eyes and hands clasped tightly together, it’s difficult to say no — and you don’t, shaking your head a little as you pull up your instagram account. while you’re proud of the pieces you’ve posted on there, they aren’t your most emotional. those ones are saved in your camera roll, and that is where they will stay, only for your eyes (and a very few select others) to see. they coo and aw as they swipe through, your phone placed on the table between them. heat rushes to your cheeks as you begin to pick at the remnants of your lunch sitting on your plate. deep down, their kind comments cause an unusual sense of guilt to invade your heart. why couldn’t you produce shit like that now? what the hell is wrong with you?

with a polite smile, you thank them and move to excuse yourself before your pathetic sense of self-pity can consume you. they seem a bit surprised by your abrupt exit, but they also take it in stride, offering to text you later for dinner. slipping from your seat, you send them a wave before setting off towards the door from which you initially came.

*:･

you don’t know what spurred you to make a stop at your room and snatch your sketchbook from your backpack before heading to the observation car, but after a whole lot of sitting and not one speck of sketching, you kind of, sort of have started to hate yourself for that decision.

the open page in your lap is abysmally blank. no marks, no little trees or lush fields or flowers or anything that you see speeding by outside the window. your pencil has been poised against the page for the longest time, dark gray dots scattered across the page where you would press the point of the pencil to start making a mark and subsequently give up. another hour with no progress ticks by, but you still can’t make it move. move, why won’t your hand just move?

flipping it shut, you lean back in your seat with a deep sigh. you can’t force these things, you know that much, but that won’t stop you from trying — and failing — to produce something. you’d rather not dwell on that for too long, though. those thoughts are what got you here in the first place. instead, you allow your tense muscles to relax, your eyes to lose focus and blur, blobs of green and blue passing by your vision. soft murmurs from other passengers meld together into a wall of droning noise, soft and soothing.

that is, until the sound of someone settling into a seat a couple away from your own pops your little bubble like a sharp, pointed pin pressing into the skin of a balloon. blinking your vision back into focus, you take a quick glance to your right and—

holy shit, he’s beautiful. a sloping nose and pink, plush lips, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was a model of some sort with a face like that. his dark, slightly outgrown hair frames his side profile perfectly, sweeping back towards the back of his head where it begins to curl down the back of his neck. there’s this sort of dreamy, ethereal quality to his looks, like the universe took it’s sweet time creating him, lovingly placed tiny little stars in his sable, fox-like eyes and kissed his skin with the sun’s gentle rays, a light pink dusted across his cheeks — or, at least, the one cheek that you can see. bulky headphones sit snugly over his ears as he simply watches the landscapes pass by, one long leg crossed over the other. before you register the movement of your hands, your sketchbook is flipped back open to that very same blank page you’d given up on mere moments ago, fingers gripping your pencil once more. fluid like water is how your hand moves across the page, capturing the unique shape of his eyes, his soft yet defined jawline, the slope of his neck…

for the first time in months, you lose yourself in your work, yet you don’t even register this small breakthrough. peeking back up at the beautiful stranger every once in a while, you slowly carve out his likeness on the page in front of you, begin to add his surroundings and even a background, shading with light, circular strokes as you go, building up the deposit of graphite where it is needed most, defining the shape of his pouty lips and the strong cupid’s bow that connects his top lip to his nose, mapping out the flow and shape of locks of hair with dark, daring strokes, graphite pressing hard into the page. you even add some flyways for good measure. in your frenzied bout of drawing, you have hunched over in your chair, an old habit that is rearing its ugly head now that you don’t have a standing easel to work with. straightening your aching spine, you sit back and observe your sketch, wondering if you have missed any defining details—

and when you move to look up and take in his features again, he is staring right back at you.

oh.

oh, fuck.

frozen in your seat, you can’t tear your gaze away from his own, a hint of concern swirling in his irises. his eyebrows raise, eyes slightly wide as he tilts his head. the corners of his pretty lips raise, parting as if about to speak — and he does.

“are you okay?”

his deep voice snaps you out of your stupor, flinching before you quickly flip your notebook shut and sent him a tight smile paired with a nod, eyes darting around to look everywhere but him. your heart just might leap out of your chest at this rate, tear open your sternum and collide with the floor. you almost wish it would.

he’s frowning now, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “uh, are you sure—”

without another glance at him, you stand, clutch your notebook and pencil tight enough that it presses marks into your skin, and book it straight out of there with swift and featherlight steps. you don’t look back, far too embarrassed to even consider it, not stopping until you reach your room. the door is slammed shut behind you, but the nerves-induced ache in your chest won’t fade. pressing the cool backs of your hands against your fiery cheeks, you resist the urge to slap yourself. what the fuck is wrong with you? you should’ve just answered him and apologized for staring. he probably thinks you’re some creep now, with your weird little notebook and lack of verbal response — and the way you left. god, if a hole opened up and swallowed you whole, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

“you are so fucking embarrassing,” you hiss, venemous words aimed straight at yourself, your head buried in your hands as you curl up on the bed. day one, day fucking one, and you’ve already made a fool of yourself in front of someone.

maybe you should stay in here for the rest of your trip.

day two.

“...why is it so big?”

chaewon is referring to cloud gate — or, rather, what is more popularly known as the bean — a terribly ugly, silver, oversized, bean-shaped art installation that sits in chicago’s millennium park. an art installation that you, quite frankly, despise mostly due to the artist behind the work. given that anish kapoor is an elitist prick who has shit on the art world with his wealth and hates when people call his piece the bean, you take great, overwhelming satisfaction in calling it that.

her question — paired with her furrowed eyebrows — causes you and sakura to snicker to yourselves. you’re grateful that they texted you this morning, had forced you out of your room because you actually were going to go through with your staying-in-your-room-forever plan (for today, at least). this park is your first stop of many, but you really want to get this part over with so that you don’t have to see this gargantuan, chrome bean ever again. despite its ugliness, you can admit that the slightly warped, mirrored reflection of the city that it provides is kind of interesting to look at, and it makes for some cool pictures.

(still, fuck anish kapoor. you refuse to give that man any credit.)

you end up taking a photo of you flipping it off from afar, sending it to jennifer with a smirk before helping the other two girls with some of their own photos. here, there’s no pressure to create, only to enjoy and experience what surrounds you, no matter how tourist-y it may be.

sakura slings an arm over your shoulder and pulls you closer to her, arm extended out to take a selfie. your hand raises in a peace sign at the camera, smile bright and wide like the sun above. there’s not an inkling of worry in your expression — until you see him.

the guy from yesterday, standing maybe ten feet away. he dons an unbuttoned striped shirt layered over a tank top which is tucked into baggy, dark wash jeans. a thin, black belt wraps around his waist, a small camera hanging from his neck, and his hair looks as perfect as yesterday, shiny and smooth under the unobstructed sunlight. thankfully, he hasn’t noticed you, but that doesn’t stop your smile from fading, your heart from hammering within your chest as your brain cruelly replays the events of yesterday afternoon in slow motion. you can’t face him right now. what if he comes up to you? what if he confronts you for your odd behavior in front of this crowd? these are worst case scenarios, sure, but they are potential outcomes nonetheless. as he begins to turn in your direction, you whip around, slipping from under sakura’s arm as you face the two girls.

“you guys ready to go?” you ask, masking your worry with a tight grin. don’t ask why, don’t ask why, please don’t ask why.

“yeah, sure,” chaewon nods. “i think i’ve had enough of the bean.”

“same,” sakura laughs.

“we could grab lunch, then go to the aquarium and planetarium?” you suggest, one foot beginning to tap against the concrete as you look back and forth between them. are there eyes burning into the back of your head right now? you can’t tell, but the prickling on the back of your neck is not a promising sign. they look at each other, then back to you — a phenomenon that has rapidly become a habit for them — and agree. surging forward, your hands loop around their wrists closest to you, and begin to speed walk away. far away.

“uh, girl? this is the wrong way, we’re going deeper into the park,” sakura notes, heels digging into the concrete to slow you down. she’s right, you know she’s right, but you’re not particularly keen on turning around.

with a sheepish grin, you say, “maybe we could take a walk through the park first?”

as if on cue, chaewon’s stomach emits an audible growl.

“nevermind, then.”

turning around, you find the stranger facing your way, and for some reason, he’s already looking at you. his eyebrows raise in recognition the moment you make eye contact. all of a sudden, you wish that you could shrivel up and die. despite this, you rip your gaze from his and push forward, turning to speak to sakura so that you aren’t forced to glance in his direction. mission: avoid the stranger who now haunts your life — success!

goodbye, the bean and the guy who you embarrassed yourself in front of. hello, chicago-style pizza.

*:･

you’re tired.

you’re tired and slightly more broke and your legs and feet ache to hell after the copious amount of walking you’ve done, but your day still isn’t over. no, despite the setting sun and rising moon, you still have one more activity on your itinerary — clubbing, by request of your newfound friends, though even they claim that they don’t often partake in the activity. similar to them, you’re more inclined to small get-togethers with wine, food from that thai place down the street from your apartment, and a good movie, but hey, this trip is all about experiencing new things. hell, maybe you’ll even enjoy it, who knows? at least, you’re going to try to, but the pain radiating in the soles of your feet and calves has worsened due to your high heels. the dress wrapped around your body is tight and flattering in all the right places, yet the hem rides up every few minutes as you walk.

“the pessimism isn’t cute. quit it,” you hear jennifer’s voice echo inside your head, yet another phrase she’s uttered to you in the past. fine — on the bright side, you haven’t seen that good-looking stranger since the park. bam, positivity, go you.

sakura’s arm loops around yours as you reach the club that you collectively decided on earlier. her excited squeals at the prospect of alcohol (or, rather, more alcohol, since she pregramed a bit prior to leaving the station) and dancing are enough to bring on a weak headache that spreads across your temples. ibuprofen. you desperately need ibuprofen, but vodka will do just fine too — it’s the first thing you order at the bar, a straight shot with no chaser because at this point, you don’t care. let go, enjoy life, you internalize as you toss the sharp liquor down your throat, fatigue melting away as the alcohol enters your veins.

cheers, jennifer. you still need to text her back.

one more downed shot later, and chaewon is dragging you to the dance floor. the bass pounds in your ears and vibrates the floor as the three of you sway to the upbeat songs. droplets of sweat begin to bead along your hairline, bodies packed so close together that it’s virtually impossible not to be jostled by a stray elbow or shoulder as you dance. if you were completely sober, it would be uncomfortable, but your hazy senses allow for you to overlook the sardine can that is called a club. it’s easy to lose yourself in the warm, heady air, in the way your hips bump between chaewon’s and sakura’s. inhibitions melt away — you’re free; no expectations weighing you down, nowhere to be, no one to be. only music, flashing lights, and the new, fruity drink in your hand, courtesy of sakura.

“gonna take a breather!” you yell into chaewon’s ear, the alcohol finally catching up to you. she nods, yells words you can’t make out into sakura’s ear, and both of them begin to follow you out of the crowd. you sip at your drink as you push your way through, ducking under swinging arms and avoiding splashing drinks. the crowd thins as you grow closer to the edge of the dance floor until only scattered groups of friends remain.

“you didn’t have to come with me, y’know,” you say as soon as you reach a slightly quieter part of the club, taking a seat in an empty booth. “i can handle myself.”

“it’s better to stick together. less dangerous,” sakura refutes. some of the glitter that sits above her eyes had drafted down to her cheeks, glinting as a beam of bright light travels over the lower half of her face. “you never know what could happen in a club.”

chewing at the neon pink straw in your drink, you nod, “that’s true.”

as chaewon and sakura fall into conversation, their words not quite reaching your ears, you silently scan the club. the darkness is cut by wild lasers and spotlights that whirl around and catch on the faces of countless strangers, their pearly, grinning teeth glinting and disappearing back into obscurity in a flash. you continue to nibble at your straw, vision hazy around the edges and an airy sensation in your limbs, as if you could float up to the ceiling. you look up at the multicolored lights, flashes of red and green and blue bombarding your vision, then back down towards the crowd.

and yet again, you find him in your sights.

suddenly, your vision has a crystal clear clarity to it. button-down shirt wide open to reveal his toned torso, he smoothly moves to the beat with an intoxicated smirk painted on his lips, a small glass of amber liquor in his left hand. dark, outgrown hair, plush lips, those dark, dreamy eyes — that’s him. shit, that’s definitely him.

“you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” you murmur, head collapsing into your arms on top of the cool wooden table. sakura jumps in her seat next to you, before scrambling to place a hand on your shoulder.

“are you okay?” she squeals near your ear, tacking on a worried call of your name when you don’t respond right away. honestly? you’re kind of not okay. you’re tired of encountering him at every turn and being reminded of your humiliating escape from him yesterday. you’re tired of him spotting you and sending you odd looks as if you’re the weirdest person he’s ever crossed paths with. you’re tired, you’re tired, you’re just so tired.

you decided to go on this trip to get away from the mundanity of your day-to-day routine, to get over your spell of artist’s block and see new things, but maybe you bit off more than you can chew if you were going to allow one random person to ruin that goal for you. a random stranger shouldn’t have this much power over you.

raising your head, you send them a half-hearted nod. “i’m fine. sorry.”

chaewon frowns, “are you about to throw up? ‘cause you look like you are.”

“you look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” sakura chimes in.

sighing, you shake your head. “i think— i think i need to use the bathroom.”

as you move to get up, they do as well — though you decide not to protest this time. there’s no point, really. your legs wobble a bit as you walk, face dropping once you notice that he is near the men’s restroom now, waiting outside right across from where you aim to go. head down, you scurry past him, ignoring how his eyes widen and his knuckles pale as he grips his drink tighter. chaewon and sakura are hot on your heels as you slip into the quiet bathroom. with the music from outside now muffled, you realize your ears are ringing. reaching a sink, you turn on the faucet and splash some water onto your face. hunched over the sink, your fingers grip the edge of the counter. deep breaths, now. deep breaths. this is likely the quickest you have ever sobered up, and the sensation is rendering you dizzy.

behind you, your friends exchange concerned looks through the mirror. sakura jumps into action first, coming up behind you and placing her hands onto your shoulders. with a gentle squeeze, she murmurs, “let’s get you back to the station.”

day three.

today, the observation car is devoid of life — and so is your body after yesterday. can you overdose by taking too much ibuprofen? you’re pretty sure that you can.

last night is but a blur in your memory with few spots of clarity, but you do vividly remember panicking in the dimly lit bathroom as the girls fretted over whether you were going to vomit all over the floor or not. you hadn’t slept much once you returned to your room after exchanging drunken hugs with your friends, assuring them that you were, indeed, not going to throw up. after a few hours of restless sleep, you’d completely given up on proper rest — you have never slept all that well with alcohol in your system, so you’re not sure why you thought this time would be any different.

you take a seat far away from the one you took last time. clad in your pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, you’re grateful that no one else is here to see you at your worst: slightly hungover with dark circles the size of dinner plates. your legs fold up onto the chair so that your knees sit near your chest, your arms looping around your shins, fingers laced together. a deep sigh. a long blink. though the rest of the sky remains an inky black, the horizon morphs into a deep purple, the color of eggplant, almost. perhaps a smidge lighter.

a door opens, its hinges faintly squeaking, before subsequently clicking shut. figuring it must be someone older, you do not bother with checking who entered; most people your age aren’t up this early, especially not willingly. instead, you keep your eyes trained on the ever-changing sky, chin resting upon your knees.

footsteps near you, and you assume that they will pass, but then they don’t. rather, they stand right in front of you.

“may i sit here?”

you have heard this voice before, just two days ago. unsurprisingly, he stands a mere few feet away, clad in a black tank top and gray sweatpants, a long finger pointed towards a seat. similar to you, small dark circles sit beneath his eyes, but he somehow makes them work. once you nod, one corner of his lips twitches upward before he sits down, a singular seat separating your bodies. his gaze burns the side of your face; your arms wrap around your legs tighter, your unwavering stare pointed out the window. silence envelopes the train car, tense and suffocating. your lungs tighten, prickly thorns sprouting within the thin membranes. your bottom lip may begin to bleed if you keep chewing at it so carelessly.

he breaks it first, shatters it like glass colliding with the floor, with five words:

“i’m really hungover right now.”

your brows furrow. why is he trying to strike up a conversation with you? why do you want to answer him?

he continues before you can formulate a response, “i saw you at that club last night — you looked a little sick. are you okay?”

“peachy,” you curtly mumble, lips pursing. of course he remembers you; you did pass by him, after all, basically sprinted into the bathroom with the grace of a bull in a china shop. he hasn’t mentioned the park, but you know damn well he remembers that too.

you can sense the frown from his tone, confusion lacing the edges like delicate lace. his question is careful, slowly intonated as if he’s scared of pissing you off. “uh, did i do something wrong?”

you shake your head, not a single glance spared in his direction thus far. he hasn’t. your attitude is a direct result of your own actions, your own rampant anxieties. a pang of guilt punches you in the gut — he does not deserve your bitchiness when he, quite frankly, has done nothing but exist in relative proximity to you.

“you haven’t,” you reply, voice meek. your eyes trace over the short fibers of the plain carpet below your seat. “i’m just— i’m sorry.”

the low rumble of the train fills the air again, no further words spoken between the two of you. there’s no clear way to explain yourself further, but your apology is sincere; with a brief peek, you find him staring out the window.

“can i ask why you keep running away whenever you see me?” the query lacks an accusatory edge. rather, curiosity and interest cushion his voice. maybe…maybe he doesn’t find you that strange, after all.

and finally, after two days of avoiding his gaze, you swivel your head to face him. you find a tilted head, a single humorous, raised eyebrow. despite yourself, you begin to smile. “honestly?”

“i’d prefer honesty, yes,” he grins.

“i—” you hesitate for a moment, then continue, “i was embarrassed.” a grimace paints your face, dragging your brows down and twisting your lips. “after, y’know…”

“running away the first time?” he supplies.

your mouth flattens into a thin line, a hand moving up to scratch your cheek. “yeah, that.”

laughter reaches your ears, partially nasally. rolling your eyes, your mouth splits into a grin.

“i get it. i feel like i definitely startled you, so no hard feelings.” he pauses, starry eyes widening in what you believe is realization, “i never got your name.”

easily, you supply it, cheeks flushing with heat when he offhandedly comments that it’s pretty. if he notices your sudden flustered state, he doesn’t comment on it, and despite the warmth now slithering down your neck, you feel yourself relax back into your seat, legs leaving their curled up position to cross at the ankle in front of you. then, he offers his own. yeonjun — at long last, you have put a name to his handsome face.

out of nowhere, he asks, “have you had breakfast?”

shaking your head, you gesture to your pajama bottoms. “not yet, i was going to grab some after i changed.”

“i don’t know, i think the plaid pants are pretty fashionable,” he chuckles. you join him. “c’mon, i saw an old guy wearing boxers and a shirt in there yesterday. i’m pretty sure it’ll be fine.”

you giggle, “that’s kinda gross, but alright. let’s go.”

peering out the window again, you find that the sun has just peeked above the horizon, a wash of orange fading into blue, melting together like watercolor. smiling to yourself, you stand and begin to follow yeonjun towards the dining car.

*:･

you and yeonjun had gone your separate ways hours ago, but not without exchanging contact information. since then, he hasn’t stopped texting you, his talent at keeping any conversation going shining in direct contrast to your, well, lack of said talent. however, you do find yourself replying to him with ease — he makes it so easy to do so, mostly due to the fairly unorthodox topics he likes to bring up. currently, you’re talking about the animals that scare you the most. why? because that’s the nature of yeonjun’s conversation skills, you suppose.

another voice message pops up in your chat, about ten seconds long — one of his more obvious quirks. most of his messages are sent in this form, not that you mind. his voice is as pretty as the rest of him. heart-fluttering. okay, stop. you just met this guy.

(jennifer always does say that you fall too easily. maybe she’s right.)

pressing play, his voice enters your left ear via your single earbud. “no because hear me out: dolphins have fooled you into thinking they’re nice. manipulated you. they literally torture their prey— and they use puffer fishes to get high! i can’t make this shit up. my fear is justified, i swear.”

under your breath, you chuckle, an elbow leaned against the dining table. after a long nap, you had texted the girls to see if they’d like to get dinner with you. of course, they said yes, but you decided to get here a bit early to grab an open table. the car is already packed as it is.

“what’re you laughing at?” unexpectedly, sakura’s head appears over your shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of your phone. out of habit, you lock it, your reflections staring back at you through the black screen. as she sits next to you, chaewon, takes the seat across from you, elbows placed on the table and her hands supporting her chin. she sends you a knowing smile.

“is that your boyfriend?” she prods. the question causes your mouth to fall open for a moment before you snap it shut.

“no!” you exclaim. “it’s just a friend.”

“sounds like a boyfriend,” sakura surmises, exchanging a conspiratory nod with the other girl. you release a groan, hands shielding your fiery hot face before you drag them up over your hair.

“he’s not my boyfriend,” you shoot back. “we just met today.” two days ago, actually. if you can count that.

their mouths open in tandem, shock coloring their features. is this a big deal, or something? you aren’t even dating the guy.

“you met a guy and didn’t tell us?” sakura grasps your arm with both hands, shaking the limb with a strength that shouldn’t be possible to come from her thin body. “you should’ve told us! we can be your wingwomen!”

“wingwomen?” you echo dumbly as you stare at her. wingwomen, as in, like, jennifer-style wingwomen? as in trying too hard to set you up with someone and ultimately embarrassing you in the end wingwomen? your love for jennifer knows no bounds, but she’s ruined the term for you long ago with her terrible luck. a shudder runs down your spine, and you grin nervously. “i don’t think that’s necessary.”

“of course it is! i’ve always wanted to do that for one of my friends, but they’re all taken already,” chaewon pouts, irresistible puppy dog eyes appearing. “c’mon, please?

“i doubt he’d want to date me, though? we’ve literally only talked once, so really, it’s okay.”

“once is enough,” sakura declares, suddenly tilting her body closer to yours. “tell us, is he cute? what’s his name?”

they’re obviously not going to let this go, and you have no power to really stop them.

sighing, you officially give up, “yeonjun, and yes, i do.” unfortunately.

chaewon claps her hands together, an audible smack! echoing from her palms. her smile is blinding, a supernova of pearly white teeth and pink, upturned lips. “perfect! we can work with that.”

“i already have an idea: ask him to hang out tomorrow,” sakura says, and you send her an incredulous look, glancing at chaewon for a moment to find that she’s excitedly nodding along to the idea like an excitable puppy. her round eyes sure make her resemble one.

you shake your head. “i can’t do that, it’s too forward.”

rolling her eyes, sakura tosses her hands up in the air. “too forward my ass! how do you expect to bag him?”

“i don’t!”

chaewon chimes in, an open hand reaching towards you, “alright, give us your phone. we’ll text him for you.”

“absolutely not!”

ding!

it’s comical, how all three of you pivot your wide-eyed gazes to the phone clenched in your fingers. the flash of yeonjun’s name across the screen is enough to send your table into chaos.

“open it!”

“what did he say—”

“calm down, oh my god!” you shriek, sending an apologetic look to the couple next to you when they look over. fingers fly over your keyboard until you’ve reached his contact. words, this time, no voice message. butterflies burst into your chest.

yeonjun: do you have anything planned for tmrw?

after scanning over the message herself, sakura pokes at your shoulder. “tell him you don’t.”

with a deep, heavy sigh, you do as she says.

[6:37 p.m.]: not yet, why?

“that’s too dry,” chaewon comments.

“shut up, i’m trying,” you hiss. it takes him a few minutes to respond, minutes in which you internally panic. was your text really too dry? in the meantime, you place your dinner order with a kind waiter that stops by, a hearty dish that you can drown your sorrows in the not-so-off chance that this goes terribly, terribly wrong. another ping sounds from your phone’s speakers, and time stops once you read what he sent. clocks stop ticking, you stop breathing, everything around you freezes.

yeonjun: do you wanna grab coffee in the morning then? :)

sakura sends you a sharp look. “i doubt he’d want to date me — are you seeing this right now? or do you need me to spell it out for you? this is a date, babe.”

“it’s not,” you counter weakly. you only (officially) met him today, so, “it’s really not.”

day four.

contrary to what sakura claimed, this is very much not a date — but you’re happy about it.

he keeps a respectful distance between your bodies as you walk, you pay for your own coffee, and you pull your own chair out when you go to sit down. it’s simple, it’s friendly, it’s a bit awkward, but there’s some things you have to sacrifice when making new friends. the croissant you’ve decided on is on the drier side, a little too flaky. you nibble on it anyway in a poor attempt to ignore the silence that has fallen between you once again. this is why you try to meet people through other friends; at least in those situations, you have a buffer, someone who knows you and the other person well enough that they can find connections between you without having to dig. you hate digging — you’re the worst at it, hence the stifling quiet that permeates the air now.

the café is quaint, if a bit moody thanks to the lighting. outside the window, the denver street teems with people, and you decide to survey the passing strangers rather than look at the man sitting across from you. wisps of fluffy white clouds float high above, sometimes passing over the sun. you wish you had your supplies with you — this would make for a wonderful painting.

click!

turning your head, you find yeonjun holding a camera, the lens pointed at…you? you hadn’t noticed it prior, so you are unsure where he got it from. it looks like the same one he had at the park. a bashful smile appears as soon as he places it on the table. “sorry, the lighting was perfect. can’t ever pass up a nice shot.” you study the camera for a moment, and he takes your lack of response as a sign to continue, “once i edit it, i can definitely send you a copy. do you wanna see it?”

a photographer. yeonjun is a photographer. you’re not sure why it’s taken you this long to realize. maybe because you’ve been avoiding him up until now? you think. shaking the thought away, you smile. “i’d love to see it.”

he presses a few buttons, a focused twist to his plush lips, before he’s sliding it over to your side of the table. he’s right: it was a nice shot, and while you don’t often enjoy how you look in photographs, he’s found an angle that highlights your best features as you gaze outside, a slight part to your lips and your eyes wide open, shining. the sheer amount of contrast between the dark café and your warm-lit face scratches an itch in your brain. you can see it now — the golden pigment wetting your brush before being placed on the canvas, being blended into an umber, almost black, but not quite. a splash of umber here, a hint of red there…

“is this your job?” you decide to ask.

the sheepish expression returns in full force, but there’s a hint of pride in his eyes. he’s proud of his work. “yeah. i’m not, like, famous or anything, but i enjoy it. my mom said that when i was a baby, they put a stethoscope, a gavel, a camera, a microphone, and a test tube in front of me, and i chose the camera, so it was basically meant to be,” he chuckles, but, realizing that you’re staring at him, he pauses for moment. crimson paints the tips of his ears; it’s a color that you’re pretty sure sits in your travel set. “sorry, was that too much?”

“not at all,” you reply softly. “that’s a lovely story, yeonjun.”

“thanks.” shyly, he bites down on his bottom lip, sucking it between his teeth before releasing it. a beat of quiet passes, then he’s asking, “how about you? what do you do for work?”

for some reason, the question looms over your head like a storm cloud. it’s unavoidable and dark and heavy. a bitter taste fills your mouth, different from the aftertaste of your coffee, but you try not to let your sudden drop in mood show.

“i’m an artist, though i don’t think many people would consider me one nowadays,” you snicker, but the self-deprecating edge to your words is not lost on yeonjun.

wrinkles form in the space between his brows. “what do you mean?”

“i…” you trail off. you should tell him. you should rip the bandaid off and quit avoiding facing it for what it is. “i haven’t finished a piece in months. i feel stuck, almost? like nothing is resonating with me, if that makes sense. it’s the whole reason i went on this trip. it’s humiliating, not being able to draw a single thing without hating it— sorry, that’s definitely too much.”

“no, no, you’re fine,” and he’s sincere in his reassurances. he doesn’t look at you like you’re some sort of failure for how you feel. he doesn’t spew out a hollow apology to absolve him of the weight you’ve transferred to his shoulders, nor does he seem to mind that he’s helping you burden it. his hand reaches over the table, hesitant for a moment, before his fingers curl over yours, his warm skin against yours. you stare at his hand, but you don’t move away from his touch, allowing him to give your hand a delicate squeeze. looking back up, you sit frozen under his gaze. it warms your insides, melts the icy shards solidifying in your lungs that make it hard to breathe. “none of that makes you less of an artist. it’s something every artist goes through — hell, i’ve gone through it, and it’s okay to feel that way. it’s real and it sucks to feel like you can’t accomplish anything, but there’s nothing wrong with it. eventually, it will pass on its own, but until then, it’s not a sin to lean on others for support.”

tears almost, almost prick your eyes. however, you push them down; there’s no way you’re going to cry in public, in front of him. absolutely not. he squeezes your hand one more time, his thumb brushing over yours, before pulling away. “and if no one else will listen, i will.”

“thank you,” you croak out, blinking rapidly, taking a long sip of coffee in order to buy yourself a few precious seconds to cloak your emotions. a calm veil falls over your face soon enough, and while you hate to be the one to change the subject, you feel like you should. “do you want to go on a walk? it’s too nice out to stay in here all day.”

he doesn’t question the sudden change, humming in confirmation as he scoots his chair back. “it really is nice out. do you have any other plans?”

“not really,” you say, pushing the door open. the warm breeze caresses your face. “i’m trying to be spontaneous—”

“y/n!”

sakura and chaewon appear to your left, each carrying a couple bags that look to be stuffed with clothes. you vaguely remember them mentioning going thrifting, but you didn’t know that they’d be in the same part of the city as you. chaewon comes in for a hug, whispering into your ear, “he’s cute.”

glancing up at yeonjun, sakura feigns ignorance, “who’s this?”

thus, your friends meet the one man you’d rather keep them away from, if only to prevent their wingwomen shenanigans. you have zero clue what they have planned, but you’re sure none of it can be good.

“we were just on our way to the botanical gardens,” chaewon sings. “if you’d like to join usss.”

wordlessly, you and yeonjun communicate, only raised eyebrows and tilted chins. somehow, you understand exactly what he’s trying to convey. do you want to? do you? i don’t mind if you don’t. alright, let’s do it.

when you do arrive at the gardens, yeonjun’s fingers find your wrist, holding you back for a moment. his free hand gestures to the camera hanging around his neck. “mind being my model for the day?”

you blink. you, his model? “oh, um. i think chae and kkura are a bit more qualified—”

“no way,” he laughs. “i’m the professional here, and i want you. no one else will do.”

i want you — god, those three, simple words send a visceral shiver down your spine. a want, a need, an overwhelming desire for…you’re not even sure, but something all-consuming blooms behind your sternum like a moonflower in the night. with a coy dip of your head, you smile to yourself, allowing the feeling to surge through your veins, consume every fiber of your being.

“alright, mr. professional. lead the way.”

*:･

it’s early in the evening when you return to the station in a giddy haze, arm looped around yeonjun’s. the photo session had been a success; by the end, you were drunk on the compliments he aimed your way, on the way he treated you like glass as he directed you into a specific pose, the fleeting sensation of his fingertips pressing into your skin burned into your memory.

closing the door to your room, you press your back into it, squeal into your palms like you did when you were sixteen and harboring a silly little crush. because that’s all it is right now, really: a foolish crush on a man that you probably won’t see again after this trip. you can fantasize all you want, but in the end, that’s what it is. those invading negative thoughts get drowned out by the movie playing behind your eyelids — a replay of the day. you swear you can feel every touch of his skin against yours, every ray of sunshine that kissed your skin and gifted you its warmth. scurrying over to your bag, you locate your supplies.

and you begin to paint.

a flurry of lilacs, a blurry figure among them all, defined only by a flowing white button up and brown, wide leg trousers, black streaks of hair and nothing more. yellow daffodils and vibrant emerald sweetgrass take shape, a cerulean sky, fluffy clouds. it’s messy and you kind of hate it, but it’s something. something is on the canvas, it’s dynamic, it has character.

“okay,” you mumble, staring at the brushstrokes, going over them again and again. “okay.”

day five.

“can i draw you?”

a spur of the moment question, borne from the golden sunset gracing his cheeks, highlighting strands of his hair. the day has passed quietly today, mostly spent in your room sketching to your heart’s content. though mostly inconsequential doodles paired with terribly cheesy words of prose that even your most romantic friends would scrunch their noses at, these exercises in creating without a specific goal in mind seem to be helping. a part of that gray fog over your world has been wafted away by an invisible hand, and everything is a bit more vibrant, closer to its true hue; while nothing about your creations are particularly special or groundbreaking, going on this trip is now beginning to prove its worth.

yeonjun’s head tilts, and you shrug. “what? i need practice.”

“okay, as long as you promise to show me afterward,” he challenges, and you immediately shake your head.

“i’m only going to show it to you if it turns out well,” you decide. you think back to the painting sitting in your room, still a bit wet, the paint overworked to hell. that one is staying a secret. it’s not good enough to be known by anyone else — and certainly not by him.

“then no deal.” when you give him a pleading look, he raises his hands. “i show you my pictures, you show me what’s going on in that sketchbook, it’s only fair.”

“fine,” you hiss, fishing your sketchbook from your bag. “get comfortable, and don’t even think about moving.”

“harsh.”

with a suppressed grin, you take in the planes of his face. he’s shifted to face you, intent eyes trained on you, which makes your job harder. gulping, you raise an arm, mapping out his proportions with a thumb. the process of pressing intentional marks into the page is a slow one, exacerbated by his unwavering stare. you have to look out at the mountains every once in a while to allow oxygen back into your lungs, and even then, the action proves difficult. graphite scratching paper is backed by the low murmur of other passengers in the observation car as you work, capturing the fading light that casts shadows across his face. however, your creative juices quickly run out, likely sapped by your painting escapade that extended far into the night. the shape of his eyes isn’t quite right, and no matter how much you erase and try again, there’s always a slight detail off about it. too narrow, too round, too—

the tip of the pencil snaps, the point rolling across the page and falling onto the floor. you curse under your breath.

“is it done?” yeonjun asks, leaning forward. his hands gently take your sketchbook from your lap before you can protest, and you watch as his expression shifts from neutral to slack-jawed.

“that’s…you’re…wow,” he starts, then never finishes. he still hasn’t torn his wide eyes away from the page, flitting around as he drinks in every miniscule detail, while you pinpoint every single thing wrong with the drawing.

“it’s bad,” you deadpan. “give it back, i need to fix it.”

he frowns. you seem to make him do that a lot. “there’s nothing to fix.”

“there’s everything to fix.”

“it’s literally a carbon copy of me,” he counters. “you’re crazy.”

“says the one who can’t see the shape of his eyes right now. the lash line isn’t straight enough at the top, the nose isn’t quite right, the hair lacks form. it’s terrible.”

for the first time since you met him, yeonjun is annoyed. eyes narrowed and dark, he locks his gaze into yours, throws away the key. you can’t move while he tosses the worn sketchbook back into your lap, a hand running through his hair, locks raising with his fingers and flopping back down into his face.

“i know what it’s like to be your own worst critic,” he says, voice soft like a lullaby, standing in direct contrast to his firm expression. “but it’s one thing to be critical of your art, and another to resent it. you’re a wonderful artist, y/n. talented isn’t enough to describe you, but negativity is going to get you nowhere. it holds you back.”

he’s right — you loathe that he is, and you more so hate how he sounds just like jennifer. your nails skirts the fraying edge of the leather cover in your laps, picking at it like you would with skin, peeling cracked flakes off to reveal a soft underbelly of lighter-colored suede. wine red versus warm tan. you feel like you’re being admonished, a child who’s misbehaved. you feel small, but at the same time, you need to hear it. you’ve been coddled enough.

“i used to hate my stuff too, y’know. never thought it was ever that special, but that’s what made me underestimate myself. that’s what made me settle for less, that’s what made me lock my camera away in my closet for the longest time until i felt i was ‘ready’ to use it — but who was i to say i was ready? how do you know when you are? honestly, you don’t. you won’t ever know. all you can do is create and create and hope that you eventually make something that you’re proud of. until then, you keep trying, you figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and go from there. in the end, everything you create is a reflection of you, and that’s the beautiful thing about art. it bares your soul, it strips you down to the rawest parts of yourself that you may despise right now — but it’s still you. and don’t you think you deserve to give yourself some grace?”

his words strike a place deep within you, an ache beginning in the center of your chest and snaking out like the roots of a tree into your stomach and throat. you do deserve some grace, don’t you? you don’t spew venomous words towards your friends or strangers every day, yet you do it to yourself without a second thought. why? you bring yourself and your skills down any chance that you get. why? your art is merely an extension of yourself — is this how you forever want to feel whenever you are drawing? whenever you’re sculpting a piece? no, not at all. your head raises.

“have you ever thought about becoming a public speaker?”

he lets out an incredulous scoff, but there’s still an inkling of teasing in his tone, “is that all you got from my mini speech? i thought it was amazing. life-changing, even.”

“no,” you deny with a tight-chested laugh. “but there’s not much more to add. you’ve said it all for me.”

the passing mountains are purple now, the greenery a muted magenta. in this moment, you decide the yeonjun is an enigma; untouchable, unreachable — standing too close to his bright, technicolor world would burn your muted one to the ground. if you are icarus, then he is the sun sending you plummeting down into oblivion.

but you want to touch him, you want to burn.

you want to feel alive again.

“let me draw you again,” and maybe it won’t be your best. maybe the slope of his chin will be crooked, maybe the intrinsic sparkle in his eyes won’t be quite right, but there’s a conviction present in your tone that causes him to smile.

day six.

“are you really trying to have a dick measuring contest with the seals right now?”

san francisco’s iconic pier 39 is abustle with tourists, but you and yeonjun are currently at the very back of the pier, where seals soak in the sun on little wooden docks constructed just for them. at the moment, yeonjun is trying to out-seal the seals with loud barks and hoots, mimicking their distinctive sounds. yeonjun is still making noises, people are starting to stare, and you are beginning to want to climb over the wooden fence and jump straight into the ocean.

“yeonjun, please stop,” you plead, hands gripping the sleeve of his t-shirt, yet he doesn’t stop, honking back at the seals once they respond. you tug a bit harder. “c’mon, people are staring. the seals don’t care how loud you are, you’re not proving anything.”

“i’m proving a lot of things right now, actually,” he quips before he’s going back to making noises that are unbecoming of a human being. this feels like a cruel form of exposure therapy.

you try pulling at his sleeve again. “c’mon, yeonjun.” and again. “yeonjun!”

“okay, okay, i’ll stop,” he cackles, turning to face you. he’s close — too close to be considered platonic. his hands could come up and hold your waist right now, pull you closer into his chest. it causes you to take a step back, and it’s as if he can sense the heat radiating from your cheeks, leaning down towards you with a smirk. “you embarrassed?”

“of course i’m embarrassed,” you hiss. “how are you not?”

shaking his head, his grin grows impossibly wider. “if i buy you lunch, will you forgive me?”

pretending to think, you look off to the side, then back to him. of course you will. “maybe.”

“i’ll take that as a yes,” he laughs as he falls into step next to you. the air is much cooler here than at your other stops, a gray blanket of fog rolling in on the horizon that cuts into the clear blue sky. he sends you a hopeful look as he asks, “y’feeling clam chowder?”

with a tiny shrug, you confess that you’ve never had it before. with a dramatic hand placed against his chest, he gasps, “you live in the northeast, and you’ve never tried it? that has to be some sort of crime.”

chowder hut is his restaurant of choice, a circular, well, hut that sits by its lonesome across from the infamous pier. it’s a place he used to go when he lived in san jose and took day trips here with his cousins, he claims. the restaurant holds a lot of fond memories for him, this whole city does. you wonder what those memories entail.

“i got you a small one in case you don’t like it,” yeonjun says as soon as he returns with your food. a tray is placed in front of you: a round sourdough loaf carved into to create a bowl, filled with cream-colored, steaming-hot chowder thick with chunks of potatoes, pieces of bacon, and, of course, clams. digging a spoon in, you take your first bite — clean, briny, slightly sweet, bursting across your taste buds like tiny little firecrackers. your eyes widen at the taste, buzzing in delight against the spoon poised to your lips. he grins. “it’s good, right?”

you hum in agreement, swallowing another spoonful. you’re crazy for never having tried this before. twenty-four years of living, and you had no idea what you were missing out on. you’ve missed out on a long of things, it seems, but you’re beginning to catch up on them with the help of yeonjun — as well as sakura and chaewon, of course. you could never forget about them.

“you’re forever going to be connected to clam chowder in my mind now, i hope you know that,” you say, tearing into the walls of the bread bowl. the remnants of the salty chowder have soaked into the bowl, mixing perfectly with the tanginess of the bread. yeah, you wouldn’t forget this in a million years; it’s too delicious to forget.

“you do that too?” he asks. you send him a questioning glance. “like, connect people to food.”

“yeah, i guess i do,” you ponder. “my mom reminds me of this one dish she always made me as a kid. my best friend reminds me of wine, since that’s what we drank when we first met. it’s also her favorite. and now you…remind me of clam chowder.”

he chuckles, “great, i’ll always be the clam chowder guy to you.”

you giggle back. “it’s not a bad title to hold. you could be, i don’t know, the terrible clam chowder guy.”

“fair enough. i’ll take it,” he declares before he shoves the last piece of his bread bowl into his mouth. his cheeks puff out, similar to a chipmunk, and you resist the urge to chuckle at the image in your head. “now that i think about it, i don’t do it with just people — a lot of my fondest memories are connected to food, too. something human about it, y’know? food is its own form of love. or, at least, i think it is.”

“no, i completely agree. there’s something special about sharing food with others — it’s kinda intimate, i guess? especially if you’re cooking for someone, those are some of the most vivid memories for me.”

nodding along with you, he’s leaning forward, elbows resting against the table. the corners of his lips quirk up. “you get it. the intimacy of it, i mean. my mom has always said that food is the best way to a person’s heart — food brings people together. it’s amazing.”

“yeah,” you beam. “it really is.”

for a moment, conversation ceases, the two of you smiling at each other, leaning forward over the table. your mouth opens to speak, but a loud caw draws your attention away from his hypnotizing eyes. you watch a seagull swoop in to harass a man that sits two tables over, his glasses skewed on his face as he tries to keep the bird from stealing his food. arms wave everywhere while the seagull screeches at him, flapping its wings on top of the man’s head. after a brief second of shock, the sight has you nearly doubling over with laughter, unflattering shrieks sounding from your throat. it takes a minute for your giggles to subside. while you wipe a tear from your lash line, you look back at him — and freeze.

he’s staring at you like you hung the stars in the sky, chin supported by his palm. his mouth curves into something serene and fond, hooded eyes scanning your face as you stare back. you’re no longer smiling, mouth parted as you wait for him to say something, anything. he doesn’t, so you move to break the intense air brewing between you.

“is…is something wrong?” with a flinch, his eyes blink rapidly for a second, coming back into focus. he sits up straighter, leaning into the back of his chair.

“i just— nevermind. sorry, spaced out there for a second,” his chin dips towards his chest before rising again, the tips of his ears flushing cherry. he looks nervous, almost. “um, if you’re up for it later, we could grab dinner at this korean restaurant i used to go to? it reminds me a lot of my parents. i think you’d like it.”

while you’d rather ask where his head is at right now, what he was going to say before he stopped himself so abruptly, you say, “i’d love that.”

*:･

he was right, you do like it.

the restaurant is cozy, a little hole-in-the-wall in the heart of the city where less tourists roam. the food is delicious, flavorful meats and fluffy rice and various veggie side dishes that you can’t stop eating. as he snaps some photos of the place, he tells you the decor reminds him of restaurants in seoul, of the mom-and-pop shops he’d frequent there. that at some point or other, some of the owners would start recognizing him when he came in and gave him extra food free of charge.

“so you lived there for a while? in korea?” you ask as you watch him some meat for the two of you to share. the action is second nature to him, each piece staying on the grill for the same amount of time, flipped only once. you bring a piece to your mouth — it’s perfectly cooked.

“i was born there, in a town near seoul,” he says through a mouthful of rice. “moved around a bit, but i lived in seoul for most of it ‘til i was eighteen. then i moved to new york for college, but dropped out after two semesters to pursue photography. it’s been six years since i moved to the states.”

“you said you lived in san jose for a while earlier.” you tilt your head at him. “when was that?”

“ah,” he starts. “i studied abroad when i was in elementary school and stayed with some family there— do you want some more meat? i can order more.”

your meat supply has dwindled down to two pieces. there’s still room in your stomach, so you nod. “sure.”

he calls over the sole server on shift, speaking to him rapidly in his native tongue. the server glances over at you for a brief second before focusing back on yeonjun. out of their entire conversation, you recognize one word: friend. it’s a term that jennifer taught you a while ago, one that has stuck with you because she now likes to jokingly call you that every now and then. an inside joke between the two of you.

when the server leaves, yeonjun is left a flustered mess. your eyebrows raise. “why’s your face so red? what’d he say?”

“nothing! it’s just from the kimchi! it’s really spicy here,” he quickly claims before he’s gulping down half a glass of water. you, quite frankly, don’t buy it for a second, but choose not to pry.

day seven.

of course, at least one thing has to go wrong on a trip like this. mechanical problems with the train has rendered everyone stuck in the golden city until tomorrow morning, at which another train will take over the rest of the trip. the station is across the bay, so amtrak has given every passenger a voucher to pay for a night’s stay at various hotels across the city — customer’s choice, no less. to be safe, you choose the one closest to the bar chaewon and sakura want to check out tonight. once you told yeonjun where you decided to stay, he used his voucher there as well. he wants to stay near you, he says, to make it easy to find each other.

today, the girls join you and yeonjun at pier 39. they partake in bread bowls, they watch yeonjun embarrass himself at the seal docks, they send you knowing looks when he pays for your food. when yeonjun finds a street performer with a dance mat and wastes no time in starting a battle against the guy, they tell you that he’s trying to impress you.

“he’s not,” you whisper to them. “that’s just how he is. i promise.”

night begins to fall, and they suggest going to a bar for dinner, more for the drinks and not the food. you accept, and in turn, so does yeonjun — though you immediately regret not thinking the decision through more. the bar is dangerous. not in an external hazard sense, but in more of a you’re scared of getting drunk and vomiting your blossoming feelings onto his shoes type of sense. you keep your drinking to a minimum, still on your first drink an hour in. next to you, however, yeonjun is starting to collapse in on himself, hunched over the counter of the bar as his third drink kicks in. a giggle bubbles up from your throat. you never pegged him to be a lightweight.

“let’s get you some water,” you gently suggest, a comforting hand on his shoulder. waving the bartender over, you ask for a glass, helping him sit up and take a sip. his chin falls onto your shoulder this time, eyes hazy as he looks up at you with a dopey smile.

“you’re really pretty, did y‘know that?” he slurs, leaning further into you as an arm wraps around your waist. his barstool screeches across the floor, shifting closer to yours. you freeze as shock fills your veins, nerve endings beneath his touch on fire. he pokes your warm cheek. “s’pretty.”

you blink. hard. “yeonjun, you’re drunk—”

“no ‘m not. ’m perfectly— ‘m perfectly fine,” the words stumble out of his pouty lips drenched in fatigue, his tone whiny and petulant, as he turns in his seat to wrap his other arm around your waist, forehead now sagging against your shoulder. your body stiffens up, tense muscles frozen in place as he continues his delirious ramblings.

“i need to go to the bathroom!” you all of sudden exclaim, attempting to pry his arms off of you. he only squeezes you tighter, whining how you can’t leave here alone. you sigh, patting his hair, “you could wait outside?”

he accepts the offer, but doesn’t remove his arm from your waist as both of you stand. despite his almost six foot tall frame, you are forced to support him as he stumbles along towards the bathrooms and pray that you don’t twist an ankle in the process. when you reach the women’s bathroom, he still doesn’t let go.

“nooo, don’t leave meeee,” he whines, pulling you back into his chest while your hand grips the door handle. calling his name, you slip your hands beneath his and grab them to pull them off of you.

“i’ll be right back, i promise,” you say once you situate him against the wall, his shoulder hunched and his head hanging down towards his chest. you give him a worried pat on his head before disappearing into the bathroom. in reality, you do not have to go. instead, you stand in front of the mirror, taking in your blown out eyes, feeling a scorching heat encase your face and spread down towards your chest. he’s drunk, you remind yourself. he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

you wash your hands once. twice. three times, allowing the cool water to run over your heated skin. you splash some on the back of your neck. calm down. calm the fuck down.

you are, indeed, not able to calm the fuck down before a flurry of knocks reverbates against the door. yeonjun’s voice follows soon after, asking if he can come in, if you’re okay. “why have you been gone for so longggg? i miss you!”

“no! don’t come in!” you yell, glad that all of the stalls are vacant. making your way back over to the exit, you wrench open the door and find him standing there, fist raised in the air as if he was going to knock again.

he blinks once. then, an impossibly wide grin splits his face. “you’re back!”

stepping forward, you allow the door to swing shut behind you. arms wrap around you once again, but this time, you stumble backwards into the wall. when you look up, his face is just above yours.

oh.

oh, fuck.

this feels like a repeat of day one all over again, you trapped under his gaze, but this lacks the distance of that day. the unfamiliarity with each other. his hands haven’t left your waist, fingers pressing into your flesh over your thin dress, while the wall presses into your back. you have nowhere to go, but maybe you’re more drunk than you initially thought, because his lips look very inviting right now. you watch his eyes trail down to your parted lips, then back to your eyes, tongue darting out to swipe over his bottom lip. his eyelids hood his dark, hazy pupils. the muscles in his neck contract, his adam’s apple bobbing as he leans closer, an electric attraction between your lips. you tilt your head, eye fluttering shut, moving closer, closer…

“y/n! there you are!”

yeonjun jumps away from you as chaewon rushes up to you. her hands find your shoulders as she cries, “kkura twisted her ankle really bad! can you help me?”

you turn your head towards yeonjun, then back to chaewon, whose wide, rounded eyes plead you to come with her. “okay,” you say softly. “let’s go.”

yeonjun follows close behind, and all you can think of is what would have happened if chaewon didn’t show up. sakura’s ankle ends up being fine, and getting her back to her hotel room isn’t too difficult given the close proximity of the hotel.

*:･

four days. four days you have known yeonjun, but it feels like it’s been years since you met each other. that fact strikes fear into your heart, remembering that the last time that this fast burn of feelings in your heart occurred, you ended up a brokenhearted mess for months. if yeonjun is the sun, his overwhelming heat melting you down into a puddle, then beomgyu was a black hole, all-consuming and ripping pieces of you away when he abruptly up and left. you’re unsure if you can go through that again, but at the same time, yeonjun doesn’t give off the impression of a drifter who wouldn’t tell you he’s leaving until after the fact. he’s a constant, a steady fortress. reliable, enduring.

“good night,” yeonjun murmurs, both of you standing in front of your door.

“good night,” you parrot back, rocking back on your heels, but you don’t really want him to go. knowing that isn’t realistic, you settle for opening your arms up towards him. for the first time, he hugs you good night, his lithe arms wrapping around your waist while he presses a drunken kiss into the crown of your head, and a feeling of being home washes over you.

day eight.

he sits closer to you now. no longer is there a gap that separates your bodies, a full chair between the two of you. now, he sits right next to you, thigh brushing against your own. his hand sometimes finds your knee, never too high on your leg, never uncomfortable. just…there, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin. neither of you mention what transpired between you last night, his affectionate words, the mere centimeters that separated your lips before chaewon interrupted. nevertheless, an unspoken barrier between you has broken, its bricks torn down by the hands of intoxication — due to alcohol, but also because of each other.

the almost-kiss replays in your mind in a constant loop; the woody citrus of his cologne is still strong in your nose, the warmth radiating from his flushed cheeks a phantom against your skin. you want to talk about it. you want to rip open the memory like a pomegranate for the two of you to share, but you don’t. you don’t know what you would do if you ruined…whatever this is that you and him have going on. he’s become a sort of constant in your life that you don’t think you can live without. you like him; you can admit it now. what you feel is not just a mere attraction anymore, an artistic appreciation for his unique features. he brings out a brighter part of you, a part that has been buried deep into your soul over the years, beneath layers of grime and dirt and negative experiences that you won’t let go of. the gray film over your eyes has been wiped clean by him, him and his beautiful heart he so easily bares to others. his heart that is so full of love — love for being alive, love for others — you wonder if any of that love could ever be for you one day.

he watches you sketch, you let him snap photos of you doing so. you share a small bag of chips, greasy fingers brushing against each other during those times in which you both reach in tandem. for hours, you sit together in a silence that is no longer awkward, but soft and tender. shoulder against shoulder, skin against skin. words aren’t required, your actions speaking for themselves. you bask in it all.

day nine.

the space needle isn’t that impressive.

you’re sure it’s a much better experience when you’re at the top, but yeonjun shares a fear of heights with you, so there’s no way in hell either of you are going up there. instead, you stand beneath it, amongst an ever-moving sea of seattleites and tourists, and wait for chaewon and sakura to come back down from the tall building.

at the beginning of this trip, you’d allow for a few feet of space between your bodies, but slowly, it’s diminished to a scant few inches. you don’t really register this gradual change, as natural as it was. every once in a while, his pinky brushes against yours. neither you nor yeonjun move to do anything about it, either by pulling away or linking them together — a state of limbo that is befitting for a pair of strangers falling for each other. to make the dive into the unknown or to stay on the surface where it’s safe, that is the question.

“how much longer do you think they’ll be?” you ask, staring up at the pointed top of the tower. the sky is gray today, a bit chilly, but it’s an expected sight in washington during this time of year. “i’m getting hungry.”

yeonjun huffs a laugh, lightly elbowing your bicep. “maybe we could grab something real quick. i saw this taco truck nearby—”

“y/n? is that you?”

you’d recognize that deep timbre anywhere. the man that dropped your heart on the floor and vanished from the earth before he could watch the aftermath, the man that you never wished to see ever again.

turning around, you find beomgyu.

your phone slips from your hand, clattering against the concrete — but you can’t bring yourself to check if the screen has shattered. instead, yeonjun grabs it for you, rising with it as he anxiously asks if you’re okay. you don’t answer, too busy staring at the man now standing before you. he’s changed; his shorter hair has grown out past his ears, dyed a warm brown, though his black roots are apparent; soft pastel pullovers and light jeans have been swapped out for black slacks and a dark brown leather jacket, clothing choices more mature than when you last saw him. why is he here? you thought he lived in san francisco — you would’ve been less shocked to run into him there, but in seattle?

“i moved here a few months ago.” shit, did you say that out loud? “i could ask you the same thing.”

“i’m on a trip,” you quickly answer, no further explanation leaving your mouth.

he nods nonchalantly. you think you see his eyes flit to yeonjun for a second. “cool, cool.”

“yeah.” why won’t he walk away already? your feet are glued to the cement, jaw tense as you try not to cry. the memory of him texting you that he had left the city and things between you won’t work out come rushing back. why now? how can he show his face to you after all he’s done?

he nods again. “are you here for long?”

“just— just for today.”

“well, i’d love to catch up with you before you leave. i’ve missed you a lot. maybe we could grab dinner tonight?” his smile is soft, hopeful — manipulative, in a way.

“i’m actually pretty busy today,” you begin, but of course, you have no idea how to tell him no. “but maybe if i’m free later.”

“great!” he exclaims, hands now in his trouser pockets. he looks over at yeonjun again, the upward curve of his lips flattening. “i need to get going, but i’ll text you later. you still have my number, right?”

“i think so.”

“cool.” his smile grows excited. “see you later, then.” beomgyu turns to walk away with a confidence in his strut that he didn't have when he lived in new york. when he was dating you. how shameless can he be? soon enough, he disappears into the crowd. blinking, you wonder if that really just happened, turning back toward yeonjun. his jaw is set, eyes still staring at the point where beomgyu vanished. the gray clouds feel suffocating now. the cool air constricts your lungs. you want the cement to open up and swallow you when his hardened eyes turn to you.

“who was that?” yeonjun asks, tone casual, but there’s a…jealous? edge to his question. you’re looking into things too much — there’s no way he’s jealous right now.

“...my ex,” and it hurts you to admit it. his eyes darken as he utters a soft “oh.” you sigh, “yeah.”

he won’t look at you anymore. why won’t he? you didn’t do anything wrong. you had no control over beomgyu showing up. he purses his lips. “are you gonna meet up with him?”

your head shakes on its own, words escaping before you can think about them. “i don’t know, yeonjun.”

“okay.” biting his lip, he turns so that he faces the space needle again, stepping away from you. you feel like strangers again, an ocean of distance between you bodies. “yeah, okay.”

*:･

you don’t meet up with beomgyu.

meanwhile, yeonjun is nowhere to be found. after the beomgyu incident, the two of you waited in tense silence for your other friends to return. he then made up some lame excuse to leave, and didn’t turn back when you called his name. you haven’t seen him for the rest of the day, even when you return to the train. he won’t respond to your texts. eventually, you stop sending them; he obviously needs space for whatever reason, so you will give him it.

the terrible, painful thought of ruining everything you had with him sits in the forefront of your mind, taunting you. the girls try to distract you, showing you silly tiktoks and youtube videos and the like, but you simply offer them a half-hearted huff each time. once you explain what transpired while they were gone, however, their tune changes a bit.

“y/n, i’m going to be very honest, and i need you not to take it personally,” sakura replies. though your head lays on top of your folded arms, you signal that you are listening with a bob of your head. she continues, “your response wasn’t the best. it probably confused him, and now he doesn’t know if you’re still hung up on this guy or not. if one of his exes came up to him while with you, and he told you he didn’t know if he was going to meet up with them later or not, how would you feel?”

“shitty,” you mumble into your forearm.

“exactly. so give him space for now, and when he reaches out, explain and apologize. you owe him that much.” sakura sounds just like jennifer — they’d definitely get along.

“i know. i will.”

the waiter comes around with water, and you order a strong cocktail to go along with your dinner.

day ten.

“has he texted you back yet?” sakura asks for the thousandth time today.

when you shoot her a defeated glare, she gets her answer. no, of course he hasn’t. he hasn’t responded to you since he left. “you said to give him space.”

“yeah, but i didn’t know he’d fall off the face of the earth,” she shoots back. sighing, you tip your head back against the wall next to her bed. a lake passes outside, surrounded by tall grass and trees. small hills rise behind the blue expanse, but you don’t feel the same urge to grab your sketchbook and translate the view onto the page anymore. it’s funny, how easily one person can affect your mood, turn everything upside down with the mere lack of his presence in your life.

“he just needs time.” chaewon opens a can of soda with a pop! and takes a sip. “maybe it affected him more than we realize.”

“‘cause that makes me feel sooo much better.” sarcasm drips from your voice. “i’m such a fucking idiot.”

there’s a half-day stop in glacier national park tomorrow. will you see him, or is he going to avoid you for the rest of this trip? will you ever see him again? the emotions that swirl within you are reminiscent of how you felt before you met him. that grayness. that sinking sensation festering in your chest that claws it’s way down into your stomach and shreds it apart. you said that you wanted to burn, you wanted it to hurt, but this feels all too fast. too much.

sakura makes a noise in disagreement. “no, it shows that he cares about you. you just have to make sure you clear things up with him, and tell him that you like—”

“if you’re going to tell me that i need to confess my feelings to him, i really don’t think i can do that.”

“why?” chaewon prods. “what’s stopping you? he obviously likes you too.”

beomgyu. beomgyu is the fucking reason why. you can’t bare your heart to someone again, lest you get hurt all over again. after all that has happened, if yeonjun doesn’t reciprocate, it will confirm your worst fears — that you aren’t built to receive love, no matter how hard you try to mold yourself into a person that is deserving. dread churns in your stomach, rises into your throat like bile, acidic and fervid, as thoughts of worst case scenarios where you pour your heart only to hear “sorry, i don’t feel the same way.” you can’t do it. you can’t allow yourself to spiral again. however, you don’t divulge your reasons for holding back, remaining silent as you trace the patterns on the ceiling.

after a deep, shuddering sigh, you give them a three word explanation: “i don’t know.”

day eleven.

stepping off of the train into fresh air sharpens your dulled senses. the national park is beautiful, for lack of better words; thickets of trees spreading out in all directions as far as the see. the sun is rising over the mountains that stretch high above your head — you’re starting to enjoy this view more than the lifeless skyscrapers that await you back home. the train station looks more like a little lodge than an actual station, but you appreciate its quaint character. reddish-brown wood makes up the majority of the small-scale building. it looks like a place where people would spend the night in, with a warm, cozy fireplace in the wintertime, and wide open windows in the summer to allow the refreshing breeze to waft in.

meandering down the path behind the station into a field of tall grass littered with bunches of tiny, white flowers, you begin to reflect on everything that has happened on this trip. originally, you went on this stupid trip with the goal to find inspiration, and last night you had a very important realization: yeonjun is that something — you started drawing again because of him, you started looking on the bright side of things because of him, and most important of all, you fell for him. you didn’t just fall for him in the way an artist falls for their muse, no. you fell for him as a person. getting to know him has been one of the best parts of your trip, but now all of that has gone down the drain because yeonjun hasn’t responded to you in over twenty-four hours and you have not a clue what to do to try to make things right. if he doesn’t wish to speak to you, then that’s that. it’s over. whatever momentum this fleeting relationship had has been effectively pummeled into the dust that would blow away with even the gentlest of breezes.

you wish you could appreciate this view more. your paints sit in your backpack back in your room, out of sight so that you don’t have to think about them, nor hear their pleas to be used. although you now know why you lack the drive to paint and draw and generally create once again, no clear-cut solution to your problem comes to mind. instead, you wander through the grass towards a large, squatty boulder, climb on top of it, and plop down. your knees curl up towards your chest while your arms wrap around them, fingers tracing random patterns against your shins. fatigue solidifies in your bones, but the tranquility of the early morning the quiet tucks a blanket of peace over your body, swaddling the edges around you, cocooning you in.

you sit there, taking in the sounds and sights of nature, for hours. the chirping of birds sings a melody over the whisper of trees in the breeze. a deer leaps across the open field, disappearing into the trees, her fawn following close behind. bighorn sheep graze in the distance, their circular horns reminding you of cornucopias.

the rustle of trees and grass obscure the sound of approaching footsteps from your ears. it’s not until yeonjun begins to climb onto the boulder that you notice him. you hug your legs tighter to your body as he sits next to you, but not too close. an invisible wall separates you. he does not look remotely near your direction, his focus far out in the trees. staring at him, you wonder what to say. i’m sorry? i have feelings for you?

“i never met up with him.”

he still doesn’t spare you a glance. assuming he wants you to continue, you do. “i don’t know why i said what i said, but it was shitty of me to put you in that position, and i wanted to say that i’m sorry. i was just shocked, i guess. to see him. he ruined my perception of a lot of things, jjun.” jjun. that’s a new one. you are quite unsure where it came from, it slipped out before you could think. no matter, he’s looking at you now, and it’s your turn to look out towards the horizon. “trust, commitment, love…”

his gaze burns into your temple. you take a deep breath, fingers clenching the fabric of your jeans. “they’ve all been ruined for me. it’s hard for me to trust anyone after what he did. i’m terrified that the people i grow close to will wake up one day and leave me without a word. i’m scared that i’ll never get the closure i deserve when they do. worst of all, i’ve stopped believing that love is in the cards for me, like there has to be something wrong with me for him to have left me like that—”

“don’t. don’t you dare say that about yourself.” whipping your head around, you finally meet eyes for the first time in nearly two days. they aren't soft like they usually are when they look at you, but hardened, guarded. “there’s nothing wrong with you. you have every right to be hurt, and he’s honestly a piece of shit for doing that to you, but it’s unfair to assume that everyone that comes after him will be just like him.”

“i know, and i’m sorry. i know you’re not like him.” he doesn’t respond, and you begin to chew at the inside of your cheek. you watch an ant crawl its way across the rock beneath you. the small insect disappears over the edge.

silence. you begin to count the seconds. one, two, three, four—

“i’m sorry for not texting you back. i just needed time to think about things. a lot of things,” he starts. “i felt weird, for some reason. didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

you offer him a tight-lipped smile. “no, i understand. i forgive you.”

important words remain unspoken, but both of you refuse to address them. instead, his hand finds yours, he links your fingers with his, and both of you peacefully watch the sheep graze across the field.

day twelve.

not everything is fixed yet.

despite being on speaking terms again, strain pulls your relationship taut. the unspoken words from yesterday hang heavy in the air, but you can’t bring yourself to give them a voice. you want to. your voice won’t work every time you try.

sitting next to yeonjun on his bed, you scroll through various forms of social media, bookmarking work that you find particularly interesting in between catching up on your friends’ posts. jennifer has been thoroughly caught up on what’s been going on after a long overdue apology for not responding to her texts. she understood, of course she did. she’s known you long enough to know how you can shut down whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed.

“i’m proud of you for telling him. i know it’s hard for you to share, honey,” she cooed to you over the phone last night. “but you need to tell him how you feel before it’s too late.”

you know that. you know damn well that once you get off this train, it may all fall apart, a budding romance distinguished by reality. there’s no security, no safety net for you to fall into if you take the leap, and while he showed you an inkling of how he felt yesterday, who’s to say he’ll feel that way tomorrow? the next day? are you willing to tear your heart open for him to consume if there’s still a chance of him throwing it away when all is said and done?

you don’t know the answer to that question. honestly, you don’t know the answer to a lot of those questions, stuck in this state of self-imposed purgatory. to rise or fall, what is the best choice? you don’t fucking know.

“is that yours?” he asks from over your shoulder, at a ceramic piece in your feed made by one of jennifer’s acquaintances. his breath snakes warmly over the expanse of your neck due to his proximity, his head so close you could turn and just kiss him—

stop it.

“oh, no. um.” you shift away from him slightly. distance. some distance feels more comfortable right now. “i don’t sculpt. i just paint, and draw.”

he makes an ahhh of understanding, leaning back onto his palms, the mattress sinking down with his weight. he’s staring at you like he expects something from you. what shall you give him? when you don’t say anything further, he does.

“can i see some of yours, then?” it’s an innocent enough request. rather than simply press on your account, your fingers move on their own until you reach your gallery. why? are you really about to bare your soul to him? you guess so, because he’s gently taking your phone from your fingers after gaining quiet permission from you.

he asks you questions as he pulls up certain pieces. the thought process behind each one, what made you do this, place that color there, how you came up with the composition, what the meaning of it all is. you try your best to explain each one. sometimes, your choices were the product of spontaneity. you thought yellow would look nice at that spot, so you put some there. her nose is crooked because it gives the piece more character. the color of the drapes in the background are blue for no particular reason other than the fact that your reference photo had blue drapes. you continue in a cycle of question, answer, question, answer, and some of your answers are more emotional than others. you remember where you were, both physically and mentally, when making all of these. you remember the ones you made when you were having a bad day, the ones where you felt like you were on the top of the world.

then, he pulls up one that you wish he didn’t. it was buried so deep into your gallery that you have no idea how he found it — your most dreaded hyperrealism piece: a woman lays on her back, hair fading into the foreboding, void-like background. her face is twisted up into an abject sadness, a deep-seated pain that even now, you have no idea how you captured so vividly. her veiny left hand is splayed next to her head, thin crimson threads tied to each finger so tight that she has begun to bleed. the strings fall limp beside her, severed from their counterparts that meander off of the canvas. more red threads loop their way around her neck, pulled taut as if to choke her — and to her throat, she holds a pair of sharp-pointed scissors, hand gripping the metal tight enough to pale her knuckles.

it’s dark. it’s terribly dark and you wish he never saw it. why did he have to see it? why did he have to choose that one? the world tilts on its axis as he stares down at the picture of your most soul-baring work, though you think it would be worse if he saw the actual painting in person.

“what’s the story behind this one?” he asks quietly. your lungs expel all air, and you’re left gaping for more. breathe, come on, you have to breathe. your inhale is shaky, shuddered. breathe. say something.

“that one…” your voice trails off into something quiet. scared. “i made it when i was in a really— really dark place mentally, um. i made it mostly because—”

he’s looking at you now, concern shining in his irises, but you push on.

“because i stopped believing in fate.”

while you could say more, you stop yourself there. you hate digging — digging into your deepest fears and emotions that you keep locked behind a wall so that you never have to feel them. a pandora’s box sits in the center of your heart, wrapped with chains to keep them imprisoned. somehow, though, you think yeonjun knows what you really want to say: you meeting each other wasn’t fate to you, but a gross series of coincidences, and when he asks if you think so, you simply nod.

“but out of everyone on this train, i met you. i got to know you — shouldn’t that mean something? can’t that be considered fate?” he presses. something akin to desperation laces his words, an urgency you’ve never heard from him.

it sure feels like fate, doesn’t it? after all of those times that you ran into him, how he found you in the observation car when it was just you in there, how your feelings have unfolded like taking apart a paper crane in the short nine days you have known each other — it feels like it should be fate, you want to admit that all of it does seem like the universe’s divine intervention. maybe you running away was really just you trying to deny your fate to meet yeonjun while on this train. maybe him finding you was fate, an apology from whatever is above for what they put you through a year and a half ago.

“i think—” you hesitate. “i think so. it’s hard for it not to when i feel like i’ve known you my entire life.”

and you sit there and he’s smiling at you like you just created the earth with your bare hands. chicago passes outside the window. the sun shines high in the sky over the high rises, glints across glass panes and into his room. all you have is one more day on this train, and most of it will be spent sleeping tonight. he’ll wait for you tomorrow, right? would he wait for you forever?

“you know, i tell most people that my name is daniel.”

tilting your head, you echo, “daniel?”

he hums as he scoots a bit closer, planting his feet on the floor next to yours and leaning forward. his knees support his elbows as he stares down at the floor. “it’s my english name. i used it when i was in college, i use it for my work, but for some reason, when i met you, my actual name, my given name, came out instead. call me silly, but i think my heart knew you’d become someone special to me. i wanted you to use my actual name — the one my parents call me. the one my closest friends call me.”

“oh.” why does your chest feel so tight right now?

he sucks his lips behind his teeth for a moment. “yeah.”

sitting there, you wonder how you should respond to that. words expelled like an exhale of air, colliding with each other in front of your eyes, unable to be unscrambled by your mind. this time, it’s you who reaches over, closing the distance between you with a hand over his. his palm flips open to meet your own, your fingers linking together like matching puzzle pieces. you take a deep breath, and squeeze.

“thank you,” you whisper. thank you for being here. thank you for helping me find myself again.

day twelve (point five).

“i’m gonna miss you guys so much!”

chaewon is basically on the verge of tears at this point, constantly blubbering how she is going to miss hanging out with you every day as she pulls you and sakura in for a hug over and over again. sakura laughs as she pulls away for the thousandth time this afternoon. “girl, it’s gonna be okay. we’re gonna meet up for coffee soon, right?”

she looks towards you, and you give an enthusiastic nod. “right. i’ll invite my friend too. she said she’d love to meet you guys.”

chaewon’s pout doesn’t vanish, but she looks a little less emotional after all of your reassurances. blinking back the remnants of her tears, she nods with a watery “okay.”

you bring her in for one more hug while sakura asks, “have you seen him yet?”

“no, i haven’t heard from him since last night.” your teeth worry your bottom lip, peeling a piece of raised skin off. the sensation stings.

her lips purse sympathetically, a hand being placed on your shoulder. “i doubt he’d leave without saying something to you, don’t worry. he has to be around here somewhere.”

“yeah, you’re probably right.” as chaewon pulls away, you check your phone again. no texts or calls yet. doubt ricochets around in your brain, but you know yeonjun; he wouldn’t do that to you.

“i’d love to wait with you, but my manufacturer is pissed i didn’t call them back yesterday, so i should get going,” sakura admits with an apologetic smile. her fingers squeeze your shoulder one time before her arm drops back to her side.

“i should go too,” chaewon sadly adds, kicked puppy eyes in full effect. “my cat is waiting for me. my friend said she was a little demon the whole time i was gone.”

“it’s okay,” you laugh, shooing them away jokingly. “you guys can go. i’ll be fine.”

with a last group hug, they grab their suitcases and head towards the hallway that connects the train station to the subway lines. sakura twirls around, walking backwards as she calls, “keep us updated! we need to know everything,”

“of course!” you yell back, grin widening. chaewon turns back too to wave, and you wave back. eventually, the crowd swallows them up, and you are left alone to wait. a few minutes pass, and you realize that this sea of people will likely make it impossible for either of you to find each other. his contact is pulled up on your phone, your thumb hovering the call button. you look around one more time—

and he’s standing right there, mere feet in front of you, in all of his glory, long hair still flopping into his face, eyes still dreamy and all-consuming. you stand there for a moment, simply staring at each other with stupid, goofy grins overtaking your faces. long legs carry him over to you, and before you know it, you’re wrapped up in his arms and pulled into his strong chest. you bury your head into the side of his neck, inhaling the scent of his cologne.

“thank god,” he murmurs into the crown of your head. “i thought you might have left already.”

pulling back, you fix him with an incredulous stare. “what in the world made you think that? i was waiting for you.”

his ears tint an opaque red, the raised apples of his cheeks flushed a similar hue. he’s bewitching, and despite knowing that since the very first day — the day that you drew him for the first time — there’s so much more to him than looks to you now. he’s beautiful in both body and soul, in heart and head. one hand removes itself from your middle to cup your jaw, steadying your gaze with yours. your heart pounds, knees weak like a newborn doe’s as he stares deep into your eyes. blinding are the emotions swirling in his dark irises, but it doesn’t burn anymore. it’s more like the caress of the sun in the springtime, bright yet gentle in its own right.

“this feels long overdue for me to say,” he begins, eyes closing as if to steel himself. when he opens them again, resolve has been added to the mix. “but i have feelings for you. i’ve never fallen for someone so quickly. i’ve never met someone like you, and i just— i knew, from the very day that i saw you, that we’d have something to do with each other. and then we kept running into each other, and i just thought wow, this has to be—”

“yeonjun,” you call, interrupting his ramblings. he pauses, eyes wide and anticipatory, as your hand moves up to cover his on your jaw. you can’t help the tremble in your lips as you speak. “i feel the same way.”

his lips purse, hiding a smile, before he surges forward and embraces you for a second time. the pure, unadulterated joy that the action brings you is like nothing you’ve ever felt before, and you’re almost…sad, when he pulls away.

“can i take you out on a date?”

the question throws you off kilter, and you have to catch yourself before you fall face first into his chest. “like, right now? with our suitcases and everything?”

“i’ve done much worse,” he chuckles, ruffling his hair, only for the locks to fall back down into his eyes. “but i meant later today, maybe? around six? i have to go take care of some things i neglected before i left.”

“that sounds wonderful,” you gush. despite your best efforts in keeping your excitement to a minimum, you bounce up onto your toes for second, heels sinking back onto the floor. you swear he mumbles a quiet “cute” under his breath before he’s slipping his hand into yours.

“perfect,” he beams, before he playfully continues. “shall we be off to the subway then, my lady?”

giggling, you fall into step next to him, your arm swinging with his between you. “we shall.”

*:･

he’s right on time to pick you up, dressed casually but not too casually. a cool beige, short-sleeved button-up is tucked into a pair of straight-legged black jeans that stop at his waist. the chunky converse on his feet cause him to be a bit taller than usual. evidently, he is distracted by his phone, head ducked down as he waits for you to show up.

“yeonjun!” you call out, causing his head to snap up. once he does, you find that he’s somewhat styled his hair back — most of it has been swooped back towards his ears. a few strands fall into his face, but his forehead is fully exposed, and he looks…amazing. sometimes, you wish you were a poet instead, because then you’d have the words describe what you were feeling, what you were seeing. his jaw drops at the sight of you, dolled up in a jean skirt and frilly tank top over a thin long sleeve, your makeup soft and flattering to your features.

“hi,” he breathes, and you repeat the greeting back to him. “you look…wow.”

“thanks,” you, biting your glossy lip. as his focus flits down to where your teeth dig into the soft flesh, you shyly smile, releasing it. a shock runs through you, new and carnal and it warms your stomach when he bites down on his own lip for a split second. “um, i know we didn’t really talk about where we were going to go, but there’s a thai place down the street from here, if you wanna go there? it’s my favorite.”

“of course,” he accepts, offering his arm to you. you loop your own through, standing close to him with your fingers pressing into the crook of his elbow. “lead the way.”

now that neither of you feel the need to skirt around your feelings, silence no longer lingers between pauses in conversation — both of you are able to pick it back up with ease. you meant it when you said that you feel like you’ve known him your whole life, and it reflects in the way you banter with him without worry or care. it’s…nice, freeing, not having to think too hard about what you’re about to say. natural. everything with him feels so natural.

when both of you are sated, in both terms of food and conversation, he offers to walk you back to your apartment. the sun is beginning to set, and the sky has faded into a wash of rosy pink. the hue reflects the giddy feeling churning in your chest, rendering you light-headed and dizzy and fuck you just want to kiss him—

and he does. standing in front of your apartment building, he swoops down and captures your lips with his. slow, unhurried, his lips taste sweet like thai tea and are as soft as clouds. no one leads the other, no one moves to deepen the kiss. no, instead, you and yeonjun savor the taste of each other, the syrupy, vertiginous feeling of your first kiss together. when he pulls away, his lips have a slightly swollen quality to them, though you’re sure own look the same. you don’t want him to leave yet. you want more, you want something carnal and irrepressible that, by the way he’s looking at you, he wants too. playing with the locks of hair at the nape of his neck, you pant against his lips. “come inside with me, please?”

soft eyes darken, and he takes your breath away once more with another kiss, hands squeezing your waist. once he separates your lips from his, he rests his forehead against yours. nerves flutter in your stomach. “okay.”

you find it terribly difficult to keep your hands off of him as you unlock your door, as it shuts behind you. for a minute, you stand there, waiting for something, anything to happen — then he’s crowding you in against your door and his lips are on your again. although there remains an air of softness, urgency fills the gaps where your lips don’t quite meet as they meld together, his tongue slipping into your mouth to curl with your own. your shoulder blades press into the cool wood of your door, the warmth of his body against your front a dizzying contrast to your scattered mind — but you want more. you want him.

when he slips a knee between your legs and knocks them apart, you let him. when he presses that knee into your core, encourages you to grind against it, you let him, you listen. whining into his mouth, you tug at his shirt, at his belt loops, his hair — anything you can get your hands on, you’re pulling at it, grinding down harder as his jeans rub your soaked panties against your aching pearl. a cry rips itself from your throat, mouth leaving as your head is thrown back against the door. “y-yeonjun—”

“patience, love. i’m gonna make you feel good,” he mumbles as he ravages your neck, nipping and sucking at the soft skin. his hands have snuck beneath your shirt and smooth over your stomach up to the cups of your bra, squeezing the flesh over the fabric. as you raise you arms, he helps you pull your top off, the article thrown onto the floor without ceremony or care. his hands loop behind your back, fiddling with your bra clasp. “can i?”

“please,” you keen, and he wastes no time in doing so, expert fingers sliding the straps down your arms until your bra, too, lays on the floor. lips find your right nipple, enveloping the pebbled flesh in a warm wetness that causes your back to arch into him. one hand pulls you into him, while the other tweaks your other tit. his teeth graze it, and the stinging edge of painful pleasure causes you to shiver. he hums, vibrations causing you to moan his name louder, plead for him to do more. leaving your breast, his mouth kisses and laps at the skin of your stomach. down, down, down, until he drops to his knees in front of you, swiftly unzipping your skirt and pulling it off of you. lips find your thighs, biting down lightly, and you squeak, hand finding his hair and pulling. he looks up at your through his lashes, absolutely depraved and almost drooling for more. you gulp, legs almost giving out under you as you smooth your hand over his hair, pushing the strands that have fallen into his face back. “can we— can we move to the bed?”

immediately, he stands, pulling you behind him before he’s placing you onto the edge of your bed with great care. before he can fall to his knees again, you curl your shaking fingers into his shirt. “take this off? i wanna see you.”

with a huff of a chuckle, he does as you ask, revealing a toned stomach, broad shoulders, muscled arms. your tongue darts across your lips as you drink him in, causing him to smirk. “like what you see, pretty?”

“y-yes,” you stutter out, quiet and wanting and full of lecherous need. your thighs attempt to squeeze together in order to provide some relief to your pulsating core, but his legs stop them from fully closing. his fingers find your jaw, squeezing the flesh. your cheeks heat up.

“so fucking cute.” the praise sends a white hot streak through your stomach and into your center. your face is on absolute fire now, vision growing hazy around the edges as you watch him sink down between your thighs, your panties quickly discarded to reveal your center to his eyes. two fingers trace your folds before dipping beneath them to find your entrance. his eyes widen at what he finds, fingers coming back up coated in your wetness, glinting against his fingertips and knuckles in the light streaming in through your windows. “you’re so wet, baby. this all for me? a little kissing got you this needy?”

“mhm— oh,” you gasp when he brings the fingers to his mouth, sucking on them lewdly as he refuses to tear his gaze from yours. he moans at your taste, hot tongue swiping up the remnants that accidentally smeared onto the corner of his lips once he removes his fingers. his smirk returns, hands sliding under your ass to pull you closer to the edge of the bed, closer to his mouth. you sit up on your elbows to watch him kiss his way up your inner thigh, hands holding you open for him. there’s nowhere for you to hide, as he traces your folds with his tongue, dipping into your entrance and swiping up to your clit. crying out, your fingers find his hair in an ironclad grip. he groans against your pearl, your hips bucking up into his face before his arms snake around each thigh and hold you still. he alternates between circling the bud with his tongue and sucking it between his plush lips, spit pooling at the corners of his mouth as he loses himself in your taste. meanwhile, you’re already so close to the edge, you can feel your walls begin to clench around nothing, your hips jumping up as far as he allows. as he dips down to your entrance, his nose bumps against your clit, but his tongue is back in no time to continue its assault on your poor little clit. “jjun, ‘m gonna, please, ‘m gonna—”

“cum,” he mumbles against you. “cum f’me, pretty girl.”

with his permission, your head falls onto your sheets, eyes rolling into the back of your head as your vision spots white. cries pour from your lips like honey for him to drink, but you never quite come down fully. rather, he keeps circling his tongue against your clit through your high, and as your orgasm subsides, another one already begins to build. tears prick your eyes as you plead, “jjun, no, can’t, i can’t, nonono— i can’t!”

“yes, you can,” he murmurs, removing his arm from your right thigh. his lips don’t leave your clit as you feel two fingers slip into your soaked entrance, smoothly thrusting in and out and curling up into your upper wall until he finds that soft spot inside you that has your voice shattering into shards of moans and staccato wails. he groans against you as he feels your walls clench, the pace of his fingers unforgiving as he coaxes another mind-shattering orgasm from your body. your fingers flutter around his walls, watery hiccups torn from your throat. this time, he slows down, helps you ride out your high, before he removes his fingers, licking his lips of your essence as he does. climbing onto the bed, he hovers over you, taking in your spit-slick lips and tear-lined eyes. he wipes the tears away with gentle motions, cooing when you whine. he sits there until you come back to him, lucidity shining in your eyes as you blink them open. smiling, you pull him in for a languid kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue before he pulls away.

when he caresses your cheek with his thumb, asking you if you’re okay, you lean into his touch, “mhm, want you to fuck me.”

“i can do that,” he laughs, causing you to reciprocate. standing, he slips his jeans and boxers down his thighs until he’s left in nothing, hardened cock veiny and flushed an angry red. you think it’s an average length, on the thicker side, the girth causing your mouth to water. as he runs his hands up your thighs, he asks, “d’you have any condoms, love?”

while you’d rather him fuck you raw, you know it’s safer this way. you point towards your nightstand. “there.”

as he fetches one, you scoot into the middle of the bed, watching him roll it on before he returns between your thighs, pumping his cock once, twice, lining it up with your entrance. his free hand grips your waist, watching as you move your hips to try to slide him into you. smirking, he presses his hips forward, cockhead dipping past your entrance. both of you moan at the sensation. slowly, he works his cock into you, little rolls of his hips until he’s seated fully within you, hips flush against your pelvis.

“move,” you whine. “please move.” and that’s all it takes for him to swiftly pull out and slide back in again. as he thrusts into you again and again, his movements grow rougher, the tip of his cock brushing against your g-spot each time. moaning, you reach up towards him, forcing him to lean over you so you can kiss him again, swallowing each other’s sounds. he’s just as loud as you, praises falling naturally between his breathy moans.

“feel s’good, baby. so fuckin’ tight and wet f’me. so unreal. d’you feel good, too?” he coos against the shell of your ear, warm breath curling against your necks. your walls clench around him at his desperate sounds.

“s-so good, jjunie,” you hum, feeling your third high of the night approaching. the knot in your stomach grows tighter as his thrusts grow sloppy, chasing his high as much as you are. a thumb moves down to rub your sensitive clit, quick little circles against the bud until your limbs are locking up, quaking as you finally cum around him. a few seconds later, his high hits him as well, his hips quivering as he spills into the rubber with a loud groan.

slowly, he pulls out, ridding himself of the condom and soon returning to the bed to plop down next to you. arms pull you in close as you both pant and grin tiredly at each other, basking in the quiet that permeates the air, and he stares at you, dulcet eyes boring into yours.

“what’re you thinking about?” you decide to ask, poking the center of his sweat-beaded forehead. taking a moment to respond, he pulls you even closer so that your noses almost touch.

“it’s just— there’s this concept in korean — inyeon,” the timbre of his voice raises slightly as he switches to his native tongue, and lowers again when he switches back to english. “that, um, it means…”

his cheeks are growing the slightest bit pink, a shade that reflects the cotton candy clouds that float past your windows. squeezing his hand, you silently urge him to continue, soft gaze finding his own. a gentle kiss pressed to his cheek, his jaw, naked skin pressed against naked skin. together, whole, one.

he starts again, “there’s no direct translation, but it basically is fate. strings of fate. i truly believe the universe has connected us in some way, whether it be through some invisible red string or another force. and i know, i know what you said about fate, but i can’t stop thinking about how we found each other. there’s something beautiful about starting off as strangers and getting here. i don’t know, i’m just rambling at this point,” he chuckles, burying his nose into the pillow under his head. “i’ve just never felt this way about someone before. i’m sorry.”

with a gentle hand, you cup the side of his face, forcing him to look back at you. “don’t be sorry, that’s beautiful, and i think—” you sigh, blinking back tears that threaten to fall. “i think you’ve changed my mind about fate. i’ve also never felt this way about someone before. i feel like you know me on some level that no one else does. you just. you just get it, and i—”

you don’t think this is quite love yet, but you believe what you’re feeling within your chest, tingling all over your body, is as close as you’ve ever gotten to it. he smiles, whispers a small, soft, “i know,” and lips find lips once more. hands find hands, and you feel alive. you feel like everything that you see is now in vivid technicolor, no longer masked by a veil of gray.

and when you wake up tomorrow, you think that you’re going to start a new painting.

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leewritestoomuch · 1 month

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hi could i rq. general konoha 11 + sand siblings nsfw hcs ! (aged up/boruto ver obv) <3

Also: nobody understands Uchihas better than I do and I don’t even like most of em. /j Why are they all practically evil in fics? I’m going crazy. Most of them are clearly softies when it comes to love. Am I right or am I right???

And sorry, you can tell who I have more ideas for and who I was drawing a blank on.

Oh and sorry yall for the gap in my writing. This one took a while. I’ve been working on it for a bit. And part of it got lost and deleted, so I rewrote it. A long with a couple other stories got deleted and I lost some motivation for a moment lol

Konoha 13 + Sand Siblings HCs

Naruto Uzumaki

He’s energetic, and that 100% applies to in bed too.

Likely inexperienced, but eager. And a little nervous.

Talked big game beforehand, but even if you didn’t know before, you definitely know it was all talk now.

That being said, he’s a quick learner, even if he complains about being confused at first.

I think he’d have like little to no knowledge though, being such a loner for a while, in all. Hope you have patience.

That being said, he is a bit of a pervert with what he does know.

Overall though, he’d set a fast pace, but the sex would still be intimate and soft.

Praise. Praise. Praise. Giving and receiving.

Sasuke Uchiha

No experience, but he knows the ins and outs.

He wasn’t too concerned with sex or anything of that matter before, but when he returned to Konoha, he realized he had feelings for you. So he starts to think about it.

He’s not a pervert like Kakashi or Naruto, and he’d never lose his cool over sexy jutsu, BUTTT he’s secretly horny as hell. Like low sex drive usually, but just being around you makes it sky rocket to abnormal levels.

He’s very private about sex though, so usually only happens in your bedroom or… cough cough in a quiet forest with nobody around cough cough (if you know, you know)

He’s got a breeding kink. Next question.

Uses a mix of degradation and praises.

Lots of demanding, but also lots of giving soooo…

I truly believe Sasuke would be a softer partner than people make him out to be. Like did yall watch Boruto or not?? He’s got awkward and sweet energy. He’s TRYING. He’s emotionally stunted yall.

More dominant and likes to be in control, but will fall apart in your arms anyways. Usually more of a soft dom than anything.

One of the most likely to be fairly kinky though. I think he’d slowly discover he’s into things as they occur or cross his mind.

Sakura Haruno

She knows a lot about the human body.

Might have experience, might not. I could see it either way.

I think your first time with her would happen after like a romantic dinner together. And it would be romantic and slow.

But… that depends on you, because she’ll mostly go with what you want. It makes her happy.

She’s okay with being degraded or praised, but she really only likes to praise you.

Low sex drive.

She likes any position she can see your face.

She’s a switch, depends on her partner’s preference.

Sai Yamanaka

(Obviously not married here but just to have a last name to add)

He read a book about what to do.

Probably does something incredibly stupid at first, but that being said, he’s not an idiot, so not too bad.

You’d probably have to correct him a little bit. Also, tell him to forget the book and just go with the feeling and follow your lead.

You’d be in the lead at first. Probably go down on him first thing.

He’s not small. (I mean did you hear the way he talked to Naruto? He’s probably got something to work with if he’s talking so confidently LMFAO)

So you’d probably have to use your hand for the base while your mouth sucks on about half or so of his cock.

His hand tangles in your hair/rests on top, not pulling, but resting there.

He throws his head back, letting out soft sighs and small moans that escape his lips. He’s not trying to be quiet, but he’s not loud either.

Although, he might have read girls don’t like when guys make noise. Who knows. Then you might have to tell him that’s not true.

At first, sex is just discovering things with him. You’re both exploring how everything feels.

But, after a few times, he starts taking the lead and initiating.

He has a low sex drive though, so he won’t initiate too often.

It’s also hard to get him to realize what you’re asking for if you drop hints. He saw your underwear when you bent over… okay. He might even comment on how you should be more careful since he knows you don’t like to expose yourself so much.

You just deadpan and tell him it was supposed to turn him on.

“Oh.” And now he’s unbuckling his pants and asking you to come sit on his lap. :)

Shikamaru Nara

Low sex drive, usually at least, because now he’s consumed by the desire to be rode by you. Like he dreams about it.

He calls you troublesome to himself when he wakes up hard in the morning occasionally.

He lowkey loves to just lay between your legs or have you sit on his face so he can eat you out (pussy or ass, don’t matter)

Lazy morning sex. He loves it.

He’s dominant, but he can be rather lazy most the time. That being said, he will fuck you how you want him to if you ask.

Degrading but he’s not super mean about it at all. More like soft grunts with degrading terms, but the rest of it comes out more like soft sighs and groans of pleasure and praise.

Choji Akimichi

The sweetest. He takes his time with you every time.

Body worship. More so giving than receiving, but he’ll be a blushing mess if you give back the same energy.

Praise. Lots of it.

He’d be the type to kiss down your body, from your lips to your neck to your chest all the way down til he gets between your legs.

He can’t bring himself to be rough or harsh with you in anyway. No degradation, rough sex, or anything.

Likes to be able to see your face during sex.

He’d like to try food play.

Ino Yamanaka

Pillow princess unless asked to do otherwise.

She loves to be praised and worshipped, but also likes things rougher.

She’s a bit of a brat about things. Constantly going against what you say for fun.

She does it on purpose so you’ll go rougher on her, she likes it.

She also likes when things are slow and romantic though.

And she’d love it if you planned like a candlelit dinner and put a trail of rose petals on like Valentine’s Day, or even just cuz.

Shino Aburame

He’s in charge. He’s on top. Whatever. He doesn’t like to not have control.

He also just wants to please you, and often he’s not too worried about himself.

Might get a little self conscious if you skip over touching him or giving him head more than once. Like if it’s been a few times now and you haven’t bothered… did he do something?

He doesn’t need it, but he just… you know how he is.

He doesn’t make much noise.

But I do believe that right before he cums, he whimpers. He can’t help it, and don’t bring it up afterwards. He’ll be so embarrassed and not want to do it for a while because he’s scared he’ll do it again.

If he gets like that, just tell him you loved it. Then go down on him and tell him you wanna make him do it again.

He’s good with his hands, I just know it.

He can go rough and be stern and demanding, but other than that, he’s rather vanilla.

He’s a big fan of missionary so he can see your face.

And he doesn’t want to do anything unless it’s in your own home or absolute private, like an inn.

Kiba Inuzuka

Hickeys.

He loves giving them.

You will have like 20. From your jaw to your thighs, he’s marked. Plenty of them are visible and hard to hide because they’re dark.

He doesn’t exactly take his time. No, those hickeys are from the entire act. He starts leaving them during foreplay, then when he’s pounding into you, he quiets himself down by latching onto your skin.

When he eats you out, he leaves bite marks and hickeys around your thighs.

He calls it “marking his territory” then has to explain himself because no he doesn’t mean you’re a territory, you’re not a place or an object… he just… you’re his partner!

He’s rough.

Likes doggystyle most, but then he gets upset that he can’t see your face and next time he sets up a mirror.

Quickies. He can’t wait. He’ll whine if you tell him NO he can’t fuck you under the blanket, because YES people will notice the movement.

You might want to settle and pull him into a bathroom and let him fuck you over the counter, but he won’t force or beg you to the point of you giving in or anything. He’ll wait if you really mean no.

He’s got a high sex drive

Very likely to be pretty kinky. He’d be willing to tie you up, spank you, degrade you, etc.

He won’t do pet play. Thinks that shit is weird. So don’t think that because he’s a dog user, he’s gonna act dog like or have you act dog like. In fact, he’s more likely to hate it as a dog user.

I think he’d find any roleplay to be useless though. You could convince him if you wanted, but he’ll complain.

Hinata Hyuga

Much more intimate and gentle sex is what she wants

She’s not a pillow princess. She literally fantasizes about pleasing her partner.

Like probably day dreams, gets lost in her own thoughts, then is a blushing mess when she realizes that somebody is talking to her and she’s imagining what your moans would sound like when she’s between your legs, ESPECIALLY if the person talking to her is you.

She likes to do it in private, but she can’t deny that she imagines doing it where you both currently are. Not that she would.

Secretly has a high sex drive

Long refractory period though. She needs breaks between rounds.

Neji Hyuga

Took him a while to get vulnerable enough to take off his clothes if he’s being honest

Also I think Hyuga’s are very reserved and conservative until marriage, but he has such a tough time following that.

He really wants to jump your bones. And it’s almost like the fact he can’t because of his clan’s reserved and traditional nature just makes it WAYYYY more tempting.

You’re literally irresistible to him

Secretly, he’s just a little bit of a pervert. (Like Rock Lee’s Ninja Pals says he is)

I think he would have wet dreams from sexual frustration. Like the longer he holds back from having you under him, the worse it gets. Like a disease with no treatment.

I think your first time with him would be sudden, and it would be his first time ever.

You’d look WAYYYYY to good, and this time he can’t bring himself to ignore the boner he gets. No he’s gotta see if you’ll indulge him.

He may stop and pull away, get his act together if you remind him of his clan’s pride, and how he was so bent on following it before.

Maybe the first time, but by the next time he tries to give in, there is no try. He is cancelling any plans y’all had and tearing the outfit that made your body look so irresistible off.

He doesn’t have a super high sex drive, but he has such a hard time resisting just laying you down when you look so damn good. You are the reason he’s horny.

He loves when you ride him, and he WILL whimper. He tries not to, but Neji can’t be silent with the way you are squeezing him. The way you do it is so perfect, every bounce is drawing a noise out of him until he’s literally just letting out a stream of loud whimpers as he cums.

I think his cum would actually taste good. Next question.

Rock Lee

Perverted…

He feels bad for it when he catches himself, but Oop it’s too late… he’s got a boner

Boners are obvious in that green spandex…

He wouldn’t agree with doing it in public or semi-public though, but if you noticed his behavior or boner and pulled him off into the bathroom, ignoring his “this is indecent!” Protests because when you look at him before diving in to give him head, his eyes are literally pleading and he shuts up, pushing his hips towards your face.

He can’t be quiet so you’ll have stuff something in his mouth or cover it with your hand.

He secretly wants your chest in his face. He’s a chest guy. Boobs, pecks, whatever. He loves everything chest.

But he also loves ass. Small or big. Wants to grab a handful anyways.

Total switch

Because listen, he loves to pin your hips down and force you to accept the pleasure you’re trying to deny yourself.

Loves to pound his hips against yours until you’re a mess, but he also loves to do as you say.

He loves to be broken down until he’s in pieces by your mouth, body, words, whatever.

He whimpers like constantly, especially when he’s submissive. He tries to shut up when he’s dirty talking as he’s in charge, but he lets GO otherwise.

Tenten

I’m sorry her portion of this will be… lacking. I don’t know enough to say much. I love her, but I’ve never really thought about this at all.

I think she’d be a switch, but prefers to be in charge.

I think she’s depend greatly on you though.

If you don’t want to bottom/sub, that’s good.

Or vise versa.

She likes to take her time when she’s in control.

She’s fairly willing to try new things if you want to.

She enjoys going down on you most of all.

Gaara of the Sand

He’s very private about everything. He believes that his private life and his kazekage life should stay relatively separate. However, it is known that you are his partner. That’s no secret.

He’s not super into PDA, so it’s no surprise that he refuses to do anything risky or public in anyway.

He will not do it in the kazekage’s office. He has too much respect for it, but he also doesn’t want to get caught anyways.

He’s very intimate during. Slow and sensual for sure.

I can see him being into bondage, but like you get tied up, not him. But… depends. And might take some encouragement.

Refuses to hurt or degrade you for any reason. He only does praise. He could not bring himself to call you names or anything. Or to draw blood from you or hit you, etc. he doesn’t see why those things should be brought into the bedroom for “fun.”

He doesn’t think they’re fun.

He knew like nothing about sex before you. I actually think he’d have no idea how to initiate at first so you definitely initiated it.

I think he’d be the type you have to teach what to do a bit, but he gets the hang of it quickly. Then next time, he’s got every spot memorized.

Awkward. Like the first couple times were awkward, but romantic and cute.

Kankuro of the Sand

One word: kinky.

He likes to degrade you with a shit eating grin on his face. His degradation feels like a compliment most of the time though. Like he calls you a slut and it feels like he’s calling you a prince/princess. It’s confusing.

He’s so good at dirty talk. He’ll have you writhing in your spot, desperate for him and he’s not even touched you yet.

He’s got incredible patience when it comes to you. He takes his time breaking you down into a mess for him.

His face paint would 10 billion percent be smeared across your thighs and chest. Your neck is purple from bites AND his face paint to the point you can’t tell which is which.

Only when you wash off the face paint do you realize he left way too many dark hickeys that’ll probably take at least a week to fade away.

Confront him about this and he’ll just laugh.

Don’t tempt him to leave more, because he will.

He forces you to maintain eye contact when he goes down on you. If you look away for more than like 3 seconds, he give you a little tap as a warning, but twice and he stops.

Orgasm denial for sure. He would be the type to make up an excuse as to why he pulled away. He tells you all sorts of excuses. “You weren’t moaning enough.” “You moved your hips too much. Stay still.” And of course, “you looked away.”

He can make you cum hard almost every single time. You see stars.

The most fun part for him isn’t dicking you down, it’s the breaking you apart and putting you back together again.

Temari of the Sand

Dominant. Dommy mommy for sure.

Even when she decides to “sub” or “bottom,” she’s not doing a good job at it. She’s still telling you what to do, where to move, etc.

She’ll pull your hair, slap you, etc. as long as you are okay with it and want her to.

Loves to boss you around, telling you what she wants. Demanding you to please her.

“Get on your knees”

Head pusher for sure, but you two have a like physical que to let each other know when it’s enough.

All that being said, sometimes she really really just wants sweet, slow sex. Intimate nights filled with nothing but love.

She likes to keep all of this private though. No public or risky stuff.

However, she does like to do it beyond just in bed.

Would be the type to start kissing all over your neck, unbuttoning your shirt while you’re trying to cook breakfast.

You might want to turn the stove off.

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matchibee · 11 months

Text

Domestic Bliss

I've been itching to write some domestic Miguel so please have this. also I speak Spanish but rarelyyyy write it so I apologize if it’s scuffed, lo siento :/

Miguel O'Hara x Reader, don't really use (Y/n) and all that good shit. not proofread, suggestive so read at ur own discretion

Early morning sunlight streamed through withdrawn curtains, the feeling of a small body embracing you from around your neck drawing you in, a soft smile gracing your lips as you peered down at your sleeping daughter

The pads of your feet pressed against hardwood, a shiver running down your spine. The summer sun hung low in the sky, still early, but you couldn't go back to sleep without that familiar warmth that enveloped you from behind -- a helpless middle to the sandwich of adoration that greeted you every morning.

"Amor," You began, rubbing at your eyes to see an energetic Miguel in the kitchen, hand on his hip as he effortlessly looked over the stove -- the sweet smell of a homemade breakfast making you hum in delight. "Why aren't you in bed, Amor. It's too early to be awake."

Miguel chuckled at the way you wrapped your arms around his waist, palms splayed to discreetly feel at the muscles defining his middle.

"I'm not allowed to make breakfast for my family?" Miguel released one of your hands from his middle, your lips pouting at the loss of contact. He brought the detached limb to his lips, placing a loving kiss on the back of your hand.

"Of course you are, Miguel." You returned the hand from whence it was placed, peppering kisses down the bulk of his sculpted back, the sensation tickling the large man. "I just want to have a late morning, sleep in."

"You're more than welcome to sleep in," Miguel had plated the last of the breakfast, turning on his heel to face you. It was only then you noticed the apron wrapped nearly around him. Far too small, decorated in sparkly glue by your daughter, designs undiscernable but Miguel adored it with his entire being.

"Bueños Días, mi vida." Miguel peppered kisses along the top of your head, tilting your chin to face him, planting a fleeting kiss atop your lips, "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up, I know how clingy you get when you're sleepy."

You pushed away from Miguel, pout on your lips as you crossed your arms over your chest. "I'm not clingy."

"Hm? You're not?" His voice had dropped a few many octaves, eyes peering to the band that glimmered against your finger. How he adored seeing it, no matter the time of day, how long it'd been since it graced your frame. The sight always set him aflame with adoration, reminding himself of why he'd decided to place it there in the first place.

How badly he’d wanted to ask you, a fumbling mess despite his outward appearance of confidence. He’d dropped the ring into the fountain of chocolate that had taken far longer to assemble than he wanted to admit, the both of you diving to the chord that powered it.

When he’d found it, coated in melted deliciousness he breathed a deep sigh of relief, cleaning it off as best he could, dropping onto one knee and confessing everything that ran rampant in his heart.

Now here he stood, happier than ever, the love of his life looking away from him as they denied his words.

He couldn’t help it, he adored when they pouted.

Snaking his arms around them, resting firmly on their hips, he backed them into the wall decorated with family photos, careful not to knock anything over. “You know I hate when you do that.” But he didn’t. God, he wished you’d do it more, even if it meant forfeiting control of reason every five seconds.

“You don’t hate when I do anything,” You mended, hopping onto your tiptoes, arms wrapped neatly around his neck.

Exactly how he liked it.

Almost exactly how he liked it.

Miguel’s grip on his hips faltered, fingers splayed neatly as he moved them to the backs of your thighs, hiking you up to where you were pressed up against him just right.

This was how he liked it.

You were desperate for his touch, desperate for his kiss, desperate for his fuck.

You practically clawed at the neckline of his t-shirt, itching to press against him, bare skin against bare skin. You wanted to feel every inch of him beneath your fingers, and in return he’d ravish you like it was the first time.

He certainly would’ve done so, hadn’t it been for the piles of food steadily growing cold.

Hadn’t it been for the voice that called out from the hallway, “Ew!” Any public displays of affection disgusting in her droopy, exhausted eyes.

“Mija! Mira qué linda mi bebé,” Miguel was always doting on the young girl, dropping you from his hold and enveloping the adolescent into his waiting arms, her giggles erupting throughout the kitchen as he blew raspberries against her neck. “How’d you sleep, amor?”

“Bien, papá!” She pushed against her father, laughing wildly as he continued his assault, practically out of breath. “Déjame!”

Miguel refused, over and over, a cycle until the child conceded to her father’s embrace. Miguel was pleased then, seating her on the island separating the kitchen from the dining area.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

The girl nodded her head, a wicked smile on her lips. You knew exactly where this was going, watching in amusement — possibly popping a few of the strawberries Miguel had freshly cut between your teeth.

Miguel hummed, “Aver.”

The girl slapped her mouth closed, giggling behind lips that had been pressed inwards. She shook her head, Miguel looking to you over his shoulder, your hand in the midst of delivering yet another berry to your stomach. You paused, looking to him with a nervous smile, “Lo siento?”

You were definitely next.

Not before long, the brushing situation long behind you, berries in their rightful place, you’d all sat at the table, devouring the meal Miguel had so graciously made. A rare morning together. No school, no work.

No Spider-Man.

“Mira no mas,” Miguel mumbled under his breath, a napkin producing itself from seemingly thin air as he wiped it against your daughter’s lips, “you’re so messy, mamás. What are we gonna do with you?”

“I think she needs to get cleaned up,” You stated, pointing out the obvious. “Maybe we should go on a trip to the beach.”

Your daughter cheered, Miguel not as convinced. “I think that’s the last thing she needs.”

“It’s water?”

“Con sal.”

“Minerals for her growing body, c’mon, amor!” The both of you marched over to her bedroom, Miguel shaking his head, conceding. He called out to you from his place in the kitchen, cleaning up, advising you hurry before all the best are taken.

It didn’t matter where you were, not to you. As long as the three of you were together, you were more than content.

You’d get to see your little girl happy.

You’d get to see Miguel in his swimming trunks.

The perfect day with your perfect little family.

Miguel simply couldn’t wait for more additions.

#across the spiderverse #beyond the spiderverse #miguel o’hara x reader #spiderman 2099 #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderverse #into the spiderverse #spiderman #spiderverse x reader #miguel o’hara

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blakeswritingimagines · 10 months

Text

Aemond who wants your attention

As a yandere for you, he is a very possessive and jealous husband. He makes it his business to know where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with, at all times. He does not allow you to associate with other men in any way, shape, or form. This is not because he does not trust you, but because he knows how the mind of a man works, and he knows that some might try to take advantage of your beauty and innocence. He would defend you fiercely should anyone attempt to harm you or make you theirs. You belong to him, and he to you.

He seeks to maintain exclusive control over you. He wants to be the only one who can make you smile, laugh, or feel loved and cherished. He wants you to only have eyes for him, and for no one else to be able to draw your attention. If you even look at another man in a favorable light, he becomes incredibly jealous and feels the need to claim you once again.

He goes to great lengths to make you feel loved and safe. Any moment you are at risk, or even perceived risk is a cause for his concern and attention. Your needs and desires are his utmost priority. As your husband, he is not afraid to show his passion and rage for you. He will move the earth and sky itself to ensure your safety and comfort. His possessiveness, as yandere, is for your good alone, because he cannot stand the thought of another having you.

It would be a problem. He is a man who wants nothing more than to be with you, and for you to be with him. If you paid more attention to anything else but him, it would drive him mad with fury. Especially if that thing was your children. They come from your love, he knows they are a physical manifestation of the bond between you both. They should be treated with the same care and affection that he gives to you but can't help himself.

He would certainly feel a pang of jealousy should you show more affection to your child instead of him but he would have to realize that children are naturally needy just as much as he is. It is in their nature to rely on their parents which causes him to seeth in a slow quiet rage.

If he were to act out of his jealousy, he would make sure your life is absolute torture. He would isolate you from others, keep you from seeing your shared child, and force you into a position of dependence. He would make you feel alone in the world, cut off from everyone else, leaving only him as your sole companion. If he felt you were showing more affection to the child than to him, he would turn the child against you.

He would likely treat your child in a cruel manner, demanding he or she behave in a way that he deems “ proper” rather than allow them to grow and explore on their own terms. He might become too harsh, demanding, and cold, hurting their confidence and self-esteem. He might accuse them of wrongdoing when they are innocent, instilling a fear of him and resentment that could never be forgotten.

Absolutely without hesitation, he would send the child away. He feels there is no reason for you to have a child when you have each other. The idea of you ever having the audacity to give so much attention to the child disgusts him. You should only ever need him. Nothing else matters except you and him. He can and he will keep you under his complete control. You and he can live happily forever if you just let your guard down and come into his embrace forgetting about the child.

He would go as far as lying to you, he would lie to you, and say the child is being sent away for a good reason such as safety or education, just to make you think that his love for them outweighs anyone else. He would do anything and say anything to keep you with him or he would also try to make you see the child in a negative light, he would try to convince you that the child doesn't love you. He would try to convince you that the child hates you, even.

Yes, if it came down to it he would kill your child in an "accident". It would be his secret. He would be sneaky and manipulative to convince you that you don't need your child, that you don't need anyone but him. That you can love him, but no one else. He would be sneaky and manipulative to make himself the only one you ever love just like the situation with your child, sneakiness and deception come as natural to him. He would convince you that the child is no good for the both of you slowly, making sure that you do not suspect him of doing so. He would be extra careful, in this situation so that you do not learn of his ulterior motive.

If you found out about his manipulation towards you and reacted badly, he would be prepared for that. He would use every word in his vocabulary to convince you that he did it for your own good. He would try to convince you that he knew it was the best choice for your relationship. He would try to calm your anger and make you see the good side of the situation, no matter how much the truth may hurt.

He would also try to make you see that the child never truly loved you. He would try to convince you that the child never wanted to be with you, that their love for you was never real. He would try to make you see how good it is that the child was taken away from you. He would try to convince you that your love for him is better than the child's love for you and that you are better off without the child. He would use all of his manipulation tactics for this goal.

If you still didn't believe him, he would use more drastic measures to make you believe him. He would use both words and actions to convince you that he did it for you and that it will benefit you both in the long run. If all else fails, he would threaten you to make you see or even feel what he wanted you to believe.

If you tried to fight back and stop him, he would do everything in his power to either subdue you or convince you that fighting back will only make things worse. He would be determined, and there is no way he would let you stop him. He would do what had to be done for the benefit of your love.

He won't feel guilty about it at all, the reason why he is getting rid of your child is because he loves you so much that he would do anything to be with you. He knows that getting rid of your child seems like a horrible thing to do, but he justifies it by saying that your relationship is more important than anything else in the world.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen #house of the dragon aemond #hotd aemond #yandere aemond targaryen #tw yandere #house of the dragon

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1-49 · 5 months

Text

성찬 : Feeling every bit of this neon midnight that has filled my veins.

ᴘᴀʀɪɴɢ: jung sungchan × f!reader

❝ In which you catch the interest of a handsome stranger at the party, and he embarks on a night-long odyssey in order to validate this* awkward attraction, he strongly believes you both feel.

ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: romance, some fluff, suggestive; strangers to ? slowburn one-night stand kinda?

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 13k

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: +18 i drag a lot in this sry. tiny bit of pinning; real tense and awkward energy; flirting; mixed signals; sungchan is messy; in a sense, he’s both confident yet appears doubtful and insecure at times. stolen kiss ups implied hot moments/dialogue lines. few magic scenes

ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: no joke im obsessed with sungchan. this has also progressively made me grow more in love with him he’s so effortlessly lovley & funny, my introvert ass could never! the energy? the personality?? like, no broo stop! i envy him sm. his way with words too...

also any feedback, reblog, or support of any kind will be appreciated. tysm, and enjoy!

A fine night, or so you thought, a showcase of stars in the sky. And while you are admiring the display of lights, in the middle of your peace, you hear the echo of an intruder ──── the sound of someone demanding to get in.

Who would be so brave? Who is willing to leave a party in order to get to you?

U let it pull u closer to the stars, this stranger’s energy that shifts the gears in your head. A stubborn being! Can’t he have a bit of patience? What could possibly be so urgent? What could he possibly be looking to discuss? As far as you know, the rave is inside, not outside.

[22:22] You wish you could describe the magnetic pull you felt just moments ago.

[20:20] In keeping with the occasion, you took great care to make sure you felt and looked your best for your friend’s celebration. You chose a black outfit in accordance with the principle of seeking style through simple tones. Simple wide pants, a velvety sleeveless top, an open back, and some crystals hanging from your ears are enough elegancy to captivate someone. A desire for someone else’s eyes.

[22:23] Moreover, you are trying to make sense of the situation once you get to the balcony, relieved that no one is there to disturb your peace.

Sungchan’s intention, however, was never to make you uncomfortable.

[21:45] On the other end of the room, he had already skimmed everything and everyone, not because he was that type of character, but because he was bored and new to the scene, and his inner extrovert was urging him to go find someone to befriend as soon as possible.

The options were plentiful at the scene, and the liquor in his hand resolved through his system a little faster, making him less rational in his decision. That is how your presence from the other side of the room alone helped him—some mysterious, indescribable force drawing him in.

You…

Sungchan could not figure out why his gaze kept circling the room, passing from one person to the next but always returning to you. He rapidly became solely focused on you. The way you discuss something so profound with your friend makes him think it must be something so interesting and intriguing; the way it has you so invested in the matter undeniably gets him a little curious, secretly wishing to be in the same position your friend enjoys you. Simply put, the indulgence that you are in causes him to become greedy.

The way you smile now and then, the way your teeth graze your perfectly glazed lips, the way your earrings sway—there is just something about you that never ceases to attract his attention.

As a result, he does something about it.

You…

You notice his heated stare at you from afar and across the room—hell-bent, dense, and begging for you.

Sungchan does not immediately offer you a smile, nor does he try to be flirtatious in his gaze, but he absorbs you with such passion, concentration, and keenness that it honestly begins to make you feel super uneasy. You are having trouble reading him.

Thus, as you start to pay more and more attention to him, things start to gradually work in his favor. This also begins to fill you with an odd sense of thrill, and before you know it, you are champing at the bit.

That tummy twirl as the eye-string between you works like a live-wire. Sungchan, lazily propped against the wall, significantly taller than anyone, and with such a pretty yet tempting set of eyes, and with the intimacy you share with him, easily begins to excite and scare you at the same time.

He possesses a spark that straddles the line between danger and enchantment. And sometimes you try to casually shift your eyesight and abandon the site, but the response you get when you return your gaze, which you always do, is that of a wounded animal.

Such a ‘casual’ face that molds into a hot one, then softens and becomes dear in a matter of minutes that whatever you two exchange quickly involuntary culminates in your breaking. Seeing him with his brows tied and slightly pouting, needy and greedy as to why you would try to wonder and abandon him even for a little, is a sight that makes your tummy clench at nothing.

You wish you were strong enough to respond to his request, whatever it is—like holding his stare until your confidence crumbles and he subdues you, or holding his stare until he is truly bored of you and can move on to the next victim.

And, because you are unprepared for any of this and are getting gagged by the space that is gradually getting more packed, you decide to dip the party in order to get some fresh air flowing through your brain.

[22:22] You are leaning over the metal rail, trying to inhale all of the lost air from earlier, and for a brief moment, you feel yourself again, relieved that you are still holding on to that sliver of confidence you promised yourself before this event even began. But the way this complete stranger was erecting himself around you had almost brought everything you had sworn to a halt.

You consider the view from the balcony to be ‘perfectly splended.’ Neon lights make love and oppose the monotonous yet sparkling dark blue sky above you on a very cold December night.

You shiver as you realize you are skin-naked against the harshness of the cold air. It is icy cold, but you are trying to ignore it for the time being. To your advantage, you try to enjoy the solitude of being alone; the tranquility of falling snow is far more appealing than the warmth of the place inside.

True, the bitter cold could not scold you out of there, so someone else had to. You are irritated when you hear the glass door slide, but you do not turn back because you know this one, whoever it is, is coming for your peace.

A pair of hands approaches the rail, and in you sight of vision you notice the grip is somewhat firm, but you do not attempt to acknowledge this person’s presence. Not because you are cruel or ignorant, but because you simply do not feel like it right now. Someone disturbed your peace while you were seeking refuge; it is understandable to be agitated.

“Are you not freezing here?”

The ferocity with which this intruder delivers his words reveals that it is not only his hands that are strong but also his sweet, ’somewhat’ deep voice. It is enigmatic that you are not allowing yourself to be more selfish toward him; he craves your attention, and you provide it.

“I do not mind,” you say as you turn to face him and realize it is him.

“Obviously, your skin tells a different story,” he observes.

And who gave his eyes the go-ahead to roam your flesh? He is still an issue, and you can feel his gaze on you even as you try to fix yours on the scene in front of you.

Sungchan, on the other hand, is a little more confident, and from what he can tell, he still has an impact on you. Apart from the irregular breathing and chest rise, his only doubt is whether the way your skin is covered in goosebumps is due to him or the cold weather.

“I just needed a breath of fresh air. I am doing fine.”

“As you say,” he tries to give you the space you seek by shifting his gaze away from you. “Does not the cold bother you at all?”

“I suppose not. It is something I am used to.”

After a few minutes, you bring yourself to ask, breaking the little silence you two have built. Your feeble attempt at small talk, and, of course, regarding the host of the party because you can not think of anything interesting to say right now, it is as if he is taken over your mind and dumbed you down in the process.

“Are you related to Eunseok?”

“Oh,” he says, giving you his first smile, which is as bright as the light reflected off the lake’s surface and warmer and sweeter than a freshly baked apple pie. “Why? Do we look alike?” Honestly, a warm smile that could make the sun feel cold, and it is spilling out of the corners of his deep brown eyes.

Is there a length of time at which his smile should stop being your favorite sight?

Certainly, no, but—

“Oh, no, no,” you say, backtracking in your head to see if your question was stupid. Finally, you admit, “I am just trying to make small talk.”

“I am aware of that,” he smirks triumphantly, as if he has finally won you over, because being under someone’s influence causes one to doubt and second-guess their statements, and you are doing just that, which he finds absolutely adorable.

You clearly sulk at his victory. “So?”

As a result, his smile broadens even more.

“Eunseok? Eunseok is a friend. A very close one.”

“Ah, I see,” you exhale a sigh of relief. It is even stupid, strange, and awkward that you feel this way, but you do.

“And you? Who is Eunseok to you?”

“May I say, a friend from work? We volunteer together.”

“Mhm,” he hums softly. “Strange, he has never mentioned you.”

“How can you be so certain that he hasn’t when you don’t even know what my name is?” You retort.

You are met with silence. A complete one.

Perhaps he disliked the tone of your voice and the way you responded.

You are not sure what to make of the situation because seconds are turning into minutes and he has not said or asked anything else besides what you asked. You are worried and perplexed as to why you are still glued to being here when you could simply return inside and enter the warmth of the apartment, but you do not.

Why? What is it that keeps you here? Why are you staying out here in the cold with him?

Sungchan immediately abandons his pursuit of observing the city, the moon, and the thousand snowflakes falling from the sky when you finally turn your entire body his way. He is not interested in them anymore, if he ever was.

You unintentionally and unconsciously bring your hands together to hug yourself, not to express to him how cold you are but as a reaction to being out in the cold for too long and forgetting your coat inside.

Your earrings flutter in the breeze, teasingly brushing against your neck and shoulders as if they were windchimes, and you are the music for him.

The wind also tangles your hair as it blows through it. Messy in the sense that your ends sometimes stick to your lipgloss and you try to ignore it. Most of his attention, however, is drawn to your delecate collar bones. And you are not wearing a bra underneath that velvet piece of whatever it is you are wearing. So the hug and squeezing on your chest only highlight your prominently hardened, sensitive spots for him.

And whether all of this divine show you are putting on is for him or not, or if it is all unintentional, Sungchan will have to figure it out on his own.

Sure, for the time being, everything is so unintentional, and he is aware of it. Sungchan understands that the cold has a big influence on how you look right now—the allure of it all—but deep down, he still believes that he, to some extent, causes it, that the cold creeps and shivers that linger on your body are brought on by him, and that it is not just the cold night.

And when he sees you like this—the neon lights reflecting off of you, the countless soft flakes landing on your face, some nestling and making a home in your hair, the way your eyes invite, and the little stars beneath them—he realizes how much he has grown dependent on you in such a short period of time.

While the neon dyes around you, he is hooked on your messy appearance. Blurred illumination and twinkling stars in the distance, but you are the star, beaming with lust in a riot of colors, or so he believes.

“Here,” he says, undressing his overdyed denim jacket in the hopes of trapping you within it—within him.

He does not even give you a chance to object. So, “thank you,” you say softly, despite the fact that you are anything but calm at the moment. His warm hands have brushed up against your arms during the process, which is a legitimate reason for your emotions to become agitated. “I did not bring mine,” you add to be more convincing. “I did not think I would be out this long.”

Sungchan grins from behind you, enjoying the intimacy the action has brought. “It is okay,” he says, brushing down the length of your now-covered arms.

His voice, words, breath, and scent rush from your hair to your ears at the same time. They are far too intimidating, but he is so smooth that it is contradictory, forcing you to disintegrate slowly.

You are trying your hardest not to melt in his arms, but it is a difficult task. You close your eyes for a moment, cursing the thoughts that keep popping into your silly little brain, but this has been such a small gesture—a nice gesture by someone to cover someone. This is perfectly normal. This is not unusual. People frequently go out of their way to cover others who are cold. So everything is okay. This is completely fine. ‘It is fine,’ you tell yourself.

He lines up next to you once you have been wrapped in his scent.

“What is so funny?” you inquire, noticing traces of satisfaction on his face. The majority of them are smug, but it is the bite of his lips to suppress the smile and its reflection in his sweet eyes that perplexes you. He is soooo

“Nothing,” he flirts casually. His eyelid and nose bridge home these tiny, exquisite specks that wink at you, adding to his soft, angelic physiognomy. And this much is true: they are invisible to false gods, but when it comes to you, nobody is more capable of holding onto you than those moles.

“Hmph,” you murmur, cocking your brow. “All right,” you say, only increasing the smile between his bitten lips. Like this, Sungchan is quickly becoming someone who is difficult to be normal about—someone to yearn for.

Mid-eye-flirt, your eyes drop involuntarily, whether due to insecurity or not, but they do. They are on their way to examine his white cotton tee shirt, his broad chest and even longer shoulders, his venied and shivered ivory arms. His neckline too is begging for lips.

You consider his height and how your head would not even reach his shoulders if you were not wearing heels. Perhaps your high will be at his heart level, making it ideal for your ear to check on his heart palpitations. You have gotten so far in your delusion that you are wondering what it is like to kiss someone so tall.

“Sungchan,” he offers playfully, aware that he is destroying a fantasy you are creating in your head.

“Uh,” you remark. Is he reintroducing you to reality? You are extremely embarrassing. You clear your throat and respond with your name.

He begins to softly nod his head, his lips curving once more. The neon is intensifying him in the same way. He looks almost flamboyant against the soft, snowy backdrop that stretches far away.

And, should that be the case, does this signify that your two are now officially flirting?

Considering that the way he looks at you clearly has you sucked in. He wants to arouse your highs and make you fantasize about him even more. And, even if you think this is just another ‘barely even a’ fling, he is powerful and genuine, as well as strangely familiar and gently captivating.

The rest of the background fades away. You cannot feel the air or the ground beneath you; all you can feel is his gaze. Everything dissolves and energizes the ecstatic present, and your constantly rambling mind becomes thoughtless.

By the time he breaks the intimate, soul-crushing silence again, you know you are captivated by him and you no longer want this to be a fling. This is the first time you have failed at flirting. And you know you cannot be bailed out of what is to come. In fact, 8.2 seconds of eye contact is required for love at first sight to happen.

“Why are you here?” He asks casually, as if the minutes leading up to this point had not been too private. “Outside by yourself, I mean? You do not like it inside?”

Now that his jacket is covering you, he has more room to investigate you, which feels like a fair trade for information. Of course, you did not ask for his jacket, and it was he who rushed with it, which is, to say the least, compromising, but here you are.

“I do not know. Not really. All I needed was some fresh air. It became too suffocating in there all at once, so I had to flee.” Given that he was the reason you left the crowded room, your smile appears phony. “It has also been a long time since I had a night out. So many people and everything... Strangely, I like it here even better. Regardless of the cold.”

“Regardless of the cold?” He teases.

“Regardless of the cold,” you say firmly.

“Mhm. I see what you mean. I can say the same thing.”

“But it is you who is freezing in the cold right now,” you say, concerned.

“It doesn’t bother me.”

If only you knew that the cold does not reach him. Being here alone with you is almost everything he does not want to lose.

Unfortunately, such a situation can only last so long. The cold, like the undefined chamisty, will eventually find its way into someone’s bones. You two are complete strangers, neither here nor there, and the atmosphere quickly becomes tense once more. It is borderline hot, cold and awkward. You are both at a loss for what to do next.

And, despite the fact that Sungchan is overjoyed to have you here, spending your precious time on him out of anyone else you could possibly be with, which undoubtedly must mean something, he is aware that he wants more of you, but how does he get there?

Perhaps someone joining you two on the balcony for a smoke can help alleviate the awkwardness that has developed between you two? However, when two more men join you to smoke on the balcony, his only concern becomes protecting you.

For whatever ‘self’ reason, he does not want you to share this space with them. Behaving in a selfish manner, he offers, “Come on, let us go inside. It’s too cold.” Because of the high likelihood that you two will part ways again, even he does not understand his thought process, but his mouth and a strong desire not to share you with anyone may be faster than his brain.

You, on the other hand, naturally accept. As if you could choose. He was the one who offered you the warmth of his jacket, and he is the one who is now freezing in his tee for you. That makes you feel guilty, but not really because his jacket carried the scent that clouded your senses. You admit that whatever you had going on was nice while it lasted.

And you do not let go of his jacket until you are both inside and you are ready to give it back to him. Again, it is not like you want to let go of it. You really do not want to, but you must.

“Thank you for not letting me freeze out there,” you say softly, handing him the overdyed piece of clothing, the dying ember in your eyes almost to the point of yearning. Half hoping he cathes upon it, half believing it is best if he doesn’t. A conflict with yourself.

“You don’t have to thank me. I am glad I could assist.” And as he gently picks it up, he becomes hesitant, as if he does not want to because he will have nothing to bargain with you for.

Sungchan feels like he has already lost you to the mass of people around him, and he feels like he is coming down to being nobody to you again. So he drags on this moment, picking up his jacket, stretching the second as much as he can, and making sure his hands have brushed and touched you irrevocably.

Time passes and the tension dissipates.

[23:13] After an hour, you are still trying to keep up with your few coworkers, who appear to be planning to call it a night and leave. You do not have much of a choice but are thinking about following their decision because Sungchan has not made any further moves towards you.

Simultaneously, this is the point at which you wish things had gone differently, and you consider many different outcomes if the dice had been rolled differently.

What if Sungchan made his move twice—once when he discovered you in the entire room and was determined to have you, and again when he got close to you on the balcony—and this time he was waiting FOR YOU to prove your true intentions and finally admit you are interested in him?

Uh, just when you thought you were going to get away from him, you find yourself wishing for more of him.

However, after witnessing you and your friends bid farewell to Eunseok, Sungchan realizes that it is now or never: lose you or have you.

He dislikes trusting time and does not want to leave you in the future. To play the ‘if’ game. He wants you now, right now, in the present, and he will be damned if he does not tell you. As a result, he rushes to say his goodbyes, leaving you both on the same elevator.

[23:20] There is him, you, and three of your friends in the elevator, and while your friends are in the front and you are in the back, he makes sure to horn his way in to you. Fortunately for you, your friends are unaware of him and will not tease you, as no one has noticed your short romance tonight except the two strangers on the balcony. And they are also so lost in their heated debate, resulting in nothing but noise to fill the cramped four-wall space.

Even though the ride down is brief, you find yourself wishing it were longer because you cannot quite figure out Sungchan’s motifs. He is difficult to understand, in contrast to how he was at the start of the night when your gazes met across the room, when his intentions were banging on your heart’s door, eager to get in. You are not sure if the mystery he is leaving you is drawing you closer to him or making you more distant. You realize you do not want to lose him, and you tell yourself that there must be a reason he got in the same elevator with you, even if he does not say anything.

Sungchan’s fingers brush against yours at that precise moment, and he begins subtly playing, then slowly intertwining them with his, never compliantly taking your hand in his. The forbidden pleasure of the action takes the edge off—just him doing this, teasing you in front of your friends, teasing you so casually that he does not even address you. He is just doing this nervous dance as you turn to him, observing his side profile and looking for meaning in his actions, all while his gaze is fixed on the door in front of him.

So carefree, until the elevator stops and all of you exit, leaving him casually tagging behind.

And, once again, because he does not say, address, or ask you anything, and it was your friends who drove you here, it is only natural that you return to where you live with them.

Why hasn’t he asked you whether you want to stay or go with him yet? Is he leaving the door open for you to make the next big move? Is he unaware that you are not a pursuer? Why is he putting you in this awkward position where every thought and notion ends with him?

For better or worse, you decide to work on it, telling your friends that you have forgotten your phone at Eunseok’s and will head up to look for it. And all the while they insist on waiting on you, you persuade them to leave, that you will be fine calling a taxi and that they should not worry because you may have changed your mind and will stay a little longer at the party as well.

What a scumbag lie, but it works in the end. Getting rid of them was probably one of the worst decisions made in tonight’s series, and for what? You are not even sure why.

‘What are you doing?’ ‘What the f—is this?’ You curse under your breath, despite the fact that you appear cold on the outside but are all hot and bothered on the inside. As you make your way back to the elevator entrance, a few more curses escape your lips as you wait for your friends to leave. Once they have left, you retrace your steps, noticing Sungchan standing there, checking his phone.

“What do you want!?” The request comes out a little louder than you expected. But, in your defense, you are only as direct and blunt in your candor because of his mixed signals.

Sungchan, surprised, lifts his face away from the phone, and the screen noticeably lightens and strengthens his features, giving you tunnel vision with the darkness around you and forcing you to focus on his lips whether you like it or not.

To their benefit, he adds his low and deep tone, “What do you mean, what do I want?”

“Don’t—”

Sure, one way to do this is to be playful, deny, and mislead. And he is still doing a fantastic job of it. However, you can only take so much right now. The more he complicates things, the more you want him, and the more you want your answer, no matter how promiscuous the situation makes you appear.

“What were you doing inside messing with my fingers? Why take the same elevator? Why were you looking for a place to stay earlier at the bacony? Your cryptic cues are, to put it mildly, lame.”

“No, you are right,” he says with a smirk that would irritate even a god. “I am usually direct. Maybe I just wanted to take the long way around this time. And I was not doing anything. They just brushed naturally.”

“Sung—” you clench your teeth, trying to recall the rest of his name. “Sung—” but nothing comes to mind right now.

“Chan. SungChan,” he emphasizes. The satisfaction of seeing you lag when you probably want to throw hands with him is clearly visible on his face, and he is powerless to stop it. “What meaning did you find in them? I mean… our fingers touching? Many people will take nothing away from it and will most likely dismiss it.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious? If you have a question, why just not ask me?”

“I already have. What meaning do you give us?” He speaks slowly, but with assurance and fixation. He is aware of the confidence he is currently displaying, so he might as well make it more lethal. “What do you want me to ask?”

He would rather you express yourself. You! And, despite the fact that he already has a decent idea of your feelings and desires, he wants you to be more explicit about them. That is why he persists in pressuring you to give in to him. To hook you. To persuade you to ask questions. To convince you that you, too, need him. It is almost as if he is subtly switching roles. And it is he who is being chased this time.

“Oh, it has become what I want now? you mutter. “I cannot believe it.” Turning around, you plan to start walking away from him. You are done with his nonsense.

But Sungchan’s long arm easily reaches out and firmly grasps your wrist. You pause for a moment, unsure whether you should turn back and acknowledge him, but you do. You cannot help but be annoyed because he will not ask you the question you know he wants to ask. He does not. In fact, he dragged on every opportunity he could have asked you tonight, and it is because of him that you lost your drive back home, and it is because of him—and it—

Is his ego that big? And if he does play, why for so long? How did he turn this into you running after him, which is completely opposite of who he was and what he wanted at the start of the night? It is heinous.

But, once again, the two of you can only take so much in the cold weather.

His warmth, in contrast to the cold, spreads from your wrist up the length of your arm to your neck. Hot that feels oppressive but relieves the chill.

His cheeks are undeniably flushed, and the adorable tip of his nose is irritated red. Your jaws begin to twitch, and his lips follow suit. A cold breath begins to emerge from beneath your noses, and your bodies begin to shake as you begin to burn from within. Such unavoidable conflict lingers on your face, and for a brief moment, he feels sorry for having you freeze out here. Sungchan might have had his games going if it had been a warmer season, but that is not the case right now. Finally, he brings himself to put an end to it all.

“I will give you a ride. You must be freezing.”

“Give me a ride!?” You mock, attempting to shake your wrist free from his grip, but it has no effect. You are so fed up with him.

“You lost your ride home because of me, right? He says it with a cheeky grin, as if he is proud of himself, as if missing your ride because of him is such a big accomplishment. “It is only fair that I do something abo—” It is like rubbing salt into a wou—But-but his intentions are all pure!

“Oh, my god,” you say, disbelievingly looking up at the sky before returning your gaze to him. “You are such a jerk. I never would have guessed you were this bad.”

“Your place, or mine?”

“Your game is awful. I am not sure how many times I have to remind you of—”

“As long as it works.”

You bite your lower lip in frustration while rolling your eyes.

The game is bad, but there are not many alternatives. Your phone is still in your small bag, as it has always been, and your friends have gone. Returning to the party or freezing to death are neither of the options that appeal to you. As a result, you end up in his car as the least bad option.

To put it mildly, the ride to his place is quiet; his grip on the steering wheel appears to be steady and relaxed, whereas you are a fucking mess. You desperately hope you do not come across as such and that what is going on inside does not show on the outside, despite your earlier efforts and utmost failures. It is frustrating because you were the one who persuaded him to respond, and you were the one who stayed with him—without him even asking.

Therefore, everything that has happened up to this point has been an inaccurate reflection of who you are. You hope the circumstances did not boost his ego even more and make you a lesser version of yourself.

You divert your gaze away from the window by focusing on his side profile while he maintains his gaze on the road. Uh, infuriatingly beautiful! So, you decide, carelessly, to press the ‘imaginary’ pedal even harder, dazzling reality onto the fantasy, oblivious to the consequences and what if they worsen? And all they need is what you are about to say to escalate the situation.

“You do not strike me as the type, you know?”

“As the type to?”

Nervous, you rub your thighs. “The perplexing kind. To play games,” you pause. “Your smile is lovely, and your eyes are too sincere. You have the face and energy of someone who can play the cheeky extrovert in charge of the party atmosphere. Someone who is witty while remaining sweet. I think that your current self-presentation does not accurately reflect who you are. To be honest, I think you are terrible at pretending. You are so bad at it that you are losing at your own game.”

He remains unaffected, looking ahead at the road. “Then let us keep pretending. I can keep up the tough guy persona for you if you want.”

“It is not about what I want. Plus, you weren’t like that at first.”

He thrives on your somewhat nice compliment. “Was I someone sweet?”

“Shut up,” you repeat, and neither of you says much else after that.

The bottom line is that he can be anything you need him to be. And you notice it the moment you both enter the elevator, your backs against the opposite walls, the gap between you closing but not closing completely. The silence is still, awkward and sexy.

In the literal sense, he is a walking contradiction. Why is he staring at you with his head pressed against the elvator’s metal, his stark jaw, neck exposed, and this dense ‘undressing’ look in his eyes, never losing his sweet smily charm in front of you? He is so good at it that you both despise and admire him. He both thrills and terrifies you.

You have to keep wondering how he manages to be both endearing and seductive. It is peak performance, and it must have taken him a while to get there. It makes you long for him in ways you never imagined possible.

The type to give you a backhug followed by a kiss on your hair while saying, ‘You are mine,’ and then easily transform it into a chokehold while whispering in your ear, ‘Mine!’

Someone you would consider kissing or biting. Someone you would consider walking hand in hand with only to have him act disrespectfully later, when you are in a safe place and it is just you and him. Someone who will kiss your temple and then invite you to sit in his lap.

You close your eyes at the culmination of your thoughts. You are certain he can sense your internal temperature, even if he is not touching you. He is touching you in ways you have not been touched before, and this time it turns into an elevator ride that seems to last forever and you wish it would end as soon as possible.

[23:48] Stepping into the hallway, you try to pick yourself up and carry on from where you melted. You insert the key into the keyhole of your door and invite him in, but you are really second-guessing yourself and questioning your actions. However, it is too late. It is too late because the moment you close the door behind you, you are trapped against the next wall.

Whether provoked or not, he begins sliding your coat down, his hands coming to grip on your shoulders.

Dazed and hurried, you search for some sense in his eyes but you cannot find any. This causes you to resent your hasty, ill-considered decisions, and you try to protest, but no words come out of your mouth. When did things begin to move at such a rapid and high rate?

Sungchan, fit and lean, towers above you, cornering you and putting you in a scary situation where your only way out is to scream. His overdye jacket rises with him as he raises his hands and rests them on each side of you on the wall. Your gaze shifts to his tiny waist as a tiny bit of his white tee peals away, revealing some of his hips.

You silently gulp at how quickly everything resolves. Your words and thoughts are both stuck deeper inside your mouth and will not form.

“Look at me,” he says, pointing out your excessive staring at the floor.

“I-I”

Naturally, you cannot go on because your words are failing you. Should the deep look in his eyes in the elevator forewarn you of what he is about to do?

So, in order to get you to look at him, his fingers grab the thin strap of your top, intending to yank and tear it. Of course he doesn’t, but his strategy proves to work instantly as soon as your eyes meet his.

You start to tremble under the complete hot mess of his deep browns, wondering what would happen if he continued the action. The only thing keeping you from being too exposed and naked for him is the velvet fabric that clings to your body. It gets so hot so fast that you are not sure how it is possible, all while your heart feels like it is about to leap out of your chest. Self-defense kicks in, and you raise your hand to your sternum to keep the material in place just in case.

“What exactly is going on?” You ask, stunned, caged by his hands on both sides of you, and already gone.

“You ask as if you haven’t already calculated the distance between our lips and guessed the flavor of my tongue,” he gruffly replies. “This is everything we both desired from the moment our gazes met across the room.” To make matters worse, he whispers, “Don’t deny it.”

A thought flashes through your mind, as sudden and powerful as a firework reaching the sky, because that is exactly what has been poisoning your mind. That is all you have been able to think about. What would it be like to kiss him? How would his lips taste? Is he the type to smile through the kiss, mocking you because you have given up?

“That—that is completely un—untrue,” you mumble, turning away from him and looking at the door. But your neck muscles work with you, and is the current exposed line meant to tease him even more?

Sungchan seizes the opportunity, moving in closer, pushing your legs apart, and resting his knee against the wall between them. His figure is far too intimidating, while his lazy smile and curious lips climb your provocative neck to your earshell with a bit of his gut feeling that this is where you break the most. “Do you already regret inviting me?”

His tone and breath are light and breezy, like soft sunlight peeking through the curtains at dawn, revealing a scent of freshness as they enter your little universe. They are, however, comfortably casual, which makes him attractively persistent at the very entrance of your ear. “I have already altered, if not ruined, your night,” his lips almost kissing under your ear. “We might as well give in to this absurd affection. What have we got to lose?”

And waiting for an answer, having reached this stage, his instincts and the part of his brain receptive to pain are already bracing themselves. He can feel them clenching in his gut as this two coming to three hour-stand-situation has blurred the lines between lovers, strangers with ‘potential’ benefits, and something resembling a budding romance.

As you keep staring at the door while pressed up against the wall, beneath his words, his high and his strength, completely at his mercy, your thoughts are also protesting against being so emotionally fiercely oppressed. They are getting out of hand, to be honest, as the dislike of not wanting to be clingy, the desire to not be subdued, or the fear of yet another heartbreak are no longer enough to keep these rising hopes in check.

“Tell me,” he demands softly. Soft-skilled, his hand turns your face to him without your permission. He has no concept of consent, and gently, with doe eyes, he thefts your emotions.

“Sung—Chan,” you scorn in a moan as he holds your jaw in his hands and demands that you see…

“You made an effort to remember my name. I am confident you will remember my face as well.”

“You have a pretty forgettable face,” you lie, maintaining your larger-than-life persona. You. make. him. smile.

One of those smiles...

‘FUCK!’

Sungchan’s lashes flatter above you, like venom attempting to doom you, as he catches you ‘dream walking’ between his teeth and his thumb, wishing he could push it past your lips and touch your tongue.

“Will you be able to forget a face you ruined?” He eventually asks.

In pain, you furrow your brows. You are at a loss for what to say in response to the nasty compliment-turn question. It is all on you. You were the one who started it. You are such a speck in comparison to him, having concluded that he is extroverted in every way possible.

“Yes or no?” The more he demands, the deeper his voice becomes. “Answer me,” he says, lowering his head so that his nose brushes against yours. As you watch him formulate his question, his eyes close. “Will you be able to forget someone who intruded on your night in a very honest attempt to—to”

His other hand, which is gripping your waist, tightens. A real physical touch that threatens to melt your left side as you become unconscious of how much your legs rub against his that is between yours. The star details in your eye makeup could be mistaken for tears.

“Seriously,” he says against your lips, his confidence slightly backtracking. “Did I ruin your night?” Adding flaws to himself when he is perfect, “I have been messy and—”

You succumb to his lingering words, losing your voice and forgetting how to breathe, and the closer he comes to you and presses his body against yours, the more sensitive he becomes to the situation. The more he craves it, the more he overthinks, questioning whether he is doing everything correctly. The more he does not want to lose you, the stronger his possessive feelings become.

Obsessed with the idea of making you his even for a single night and oblivious to the idea of consent, he does not waste a second longer and brings his lips to your exposed neck, causing a new wave of warmth to spread out.

You feel your body quiver and break out in a cold sweat. His desperate, awfully warm lips awaken your moans, allowing him to revel in how helpless and breakable you have become this late into the night. And as a reward for his patience, he gets these tasty little audible treats.

“Sungchan,” you mutter in a complete filmic daze, hot all over and clutching his jacket and pulling him even closer to you. “We-we”

He groans into your neck, a whiny protest that caresses your already electrified skin, because he is too far gone, too shallow in his tender need for you, and looking into your eyes now would be too humiliating. All the while, he has to keep his ‘irresistible’ guy impersonation in check, right?

As a result, you are the one who uses force to get him to stop. You give him one last look before pressing your lips against his. You cannot think of anything else but having him smear your gloss all over your face. But before you can even feel his lips violently unite with yours, he pulls back. It is barley a peck.

So, now, you are not sure if his provocative, melancholy expression is meant to delude you even more or if he is actually thinking. But what this giant really does is count to ten before unleashing his thrust that has been building for some hours.

His big hands seize your face again, but this time he tugs on your bottom lip first, retaining it between his teeth and claiming you before moving on. You realize that even the finest alcohol you have ever tasted has never been this potent. The softest, smoothest, and lightest silk you have ever touched does not compare to his hands on your face.

Sungchan’s sweet scent, taste, and shameless sighs overwhelm all of your senses, culminating in you ghasping in his mouth. In his struggle for dominance, his tongue is selfish, and his hand lands on your waist again and starts to pick up the material, exposing your skin to his touch.

His hand smoothly glides across your bare skin before groping you so hard that you bite him back, giving in to your wild side.

“Ouch!” he hisses, furrowing his brows. He takes a step back and completely releases you.

With him doing this, you finally recognize the coldness of the night for what it is because it hits you all at once, and not literally in the sense that the room is cold, but you feel extreme coldness in the distance he just created. You are aware that you and he are still at the entrance and have made no progress, but you are more concerned that you will be unable to continue due to his most recent halt, which you caused. Everything appeared to be going well; your lips had finally paired and become the same, but you had to go and ruin that.

His hand drops and grips the handle. But only if you knew this was your last chance to let him go—the last time he gains enough control to restrain himself. He hopes this is the last time you think clearly before realizing that if he stays, he will be unable to leave this place without leaving you ‘scarred’ in some way.

The kiss’s spontaneity and rapidity caught you both off guard, blanking your thoughts and leaving your minds so empty that neither of you knows whether staying or leaving is more rational.

In response, Sungchan’s hand presses lightly on the handl—

An aching “Stay!” escapes your used lips as you lose control through a clenched fist.

“Why do you need me here?” he wonders.

“I don’t know! I suppose I want to remember this kiss, but it was so brief and happened so quickly. It surprised me.”

“I thought you said I had a forgettable face. So, what good is remembering our kiss?”

‘Mean’ you think to yourself. And what better than to offer him a silly stay? “I have a wonderful bottle of wine waiting to be opened,” you remark as you pick up the coat from the floor and hang it up. “Oh, and you have to meet my fish. One of them looks exactly like you.”

His soft roused pink lips curve into a smile as the corners of his eyes crinkle. Something shifts in you when he laughs. It is as if your heart is swimming in honey. You want to drink it.

“How can a fish suddenly resemble me?”

“See?” you say as you lead him inside. “You are curious, aren’t you?”

“If you accept that we just made out, then fine.”

You return his sarcasm with wide eyes, noticing him softly poking the inside of his cheek and pouting his lips. He is flirting with you a little more confidently now that he has been officially invited into the heart of your privacy, which is your home, and is no longer considered the intruder.

[00:14] In the living room sits the stoic aquarium with his twin fish. The tank emits a cozy neon magenta blue in the middle of the dark room, creating a familiar color atmosphere to the one earlier at the balcony.

As you two get closer, each of you takes a position on each side of the tank. Sungchan appears to be ecstatic about the fact that you were speaking the truth, that you were housing fish at home, and that you were not lying.

“You weren’t lying,” he says automatically, astounded by the several small creatures flapping their tails gracefully. Each one is unique and divergent. They go about their business, going through their insignificant daily loop. Some even resort to randomly breaking out of the loop by lightly tapping their mouths on the glass.

“Can you spot yourself?” You crack the joke over the glass wall.

He investigates the situation further before declaring, “They are kissing,” his finger pointing to two fish at the tank’s very bottom, partially hidden by the green seaweeds.

“Oh,” you say as you tap the glass to scare them away and get them to stop, “they are not ‘in love’ with each other. Actually, fish are the opposite. They are fighting. I am guessing you assumed one of them was the one who resembled you,” you say, tiptoeing to catch a better glimpse of his face over the tank.

He, on the other hand, is not troubled in the same way. He is tall and imposing. “It wasn’t me if they weren’t kissing... Do fish not kiss?”

“Fish may rub against each other or press their bodies together, but this is not kissing, whereas fish who touch their lips or lock in a passionate kiss are most likely sparring or engaged in battle. When this occurs, they are attempting to injure each other, which can cause severe damage. So, thank you for noticing. I might have to take action on this.”

“But why?”

“Because if you have fish that are engaging in this behavior, you must separate them as soon as possible before they injure or—The-the consequences can be fatal, okay?”

“A kiss that can kill?” he muses, his eyes brightening as he becomes fascinated by the matter.

You sense his intent, as if he had not delivered such a kiss a few minutes ago. Even though it was brief, it served as both bait and, most importantly, a promise. That is, it could have been much worse had he not broken it. You have no doubt that he withheld his lethal kiss from you.

“Ugh,” you sigh, pointing a finger lovingly at him to correct his misbehavior. “Don’t look fascinated, as this is bad for my fish.”

He grins at your petty, silly threat.

Casually, as the fish swim in unison, unaffected by their monotonous routine, his eyes begin to reflect the contents of the salty tank. He is both close and far. The light enhances his face’s magical mystery, and you notice another tiny mole at the edge of his upper lip as he opens his mouth in delight. It is as if a top secret has been revealed, and you appear to be the lucky recipient. So tiny, yet celestial. Something simple but meaningful. How come you did not notice it sooner?

Since he is always attracting you so calmly, you eventually come to the conclusion that Sungchan is a true meance. There is a slow-burning beauty about him—a beauty that destroys peace. Soft brown, like the coffee that inks the back of your throat and leaves you asking for more as your mind begins to crack. There is always some bait for you to take—some feature or trait of his that he is constantly working on in order to get you to long. His eyes, his pretty hands, and his towering physique. His broad shoulders, his side profile, and his absolutely stunning nose.

However, his tiny mole is now attracting your attention back to his lips… And the truth is, the last time you thought about his lips... Well, you got them! Which, once more, is something you can have if you wish it.

He reverberates deep inside your innermost thoughts. ‘What about this killing kiss?’ ‘What about it? Just wh—’ You wish to know!

To clear your mind, you choose to pose a question. “Do you know about the soulmate theory? People say that moles are where your lover kissed you the most in your past life. Which indicates that you have—”

“I kissed a lot,” he cuts in.

“You have had a lot of kisses,” you point out.

“Then, what is more repulsive to you: me being frequently kissed or me being a promiscuous kisser?”

“How can I be the judge? You must have done a lot of kissing. That is all there is to it.”

“Alright. But I am curious. How would you kiss me if we had to do it all over again? If we had to take things slowly?”

“Wh—why are you asking?”

“Because everything up to this point has felt like a high that has caused me to act on impulse. But now that I am standing across from you, this calm and comfortable essence, the soothing sounds of this water tank... You. All of this balancing act of our energies seems to be helping to calm down all of that rush. I want to hold your hand and I want you to think I am cute.”

“Right!” you chuckle at him. “What exactly do you mean, Sungchan? Your eyes tell a very distinct—y-your your smile—” You pause for a moment to examine his sincerity, and you discover no flaws in his truth. “Wait, you ARE serious.”

Different shades of the same cyan and magenta spread across his face, each time so new yet so familiar. He rubs his chin, then runs his hand through his hair, ruffling it. “I am.”

The sweet, calming vibrations that he seems to be floating on top of blend with sensual and suggestive ones in a way that is beyond comprehension. How is it possible for someone to be both extremes at once? Sincerely, there is not a comb in the world that could possibly untangle your knotted feelings at this moment. You have had no idea how terribly screwed you are until this point.

Hence, your gaze returns to the fish, and you can tell by the sudden shift in the air that he is about to say something you wish he hadn’t. You make every effort to get him to stop. “But—”

“Look,” he wins over you; “your ability to completely eliminate my desire to socialize with anyone at a party in favor of creating tunnel vision speaks for itself.”

He takes a moment to think of what else to say. “And-And we haven’t even gotten to the laughs and the banter, the bad sarcasm, the conversations, or the warmest embrace... The next-day breakfast that culminates in a ridiculously serious spectacle of coffee making, which I thoroughly enjoy from the best seat in your kitchen while you wear my t-shirt, which fits you far better,”

“Sungch—”

“But that’s THE future. So, then, of course, if I am just a one time guy, I am not kidding when I ask what kind of kiss you want. If you are going to remember or take something from this night, it might as well be something worthwhile.”

At least you should not be held accountable for falling in love because Sungchan is beautiful with his carefully chosen words. And as the chemistry reaches its peak, you realize you can no longer resist it. You tiptoe a little more to get a better look at him without having to look through the glass. His eyes pierce you with a clarity you have not seen before, and you can feel him pulling you through the glass and water like a magnet.

You cannot put it into words, but something is there. A million thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams are exchanged without the use of a single word. You let the magnetism take over.

And so he smiles as you drown, or is that his coping mechanism for drowning into you as well?

Really, is there a length of time at which his smile should stop being your favorite sight?

Overcoming the rather tiresome governance of fear, you decide to speak in favor of your ‘lust-ings’, despite the fact that you never intended to spend the night with a guy, let alone invite and bring one home.

“If I had to imagine another kiss, it would be one that happened on the spur of the mome—”

In actuality, everything that has happened so far has happened spontaneously. Startled, he cutely leans over the glass tank, gripping the top edge with both hands. “Again!?”

“It seems to suit your personality, and for what it is worth, I think I like it. A kiss where we banter around because I cannot read your cues or antics, which leads to you being unable to take my sarcastic criticism, so you choose to silence me.”

“Is that how you define ‘cute’?”

Sweetly, you continue to enrage him. “You can’t even handle it right now, can you?”

Sungchan squints, attempting to determine if the patterns of the ‘kiss has already started’ are already there. He lets go of the tank’s glass, crosses his arms, and pouts some more before starting to pull his jacket down, giving the impression of, ‘Sure, it is on... And please, do proceed!’

Yet, refusing to take it off completely, his jacket dangles halfway down his arms. His collarbones and tee collar are in a power struggle. Numerous veins swarm his arms and biceps, screaming for your attention.

Again, something you have seen before, but is that supposed to make it easier for you to process? And how should you focus on everything at all, appropriately? And what should you do in response when he eventually decides to purposefully bite his lip in slow motion? His sheer beauty alone is giving you headaches, not to mention all of these other details.

To turn the conversation back on track, you give him a soft smile and continue to elaborate on what, in your opinion, is the ideal kiss.

“You want to stop me from talking because I step on so many of your nerves, and there is not much else you can do but kiss me. You want so bad to grab me and shake me, but all you manage to do is squeeze my face gently between your palms…” You make a small pause before you continue. “The seconds get progressively slower in microseconds as we stare at one another. I successfully count three of your moles while you complete a ten-count. With that, your excitement to punish me dies down. A new need emerges.”

“I imagine a kiss where you don’t even realize how tender your lips are pressed against mine. But then, I bet you don’t even realize how soft your lips are.” A unique sensuality is added to your voice as it becomes increasingly lower pitched while you speak. “Or-r are aware of the way the corners of your eyes crinkle when you shut them. It is just ughh—ANYWAY, a kiss where your annoyingly long eyelashes, of which I am very jealous, tickle my cheekbones, and my lipgloss leaves sparkles on your nose. You take hold of my hands and slowly raise me up, letting me step on your toes and offering one of those smiles that you have already given me… while you are ignorant of all these tiny, lovely things about yourself, Sungchan. Is that cute enough for you?”

Your last words cause him to tilt his head back slightly, look up at the ceiling, and take a deep breath. “You are safe as long as this wall of glass keeps us separate. But nothing about anything, not even how I will treat you if you decide to move, is guaranteed. I just know that I won’t be able to stop myself.”

“Is that a threat?” You raise a brow.

“Assume anything you like,” he says indifferently. “It can be a threat if that is what you want it to be.”

“Hmph,” you razz him some more, “so you are going back to being the tough guy?” as you take the initial step away from the aquarium. “Might I suggest that ‘you do not seem like the type’? Did you forget, or what?”

“You don’t know me,” he at last asserts, embracing your challenge and making a step too.

As soon as there is nothing separating you two, dopamine levels peak.

“You do it so effortlessly, I bet.”

Sunghcan gives his lips a quick lick. “You have seen and felt it.”

You answer truthfully, “I have.”

With a notorious smile that matches his innermost feelings, he snatches you without warning and begins to drag you over the couch, which is located in a more central area of the room. His stature is so great that he carries you with your feet elevated, and your ‘let me down’ whine is met with his ‘UH HUH, you are going to have to tell me why you have invited me.’

When he finally gets you both there, he exhales and collapses back onto the couch, holding you in his arms. You are slightly leaning on him with your knees around his waist.

Quickly adjusting to the seat, Sungchan presents an offensive sight with his head resting on the couch. You are in a situation where you would like to know how to proceed, where to look, or what else to say, but all of those things have been done before. The only thing left to do is to give yourself entirely to him.

Sungchan goes right to work without much delay. His fingers gently dip on both sides of your waist before he applies more pressure.

There is a noticeable tremble in your voice. “W-what are y-you doing?” You manage to ask despite your heart thumping frantically in your throat and feeling like it is going to choke you from his intimidating appearance and the pressure of his hands on your ribs.

“Act my part?” He says this with such intensity that he cleverly slips one hand past your waist and runs along your backbone, taking advantage of some of the exposed skin on your back.

Feeling tense, your hands start to shake, and you are not sure where to put them other than where his head rests—at the back of the couch. Well, that seems like a safe choice, duh. Or should you touch him back in return? Should—

You truly are clueless, yet all your thoughts can be seen.

So, as you hover over him and look into his eyes, the last thing you hear is his seductive, whispery ‘Come,’ which invites you to close the distance and gives you total control over how to initiate this kiss. His hands press your body against his, and his mysterious, deep tone easily compels you.

As the heat of the moment engulfs you both, nobody says anything. It is what you two—especially him—had been looking forward to for hours. An earlier thought that was driving him crazy was picturing you exactly as you are in his arms right now, only to find that you are even better—even beautiful—and that your skin is hotter and softer than he had fantasized.

He suffers from the same consequences of ‘the closeness’ as you do. You can feel his heart hammering against his chest, trying to break free. His steady lashes are growing more disturbed, and his breathing is labored and drawn out. And when your warm lips finally touch his, his brain shuts down completely. Maybe he is just not used to things going slowly. You are killing him subtly now by doing that.

Actually, this whole night was just a slow, steady death. You can taste the sweetness in him even in his mouth, so you can be assured that even though he can be quick at times, there is an unquestionable sweetness to him. The sweetness that translates from the smile he lets out while kissing you.

Of course, he is skilled at this! He slowly extends his tongue after letting his hums seep into you and the kiss grows deeper.

The sound of the kiss developing into a passionate makeout accentuates the hair at the back of your head. You are completely absorbed by him, lost. And the moment you hear his first pant in your mouth, you scoop his face into your hands. He presses harder against your back as your hands burn from the heat of his cheeks.

You moan, hot yet weak and defenseless, ‘Sung—” polonged “chan,’ meaning to say something but never managing to.

“Mhmm-” As he fills your mouth with his tongue and spreads it farther in an attempt to find more space, the tender kiss seems to turn into something bold and invasive. It quickly descends into sloppy, steamy, wet kissing. A kiss that is actually so strong that it does not matter if you drool or think it is inappropriate.

He holds your waist with one arm while pressing you down onto him, applying pressure to your nape. His jeans quickly became unbearable to be in due to the slight movement causing friction.

Then he begins kissing your jaw. Further down, the dampness of his breath clings to your throat, making you lose consciousness. If it was just his lips the first time, now there are his tongue and teeth as well. He tampers with the strap of the top with his fingers before sliding it down your shoulder. His impatience is evident as his kisses travel down your chest. You are helpless to stop him from becoming needy in his attempts to torture you; all you can do is throw back your head and hope he stays that way the entire night.

In the moment’s trance, he lays you down and hovers over you in a fit of craving. The couch starts to screech because his weight and the pressure he puts on it are too much for it.

It is at this point that you realize how much you enjoy being placed in a vulnerable situation where you cannot think about leaving because of his arms. The more you watch him, the more attracted he becomes to you, because he can see your thought in the way you look at him. Both of you and him get turned on by it. You love how openly and compulsively possessive he is.

And… should you love it?

Just looking at him on top of everything makes you feel fucking aroused. Thoughts of how perverse his lip mole is are all over your head. His hair gets in the way of his dazed eyes, whose brown never stops being drenched in the aquarium’s neon blue.

If the neon fades from him, will everything end?

Feeling a bit annoyed by the question that keeps coming to mind, you find yourself embracing his torso and seeking the comfort of his weight on top of you, biting his shoulder in the process. His writhing gasps are to die for as your teeth and fingernails dig into his white shirt.

Your silent demands are met with Sungchan’s insistence that you look at him. Not to mention that it becomes harder to do that. He is not letting you look anywhere but at him, as his fingers start to lift your top and you feel them drawing damaging figures beneath your belly button, creating such an intensely carnal, gut-wrenching moment as your desires intensify. And there is this throbbing, hot, and silky feeling to your skin, which makes him want to torment you until you lose any control.

To do that, he grabs a tender spot on your thigh to further expose you and carve out more space for himself.

As far as clothes go, for a moment, you wish there was nothing at all between you and him. And as you shut your eyes to the idea, Sungchan plants a kiss under your ear, leaving a trail of smiles across your cheek. Oh, how well he reads you. Have faith—he shares your desire.

You too have, unconsciously, contributed to his shirt being half-rid. Squares make up most of his belly, and they end at the bottom of his low-rise jeans. Your fingers smuggle themselves against his most sensitive skin, just beneath the hem of his jeans.

His lips open up, and you try to learn the precise way he hurts by watching and absorbing every move he makes while his eyebrows tighten at your touch. If you push your hand a little further, what should you expect?

He is fiercely competitive, so he rolls his hips into you after becoming enthralled with your fleeting, tender touches.

You cover your eyes in embarrassment at this gesture, but his voice is already there, right in your ear. “Open your eyes.”

When you shake your head silently, refusing to give in, he grabs your hands and pins them over your head.

“Open up,” he insists. A honey-like voice turned sour. Sungchan is cruel and hard, with the strangest soft skin, a contradictory scent, and the ability to practically lick your face with his words—a lesson that teaches you to be both tough and tender as well. As a result, you gently release the held fear. Your eyes allow him to be with you without you having to say it out loud.

And although he is too shy to let it on or say it, the subsequent crushing of his hips into you speaks of ‘That is right, baby…’ The following one of ‘Nice and slow,’ and the one right after of ‘I’ll go again... and again... and—’

“Please, don’t—” you cry out.

His lips are blazing and red is blooming all over his cheeks, but still, Sungchan resists giving in to his shyness. As an alternative, he tightens his hold on your wrists. “Mhmm. Need words.”

“D-don’t—don’t let this end; it’s-it is just too fucking good.”

“Yeah?” He smiles, releasing your wrists, recognizing that he is actually far too touch-deprived and needs your hands on every part of his body. “You know it is true,” he whispers, stroking your lips with his thumb before your frustration overcomes you and you take in his colossal index and middle fingers in your mouth.

Yeah, you know it is true… You introduce them to your teeth and tongue before you begin to suck.

And is he really expected to be unaffected by that? When you devour him like that? He hurts for you to suck it so much that he is now in raw pain. No succulent sip should be missed. The taste must be unimaginable in many ways.

His mouth opens with a swear word. “As soon as I saw you, I knew you would find this irresistible.”

As you never really anticipated it this far, you are not sure if you feel the same. But here he is, and here you are, acting as the situation demands, so maybe he is right. Your reciprocal relationship is akin to an electric shockwave, meeting both your needs and your own desires in equal measure. The perfect balance... found in a stranger at a party…

Sungchan decides to reach your vulnerable center, soothing you with deep, heavy, lewd kisses. You have no idea what he needs or wants or if his body is adapting to yours, but you can bet that the ‘Fuck’ he sucks into your lips is real.

“Please,” you beg, raising your hands, only to have him slam them down once more while giving you a serious look as if you might have done him more harm than good. But in reality, you are so fragile under him that you steal his heart. Tears of sweat form at his temple, and you manage to free a hand to give him long, leisurely strokes as you brush his hair out of his eyes.

He says something incoherently like ‘sorry,’ leaning in to plant another kiss while entwining his palms with yours.

What is he sorry for?

Nothing about his behavior, not even this kiss, matches his hard, deep, grinding hips. The night’s apex remains unaffected, even though the jeans denim is impenetrable. You want to burst at the way he begins to ease up on you, circling back and forth, momentum building, building, holding your fingers intertwined while his other hand rests on your waist to keep you still while he slows down, which intensifies the pain you are experiencing.

Eventually, he looks down at you and stops whatever he is doing, breathing heavily as though he is just finished a mile. You both suffer from this entire action. Needs and thirst are put on hold by him. At last, he gathers his courage to say something, gazing at you through the same wounded eyes that were there when your attention strayed from his way earlier. “I have something to tell you.”

You reassure him, sensing a weight in his fast blinks, “You don’t have to say it.” He is even quicker to lean his cheek into your palm when you tickle under his chin to soothe him. The touchy-feely, seeking affection he displays pushes you to emphasize what you mean more. “It’s the way you look at me.”

“Isn’t it silly?” He muses with glassy brown eyes that are blown bigger than anyone’s ability to frighten him. “Love at first sight is not something I believe in. No one should, in my opinion.”

“Then, what makes you feel the need to tell me something?”

“I—” His speech falters as he struggles to form a complete sentence before sighing and collapsing next to you onto the overly small sofa.

“Don’t,” you say while squeezing yourself smaller to make more room for him. “Then don’t. You don’t have to say anything.”

“But I am not ready to end this evening,” he fusses, using his finger to tap both of your chests to show how close you two are, “which means I also don’t want what is going on in here to end.”

“I know,” you say with a smile as you take his hand in yours, study it, and then walk the inward lines as though determining whether the two of you have what it takes.

He watches you as you watch his hand; if there is anything he wants to hold onto forever, it is this. There is a certain cruciality to the moment. Despite not knowing if you two are a match, you both want this to continue. And so you say, "Nor do I."

“Seriously?” he asks, raising himself up on one elbow with a shocked expression.

You continue to feel and appreciate his hand, ignoring his question. The beauty of his hands is also astounding. “Would you say this is cute?” You mention his earlier observations about cuteness.

“You remembered.”

“I want to hold your hand and I want you to think I am cute.” You quote him, then tap twice on his nose. “Of course I remember, silly, but it is me holding your hand, not the opposite.”

With his lips heavily affected by all the heavy makeout, Sungchan pouts the biggest pout imaginable.

You draw parallels and say, “I swear, you look like my fish.”

He asks through his giggles, “Who kisses to kill?”

“Right…”

“And…” he is curious, “did it work?”

You sigh mockingly to mimic exhaustion. “A lot of death kisses, yes.”

His heavy arm presses your waist against his body while he tucks his head into your neck in response, seeking to stay.

For the rest of the night, Sunghcahn clings to you, making sure you realize that no one else can touch you or make you feel the way you do right now. Perhaps this is his greed getting the better of him when he realizes that you could have ended up this way with anyone at the party and that, should things change and you decide differently, you could be this way with someone else as early as next week.

His stomach turns at the thought. Your presence tonight brought to light a more beautiful side to the things that had seemed perfect before, completely changing his life. It seems he has a great deal left to accomplish and a lot more to prove… as an intruder.

Though as for tonight, it is as if two entirely distinct universes or two distinct parallel lines that had never intersected finally made contact with one another. You two are so in sync—the type of people sensitive to distance.

[An indefinite persistent dream.]

The best thing he could hope to hear next is, “Mark me yours.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

#jung sungchan #sungchan #riize #sungchan x reader #sungchan x yn #sungchan fanfic #sungchan oneshot #riize fanfic #riize scenarios #riize x reader #riize x y/n #riize smut #riize you #riize fic #sungchan smut #sungchan imagines #sungchan x you #jung sungchan fanfic #riize fluff

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godbirdart · 5 months

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Do you have any specific process to get ideas for your backgrounds in your character pinup drawings how do you manage to make them all so awesome and cool

thank you so much! the way I like to tackle these is to think of them as if they're the character's splash art in a gacha game while also taking elements and rules from magazine covers.

now, I use the term "gacha game splash art" kinda loosely here, as that kind of art often depicts contained scenes or flourishes of elemental power. what I mainly focus on is how splash art showcases the character's personality within that contained art piece or scene.

I want everything in the piece I draw to reflect and correlate to the character itself. any accessories, text and elements are always taken into consideration. for this i'll often look closer to the character, their toyhouse page / bio, or sometimes even the client themselves if i'm familiar with them or have worked with them repeatedly before.

for example, archie here is an arcanine. I've utilized this for the background header, where you'll see arcanine's in-game category, pokedex number, type, body shape icon, as well as one of its abilities: flash fire. there's also a fire type icon.

another example is afol's piece. the client had specific ideas in mind for this art - particularly in the emotion and expression the art is meant to portray. I really wanted to incorporate this quote from afol's toyhouse profile as I felt it added to that raw, conflicted emotion the client was after.

as afol is a musician and a sky god, I also wanted to highlight it by adding "GODOFSKY - The Sky God's Solo Suite" as an artist / song title signature that again could tie into that emotional conflict.

the magazine aesthetic is something sort-of new to these pieces, with afol's piece having more of that distinct cover vibe than earlier ones; however I've been taking notes from magazine covers from the start.

I always have to make sure text and accents don't take away from the character, or cover them up or clutter the canvas too much. you'll see this a lot on magazines, how the title is always the largest text with everything else being much smaller or thinner. i follow similar composition rules when drawing. keep the model as the focus, and add things around them as needed to break up negative space and balance out the art. in my portraits, the character's name is always the largest text.

beyond these conscious choices - i dunno! my clients always come to me with fantastic prompts that mesh well with what I vibe with artistically.

i love being handed a few prompts and told to run free with them, and i love when clients come to me looking for a specific aesthetic or emotional piece. i absolutely adore drawin smug and confidently villainous gremlins, but some of my all-time favourite pieces to draw are the ones with a lot of raw emotion in em.

honestly i think a lot of the coolness comes down to my clients just havin cool characters to begin with lmao

#long post #wall of text

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lalalala514 · 5 months

Text

Yandere Winx Club

Palladium ⇢ Sky ⇢ Helia

(Not edited)

Yandere Palladium trying to impress you with his herbal knowledge and magic. Growing plants out of the palm of his hand and giving them to you, waiting for something I’m return.

Yandere Palladium who is always touching you. When out in public he simply puts his hand on your back or shoulder while walking, but when you are together in private he gets bolder. Hugging. Cuddling. A kiss here and there. Or simply holding you. However, he soon becomes more possessive confident out in public too. Now holding your hand 24/7, hugging more, and instead of having his hand on your back/shoulder it is now around you waist, holding you even closer than before. But it’s okay, because you love it as much as he dose. Right?

Yandere Sky who always keeps you on your toes with his unpredictable behavior. On good days he’s confident in the relationship and in a good mood. Holding you gently and giving light kisses (often on your cheek, mouth, top of your head and temple when out in public, but when alone with you it’s also on the neck). Smiling, joking and staring at you with stars in his eyes. (Be careful though, his good mood can quickly disappear if he gets jealous.) But on bad days he will be breathing down your neck. A harsh grip on your hand or waist keeping you in place next to him, making sure you can’t leave him. Glaring at anyone who is too close to you or looking at you for “to long”. Questioning you like there is no tomorrow, even repeating or slightly changing questions in between to make sure you aren’t lying and telling him the truth. If you are out in public and he goes from having a good mood to bad he will quickly drag you home/to his dorm without saying anything, or while complaining and talking about what- or whoever made him feel like that.

Yandere Helia who at the beginning of his growing obsession knows his feelings are wrong and does his best to ignore them. He completely ignores you and everyone else for a few days, observing you and trying to figure out why he feels like this, and why you. But the more he thinks and keeps himself away from you, the stronger his emotions grow. And after a few days he can’t do it anymore. He has to be around you. See you. Talk to you.

Yandere Helia who constantly draws you, or makes some sort of artwork inspired by you. Picking flowers when he’s outside for you. And while being with you trying to be close to you. He’s not big on PDA, but will hold your hand or place it on your back to lead you quite often. Some hugs and kisses to the forehead on special occasions. Even though he doesn’t do PDA, he’s always within an arms reach next to you (90% of the time behind you).

#yandere x reader #yandere x darling #darling reader #yandere #winx club #winx sky #winx helia #winx palladium #yandere winx club x reader #x reader #winx x reader

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soraontop · 5 months

Text

SORA of ENHYPEN 𓊆ྀི❤︎𓊇ྀི

STAGE NAME sora (소라)

BIRTH NAME jung sora (정소라)

POSITION - *

BIRTHDAY october 31st, 2003

ZODIAC SIGN scorpio

CHINESE ZODIAC goat

HEIGHT 162cm (5’3”)

WEIGHT 44kg (99lbs)

BLOOD TYPE a

MBTI ENTP

NATIONALITY korean

REPRESENTATIVE EMOJI 🐯

MIC. COLOR pink

SORA FACTS

She is from Ilsan, South Korea.

She is the oldest child of four, and has three younger brothers. (2009, 2014, 2018)

Training Period: 3 years, 2 months/2015–2018 (Cre.Ker Ent) 1 year, 3 months/2019–2020 (BigHit Ent.)

She was in I.O.I previously and placed 2nd in Produce 101 Season 1 with 782,883 votes.

She ranked 2nd in the final episode of I-LAND with 1,362,913 votes.

She is the current MC for Inkigayo with Yeonjun and Woonhak. (July 2023)

She is a former Cre.Ker and BigHit Entertainments trainee and knows The Boyz well from training with them.

She played Jungkook’s partner in ‘Love Yourself’ highlight reel.

Byeolies is Sora’s fandom name created by fans.

Education: Chadwick International School

Sora speaks Korean and English fluently. She understands Japanese but isn’t confident in speaking it.

Her English name is Lucy. She chose it because she liked the song Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.

Her favorite colors are lavender and coral.

She was on a swim team when she was younger.

She auditioned as a joke in 2015.

She has her own room in ENHYPEN’s dorm.

She has a Chihuahua named Miso.

She played Jung Somi in The Man From Nowhere in 2010, the daughter of Won Bin’s character in the movie who was kidnapped. She won Best New Actress at the 2010 Korean Film Awards for her role.

She also played Do Kyunghee, Cha Eunwoo’s character’s sister, in My Gangnam Beauty in 2018.

She is childhood friends with RIIZE’s Seunghan. (WeVerse 2023.09.8)

Specialty: Vocal and dance

Hobbies: Making friends, drawing, taking care of others

Charming Point: Her eyes, lips and cheeks

Her nickname(s) are Korea’s Golden Girl, Doll, ‘Malgeumi’ (bright), Da Vinci, Mermaid, ‘Nation’s Girl Next Door’, ‘Nation’s Little Sister’, Star.

Likes: Jay, Sunoo, swimming, her dog, makeup

Dislikes: Waking up, being taken care of, pineapple pizza, Mint Choco

Motto: Expect nothing.

* Position is currently being inferred.

inspired by @enmi-land & @laladellakang <3

poly ot7 enhypen fic with female 8th member, don’t like don’t read !!!

#˖ ࣪ . ࿐ ♡ ˚ . sora ⌗ profile #enhypen #enhypen 8th member #enhypen female addition #enhypen addition #kpop female oc #kpop female addition #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #enhypen fluff #enhypen reactions #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #bts female addition #txt female addition #txt 6th member #le sserafim 6th member #stray kids 9th member #ateez 9th member

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stellamancer · 9 months

Text

hey lonely stranger (won't you meet my eye?) — extra scene

note: this is less an extra scene and the other side of part of a scene. i was going to put it in parenthesis like that one bit in lip smackless, but didn't pan out. also thanks to @/namodawrites for helping me double check gooj characterization since my regular beta was playing bg3 LMAO.

wc: 663

Satoru is used to your denial. When you're with him, it's part of who you are— ingrained into your soul, hard-written in your body like a cursed technique. He finds that he doesn't mind all that much. It's kind of entertaining, really, especially when he's realized how much you are at odds with yourself when you reject him.

You constantly deny him and yet you are more aware of him than you are of anyone else.

It's honestly hilarious.

So, the relief that fills his lungs when you say those three words, when you air your denial, albeit not for him for once, surprises him a little. Satoru can say, with the utmost confidence that there was absolutely no way that you were into that guy, even if he made you genuinely laugh, even if he was the first person you sought out when you got the chance. He only asked you again to give you the chance to make peace with the truth.

Besides, if you're going to be into anyone then it would have to be—

You're not looking at him. Your gaze is turned away from him, distant and unfocused. It's like your thoughts are wandering the night sky, drifting into the cosmos. You let the words out but are you thinking about it still? A happy, normal love? He thinks you would know better than to think you can find it lurking among the stars.

Not when you can find it here on earth.

With him.

You're not looking at him, but Satoru wants you to. He wants you to look at him. Not at the sky, not at the stars, not at some stranger who doesn't have a place in your present, let alone your future.

At him.

Satoru knows you would hate it if you knew, if you realized, but it is so easy to get your attention, to draw in your gaze. All he has to do is say the right thing (or maybe it'd be more appropriate to call it the wrong thing) and your eyes will be on him in an instant, your gaze fiery and intense.

"You know," he says, amused at the thought of the expression you're going to make. "Even though I was obviously the hottest person in the room, you looked pretty good yourself."

It's not a lie. It's clear that you went all out for this event, taking great care in making sure you looked your best— dressed in clothes much nicer than anything he's seen you work in. Satoru's even willing to bet you tried your damndest to actually get a full night's rest.

His words work like a charm and you whip your head to face him. The look on your face is interesting; dazed, amazed. He's not familiar with this expression of yours and he leans in to get a better look. Without thinking about it, he reaches for your cheek, his fingers stopping short of your skin. For a split second, your eyes flit toward his hand, clearly aware of how close he is to touching you. Satoru's eyes trail down to your lips and he wonders if you've been using the lip balm he gave you. It looks like you have, with how soft and plush your lips look, but he should make sure— he wants to make sure.

It's then your denial, your rejection comes out in full force. You take a step back and next thing Satoru knows you're falling into the water.

Huh. He thought for sure this time you would have accepted a kiss from him.

It's okay, he thinks, it's only a matter of time. Besides, the view of you right now, stunned and almost mortified is a worthwhile trade.

It's actually hilarious.

He starts laughing and you give him your usual scowl, splashing at him in retaliation. He doesn't mind, he'll let you have that much because one day, one day soon he'll get that kiss from you.

#gojo x reader #gojo x you #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #jjk x reader #gojo x y/n #gojo satoru x y/n #nikuniku fics #i literally just wanted to write the 'you're not looking at him. gojo wants you to look at him' bit #it got longer than intended #also grandma over here just discovered the make small text button omg #also gojo pov aaaaa it's hard that one wip i have that is from his pov is gonna be hell LMAO #infinite loop!verse

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ghoul-bonez · 1 year

Text

~He’s The Best~

(Platonic! Sully Family x Fem! Family Member! Reader)

Summary: After getting out of a toxic relationship you have found love, true love.

Word count: 1.9k

Author’s note: (REPOSTED because I’m dumb and forgot tags and this flopped) @a-eddie asked He’s No Good part 2? Sooooooo Pt 2 of He’s No Good, hope y’all enjoy!

Warnings: Mentions of past toxic relationship

~He’s No Good (Part 1)~

~Masterlist~

He’s The Best

You were always strong and independent. You were an unbeatable fighter, in spirit and in physical strength. You carried yourself with an air of confidence around you, more so than most people had seen before. Your confidence was understandable to most, you seemed unbreakable, perfect.

You were a skilled hunter, and an even more skilled strategist. One of your favorite past times was helping your father plan attacks on the Sky People, and he would gladly take your help in any way.

Your dad would agree with anyone who accused him of passing on his stubborn genetics into you, but you also got your natural leadership from him.

From your mother you got her strength, in heart and muscle. She also bestowed you the gift of a great connection to the land and a natural awareness of your surroundings.

On the flip side you were wild and chaotic. You caused chaos everywhere you went, even unconsciously. Your confidence wasn’t always a good thing when you were so confident nothing could touch you. You enjoyed causing trouble on purpose, pranking people with Lo’ak and sneaking out at eclipse with your friends. The unknown chaos was worse though because instead of you meaning to cause it, it came as if there was an energy drawing it towards you.

You were untameable to most, but there were certain people who calmed the raging whirlwind of chaos that swirled within you.

One of those people was your younger sister, Kiri.

As you sat next to Kiri you felt calm, focusing your energy into weaving yourself a new top. Nothing needed to be said between the two of you, and you smiled as you looked over to her, watching her fingers move skillfully as she made Tuk a new bracelet.

Green, blue, and purple beads laid out in front of you and Kiri, you using what you needed of them to make your top, and Kiri using the leftovers to make Tuk’s bracelet and other small trinkets.

The beads reminded you of the forest which gave you the inspiration for your top, looking like winding roots of a tree as it draped across your shoulders and laid low against your chest.

It was inspired by the forest that had brought you new love, and your fingers paused in their weaving as you looked around, unconsciously looking for him, “Kiri I’ve met someone new…”

You didn’t look at her, instead still searching, but heard her hum, “I know.”

Shock was written on your face, and your head shot towards her to find her smiling at you, “What? How?”

“Eywa,” was a simple answer, of course she had heard from the Great Mother, “and anyone would be a fool to not notice your glances at Aluk’un.”

You hadn’t taken into account Kiri’s connection with Eywa, but her being able to tell without the Great Mother was still surprising, you thought you were hiding it well, “Do you think anyone else knows?”

Kiri giggled, like it was a stupid question, “Luckily for you our brothers are fools. Tuk approves of him though,” she nudged your side, “and I made her promise to not tell anyone.”

You placed down your top, putting your hands over your face to hide your embarrassment, “I don’t even think I want to know what our parents are thinking… Oh Eywa, dad.”

Kiri just shrugged, but was still smiling, “I guess you’ll have to get past that when you get there.”

Suddenly you felt Kiri stiffen next to you and an uncomfortable silence settled where comfortable conversation had filled your ears. You looked up and a frown settled onto your face, quickly overtaken by anger.

“What do you want?” You asked, making yourself sound as hostile as possible.

“I came to say I’m sorry…” Zepii spoke quietly, calmly.

You weren’t soft spoken or calm though, you were a spitfire, “You’ve tried to say sorry many times since I left your sorry ass. I don’t want to hear it.” You quickly tied off where you were beading your top and placed it aside, “I’m sorry Kiri, I have to go. Will you please take these home for me?” you pointed to your top and the beads laying around.

“Of course, (Y/n).” She gave you a reassuring hug, knowing you were both very uncomfortable, “And have a good time.” She winked at you. Apparently she knew where you were going. Who you were going to see.

Zepii had been attempting to apologize and get you back since the last woman he was trying to court, after you, left him. She had come to you, knowing your past with him, and you had reassured her she had made the right decision. Apparently he had been treating her just as he had been treating you.

You were making your way towards the forest, but as you stormed away from Zepii you saw him a few huts away, heading directly for him. You knew if Zepii found you he wouldn’t mess with him as he could easily outsmart and fight him.

Kiri, and the rest of your family, may help the whirlwind that resides within you subside, but Aluk’un helped in another way.

With your family it was a soft unspoken love that was held amongst you that helped calm you. You knew no matter what they would love you always and forever, and nobody had to say anything. It was simple with them.

With Aluk’un it was outspoken love. He took every chance to tell you how special you were. It was a more complex love with him, both platonic and romantic. He was your best friend, but also your lover. You wished to spend the rest of your life with him, but not in the same way as you did with your family.

Aluk’un was different from Zepii in many ways. He let you have independence, he allowed you to be your unbridled chaotic self. When you would discuss war plans with your father he would be right by your side, pointing out flaws or agreeing when you would put out a plan.

He didn’t try to tame you.

Much like you he was wild and chased the rush of adrenaline.

A rush of adrenaline was something you needed right now, and Aluk’un could tell that as he laid his eyes on you, “Hey, yawne. Do you want to play a game?” He was giving you an outlet for your negative energy, an option for something fun.

You couldn’t help as the hatred that had been on your face melted off as he spoke to you, “I would love to.” You sighed, “What do you have in mind?”

“I am going to chase and you are going to…” he started circling you, “Run!” he shouted before lunging to grab at you, and you dodged pretty easily.

You took off running quickly after, sprinting away at top speed. Aluk’un was close behind you, but was far enough behind that he couldn't grab you. He was hot on your tail though, easily keeping up.

You dodged and weaved through trees, and once you couldn’t hear his footsteps behind you anymore you came to a stop, catching your breath. You knew he was somewhere near, you knew he was watching you.

You should feel scared, unnerved, being hunted like this. You felt like prey being watched by a predator, like you should still be running. You knew you should be running, but in some ways you wanted to be caught, you knew Aluk’un wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, and your capture would become a welcome embrace from him.

You zoned into your surroundings, your ears twitching in every direction that any slight noise came from, and your tail swished behind you as you focused on trying to locate Aluk’un.

Then you heard footsteps again, behind you this time, but before you could take off again strong arms wrapped around your waist, lifting you off the ground and spinning you around.

You laughed loudly, freely, “You win, I guess.”

Aluk’un hummed, “Mhm,” then he put you down and you turned to him. He had his hands behind his back, no doubt holding something, “I have something for you.”

You weren’t surprised, he gave you things all the time, but felt yourself melting at his sweet gesture. Your brain seemed to be melting whenever you were around him, but you managed to mutter out, “What is it?”

He held it out to you, a beautiful necklace. It was a choker, a thick band of leather with an intricate carved piece of wood centered in the middle. It was more beautiful than anything you had seen before, and you could feel love oozing from it.

Aluk’un smiled sheepishly, “I noticed you still wear the necklace Zepii made you, so I thought I would make you one myself.”

You couldn’t help it as you smiled wider, “It’s beautiful! Thank you.” you paused momentarily, thinking, would it be too intimate to ask him to put it on you? You decided it wasn’t, “Will you put it on me?”

“Of course, yawne.” He smiled, holding it out.

You turned around and he placed it around your neck, tying it carefully to make sure it wasn’t too tight, but laid where it was supposed to. You placed your hand over it, tracing your fingers over the wood pattern, feeling how smooth he had gotten it.

“Thank you, again.” You looked anywhere from him, feeling overwhelmed by the love. It was starting to get dark outside now, “We should be getting home, it's getting dark…” you suggested.

He frowned, and you felt your heart squeeze, but he spoke with boldness, “No, please stay with me. Let’s stargaze.”

You sighed, you would always say yes to him, you could never say no, “Okay.”

So you laid down, Aluk’un by your side. He scooted closer to you, and you took that as an invitation to touch him, laying your head on his chest, looking up to the sky. Now it was dark, the calmness of night time blanketed over you and the land around you.

Everyone knew you were an alien, because your father was one, but Aluk’un didn’t seem to care, and so you shared, “My dad came from a star. That one.” You pointed to where Earth sat in the sky.

You felt Aluk’un’s chest rumble as he hummed, “I know lots about the stars, but nothing about that one.”

You chuckled, “Good, it’s where the Sky People are from.”

He didn’t speak more, instead simply existing with you. You looked up, looking at him and truly seeing him for the first time.

His aysnatanhì shone as brightly as the ones in the sky, and you wondered if you shined that bright. You felt that bright, like a light was bursting from within you. You felt warm and happy. You felt more peaceful than ever before, like the chaos inside you was subsiding, although only for a short amount of time.

He’s the best. Aluk’un was the best. Instead of dimming your light he glowed right by you, fed your fire and fanned your flame. He allowed you to shine and basked in the light you gave off.

He allowed you the freedom you needed and when you spread your wings and took off he didn’t hold you back. He didn’t try to tame you, domesticate you into something you weren’t.

Something you weren’t was an obedient follower, what you had become with Zepii. You had allowed him to manipulate you and push you around, forcing you to have no independence.

Something you were was free, even with the love of Aluk’un he let you be free. He allowed you to soar above the clouds like an ikran. Up you flew, towards bigger and better things, but when you were getting too close to the sun he would be there to catch you as you fell.

He loved you, truly loved you.

Word Bank:

Yawne (Darling)

Aysnatanhì (Constellation, Na’vi’s Bioluminescent Freckles)

Ikran (Mountain Banshee)

#avatar fanfiction #avatar the way of water #fanfic #fanfiction #avatar movie #atwow #atwow fanfiction #atwow fics #jake sully x reader #sully family x reader #platonic sullys x reader #platonic jake sully #neytiri x reader #loak x sister!reader #neteyam x sister!reader #kiri x sister!reader #tuk x sister!reader

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decembermidnight · 9 months

Text

Cherry Liqueur

Summary: You tease Mando in public, drawing too much attention. He reminds you and everyone else who you belong to.

Pairing: Din Djarin x f!reader

Word count: 3.6k

Warnings: this is pure smut 18+ mdni, no plot - straight to the point, teasing in public, helmet stays on (sort of), oral (f receiving), female edging, semi-public sex, unprotected sex (p in v), possessive!din, dom!din, cumplay, degradation kink... the list goes on

A/N: this is the first time I'm publishing!! So excited for this. This whole thing was inspired by a perfume. Of course I bought it. Also, keep in mind that English is not my first language! Have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

Masterlist - Read on Ao3

It's the twilight of a hot summer night on some unknown planet in the outer rim, the suns still setting at the horizon are painting the sky with gorgeous shades of dark orange, lilac and blue. The cantina you’re sitting in is slowly getting crowded and is dimly lit by blue, purple and green lights.

The vanilla ice cream you are savoring is slowly melting in the glass cup in front of you and it’s so sweet and cold, you moan in pleasure and close your eyes when you bring the teaspoon into your mouth.

He is sitting in front of you and watches with his arms crossed, silent and unbothered, as always. The lights of the cantina gorgeously reflect on his shiny beskar armor.

"Mando, why don't you get some? It's so good." you tease him, your voice sounding so seductive.

He doesn't reply, but won’t take his eyes off you. You can’t see them, but you can feel them scouting your body.

The cherry liqueur you ordered to go with your dessert is thick and sugary, a slight burn in your throat. It makes you brave.

"I want you to kiss my lips and taste how good this is." you whisper to him, glass in your hand, licking your lips.

"I can't, pretty girl." his voice is firm, and you take that as a challenge. He will taste cherry liqueur from your lips tonight.

You eat the ice cream slowly, not breaking eye contact with the beskar helmet in front of you. You lean on the table on purpose, letting him enjoy the view of your cleavage squeezed in the tight black dress you are wearing, licking the spoon sensually every time, putting on a show for his enjoyment. You know he's watching and loving every single second of it.

You drink your sweet cherry liqueur, intentionally letting one drop spill over your mouth, only to collect it with your finger and spread it all over your plump lips, and only when they’re coated, you bring the fingertip into your mouth to lick it clean. You know how much he loves your lips, especially when they're wrapped around his thick cock.

He watches still, leaning back against the booth where he’s sitting, arms crossed, chest moving regularly, not a sign of distress coming for him, apparently. You love teasing him like this in public. You know he's definitely rock hard under the table, and the thought of it turns you on so much, you can feel you’re already dripping between your legs.

When you are done with your show, you go to the restroom with the excuse to wash your hands and face. You do not realize until you stand up how much the liquor hit you. You're not drunk, just a bit dizzy, but it boosts your confidence, makes you feel like a bombshell and can feel his eyes glued to your hips that are swaying sensually, hugged by the light fabric of the revealing dress you are wearing, subtly inviting him to follow you, hoping he'd understand.

When you hear the door opening behind you, you turn around happily, thinking it's him.

It isn't. It’s an ugly mug who clearly does not know who you belong to, a grin on his face.

He tries to approach you blurting obscenities, but he can't even finish the phrase, the door behind him opens, and Mando enters.

"Is there a problem here?" The cold, intimidating tone of his masculine voice makes your pussy clench. Fuck - you love how badass and protective he is.

The creep grins at you, pissed off at the interruption, and turns around, only to find a fully armored Mandalorian staring at him, his hand on the blaster at his belt, ready to fire. He is always ready. So swift and scary.

"No" he answers, raising his hands "I was just leaving." the other man replies, immediately leaving the room, intimidated by the bounty hunter who just entered.

Can’t explain enough how much you love when he acts possessive towards you. He loves when you wear seductive and revealing clothes around him for everyone to see how hot you are, but when random men even just try to interact with you, he’s quick to assert his dominance and defend his property. You fucking belong to him.

The second the door closes behind him, Mando leans with his arm against the wall behind you, towering you. It’s intimidating and turns you on so much. You sigh in arousal and wrap your arms around his neck.

You feel his erection, rock hard against your lower belly.

'Mando..." You call him in an inviting tone.

"You're such a nasty girl. Teasing me in public in front of everyone. Making me hard." he whispers as he cups your cheek with his other hand. "What do I have to do with you?"

"Kiss me." You say, alcohol suddenly makes you brave. "Here. Now." you challenge him.

He clenches the hand he’s leaning on in a fist, staying still for a few seconds as you look at him, your eyes filled with desire. The music coming from outside fills the silence between you two.

"Close your eyes." he says firmly.

You obey, as you always do when he gives you orders.

He takes his gloves off and tosses them on the sink on his left, then he covers your eyes with one hand. You hear a hiss of air, and then you feel warm lips on yours. A slow, soft kiss that makes your knees weak, your head light and the air escape your lungs, leaving you breathless. You part your lips in a sigh of arousal and he pushes his tongue inside your mouth, tasting you just like you wanted. You let out a moan, he swallows it greedily and bites your lower lip, chuckling.

Your mouth tastes like cherry, vanilla and sin, he wants to taste it all, your lips tickled by his mustache. His other hand is wrapping around your neck, lightly choking you. The Mandalorian is dangerously bending the rules of his creed just to taste you, giving in to lust and desire. What adds even more to the excitement of it, is that he’s doing this in a public place, where anyone could enter at any moment and see him.

For a man who never removes his helmet, his kisses are to die for. Your hands travel to his jawline, masculine and well-defined, covered in a scruffy beard. His skin is so hot to the touch, his heart is racing, you can feel it with your fingers while running them on his neck. He lifted his helmet just enough to kiss you and you can't look at him, but you can feel him. That is more than enough. The more you kiss, the more you want to keep going. You can't stop kissing and moaning into each other's mouth. His body is pressed heavily on yours.

The door opens behind Mando, but he is quick to shut it with a back kick, never leaving your lips, on the contrary, kissing you even harder because he’s getting even more turned on, knowing that someone tried to enter, and keeping his foot on the door to prevent other incidents. His reflex is always so ready, always so alert. Curses from the outside, he won't let anyone in, not now that he is finally giving in and kissing you. It makes you so happy to know that you have him all to yourself.

He bites your lower lip. "You taste so good" growls between his teeth. Every time you hear his real voice, not distorted by a modulator, you get goosebumps. "So fucking good. My pretty girl." His voice is hot and dark, masculine and firm.

You giggle in his mouth and keep kissing him, wrapping one leg around his body, letting him rock his hips against yours and hump against your soaking wet entrance, and groaning in his mouth. He bites your lip grinning, hungry like a starving beast, knowing that you're already so wet and turned on just because of the kisses he's giving you.

You feel the dry humping will make you cum within seconds if it doesn't stop. When you are so close you could feel your heart racing and your face blushing, he suddenly stops and lowers his helmet back on. You whimper as you stop feeling his body on yours and his hand removed from your eyes. When he does, you see the beskar helmet looking at you, towering you as before. Mando then goes on his knees, slowly, you don't take your eyes off each other, he runs his hot hands on your thighs, under your dress, on your hips softly, making you sigh, his gentle touch is making you shudder. He grabs your soaked panties and takes them off, slowly, never interrupting eye contact. You take out one leg, then the other. He spreads your legs with his arms and looks at your swollen, throbbing, needy cunt.

"Mmm - so beautiful" he says, running one finger between your folds and pushing his middle finger inside your entrance, making you arch your back, squeeze your eyes shut and moan loudly. He starts fingering you slowly, but he is quick to speed up the pace.

Your panting and the wet, lewd noises your pussy makes as he fucks you with his finger fill the tiny room, and you're pretty sure people can hear from outside. He takes his finger out, followed by the hissing sound of him lifting his helmet, and then you feel a warm and wet tongue on your clit, making you gasp and groan deeply and way too loud. Everyone out there’s gonna know that the Mandalorian is making you feel so good. You feel so shameless, and you fucking love it.

"F-fuck!" you scream loudly as the Mandalorian grips your thighs and sinks into them with his mouth. You cover your mouth with your hands as he tastes how much you want him, humming in pleasure, the vibrations coming from his throat making your eyes roll over your head in pure ecstasy.

The way he eats you, as if he could never have enough, and keeps doing that for as long as he wants, tasting your sweet juices, taking all the time in the galaxy to reduce you to a whimpering, trembling mess, drives you fucking crazy.

You get so close to your orgasm already, your head gets dizzy, and when you're just there, he suddenly stops licking your clit. The sensation of the pre-orgasm rush leaving your body makes your legs shake in frustration and you desperately rock your hips looking for his mouth, but his iron grip on your thighs prevents you from moving one inch.

“Uh-uh. Not so fast” he whispers. You can feel his hot breath on your clit, just holding there as you tremble desperately.

And then, after a few seconds that seem to last like an eternity, he starts circling around your clit with his tongue, extremely slowly, carefully avoiding it, teasing you. When he feels that your body is calming down, he starts licking your clit once again, and then, when he feels you're getting closer, he fucking stops again, edging you once more. He kisses and bites your inner thigh, completely drenched in your arousal, and laughs sadistically at how much your body is begging for him.

He does that multiple times as a vengeance for teasing him so shamelessly in public. You are on the verge of tears, and your whole body is shaking, especially your legs, but his grip is so firm that it keeps you still and open wide over his mouth at his mercy.

"Please-please-please" you whimper desperately.

"What?" He asks in between slow, light licks around your clit.

"Please Mando make me cum" you cry out.

He does not answer. Only a single, swift lick on your swollen clit that makes your whole body jerk under his touch.

"Please, Mando! I'm begging you!" You sound so pathetic, he loves it. You hear a chuckle as he circles around your clit once again, then his middle finger is back inside your hot entrance, fucking you. Your pussy is so embarrassingly wet, you can feel your juices dripping down your inner thighs.

“You can only cum when I tell you so.” he says in between licks to your clit, the light touch of his lips making you shiver and sigh.

“P-please I c-can’t-” you try to articulate desperately.

“Hold it there.” he just doesn’t care how much you whimper. On the contrary, whimpering will only make this edging torture last longer.

He can hear your panting getting more and more out of control by the second.

“Yeah - hold it there” he loves having all this power on you.

You let out a deep sigh, trying to control the way your body reacts to his, but it’s impossible. You can’t focus on anything else apart from holding in your orgasm but you’re not sure how much further you can resist.

"Yeah mesh'la - cum. Cum for me." you can feel his hot breath against your pussy, and then his tongue is finally back on your clit, there to stay.

He pushes another finger inside and once again you feel the hot sensation of the orgasm building in your pussy, this time begging that he won’t stop.

"F-fuck Mando I-I’m-"

He purrs into your pussy and you finally cum into his mouth, your muscles desperately clenching around his fingers, your hands cover your mouth and muffle the screams of your orgasm, eyes so rolled back over your head, all you can see is pitch black darkness, you’re completely blown away by those few seconds of pure bliss.

By the time you are done, you are completely drained by pleasure and your head is spinning. He is licking dripping juices from your inner thighs, then he bites your soft flesh, humming, knowing he'll leave bruises only he'll be able to see, and finally he stands back up on his feet.

"Open your mouth" he says, you obey. You're still shaking and panting from how mind-blowing that was.

He sticks his two fingers coated in your arousal in your mouth and you sensually wrap them around your lips, pushing them deep in your throat.

"Yeah - like this" he says grinning satisfied as he watches you lick his fingers clean from tips to knuckle, his erection against your belly. He takes his fingers out and grabs your jaw, forcing your mouth open, and then he spits inside of it. You fucking love it, moaning at the feeling of being dominated that way, and swallow his saliva greedily. He slaps your face and chuckles. "What an obedient little slut." says, whispering in your ear, and then his tongue is again inside your mouth.

You can feel his mustache, lips and chin are wet from your arousal, his mouth now tastes like you, a warm and slightly salty taste that you don't mind. "Fuck. My pretty girl. Can’t ever get enough of you."

He kisses you for so long, taking all the time in the galaxy to make you feel like the most worshiped woman of the outer rim, cupping your face with his hands, caressing your cheeks, holding you tight and running his hands all over your body, wanting to feel every inch of you.

He lowers the helmet back on his face, then turns you around and bends you over the sink, in front of the mirror.

“Open your eyes” he orders.

"Fuck" you whisper biting your lip, looking at how he towers over you, gripping your hips, feeling his rock hard erection grinding against your ass as his hips rock into yours.

He takes out his cock and starts sliding it between your folds and you can see fucking everything. You shake in anticipation and gasp. When he slowly inserts his dick inside of your needy, wet cunt you both moan shamelessly loud, not caring that anyone can hear you from outside, and when he starts thrusting into you, you go out of control and can't control how loud you're screaming.

"Quiet. Quiet, pretty girl." He puts one hand on your mouth, panting in your ear.

Your muffled screams seem to excite him even more. He is having fun sliding it in and out of you, painfully slow and groaning in your ear to drive you fucking crazy. He knows how much you love hearing him enjoying himself. The sound your dripping pussy makes when it takes it all in, greedily, desperately clenching around his thick cock, fills the room together with his hips rocking against your ass.

Having you bent like that, in front of the freshener's mirror, your leg on the sink, forced to look at the mess of you, blushing and sweaty, one of his hands on your thigh, the other one on your mouth, begging for the dick of that fully armored bounty hunter that terrified everyone out there, towering over you, turns you on so much and can’t take your eyes off the mirror.

The banging on the door outside, the thought of someone wanting to enter, but it's blocked from Mando's foot planted firmly on the ground against it, knowing there's only a thin door separating your throbbing, needy cunt from the outside, all of those men looking at you earlier, hearing your screams and wishing they were the ones locked inside the bathroom with you, fucking you raw and dirty like the filthy whore that you are, but it's only the Mandalorian that you want, that can make you scream like this.

For a second he lifts his hand from your mouth, wanting to hear your voice.

"M-my - fuck - Mandalorian warrior, fucking me so good."

"Yeah?" You clench around him just by hearing his voice, his hand back on your mouth to muffle how much you are loving being fucked that way.

You take his hand and slide it towards your clit, but he slaps it away. You are so desperate, you want - no, you need - to cum again and start rubbing your clit with your own hand, only for him to take your hand away and cause you to whimper on the verge of tears for stimulation.

"Beg me." He orders, lifting his hand from your mouth so that he can hear you.

"P-please Mando make me cum, please, please" you whimper desperately.

He grins and achingly slowly moves his hand towards your slit, widening your pussy and starting to draw circles around your swollen clit with his middle finger, purposefully avoiding it to tease you.

It makes you shake and whimper desperately. Then he takes the soaked finger and puts it into your mouth.

"Yes, lick it all. Taste how much you want me."

You do, moaning and sucking and licking his finger clean. "Good girl." He slaps your face, then grabs your chin and forces you to lock your very same gaze in the mirror.

"I want you to look. Look at yourself when I make you cum."

His hand reaches your clit, starts rubbing it and you can't avoid arching your back and rolling your eyes in pleasure and letting out a deep moan.

He stops thrusting and massaging you, the hand holding your jaw grips tighter. "Hey. I told you to look." Then slaps you on the clit, making your body jerk and clench around him, making him gasp.

He starts thrusting and rubbing your clit again immediately after scolding you.

"When we're done, I - fuck - don't want you to put your panties back on. I want you to walk with my cum dripping down your legs. Everyone out there has to know that you're fucking mine." He growls between his teeth, his voice raspy through the modulator. That sentence takes you over the edge and you cum so hard, screaming with your mouth closed by his hand, gaze locked on yourself as he commanded. The muffled screaming is so loud, it fills the little room.

"Cyar'ika" he growls as soon as he feels your cunt rhythmically clenching around him. "Do you see how fucking beautiful you are when you cum for me? F-fuck I-I-" he muffles his scream gritting between his teeth as he cums, his cock is pulsing, his seed is spilling hot inside of you, but he keeps riding through both of your orgasms.

He leans on you, panting and holding you tight, his dick still throbbing into your pussy. When he takes it out, you feel his seed slowly dripping from your inner thighs.

"Turn around." He orders, still panting.

You do, and he sits you on the sink and spreads your legs open.

"Fuck. So beautiful." He is mesmerized by the sight of your pussy filled by him, still clenching in waves of aftershock. He runs his fingers on your inner thighs to collect all the drops of seed that escaped and pushes them back into your opening. He has some fun with it, you can tell he is grinning under the helmet, then he brings his fingers to your mouth and you obediently suck them clean, tasting the lust of you both.

When you get out of the bathroom, you feel everyone's eyes on you two. You've never done anything so shameless and nasty in your life, and you fucking loved it. Every second of it.

You walk towards the exit, Mando behind you, his hand wrapped around your hip. You feel his cum dripping down your legs and you wonder if the people looking at you are noticing. Mando's words echo in your head. Everyone out there has to know that you're fucking mine. He definitely made sure of that. You can’t help smiling.

#the mandalorian #mandalorian x you #mandalorian x female reader #mando x reader #mando x you #mandalorian smut #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x female reader #mando smut #mandalorian fanfic #din djarin smut #this is my first fanfic #din x reader #decembermidnight

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moralisist · 11 months

Text

miles morales x reader

summary: miles and how he’s like as a boyfriend

a/n: omg one of my first posts hi everyone :) please send requests in my inbox !!

genre: fluff !!, g/n reader

miles is such a sweet boy he wants to take care of everything for you

he gets so emotional over you, fights make him upset and he’s overall an emotionally intelligent person so he understands you when you’re upset about something he’s done

he apologizes for making you upset and never wants you to go to sleep mad at him

when hes upset at you tho, he will always tell you and communicate with you instead of ghosting you or leaving room for you to overthink

don’t get me wrong, he needs time to understand why hes upset and process his emotions so don’t expect him to come to you right away

it’s extremely important for him to get along with ur family bc he himself is a family man and it would make him feel like your bond has strengthened just thru ur family

he tends to try to deal with things himself so once he has someone to confide in, it’ll take him bit by bit but he’ll come and try and tell you whats bothering him

really appreciates small gestures so much it makes him happy someone notices him enough to do something so small that’s also so big

dates are super fun with him as well !! he makes it a plan to have at least once or twice a week dates that aren’t the most expensive but he wants to make sure you have the time of ur life with him

with him being spider man, it’s hard to balance having a lover and fighting crime

he tries his very hardest tho to make sure to balance it

he’s incredibly smart so he offers to help you study whenever you ask for it or if he notices that you’re having trouble with a subject

draws you CONSTANTLY and has a little book dedicated just to you

he loves when he sees you getting along with his parents, it makes him happy and just so fulfilled that the people he loves most get along so great

his love language would be words of affirmation, he needs reassurance to know whether he’s doing the right thing by you or just simple compliments that he’s doing well make him so happy especially since he doubts that he’s doing well constantly

texts you while he’s swinging in the air and u always get confused on why he types like a 5 year old from time to time

posts you on his instagram but you’re the only thing he ever posts except for pretty sky pictures and cool mural art that he sees on the streets of new york or ones that he’s made himself

sends you songs that remind him of you and has a customized playlist that he listens to that’s about you that helps him relax

cares very much about what ur into and ur interests and tries to get into it as well just so you guys can bond over it !

overall, 10/10 boyfriend, would let him meet my mom !

#across the spiderverse #miles morales fluff #miles morales x reader #miles morales #earth 1610 miles morales x reader #miles x y/n #spider man #across the spider verse fluff

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blazingstaro · 3 months

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Here's my little side AU!

It's not a serious story like Dreams of the Stars, and just something of my own for funsies! I don't intend to make a series of this, more-so just little drawings or mini comics every now and then. DotS is my main AU and comic series still!

This is my SkyCotL Mago AU, and it's a mix of different types of AUs in one. Genderbend? You got it. Roleswap? Absolutely! There's also a personality swap between characters, and what-if scenarios all jammed into one Kirby AU set in a noir/spacepunk + 30s-60s swing era

It's a lot of what-ifs put into fruition while having SkyCotL on the side! It's wholesome, adorable, and really sweet! No serious angst in this (for now), but some heartfelt troubles and such. Absolutely a comfort AU LOL

So here's the whole gang together! Not everyone's roles are swapped, I'll say— it's a mixed bag of this that and whatever because whoever said you had to stick to one particular thing in a swap-type AU HEHEHE

Quick look lore/info on each individual below:

Allow me to tell you a bit about each individual here, starting with our lead, Skye:

The Magolor of this Magoverse flavored AU, this is Magoloria— a rising star from Floralia. She sings, she dances, she's quite the hit for tons of musical shows across the galaxy! Fashionable, fun, and cute as a button, Skye is a pure-hearted and humble gal. She's a young adult for her species!

Both a genderbend and a personality swap! Her personality is swapped with Joronia's (pre-Sectonia). She's as sweet as can be, and enjoys making herself feel pretty with a vast wardrobe of outfits and costumes. Her taste in fashion is impeccable.

The events of Return to Dreamland occur quite a bit differently for Skye, but I'll save that for another post! But the main premise is that following a decisive battle, hopelessly possessed by the Master Crown's evil, Skye and the shattered Master Crown are spirited away to the decaying Kingdom of Sky (hence her nickname), a land time forgot. The power-drained mage must travel across the realms to reclaim her lost powers, which fell into the hands of the sleeping Elder spirits.

Here's Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee! Their roles remain unchanged, but their personalities have swapped! Bandee is confident and outgoing, whereas Kirby's a bit less confident, but aspires to be great— despite the fact that he's the most powerful of the group and constantly Popstar's savior. He and Bandee are besties, like brothers!

King Malcom "Meta" Knytte, the presiding king of Dream Land! He's both role-swapped with Dedede, and his personality is swapped with Taranza. He's got the personality of a sopping wet kitten, but is low-key one of the most devastating warriors Dream Land has to offer. His Galaxia's design is more of the anime's than the games because good god I am not drawing the same Galaxia for two different AUs

King Malcolm is a great whistler and plays the piano, but has crippling stage fright. He owns a venue within his kingdom, which has been host to Skye's shows in recent years. He secretly mans backstage in disguise, so commoners won't recognize him (but it's somewhat obvious who he is). Rumor has it, he has an eye for one of the performers, and is secretly in love...

Sir Dedede of Dream Land! He serves the Kingdom of Dream Land. As it's quite obvious, he's role-swapped and personality swapped with Meta Knight, though there's still a sliver of King Dedede's original ego/pride in this guy. He's aloof, something of a loner, and doesn't talk much, but he has a tendency to take aspiring warriors under his wing. His latest apprentice is Bandana Waddle Dee, who serves under King Malcolm too!

And finally, the lovely couple— King Taranza and Queen Joronia! This is half a role-swap and a whole personality swap. Taranza's personality is swapped with Magolor, and Joronia has a partial of Dedede's personality, but stands alone on her own as well. Taranza also takes on Magolor's role as Manager of a theme park.

Though married for centuries, Taranza and Joronia are still in their honeymoon phase, madly in love and have profound crushes on each other!

The two have made their kingdom into an entertainment capital this side of the galaxy, bringing all walks of life onto Popstar to see a wide variety of shows! From circus acts, to live musical performances, and thrilling carnival rides and games, you name it, they got it!

This spicy pair act as parental figures for Skye, and took her under their wing when she was a lone, young girl selling papers to make do

AND THAT IS ALL FOR NOW! Just a basic look at everyone! I'll do more thorough info-posts later on 'em throughout the week 💜

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ribbonetteart · 3 months

Text

Tribute to one of my favorite movies of all time + the franchise that has me in a death grip 💖

a bit late for Christmas but at least Valentine's day is around the corner ^^;;

Process below if that interests you:

AS I SAID EARLIER, I had been working on this piece as early as December of 2021 😱!!!

This was the original sketch! I was inspired after learning about Blaze's own design inspiration coming from Takarazuka theater, as well as it being the Nutcracker season so this film was in bouncing around in my head.

and this was allllll the way back in 2021 ^^; I had put the idea to paper to capture the image in my head immediately. But the idea in my head was extravagant and beautiful and would certainly take time to complete, as well as the patience and skill to work with watercolor 😔 I've certainly done my share of watercolor, both physical and digital, but I still feel like my physical watercolor work is a fluke, and I was still a novice digital artist at the time of this sketch.

In short, I was confident my skill could live up to the vision.

So I would put this on the back burner. It wouldn't be ready in time for Christmas, and I could use this as an opportunity to hone that digital art experience so it could be ready next year!

2 Years Later...

It's December 5th. Fuck it. Let's crack this open again, I tell myself.

SO starting with the line art, it's actually 2 different brushes layered over one another.

I also changed Sonic's expression to be more love struck-looking, because I'm a sucker for romance.

The image on the left is a watercolor line brush, while the right is a pencil brush. The reason I wanted a water color look was because I thought it would make the illustration look dreamy and fantastical, and I wanted that to extend to the line art as well. However, my usual lines on traditional usually veer more towards thick and cartoony from years of studying the Sonic art style, so I really felt like I was working against myself here. I had also asked friends for their input and they preferred the lines on the right as well. If my followers actually do read these blog posts, I'd love if you could comment which line art style you prefer drawing or looking at.

The happy medium was to just combine the 2. Here's a better look at that:

I like it! I think it combines the solid line with the rustic water color grain. Best of both worlds :]

For the actual painting, The most notable thing I can say is that getting the right pastel-y color was VERY difficult to achieve for someone like me who often loves to use bright and saturated colors in her art. I feel like I really set myself up to do one of those "evil art style" or "opposite art style" challenges I've been seeing around. I had to repaint Sonic at one paint because the blue of his fur was WAY too saturated for the style I was going for:

I started with painting Sonic and Blaze in first and then working on the background. I think that's probably the backwards way of doing it but one of the perks of digital art is you can do stuff any order you want when you have layers.

The background wasn't actually as difficult as I thought it would be. I wasn't going for any difficult perspective, and I was using a reference so that could be it. I'm usually averse to backgrounds but I really wanna tackle more of my weak points in art. I actually had way more fun than I was expecting, painting the sky and adding texture to the grass. I think I had the most fun rendering the water coming from the fountain (which you can't even see too well anyway, lol).

Funny enough, I had just about finished painting the characters and background by early January. So why am I posting this in February?

The Flowers...

In case you don't know. I love flowers. I love looking at them, I love learning about flower languages, I love drawing them. so seeing that my reference image showed flowers circling the fountain, I was excited! I was already having more fun than I expected to be, working against my usual style, rendering a background, so how could this be a pain in the ass?

Well, I am my own worst enemy 😞I couldn't exactly identify each flower offhand from this screenshot alone. The texture of the flowers is kinda grainy, since I don't think the animators were expecting viewers to look too closely at the set piece to use as reference for my lovingly crafted crossover fanart. If anyone has this in high quality though, please tell me.

(I think I actually got this reference from a tumblr post but I can't find it on my blog for the life of me nor can I find it in the tags I'm so sorry)

I'm a huge stickler for details so I really wanted to be as "accurate" as possible in my illustration. I can hardly identify some of these flowers with confidence. I think there are roses in there? or tulips? I'm not sure if those yellow flowers are roses or some kinda petunia or if I'm way off.

I'm sure these details won't matter to most viewers but it was EATING AWAY AT ME. Eventually I decided to try drawing in flowers that might look similar to the ones in the reference. Or some based on their flower languages. I was certainly overthinking it ;;;; It led me to going "fuck it" and just throwing in whatever I wanted. There are no irises visible in that screenshot but I made it the centerpiece of the flower ring. Who give a shit.

I made some guides for me to follow: The blue ring was so I could make sure the flowers make a half circular border around Sonic and Blaze. I was envisioning how it could look as like an icon or sticker or something, which is why it's framed this way. then the second guide is the sketch of the flowers I made. I always do line art and I'm not great at just improvising with color to paper, or color to screen in this case.

The rest of this process is then just working on each flower piece by piece (with the help of the mirror tool of course) with varying degrees of detail. Some flowers are more abstract than others, and I had debated if that would look jarring and disrupted any kind of harmony I was trying to maintain with the style parameters I set for myself. And then I decided I was overthinking it once again which is why this was taking me nearly 2 months to complete.

At some point during this process, my wifi went out for a whole week! Of course, I could still work on this illustration offline, but I had a lot of tabs open with a bunch of reference images on there (plus I like to listen to music while I draw otherwise I lose focus and I had neglected to download a varied selection on my phone or laptop 😭 Learn from my mistakes).

The most tedious of this process was making each set of gladioluses a unique color.

Was it worth it? You tell me! I think they're pretty, at least.

Along the way, I repainted the grass because it wasn't symmetrical (It didn't need to be but I had been using the mirror tool for a lot at this point and it was bugging me). I made other little final adjustments, like color adjusting the leaves on the flowers, lowering the flower ring border, and so on.

Ultimately, I'm extremely satisfied with the final product. I had my heart set on doing something like this for a long time. I had so much fun just experimenting throwing on color or not worrying about technical stuff. Of course, I did do what I usually do and overthink it at some points, but I'm working on it!

I've wanted to do an extremely indulgent AU illustration and other drawings for a Sonic x The Nutcracker story for a long while. I will be totally honest, I'm still a little embarrassed to share stuff like this, even after years of posting fan art online. It feels like the more self indulgent something is, the more people might judge me for it ^^; But I wanna practice what I preach and kill the thing inside me that cringes at my harmless attempts at joy and whimsy.

I would love to do some more drawings for this AU, but maybe post them around December when it would be more seasonally appropriate. I hope you'll stick around for it!

If you read this whole thing to the end, thank you. Whether you follow my blog or not, I hope you have a lovely day :3💝

#Barbie in the Nutcracker #Sonic the Hedgehog #Blaze the Cat #Sonaze #Jess's Digital Odyssey #Sorry for not posting frequently it may happen again

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