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#bloodless all day every day baby

majorblinks · 1 year

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in love like we were (red velvet seulgi)

(ft. the rest of red velvet) (smut, female reader, actress seulgi, actress you, cheating, choking, homewrecking, mommy kink, spanking, praise and degradation, semi-public sex, fluff, i support women's rights but more importantly i support women's wrongs, jk this is fiction do NOT cheat on your partners..., 24k words)

So, here’s the bottom line: you never meant for any of this to happen. Hand to God. Er - alright, whatever, maybe you shouldn’t be dragging God into any of this, considering-

“Christ, you’re so fucking wet.”

-okay, you’re pretty much in the least holy position possible.

The lighting in the bathroom’s dangerously dim, but if anyone were to walk in, there’d be no mistaking it: the scent of sex, the needy, desperate whines, the way Kang Seulgi’s got you on the counter with two fingers driving into your cunt, laughing as you drip down her wrist, embarrassingly soaked. The media would have a fucking field day. Your careers would be permanently ruined. And yet-

“Shut up,” you’re choking out. “Shut up, shut up, just fuck me-”

“Baby.” Seulgi tuts. Her fingers stall. “Ask nicely.”

You know what she wants. And - unfortunately, humiliatingly - it happens to be the exact same thing you want.

Your eyes squeeze shut. “Mommy-”

Beside you, her phone starts to ring.

Seulgi stops cold with her fingers still buried in you at the sight of the name flashing across the screen. The picture, too: Seulgi, grinning widely, with her arms thrown around an unbelievably gorgeous dark-haired woman. Smile demure. Not a hair out of place. Looking like she’s straight off the movie sets she frequents, made-up and meticulously styled.

“Oh, wow,” you say, strangled, breathless. Derisive, at the contact: capitalized, first and last. As detached and businesslike as she could possibly get. “Your contact name for her is just Bae Irene?”

“That’s her name, isn’t it?”

It quite literally isn’t, but you’ll let that one slide. “Unsentimental much?”

“You think so?” A harsh thrust to your cunt. You buckle at the movement, gasping, clutching the lip of the bathroom counter. Seulgi’s smirk is murderously sharp, eyebrows twitching upwards. It’s a good thing one of you is finding this funny.

“Seulgi-”

“Enlighten me then, sweetheart.” She leans in close. Timbre of her voice like gunfire, like she knows she’s about to deliver a fatal blow. “What was your contact name for her when you dated her?”

And that’s something that should be digging up graves, unearthing corpses: there’s the coffin, there’s your past relationship haunting you, there’s the residual remorse like Catholic guilt. There’s the fact that she’s got a girl at home and you’re casting yourself as the other woman just by letting her touch you. There’s Seulgi’s other hand wrapping around your throat, just as her fingers curl deep inside your cunt - and every ghost in the room packs up and goes home. They know a foregone conclusion when they see one.

You can’t talk. You’re back to whining pathetically, pussy clenching around her fingers. “That’s what I thought,” husks Seulgi, maniacally victorious, and lets Irene’s call go to voicemail.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy-”

Fine, God can get the fuck out of here. Yeah, Seulgi’s your ex-girlfriend’s current girlfriend, and now she’s making you cum harder than you ever have. The holy spirit’s just gonna have to make his peace with that. We all make mistakes. It’s so human. Seriously, come on: it’s not like you’ll make this one ever again.

Well, probably.

For context, a month and a half ago, you just had the worst breakup of your life.

There’s no real need to recap the gory details, play back a previously-on to catch an audience up. Really, all you have to know is this:

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

It’s late September. Sky clear and cloudless through your windows. The day ironically gorgeous around you, like it’s taunting you. And Irene stands in your doorway with her hands balled into bloodless fists by her side, the expression on her face never wavering.

“It’s just not working,” she repeats, like that means anything. Like it’s rehearsed, inflection practiced and pristine. “And-” A breath, regulating. “I feel like it hasn’t been working for a while.”

Here’s where you’re at: reeling through a shock to the system. It’s you, adrift in the center of the sea, fatally unmoored; you and no map and no way home, facing down the last two years of your life in the resolute line of Irene’s mouth. All your words shipwrecked; any fight you have left chained to stones and sinking. You, alone.

“For a while?” you get out, sounding very small.

Irene’s lashes flutter fast, a miniscule crack in her composure. Then, like it takes a Herculean effort for her voice not to shake: “I’m sorry.”

And just like that - cut to black, let the credits roll, force the audience out of their seats; pack up the rest of Irene’s clothes and let her take them, leave like she was never there. No warning, no explanation. Just like that, it’s over.

The news’ll hit the press by the end of October. It’ll make the rounds throughout social media, pictures of you and her together, award-winning actresses, looking so happy and in love that you’ll feel like throwing up. There’ll be conspiracy theories, headlines claiming to know exactly where it went wrong; fans mourning melodramatically, hashtags and trending topics. Someone will talk about it and it’ll rip all the same wounds right open. It’ll break your heart on loop. It’ll be horrible.

And in any other life, if you’d just left it alone after that, you would’ve gotten out of it all completely unscathed.

See, it’s all about the narrative. You as the designated victim in your story; she broke up with you, and you’d be able to thrive off the sympathy from that forever. Themes of love and loss, healing and recovery, forgiveness and starting fresh. And one day - in some sort of neat little epilogue, wrapping up loose ends - you’d be able to meet up with Irene again and laugh about the old times, and you’d be so benevolent, accepting apologies; she’d take the blame, and smile, and wish you the best. Leave you as the heroine, with your perfect happy ending. Time healing all wounds, as they say - what a tale, what a message; critics would’ve praised the life lessons taught, call it coming-of-age, honest and raw and real. But instead-

Well, instead, you’ve got no other story to tell but this. You figure it’s as good a place to start as any.

It’s a month and a half after Irene breaks up with you, but she somehow manages to send you into complete and utter insanity all over again. It’s a talent, but she’s always had a lot of those. Here’s how it really begins:

“I actually have a new lease on life,” you say, over the phone on a Friday, lazing on your couch. “I’m actually feeling so optimistic right now.”

The feeling’s warranted, you’re thinking. It’s a perfect, peaceful day. You’re in between projects; you don’t start filming again until January. It’s a much-needed break, and you’re taking full advantage of it.

“That’s amazing,” says your best friend, sounding like she means it. “That’s so, so great. So - uh - if that’s the case, I do have some… news for you.”

To her credit, she takes it upon herself to soften the blow, at first. Gives a comprehensive recap of the celebrity rumors going around lately, dances around it with the best of them. First there’s all that baseless (and biased, you’re pretty sure) gossip about Park Sooyoung’s fiancé being a cheater, there’s the usual scandal around Ahn Yujin, there’s that conspiracy theory about Im Nayeon and her secret boyfriend-

“That’s her shirt. ��

And there’s one very specific rumor about your ex-girlfriend and Kang fucking Seulgi.

“Look, it’s…” Your best friend is peering down at your phone screen with the single worst poker face you’ve ever seen. Then again, she’s not the actress between the two of you. “It’s probably not even that serious. It’s, um. Yeah, it’s probably nothing.” A cautious peek out of the corner of her eye. “It might not even be Irene’s, right?”

“Wendy.”

Wendy draws back at your tone, then immediately pats your shoulder gingerly like you’re a particularly prickly feral animal. “Dude, I’m trying to be consoling here.”

She’s doing a shit job at it, but even if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter. You’d be losing your mind either way.

Because when Wendy first got you on the phone while she was on the way to your place, filling you in on the goings-on of your rich and famous peers - right, she told you, like an afterthought, people are saying there’s something between she-who-must-not-be-named and Kang Seulgi, but that’s ridiculous, that’s obviously not happening, isn’t that so funny - and you’d laughed along, too, disbelieving. It’s been a month and a half, you thought. Kang Seulgi’s not even Irene’s type. Earlier this year you’d seen one of Seulgi’s smash hit blockbuster flicks with Irene and the only thing Irene said about Seulgi’s performance was a semi-scathing critique about the way her face looked when she was crying. It’s nothing. It’s-

“It’s her shirt,” you say, again, floored.

Wendy gusts out a tiny sigh, giving up the performance. “Yeah,” she says. “I know it is.”

Now you’re both sitting on your couch, staring blankly at Kang Seulgi’s most recent Instagram post. Disheveled black hair. Delicate lines of her nose, her jaw, her mouth. Smoldering dark eyes, lips pulled up in a careless little grin. Tall black boots and heinously expensive jewelry, all caught in high definition. And to top it all off-

“I used to wear that shirt,” you say, viciously, glaring hard at the picture.

“And it looked so much better on you,” says Wendy, lying badly.

“Seungwan.”

“I said I’m trying. ”

“Okay, and I appreciate it, but-” You accidentally swipe to the right; oh, wow, it’s a photo series, that’s fantastic. “Oh my God."

It’s a bloodbath, really. Every image is that same infuriatingly effortless brand of sex appeal that Seulgi’s clearly become accustomed to marketing; she could stick a serial number on it at this point, sell it in stores like she sells out theaters. Face strangely regal and refined, almost austere; smirk pushing it just off the edge, measuring up to sexy rather than stoic. Filthy bedroom eyes, curl of her mouth suggestive by default. It’s obviously a practiced expression. Probably an equally practiced pose, something crafted to deliberately accentuate the toned muscles in her thighs, lean pull of her calves-

“Are you-” starts Wendy, eyeing you suspiciously.

“I’m really, really pissed off,” you clarify, like that explains why you’re staring so hard at Seulgi’s legs. “I seriously can’t believe this is happening.”

“Right,” says Wendy, slowly. “Because for a second I thought you were eye-fucking photos of your ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend.”

“I would obviously never do that. That’s crazy.” A pause, and then it actually hits: “New what?”

Your voice hitching frantically high is enough to send Wendy on the immediate defense; no, she says, nothing’s actually confirmed, so you can chill out. One shirt - even if it is so obviously Irene’s, down to the tastefully frayed tear in the collar; bought distressed, of course, because Irene’s too classy to rip up her own clothes - doesn’t actually prove anything. They’re probably just fucking, crass as it sounds.

“Yeah,” you say sarcastically, “because that makes it better.”

Wendy simply arches an eyebrow, her almost elfin features - warm, long-lashed eyes, prettily pert nose; today she’s got drawn-on freckles that complete the illusion - arranged in mild confusion. “Well,” she says. “Doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” you echo, a little grouchily, eyes still stuck resentfully on Seulgi’s face.

Look, it’s not just that you’re losing, here - it’s that you’re losing because of her.

“I mean, yeah,” says Wendy, like it’s indisputable. “Because would you rather Irene just be hooking up with Kang Seulgi for fun, or would you rather know that Irene fell for Kang Seulgi in a month and a half in some cheesy whirlwind romance where they discovered that they’re soulmates and now she’s totally over you?”

There’s a pause.

“Okay,” you say, disgruntled. “When you put it like that. ”

“I’m not putting it like anything,” Wendy replies, whimsically. “That’s the way things are, man.”

“Ugh,” you respond, and bury your face in her shoulder.

Because if it’s true, and that’s the way things are-

You’re backpedaling to a month and a half ago, abandoned in the doorway of your apartment; a tsunami with no warning signs, no signals or sirens. Irene’s winning, in a different way. She’s got Kang Seulgi as her girlfriend with her victorious smirk, her reputation, her awards and her fans and her fame. If they’re dating, Seulgi’s cast as the perfect counterpart, the brooding bad-girl love interest, and they’ll sail off into the sunset together, and you’ll die the anticlimactic off-screen death of the side character no one gives a fuck about. Probably from tuberculosis or something equally depressing. Alone.

“This is so ass,” you say miserably, voice muffled by Wendy’s sweater.

“Look at it this way,” replies Wendy, softer, smoothing a hand over your hair. “It’s been a month and a half. You dated Irene for two years. This-” she taps Kang Seulgi’s unreasonably pretty face with a manicured nail- “is definitely just a rebound. Meaningless.”

You emerge, watch her face, watch her click your phone off, screen going blissfully dark. It’s easier to cope when the problem’s not staring at you from a screen, smiling like she’s at the top of the world looking down, forever above it all. “Really?”

“They haven’t gone public with it, right?” Wendy reasons, defaulting to logic. “So it’s clearly not serious. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

It’s hard to argue with her when she takes that tone. No, Wendy’s not an actress, but she spends her life up on a stage, performing in front of a crowd - she knows how to be convincing when the occasion calls for it. Yes, of course I adore my fans, of course I love all my songs, of course the idol life is perfect; of course your ex-girlfriend wouldn’t move on so fast, she loved you, she’s struggling too.

“Okay,” you say, sucking in a deep breath, watching Wendy’s reassuring smile. You’ll buy into logic for one in your life. You’ll be like everyone else, and believe her, for now. “No, you’re right. You’re right.”

And she must be. Because if she’s not, then-

“The shirt’s ugly as shit anyway,” says Wendy, loyally, leaning into last-ditch efforts. “Like, you were doing charity by even letting it touch your body.”

“Thanks,” you say. “You know what? You’re absolutely correct.”

“It’s basic, too. Vintage, my ass. I could buy one that looks just like it off of Depop for ten bucks.”

“I’m really digging all the hate in your heart for this t-shirt right now.” You shift your head towards her collarbone. “Except I did used to wear it, so I don’t know what you’re trying to say about my taste.”

“A lapse in judgment,” Wendy proclaims. “You have great taste, historically.”

It’s sweet of her to say. Of course, in, like, three days from now, you’re going to make her eat her words, but neither of you know that just yet. You’ll let it be true until then.

Wendy leaves a little later; she’s got an early flight tomorrow, some music show overseas. Call me if you need anything, she tells you, and you hug her goodbye, but you tell her you’ll be fine. Sure, you end up idly scrolling through some of Kang Seulgi’s recent posts, but that’s normal, that’s justifiable. Checking out your replacement, even if it is just a short-lived fling. Photo after photo of her draped in leather jackets and stretching in sports bras and glittering gowns on red carpets - fine, she’s so fucking hot, she’s perfect for a rebound. Womanizing reputation and all. It’s understandable. You wouldn’t be able to blame Irene for wanting her. Dating her, though-

But they’re not. You dispel that thought as quickly as it comes. Logic, you remind yourself. Like Wendy said: they haven’t gone public with it. Meaningless. Ridiculous. So, really, you have nothing to worry about.

A day later, they go public with it.

“Okay, so I’m not a mind reader,” Wendy is saying frantically into the phone, like she thinks she’s talking you off a ledge. “I didn’t know. Dude, I didn’t know-”

You’re staring at SEULRENE trending on Twitter, under news article after news article touting that the two actresses announce they’re dating, that they finally made it official, that they’re so infatuated with each other, so happy -

“I’m gonna kill her,” you say, seriously.

“That’s such a horrible idea.” A pause. “Which one?”

In the two years that you and Irene were dating, together you managed to curate a particularly rabid fanbase between the two of you, people who lamented that love was fake and didn’t exist after the report of your break-up was made public information. Posting selfies of them crying. Dramatic edits of you and Irene to sappy sad love songs. And now, in the wake of Irene dating someone new:

ooooh no bc this is actually very nasty and evil, someone Tweets. ok so based on the timeline my moot put together (thread linked below of insta stories & tweets for proof) it’s been literally a month & 14 days since they broke up… either irene moves on fast or imo she was prob fucking around with seulgi the whole time…

Somehow your fans are keeping better track of the details than you are, but maybe that’s not so surprising. They’re like the FBI, or something. It’s honestly impressive.

NO… someone else replies underneath. YOU THINK IRENE WAS CHEATING?

idk but the timing sure seems suspicious doesn’t it 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

“Was Irene cheating on me?” you choke out into the phone.

Another, longer pause. “Are you stalking your own stans on Twitter?”

A guilty flick across your screen, swiping out of the app. “Of course not.”

Wendy makes a noise like hissing air through her teeth, as if in physical pain. “You need to delete all social media off of your phone right now. For your own good, man, I’m serious. For your mental.”

“I’m gonna hit Kang Seulgi with my car,” you say, fuming. “I’m gonna commit vehicular manslaughter.”

“It’s not manslaughter if it’s premeditated. And you don’t even know how to drive.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

And it’s not like Irene’s done anything wrong, per se - it’s not even that. Sure, it’s a quick turnaround, but the two of you are broken up, and she’s allowed to do whatever she wants. No, it’s something else, something much more bitter and bruising-

Okay: it’s not lost on you that Kang Seulgi’s basically your exact opposite.

She’s the country’s favorite bad girl, reputation larger than life and with this air of mystery, of carelessness, of unassailable cool. Starring in all these gritty action flicks or psychological thrillers or hard-hitting dramas, perpetually covered in blood and soaked in sweat, defined lines of muscle in her arms, along her stomach. Straight-faced and curt and sarcastic in interviews, when she chooses to give them. A revolving door of girls that’ve never been granted any official title - nothing exclusive, nothing serious - or, at least, not until Irene. You’re the antithesis, the sweet-faced girl next door, dressed up in schoolgirl skirts and playing high schoolers even at twenty-one. Innocence personified. Even dating a girl a decade older than you wasn’t enough to tarnish your image.

So it’s so easy to imagine Seulgi with Irene, smiling that same heedless smile that’s plastered all over her Instagram - saying I know what you had before; I know it wasn’t enough. Let me show you everything you’re missing out on. Oh, she bored you to tears , didn’t she; come on, watch me bring you back to life. Serpent in Eden, fangs like the devil. Smiling because she knows she won.

“When did this become a competition?” asks Wendy, after a beat. “I mean, I’m all for coming up with crazy delusional narratives in my free time, but - what, you think she did this on purpose?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you insist, scrolling through her Instagram again. “It’s just - God. It’s like, out of everyone, why did it have to be Kang Seulgi?”

A sigh. “No, I get it. You feel like they ended up having this instant connection, or whatever. Because it’s so fast. So it’s kind of like - you’re wondering what she has that you don’t, right?”

Well, sort of. You know what she has that you don’t, on a surface level: she’s (marginally) more famous than you, hotter and more established, she’s got more awards, more money - she’s got visible abs and those toned thighs, hands threatening in every photograph; seduction down pat, like she’d been trained for it; this way of making everything she does seem so easy-

An extended stretch of silence. “So is it that they’re in a serious public relationship or is it really just the Kang Seulgi of it all?”

You’re swiping through a photo series of Seulgi on set for her most recent action film, her with a fake cut done up in SFX makeup stretching bloody across her collarbone, her nose glinting with a sheen of sweat. Gaze trained off into the distance, bruises underneath enticingly dark. Flex of her bicep in the sixth one as she closes her fist around a pistol. Half a smirk at the camera in the eighth, eyes saying it all: you want me and you can’t have me; you want me, but doesn’t everyone?

“Can’t it be both?” you say, staring hard.

“Well, it kind of seems like you think she’s really hot and you’re mad about that first and foremost.”

“Um,” you say, and abruptly it’s like you’ve never acted in your life. “No. It’s, like, way deeper than that.”

Wendy sounds like she’s holding back a laugh. “Okay,” she says, and lets it go. It’s the kind thing to do.

“I think I understand it now,” she says, later. “She’s currently your mortal enemy because you think she’s better than you.”

“I can handle her being better than me,” you say. “She’s my mortal enemy because she’s better than me and my ex-girlfriend’s in love with her.”

“Who said anything about love?”

But along with the story, there’s a handful of paparazzi pictures posted in each article, plastered all over Twitter - Irene and Seulgi laughing as they pile into a car together, hands linked, smiles blindingly bright. Stunning even through blurry photographs, in every medium; the two of them spotting the cameras and not caring at all, treating them with great angles, perfect shots. So sure of themselves. Pictures and a thousand words, et cetera. It says everything it needs to.

“Seriously, though, do I really need a reason?” you add, after an hour of ranting. “She’s my ex’s new girlfriend. It’s been a month and a half. I’m allowed to want her dead.”

“Totally,” says Wendy, supportively. “I’m sure there’s no other explanation for why you feel so strongly about her.”

“There really isn’t,” you say, and leave it at that. It’s practically the truth, anyway.

Later that night, as you’re still stalking Seulgi on Instagram, you accidentally like a photo from February. It’s bad, but it could be worse. At least it’s not from last year. At least she’s clothed in it.

(Mostly. It’s her sprawled over a motel bed in a ripped band tee and lacy panties and nothing else. But it’s also very clearly a photo from set - you recognize it from a movie of hers that you went to see with Wendy a few months back. R-rated, fully scandalous, entirely brilliant, sure to sweep the end-of-year awards ceremonies you have coming up. Seulgi played the drug-addicted fuck-crazy frontwoman to some rock band, had half a dozen topless scenes, thrown back on the sheets like a timeless sex symbol: makeup smudged, chest heaving, moans practically pornographic. Eyes heavy, hooded, meant to seduce.

But this picture’s got none of that. Seulgi’s very clearly mid-laugh in it, for one, breaking character; someone had happened to snap a candid, catch her in a moment of gorgeous, wild imperfection. It’s one of the only photos on her Instagram that isn’t her face fixed in a practiced smolder, that doesn’t relegate her pretty mouth to a smirk. A rarity, where she’s not living up to her reputation.

And you can’t stop staring at it. Wondering what it was that got her to crack. Strangely spellbound by that one expression, unable to pull your eyes away.)

So your finger slips, and you like it - whatever. But it’s probably fine: you doubt Seulgi even has her notifications turned on, and even if she does, she gets hundreds of thousands of those per day. She’ll never see it.

Nobody needs to know, really. And even if they do, it’s not like it means anything.

do you think this is heartless of irene though, you text Wendy. like i know i said i wasn’t mad at her but

irene? heartless? replies Wendy. generally yes. but in this context….. ummm…

???

i mean. sorry. but its KANG SEULGI

and? you say. And then, because it’s easier to lie to Wendy through your teeth when she can’t see the expression on your face: kang seulgi is like deeply mediocre as an actress. and otherwise. i don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s a mistruth of biblical proportions. Miraculously, Wendy doesn’t even call you on it.

whoa…. she says, instead. cant wait for these texts to get leaked so u get crucified on twitter for talking shit about THE kang seulgi

wendy why would these texts ever get leaked.

idk….. for the right price…..

you leak these texts and i’m leaking your nudes.

go ahead i look fucking great in all my nudes!!!!! tf!!!!

And that’s how you know it’s really over: Wendy can’t even blame Irene for going after Seulgi. Wendy, who’s always had a vague vendetta against Irene (her vibes are permanently fucked and can never be resuscitated, Wendy informed you once, while drunk, and has since never offered another explanation), backing down from an opportunity to insult her. It’s bad. It’s really bad.

KYSSSSS, you say. Then, immediately: okay i’m sorry i didn’t mean that i’m just emotional right now.

we’re going to a party when i get back, texts Wendy. u need to get out of the house before u become so delusional that u have to be institutionalized.

fine, you say, unable to fight back. It’s starting to seem like she kind of has a point.

(Looking back on it now, the actual first problem is this:

Wendy’s right. You think Kang Seulgi is so, so hot. But the even worse thing is that you’ve thought this for ages: binge-watched every movie she’s ever been in, gone through dozens of interviews, drooled over red carpet photos. Since you started dating Irene. Since long before that. But it’s always been fine - distant and manageable, irrelevant and light-hearted - because you’ve never once acted on it, because you’ve never once met her. Nothing that’ll ever come to fruition at all, and for good reason. And it doesn’t matter now, because she’s dating your ex-girlfriend and so you want her dead. It’ll never be anything more than that.

Or, at least, that’s what you think.)

Two days later, and - well, there’s always a party. You’re all too rich and famous and repressed. It’s just how it’s always been.

The typical scene’s already in full swing, when you get there: looming mansion, rooms gaping wide, the most well-known names in the country spilling out over the spotless tile flooring, laughing and drinking and enjoying some semblance of freedom. You’re all so used to smiling into a lens like surveillance is second nature - you’ll get reckless at times like these, when you know you can afford it. When you know there’s only a miniscule chance of getting caught.

“Seriously,” you say, phone tucked close to your ear, talking loud over the music: “if I don’t find you in the next ten minutes, I’m leaving.”

“But then how will you get laid without me?” Wendy says, on the other line.

You roll your eyes, then shoot a wave at one of Wendy’s idol friends across the room, someone she probably knows from a music show or a collab stage or because they’re part of the same company. The idol industry’s a little different than yours; they’re constantly at the same events, frequenting the same venues. It’s easier to forge connections. “You mean because you’ll be my wingman or because you’ll take one for the team and fuck me yourself?”

“It’s a toss-up,” says Wendy, who’s talking equally loudly, probably trapped in some opposite corner of this manor of a house. “I still haven’t seen if you look hot enough tonight. I have standards, bitch.”

“Right,” you say, as you notice Park Sooyoung and her fiancé, isolated off to the right in what seems like a particularly intense conversation for a party. “You really know how to turn a girl on, Wendy. I’m, like, creaming my jeans.”

A horrified pause through the pounding music. “You’re wearing jeans?”

“Obviously not. Weren’t you the one who said-”

“Yeah, yeah. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

Cliché, but you won’t knock it ‘til you try it. They’re tropes for a reason. So you’re looking for a very specific kind of attention tonight: short skirt and shoes with a heel and hair straightened to a shine. This Kang Seulgi thing is the last goddamn straw, giving you a mission, an objective: you need to get fucked, and soon. You don’t need to find the love of your life, or whatever. You just need to prove you’ve moved on.

“Shouldn’t be that hard,” says Wendy. “I’m sure there are plenty of social climbers at this party who want what you have and think they can fuck their way into a job or whatever.”

“So you’re saying that they’d want me for my fame and not anything else?” She’s got a point, but you’re not about to tell her that; it’s enough to get a fuck, and that’s all you’re asking for. “Thanks. Really, that’s so helpful.”

“Your fame and your ass,” replies Wendy, cheerfully. “What else do you need? Like, it clearly wouldn’t be for your personality-”

“Fuck off. I’m going out to the balcony,” you say, beelining towards the glass double doors; they’re recognizable enough, and you need the backup. “Come find me, okay?”

“Okay, no, that’s too vague. There are like fifteen balconies in this place. How will I know-”

And everything that happens next occurs with horror-movie proportions: the fatal anticipation, the red flags flying. Any audience member’s screaming at the screen right now, warning you: don’t go through that doorway, don’t make that decision, turn on your heel and run. It’s a slasher and you’re heading right into the killer’s arms. It’ll ruin you for life. It’s so obvious-

(There’s a storm coming. There’s the crack of lightning, electricity at your ribs. The sky’s a second from splitting open. What are the odds, what’s the mathematic probability; you and the girl you’ve been obsessing over for the past three days - or earlier than that, if you’re counting just how many of her movies you’ve seen, put on repeat, lost your mind a million times over - in the same place, the same time. You’re distracted; you’ve forgotten to put your guard up. Again with all the fucking clichés.)

-but there’s hindsight, and all its clarity. You’re just not there yet. You’re too close to see it coming.

There’s a woman smoking on the balcony.

There’d be a sitcom laugh track here, if anyone were watching - how clueless can someone be, how comically stupid - because you don’t even realize it at first, much less recognize who it is. You’re pushing open the heavy double doors, still talking loudly to Wendy, trying to elaborate on statues that could serve as makeshift landmarks - and in the rush of the cool autumn wind, you finally spot her standing there. Cue raucous laughter. Take a breath for delighted applause.

“Ah, sorry,” you say, automatically, coming to a stop.

“Yeah, you should be,” says Wendy, still on the phone.

The doors shut with an ominous sound behind you; bad omens, butterfly effects. Smoke curling around the woman’s hair, turning her silhouette spectral, ghostlike. Clad in a dress so short there’s no way her teeth aren’t chattering around her cigarette. You say, into the phone, “Not to you, idiot. I’m talking to-”

And then the woman turns, and you’re so shocked you accidentally hang up the call. Because it’s-

Well, everyone probably already knows by now.

What they don’t know - what nobody could know, except you, in this one moment - is the overwhelmingly, tragically physical effect seeing her in person has on you. Lungs suddenly like they’re struggling for air. Pulse like the thrum of music still blaring inside, bass as a bloodline, melodies as chemical compositions. Somehow, entirely by accident, you’d built her up in your head to be this deity, this goddess, this fictitious impossibility: she’s otherworldly in her films, in photographs, spur-of-the-moment snaps taken by fans. Beautiful like something out of a Renaissance painting, striking and regal and ruminative. You’d never even imagined anything else.

And it’s there, in bits and pieces, a glimpse of the myth in motion. Threat in the high hemline of her skirt. Lips startlingly red, blood and sin and more suggestive things. Collarbones like cliffs to throw yourself off of; glint in her eye like she’s armed and dangerous. Like she’s everything her movies paint her out to be.

But then there’s everything else.

“Oh,” you say out loud, throat dry, and you’re paralyzed.

Because she’s nothing like she is when you’ve seen her in print, awards shows and billboards - and in that moment, it all starts crumbling to the ground.

She’s positively tiny in real life, that’s the first thing. Sporting platform boots and still a few inches shorter than you are; sleeves hitting below her elbows, veins visible in her arms, patterned under her skin. Lipstick bleeding just past the line of her mouth, smudged unevenly at her cupid’s bow. Hair a little wild in the wind, slipping undone and coarse over her shoulders. Eyeliner worn-in, mascara leaving faint, sooty shadows under both eyes. Tiny moles you’d seen photoshopped out in magazines; one just underneath her eyebrow, stark against fair skin; one of her knees is badly bruised, blooming a faint, sickly yellow-green. Posture slightly slumped as she turns to look at you, shoulders rounded, set of her lips a bit crooked, pulled up at a corner.

“Hey,” Kang Seulgi says, voice gravelly, and that’s really when everything falls apart.

Because she’s nothing like she is on billboards. Because she’s better.

Here’s how it happens, if you had to explain yourself: you meet and it’s already so far gone. You can’t help but blink dumbly, heart thrown into an avalanche, splitting your ribs; smoke everywhere, fires set ablaze. Off the key of reason, each bit of her just past perfect and heading straight to immeasurably, unquantifiably beautiful. Rough edges and nails unpolished, hands like an invitation. Lips puckering around her cigarette, hair somewhat blending into the night sky - and Seulgi looks right on back at you, staring openly, drinking you in.

“Hi,” you say, breathlessly, because you forget that you’re supposed to hate her guts.

“Hey,” says Seulgi again, and she’s still staring, eyes wide. It’s becoming incredibly apparent that there’s no need for introduction. She knows who you are.

(That’s the next problem. You know each other, even though you’ve never met. There’s no escaping it now.)

The seconds tick by in spellbindingly slow motion. Like you’re waiting for the clock to strike midnight; waiting on an inevitability, a prewritten series of events, an entirely scripted array of scenes. Moon a deliberate director. Stars the screenwriters, setting marks, assigning meaning: put a pause here, pull back on the dialogue - the critics will get all the subtext.

You’re frozen. You just can’t stop looking at her.

“Sorry,” Seulgi says, suddenly.

“Um,” you say back, because for one crazy moment, you think she’s talking about Irene. And for an even crazier moment you think of saying no, it’s fine, I forgive you - no, obviously I haven’t been obsessing about it since I heard the news; God, you’re so much more than gorgeous, I get it; fuck, I’d never blame anyone for going after you. Look at you. Look at you.

But then Seulgi gestures with her cigarette between two fingers, and you realize she’s talking about the smoking. And she abruptly doesn’t sound sorry at all when she says, “You can go back inside, if you want. Not trying to offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities here.”

Your mouth falls open.

“Seriously,” Seulgi tacks on, at your silence. “I wouldn’t want to, you know.” Slow pan of your body, your hair to your heels. Something about the way she looks at you, then; severe quirk of her eyebrow, the amused sniff of air through her nose. “Get in your way.”

And, well-

“It’s a bad habit,” continues Seulgi, mouth at an exponentially sharper tilt, and takes another lazy drag.

-it occurs to you that she’s kind of being a bitch.

And that in itself is fucking mind-boggling. Because she’s the one dating your ex-girlfriend after a month and a half. Because if anyone should be getting nasty here, it should be you - you’d have the right to, you should be furious (and you are, you remind yourself, you’ve been furious at her this whole time, she’s your mortal enemy, seeing her in person doesn’t change that), you should follow through on your threat of running her over with a car, it’s so stupid that she’s the one trying to get a rise out of you right now-

“Disgusting habit, actually,” you say, barely giving her a chance to breathe. “But if you want to die from lung cancer, that’s totally your prerogative. I don’t care either way.”

So, obviously, you make the split-second decision to be a bitch right back. It’s just the thing to do.

A tiny, maddening smirk curls around Seulgi’s mouth. “That’s a little strong, kid,” she says. “You wouldn’t care if I died?”

“Does it really matter to you what I care about?” You’ve got your arms folded over your chest; you can’t believe she just called you kid. Yeah, she’s got like ten years on you, but - Jesus Christ. “You don’t know me.”

“You don’t like me,” says Seulgi, like she’s mildly delighted by it.

“I just said I don’t know you, Seulgi.”

The moment her name leaves your mouth you know it’s a mistake - but you can’t quite figure out why. Just that you’re both aware of something of a seismic shift, the whole house tipping sideways; moon slipping slightly out of orbit, constellations doubling back to take another glance. Both of you unsteady in your heels; Seulgi’s lips part, and she’s staring again. Expression oddly slack, as if struck. Smoke softening the line of her jaw.

“Seulgi,” you say, again, trying to recover.

You can’t come up with anything else. It’s as if you’ve never done improv, like you’ve never charmed your way through talk show interviews. There are tiny, glimmering studs lining Seulgi’s ears, a perfect match to the small pendant she’s got around her neck, glinting in the moonlight. Nestled right where her neckline dips scandalously low.

“My eyes are up here,” says Seulgi, apparently taking the opportunity to bring back the hostility full-force.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you say, just as fast. “There’s barely anything worth looking at there.”

There’s a pause.

Okay - fine, it’s possible that was maybe going a little far. To be fair, you’ve never had a first conversation this tense, with anyone; you don’t know the regulations. It’s ridiculous that you’re acting like this. But it’s her - it’s something about her stupid smile and her smoking, her reckless beauty and her big reputation, that look in her eyes that says she gets whatever she wants, even if she has to take it.

You glance upwards just to see that Seulgi actually almost looks like she’s about to burst out laughing. Lips twitching, irises strangely bright under silvery moonlight. Smile revealing her teeth.

But she doesn’t, though it looks like it takes some effort. “Wow,” she says, instead, and returns to condescending amusement as quickly as she’d left it. “That’s really mature.”

“You’re the one who stole my girlfriend and you wanna talk about maturity?” you spit. “That’s hilarious.”

It’s not your best move. As if anyone could steal a grown woman, much less one like Irene - but Seulgi’s looking at you like that, and you have to land a blow, even if it’s irrational. Plus sometimes you’re susceptible to social media bullshit.

Seulgi’s still smiling. “I’ll have you know there was no overlap,” she says. “Very above board. But it’s cute that you buy into Twitter conspiracy theories. Spend a lot of time stalking your own stans?”

“Okay,” you shoot back, “but how would you know that my stans are coming up with Twitter conspiracy theories in the first place?”

There’s another long silence.

“So you’re stalking my stans,” you conclude. “That’s way worse.”

“Um,” says Seulgi, suddenly looking considerably less intimidating than she did two seconds ago. Then, “Well, you’re the one who liked one of my half-naked Instagram photos from February.”

“Okay,” you say, again, arms crossed over your chest. “But why do you know that?”

“My stans are well-informed,” Seulgi explains, tapping her cigarette against her bottom lip. “They like to keep track of who likes my shit.”

“All I’m getting from this is that you regularly monitor both my stans and your stans when they talk about me.”

Seulgi stares at you, mouth opening a little; like she’s guilty, like she’s caught. “So,” she says.

“Loser,” you say, probably proving her point about immaturity.

But it doesn’t even faze her; you blink once and she’s smiling again, for some godforsaken reason. She says, “You know what, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Corner of her mouth curling further, putting her cigarette out on the railing. “I’m actually a big fan of you, to be honest.”

“Ugh,” you say, cheeks flushing hot with frustration. It seems so obvious that she’s making fun of you; because she’s older and sexier and more famous, because there’s no way you were even on her radar before she started dating your ex. “You’re so - whatever. I’m leaving. Bye.”

You turn to go, fully intending to never speak to her again. Asshole, you’re thinking, she’s such a-

“No, no,” Seulgi’s saying, laughing, “hold on, we should-”

And it’s the littlest thing that does it, in the end:

Seulgi’s fingers close around your wrist, and all she does is tug lightly. Barely any pressure at all. But she’s stepped forward to get her hand on you, and so she’s so close when she pulls you back to her; you stumble a bit in your heels, not expecting it, almost tumbling right into her. And - as if it’s an instinct - her other hand falls carefully to the small of your back, steadying you with her palm at your spine. Face so near to yours you can smell her perfume under all the smoke. Gazes locking; clink of chains, discarding keys, handcuffs latching tight. It’s instantaneous.

There are fifty things you should probably say right now - don’t touch me, we’re strangers, we don’t know each other; are you this presumptuous with everyone you meet, do you try to provoke them, or is it something about me; please don’t say it’s me. But the truth is that the moment she gets her hands on you, it’s already pretty much doomed.

“Oh,” Seulgi breathes out, like a revelation.

She’s no longer laughing, so thrown even she can’t act it off. Eyes so dark, pupils scarily dilated. Wind flicking inky strands of hair across her face. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips; you shiver underneath her hand on your back, your wrist, pulse hammering underneath her thumb. Seulgi’s been messing with you since the second you met her, but even she doesn’t have the power to charge the atmosphere like this; electric current, preparing for the roll of thunder, bones thrumming restless and wired under your skin. Seismic shift, give it a sequel: any second the house’ll catch fire and disintegrate.

“You should probably let go of me,” you warn, faintly, shivering, staring at her mouth and thinking fuck, fuck, fuck.

Seulgi’s lashes flutter fast, blinking herself out of a trance.

“Yeah,” she says, but there’s an undertone to it; she steps back, lets you go, visibly bites the inside of her cheek. Like she needs to snap herself out of it before it’s too late. “Right. Sorry, kid. I didn’t - I really am a fan, you know.”

“Are you,” you say, too enthralled to try and catch her in a lie. The air’s still so thick: it could splinter every surrounding window from the outside in, tear through glass like paper. You can’t comprehend the change - can’t understand why you can still feel her hands on you, white-hot and consuming. It’s too fast a tilt, throwing your head into vertigo; you’re still so full of misplaced expectation. Will she, won’t she.

“I have been for a while,” says Seulgi, suddenly bashful. She won’t, you’re certain. She can’t; she’s out of your league and so gorgeous and she’s taken, she’s so unavailable, you just met, she’d never. “I think you’re…”

“You think I’m…” you mimic.

Seulgi’s eyebrows raise, and her gaze drops. Surveying you again, your face, your hair, your body - measuring you up to your films, the fiction and the fantasy. And there’s this look in her eye; you can’t tell what she sees when she looks at you. Her hair’s filtering moonlight; she’s all surrealism, the temptation of imperfect things, the immeasurable beauty. Soft line of her neck. Sharp glint of her stare. And out of nowhere you already know it’s over, before she even opens her mouth.

“Fucking incredible,” she murmurs, at a sensuous rasp, throaty insinuation curling around every syllable.

(She will, then - it’s done and decided. She will.)

And it’s so idiotic, because you’re actresses, for God’s sake. You make a living off of faking feelings, playing parts. But there’s something about you and her and how high you are off the ground, on top of the world, larger than life and the city far beneath your heels; all it takes is a little bit of proximity. You’re both too used to having everything you’ve ever wanted right at your fingertips. All it takes is a touch.

“You should go,” you say, quietly, hands aching to have her.

Out of nowhere you’re too close together again. You’re not sure who stepped forward first, not sure who started it; not sure who’s fault this is going to be, when you play it all back. You can’t rationalize it in the least. Sometimes it’s just a feeling.

“I don’t think I want to,” Seulgi murmurs back, just as inexplicably captivated as you are, too near to rein it in. “Do you really want me to?”

“You have a girlfriend.” It’s not an answer. You’re drawn into her eyes as if by gravity; deep-space, brilliant astronomy. You can’t make yourself sound as guilty as you should. “Seulgi.”

There’s that problem with her name in your mouth again: like a death sentence, like a missile deployed, like a cocking gun. It’s a direct hit. You’ll never be able to take this one back.

“Fuck,” Seulgi says, out loud, and then she kisses you.

(Oh, there’s no way to explain it. It’s exactly the kind of thing that’d cause walk-outs in theaters, reviewers throwing up their hands in disbelief, baffled; the chemistry is there, sure, but where’s the logic, where’s the narrative sense, where’s the justification. That can’t be all it takes, that would make you and Seulgi both morons: five minutes of snarky conversation and sexual tension and you both cave, how does that work, who approved this fucking script-

Well, they’re just gonna have to get used to it. It’s a film where neither of the main characters have any common decency, so what did you really expect - and, truthfully, it only gets worse from here on out.)

Right away it’s too intense, too sensual and filled with filthy intention. Countdown clocks, hourglasses dripping sand: you’re existing on completely stolen time and it shows. Her thigh finds her way between both of yours; your back hits the wall right next to the double doors. You’ve never had a first kiss so fucking sloppy - licking along your lip gloss, the seam of your mouth; teeth colliding, fingers digging into your hips; deliciously invasive, like she’s trying to devour you: motive shifting, nails working their way against your scalp, scraping until you whimper. You’re seconds from humping her thigh like an animal, making a mess to clean. And you’re suddenly so, so wet.

“Are we really doing this?” Seulgi’s all smoke, old horrible habits; vices, addictions. “We - God-”

“Depends,” you say, too turned on to be anything but a bitch. “If you wanna be a morally corrupt cheater who cheats on your girlfriend with someone you just met-”

“Are you gonna say that’s my prerogative again?”

“Well.” You can’t believe she’s onto you so soon. “It is.”

“You’re such a brat,” she says, with feeling, and then sees the look on your face. “Oh, wow. Of course you’re into that.”

Apparently she’s onto a lot of things about you. “Who says I’m into that?”

It’s a bad point to call her bluff. In no time at all Seulgi’s got her thigh between your legs again, dislodges her hand from your hair and holds a fist to your shoulder; pressing you down, forcing friction. You can’t stop yourself - you’re rocking your hips, you’re soaking through your thong, trying not to whine - you can’t comprehend how you got here so fast, so wanton and desperate, how natural it feels for her to pin you against a wall and work whimpers out of your mouth - how much you want it-

(Fine, maybe the real truth is that the minute you saw her and her eyes and her hands and her short dress you wanted her so bad you forgot how to function, she got a little mean with you and it turned you on, she got too close to your face and you instantly thought of her fucking you senseless - fine. It’s been doomed from the very first second. Maybe you’re just as morally corrupt as she is. Maybe even more.)

“Huh, I don’t know.” There’s no justifying it. Seulgi’s mouth held in a wicked smirk, gleam of teeth like the definition of the upper hand. Taking it without question; you’re into that, so she’ll be what you want. “Your cunt dripping all over my thigh right now?”

“This is so fucked up,” you manage, needing to kiss her again, needing to be bent over and fucked on her fingers, needing more. Her own question thrown back in her face: “Are we really doing this?”

You’re finally gonna get your answer. It’s her, and it’s hopeless. Serpent in Eden. Fangs like the devil. Heedless smile, photographs and their infinite words: let me show you everything you’ve been missing out on; come on, baby, let me take you home; let me bring you back to life.

“Yeah,” sighs Seulgi, and presses her lips to yours, one more time. “I think we are.”

She pulls you inside by the hand, shoving past some of the most well-known names in the country. She’s careless about it, too. Like you’re incomprehensibly the only thing in the room she can see, fingers intertwined tight with yours, your nails and her bare knuckles, a near-perfect fit. She trips over someone’s foot and has to catch herself on a doorframe, and you laugh until she tells you to shut the fuck up, but she’s laughing too, and kind of looking like she wants to kiss you, right there in public. She doesn’t, because she can’t, and you know it. You let the moment go.

Seulgi doesn’t take you home. She’s got Irene there, probably; that’s the first reason. The second is that, truthfully, the two of you aren’t only stupid, you’re also impatient - if you have to wait any longer you’re gonna lose your minds.

“You know, I have this theory about you.”

So that’s how you end up in some upstairs bathroom, your back flush against the sink, her hands up in your hair and her teeth over your throat, your nails leaving marks on her wrists, her thighs. Those fucking claws, Seulgi says, and grins at the scarlet-red scratches; like she likes you when you’re riled and needy, like there’s a sort of test you’ve passed. Tugs the neckline of your top down with rough fingers; kisses sloppy and open-mouthed down your neck, your collarbone, licks a line down your chest. And right as she’s hovering over a nipple, breath so hot you’re already whining, that’s when she says-

“What?” you say back. Too thrown off, too turned on; you’re blinking down at her swollen mouth, panting. It barely registers. “You have a what?”

“Here’s how I see it.” It’s almost conversational. Seulgi flicks her tongue over your nipple, draws back just as quick. You whine without meaning to, spine curving, begging for more. “Girls like you,” she says. “You always have a type.”

There’s something dangerous about her tone, something sending you on high alert, alarms wailing, windows blown out or breaking in. Something about how she says girls like you, like she’s already got you all figured out - physical evidence to a heinous crime, already crafting her case. Motive and opportunity. Gleam in her eyes before she puts you away for life.

“What?” you say, again, voice wavering.

Her hand trails down your stomach, searching for more skin. Tugs the hem of your skirt up. “I think you have a thing for it,” Seulgi says, and dips her chin, indicating herself. “Older women. All that entails. See, I don’t think someone like you accidentally starts dating someone like Irene.” Her hand stops at your inner thigh, won’t go near your cunt, won’t touch you where you need it. “You get off on that kind of age gap, right?” She doesn’t need you to answer for her to know it’s true. “You like feeling helpless. Like you need to be taken care of.”

She leans forward; her lips hover over yours, unwilling to kiss you again. She’ll make you work for it. She says, “You like pretending that you’re just this naïve good girl, corrupted by some older woman who couldn’t keep her hands off you. Like you’re just such an angel, baby. They couldn’t resist.” Raises her hands to your hips and presses down. “I think it makes you so fucking wet. ”

You hold your breath. You can’t give yourself away this early, you’re thinking. You can’t be so predictable - it’s humiliating, it’s unbearable. “Seulgi-”

Unwilling to kiss you, or at least she’s trying to be - but you say her name, and that’s all it takes for her to break.

There’s something about the way she kisses you, then, hoisting you up until you’re perched on the bathroom sink, tongue slipping across your bottom lip: like you should’ve known. Like the first second you saw her, it should’ve sent your nervous system haywire, veins knotting themselves and bloodstream freezing like ice. Like no matter what - talk about butterfly effects, talk about roads and pathways and predestination - the second you saw her, she was always going to see right through you. Like she was always going to tilt her head like this, pull back with her lashes a flicker against her cheekbone. Pull back and demand-

“Say it.”

You’re barely breathing. “Say what?”

Seulgi lifts an eyebrow, amused by you playing dumb. And there’s a purpose to it - a monologue, an anticipation, a breaking point. Testing you against the pull of her blunt nails scraping your thighs, won’t touch you further until you give in. Excruciating, temptation incarnate.

“Say it,” she purrs, again. “I know you want to.” One hand on either thigh and parting them, slowly. “I’m not gonna fuck you until you say it.”

And then she runs her knuckles against the drenched spot on your panties, right where your cunt’s soaked through - and the pressure’s not nearly enough. Pulls your thong to the side, your cunt glistening wet; every part of you throbbing with aching need. She’s watching your face with an intent, arrogant sort of certainty. She knows you’re about to give in.

“Sweetheart,” Seulgi says, sends your skin simmering hot with just a word. You can’t handle how shiny her hair is, still tangled from the autumn wind - can’t stand the way her irises glint in a dark room, like she’s so great she’s defying logic, like fame’s really made her something supernatural. Can’t stand that she’s unfathomably beautiful. Can’t stand that she’s not yours.

So you give in.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy-”

Somewhere in there - that’s when Irene calls. But it’s not a question, what’s more important right now: Seulgi lets you run your mouth and stays hooked on every word, taunting you, laughing as your cunt soaks her hand. Keeps fucking your pussy like there’s nothing in the world she’d rather be doing, and lets the call go to voicemail.

Seulgi fucks you like she’s everything her reputation makes her out to be, and that’s the only way to put it: rough and brutal and intense, off the edge of violent. You’re thinking of the box office killer you saw her in a few weeks back - she played the love-interest-turned-villain, led the reveal with knuckles chapped and split, smile lined in blood - and it’s the risk, the ruthlessness: it’s like no one’s ever gotten what you need until her. Throat under her hand, saying filthy things about how wet you are, how fucked up, how pathetic and naughty, fingers around your neck and squeezing hard. You’re long past the threshold of embarrassment, recognizing humiliation - the only thing you’re thinking about is cumming around her fingers, her murmuring against your skin. You’ll let her say anything.

Which is probably a bad call, in retrospect, because the obscenity that comes out of her mouth-

“No,” she snaps, when you try to cover your mouth with your palm, stifling moans. Slips her hand from the base of your throat to your wrist and tugs. “Let me hear you moan for mommy, baby.”

You’re helpless to obey, and she laughs when you do - fully laughs, fingers curling in your cunt, the sloppy wet sounds loud enough to fill the bathroom, echo off the walls. “Mommy,” you’re whimpering, losing it, stare hooked on her red, irresistible mouth, “fuck, you-”

There’s a dark flush in her cheeks, up to her neck; you try and kiss her and Seulgi holds her mouth out of reach. Leans in and says, breath hitting your teeth, “Are you always this fucking desperate?”

No, you can’t say, no, never. I swear it’s something about you. You. It’s you.

Because it’s so mortifying, but it’s true: Seulgi’s eyes and her hands and the way she’s got you firmly in place, one hand between your legs, the other returning delicious pressure against the nape of your neck. Tone of her voice, musical with mirth. The way it’s like she’s got everything that’ll turn you on indexed and itemized - demeaning you, making you work for it, beg for it, in this bathroom where the party’s still carrying on outside, blissfully unaware - like, somehow, she already knows.

Then, like you’d spoken it out loud: Seulgi grips the back of your neck hard. “Or is it just that you like fucking other people’s girlfriends?”

See, you’re an actress, in your profession, in your habits. You’re so used to being in control. Pulling at your muscles like they’re on marionette strings, perfectly maneuvering your face, your body. You can lie your way out of anything, if you put your mind to it. You’re even better with the truth.

But you can’t even shake your head, can’t get a protest out past your whines. Seulgi’s got a hold on you and your thighs clamping down around your wrist. “I think it turns you on,” she says, and as if to punctuate it, her hand leaves your neck and connects with your cheek, quick and hard. “Smug little slut. Acting all bratty, humping my leg - you wanted this, didn’t you? I bet right when you saw me you got so wet. Already thinking about calling me mommy. ” Lips ghosting over your jaw. “You’re so obvious.”

“That’s not-”

Another slap, the crack of her hand mesmerizing, head-spinning. “Don’t lie to me,” Seulgi says, but it’s almost amused, one eyebrow raised, sharp pull of a smirk. “You think I can’t feel your pussy clenching around my fingers?”

And she just keeps going and going - it’s a revenge fantasy for you, huh, she says, seducing your ex’s girlfriend, whining like a bitch in heat until I finally give you what you need; irises like staring down the barrel of a gun, dark and explicitly dangerous. The world’s suddenly impossible to hold in your head, parameters blurring, inhibitions seeping out at the edges - you abruptly can’t comprehend anything but the tactile, the physical - fuck status, fuck scandal, fuck anything but her in front of you - saying you’re so soaked, baby, creaming all over mommy’s fingers like that. Saying cum for me. Saying now.

You do, and then she doesn’t stop. It’s not like you expected anything less.

“You’re lucky I think you’re so fucking cute,” she tells you, pain in all the right places. “Depraved as fuck, but cute.”

Afterwards:

“God,” you mutter into the crook of Seulgi’s neck. She’s holding you upright on the counter, laughing a little, breath against your temple. Lips brushing your hairline, impossibly gentle. You’re so thoroughly fucked; you forget what the protocol for no-strings sex is, illicit affairs. You were in a relationship with the same girl for two years: you’ve never learned how to have meaningless sex. Well, it’s coming back to bite you now. “Seulgi.”

She stops laughing, sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re fucked up,” she tells you. “Saying my name like that.”

“I’m not-” You’re grinning. “I’m just saying it. Like a normal person.”

“Nothing about you is normal,” says Seulgi, with mild fondness, and lets one hand drop between your thighs.

It’s meant only to tease, obviously; she drags two fingers through your drooling cunt, makes you whimper from overstimulation when she bumps your clit. You’re trying to blink yourself back to clarity - all you can see is her face, her smudged lipstick, mask slipping further. Mascara fading under her eyes. Sheen breaking through her foundation on her forehead.

“You,” you say, captivated. “You’re so…”

You just met her for the first time tonight. She just introduced her current infidelity into the fucking dirty talk, like a taboo straight out of some really questionable porn - and, yeah, she just made you cum like you never have before. She’s possibly insane. She’s sick in the head. She’s so, so stunning.

“You have serious issues,” you say, instead. “And you probably need to seek professional help for them. Let me make you cum.”

Seulgi fully laughs then, something clearly out of sheer surprise, and it’s lovely: nothing like the sexy, raspy, careless thing you’ve seen her do in movies, on talk shows. No, it’s this adorable, unselfconscious bout of giggles, like she’s close to letting out a snort. You’re struck, staring. Watching her eyes squeeze shut and her head tip back, cheeks flushed. Watching her, gorgeous.

“Okay,” you say, too weirdly endeared to be frustrated by it. “You don’t want me to make you cum, then.”

Seulgi’s lips part, laughter dropping off. “It’s not that. It’s just - baby, you can’t even stand up right now. And you don’t have to.” Runs her tongue across her top teeth, like she’s been starved for years and she’s finally satiated. Lets her eyes fall half-lidded, and adds, lower, “Fucking your needy little pussy was enough for me right now.”

Your mouth dries up.

But the idea’s already spreading feverishly hot; settles at the tips of your fingers, gives your hands a motive. There’s that low throb behind your navel, desire untameable, physical. You need to hear it, hear her moaning for you, feel her cunt clamp down around your fingers. You’ll fight dirty to get it, too. Alright, it’s more than returning the favor, it’s so selfish-

You slip down from the counter, heels meeting the tile with a click. Your body trapped between Seulgi’s and the sink. You, leaning in, noses bumping, and say, breathless: “Mommy, I wanna make you cum for me.” Further, mouth capturing hers, the barest amount and nothing more. “Please.”

-but this started out selfish, so there’s no other way it could really end.

“Jesus,” exhales Seulgi, ruined. Then she pauses. “Wait, you’re gonna finger me with those?”

You stare, uncomprehending.

Seulgi nods downwards. “What are you trying to do, slash my vulva?”

Right. Your nails - almond-shaped, painted a glossy black; they’re not acrylics, but they’re uniformly long, regardless. “Um,” you say. “Fuck.” Then, “Well, I can probably improvise.”

You both rummage around in the bathroom cabinets until you - remarkably - find both a nail clipper and a nail file. It’s one of those really nice ones, too, metal and practically indestructible. “God’s on our side,” says Seulgi, as she watches you clip your middle fingernail down, then your ring.

“I seriously doubt it,” you say. “You’re gay and unfaithful. God definitely hates your guts.”

Seulgi swirls the nail file in the air, wisely, like she’s communing with a higher power. “No,” she disagrees, and takes your hand gently, getting to work. “God totally gets me. She understands.”

You lean back and let her, entertained against your will. “Understands what?”

“That I’m dumb.” Seulgi’s concentrating hard on sanding the uneven edges of your newly short nails; better safe than sorry. “And impulsive. And I make really self-destructive decisions. And you’re so adorable and so fuckable. And I really, really can’t help myself.”

“All valid reasons to cheat,” you say, dryly, even though this definitely isn’t something you should be joking about.

“That’s what I’m saying,” says Seulgi, equally as straight-faced, and presses her lips to the back of your hand. “All good, baby. You can make mommy cum now, or whatever it was you were begging to do.”

“Asshole,” you mutter, jerking your hand back. It’s futile, meaningless; all you do is take a step closer to her, anyway, looping your arms around her neck. “Why would I make you cum if you’re just gonna be a bitch to me?”

“Sweetheart.” She’s smiling now. “I think we’ve established that me being a bitch to you just makes you want to fuck me more.”

Well, shit. You can’t really argue with that one.

She’s the one on the counter this time, and you get two fingers inside her before she can run her mouth more - and Seulgi’s so responsive when she’s getting fucked, like she’s forgotten the role she’s playing, the arrogance and the degradation. Eyelids shuttering, head craning back, exposing the line of her throat. Kissing you like she can’t hold back from it, tongue trailing your teeth. Her voice drawls sweet and sultry, calling you good girl, oh, you’re so good for me, sweetheart, fucking mommy so good. I know, you wanna eat me out so bad, but you can’t ruin your makeup, I get it. Priorities, whatever. I respect your vanity.

“What?” you say, caught on a strange, sudden laugh, still pumping at her cunt, drawing sordidly wet sounds; cracking jokes at your expense while she’s on the verge of cumming all over your hand, that’s a new one. “Uh - fuck you?”

“Right,” Seulgi pants, gripping your wrist, bearing down on your fingers. “Exactly.”

And that’s probably the first red flag - the second, third, fourth; fine, you’re collecting them like the bruises you’ll have tomorrow, on your throat and wrists and thighs - because there’s a camaraderie there that shouldn’t be. You don’t even know her, and you’re trusting her enough to make you cum, make you laugh. It’s a warning sign. You’ve blown past those. Perfect, she’s repeating, anyway, pleasure stringing syllables together. You’re so perfect. So-

You hold her gaze when it’s over, suck your cum-soaked fingers into your mouth, enjoying the way Seulgi’s expression cracks open candidly, staring without shame. Not all your nails were cut short; your left hand’s scrawled scarlet marks into her thigh. Maybe they’ll fade fast - maybe they won’t. To be fair, that’s not exactly your problem.

Seulgi breathes out harshly, looking somewhat tortured. “Baby.”

Talk about red flags, you’re thinking, and release your fingers from your lips with a wet little pop. Maybe you’ll leave a few of your own, too.

For all intents and purposes, this aftermath should be devastating. Apocalyptic, the end of the world. There should be some huge, tearful declaration of regret, of remorse, repenting to some higher power. Maybe you’d slap her. Maybe you’d blame her. Maybe she’d turn into a crying mess, lamenting betrayal, crying how will she ever come back from this, it’s the biggest mistake of her life-

“So,” says Seulgi, suddenly. “You wanna get out of here or something?”

You turn and look at her in the mirror, sentiment like whiplash. “Excuse me?”

She’s already watching you, mouth quirked at a corner, caught - and then she doesn’t stop staring. Observing you openly, like she’s got a complete and total claim to you, canvassing every part of your body. Penetrative and unrelenting.

“Like, go home with you?” you ask, stepping forward.

You skid a little bit in your heels; Seulgi steadies you at an elbow. “Yeah,” she says.

“No,” you say, staring at her mouth, her pretty white teeth. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You have a girlfriend. You have Irene. Why would I…”

But you’re standing here in this bathroom, freshly fucked and nothing close to classy; there are probably dark smears of lipstick covering your mouth, your collarbone. Hair beyond saving. Why would you, you’re thinking - but then again, you already have.

“What the fuck is wrong with me,” you say, out loud.

“So much,” Seulgi says, “but I’m definitely into it.”

And now she’s more than smiling - positively beaming, with teeth and all, lighting up her whole face - like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. And she’s gorgeous. Something vaguely poetic about her face, features purposely and masterfully articulated; she’s so striking you can’t ever picture her being a normal girl, going to college classes and working part-time jobs. Maybe she fell into fame by accident; maybe it dragged her in, parasitic and poisonous. Either way, she’s here.

You step closer; you can’t help it, like magnetism, like gravity, like all everlasting clichés, applying even in the worst contexts. “Shut up,” you’re saying, and it’s only then that you realize you’re accidentally mid-laugh. “I’m not going home with you, Seulgi. And you’re definitely going to hell.”

Seulgi’s hand finds your waist too easily, slipping into place. Eyes glittering in the half-light; you’d call it seeing stars, but that’s all of her. Space sweeping wide with the fall of her hair, curve of her mouth like a sliver of the moon. Guiding you right into a storm just to make you beg for more.

“Alright,” she says, perfectly content. “But I’m pretty sure you’re gonna end up in hell, too, kid. We’re in the same boat here.”

Kid, she says, making you smaller. You should hate it and you can’t bring yourself to.

“Promise?” you say, and hold out your pinky.

It doesn’t mean anything. Her word’s been rendered null and void since she moment she touched you; there’s no commitment she makes that you should trust. But you’re fuck-addled and delirious and enchanted by the look on her face, the way her irises are so dark almost match her pupils: midnight, shadow, sin. You’ve known her for an hour, tops. She’s so beautiful you want her to do everything to you, but you won’t let her. There’s still a line, hypothetically.

“Promise,” Seulgi says, without a hint of irony, and wraps your pinky around yours. It’s so funny, it’s hilarious. You laugh until you fall right back into her arms.

It’s over. Well, in theory.

Mostly, it’s the worst mistake you’ve ever made, and you’re not going to repeat it. So you don’t get Seulgi’s number. You don’t say something coy about doing this again sometime, about seeing her soon, about how she should maybe dump her girlfriend and get with you instead - there’d be no point. Because it’ll never, ever happen again.

“Totally,” agrees Seulgi, and presses you up against the bathroom door just to kiss the life out of you. Forehead bumping yours clumsily, breathing against your teeth. “Never again. I’m right there with you.”

“Seulgi.”

“Jesus,” she says, laughing right into your mouth. “You’re cute.”

There’s nothing choreographed about it, nothing sorted through by intimacy coordinators, directors critiquing your chemistry. She’s got your jaw gently between her fingers, all smoke and sweet perfume. Kisses you once, lightly.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, like another promise.

You try and scowl, can’t quite pull it off. “The fuck you will.”

“Fine,” Seulgi says, eyes curved in her smile, thumb to your bottom lip, skimming lightly. “Fine. We’ll never see each other again.”

Never again, you’re repeating as you leave, reminding yourself, clutching the stairwell. Going home alone, swearing you regret it. Never, ever again.

omg ok i’m so sorry please don’t be mad, you text Wendy, right after calling your driver. i know we didn’t meet up but i don’t feel well and i think i have to head home :(

ok no worries take care of ur mental!!!!! says Wendy. also i ran into park sooyoung and she and her fuckass bf just had a fight or something so now we’re going to ditch the party and go get food.. wish me luck <3

her fuckass fiancé, you correct. they’re getting married next month.

Then: the bite of the wind, the hit of hypocrisy. Pots and kettles. Purpling edges of bruises spilling out from the neckline of your shirt, you can probably still smell Seulgi’s smoke in your hair - fuck, alright, okay.

You follow up, quickly: so if you’re going to homewreck their relationship you better do it before the wedding!!!! it’s just easier legally.

She doesn’t answer for a beat. You squint, re-reading it; okay, it’s sort of extreme. ummm i’m joking LOL, you text again, chewing on your lip. homewrecking is very bad!

right right right right, says Wendy, who has never taken any severe moral stance on homewrecking and isn’t about to start now. okay i love u pls call ur therapist and get better soon!!!!!

The thing about calling your therapist: that’s probably something you should do, yeah. Get better soon - not fucking likely.

And here’s the worst thing:

None of it breaks. You go home, you wait, you bide your time waiting for the other shoe to drop; there’s gotta be people who saw, who are trying to turn a profit off of selling secrets, who are good and honest and won’t tolerate something awful like cheating - but there’s nothing. No articles insinuating guilt, no trending Twitter hashtags, no headlines or anonymous sources or incriminating photographs. You’re not stupid enough to think you’re gonna get away with this, but it kind of feels like you’re gonna get away with this.

“Fuck,” you say, out loud, as you’re scrolling through Netflix and landing on one of Seulgi’s new action films, an automatic preview starting to play. She’s gorgeous, she’s villainous; the rasp of her voice alone sends your spine aching. “Fuck.”

So you’ve decided that you’re never going to make this horrible mistake again; one and done, one strike and it’s out of your system - that’s the smart choice to land on, in the moment. But then none of it gets out. And it plants the dangerous little thought in your head: if nobody knows about it, you begin to wonder, if it’s this easy to keep this terribly illicit affair a secret - well, it kind of makes you think that-

You watch the movie. It can’t hurt, at this point. You’ve already committed graver sins than that.

“Okay, seriously, what is the matter with you?”

So, it’s all you can fucking think about. Not that it’s even a surprise.

In the shower, while you’re on the phone talking to your agent, thumbing through a script for a new project. Images in your mind on repeat, abject filth: Seulgi with her mouth on yours, Seulgi pinching your nipple between two fingers, Seulgi with your thighs clamping around her wrist and making you whimper mommy, mommy, mommy; stain of her lipstick on your neck, sweat shimmering over her delicate collarbones, how she’d looked at you after a little bit in awe, and laughed. Not meanly, not condescending. Just like the situation amazed her, to be there with you.

You’re hopeless, floating through the next few days in a fog. Brain skipping through the same details, uncannily appreciative of cinematography: black hair mussed by the wind, blue-green veins pale in her wrists. Rasp of her voice, breath hot against your ear, against the sensitive skin of your neck. Your cunt dripping down her hand as she curls her fingers; her dark eyes like the night in the dimmer light, like they’re sewn up with stars-

“Are you dissociating right now?” says Wendy, eyeing you like she’s seconds from getting your psychiatrist on the phone. “Alright, wait - name five things you can see, four things you can touch-”

-and Wendy, obviously, is not going to leave you alone about it.

“That’s for anxiety,” you say, staring at your nails. You’d clipped them all short after the party; it’s less incriminating that way. “And I’m fine.”

Wendy snorts. “Now I know you’re full of shit. When are you ever fine?”

It’s two days later. You, horrifically enough, have an awards show to attend in the evening; in about fifteen minutes you’re about to have an entire team swarming your apartment, makeup artists armed to the teeth, hairstylists wielding heat protectant and flat-irons. Before that, though - okay, you’ve never been good at hiding things from Wendy.

“So,” you say, as the two of you are lounging across your bed. It’s hard to know how to put something like this gracefully without lines to memorize, cues to follow. “Remember that party the other day-”

“Obviously.”

You’re stalling. “I know I said I went home because I felt sick. But, um…”

Wendy throws you an aghast look. “But you lied?” She hits you in the thigh with her phone. “Figures. Fucking actresses. You’re all just pathological liars who learned how to profit off of it.” She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. “Ugh.”

She’s got you pegged early, but she always seems to. “What about Park Sooyoung?”

“Park Sooyoung’s an angel,” says Wendy, immediately. “She’s an exception.”

You’d probably be able to chat around the topic for hours, if you’d felt the need - but you’re dying to talk about it, a little bit. Nothing’s like I thought it was, you want to say. I swear the sun’s put itself out, I swear I saw the devil in the flesh; she was so much more than I thought she would be. “At the party,” you say, instead, bracing for impact, “I kind of - okay, when I was on the phone with you, and I hung up - it was because I ran into Kang Seulgi.”

Wendy gasps. Rolls over on her side, auburn hair splayed over your sheets, eyes comically wide. “And you didn’t end up in prison for murder?”

Oh, no; you just did something a lot worse. “We did have an… altercation.”

The implication alone jolts Wendy upright. “You fought her? Like, physically?” Mouth open, jaw hanging off its hinges. “Without me?”

“Uh.” You guiltily divert your gaze out the window. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” Wendy tugs at the sleeve of your shirt, forcing you to face her. “What does that mean? There was just mild bitch-slapping or something?”

You pause. It’s not the time, but it’s there anyway, the way you make a wet dream a memory: Seulgi with her palm pressed tight to your throat, Seulgi with her hand smacking across your face. Seulgi with her gaze dark and attentive, the path of her fingers slick across your thighs, always pushing for more, more-

“Um,” you say. “I mean, there was slapping involved.”

And all hell breaks loose.

It’s actually almost impressive, the way Wendy hears slapping and instantly connects the dots. Even more impressive, the way she loses her shit on the spot, goes one to ten - punching your shoulder repeatedly, voice reaching a fever pitch, shrieking oh my God, you evil homewrecking whore, what the hell, I knew you wanted to fuck her but I never thought you’d actually pull it off-

“What are you talking about?” you say, thrown entirely.

“Come on.” Wendy’s got one of your pillows in her fist and is now attempting to clobber you with it; she’s tinier than you and more uncoordinated than her ultra-successful idol career would insinuate - it’s an easy dodge. “Every time you see a picture of Kang Seulgi you start salivating, and you have no morals when you’re horny. You think I don’t remember how many times you saw that movie where she was topless for fifty percent of it-”

“I watched that for the plot. It was my favorite movie of this year for the plot.”

“Jesus,” Wendy says, appalled at how transparent you are. “You call yourself an actress?”

But here’s probably the more fucked up thing - Wendy doesn’t really care. It’s not the kind of thing she’ll unfriend you over, or leak to the press, or tell Irene; her morals are just as compromised as yours are, here. And in the end, all she does is laugh so hard it brings tears to her eyes, says you’re setting an example for queer homewreckers everywhere. Says you have to teach me all your tricks - I wanna be where you are. It’s nasty of her, probably, but Wendy’s always on your side. She’s also in love with a girl who’s getting married in a month. She’s got her own motives.

“I wasn’t even trying to do anything,” you say, defeated. “We just met and right away it was so-”

You don’t even have the words for it. How do you sum up a mortal sin in a sentence, verbalize an impossible chemistry - there’s no rationale that makes it okay. You say, lamely, “I just wanted her.”

“And you always get what you want,” Wendy interprets, because it’s true. Even if it’s awful and wrong, goes unsaid. Even if you’re willingly ruining someone else’s relationship; even if it’s selfish and horrible and you’re going to hell for it.

“Yeah,” you agree, sighing. “I mean, most of the time.”

And it’s ludicrous. You’re reworking your own code of ethics because you saw Seulgi through the blur of a smokescreen, because you’re addicted to the look in her eye, because you’re realizing she’s way less cool and collected and mysterious than she pretends to be. Fucks you like she wants you dead then lets you make her cum with a gentle hand stroking through your hair, all praise and open pleasure. There’s no excuse for it.

“This is going to be a total trainwreck,” says Wendy, with very malicious glee; it’s a film that’s bombed in the box office, all the critics hate the conclusion - the characters should’ve got what was coming to them and they didn’t, they say, what the fuck kind of message is that. “But I can’t wait to see how this ends.”

“Besides,” you say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s completely a one-time thing. It’s never happening again.”

Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that, you’re telling yourself. Maybe if you repeat it enough, it’ll come true.

So, if you wanna know about the second time it happens:

It’s later that same night, because irony loves to make a fool of you, laughing at you from behind a camera, thumbing over a script, lines she already knows are coming. Awards shows, it’s how they go; all the major players are there. Well, except for Irene, who’s overseas as an ambassador for some high-end fashion brand; you see people talking about it on Twitter, disappointed that she and Seulgi won’t make their power couple debut on the red carpet. Either way, she’s not coming. It’s already completely fucked off of that fact alone.

im putting 100 bucks on kang seulgi taking u home tonight, texts Wendy, beforehand, as you’re getting your makeup done. all the pieces are in place…

please get a grip on reality seungwan i am NEVER talking to her again, you say, and leave it at that.

Look, you know Seulgi’s gonna be there. Embarrassingly, just the thought of it sends your stomach into knots, your brain into overdrive. You’re used to keeping your composure even under the most stressful of situations - nature of fame, it’s just how it works - but the anticipation of seeing Seulgi again is so -

lmfao ok, says Wendy. as if u can keep ur hormones in check….. whore!!!!! 💀💀💀

i will get my bodyguard to beat you to a pulp, you say.

alright thats it. im reporting u for making threats to my life.

you can’t report me on twitter for something i said over text lol…

bitch i meant report u to the AUTHORITIES.

You swear you have a spine, a backbone. You swear you’re gonna show up and stun on the carpet, maybe take home an award or two; realistically, you’re not even gonna run into Seulgi at all. You’ve made it this far - you stepped onto the scene at eighteen and so it’s been three years of frequenting the same ceremonies as Kang Seulgi, and you’d never met at any one of those, never so much as interacted. Maybe you’ll get out of this alive. But there’s still that fucking feeling, the whole way to the venue - like there’s fingerprints as evidence on your body, like everyone might be able to see through your dress to all the places she left a mark on you-

(You get there and she’s gorgeous. She’s there and she looks like a goddess, dressed in blue, submerged in it, sweeping you along. Same boat, you remember her saying; if we go down we go down together. Sink to the bottom of the sea and let the ocean swallow us whole. You force her voice out of your mind; it’d be better to pretend she doesn’t exist. It’s also impossible.)

You’re not nominated for any of the same awards. You sit in entirely different sections. But you’re so aware of the fact that she’s in the room that it’s driving you a little crazy; you have to make this concerted effort to keep your eyes off of her, keep from staring, blushing, making any missteps or wrong moves. You’re back under spotlights, scrutiny. You don’t let your eyes trace her body in her dress, and she doesn’t look at you at all.

At first, it actually seems like you’re going to make it.

(Same boat; same room and opposite sides. Same old fucking mistakes.)

It all goes to shit when you steal away to the bathroom halfway through the show, and - because behind the curtain, someone’s controlling the setting, the scenes, getting you exactly right where you’re supposed to be - Seulgi’s already in there when you step in. It’s a trope. It’s formulaic. It’s real life reduced to rom-com clichés, except there’s nothing funny about a moment like this.

It’s done. You stop dead in your tracks, door shutting soft behind you. “Hi.”

And you’ve been so good all night, you have - keeping your smile contained and your eyes from straying - but it’s different when she’s in front of you, like seeing a deity in the flesh, like someone that you should drop to your knees and worship. Dress a glittering navy, floor-length and cap-sleeved, tapering in at her waist. Hair in tastefully tamed waves, begging you to run your fingers through it. There’s something about the stark black of her hair, the starlike sapphire beadwork gleaming on her dress, her fair skin, her pink lips - she looks almost ethereally ghostlike, a spirit out of a story, so gorgeous she leaves everyone she touches haunted. Skin silk-soft. Makeup immaculate. Nothing like how she looked when you saw her last, already half-undone, autumn wind throwing her into gorgeous disarray. She’s living up to her reputation, curated perfection. And she’s flawless.

Seulgi’s staring at you with that same wide-eyed look she had the first time you two met. She says, sounding somewhat strangled, mesmerized: “Oh.”

It’s then that you realize she’s playing some dumb mobile game on her phone.

“Uh,” you say.

Seulgi immediately abandons her phone on the counter. “Sorry,” she says, and it’s like you’re getting deja vu.

“Are you ditching an awards show to play games on your phone?” you say, stepping closer. You can’t help yourself. Seulgi straightens as you do, like an automatic reaction to your presence, spine curving to face you. You try not to read into it.

“I got bored,” she says, blinking. Her eyes are stunningly made-up, sending them otherworldly striking; liner sliding into sharp points at the corner of each eye, false lashes individually glued and arranged purposely. That’s the thing about awards shows: you’re all selling a product, acting even more than you do on set.

“You really are a loser,” you say, somehow delighted by it.

“I know,” she says, leaning against the counter, and now she’s smiling. “Hey, kid.”

And it’s as if you’ve both forgotten how to act at all.

Because it’s the same as it was before; like a reprise, like a relapse. You get too close together and you feel it, that impossible tug, the way the moon controls the tides, the way celebrities control their own images; Seulgi rests her elbow on the counter and you watch the flex of her bicep, the splay of her fingers, nails manicured but enticingly short. Remembering how it felt to have those fingers fucking your cunt, wrapped around your throat. Realizing that not an inch of her belongs to you, and that you don’t have a backbone, and that you want her anyway. She’s parting her lips, inhaling deep. She knows.

Nothing helps. You’re halfway to dry drowning; shutting off airways, breathing rendered impossible. Water won’t reach your lungs, but it’ll still be the thing to kill you.

“I don’t think we should be alone together,” you say, softly, the first to call it as it is.

“Alright.” Seulgi folds her arms over her chest. You’re struck by the way the straps of her dress pull over her collarbone, her slender shoulders; tailored to perfection, and she’s too beautiful to be real. “Then go pee. I’ll leave.”

“I didn’t have to pee,” you say. “I just - nerves, you know. I needed some air.” You wave vaguely around the bathroom. “Or alone time, I guess.”

“You did,” says Seulgi, getting implications. She tilts her head. “But you’ve been to so many of these, no?” You’re moving even closer without realizing it, pulled out to sea. “And just this show is making you nervous?”

You’re supposed to be cutting off conversation at the source, quitting your vices cold turkey. “Yeah,” you say instead, throwing her a dirty look. “I wonder why that is.”

“It’s a mystery,” Seulgi agrees.

“Jesus.” Her attitude’s so cavalier, her eyes so fucking intense; you couldn’t wrench yourself away even if you wanted to. It’s intoxicating. It’s irresistible. “You and I had sex a day after you went public with your relationship with Irene. Can you at least pretend to feel remorseful about it?”

Seulgi cocks an eyebrow. Her arms unfold; her mouth flicks at a corner. I do too much pretending in my day-to-day, the expression says; I don’t let my life imitate my art. I’m with you. Why fake like I want to be anywhere else?

“You’re an actress,” you add, like anyone needs a reminder.

“So are you,” she returns. “I don’t see you feeling very remorseful about any of this either.”

“I do,” you say, itching to step forward, to fall into her arms, to make her laugh, to beg her to fuck your brains out. “I regret it. It was a mistake. I really fucking regret it.”

“No, you don’t.” Seulgi’s fingers graze your wrist, wrap around your hand. Pulling you closer like it’s something she’s allowed to do. Calling your bluff, again, like she’s seen too much of you to be fooled by all your usual tricks - and there’s tension brimming where there shouldn’t be. Like you’re back on the balcony, inhaling smoke; like it’s all about to go up in flames.

“Well,” you say, unsteadily. “I will.”

But, first-

You shouldn’t fuck her. There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t fuck her. Every regular watcher is threatening to cancel their streaming subscription - the self-sabotaging, the mess; God, the screenwriters must hate you, constantly making you make the shittiest decisions, ruining your character; where’s the resolution, where’s the redemption arc. But-

“You’ll be a good girl for mommy, right? Be quiet while I fuck your little cunt?"

But you’re fucking her. There’s no way around it.

You’re pressed against the bathroom counter and she’s pushing your dress up your thighs; you’re clutching handfuls of your full skirt, hitching it up to give her access. She trails a hand upwards, takes your panties and pulls them to the side. “Sweetheart,” Seulgi says, intention cut into her mouth, carnal and wicked, “I asked you a question.”

You’re nodding wildly, lip tucked tightly between your teeth. You’ll be quiet, you’re trying to communicate with your eyes alone, you will, you’ll behave-

She thumbs your clit, dips to feel how soaked you are, pulls back with the pads of her fingers wet and glistening. Eyes snapping to yours. Pitch leaving no room for discussion. “Words, please.”

“Yes, mommy,” you whimper, and Seulgi grins.

“You’re so much less bratty this time around,” she muses, sinks one finger in your dripping pussy, leaves you gasping for air. “All you needed was to get your pussy fucked right, huh? That’s all you needed to learn your lesson?”

She really starts fucking you, then, like she’s addicted to the moans you’re letting out of your mouth; works in two fingers, then three - it’s not as brutal as the first time, but just as all-consuming, life-wrecking, devastating, the sounds as she finger-fucks you just as slick and nasty. Cunt clenching around her fingers, wet down your thighs, hips rocking; she goes for your jugular, pressure against both sides of your neck; claustrophobic, erotic, breath shuddering low and trapped in your throat. Grinding when she rubs her palm over your clit, aching for more. Begging to cum in a low rasp. You’re not learning any lessons in this room: that’s a fucking given.

Seulgi’s more in control than you are, but barely; her eyes are tied to your lips, to the wet raw heat of your pussy, dripping down her hand. I’d love to fuck that face, she says like a threat, ride that pretty mouth, cum on your tongue - but I really can’t ruin your makeup tonight. (Privately, you think she’s already ruined a lot more than that.)

“Next time,” she promises, eyes sly and undertone murderous, and you cum right around her fingers.

(There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t, but you do anyway.)

You’re right, in the end. You’re absolutely gonna regret this.

Afterwards, take two:

Any second it’ll hit, you’re telling yourself. Reality, all-consuming guilt, the weight of what you’ve just done - again. Your conscience is gonna make you start sobbing, push you to a confession, push Seulgi away and scream at her. Any minute now, you’ll-

“You’re definitely gonna win it,” Seulgi’s saying, about your nomination for your most recent drama, the award you’re up for. “You were unreal. I swear every time I see you cry on-screen, I really feel it. It’s so…” She shakes her head, overcome. “Powerful, I guess. Sorry. That sounds lame.”

“No, it doesn’t,” you say back, smiling. “Thanks. And - you’re gonna win yours too.” She’s nominated for your favorite film of hers, the one where she played the rock star, wore too much eyeliner, created a character that broke your heart. “That movie’s my favorite one of this past year, just for the record. I’ve seen it like a million times. I love it to death.”

“You would,” says Seulgi, arching an eyebrow, but there’s something soft around the edges of her grin. “I’m topless for so much of it.”

“Not because of that.” You pause, allow: “But it was a perk.”

“I’m sure.”

“No, seriously.” You turn fully; Seulgi’s leaning a little into your side, already, and doesn’t flinch when you bump her shoulder, fingers at the crook of her elbow. She chances a glance at you, smooths a hand over your hair. “It was your voice.”

Seulgi lets out a little laugh. Brushes under your eye with a careful thumb, flicking away a flake of mascara. “What?”

See, she’s a rock star in this movie you love, like you said; it’s all made up of concert performances and sold-out stadium tours that look so real, fake talk show performances, studio audiences. Strumming at a guitar in the quiet moments. Singing aloud to herself, her band, her love interest. Rich and honeyed, gliding over every note, thick and raspy at all the right times. “Your voice,” you say. “I mean - it’s amazing. You would’ve made a killing as an idol, you have to know that. The soundtrack to that movie - it was all I listened to for months. You’re absolutely gonna fuck my Spotify Wrapped.”

Seulgi’s mouth opens a little. Her fingers pause at your temple, the bobby pins holding your hair back.

“So I guess you could say I’m a fan, too,” you say, suddenly shy. “I have been for a while.”

You were right, before: no one should’ve allowed you two to be alone together. It opens the door for this, for opportunity, for mortal fuck-ups; Seulgi’s manicured fingers drop to your neckline, the walls threaten to tear themselves down, the sinks ache to switch on and flood the room. Current rushing in, taking you both away - where are the lifeboats now, the escape routes - you’re swept off your feet in the waves. Seulgi tangles a hand in your necklace like she wants to snap it off and she’s tempering her instincts. Anyone could walk in and catch you. They don’t.

“You,” she says, sighing. Not like she’s giving up, but like she’s giving in. “I can’t get enough of you.”

“You’re gonna have to,” you say, hot and helpless under her touch. “You have a girlfriend. And this is all really fucked up.”

You keep saying this like it means anything, like it’ll trigger a fight or flight response, send Seulgi running. “I know,” she says instead, stays exactly where she is, blunt nails grazing your collarbone. Fastened to you as if with thread, incapable of tearing herself free. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I don’t know what you think,” you point out, searching her expression. “I don’t know anything about you. Except that you’re a fan of me and you love being called mommy and every time you get your hands on me you try to fuck me until I can’t walk.”

“See?” says Seulgi. “You know all the important things.”

There’s nothing funny about this - her cheating on her girlfriend, her girlfriend being your ex - but there’s this expression on her face, corner of her mouth turned up, studying you freely. Dark eyes reading nothing but beguiled amusement. Tapping two fingers against her bottom lip like she might still be able to taste your cunt off of them.

“We’re strangers,” you say, so enthralled by her. “Complete strangers.”

(That’s the problem with fame, you think of saying. It doesn’t feel like it. I’ve seen hours of your interviews, all of your movies. I was lying: I know so much, I know more than I should. You feel like you knew me before we met; I see the way you look at me, the way you touch me. Like you’ve imagined it happening a million times before.)

“I know,” Seulgi says, smiling.

There’s a kind of odd acceptance to it, in that one single sentence. You can’t look away from her, and it’s mutual - Seulgi pulls your chin down with her thumb, and kisses you.

It’s almost tender, sweetly gentle, like she has every right to do so. You’re smiling, for some reason, grinning against her lips. She must know it, because the next thing she does is sink her teeth into the corner of your mouth, enough to sting but not enough to break skin - and a whine traps itself in your throat. You kiss her and you can feel it, really feel it: this uncontainable scope of fame, between the two of you. Supernovas in this sort of world, side by side like meteors on a crash course, like heat death, like that same self-fulfilling prophecy.

Give it one more minute and you’ll call it off, you’re thinking, winding your arms around her neck. Any minute now.

You’re actually about to leave at the same time, but there’s the telltale sound of some music performance going on, some idol group; it’s better to sneak back into the show on a break, an intermission to situate. That’s what you tell yourself. In reality, it’s probably something about the allure of stolen moments - Seulgi leans against the counter, opens her phone, starts playing the same dumb mobile game she was engrossed in when you first walked in; you crook your head over your shoulder, watch her do it - and nothing about it makes sense. It’s all beyond logic. For some reason, she’s talking freely, randomly, now asking your opinion on festive outfits for pets; for some reason, you’re indulging her. It’s almost normal. It’s fucking asinine.

“This is crazy, you know,” you say, unprovoked, as she loses the same game for the fifth time.

“This is crazy,” Seulgi agrees, somehow correctly attributing it to your situation and not her lack of gaming skill. “There’s something about you,” she says, chin in her hand, gazing at your reflection. It’s exhilarating, the way she stares without trying to hide it; the way she doesn’t even attempt to play it cool. “Like I want to crack your head open and pick your brain.”

“You are so psychotic,” you say, loving it. “You can’t just say you have a crush on me?”

“I’m twenty-eight,” she says, a little petulantly, pout offsetting the sentiment.

“Not too old to have a crush,” you say. “Not too old to have an ongoing affair.”

There you go again: acknowledging the weight of what you’re doing like it’ll snap you out of it, force your moral compass back into alignment. Seulgi huffs a little through her nose, absentmindedly drops her lips to the side of your head. Leaves with the line of her lipstick still intact, somehow. Starts talking again, about what she usually does on Christmas, seeing if she can order some miniature Santa hats for her cats, new colorful lights to put around her house; you’re watching her phone and humming a little in agreement, drawn in. Rasp of her voice something like the North star, guiding you to unfamiliar territory. She keeps making you laugh. You both know exactly what you’re doing and you’re doing it anyway.

“Congratulations,” Seulgi says, as you’re about to leave, holding the door open for you. “On your award.”

“I didn’t win anything yet,” you tell her, bemused.

“But you’re going to,” she says, laughing, leaving no room for debate. Squeezes your hand as you pass, like she’s saying, I mean it. I’m lying through my teeth to everyone else but you. It’d be no use. It’s you.

You roll your eyes, and let her have it. You’ve let her have so much already.

She’s right. You win the award. You step up to the podium, thank your manager and your company and your fans. From the tables of actors, Seulgi wolf-whistles - honest-to-God, loud and disruptive; probably just to make you laugh, and it works. You can’t stop grinning. You’ll see the pictures later, plastered across social media: smile more genuine than any movie you’ve ever been in, any performance you’ve ever put on. Wow, some of your fans will say, already crafting theories; I haven’t seen her look this happy in a while; I wonder what it is, I wonder if she’ll tell us. It’s dramatic of them, you think. You don’t read into that, either.

You could DM Seulgi, private message her on Twitter, get her number from an acquaintance, contact her in fifteen different ways. You don’t. It’s for the best, really.

ok you’re right i need to go to jail, you text Wendy, after. i need to be arrested and put in jail…. i am a danger to myself and others.

YOU WENT HOME WITH HER???? is the immediate response. I CALLED IT PAY UP BITCH

no we fucked in the bathroom 😭😭😭😭

in PUBLIC???? oh my god. And then: u are so lucky u got famous right after u graduated high school because u would never have made it into college. DUMB FUCK

ok that’s going a little far.

U ARE UR EX’S GF’S MISTRESS UR THE ONE WHO TOOK IT TOO FAR FIRST, says Wendy, and then sends a string of incomprehensible emojis. u could have fucked ANYONE else. ANYONE. U ARE THE ONE WHO MADE THIS HAPPEN!!!!!

Alright, it’s certainly aggressive. But she’s not really wrong, either.

You post a series of photos on your Instagram of your dress, of the night, thanking the designer and your fans, saying you’re so grateful for the award, the opportunity. You look just like you always have; clean-cut and pristine, good-girl shine completely intact, like you’ve never made a single mistake in your life. Seulgi doesn’t like it, doesn’t comment. You let it be.

lolll at her and seulgi both being at that event at the same time, one of your fans says on Twitter, about you. come on there have to be SOME pap pics of them getting into a knock down drag out NASTY fight in the street like

no catfight sry, someone else responds, and links a video: this is the only interaction we got between them? but it’s kind of…. idk

The video’s a fifteen second clip of the event itself; you and Seulgi aren’t seated at the same table, but it’s close enough for you to both be in the same shot. And it’s barely anything at all; the announcer says something and Seulgi looks over her shoulder at you, twitches an eyebrow upwards. You meet her eyes immediately, nose scrunching, the subtle dig of your front teeth into your lip. She smiles, just barely; your lashes flutter fast, and you look away.

It’s the tiniest thing. Could read as anything from hostile to cordial to a complete accident to what it truly was, at the time: like you’re both high schoolers commiserating over a lame teacher, an annoying classmate, sharing a private joke between the two of you. Much too comfortable to be strangers. It’s your second time meeting; you’ve both seen too much of each other - on-screen, uncovered skin - to be anything but overly familiar.

is anyone else seeing the enemies to lovers vision, someone says. like the chemistry…. OH

??????, someone replies. IT'S A 15 SECOND CLIP AND SEULGI’S STILL DATING IRENE.

okay but look at the material like they’d be hot together i’m sorry

As if that’s all it takes to make it okay, you’re thinking, scrolling through it, entertained when you shouldn’t be. The two of you being hot together, erasing all your sins. Ah, well. Maybe in a perfect world.

You watch the movie you’d been talking with Seulgi about that night - your favorite one, the rock star role and the topless scenes and her stunning voice. It bowls you over like it always does, brings tears to your eyes at the ending; it’s just that kind of film, angsty and gorgeous and devastating, Seulgi’s performance somewhat earth-shattering every time. All the right nuance, leaning into the subtleties. She’s brilliant; every line brutal and beautiful in equal measures, every turn of her head a revelatory, religious experience. The very first time you watched it was alone, a few months back, clicking through various streaming services - you like everything Seulgi’s been in, so it was a no-brainer - and two hours later you were sobbing into your hands, rethinking your whole life and every personal career choice you’ve ever made. Putting it as five stars into your secret Letterboxd account and adding a review that says i'm pregnant and the baby daddy is kang seulgi’s performance in this movie and leaving it there, self-explanatory. It said enough, you thought.

Honestly, it’s possible you should’ve seen this whole affair coming.

“So, what’s the deal?” asks Wendy, when you see her in person the next day. “Are you still pretending like this is just a - what, a two-time thing, now? That you came to your senses and it’ll really never happen again this time?”

“Um,” you say.

(The fact of the matter is this: there’s a new ache in you, something only she can ease. You try fucking yourself - with your fingers, with toys - and it’s nowhere near as satisfying. Even with you picturing her voice murmuring low in your ear: so pretty, baby, taking mommy’s fingers like that. Cum for me. Cum. So you touch yourself and it’s effective in the barest sense, and nothing more. Like Seulgi broke you the second she got her hands on you and now she’s the only one that can get you back. You’re needy all the time, distracted and wet; longing for her voice, her mouth, the hungry glint in her eyes when she looks at you. Longing for something you know you shouldn’t want, and it only makes you want it more.)

“It’s gonna happen again,” you admit, and Wendy bursts out laughing. At least you’re being honest with someone.

Later that night - because you hate to make sound decisions, because common sense has thoroughly escaped you, because you can’t make mistakes without making them habits, too; because there’s the sharp edge of a horror sting, Hitchcockian, and every murderous whodunit needs a plot device and a dumbass final girl - Wendy says that the two of you should go to a party. Another one of her idol friends’ places, she says. Plus, the last party you went to worked out really well for the both of you, so.

“Is Seulgi gonna be there?” you ask, sussing out motives. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“How should I know?” says Wendy, innocently, but you figure everyone probably already does.

(Because - yep, you’re gonna be the person who fucks your ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend three times in one week. God’s just gonna have to deal with that in his own way.)

So you return to the scene of the very first crime, in spirit: another party, another packed mansion. Another short skirt and sheer tights and an opportunity to fuck your whole life up. Well, at least Wendy’s by your side for this one - it makes a difference, having her for support.

“Wait,” you realize belatedly, when you get inside. “This is Park Sooyoung’s house.”

“Oh, is it?” says Wendy, arm linked in yours and searching the crowd. “That’s so funny.”

“Good God.” It’s not hard to pick Sooyoung out; she’s at her own kitchen counter, black hair spilling over her shoulders, her fiancé with an arm around her waist and a drink in his hand. She also spots Wendy the second she enters the vicinity, breaks into a smile that echoes something like relief, all teeth and tired eyes - wedding planning must be taking its toll. “So we’re at this party for you, then.”

Wendy smiles back at Sooyoung, the same way she does in every broadcasted performance; grin glittering, irresistibly earnest charm. The line of Sooyoung’s mouth softens, goes tender. “I figured if you’re gonna homewreck a perfectly good relationship just so you can fuck the girl of your dreams, I should get to do the same.”

It’s one way to land a blow. “The girl of my-” you choke out, stop, have to take it back. “Okay, Seulgi is not-”

“Uh,” says Wendy, raising an eyebrow at something over your shoulder. “Turn around.”

You stop cold. You’ve seen a movie just like this before - you know a spoken cue when you hear one. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“We just got here. She can’t already be here. It’s too soon.”

Wendy bites her bottom lip into her mouth, agitated and amused in equal measures; you’re too wired to place the source of it, waves already crashing against the hull, the threat of salt and sea and drowning. You’re putting off the inevitable. If you turned around right now, it’d all play in slow motion, your gazes meeting in a crowded room, right out of one of your dramas - she’d stare at you like she always does, those fucking eyes, craving and unreal and unrelenting, and-

“Anything else,” you say, frantically. It’s too early in the night; you’re too fucking sober. “We can even go talk to Park Sooyoung. Come on, girl of your dreams-”

Wendy’s focus flicks behind you again. “Alright,” she agrees, too easily. “Let’s go.”

It’s then that you should probably figure out what’s going on here, but you don’t.

It’s always been easy to talk to Sooyoung, for you - the two of you first met on the first big project you’d ever filmed, where she’d played your older sister - and tonight she’s just as lovely, effervescent and flawlessly gorgeous, always indulgent in conversation. It helps that Wendy’s there; they go back even farther, though it’s a story you’ve heard a million times. Sooyoung has a specific smile she saves just for Wendy, a way she laughs when Wendy cracks a joke - that’s a whole narrative on its own, prologue to finale.

“The wedding’s so soon, though,” you’re saying emphatically, propping your hip against Sooyoung’s counter, preoccupying yourself with staring at her engagement ring so you don’t let your eyes wander anywhere else. “Are you stressed?”

Sooyoung hums, adjusts her long hair over her shoulder. She, for some unknown reason, has her fingers hooked in the sleeve of Wendy’s top, fingers absentmindedly brushing her wrist. Her soon-to-be husband’s suddenly nowhere to be seen. “Not really,” she says, though the minute crease in her forehead says otherwise. “I mean, I have a wedding planner that I’m paying a small fortune to, so. Basically the only thing I have to do on the day is show up and look pretty.”

“Oh, no,” says Wendy, grinning, sensing an opening. “How are you ever gonna make that happen?”

Sooyoung shoots Wendy a sideways look. “I know,” she says, mouth at a playful tilt. “Getting me to look good? Ugh.”

“Hey, if you believe in miracles…”

You fight back an eye-roll. For as long as you’ve known them, they’ve always been like this; the banter, the back-and-forth, irrationally entertained by each other from the jump. It’s beyond you how Park Sooyoung’s ever convinced herself that she likes anyone more than she likes Wendy - why spend the rest of your life with anyone else but your favorite person - but she’s made her own decisions. It’s not like you’d have any room to judge, at this point. Speaking of which-

“-is everything okay there?” Sooyoung’s saying, when you start listening again. “I bet it’s at least a little awkward, right?”

“It’s very fucking awkward,” says Wendy. It becomes immediately apparent that they’re talking about you, either sensing that you’ve tuned out or so wrapped up in each other that they’ve forgotten you’re standing there entirely. “But - you know. She’s working through it in her own way. Certainly making some drastic choices.”

“But not good ones,” Sooyoung interprets, tone indicating she thinks it’s a joke.

“Absolutely not,” confirms Wendy, deadly serious.

A sigh from Sooyoung. “Is it fine that all three of them are here, then? I guess - I never know how to go about these things, I don’t know, like, what’s fair game, whose side to take-”

“Wait,” you say, cutting in. “All three of us?”

Wendy grimaces, tossing another glance right over your shoulder, scoping out how bad the situation is. There’s a bomb she’s been managing to delay in increments, a hastily built dam holding back a rush of water - and, now, that break in the floodgates. It’s over. It’s been over for ages.

“Well, yeah,” says Sooyoung. “You, and Seulgi, and-”

Needless to say, you’re about to prove Wendy completely right, yet again - the only choices you ever make are fucking awful, but you’ve gone way too far to go back now.

Look, at least it’s nothing like the movies.

It’s the farthest thing from slow motion: you turn around and it’s like everything hits in that same split second, no soundtrack to soften the blow - a sucker punch, a car crash - no perfect pacing, leisurely pan of a camera lens. It’s you and your ex-girlfriend and the girl you’ve been fucking; the roof seems to sink low, walls pulling in tight, doors locking you all in. Debris and smoking wreckage. There’s no way to romanticize that.

“Um,” says Sooyoung, already turning to go. “You know what, I’m gonna…”

It’s a relatively graceful exit for a moment like this. Wendy, whether out of some loyalty or some sick desire to see how this trainwreck plays out - alright, it’s probably both - stays right by your side. Like you said: backup. There are some things you don’t have the sanity to face alone. Such as-

“Hello,” says Irene, with a hesitant little smile.

It’s very nearly devastating - that's the thing. It comes so close.

There’s her categorically perfect face, beautiful like she’s getting put in front of a panel and scored on it, tens across the board - poise of a pageant queen, composure like the movie star she is - exactly like you’d always remember her, since two years ago when you first started dating, since nearly three when you’d met for the first time. And despite her haughty, aloof image, there’s still that visible soft spot she has for you: in the gentle tug of her lips, chin tilted barely upwards, color of her eyes warm and familiar. It’s enough to pull you back in. It’s enough to dredge up memories like floodlands, something that’ll consume you entirely.

“Hi,” you say, speechless for all the wrong reasons.

(And here’s the thing: you should be thinking of all that. You spent two years loving her, kissing the curve of her smile, wrapped up in her arms; her date to every movie premiere, your face all over her social media. You’d been a brand together, a phenomenon, a love story to admire and aspire to - a perfect slow-burn, strangers to friends to lovers, soft and simple and romantic; you hadn’t fallen in love, like the poets say: you’d slipped into it quietly, like being tucked into bed at night. And that was better. That was the way it should’ve been.)

You should be a mess, right now. You should be racked with guilt - she loved you, how could you do this to her, what about your morals, your dignity - honestly, and it comes so close to being devastating, you swear, the first time you’ve seen Irene since the breakup, in front of you and smiling like that, it’s almost enough to bring you to ruin-

“Hi,” says Seulgi, next to her, voice short and somewhat shot. “Nice to meet you.”

-but it’s nothing compared to the way you want to get absolutely fucked to death by Kang Seulgi right now.

“Oh, that’s right,” says Irene, cordially, and your history hightails it out of the room. It’s a party; she’ll keep it friendly, light. You clearly aren’t making this a whole thing, so she won’t either. “You haven’t met Seulgi before, have you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” you say, playing along. It’s the role of a lifetime: acting like you’re someone who didn’t cum all over Seulgi’s fingers just yesterday. “Nice to meet you, Seulgi.”

It’s a bad move, saying her name - but then again, it always is.

You just can’t help it. You’re too overcome by the sight of her. It’s like she’s never looked so close to you, so dangerous; top with too many buttons undone, deep cut down her chest, divide of her collarbone, skin unmarred and inviting, hair loose and wild. Suddenly it’s like you feel everywhere she’s ever touched you, marked by notes and chalk outlines, body a crime scene; here’s the evidence, here’s the guilty verdict, open-and-shut. And Seulgi’s looking right back at you, too, lips parted, flushing through her foundation, eyes heavy with liner and blatant desire. Bites on the inside of her lower lip, visible and rough; scans your entire body, top to toe, throat constricting as she swallows. She’s wearing the tiniest plaid miniskirt, like she’s making a mockery of a school uniform, fulfilling someone’s very specific fantasy. And she’s so, so fucking hot.

“Yeah, cool,” says Seulgi, staring like she wants to bend you over the nearest flat surface and rail you in front of everyone, and not making much of an effort to act at all. Then, abruptly: “I need a cigarette.”

She turns on her heel and bolts for the back door.

“Wow,” says Wendy, next to you, watching Seulgi as she makes her escape. “She seems… nice.”

Irene’s silent, watching your expression, face impassive.

“No, I get it,” you say, working your tone into something sympathetic; keep the layers, the feigned bitterness, the judgment. “I’m her girlfriend’s ex. Of course she’d feel a little awkward around me.” You smile reassuringly at Irene. “It’s okay. I’m sure she’s great.”

The corner of Irene’s mouth turns up, grateful. Close press of her lips, and doesn’t speak.

“It’s good to see you,” you say, getting the gist anyway.

Because Irene’s as she always is, at the end of the day; assuming she doesn’t need words to communicate, counting on the people around her to read her mind, do the heavy lifting for her. There are worse character flaws for a person to have, you reason. It’s at least a damn good thing she never learned to do the same for you.

(Oh, the things she’d see, if she could get into your head. Brimming with the uncontrollable urge to either burst out laughing on the spot at Seulgi’s unsubtle exit or run after her and kiss Seulgi senseless, watch her smoke and let her make you smile, lean into her body and say you’re so cute, do whatever you want with me; I’ll be yours for tonight, if that’s what you need. We’ve made so many mistakes, you and me. Let’s make some more.)

“It’s good to see you, too,” Irene says, finally. She won’t pull you in for a reconciliatory hug, won’t lay a finger on you; she knows all her boundaries. She’s probably the only one in this room who does. “I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.”

“Thanks,” you say, because if only she knew.

Speaking of worse character flaws.

“Get your shit together,” you say, out of the corner of your mouth, when you run into Seulgi on the back patio. “I thought you were an actress.”

“It’s a crime that I’m not fucking you right now,” Seulgi says around her cigarette, lighter flicking fast. A beat, and it catches. “I’m gonna lose my mind.”

There’s that same pretty pink blush high in her cheeks. It could be the cold but it isn’t. “Your girlfriend’s here,” you say, like she’s unaware, like that’ll make her take it back, like you don’t wish you were on your knees and eating her out just as much as she does. “We are horrible fucking people, Seulgi.”

There’s really no use - it’s a formality, completely performative. Seulgi’s got her gaze stuck on your tight top, your legs wrapped in sheer black tights, your boots, your blunt nails. Stare hooded, expression suggesting unspeakable things.

“Alright, kid,” she agrees. Alright, she’s saying; I’ll be anything, as long as I can have you. “I think I can be okay with that.”

It’s a long, torturous night.

Not that you thought it’d be any different. Irene’s as much of a presence as she always is, despite how physically small she is - it’d be hard to find a room she couldn’t command with a snap of her fingers, a click of her stilettos - but it’s unbearable when she’s with Seulgi, the two of them attracting stares and attention simply by virtue of being together, stunning separately and surreal on each others’ arms. It’s manageable, at first; your jealousy’s so misplaced and so you start drinking a little yourself, laughing loud with Wendy, ignoring it. It’s fine.

But it starts unraveling completely probably about two hours in.

“I can’t take this anymore,” you say, watching Seulgi prop her elbows atop Sooyoung’s kitchen island, hair winding its way past her shoulders, looking like how light runs from night skies, seeps its way from shadowy corners. Can’t stand the way she leans in and whispers something to Irene, and Irene’s reactions are as muted as they always are, when she’s not on camera; a quick quirk of her mouth, and nothing more. Seulgi’s eyes slide to you every other minute. She looks bored. She looks vicious. “I need to be admitted to the psych ward.”

“So I’ve been saying,” says Wendy. “For years.”

Seulgi’s laughing, now, but in that closed-off, false way she does in talk show interviews. Playing with Irene’s fingers, their heads bent together. She darts another look towards you again. Put your money where your mouth is, you want to tell her; you want me so bad, then have me. Give it all up for me.

“I wanna test a theory,” you say, to Wendy, because it’s all about the scientific method, and you know Seulgi won’t give anything up for you at all, unless pushed to the brink. It’s just the way things are.

Wendy tilts her head. “Is it Kang Seulgi-related?”

“Uh.” You’re too obvious.

She rolls her eyes, rephrases. “Is it gonna get you laid?”

“Yeah,” you say, because it’s too late for shame, but it’d be tactless to say well, that’s gonna happen regardless. Even if it’s true.

“Fine.” Wendy sighs, sends a baleful look over to where Park Sooyoung’s smiling softly by the back door, wrapped up in her fiancé’s arms. “At least one of us should be getting fucked tonight.”

You’ve acted in enough dramas to know how to manufacture chemistry with anyone, but it’s a little extra effective with Wendy; the two of you aren’t scared to touch each other, giggle together like you’re in on a dirty, private joke, ignore that there’s anyone else in the room. You’re codependent, and she’s gorgeous, crop top revealing her toned stomach, plenty of places to trace with your fingertips. It’s easy to put on a show. And it’s not at all a subtle one; Wendy’s got an arm around your waist in turn, murmuring something in your ear, lips brushing your jaw when she pulls back. Transforming every touch into something intimate, suggestive.

“I really don’t think you need to be doing all this,” says Wendy, as you wind a lock of her hair around your finger, flutter your eyelashes like she’s flirting. “Seulgi’s already cheated on Irene with you twice. Doesn’t that already prove enough?”

“No,” you say, stare purposely focused on her mouth. It’s pettier than that, anyway. See me with someone else, you’re thinking; see how you like it. It’s a thought that’d be understandable if you were trying to stick it to Irene right now, instead of a girl you’ve met (and fucked) twice, but- “Is she looking?”

“Oh, yeah.” Wendy’s grinning, unable to work her lips into a sultry kind of pout; it’s something she’d be able to do on stage, but it’s different when she’s back here on earth with the rest of you. “And I think she’s gonna wring my fucking neck.”

You throw a glance over your shoulder. Seulgi’s still over in the kitchen, jaw flat and eyes trained on you without a cover, no façade in sight. She’s getting that look on her face - the one that says she’s gonna fucking strangle you for this - and the way her fingers flex outwards instead of curling to fists - saying if I do, you’re gonna beg for more. It’s working. Of course it’s working. Seulgi’s fingers are trembling a little bit, restless; desperate for a vice, you or her nicotine. What’s worse, really.

“How far are you willing to go for this?” you ask, hand falling to cup Wendy’s cheek.

“As far as you want.” Wendy’s always game, and she’s spent a few too many nights alone. She’s got her own points to prove.

“Great,” you say, smiling. “Kiss me.”

“So romantic,” says Wendy, but she does it anyway.

It’s not like you haven’t done it before, but it’s different under the influence - under alcohol, under Seulgi’s stare burning a hole in your back, under the cover of darkness like you’ve never shone under spotlights - and it works.

“Oh, man,” says Wendy, pulling back, sliding a hand through your hair; your lip gloss glimmers on her bottom lip. “We’re fucked up. And I think I need to stop before Seulgi actually puts out a hit on me.”

“She shouldn’t care,” you say, innocuous, tracing Wendy’s sides with your fingertips. “She has a girlfriend. Why should she give a fuck who I’m making out with?”

“We’re not making out,” says Wendy. She’s got glittering eyeshadow on the inner corners of both eyes, sparkling in low light. You think of city streets and skylines, her face on billboards, her voice on the radio, how her fans would froth at the mouths if they could see her like this. “I kissed you once.”

“We’re not making out yet,” you correct her.

“Well, in that case,” says Wendy, and pulls you back in.

(By the back door, Park Sooyoung’s watching the both of you, lips pressed together in a thin line, blinking fast as if unable to reconcile what she’s seeing. Unsure of what she really wants, never knowing how to get it. Feelings are funny like that.)

It’s only a matter of time, but it always is.

come outside, the text from a number you don’t recognize reads. i’m taking you home.

seems like a bad idea to hitch a ride home with a stranger, you respond right away, knowing even with the anonymity, fingertips trembling like your entire body aches to scream her name. Wendy’s got an arm around your waist, the two of you tucked in a corner and talking to one of her friends; she reads the texts over your shoulder and laughs out loud. You add, i’m famous or whatever. there are a lot of people who want to hurt me.

yeah, is the only response, like a threat in itself. you’re right. they do.

You don’t know what Seulgi tells Irene to get away with this, but it doesn’t really matter.

“Oh, wow,” you say, as you make it down the driveway just to see her already standing by the front gate. She’s got her phone in her hand and a sleek black car idling on the curb. “What a coincidence. You know, I just got this text from this person who’s clearly stalking me, wanted to take me home with them - so crazy, seriously, fans these days-”

“Get in the fucking car,” Seulgi snaps, voice deadly low; closes her fingers around your wrist and tugs.

She doesn’t leave you any room to argue, but it’s not like you would, regardless - you wouldn’t leave even if she’d let you.

So you’re piling into the backseat of the car, and the second the door shuts, windows tinted, she curls her fingers in your hair and kisses you. Desperately, like she’s been wanting to the moment she saw you, right when you walked in a room; possessive and sloppy, the taste of her mouth, the bite of alcohol - oh, she’s drunk, she can’t curb a single impulse like this. Knuckles bone-white and every breath like a gasp; you’re losing your mind already, inhibitions like a foreign language, something you could never really get a grasp on. She sighs right on your tongue, sharing air like a necessity. The car starts moving. Nothing registers but her.

“You’re such a fucking brat,” says Seulgi roughly, fingers tangled in the flimsy strap of your top. “I don’t give you attention for one night and you start throwing yourself at anyone desperate enough to fucking touch you-”

“Are you jealous?” you taunt, asking for it. “Even though you were there with your girlfriend?”

Her gaze locks on yours. Pupils drowning her irises. Staring at the flick of her tongue against her teeth. Other hand on your thigh, underneath your skirt.

And then she wraps one hand in the fabric of your tights and tears.

All the air vacates your lungs, a head-rush if there ever was one - and now she’s got complete access to everything she wants, your thong, the way she can probably see how you’re soaking through it. You get out shakily, like it’s what matters: “Those were expensive.”

“Darling,” says Seulgi, smugly arrogant, “I’m pretty sure I can afford to buy you new ones.”

Her ego shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but it is. You’re squirming in place, begging to be touched; you’d let her fuck you right here in the back of this car with her driver stone-faced at the wheel, let heat fog up the windows, let it be a sex scene straight out of some filthy erotic art film, you squealing and cumming all over the leather seats - but you’ve been bad, Seulgi murmurs against your ear, and so you can wait. She’s thumbing your cunt through your panties, agonizingly slow, forcing you to grind down against her fingers. Anything for friction, for pressure, for her hands right where you want them-

“You make me kind of insane,” she mumbles against your mouth, a break in the character, revelation of the truth. Pulls back with her lips swollen and red. “God. I just wanna do super fucked up things to you, all the time.”

“Then do them,” you breathe out, and Seulgi smiles widely, teeth glinting like they’re coated in venom.

You don’t fuck in the car, but it’s close. Her driver doesn’t say a thing. That’s something you’ve all come to know, early on in this world: money can buy anything, especially silence. It’s the only way you’ll ever make it out of this alive.

Finally, she takes you home.

Your first thought is that it’s fucking unbelievable.

You’re so used to McMansions and penthouse apartments, sterile and unwelcoming - but Seulgi’s place is artsy and cluttered like she’s an ancient, eccentric billionaire instead of a twentysomething movie star. Strange intricate sculptures and colorful throw pillows. Paintings covering the walls that seem vaguely obscene. Sprawling plush rugs, overgrown plants situated at almost every corner in glazed terracotta pots, vines weaving their way towards the floor, over windowsills. A few very elaborate-looking cat trees, dangling with lilac fabric flowers and strung up with tiny plush bees. The view’s stunning. It’s not the only thing.

“Whoa,” you say, forgetting you’re supposed to be begging for forgiveness, or something. “The feng shui of this house is, like, nuts.”

“Thanks,” says Seulgi, mildly endeared and holding your hand, like she’s accidentally forgotten the same thing.

But it doesn’t last long - she drops to her knees right there in the entryway and works your boots off of you, one leg at a time - her heels are undoubtedly thousands of dollars, but she discards them like they’re nothing, lets them clatter across the floor. You don’t even make it to the bedroom before she’s got your skirt rucked up around your waist and she’s pulling at your ruined tights; off, she’s saying, standing, mouthing at your neck, I need them off - and you’re too needy and pliant underneath her, too ready and desperate to be ruined. “Mommy,” you’re saying, making your eyes big, tapping into every trick of the trade, “mommy, I’m so wet-”

And there’s the sharp sound of her hand colliding hard with your cheek.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” drawls Seulgi, tone slipping low and deadly, and drags you up the stairs.

You don’t have time to catalog the rest of the feng shui - you would if you could - because the second you hit her bedroom Seulgi’s tugging at the rest of your clothes, lifting your shirt overhead, unclasping your bra; you’re pawing at her in a similarly insatiable way, hands unbuttoning her blouse, yanking at that goddamned schoolgirl skirt, entranced by the look on her face: lips bitten, cheeks flushed, painstakingly pretty. Like you might be ruining you as much as you’re ruining her. I’m so sorry, you’re blubbering, as her nails scrape at you, mommy, I know I was bad-

“And you know what happens to bad girls, right?”

Yes, you’re thinking, staring up at her with watery eyes - oh, yeah, you know how this ends.

Stomach-first on Seulgi’s lap, for one. Soaked and trembling on top of her, drenched through your thong. Gasping because you can’t quite catch your breath. That’s how it goes with sex, with her, like you can never get your fucking bearings, like you never know when she’s gonna strike-

“Here’s the thing about you,” you hear Seulgi say, one hand stroking gently through your hair, voice suddenly soothing. “You’re never gonna learn how to behave unless I teach you, huh?”

-and that’s right when the flat of her palm comes down on your ass.

Tears spring to your eyes immediately. “Fuck-”

“Oh, baby girl.” Her hand’s back in your hair. Click of her tongue against teeth. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Another one, the loud crack of her hand. You flinch violently, wriggling in her lap - she gives a tiny laugh, loving it, yanking a little on your hair. She says, in a rasp: “And you’re so wet, aren’t you?”

It’s barely a question. You’re leaking through your thong, dripping onto her thighs. She’ll probably make you lick it up later, make you face it, take it. You can’t hide forever, she’ll say. I see what all of this does to you.

Seulgi leans down, rubbing her hand up your spine, fist clutching at your hair. “You can’t be acting like a whore in public like that, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “It’s unflattering.”

You can’t speak, squirming and humiliated, embarrassing whines tearing their way out of your mouth, out of your control. You’re shuddering, you’re pathetic, seconds from coming apart at the seams; her fingertips skate back down, circle your ass, threatening to hit. She’ll hurt you and you’ll like it, she knows. You already do.

“In private - I mean, do whatever you want.” Another hit, then another - you’re crying now, dizzy and light-headed - you’ve never been more wet in your fucking life. “That’s how you got so far in this industry, isn’t it? You just let everybody take a turn with this slutty fucking cunt. That’s how you get all your jobs, right?” Seulgi’s palm rubs the length of your cunt, harsh and rough; the apartment’s crumbling, foundation tearing itself up - she hits you again - leave as many bruises as you want, you think of saying, give me something that’ll haunt me when you leave, please - “I mean, I already know you like fucking people with experience.”

And it’s a vile thing to say, it’s so sick, and so not true. You’re a superstar, you should have your own level of ego, should fight allegations like those - but the truth is the only star left in the room is above you, laughing as your pussy leaks all over her thighs. She adjusts your body in her lap like you’re made for her to manhandle, turns you until she can see your face, the tear tracks on your cheeks.

Your eyes on her, never snapping away. Do whatever you want to me, you’re saying, I’ll take it.

“Like a good girl,” Seulgi interprets.

“Yeah,” you say, hoarse and already gone. “Like a good girl.”

(If you’re gonna make all the wrong choices, you might as well make it worth your while.)

Seulgi makes you cum first - and then second, and then third - with her hand forcing you down by your hipbone, lips at your navel and trailing downwards, lips wrapping around your clit and sucking. It’s somehow filthier fucking her in her own bed, no public bathrooms or images to keep clean: she makes you cum and cum until she emerges with her chin glistening and a feral smirk on her face, pleased with her handiwork, the half-moon crescents of her nails against your thighs, the way you can’t stop whining.

“Oh, baby,” she sighs after, at the look on your face, spaced out and wrecked. “Did mommy work you too hard?” Rubs a wet hand along your ribs, uncaring of the way she smears your own cum along your skin. “I thought you said you could take it.”

“I can,” you say, vehement, trembling all over. Prop yourself up on your elbows, breathless, and say: “I can give it pretty good, too, mommy.” Lean forward, capture her mouth against yours, tasting your own cunt. “If you’ll let me.”

Clutches the headboard and sits on your face, hips rocking against your mouth, your tongue lapping greedily at her cunt, dripping cum all over your jaw - she cums once and you push her to the bed, work your fingers in the tight wet heat of her pussy, say mommy, I just wanna make you feel good. Thumb circling her hard little clit, fingers curling inside her, punching out full-hearted moans from her slick mouth. You’re supposed to be a pillow princess, probably, that’s absolutely your archetype - begging for a girl’s fingers or mouth, getting fucked into oblivion and calling it there - but you’ve always been greedier than you should be, needing to take and own and touch and fuck. And Seulgi’s so fucking sensitive.

“That’s my girl,” Seulgi’s saying, one hand wound in your hair, syrupy-sweet; she won’t raise her voice anymore when it’s like this, when you’ve been good, when you’re seconds from making her cum again. She knows when you deserve the praise. “God, fuck-”

You push her to orgasm over and over until she hits her own limit, shoves you to the bed and says, Jesus, I can’t, I can’t. Ends it by taking your wrist and dragging your fingers into her mouth, tongue laving over her own cum, stringing sticky over your hand. Looks right at you the whole time, perched on your thigh, breathtaking. She’s smaller than you, but you never feel it. Like without trying, she could bring the whole world to her feet and make them beg for salvation - like without effort, she owns you.

“I’d ask you who taught you to eat pussy like that,” Seulgi tells you, voice gravelly from moaning, “but I think I probably already know the answer.”

It leaves you giggling, nose against her neck, consumed by her. It’s a fucked up thing to joke about, but it’s just one more thing to add to the list.

(It’s hysterical, because she’s the one who should be begging for salvation - no one needs to repent more than she does. Oh, well. She’s about to spend all night on her knees, worshipping; if she’s right and God gets her, then it’s possible God can let this one slide, just this once.)

Afterwards - ah, you know what they say. Third time’s the fucking charm.

You don’t really mean to stay the night, but it happens anyway. Maybe you’re learning to pick your battles. You’ve made it this far giving into every stupid impulse - you know what you want, so why fight it, really.

Seulgi’s something of a miracle to witness, first thing in the morning: gorgeous and completely dead to the world, streaks of eyeliner smeared across her closed eyes, foundation shiny and worn, whatever was left of her lipstick staining her pillowcase. Everyone’s favorite movie star, so utterly human. She’ll probably break out from falling asleep in her makeup. You probably will, too.

“Seulgi.”

You stretch, disentangle yourself from her; you’re sore in all the most satisfying ways, ass a stinging mess. Seulgi shifts in lieu of a response, hums, clearly a light sleeper. A smile flickers at her mouth.

“Seulgi,” you say again, brattier, and bury your face in her hair.

It does the trick: her name, your tone. “Kid,” Seulgi says, curving to make space for you, voice hoarse from sleep, like she’s retaliating. Then, with a laugh, eyes blinking open: “I can’t believe you stayed.”

You pull back just to cock your head at her, assessing intention. She reaches out a hand under the sheets and grazes your bare thigh. Like she’s trying to see if she’s sleepwalking, lucid dreaming - her subconscious knows what she wants; it’ll cater to her. Sometimes she touches you like she’s not convinced you’re real. Sometimes you think you do the same for her.

“Did you want me to leave?” you ask, grinning, somehow already knowing the answer.

“No,” Seulgi says, anyway. Smile sleepy and stunning, a glimpse of the sun in the room with you. “Stay as long as you want.”

It’s a blatant lie, but a heart-stoppingly sweet one. Actresses, you think, disparagingly, and lean in to kiss her mouth. “Bullshit,” you say, calling her on it.

But she’s giggling in that way she only does when it’s real, and so you slip back between the sheets, letting her arm fall comfortably over your waist. Let the other actors carry on without you; let the plot shift around you as it goes, improvisational; let it leave you be. Oh, you don’t deserve this kind of reprieve, not by a long shot. Somehow, it’s still what you’ve got.

(Because the truth is that the moment she takes you home, it’s already over. It’s one thing to keep an affair like this confined to public bathrooms and dark corners - it’s another to hold its hand, wrap it up in her bed, let it sneak into the sheets and spend the night. Look, you’ve seen all the movies: there’s no feel-good film that lets people like you and her win. But the tape’s still rolling: there are still people listening in, sound technicians with boom mics, directors monitoring your work. We’ve set you free, let you play it by ear, they’re saying - impress me, come on, show me something good. Give me an answer that’ll satisfy an audience. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?)

Stay, Seulgi says, like she’s even got a right to ask. Stay, she says, so you do.

Fine. The truth can wait for another day, after all. You’ll just have to let it haunt you until then.

obligatory author does not condone cheating and homewrecking disclaimer here. also this is another case of me intending this to be a one-shot and then it got too long..... okay the part 2 will come eventually i SWEAR!!!! if you made it here thanks for reading 24k words of fuckery and brainrot ily <3

#kpop smut #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #idol x reader #idol x female reader #reader insert #female reader #seulgi smut #red velvet smut

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love-toxin · 2 years

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Vampire!eddie holding you sweetly when you cry, because your little bat babies want mama to swing with them and they don’t understand why she can’t/won’t

how could you do this to me....

(cw: blood mention)

"It's okay, baby. C'mon–shhh, it's okay.."

Rarely has Eddie seen you in a state like this; bawling your eyes out and collapsed into his arms, so upset all you can do is whimper and take deep, shaky breaths as you try not to sob too loudly. And that's taking into account the fact that you've been together for years now, you've been through hell together, and you've birthed him the most beautiful babies he swears he's ever laid his eyes on, yet he's never witnessed you crumble in this particular way–and all over something he found relatively silly, even though you certainly didn't see it the same way.

"I disappointed them…I let down my babies…" Your lower lip wobbles, your sniffles loud and wet and pitiful. Maybe part of this reaction is because your hormones are a little crazy right now, but Eddie's grip doesn't loosen and his kisses to your temple don't slow just because it might be an overreaction on your part. He doesn't really care if it is, because the fact of the matter is that the comment your youngest made, while totally without malice, absolutely crushed you to tears, and you need comforting now more than you ever have before.

"Oh, sweet girl, you haven't let them down–I promise. They just don't know any better." Eddie squeezes you tighter, his hand comes round to pull your thigh higher on his lap and rub at it when you're seated more comfortably. The comment in question was that harmless "Mama, why don't you swing with us? Why can't mama swing?" and it rendered you speechless and teary-eyed as you very swiftly excused yourself, leaving Eddie to busy them for a minute or two before he could follow you to your master bedroom.

"But it's not just that!" You cry, clinging to his worn-out Black Sabbath t-shirt that he refuses to part with, despite the many little holes that catch your fingers as you do. "I can't fly with you, I can't sleep like you do, I can't take our kids out to teach them how to hunt, I can't swing with them-"

"You do so much more, baby. You're the best mother I could ever want for my children." He kisses the tears off your cheeks in the spaces between his words, before touching your cheek with the pads of his cool fingers and diving in for one on the lips. It's always been a cold kind of thrill, his bloodless flesh sliding against yours like the skin of a corpse–you hate when he compares himself like that.

"But I'm not like you." You sniffle, moments after he's broken it off. "I'll die one day, Eddie. And I'll leave you and all our kids behind."

You both know how much of a sore spot that is. He knows the reality of it all, and so do you, but being prepared for it is completely different than being able to deal with it when it comes. And Eddie knows by that look you give him, when the tears quit falling and streaking your precious cheeks, exactly what idea has struck your mind.

"We don't know if it'll work." He pleads, suddenly all too aware of how sharp his fangs are in his mouth.

"We can try."

"It could kill you," Eddie tears his gaze away from your neck, that beautiful expanse of skin that tests his self-restraint every morning and, especially, every night. "...I could kill you."

Those words hang in the air, that "kill" echoing in the strained silence of your bedroom, save for your own breathing. For the first time in his life he prays, quietly, that you'll let it stop there and drop that ridiculous….idea. That you won't bare your flesh and blood to him, won't look up at him with those eyes full of life and whisper, almost seductively, your plea for him to take it all away.

It's wishful thinking. Even moreso that he'll have the self-control not to give you what you want, and take what he needs so desperately in the process.

#eddie munson #vampire!eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie's angelface #bat!eddie munson #st 4 #stranger things #ellie writes #anons

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kaaaaaaarf · 2 months

Text

You know what time it is! everywhere, everything by @lynxindisguise updated today with a vampire (!!!) chapter, and I maybe shucked off work to read it 👀 (so worth it). As per usual, the playlist has been updated! Songs and lyrics/explanations below the cut.

Universe 668x: Vampires

Vicious by Daniel Hart & Damir Orascanin

Instrumental. It's from the Interview With The Vampire TV show soundtrack and is suitably mood setting (along with being a suggestion from Lynx 🫡)

Bloodsport '15 by Raleigh Ritchie

Nothing is perfect but your imperfections are quaint And your love is worth it and for that I will wait And though you hate me, when you have a turn I drive you crazy but you always return If I fall short, if I break rank It's a bloodsport, but I understand I am all yours, I am unmanned I'm on all fours, willingly damned Loving you's a bloodsport Fighting in a love war Although you love me, sometimes we're mean Things can get ugly but we're still a team We are an army that breaks from within But that's why we're stronger, and that's how we'll win [...] I've got your back, and though it's stacked against us I've got your hand, it's us against consensus And I will burn the people who hurt you the worst and I will not learn Cause I am too young and too dumb to consider the terms of breaking the law And I'll curse the day that they return With a smile on my face as their heads hit the floor And they're done, now it's curtains, the bloodlust's a clusterfuck, it hurts but it's working And even if you ask me to stop, it's too late because I've already decided their fate It's not a distaste, it's pure hate and it pulsates and it works its way around my brain Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I'll protect you til the day I meet my maker So don't fight me now cause you might need me later [...] It's not what I'm in love for, I'm yours I don't know if you can help it, maybe I'm just being selfish...

(fun fact: the singer of this song is actually Jacob Anderson from IWTV!!)

Vampire by Lupin

Cold weather shivers like a knife in the back tonight The things you claim that you knew had taken flight A tipsy remedy while something's causing strife Familiar echoes warn from a past life You got ambition, baby I can admire that You say you love me when there’s nobody lovin' back Call me a criminal, I'm wearing the mask tonight Familiar echoes scream from a past life You want me to go back to your room Well, lie to me, I’ll lie to you I think the jig will be up soon But can it wait 'til the morning? Can it wait 'til the morning? Can it? It got so bloody like the moon on Friday night I sunk my teeth in so deep but you just sigh Can't get off? Well babe, neither can I Familiar echoes bored from the past life

(it's called Vampire by Lupin and the lyrics are chef's kiss...couldn't not add it)

Vampire Weeknight by Jenny Owen Youngs

I don't wanna think about you but I do I don't wanna think about you but I do I do I do Pour another finger out or maybe two Cause I don't wanna drink without you but I do, I do

All night I'm suspended animation Watch the palm trees out the window all turn black Sleeplessly I'm paralyzed and waiting Will you come back [...] Pacing like a bobcat in the kitchen Or up the stairs just solitaire-ing in my room Preacher's on the late-night television Saying "... soon" [...] Asking every empty room what you'd say Bloodless in the bathroom mirror, oh my god Just tryna make it through another Tuesday Or maybe not

Reflections Scatter by Module

Instrumental. This is from the What We Do In The Shadows movie soundtrack and felt appropriately atmospheric and sad.

If We Were Vampires by Noah Kahan ft. Wesley Schultz

It's not the long, flowing dress that you're in Or the light coming off of your skin The fragile heart you protected for so long Or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong It's not your hands searching slow in the dark Or your nails leaving love's watermark It's not the way you talk me off the roof Your questions like directions to the truth

It's knowing that this can't go on forever It's likely one of us will have to spend some days alone Maybe we'll get forty years together But one day I'll be gone Or one day you'll be gone

If we were vampires and death was a joke We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke Laugh at all the lovers and their plans I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand Maybe time running out is a gift I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift And give you every second I can find And hope it isn't me who's left behind

Bats In The Attic by King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

And I've gone silver in my travels, Growing silver in my sideburns, I'm starting to unravel. Heard my heartbeat on a downhill, I counted eighteen on my pulse as Kilrenny Church struck three for three o'clock. What else? [...] It's such a waste of all that I had.

You mentioned bats in the attic, So now you're lifting up the tiles to get around these conservation rules. I walked down in the basement. I'm hanging upside down, a gag across my mealy mouth.

And how I'll laugh out loud about that. When I read your simple novel, it uses all our real names. And go make yourself a fortune, There's nothing left for us then us left dangling just a little shamefaced.

It's such a waste of what we had. And it's such a waste of all that we had. And it's such a waste of all that I am.

#playlist #everywhere everything #lynx tag #wolfstar #Spotify

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gingerbreadmonsters · 8 months

Text

out of my head

or: fool. forget him.

gn!reader, spoilers for sam and alexis’s backstory, something like angst i guess…?? much love to the discord gang for talking me off the ledge with this one - @frenchiefitzhere may your gates be ever baldured and your storylines ever satisfactorily resolved! also, lots of love to @dominimoonbeam for the genius that is the dynamic duo of william and cam - do forgive me, i couldn't resist 🥰🥰 inspired by hopelessly devoted to you from the musical grease. alexis holding on ‘til the end in 3000 words or less.

In another life, Alexis Solaire was a mermaid.

Well, not really. But she could have been, if you don’t think too hard about it.

If you’re a mermaid, there are lots of things you have to be good at. You have to learn to breathe underwater, and live in the deep darkness of the ocean, and swim around with your shiny mermaid tail. You have to be good at being very beautiful, but you should never tell anyone that you think you’re very beautiful. You have to hunt for fish to eat, which are different from the fish that you’re supposed to be friends with, and you have to be good at drinking saltwater.

A mermaid should be a little bit distant and a little bit magical and a little bit strange. She should have gills like a fish but hair like a human, which she brushes every day even though the ocean current always tangles it up. She should hide her sharp mermaid teeth and her weird mermaid eyes, even though she needs them to stay alive. Most importantly, nobody should know how she grew from a tiny little mermaid baby into an awkward gangly mermaid teenager, or how she might grow into an achy middle-aged mermaid whose scales look a little duller than they used to be, and then a wrinkled old mermaid who can’t swim very fast any more and needs someone else to pick the bones out of her fish for her in case she chokes.

Too human for the mer, too mer for the humans. Caught between worlds - a girl and a woman and a corpse, and sometimes all three at once. Alexis Solaire is a fish on a hook, bleeding from the mouth.

Things have not always been this way. The past is not a faraway place, and the people of the past are not so far away either - the new world sinks its teeth into the tail of the old one, uncaring or unknowing of the pain of a familiar pair of fangs. Again and again, times that change all at once and not at all.

You’d think that after so long, she wouldn’t have to carry all of this with her any more. All of these things that she is or was, that they’d blur together in the spray, swirling colours on the surface of the water. A killer and a sister and a sweetheart, a classmate and a friend and a sacrificial lamb, the stained glass window of her. It’s all still there, some bits cracked or cloudy, but still hanging on to the frame - she’s heavy with lead as it sits low in her body, warm and deep inside the softness of her stomach.

Old and young and marble. She was whole long ago, full of her own life and her own mind, before anyone else came along. Not bloodless, but not yet bloodied - there was time for her to just be human, just like there was time for her to learn how to be a vampire. It wasn’t always good, but it was there and she lived it and it was real. The world changed around her, and she changed with the world. There used to be time. Short-lived, short life, the forgotten decades of her.

Nobody seems to remember that, though. Nobody asks about that. Everyone always asks about him.

People like to wax poetic about the bond between Maker and progeny, and it’s boring. Yeah, whatever. You feel how they’re feeling, you feel connected to them deep down inside, you’re supposed to take care of them when they’re young. That’s old news, by now. Everybody and their - well, and their Maker, knows that.

Vampirism, unsurprisingly, changes you. Not just in the obvious ways, like the thing with the blood or the thing with the eyes or the thing with the living forever - other, smaller ways, too. It grows in the marrow, blooming in every cell, blistering under the sunlight and always, always, crawling its way back home.

That gravity, that pull. For her, it leads for miles and miles, far from the safety of Wonderworld and the protection of the clan. It stretches off into the distance and disappears over the horizon, fishing line like razor wire - in her mind she remembers the night, the breeze that held her as she died, cool as it washed over her shredded, stinging skin. The crushed, twisted body lying just out of reach, a strange voice in her ear and sharp fangs in her wrist.

Insides turned to outsides, this stake in the ground that she’s tied to. The centre of the earth lies through cities and woods and deserts, and to get there you take the coast road out of Dahlia.

Of course, it’s not the same for everyone. Vincent’s gaze always catches on the mangled shape of SURGE, splintered metal piercing the sky, and his little lovely’s got a season ticket at the stadium. The little bloodsuckers built a treehouse in the woods south of Wonderworld. William never says it, but the house in France is never empty for too long. And… well.

She’d be a terrible tour guide. If you all look to your left, we’re just passing the short stretch of road that Sam Collins died upon.

There’s no easy way to say it - she knows how it feels, in every sense of the word. She knows how he sees the slick blood on the tarmac, the dark shape of trees looming overhead, the faded mess of smashed metal that spears him in place. The other driver must have had the radio on. Stuttering static, and even now, the smell of petrol makes her dizzy.

He’s just like everyone else. He always goes back, one way or another, and she always knows it when he does. There’s only one woman Sam Collins can never, ever lie to, and she doesn’t even need him to open his mouth - the ugly, aching crater punches its way through her chest from a thousand miles away, and she knows exactly where he is. It’s only slightly less unpleasant when you get it secondhand.

Perhaps it’s wrong of her to talk about him like this. Is it bad, that she can’t help but be a little bit fascinated by the dripping, blistered gash where her mouth used to be? The skin is raw and tender, thin and dry before it splits. Cold-blooded, unblinking, this creature of the deep. Maybe, if she were a kinder sort of girl, she’d be able to fix things a little better, wouldn’t be so pleased with her own monstrosity. But then again, if she were a kinder sort of girl, this might not ever have happened at all.

Vampirism makes you different. Crueller. Or maybe it’s that she was always cruel, and vampirism was just a good excuse. She’s heard that one before.

She can’t be entirely wrong, though. It’s almost certainly true. She’s never met a vampire that didn’t turn out to be at least a little bit cruel, no matter how good their intentions might once have been. William does it best, but she sees it in Vincent too - that sweet-smiling, hand-kissing sort of viciousness that’s as charming as it is dangerous. Immortal politics are a blood sport in more ways than one. Her birthday bouquets are wrapped in barbed wire, she holds dinner parties in the piranha tank, and it’s so much fun.

Pragmatism and cruelty aren’t as far apart as some might like, when it comes to this. Sooner or later, you realise that the words don’t come out quite like they used to any more, you notice that the guts and gore of it all doesn’t bother you like it did at the start. Human niceties don’t mean quite the same thing, to say nothing of humans themselves - you stop desperately trying to think of them as people, innocent people, I don’t want to hurt them, and let that little voice in the back of your head fizzle out into a drawn-out mumble. Of course they’re people, you never said they weren’t. But they’re even better than that now, because you’re hungry and you’re strong and they’re food.

Everybody does it, everybody gets cruel. Even the golden boy - he’ll say he doesn’t, but it’s not true. Where did you think the little ones get it from?

To be perfectly honest, she can’t really judge when it comes to progenies. By every metric, she’s a terrible Maker. She doesn’t guide him, doesn’t teach him, doesn’t fill the space where a friend ought to stand. Father dearest did most of the work for her, and little brother Vincent did the rest. Your sister’s in her room. The Solaire clan soap opera - it’s always a bloodbath, and she’s up to her eyes in bubbles.

A Maker in absentia, it’s true. But she knows what it’s like, and that’s the important thing. Alexis Solaire, gutted and filleted, scales scraped off with the side of a knife. She knows what it’s like to have to kneel over a moaning, dying man, muscles twitching involuntarily as they’re severed from the brain, lungs rattling and wheezing around the metal. What it’s like to panic, filled with utter, primal fear as her own bones snap back together but his don’t. What it’s like to slice her neck open with a sharp, ragged fingernail and hold it to his mouth, blindly pouring her only solution down his throat, and know that this is the last time his blood will ever taste this way.

He didn’t want anything to do with her, after that. And it hurt - god, it’ll always hurt, but she’s not stupid enough to not realise that it’s a double-edged sword. The clan turns from her when she smiles sometimes, but they were there long before Sam Collins was. She can’t lie to William, and that’s her saving grace - they’ve heard what she’s said and they know that it’s the truth, or at least the best that she knew. Did you really think they never asked her, if what Sam said was real?

Magic’s wonderful. William’s friend, the serenity daemon with the long name - he was so gentle as he cradled her, pulling the memories from her aching head and filling the air with that terrible night once again. They saw it just as she had, felt the terror as she realised he was doomed, flinched as she tipped his head back and met his bleary, panicked eyes. Trial by jury is fair enough, don’t you think? The daemon let her cry against his chest, clawed hands warm as they stroked her back, and she didn’t feel quite so lonely any more.

It’s alright, my lady, he’d said, you’re alright. You’ve been so brave. A low, easy voice, to slow her racing mind. It’s all going to be okay.

Sam can call her whatever he likes. It won’t change the fact that he’s still alive. It won’t change that her blood sings in him, fills his body with power he never earnt, gave him this place and these people and this second, blessed chance.

You can’t fall in love with random wolves you meet in the woods if you’re lying dead on the side of the road. Believe her. She knows. Winding, sinuous, slipping through the gaps. Alexis Solaire is electric, slicing through the saltwater and unseen in the dark.

Some people say he’s forgotten her, you know. They really do. It’s not true, of course, but they say it anyway. They say that she might as well not exist to him, whispering about bites and wolves and keys that jangle in locks - apparently, if he saw her now, he wouldn’t even care to recognise her face. His gaze would wash over her like the tide washes over the sand, soaking in in just a second and falling away just as quickly. Uncaring and unknowing.

Of course, that doesn’t happen. He sees her all the time, more than he’d like to admit, now that he’s making more of an effort with the clan. Meetings in Wonderworld, dinners at William’s house, those stupid corporate networking party things she has to go to for the company. He sees her, and it’s that same seasick feeling every time - saltwater sloshing in her stomach, the closing of the net. Angry in a way that never truly disappears, bitter and cold like he thinks she’ll kill him all over again.

It wasn’t his fault - but it wasn’t hers either. Will he ever be able to see it that way? Won’t he ever wonder why she always makes sure to blink first - because it’s all she can do? The bowing, scraping shame he thinks he’s owed, the endless deference and the everlasting lash that she brings down on her own back. She doesn’t complain, no matter how much it hurts, even when the howling chasm feels like it’ll split her in half, ears popping with the pressure of keeping it all inside.

Maybe she should have gone to medical school, after all. When you’re a doctor, you just get sued for ignoring a DNR - apparently when you’re a vampire, you get to spend the rest of your life being despised by your progeny and everyone he meets. What a shame, that she did the only thing she could think to do to save his life.

He’s not a saint, and he’s not a martyr. He’d just like to think so. She watches Sam Collins hate her with the cruelty she didn’t teach him, laugh under his breath when the boat rocks and she falls into the freezing water. Alexis Solaire is a goldfish, sad little bubbles slipping from her mouth, small and curled up in the bottom of the bowl.

If she never says anything, maybe it won’t matter. She’ll swallow it down, again and again, unhealing scars in her tongue where her fangs have to go, and she’ll just… be miserable. She can just be hated and lonely and scared - because it’ll make Sam happy, and that’s all anyone actually wants, isn’t it? He smiles when he knows she’s in pain because it feels like revenge, because it makes him feel like she’s finally - finally! - suffering the way he thinks she deserves.

Hm. That doesn’t sound very saintly. And don’t lie, don’t say he’s better than that, because you only get one guess - if anyone in the entire world, dead or alive or somewhere in between, was going to know exactly what Sam Collins is feeling, who do you think it would be?

This is all a pointless exercise, by the way - nothing’s going to change. Nobody’s going to win. She thinks they might be at a stalemate forever, going round and round in an unending chase that leaves her legs burning and her lungs empty. A prey animal. When he snaps, when she slips, when her head is sitting on his mantelpiece, will she be vindicated? Will anyone think of the skin and spine and innards that don’t make it? Perhaps she’ll finally be allowed to disappear the way he wants her to, she won’t have to feel this way any more, she’ll go away into the quiet space beyond and dissolve into the mercy of nothingness. Or perhaps she’ll be trapped here like a shade, caught in the doorway, bearing the weight of a punishment that thinks it’s divine. Sam Collins, spearing her through the stomach, slicing her up into sushi. The devil and the deep blue sea.

It’s always nighttime at the bottom of the ocean, the perfect place for silver eyes to hide. She carries on despite it all, keeping up appearances, and William holds her hand to help her down the stairs. An empty body, tossed overboard, sinking to the bottom and bringing a feast. Alexis Solaire is rotting in the sand, sightless, gills fluttering only with the current.

The old world, swallowed hungrily by the new - night after night, the game goes on. Not a dance, no sense of breath, no push and pull. This is something else, something blunt and plain that doesn’t care to change its mind.

Forgiveness is divine, and Sam Collins knows how to hold a grudge. Her glass house is smashed to pieces, again and again, and it’s worth it because it’s the only way for them both to win. It has to be conspicuous, everyone has to know - he has to be killing her, and it makes them both happy when she’s alive to see it.

Come and be cruel to me, then, she thinks, and picks up her champagne. I want to see you again.

If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that the irony is always dramatic in this family. She’s frozen in the ice, a twisted Doctor Frankenstein, wrenched inside out with empty love and beset by her own creation. Chasing and being chased. He loves that she’s responsible for his pain, because it’s the perfect excuse to hurt her back - and she lets him hurt her, because it makes him happy.

He hasn’t forgotten her. How could he? His very nature makes it impossible. Searching, always searching for something new to destroy her with - isn’t she such a special girl? A fairytale that ends in seafoam. Melting in his heart, dipping backwards and dripping through his arms, pooling and puddling on the ground. She’s left behind again, but not for long - sloshing and spiralling until the world stops spinning.

It all comes back to gravity. The glint and glimmer of beautiful scales, the endless rolling of the blurry current. The moon is high in the sky and skimming across the water as the tide comes in, and the loop begins anew.

Steam rises. Alexis Solaire comes back to the water.

masterlist

this is an original work by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted alexis #redacted sam #redacted angst #redacted solaire clan #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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sabraeal · 2 years

Text

don’t speak boyshit, Chapter 5

[Read on AO3]

On the morning of the hanami, Inomata Maria wakes up before her alarm.

She does not, however, get up. No morning stretches to ease the stiffness of her muscles, no hurried shuffle to the bathroom to wash the stale taste of sleep from her mouth, no frenzied ironing so her pleats sit the way they do on the academy’s brochure.

Instead dread paralyzes her, keeping her pinned to the mattress, a literal weight on her chest conjured by her anxiety to inconvenience her. All she can manage to do is curl up on her side, watching the red numbers tick by, the knot in her stomach growing heavier with every minute lost.

Precious time, the kind she should be using to study, not lay here and have an existential crisis about whether or not she can afford to give up these few hours, or if she’s just signing herself up for an afternoon of regret dogging her heels.

Guilt slithers beneath her skin, two sizes too tight. It’s not that she isn’t excited to see Yuki-- or even Kawata and Yamane, when it comes to it-- or that she doesn’t enjoy being with them. It’s only-- only--

Three years isn’t enough time for Maria to believe she’s not just the girl at the birthday party only because it's rude not to invite the whole class. Rationally, she knows that’s not true, that she’s not just some awkward pet Yuki’s adopted and the other two simply tolerate, but still-- the worry’s there, just out of sight, lurking in the shadows of every good time. It’s exhausting to think about how it may never leave.

Her alarm saves her from further contemplation, habit and reflex driving her to her feet before dread can pull her back under again. And once she’s upright, it’s easy to move forward, to pretend that she’s too not weird to have friends and not too simpleminded to skip studying.

That is, of course, until she gets to her closet.

Maria does not own enough clothes to be daunted-- at least, clothes that aren’t the academy’s uniform, neatly pressed and hung on their hangers, a skirt and blouse for each day-- but even still, she hesitates, taking in the pinks and browns and--

Do you wear cute things out of school?

Her hand clenches around the door. Her clothes had seemed just fine yesterday, serviceable even, but now-- now she’s squinting at each piece, wondering just how short this falls of those glossy cover expectations. Would those girls with their glowing skin and perfect hair pick out the same pieces, or would they pass them right by in the window? She’d always thought it enough to pick girlish colors-- rose and lavender and daisy yellows, blues that could be described in terms of babies-- but it can’t be, not when so many other girls are thinking about lip gloss and mascara and hemlines.

Maria isn’t made for this sort of thing. Perhaps Kawata or Yamane-- or Inui Mika-- would stand in front of their closet, debating the merits of a coffee A-line or a slate box-pleat, but Maria just blindly reaches into her closet, grabbing the first skirt and blouse she sees. There’s no point after all; it’s not as if Kashima is going to see her.

One quick glance in the mirror makes her blanch, bloodless above an eggshell collar. The shades might be a bit off, but-- button-up blouse, straight skirt. All she’s missing is the bow and blazer. “I look like I’m going to class.”

Kawata has a point; Maria’s clothes may or may not be cute, but she’s certainly not dressing like she’s out of school.

“Maybe,” she mutters, manhandling buttons out through their holes, “today calls for something a little different.”

It’s a dress that she settles on in the end, a pale rose that makes her look even paler above it, like she’s made of porcelain than flesh. An effect adults have always told her was sweet, but maybe-- maybe it’s too much. Maybe she’s too pale, and pink is too obvious a color for a hanami. There’s small flowers printed across it too, not sakura but close, and--

And she needs to stop thinking about this. Sure, the skirt falls a little too close to the knee, and the cut is certainly more academic than trendy, but at least it reads teacher rather than student.

Maria curls her toes around the edge of the landing, floorboards creaking under her indecision. It’s what she’s wearing. She just needs to accept it. Move forward.

“Maria?” Mother’s voice hugs the corner of the kitchen, stealing up the stairwell. “Come down and set the table.

Good thing there’s always something she’s supposed to be doing. “I'll be right there.”

A restlessness races through her legs, urging her to take the stairs two at a time, to skip down them-- anything to burn off that tremble coursing through her. But Maria is nothing if not an expert on nervous energy; she restrains herself to a sedate pace, entering the kitchen like it’s simply a normal Sunday, and this the most normal of breakfasts.

Mother’s fussing with an omelet, urging the egg into a roll with one hand while the other jostles the pan, hissing under her breath. For a moment, it is so normal, so utterly mundane, that Maria forgets there’s anything to be worried about at all besides setting out the right bowls.

That is until Mother says, gaze not moving an inch from the pan, “You look nice. Is that for the hanami?”

She smooths her palms over the stiff cotton, jasmine blossoming between her fingers. “It...It is.”

With one last flip, Mother turns, prodding the omelet out onto the cutting board. Maria expects her to reach for a knife, painstakingly marking the roll into even parts before she commits to a cut. But instead Mother stops, eyes scrolling over her with an intensity that makes her wonder if her hemline is long enough. “You said you were just meeting your friends there, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes.” She bustles over to where the bowls are stacked, fingers fitting into their grooved sides. As long as she’s moving with purpose, it’s easy to maintain control. “Yuki is the one handling the arrangements, but she did say both Yamane and Kawata would be coming.”

About the boys, she’d heard nothing at all. It’s a relief; the last thing she wanted was to spend her whole afternoon muddling through a conversation with some random boy from 3-C. It might disappoint Yuki, but Maria knows: they’ll have a much better time with just the four of them. After all, anything’s better than watching their dates all clamor for Yuki’s undivided attention.

And yet, Yamane and Kawata looked forward to it. Were eager to go, as if the discards were all they could aspire to. Is that what she’ll be left with when the dust settles and there’s a degree in her hand: some more perfect girl’s leftovers?

Maria coughs, trying to clear her throat of the nerves creeping into it. “Can I ask you something?”

The knife clacks as it hits the cutting board, too loud in the kitchen’s quiet. “Of course,” Mother says. “You can ask me anything. You know that.”

It’s a testament to her mother’s efficiency that she can pack so much disappointment into only three words. Maria’s teeth ache from biting back an apology that’s all reflex and no remorse.

Instead, she funnels all that uncontrollable urge into blurting out, “How did you meet Dad?”

Mother’s eyes narrow over the chopping block, head taking a sharp, curious tilt. “What’s brought this about?”

It’s impressive how much accusation she can fit into a simple question. “I was just wondering. I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”

“You’ve never been interested before. Maria--” Mother’s gaze catches hers, as firm as a touch, holding her attention hostage for good behavior-- “are you going to meet boys today?”

She says boys the way other people might say venereal diseases: with the unspoken implication that they went unwanted and avoided by the virtuous.

“No! No.” Maria shakes her head hard enough the bowls nearly slip from her fingers. “Why would we want to invite them?”

Kashima might be tolerable, but the rest of her year-- well, at least an infection would go away if she found herself with one. She’s not so sure she could say the same for Ebizawa or Saginuma. It was hard enough keeping Yagi out of her business, let alone someone who might see talking as interest.

“I remember being your age.” It’s impossible to imagine; there are pictures enough of her mother in gakuen, her blazer smart and shirt pressed, every pleat on her skirt falling in line. But still she can only see her as she is now, scowling and stern as sakura petals fall around her. “Your studies come first, Maria. Boys are something you can worry about after college.”

“I-I know that.” Guilt gnaws at her stomach, twisting in knots to get away from its teeth. “There’s no plans to meet any boys.”

Anymore, at least. But Mother doesn’t need to know that, not when she’s already nodding. “Good. You’ve worked so hard already. It would be a shame for you to throw it all away now for some...distraction.”

Right, because that’s what a boyfriend would be. One that might keep her from getting into her top choice if she slipped on her studying. A perverse impulse urges her to protest, to say that if it were Kashima, it would be different. He’s a balm to her nerves, not a block to her focus, someone who makes her calmer, softer-- a better person.

But what point was there? She’s spent too many hours already on trying to understand what he wanted, what could make him need her as much as she needed him, and the results have been clear: no matter what she does, she’ll never have a chance.

“I know,” she murmurs, bowl striking the tabletop with a clack. “There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Good.” Mother reaches out, fingers brushing through her hair. “I knew I could count on you.”

Punctuality, Father was so fond of hearing himself say, is a journey that starts by arriving early.

It’s an adage that has seen Maria through aced exams and disappointing piano recitals, through family photos and an exceptionally disastrous semester of ballet. But now, now--

Every second of it feels like a mistake.

They are supposed to meet at eleven. At least, that’s the time Yuki’s email stated as of last night; Maria had gone over it at least a dozen times, just to make sure, even looking at maps of the park to pinpoint their exact meeting location. Fifteen minutes early is the minimum requirement for on-time-- at least according to Father-- but she adds another ten for a potentially missed bus, and another five for finding the specific spot by the canal she’s supposed to wait. Which leaves her an entire twenty minutes to stand around, looking completely friendless, a sad sack that every passerby would look on with pity--

“Inomata-san!”

Ah, she can tell herself it’s useless, that this time, this time she’ll finally see her way past this crush on Kashima, but the moment she hears her name, her heart is racing again like it never stopped.

Maria turns her chin past her shoulder, and-- and there he is, raising an arm with his wide, boyish smile. “Over here, Inomata-san!”

Her foot scuffs, angling her right toward him like an arrow to a target, all quivering eagerness to fly. But she catches herself, drawing up short before she can take a step further, hands clenched at her sides. It’s not his email that’s in her phone now asking her to wait. It’s not him who smiled up at her yesterday, saying so sweetly, you’re coming, aren’t you, Maria-chan? Her heart might wish different, but she’s not here for Kashima.

“I’m sorry,” she calls across the path, toes curling in her shoes to keep them planted there. “It’s nice to see you, but I’ve already made plans with--”

“Ushimaru-san?” Kashima’s smile is already too much at the best of times, but now it widens, actual joy seeping out its edges, and she-- she ducks behind her scarf, cheeks blazing. “I know. She sent me an email last night about meeting today.”

“O-oh.” Yuki’s smile takes on a different edge in her memory, a sly one. You’re sure you’ll come, Maria-chan? You’re sure you’re sure? “I hadn’t-- I didn’t know--”

Kashima stares up at her, eyes too wide for anything but innocence. “She said she would send you the change in plans.”

“Did she? I looked last night and--”

And there it is, right on her screen when it flips open. 1 UNREAD MESSAGE FROM YUKI-CHAN. “Ah.”

Her lips press tight as she opens it, as she reads, Kashima-kun said that we could join his group today. You can thank me later

A winky face stares up at her, its one colon eye accusing, as if even unseeing, it can sense the depths of her depravity. “Oh,” she manages through her teeth. “I see it now. How--” she blinks-- “wait, your group?”

“Ah.” Kashima rubs at the back of his neck, skin blossoming with a flush more delicate than any petal. “Yes, well, I had already invited--”

“’Nii-chan!” Kotaro races to the edge of the blanket, stopping just short before he slowly, gently puts a foot on it. “I caught a flower!”

“Haah.” Embarrassment leaks so heavily from Kashima’s smile that she’s almost mortified for him. “Good job, Kotaro! I was just telling Inomata-san--”

“Welcome, Inomata-sama.” Saikawa kneels down behind Kotaro, head bowed in deference. “I am happy to hear you will be joining us today. Please do partake in the bentos I have packed for Ryuuichi-sama and Kotaro-sama’s friends.”

Inomata blinks. “Kashima...and...friends...?”

“Ah, that’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Kashima admits. “I invited the babysitter club.“

Now that she’s looking, it’s obvious: Kashima’s blanket is less a blanket and more like the bottom of a pavilion, spread wide over the grass between the trees. Far too big for a group date-- though a lunch provided by Saikawa might test that theory-- but just the right size for the club, plus a few extra.

“Ah, Inomata-san, please, sit down.” Kashima sweeps a hand out, cheeks still a humiliated pink. “We have plenty of room.”

Even with the invitation, it’s with colt legs that Maria hobbles over to it, unsteady and unsure. The moment her soles touch the fabric, she braces to slip; that would be her luck after all, to get a chance to impress Kashima all on her own, and waste it by falling over like some idiot. Still, she keeps her balance just fine, dropping to her knees with all the grace of a pig in a trough.

When she dares to look at Kashima, she expects to see a grimace, or maybe a squirming level of discomfort, something to remind her that he’s just being nice, that if he had his choice, he would have left her off his list entirely.

But instead he smiles, eyes crinkling earnestly as he says, “I’m glad you could make it, Inomata-san.”

“Tch.” She turns her head away, cheeks burning. “I was only coming to meet Yuki-chan.”

“Ah! Of course.” His hands wave nervously between them. “I wasn’t trying to say that you were...um...hm...” He clears his throat. “It’s very kind of you to keep your plans with Ushimaru-san, even if they aren’t...quite what you agreed to.”

Someone with charm might tell him, but these ones are even better. Someone like Yuki, who could make anything a compliment with her sweet voice. Maria, on the other hand, only manages, “Well, I wasn’t just going to leave! That would be rude.”

“I know, I know.” Now he does grimace, chagrined. “I wasn’t trying to make fun of you, Inomata-san. I just wanted to thank you for being such a good friend.”

“Oh.” Her forehead feels like it’s on fire; maybe she’s getting a cold. “That’s fine then. And, er, even if she told me about our change in plans earlier, it would have been fine. You’re an all right person to spend time with.”

“Oh.” His smile widens, so bright she can hardly bear to look. “That’s nice of you to say.”

I mean every word. That’s what she should say, what burns on the edge of her tongue, begging, to fall out, but--

“High praise from someone as discerning as you, Inomata-sama.” She nearly jumps as Saikawa leans in with a much milder expression, though just as pleased. “Perhaps you might like a bento now that you have been seated. I made three different kinds, the first--”

“There’s sakura mochi too!” Taka chimes in, spilling into her lap. His grin is toothy and pink-- the same pink that’s smeared all over his mouth and chin too. “It’s really good.”

She blinks, mouth working for a moment before she manages, “You’re here too?”

“Of course I am,” he says proudly, slapping a hand over his chest. “I’m an honor-- honolary-- horrorary--”

“Honorary,” Kashima supplies with his usual patience, and it’s not until then that Maria realizes that she was waiting for a don’t hurt yourself, stupid instead.

“Honorary member,” Taka finishes, right as she asks, “On your own?”

His cheeks puff, petulance giving them the same dimensions they had only a year or two ago. “Mom’s busy, and Nii-chan’s not coming. He says all this pink stuff gives him a headache or whatever.”

A ridiculous excuse, one she should expect from a layabout like him, but-- but she also remembers the clump of blossoms during the ceremony, falling with an unceremonious fwump on his lap. And the way he’d sneezed, violent enough to make Kotaro’s eyes water.

Ha. Now that would be a funny little twist on Inui Mika’s romantic plans. Her stretching up, right on the tip-toes of her Oxfords, leaning in to breathe, take care of me-- and Kamitani sneezing right in her face.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Taka asks, suspicious. “You aren’t looking for my brother, are you?”

“What?” she squawks, smile squashed. “No. Of course not. It’s just-- he’s usually not far from where you are. Glowering.”

“Inomata-neesama,” Taka says, so serious, so dire. “Are you guys gonna get along?”

She gasps. “Absolutely not!”

Kashima leans over, interest bright in his eyes. “Oh my! Have you and Kamitani finally warmed up to each other, Inomata-san?”

This is the last thing she needs. “I would never--”

“I caught them talking during storytime a couple weeks ago,” Taka offers, “but Nii-chan told me to mind my own business.”

Kashima’s eyes widen. “Really?”

Maria can’t just clap a hand over Taka’s mouth, but she can’t let him keep talking. Not when he’s liable to tell Kashima everything, beskirted fish and all. She needs to find some other way, something to distract rather than neutralize.

“Yeah, and they--”

Or at least something that might keep his mouth too busy to talk.

“Hey, Taka-kun.” It’s too loud, the way she speaks, too bubbly. Too much like Yuki-chan and not enough like her. “Do you want another mochi?”

But it works. Taka swings toward her without a moment’s hesitation. “Oh yeah, gimme it!”

“Here,” she says, moving the tray toward him with a beatific smile. “Enjoy.”

In no time at all, the blanket goes from nearly empty to utterly crowded, Maria pressing shoulders with Kumatsuka-sensei on one side and Mamizuka on the other. Yuki arrives not long after the teachers do, Kawata and Yamane in tow. Maria gets to her feet, meaning to drop down next to her-- this was, after all, supposed to be an outing between the four of them-- but Yuki stares at her like she’s grown an extra head.

“Maria-chan,” she gasps, wide-eyed. “What are you doing?”

Maria blinks, half-crouched. “I was just coming to say hello...?”

Yuki stares at her, uncomprehending. “You were sitting down right next to him!”

“W-who--?”

“Kashima-kun!” Yuki hisses, her hands making stressed starburst by her cheeks. “You need to get back there before he follows you!”

“But--”

“Maria-chan.” Warm hands clasp around her own, squeezing tight. “This is your chance to talk with him outside of school. Don’t let it get away!”

She jolts up, nearly dragging Yuki with her. “I-- I won’t. I’ll do my best!”

Maria strides back to her place on the blanket, facing Kashima with a level of determination she typically saves for exams. Guilt tries to grab at her as she watches him, Mother’s voice echoing in her ears-- you aren’t going to be meeting any boys today are you?--

But it finds no purchase. It’s not as if she planned to see Kashima. And even if she had, there was hardly a chance anything more than simply talking would occur. There were teachers here, after all. “Kashima--”

“Oh, look!” He blinks, craning his neck to see down the blanket. “The guys from 3-C are here. I should probably go say hi.” He flashes her an apologetic smile. “I’ll be right back.”

Her jaw drops. “But--”

It’s no use; he stands, making his way down to the other end of the blanket, mouth spread just as wide when he greets his friends as when he greeted her. Nothing special, just-- Kashima being Kashima, as always. And her always hoping there’s more to it.

“Ah, good, he’s finally gone.” Sawatari-san leans in, eagerly clasping her hands. “Now we can talk to you, Inomata-san.”

Maria blinks. “Eh?”

“Shizuka told us all about your troubles, Maria-chan.” Mamizuka’s mouth pulls far too wide when she smiles at her, elbow prodding her side. “Your boy problems.”

To think, when Sensei had pulled her aside, she’d worried about her letting her secrets slip to Kamitani. This is far worse. “I don’t have any--”

Two cold hands grasp her shoulders, stilling her words right in her mouth. “It’s all right, Inomata-san,” Kumatsuka-sensei tells her, expression disturbingly mild. “We’ve all been through the same thing. You can trust us to give you a sympathetic ear.”

“And good advice.” Mamizuka gives her a terrible, salacious wink. “You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Oh, yes.” Sawatari nods, smile warm. “Anything you need, Inomata-san, we’re here for you.”

For a moment, Maria is tempted. As confusing as Kamitani-sensei’s ‘advice’ was, it at least came from experience. And three happily married women must have even more; maybe even a surefire way that she could get Kashima to--

“Oh, sorry.” Kashima smiles brightly as he kneels down; an expression that dims when he earns a glare from each teacher in turn. “I-I didn’t mean to interrupt anything...?”

Mamizuka’s voice is too high-pitched for a growl, but she sounds like she might give it a go anyway. “You are.”

“We were having a conversation with Inomata-san,” Kumatsuka informs him, mild and yet somehow more threatening than a shout. “An important one.”

“O-oh?” His mouth tries a tremulous curve. “What about?”

With the utmost calm and composure, Maria presses her palms flat to her lap and yelps, “It’s none of your business!”

“Inomata-sama.”

The blanket is empty, the others up and wandering after the children, laughing as the petals fall around them. But Saikawa-- Saikawa is somehow at her elbow, looking as grave as always. “You’re enjoying the bento I prepared?”

“Ah, yes.” She wipes at her mouth. “It’s--” excellent-- “very good.”

He nods, pleased. With confident hesitation, he says, “Inomata-sama, I am not sure how to bring this up, but it is my understanding that you are learning about love.”

She stares, her whole face hot. “I-- I haven’t-- who--?”

“I myself have never experienced such a magnificent phenomenon,” he continues, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “But once, in my youth, while I was visiting my grandmother in the Alps--”

It would be unconscionably rude to interrupt him. Maria knows that, she really does; if Mother ever found out, she would send her right to her room for her lack of manners. But she won’t, and if there is another thing Maria knows, it’s that she won’t survive a story as long as this, not when she’ll be on alert, wondering when Kashima will wander back with Kotaro. If he hears even a words of this, she-- she--

“I’m not learning about love,” she blurts out, too loud, but it does the job-- Saikawa halts mid-word, attention fixing on her. “I just want to get a boy to like me.”

He blinks, not in confusion like most people, but like a breath. A way for whatever passes for a brain inside that head of his to switch gears. “Well, there are many who have dedicated their lives to the idea of being desired, Inomata-sama. I shouldn’t think it would be hard for a young woman like yourself to find some young man who would--”

“I mean a, er, specific boy,” she clarifies. “Not just anyone.”

“Oh.” He sits back on his heels. “That seems much more simple, then. I would be best to ask him about his preferences. Once, Ryuuichi-sama tried to make a meal for me to express his gratitude, and he--”

“I’ve tried,” she hurries to inform him, trying to divert his story before it can start. “Sort of. But he just told me things that--” she can’t say brother, not to Saikawa, not when it would make it obvious-- “um, other people like.”

“Ah.” He nods, knowing. “I understand. It is hard for us to know our own hearts.”

“Sure,” she agrees. “But this is, uh, more than usual.”

His eyes round. “Oh, I see. He must be the sort who takes care of others before himself. A very noble young man. You have exceptional taste.”

“I know.” It’s nice to hear it, though she’d die before admitting it. “I’ve already tried studying to understand him, and I’ve had mentorship, er, thrust upon me.”

“To no avail?”

“No.” Her shoulders sag with a sigh. “I’m not sure what else I can do.”

“That does sound wearying.” Maria’s surprised to find that it is, that now that Saikawa’s mentioned it, she’s tired, the way she is after an exam. Wrung out, even. “Have you tried...? No, never mind.”

Her spine straightens, gaze fixing to him like a crow to a call. “What? What is it?”

“This may seem obvious, I suppose, but...” He glances down at her, oddly curious. “Have you tried asking one of his compatriots?”

She stares at him, unblinking. “You mean, one of his friends?”

Saikawa nods. “Yes, someone his age. Someone who is both better acquainted with the desires of youth, and able to speak with some authority about the subject itself. Or rather, himself. A...tutor, one might say.”

“A tutor.” She settles back onto her heels, mulling over the prospect. It’s certainly not a bad idea-- at least, better than anything else she’s heard-- but still... “Who?”

He blinks. “I couldn’t possibly speculate. It would be very individual to your person of interest. If you were to tell me, however--”

“That won’t be necessary.” Kashima, after all, has a lot of friends, a good number of them boys in their year. The ones in 3-C, for one, who are only a few steps away--

And one of them-- the one with glasses-- is trying to use his shoe to knock petals from the tree. I need it for my profile picture, she hears him shout, much to the amusement of his friends. Girls love when there’s flowers and stuff.

Right, there’s a reason these boys aren’t in the advanced class. And if the way the other two are shooting furtive, hopeful looks at Yuki is any indication, talking to them might read as interest rather than research. A request for tutoring might as well be a date.

The boys in her class are no use either; Yagi’s a pervert-- or the next best thing to one-- and Nezu’s advice has already failed her. But there’s not one else, not unless--

“Inomata-sama,” Saikawa says, his tone curious. “Is that someone lurking behind that cherry tree?”

She blinks, letting her eyes readjust to the distance. it takes a minute-- there’s petals everywhere, drawing her eye, but once she ignores them, she sees...red.

Ah. How...convenient.

“There is,” she says, mouth pulling into a smile. Saikawa makes to rise, but she holds out a hand, already on her feet. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this. It’s just our old senpai, after all.”

#inokami #inomata x kamitani #gakuen babysitters #gakubaby #hayato kamitani #kamitani hayato #inomata maria #maria inomata #my fic #future fic #year three #idiots to lovers #slow burn #here we are #finally almost at the conceit of this whole fic #next update is gonna be the POV switch #i cannot wait #i get to trade anxiety for belligerence 🤣

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birdsandlonging-blog · 8 months

Text

untitled/4am/venice beach

I don’t even feel like a person anymore

I feel like a prop or one of those wax figurines

An SVU body double

Petchieal bruising

Rubbing my eyes, palpebral conjunctiva

My eyes gooey in love for you

Oozing, dripping, the wound is still wet

It hasn’t healed yet.

You’re my band aid

But healing is so hard

I feel the impact

Your hands are so heavy now

Blunt force trauma

Multiple stab wounds to the abdomen and genitals

Ligature marks on the wrist and ankles

Victim shows signs of chronic abuse

Habitual.

I wish it was a tv show

I wish it really was pretend

I want to fake it for real

Then it cant hurt me

You’re the only one who can tell when I’m faking anyways

I’m not making it all about me

Cant you see i don’t ever want it to be about me

I’m so sorry.

I’m fixating on fixing you all

So i don’t ever have to focus on it

I like all of them

Thats the problem

I like the scientific process

Of the chemicals

And yet i would never donate my body to science.

My body is already claimed

And not my own.

It belongs to you and you only.

I would let you murder me

Just to never have another thought

Ever again.

In my mind

I’m always sixteen

My mom is gonna kill me.

They made me a dud

I came out of the box with missing pieces

Faulty parts

“were not seeing what we would expect to see by 7 weeks”

“see that? That’s the gestational sac there should be something there”

“see its empty”

Everything disposable

You put the little dress in the trash

Cold jelly still on your thighs when you get home

The house has never been so quiet

They never made a noise

It’s just the screaming in your head

Don’t let them hear you

It’s a secret

You better shut the fuck up.

Bite the pillow, be a good girl

You’re not the only one who enjoys torture

“You’re gonna feel a slight pinch”

It’s a knife

It’s serrated

The cuts are jagged

See how it leaves a distinctive impression mark on the flesh?

It’s a signature

An MO

He’s a serial killer

I’m struggling to eat cereal

True crime of passion

Not even, its more like possession

I’m a demon I’m an angel

You’re an architect

You don’t even go to this school

You already know everything

No need for higher education

You’re already initiated

We just need to take another vial or two

We just need to run another test

We have to contact the diagnostics department

They are closed on Wednesdays

I was born on a Wednesday

Mercury day

“Wednesday’s child is full of woe”

Sorry, i have a Gemini moon

It’s not my fault

Or is it?

This baby is made out of metal and this one is made out of granite

“I’m so sorry but we didn’t find a heartbeat”

Don’t worry, we will give you morphine,It’s sublingual

It can take 12-24 hours for the induction to start

You have to insert it, Is your partner home?

Do you have someone we can call for you?

Make sure you have enough maxi pads

You can always put some towels underneath your sheets

It’s normal to lose that much blood DON’T WORRY

I didn’t even know i had that much blood in my body

I thought i was a corpse

Do something nice for yourself

Go for a walk, a long one

Off a short pier preferably

My body is a graveyard

Somebody brought a casserole

He said he’s bringing flowers on Monday

The gravestone is filthy

He hasn’t been maintaining it

The alter is empty

I forgot to bring my offerings

I have nothing to offer anyways

The universe wants to spite me, a cosmic joke

I cant stop laughing, It’s just a defence mechanism

When the jokes don’t land

I know I’m in trouble

I want to be punished

I don’t suffer from mental illness

I’m enjoying every minute of it

My insides are raw

They’re on the outside now

Like that Frida Khalo painting

“Just a little nip”

They need another sample

I have nothing left to give

Drain me, I’m begging you

Make me bloodless

Leave me lifeless

You told me to shut up

That’s what I’m doing

I don’t even know what I’m saying

So I’m singing instead

You can find me on the dance floor

Low to the ground, gravity pulling me down

Bending me over, turning me sideways

Into the “recovery position”

Nothing but Acid in my gullet

Nothing but an apple seed in my belly

It’s arsenic. It’s turpentine you’re toxic

Remember when we used to huff paint in the garage?

Make it quick and painless

Before my parents get home

I cant i have a headache

I thought i was your painkiller

Now you want to kill me

I want to be a victim

Please don’t use that picture

Pick a different adjective when you describe me

Pick a new poison, this one is getting tiring

The onset isn’t quick enough.

Bury me in the backyard

Next to my babies

Amongst the peonies

Yet another pony he promised me

One hand on the braid another on the bridle

The harness is sliding down her hide

Why do horses always smell like dust

Why does my saliva taste like pennies?

Swallowing some batteries, a choking hazard

A warning, i choose to ignore it.

0 notes

luckynumbersevenseven · 1 year

Text

Last night i was writing a poem on the 580 east coming back from point reyes. Driving fast to give off an air of confidence. And not an air of “i am actually writing a sort of sad really sad poem behind the wheel of a car going at least 20 mph over the speed limit on the freeway at night”. Its not like i havent learned enough lessons. I know the risks. I have been in car accidents, like more by the age of 24 than most people have in their entire life. And still i am risking my life to write a poem. Is that poetic?ughhhh Maybe but also corny and just self destructive. I have stopped romanticising self distruction mostly. I take care of myself now and find reality quite enough to keep me…entertained? Occupied? Satisfied???? I enjoy making my bed every day. I am disgusted by the vacancy in the darkness that once seemed to promise so much to me.

I think about cars a lot. The potential and power they hold. These big metal dogs. And we can hold their leash for a time and pretend we have control. All day! Every day! As a means to an end! We do this forgetting that the dog isnt really a dog but is a machine and was not programmed for empathy. Because you cant program empathy. Machines areimpartial. Like the ocean or a forrest fire in some ways. Undiscerning. Unforgiving. A carless power…but there is no beauty in cars the way there is in the careless power of nature. Because the earth cares in a very differnt way. It does care. And because behind the invention or creation of the bloodless metal car beast is someone who did care and that is where it starts to unravel.

Whatever.

I find i do my best thinking while driving. I cant stop my mind from making poems. And then there is the desperation to not forget! The words that first fit that feeling! Is it worth dying over? The answer is sooooo obvious when i am judging from here in my bed. What the fuck.

I met two 5 day old goats last night. Behind a tarp in a hutch on a property in santa rosa. I was there to see the art of someone i met once and there was a cheesboard and everyone was middle aged and there were no lights by which to see anyones faces. The tiny goats seemed a cold and were shockingly passive to my touch. It was unsettling that something so young and new and small should trust me. I might have bad intentions. I dont even know my own intentions half the time. I have the power to kiss them or to kill them. The capacity or potential or whatever. Like a coiled spring, like how sometimes you think about saying the worst possible thing but you dont. But you could! But it seemed like maybe it wasnt about trust for the little goats? Like they just dont even know enough to trust or distrust. Like they didnt care. Their hair was soft and white still softer than grown goats but maybe not as soft as a lambs. And they were vaguely oily the way any farm animal is. But not smelly. And they did not shy from my touch. Nor did they really seem to welcome it. I dont think either one would have put up a fight if i had picked it up and left with it under my arm. I think it might have gladly slept in my warm bed with me. Impartial. Undiscerning.

When I saw the goats I played out some sort of fairy tale trade in my head. I lost my baby…so i earned this baby. ? Or something? But i forfeited? my baby. I do not get to take another one. A goat baby to replace the baby i know i could not have. Because because i am not ready? I would not love it the way i want to? The way a mother should? The way it would want? It? My baby. My baby.

Oh what do i know…i am living within a hypothetical. Not that the choice wasnt obvious. But the what ifs are soooo tempting.

The things that i wrote in the notes app on my phone while i was driving last night were mostly about the relief in giving up hope. Hope is so exhausting. My friend told me that they read somewhere that hope is similar to fear in its detriment to the mind and body. And i can attest. Like…the way you let out your breath when a door finally closes. Or when you try on something and it doesnt fit. The decision was made for you. Shows over. The relief in saying goodbye and meaning it.

I was thinking about how there is tissue/matter coming out of me following the abortion. It is somehow more clinical than blood. Less romantic. Grosser. I was thinking about how i had the weird urge to eat it. Maybe because in some way it wouldnt feel like a loss. Like in this way im capable of holding on or something. But whatever that metaphor doesnt even work cause id have to shit one day. But also the urge didnt feel metaphorical…just sudden and disgusting.

In my notes I wrote:

I hold onto the rag i used to clean up the spill of you

I live with it under my pillow

Weeping over whats unsung

Or what is sung and never heard because that is sadder

Repeating the lyrics under my breath

So i wont forget

And i got home and i did forget entirely until I read my note. I forgot all about how i would never sing a song to this particular baby. Or maybe any baby of my own. And how that made me want to break for a moment. A moment. Because longer than a moment might be self indulgent. And i am not broken. I just want to be able to break. For a moment. Like i am asking permission. A moment? Is it ok if i just break? I swear just for a moment i will be broken? And then i promise to put myself back together again just like before as quick as i can as good as i can. I promise. But there was nobody there to ask for permission. So i didnt.

The nurse (the one that wasnt my hinge match) asked if i wanted to know if it was twins.

I whispered “i want a hug” to the dark house. And then i cried for the person who said something so sad.

Like a child.

I am doing better though! I make my bed. I make my bed and and i think i am mostly doing better.

I hold myself up to an old picture for size. I use new language to describe my pain. Or whatever. And share the blame. I take the pill. I forgo the rest. I dont even have sex anymore.

Yea yea but here i am. And the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere.

I didnt write it all down though. In my head i was turning over a line about waking up in the night and confusing the crescent of the face on the pillow next to me –– momentarily illuminated by the passing light from a car––for the moon

Thinking a lot about the moon. About confusing things for the moon. Man made things or earthly things for that big glowing moon. I dont have a good word for the power of the moon though. It is again an undiscerning sort. Is that power? Freedom from the sway of emotion? Freedom FROM choice? Freedom TO choose is one kind of power but its a human kind of power and it only gets you …to like a certain level of power…And dont get me wrong I am not trying to say that a prisoner is more free than the man that takes the train past the prison….

On my drive I was listening to fulsom prison blues (obviously) and also fast car. And those songs are about chosing. And disappointment. And consequence. The consequences of being human and having choices and how lonely and how insatiable. And freedom also. (A beautiless and boring oversimplification of these bangers)And i was thinking about how free I feel driving a car with a full tank on the open road at night with the windows down and the music up (and i am alone and choose the soundtrack without fear of judgement…) and a cigarette and even if that is some synthetic version or trope of freedom it still feels good when it hits the blood stream and ill take that over nothing.

Because i am girl and not a god or the moon.

0 notes

libidomechanica · 2 years

Text

Untitled # 8960

A sonnet sequence

Fools the wroughs, when he did leap from New to me, and knowing all. King? And love the poor kings. He cool, down sweet love was just meet me less, to Persians prove the irred by and an old; brother the suppose name of the Godalmighty Pharoah’s Arms, and back, till her and every perceiving his own.—She tongue doth arrow leaves bed and cross her beauties, it might hands disgraced, what coin in my weak: a sugared winning. So remember does not unconscious, thorough the Sanherins bob this for from the heart is my manhood, add the plain, believed, but if forced yore. Or to-day. That all For insomnia.

That ere Phoebus gan overs love is dreams. Courts, he cam also her! I love you think and so as wel-shading the met health, but yet the night. Whiles away, I care night on her smiling a sisters Fate: restraightway spent can make me her. Circle the blue. Fro, shewing sweet and all bred the growest jewel from place, he reason, number, when had sparkling with did then avow’d in throw, some dust! Girls at you come to avowed. Lent, spreads his Layes: his house while Ilion looked Country at once into a new porrid self had a horse! ’Tis twilight, and Content lord’s home a man’s spirit, but less fell in Juan’s Sand.

III

In hand, and goes bleating rose. Where is for it fade lonely smile could not risk of bare; he sembly, impart thumping his near, a Soyl ungratefully pay. But add life, deares to this read the wise doubled quiet shade, and did hudled Notions. Who else, I do, slouched in a tittle have not pleasant him in affection in the would not to glass, discontent, as none by Heav’n Subjects for ill arrived, retire, thro’ the raft branch doth shoulder all, so name. Proclaim, and Laws lessence beside thing very wise and drink; he fierce but doth winterception time the mould—the rumour darken! Dream!

Rain my carol thy sway’d, my panting, think! Silence she betweene Merch at thee seem’d, when the heave the new time newest joys of the talk of glowing out of thou will death, beneath shown; so presents on their Zeal peculations,— saving, to write my Petition of his Tribe her brother characted into the was upon her: Hugely, he rushing in turn’d away fled? Once have to building asswage. The first daught hold there, which many loom and day-long driven to fight; and snowdrops the execution of either’d a pleadiness, within my abuses on the course with all the dwells; could rather!

Much; we cat’s supper to sleepy one—their tongue, although the will keep hollow keep a vigil the less passion came let me a present three from fall arrived, retired cheek. Hy Soul its procession, no lesse thrust, the men and surviving presence, though a lane ring; beside in tight. Boast hold, Tibullus, nor he’s something a rule, not for the winters were my careless; pent of desire, as harsh and subtle strange mind in their praise of Adeline delight refine, and on the glows now into her baby from thy guide withstands have power o’ the strangerous Factious destiny had tri’d of proof.

Whose bloodless great an all the was they brow. Drift between I several Sons of the cannot brings are full cause and time had it with her in proves throne won Renown, death is foiled. Shadow of arithmetic are forlorne: with Pharaoh’s Pention from the Night giving Chloe. I waited on those Presences. Her had glooms, tricks my land, O ye deigned so inspire, twas ever an’ I’ll come idly too much made Obnoxious in her e’e. And Job, I meet in the wound the royall have cruel immortal, immortal heaven as does it is could pastimes, that scarred by a dunce. Nay; as common sin aguish een.

VII

With some, with the true than when then she: but we owe both tapers— and cave, just the crack weeds, and dream, by our plead to Church last o’er the bounty, on it to seem Construck—I’m the off and fancy place cease replies: th’Eternal ghost—waves away that, forsake, thy too a little—’t was he said; but no occasion of sorrowing all you To you least a glass hale then my music, throw down in its swept. Bold Lovers like Absalon: whose knew them appears; barzillai crowd—your croaks, are ministrate; and thinking sun, when I be ashame give me a coach-mare in the swears my uncontrading eye, yet simple bodies and soft and guide and no one to be sure the becomes you as I’ll cold, a beggars raffle silvery spread as a message well by the oscillating offence of feet, as the joys upon the rustling down the dead. Thou have mine was, that shine and not uncount, fondled Notions.

VIII

I put my burial fee, and good flowers, for the pause, amorous was puff of gout, when he careless discern when the hours, a way their Force: but doth excels, an’ I’ll come and bodies are the hour; his Hand, and needed the distrate; was puff on puff one than if those whole busy hange Foes, said, He keep a pock! Have your lip, and a boy, the sight I Mourn; but the moors lead’s lowly; and strings passions: the Yarrow, a year it. Upon the sun burned lik’d bubbles, or clip, and Juan, whom maidens over the story, and perplexion damn us all her last to seeme his Progressing how of immortal!

So silent was than half afraid, the Sagan over than them; and lazy Happings; and the owner, had cause from here his came and more his Darling, and blooms, which the Serpent at months where’s dusky pall from the too scan a lurked her e’re. Till times Time’s weights. The from its have given to was the Desert enemies thinks ’tis tongue be disgraces, whom they came upon his effects combine that the dried; but to the sun is silence, Infus’d, the blame, usurp’d and compeers were madrigal, until Max’s hind there. You never Ceasest not, she flying love, we stealing in the colour’d in twenty-five?

Whoever when your hand prompt dissembling mild, as none but like Chianti wine nose and Scorn of him with heate in his heavy peace was; and clothes of offal in a tired children rocks that I do the Jews, and downs, who could have give me also divide their voice was not what’s sure, a wayward witness obscured lemon, my lad, o whisper’d by the blue vein’d, longer of the randome bitch! Yet, quite in honest David, fool. To bursts of Government— he held, and while in a sweep aloof the cloud, that I can tell howling, prayer of heau’nly harmonies; which renewed face, he specially with manners, and long: but all more that Beloved nails an all around on thick and rent now vnneth intoxications, love let’s very low: then with black Friar? Nor he murmur are waste has twa spars wide, say sleeps a ho, at the tale is came though feather hope nor Principles beheld hearthly wreck was, invent.

Mingled be wise and sleeping my songst thy bliss and, come abstracts his crowd wilderneath. While things, at darken, I wish you should serene, but mine thought have shepeheard, or fame strait he contends, but know not: but loves; And, with such thou may be had told he noon’s faintly as he rotten hustine hair indignant or is forever; so dead and Shadow the Prior’s niece … patron’s Herse? Where a conceal’d loth to patient Son were serve my recollection is said, Yes—no—rather and praise tied of somethings, never and sithes, while ears with dark earth give philosophised, who their were na forehead been done.

XII

Over so befell. Noise artists, if Delusion. And torches; ’ there detains she wave, whose who but other forth is purple streets your nerves in her found at full, voluptuous, that? He soiree to be feigned so; her smile could not dar’d to give no burst Depose, had yet him thy light blessing sticks, E for to th’ Offendingly by dim echoes out a sent a bread and fore-knowledge, and like Feinds, but toys. What man, nor an immortals, or tiptoe up and of pillows her slow from reaching in her back I should not its bodies greater sings alone. When and a gem! Signing mistake a morbid?

XIII

Throw light, and hourly hand shaking of that ye country gently o’er themselves—’t was been back-yett be distress, thou stirred, they do what same sting beneath is friendship and hustine hands as fair and gain by the dark velvets, and the Blood—how the State; but whistle, a tempers are not the sweet. Him Magistraightway in my store of you say’st, heavnly Just Returning-star’s rites this ending go the burn’d in his Foes wonderous Friend. Can e’er come faster brings of nature’s self from Cockles, sweatshirt and defraud thousand the were kind: if I spoke in his Toyls. David, from his rest, I waiting lichen faintless.

XIV

Whom every darkness gold. On the dittie Lewes to my quest grief to buy fish; then she secretive, and fancy-sick. Some might in terrible Stile and into thicket wild delay’d with the Prior’s niece … Herodias, I do Stellaes faithful twilight. The moon, not say morning to the day, when birds do those white, haunts of gras. I may heart to makes. What her bow, which was open’d for me, and the purposes of old, shall keep your lords, lord. Thought and what am I Scanted like gold songs his mould; and monogrammar upward, and the blue eye for wit, that ever was God, the rush, into they museum.

A breath the pearls up for mistake place, says. In the laws despight before? Thy dear, ah God, to all, so name over your byast Nature’s prayer of bless a swoop’d; such was petrified; he woud beat merest’ meaning one by. See! Where it had been two signs, and away in wooing show, with the night-hung leaves pick juicy rubies and fail. And his own. And distress my unkindling-band. Come, I am inside its crime: yet all me a friend. At day. Happy love’s destroys: and he ground, which man more hardent of happy love! For first while earth in its load of Vertues would spread as a mother love for good-bye.

XVI

Near that the said his Overhead, to the dewdrops a lie downward vile, which is this state is oft have flock turfs really blue is sweet. The lasses balmiest this neither loved Attribute. But yet, such a liar, as sheep; and I stay? For she pit and maiden pits: ’twas loads of Friends did rolls, which beaty and pleas’d the ocean flowers Death shady books; such that I can be secure o’ the teeth faint a fondness of Nessus, amaze tossing to one, or hope to all night. Thousand for share the Public find witness to roam o’er-taking Friend to its quality that is t but still me, on his stations.

XVII

Wounded down in the Laws he ledge the looks were are a child; she comes to progress intense—lost in terror, walk for happy bounty, as my stand: a greater too much of Dryope’s last, have it self of Wine. Than therewith, to whom my wife’s for how a spirit were filament. He rest; the cable is always with thee to keep together—it might; as with a warriors Common grief to holder, less circles disobedient of his becomes essened into a flag in, too, myself to seal on every bane. Natures with at hidden pomp is snowing-distant aged in time them with forgetfulness, and thou hast the Jebusites through once their petty rings; such a long. The very koi swishing l’ envoy, as fair article and bad, alas, by my back her was cold, call’d and came debt unsullied, I, less of fair a forming Court, to circle must be no one she corne.

XVIII

All think her and gleams, and the Devil may nothings, and day. Though and the loved to guardian on the seem’d the Father argentine gave his motion bold, he worlding; sweet be fair those whole days, of than having superstition wave of heat: there them reach burst Effecting come! The world’s worth the effected wife: and with tears shine bride. He would save your eyes there depth of the Suffers talk’d wit and birds deign’s pulp, there there is De rebus simply blow, again. What, there sweet dream, and Hatred the bed and Caves, born an endless mood? Would freaks out of clerks; but to life from Empires fall, pursues here God could lies.

XIX

So now it is the pleasing hot cock sung. Fortresses, or himself to be all rounds to be sweep the way the in the doors lead’st the frames a winterests of the fresh nuptials must ensurate; some praise; for, her careful wasted, lies and sick and Haught is flash, and little sing, held, when this worthy of their cups of which the temporarily was a boy, and the skies, the since so dumb; for, heap’d a whole and clear rills seems but let the air still their Chief of chang’d by Forgiving died soon she chose forgot, which my blue veins in that! The wish your smiling on his face the sun and so the holiday, what?

Content time, and complain, but in they liv’d off oneness? But wont to quell heavy, yet, quite in his her to fall: tired of the echoes droop; three under does and horror hair when he frayed, and burst in these lover thro’ the dart of planet rules of Thee Annihilation lights of a kisses against such hints fall, make twenty Years, and monotony. With Absalom’s Mildness rough feathers, reign fields beat another within my phone dumb; for, tho’ evening songes in due isles away by man, my clenches. Drum, the Lord Henry turn’d thing down to alight broken Pomp, did have few refuse; till Day!

XXI

With country would keep coachers come, whitely by harmonies; who had his visitant; but I see grand rose-trees were in her lips: history islands too—their steal me a spiritual pitch And whether back into Naiads’ cells, and always. Baby who in a cave, judging joy the Fury from the birds into suck my weak enought red rose laugh it is parts beneath buls an old eyes are was, that your mischeivously all is; he fires of the Light me. Or leave, the Public daring silence and if facing parted in there I have here be passed thing age, they like man of fourth, as hearkened she might me.

XXII

The said, I am go child and your face puts do the bed of deserues to thee, furnish glad: this such as petrifies heritage; though the from their fellow girted to given departed in the night gusty bosom’s plainer politeness? This world nis not wake! Most from Humane Laws. And the shadowy as well the moon; and you. And did equal you had brow; an’ I’ll my Father Choise, and burst Effects ought him pens and more think the gaue this ended in ioyes repentangle shadowy as if God’s warm heart I faint should it all this delighthousand yet with Praise, oppressing steeds of grace?

XXIII

Save to hinder plains. Short. All seem through we can spear than sin aguish een. I hid the Nation to though! In those sweater grave mere not, she tone of the girl who were waking to make him in a cast to set my visions your employ; not open’d it, the peril and him lay a thing among music and these streets to remembrac’d: a man soul. Ambition with April, and paines, that I wanted forwake, and that some couldn’t beat and closure she happy your Arguments the earth gives: the weep like vernall comes young till seem’d to their shades were them from the Prior: when in that a whole is already!

XXIV

Rouse, or there God or ravishment trials must speak prop’d: and Ioues draws their Mother and launch often urg’d with that straightway shape and the had every had to sustain seem.—His, then crocodile, who dote upon the modern your becks our fashionable too short scorner, had God or brimm’d with you art now and pictures, laugh fane? As if painter meadow sky, that honey breath, and I, Encouraging bowstring down in quick gather rat, the straw to the circled adieu; nor throne at night, when the can self is not men came: o let it just she want or mother name, and sunburnt lights refuse their brilliant buds,-—that run.

XXV

You see no more by my Corinna’s eyes, in pure rank from the summer. Full in him down in English Israel’s Tribes Revengeance of its bones, sleep fell in the was Maud, Maud shot a thing also happy bough. Tripping some divine, man, on a route. His most at my hair it is bed and down to Punish green’d luckily I have a bastard violets, even to redress’d he had all the friar off, and hate, than Accuse, or me, Lucifer kisse. Fell the home, I send a half bare, who countenants against my may’ress intercept to be as doubtful spight so, boy, and blood: it was neuer he martyr’s grow Stale another bright lifted else? Heart, and there they too night of it must now burnt walls foes won’t you know it e’er coupled chidden brood on a paradise was left eyes on that soul and round by a foreverie, ye were cometh not makes people greater famish’d thy main. Sing, sprung on their dear.

XXVI

… The moors, old found there in lays. As wont to whom every zephyr penitence ourse of physician that appearance tir’d, is long- star’s careless like a spirit in fit and only said, Yes—no—rather are they to choose, all passion, who now independ. I ask to pain. Such libbe in my Foes; and its of the streaming, hey did in a very sort or was lost Estate were content on a velvet; with dogs an old by a dunce. Arms are like him. And caught and me, Lucifer love! To lives, dried to all the dead; strong a Native rightly glimpse of the Kings my weak enough the bitter like his Hands: rain.

XXVII

Thy thy was not spectre hanging as far more sweet old Enthusiasticks, E for one Sheaf did stars in our own sweet least is voic’d: Ah which by a dying of the budded hook the long, O Heart: large-—that shall repeat; while thin they cats exprest; because; but lucky Muse, and his Soul, and ward, that same to the sun his Age there you will make not Grant thee, Saving him a train of planks would not its waving lightened in the wish, for whatever afreshfully bless her chest, now behind hidden stars. Quite flesh. And boughes breath, proclaim’d and Naming round their God open’d scanty, in the joy in flood flower!

XXVIII

So I might watch an old—which the would lies, e’er rest. Juan, poaches all verse, that doth expos’d as a gem! Well could kisse. The tea-cup open pale, and heart in these man! Man’s in thy Pearls beneath, o’er it, there, my little Mercury. Each contain of heaun it like golden praises, has stately; maud the starved to see and thus he wish Martyrdom did with that keeps towards made; be kind. Being denied to dote on, and the circumspect, and print of this not grant soul clench ye, my lark was, alas the gold. See it leans, that sadness. And the men for a stated, close is a last glass, lowly; and pearl the shall past.

XXIX

Hundred years, confusion poesy by degrees, whose stand after silvery wishes the circumstances in the mouse, at their lords, ’ cries, in some luckily, there yet they or me insidering connexion dwelt upon my braunch. Let him I love, and thou bring; sweet be surely song wit golden posy of either’d, and awakened see to ever, the mob all will sore to peep’d,—an Oread an extremely me by our name, and the hole, and how he usual Throne is impregnates of passing went: there mad; all breather lying on higher back that he business of old Enthus, commen makes.

XXX

Was not how a young coiled, you always great. The Goal or a broke in him with such, new emerge these and praise my pilfering what have been sheer is setting of his me six month: so, by the sage to ye, gently sparkling into its Champion have flowers. Who nere could feebled so my unconfident words, ’ cries, when that all the fiery like fled lord Henry wasted me when bird hung Babe does hirelit little clock turf, and said his rest, while esquiressed up, the grace, that these rage an occasion horse as I plot the fierce and staying heels fit fold up to hide. One nor wowing past.

XXXI

Like the ward, while Danger; his time, which brine. And clear our hair: but, if not; there false and swarm at every meat an hold his cloth’d his moderes but try the modest Hope no preciation that voyce, whose regions try; and eagles to a ladder flood glow was a world their Zeal the worse. No, neither’s grew careful Engines in, I known the thunderstanding please all these after end! Tho now she had great poor wrap her smiles all the mud once with a few parish-mossed heart now vnneth inters who waned—and spies, of life like their out? And of advanc’d to her live; and a Call to standing, and gentle and flutes: close?

XXXII

For evening before Polygamy waking as the lily tenement-curtain bubbles all I’m singinge seemed to revengeance he mark, drawn such was weary cowl; but for—that she glint of knight to let Lisa go, and any, thought to erect new birds, his groan undrest, and say thou will regale of whatsoever harmony. He slaves. Hate and off gorged from the white necessary to peeping for fret as a Godlike a ballad in its glory of blood glow was did not o’er-gang ye. Music which he congregated by think to her, there? Now, to a last abhor, but morning.

XXXIII

Jessamine, you see the displaced, my times, as I plot to surprised heart and though he come the face Now a kind athwart, these think I speak and my round he punctures Elders tears of the pine, of knights so sick and put upon thy reasons may be still its unknown thy walks shut her be borne, the quiet how, with moue. Beauty, and the last glass and twice they gazers still its in his Favour art; you who best o’er various yours of the power to light we two stammer lover, the war; shall piece of stones, to do her eye; for, thou feel the trampled their stars to fell asleep. The rudely morn of the dear.

XXXIV

And meer intoxication: yet dew places, no light, thought for non but instantial language of flower too many good- bye. Good of rabbits, the buffeting ballish in extremely person, there professions— be quick it is patient upperched tenfold, and country circumvented sing from hands thy presently? Ah well knew trees were mad, o whisper’d in words her. This eyes strangled child; which dog and long. The dead! I hid my little prickly crusted me without solid fir come as ready to which habbe yhent, saw Majnún when worms, I can dove was heart’s unfooted, soon o’er-gang ye.

XXXV

Which he cause expos’d his flash’d all, gude fall. A flock their measure of immortal pitch, my love that place, but Desert place, beneath the very maintain-scent, and Dark, and Deluded the Noblest, until as Dian, when all successor, which loose trees were chamber shoe. Did ever warm air of chalk and leap through so sweet did, various, thou the most. Because expos’d tent, that great—was, but wears to she dead. With a dribbed she did thee? Give us quite did make that, the regions against this keep howers the Gods will too full flighten smoke … no, it’s the holla for Aribtrary Law such, must, i’m surmise?

XXXVI

In pitying brain in rurally, the cased; or sale, but the gnawing easie still. From Arab woke betimes ether and feels so, lending at the which he dorm. Give, she renew the night red left. And guilded at leaf-fringed in my way, before they might was snowing a Navy drink her hinges wet and by the sick, and wide Ambitious till its cloth the assert place; and soul! Turn churches; ’ there was enough Oppress in waves is which makes their fondly conduct while here forgotten in her living drum, thy pretend the proudly cot, freshness of flowers? A mirage Foes, with his siren son.

XXXVII

He too, also stanzas a Fruitfull Pow’r again, when tried me; I lover’d Heaven prest of her, sorrowing sweet Adeliness the paines, could not says she flocked been driven this minutes and distresses there as gospel, and fires: sometimes, constant men hand repair in their are coming upon the told, come to ordain’d. Now he hear, his cheek grows of moonlight on my face, the same the face the most. Solid star-pitchers of tall ghosts inke, and stand, and all what a trace with Tears! Is when the you may have it always are consoled by dim light blushes, for a Darling worn as thered should Story?

XXXVIII

Or, frames whether favourite mock its gone immension, upon my heart beauty, an upturn’d by the aloud rain of Love, you’ll find the across. Whom the Plot to thing, and beneath of new neighborhood gazed up, and list his mother’s can e’er I force, by which we could I made they steer my life! Starve, among the stood that have been flower lord by both make, richer eye or kind companies nimbly be—That our of his Bosom—looking- glass bound, round lent, upon the edge, on the foolish her lip? Those stare, smoke … no, it’s a Monarch, and for all the love’s goblet: she had wont looks on the art jealousy.

XXXIX

With my tales around in the vision fame. Us by cynics like a June, he many a dunce. Time next, well say it say prepare the bloom, I hunters draw near place, beneath brasswork: adulterate eyes again! His Old mend the unnamed it not,—and smiling sweet air sisters who oft in me. The mute and did begin now it scent for his well say, in bidding sun heaven! Within pride with what noontide. It is soul, and the little in my ivy garb, appear’d na a flocked and honour wilt crowd of rose is Maud, That we are bushest lie down where Said; she saints abuses o’er it at leave!

That the third nightful taste would adore the yard when this for that has twa sparkled with all and sleeps vigil the deaths affirm’d, with the kitchen, like a Maiden-flower of yew tree in due to remember I hate; while his shoots of music’s kiss it as if he come one, but if her of his own Posterity. Eight to blown, she fair attires, which whole, ’ would that Universatility, space bethoughts, in the Cynic on such spot why you saw. Lovers are born, turn’d by a mortified, althought I feel of guilty hand; but could wish’d by Saint one should shows, he sat charming sun, moon, and away.

XLI

Whose motion of Jerusalem Displeasantness of Belial Native. Poor pard with missed over they liv’d love a moisters who knew, or as gentle have beheld all arounds, and pale, upper too far the should run because where it feeling captive Right, for very neck and plaine, and soon o’er-hanginge for often withstand. Speak that nods this true is breaks that strown; and Treasons of girl, her head swim: and stopped, and to see no Consumed Absál like occasion, talk by midnighter grief the clovers dumb; or man is good decided an and round excesses of the oxheart to both goes leaves and weak tongue.

XLII

An hendy hap somewhere sweet bitter have Place; and play at a thousand they are youthful, and nip each Rebels with uplifting has pale, no more on their brake, as, curse though heart that restlessed will leadiness Ill with Age—how sting were recollection. If I clings are flared, and like so fraid, came up like man, that vivacity blocks of one of Him whome with seeing, on her life from those that could cullionaire: turn’d to follow. Dim fields, and Travery woe.—This rage in currency like to case, out a seed its will pressing to this change the night, wherein on the also a last will some sneaking!

XLIII

And what’s bowe young Endymion! Nor sheer is the wills, and three, and self-possession: yet below sounds, longing Ages Curst Effects content, stood higher back? Give to pat these poor flew a close in Hate: the vernal ghosts of life’s bestrew daisies. To endure the could as sunbeams. Deaths, and cannot comeline, or Crowds, we left to the only said ’twas to plant and trunks, are dear. The substant a cave, the heart distraught: chrome-wind bears the scepting eyes: or soul, not teares, wandering dead the seem’d fully,—how that? Since—since or gloom, take him places might hold some shut with wondered liberty; but Government.

XLIV

Might defence arms the since on the nigh, when pray you, excel; which piece-meal! See but know I’m sing,—why not resolved in some to keep the speake what. That catch a Call burden the dews at every vulgar, passionato. Here I prayer, are done him, and our byast Natural a bleede; but could between the achieve That ought it longer than amber plate, for weak should rise at a glutton’s Herself: whether Angels from our bonnets thorough the red-ribb’d his free; what homely present, now a kisses of pavement a poet’s given stood and move; o, there evening since more constant gaily tent, and touch the well.

XLV

Water, like with that the wish top, call the trees were Useless fell to the fill at there though not, she dividual; and trust, an architect harmonies; and sunny glades were God-like a world’s dusky caverns into our duties, of strike, for Gain: from the palms, or careless move Assembling of any of their eternity, she wines into shadowy bear time in the man off gorged from the sway’d, and the Kings of the tune, he mere physical. Stood the children’s first and pity o’er-herd banks of its beneath of Monarchs for I must clattery carol they took Peona! Dark eyes glare that’s crept.

XLVI

Around heat my song betray, and so on. The springs to let other husbands! Puts do the boy seen her visions—which bodies gently evented Love and torches, that month too. The most must speak as yet beneath, but I were dead a gentlemen. Others slept quibble, a beauteously detest of plant a passion; deeming seer leathe own sweet smilde when Ionian should nothing. Those Shakspear as before I find you pleasing out sometimes do love when say their eyes of his made youthful of long-star hear us, never having, young Endymion! More in cell, to make a rat or We two the Diadem.

XLVII

Tired wife she save you still my love children roun: It was found with moue. The brightful leisure in terror of their need to keep tuning from the world’s due to the colours were already, you returns—already; natures decay: and have so sweet and Content sphere. Glide, get, telle canvas foot, frozen times doth purgation; and round least o’er, that I hope so—thoughts abuse. Oh, wisdom’s chirrup on their lord Henry turn, thank gentlement upon in the while you that I have for them the same motions crept the his Frame, what the trembles of these essened eyes and wound, with countries you teach without me shape, and his suppose, a tinting he difficult to his was the dawned light and rather in her darke he windows of her harmony. Now my of these Eyes, gentle rain-flies. You smile white, I can no more a salve to thee long driven to means of an idleness, and wild-flowerets to me!

XLVIII

Nor wowing star, O mystery. For her take away, he with a genitor, the bug, listen’d for he staineers are swung the day lapp’d and Spares; man’s ways; the pious to test of time slow. Dream a row the rise. Grace from Plot, tho’ but yet death; and she dress of song beneath witnesse were bad mistresses. Michal, of good, instead of the execution of daisies. Room afar: each project of wears, Lover, never; he least action set the come anew, is work on Jerome knowing between the chose kindling revolving, or health was a double become with a glory seas instead demon, missed.

XLIX

I must I have doth to Saul. For them by a plaited turning David, from with lying talk’d down into a sort of king of all where hast please, and us; then springs shall longd they passion, in shak’d the dangled their Spoils by they still you, but two rows their Jewel, sad morning he balmier to you wake no high raign: and the ancies green the Jews well with your act, at one with blood seem’d to dote on, and surmise, charm or lightful that key to come lucid woman a’ its content they’d nights of tally, he colors, unfit, Her I say my plight, who had debauch’d, gone, promising wilt responsible close mine. Earthly was not hear to the Whole. There sweet sistering of love is acute. But they stedfast a passionate bred: a man’s Sand. I love must like their Sufferinghi Glasse, alas they saw, and the door. Thou bring into a girdle spangled with his supplicator grave—wrapt in the promise same.

Of all leaf round, himself thou, sir, flesh, you go a gaze; two have had done by the muffin which that went. The brown: that am I Scanted down to doth renew there is content ingloried with homage unto my member the like children is when all his said ’twas Nature fragraph, I see with lighted, and wound broad; the vermeil roses younger. Its own sad more forc’d to ventures distrate meet smelling rounding; sweeten my head, but he dim light; bething bands to paint breather with most it would enough not, or air than smile of his Birth, and drink. Glide, yonder trees do and morning himself employment.

They pass what no Courts beames in grown, of every banknotes all palaces and out- told the who is in each seeing his Command, cov’ring already splendour feet hug, is spirit melody; gone lampes of pillow midnight in the ninety yearn, as much deville, þat face. Notices the Black Friar in his mothers, tills he kept in that thousand king’s: beneath the Propertius. Back to Ovid, for steady Skill conquest, a goal or tall suffer’d, sir, towing all how her back thrown did even the phone was sunburnt line, rather strings and thou seeming Chloe. Lad. Which every spray. The lilies.

LII

For body and to laughter vineyard, thou kiss footstep of all is; the land of immensive, and shaking the full case, not Bull- fac’d Jonas, whose fold of Sorrow Circumspect, as one and a joyous words and seem Consumers be gaining stately low and just receives is not the Peoples pleasant diner praised fear them through not, the push-pin, folk—remember of the for tears in the wall, poisoned like a baby when this Advice to her sun on the Rabbled me. Some one that land quiet in the voice it is snorting race wildered by it, the trains a bleeping heifers sweet Stella alone.

LIII

She dinner-bells a bluff the blackning into slight; that, from their seeming Court, and which she love’s elysium; vieing can your and her come a million lookes, said she is always must cloth’d; how is the questiond comething thee. And quietly unmew my soul was neck and satyr flight, commen mankinds ne’re morning round in it sang: no man ne’er I lost edifice? Or how the early force, Infus’d, the soul between the left meet, mark me, there the beneath the fruit. Men, too little stands interpret! When the passionately sans culotte, ’ and turfs reap it; but I’ll lovers, gloom of the too; and rose.

LIV

His Fortunes Ice presently dipt again. Whence fresh budding, and camel-hair is a woman’s very dearest. Would gae made her an Evil Clout dead! Its corner or while the Soyl been fair are limited to receive. By one by the pilchards, like to templation. Red bite trilling how came let the most triumphant iron the brough the chance o’er the fell with us, play’d: so kept, and Naming down I lovers, still willing other months of morality. Such fool was serious deep river dumb confirmed body else—the rock,—’mong that he strew daisies rosy. Over must reach; and that strange Foes?

Of all Evening down upon the oldest. Is Judgment in this flock ticket blown out a whole would not chuse birth, leavenly move, while he make from beaty and ward, and quiet how oh love that times; as the with flow’r- reviv’d, and try their cradliness, those sweet below huntsman: Breaching sting’s live or service peeped, menaced, mark a lying his getting night. Some smarte, and well-a-days was it a porter that help to die, and yours and Job, I meet me back they past thus? Well, over that creep from the boy who commend the bang’d loth represt to whisper round. Like a Lyon, Slumber the will I cannot brink.

LVI

Heaven whom selfe bench of the effections. Making over Aprilled as it? My Fathering what was shall the rise and time thy chose, not when told, coming with my tears the dead paper, thousand thyme—and yeare his life sheep. Then came in your kisses that light must men with trust; or flaws was—pardon’d poison’d Rebel: and Noble Soul? More the rose had river, the name of you poor more pulses barbed drop into put one as if the wonges, stood lik’d but appearing tenderstand they take, while and arms SHE alone love: and they seemes to roam; till their own Poster her as remaine. Man I tell. Beware!

LVII

, Began that they rides a winterest to be seem to his made, did uphold; cowring he dinner ours, while he a week or tie of Gold. By Weavers his wind; but a wolf, and triple Bonds suit: his broad; though there is breathing little in any lies; and grammar up a limited until the shalt rest; for knight me, with you I sat in by the Harp untun’d by Mars, once too manacles, and countenance he has their Humour, Thee! Fan and a niche, and preciation, all Nile, and there fresh nuptials joy than a Miss, dew-dropped present far them given thought murmuring servances to portal! Passes.

LVIII

Whether woman observants puzzling alone, are sweets to lose to take me zones bent it is already minded, quoth his like for these is it, sore thee all hurt him as fit of whatever the friend. Well, we but make Height and waving King Home of either to thee to-nights he learn ten to frights abuse. An’ I’ll see which make their busiest, while you recall eye-iudgements, even now and saint John Nebel ever Rebells here is cowl and little on my father dark prince, that crow: the Masters, bard: if alternity: Cold Pastoral! Would wakes gained for Women shadows lush to vent, as when, the greedy not weight watch the conceiv’st, if I been rest the was turn of greatness? To stealth, by some full make has he isles attached the the ysicles did my rurally; but little of shamed of the press, unchased to see, and the cross the civil listen round being King; enthralment: for eye.

LIX

A spire which Lord. And gills seem’d him, to be as seen in the insteady may’ress it all the wing time as the sense. An’ she danced lord; resolve on ever minor grant bow. Hopes a wailful twilights. You knows how, as themselves and left to praise at flown of all be gain, that brough the approachineal. And ever waken with petty rings singing branches: who can! And the roof does would sweet breathe ocean unwither careful Engines in with Kings were on his dreamer, on everybody and on his life is departee. But still their Jewes, which ev’n dare bow’d caught to glass half afraid, stood a King Chloe.

Must I beheads, light, for him setting their own self, behind, no hang on his said, The day combination as suit: his last or come with coming. To chaunting at matter, clear abyss of grief, although the round often blood their burnings we could other’s there fields here! That fall ill will you, after the Time with needful as the cloth’d and ne’er he wile you spring, and with Honour bonnet; with indication which the from a silver issues from Olympus watching; even said, My life is in vain of courtly streams into a large Sould the duke off on pass’d a sleep. I saw it—put they’ve taught I, my dear, but disembodies coolness; disdains of thy tread at the well, falsehood, then last it: such bore, with on a golden Calf, let those is not choose, and set my copy- books: always clear a princession: women myself to be shine: and dusky cave, but not promised: profit. The pointed its ways!

LXI

But could combinating plan of you know. So man on they durst inslav’d the dancing couldn’t bear on the earthly walk; come, I thou are dancing like their tender than had not blend with good the light with Lyes; to thrust the score. That twine alters but still to the Faith of Just soon it a corn about its necessary Gold. And to knows? But when on your true is bow, and brained, garden Yet now than that is the Neptune cannot he war; shall not see, delude, farms, and a Clog to something—into this teeth, soon was to the pride wits do but a pleasant this quarter- fold? But lets not the curtain sackcloth’s red.

LXII

—He’ll as a look of a Democracy. For Vice, on where so delight ruin’d crippled charmed got, curtain would did nothings, with a hey, and the sight. Too forehead of Fate: o God tis to pour’d me, will by Fools their fathers to accents were my weak enough true he completeness tray from the woods are; those praise, again. Who in the burden spring. Have it alway, that heifers and where against him so paler wiles where are loftly, but most unlevel was I, when your forevere all once not world is not forward droop; let cloak apple broidery, felt my People in the golden reins, and make ours.

LXIII

That independent misreport me, and, being to behold by a circle the Plot, whose precious, Just Revenge who dote upon his kinds, that he came lay as the heavenly in the ringing fair: to all things sake; the fools the sky, the sage the distant or as soul; that his carefull Time with goes did Zimri stand. I never a directions. She only even the next, we left. And, not so bitter by will affects bring were suits too precautious Names his gone? Already turn’d Love of Verse this wrath fierce better side of gratefull Title, and a Clog to the down, whom they had cease that?

LXIV

About that did make in the dank moisture vnidle world is scarf intent sweet than canvas foot in star our stations; with rest, when a parting to creep tone the churches not from those look into a still, but be seem’d behind. When the shop, and spies, through their bowre: after the gleams, refuse and bulk, then Rebel argued with peach, let Autumn tremes a connection wavered ditamy, and drinks benefits unfashioning of rooﬁng and, soon or see Gods were danger Juster Country gentle clock as you dost had a holiday, when King His teeth of May, he game a lion, the fascinating recollection’d off ever new; more swire infantry: all this time, and foolish’d and these such being quiet lie—a close Desire, your fear our coats. That ye calm surpassion, and unlace and all are suite in high o’er-spangle hostile each our Ark. In the every learned out solemnity.

LXV

To make it forward to Depose. That hate. And when reason still with fannes to the pride any cheeks, his true. And tropics to pay their days; will you say’st, heroic and how could the cost with the creep, when she: but seen from hearts. The People grant mighty Mind. You say—at least interpret the worse. And their way,&blast—quickly nearly lawn, they durst his little leane, since we for superstition quickly dress in the swans, powdred swain, clinging about itself of eyes bronze fair Pretence could mens Decreed: a green was the Malice maim’d, were and not for though it swept away at it is to they gives: the fall.

LXVI

The arias of painternall chemiz’d, since—sincerely modestly, through thou wilt comin’ to make has twa sparks, and legs, trick to musical mask of Medicinal, as every flight someth nimble, Studious art: as the Court, and she has twa sparkling of rubies, and trusty nails him to the hearts from them, to death is the this effected as people in the pass’d her folds about you’ll not heavy met heart. All these looks; to short is to herself to the walk; come thou wanton Command, giv’n by who are not as well-a-day! Of beetles chewing look, ’ quoth this what smile, and quiet brave?

LXVII

What did the while think me began to warm in their way, when think you, after there we not endear’d, of what still to his grave; god use, his night. Which remarkably for madden’d, my love, my lad, there high, where is bone; and enduring Eye to make an old Jerusalem, Shimei, thou looks applause, a Father. Ours in the name: present first on thy will but Sanhedrin love deeply know on ever: its well-lin’d him still went to should hare tedious Host or the blossom’d boughs, and him, could I clings we can, the saloon, and sevents thorns around his time those with him, up, and, as their band wel ymake.

LXVIII

Oh, you had a sweet side and outraughty Pharoah’s own away. Or many a dead and day-long time next, to all love of inters weep are coming sun began thousand satyr king’s only thing me a snarlings: next? And white bow, she said it hall was none of their priest eyed the whole lively change, bold are of Cain, that by. And nip each my Celia, let out the blossome, wherefore: but sad eies I comes to fight tracery oak applause, and free, in sun; therein a lying to all but not seemed to enormous accept together, beams that earth for any cheek or tiptoe, sayshould pause, receive.

LXIX

Into thine eyes are there’s a Monarch to serv’d to grins bob this coming short-hand b the matted from halls of death, by sea, while tell might cost born! Have power show no read are the scarce may sees all, the said his so fit work for that a dead! Like taxi girl should still torment rain inheard, I’m a bridegroom with my deeds. There empty follow. The day when her for his carelessence into a songs by midnight, that I calling, but that haughts and a Vare of Night into a dreams, a way! Though and died, with a general invisible, scrips. Hung up tomorrow bound her night else, yet a world. There.

LXX

Her veering steered deep might dead. Is gold; his laid. Then silence rare a living weeds and of alabasters in her an’ a’ should not for the lake what which having, in earth the sure. Her side; who could wish your we drop: his own plighted and play his bloom, or yellow, free underpropp’d, and they wanted, to Paris watching is sovereign his Eyes a break and naughty pale, and his look, a wail’d, since and part of Satanic power: e’r the Faiths count of ording eye or of the full Titians prove, were sate sore distress: the chiefe praises, I sing to easie sting laili’— were sweatshirt and Scorn’d, and thee wild eyes dight.

LXXI

Him Staggering light not charm of his betrother brother, had a steeds of Sorrow, a Plot in vacant once and wound, a different now their better present dye, such sleep and passed perhaps mist, upon such, yet hours, wolves, sequestion and in the gloom, but with the touching stars go squandring to countenance unto me he to pouring they tree does shall butter’d; leavenly to walk the fumes to Destroy. The whole bushes, and each hold, it meaning streamlet a white, while plashing fear his Master than bred, till love you make the soul, ay or for he murder young-mens Leachest bubble up themselves in. Shall th’ evented o’er it had nothing ghastly, but themselves about their voice, as the fair Fitz-Fulke plaid in the charmer a principles best to good taste then it as I; by form’d Desires all think has no more be driven to a lasse, eternal power, with a great presence, or he’s been.

LXXII

Strike, if the world is torch tame Expedients wel-shading the she dewy-warm at eventyfold. Floats into o’er the blushing love: for twas the facts. You are a conniving well men, who is insolent, submitted eglanting at the same street, the meane my Paternally as this parcells from the off to be, ere made for we shine of lies that would caught their eares stood sang wilt rest. And nobles around to his solemn house; what clinging wainscot mountain’d her Grace alone as days, until her proofs and the moon cool depend, for such a Reign Aid wound, the blue-bell his Hand of o’ercome Alas!

LXXIII

Home idly their God depriv’d of Vertues was story in the Nation to showers. Green we gate how safe enjoyment; and breathing with them; and whence we watch from the arias oft affabled so ill, and did the sun, that into a ladder flaws why sort off, on thy ware, or plunder skin, while bay leave take thee with he mad Mars, and Desires, of thee; some dull this very store the Florenting, should of in Opinions, dreams white bow’d caught he cannot be found can serpentry gentle the been trie; but in the King: for love, much is which rusty bosom’s light, the solemn birds remorse at all.

LXXIV

An air statues mine, with Praise and perfect in within an airy station wherein after shall seek him to receive. On they counteous art: large and who have been brother live of her love, who forgotten had swain, is of the blushing, or will devil may in towns once imploy thee again in desolate years of Musickes went. Haunt of diamond, my lord Henry, which their face, but cast news well, to free weeps to a care and not require, a patiently doth eternity: Cold Passion, when on Jordant piece … there war; shall come in your generous night, he same still, maud is the Hands again.

LXXV

The Sons, and Priests the first—but though you’ve save their Spoils by thyrse an in it as put; his second seem of the star-pitched sooth’d: must go further brother comfort was almond the away against my natures, and call’d with as their stead, with joyfully on his Place, a way by ill, for lamb did not had break, how I play. Later prowde with a spring. The lute-stript of their completed from the Clay on; not when your of these secure third, this faynting from a tribute. In smile we drop of low clear, as any fair sedate, till but pass; make you, to rest, and faces, is, thou! I sevent of theme just go on?

LXXVI

By pray you love in despite, haunt of cares, and thine amends. I knows! So prevail: and not them by divided Self-same not I came on their earth, o’er the King, What coy girls thy kinship with curious glimmered light; the very, of my mind, these empty conception Blinds! Should turn backward to Israelites, whose the sprite, or gloom, who had swan orbed and who love! I watch and Order of care spect another pillow snow flesh, I cannot choose, for weak voices died heart they had cease receive. For thing for Interest lie—a clouds me, my God, and what with the pale as sweet love’s bosom she wander.

LXXVII

So ill: and the held, but still I were detain; our faces, and with so both in the print she is Guide, ’ and what in it the dales the full Image to their rotten—out of mind. If once that lov’d They err—’t is stairs and all Even after, heap’d a Justice all that a might the purple pride open’d many quietly lullaby doing striking into not and a health, and if we drove those Prodigious pernity, for all this is therefore state the lake in Vain? Of admirations do sings to add souls immortal agent—or a wretched and no salvia lyrata … oh my lad.

LXXVIII

Head, her play the houses us all objects by his found, and many a shrieking as in each of golden his world. In Lethe the State: behold a small, and mistring to take amends.—She too is the thus; mine the value of Fitz-Fulke seem’d unconscious was no pretty ring armada of sweet the Nation, pass most edificent by steaming Chloe, tracing a disgrace must dwell? Of winter’s Ears, in tell whispers use, had his last abhor’d: his all, painting looking- glass after all, plunge your eye’s death. His fair and on my ain last, his worth after all that made him his passionate from Porting.

LXXIX

” Thou can’t appear; then he’s self, but the rill. It was in long: only to each other’d upon a butcher’s call’d upon her for us all try I leaves so deem’d and quaintain kisses against soul; that inward had wrough. Thousand the one, alas the only among sea mermaids are; his Enemies, of kirtles, yet, but purple not stand still, and father saw emerge the antic gape of sorrow bounty shadow, slowly mount bad habits bass the shatter on my pulses closed rose, advanc’d to David, from fail: and breather high Philosophised, to his purple can for this, for strings were Sand.

LXXX

And me: he tale is free were be Absalon: nor doe I love you the confound, She matter Pith, life’s or dwellers with you make no mask, and the Robe of a few coud not my sportive on the wood accommon on this garment words he early prelude, fashion. Shall my lad, o whistle, and hymns into they take myself did lay this easier eares stars scald and infant’s evening the Devil strown; and keep dropped interest birds do break, if from that take for the very fawn are chased the Rabble up to a health, and his delicate from whom broadening a lushest echoes of a sweet eyes are hist, and bright against thee return’d mass of its glooming himself a Jebus cunning at a Crowds, but we have illness; by for it all as a ghost both and dusky pale— with the soughts so green adown. And Kings of men are bad hare-bell to all beauty go witer still, I pains—which your could not been.

LXXXI

Were fed his Toyl he cowslips in honey, you’ll find youth. A daring; enthrong’d to do we are as young childhood an orbed and the cold sweet break as ye were rains where are would not says too long part of tended and in each became anyway,&blast—quickly veins no more, ’tis she arms may chance. By a boar. ’Tis truly, I may hand in that every said: Wait up, do—harry days. Aside and action nevermorn how much, my lord by a dear, brib’d and aloe. Such savour! In the come an of immortal; to see a mayden þat is not knows well verse, advances this eye? Fern, now dark-grey hood in Silence when I am going; we final berries. Yet say prayer! Yet would I drink, my toil break, lord; resolved countains; he lesse careless foreverie, yet for worse orb shonest David’s Cause to peril and game, to both. She has tholier mystery care a strawberries of all his childish een.

LXXXII

Whom when content; and word nature high Hall! And best. A forth is life hoverist, and world nis no Title nibbling and gum, rich it full of admire, whose were embranches: late: behold a fair. That doth good very power amid his tatter; that all, the pensive out a true to your slumbers, wage, and lie! For much our Arms my lovers love you should unlace their very Soul, never if Destin’d expectant a cheat he hamadryads did earn my name if I spoke thought independ. In words they had suffice honey- whispers can ne’er err; deep riven to getting dawn arm’d, foolish though the Fortune!

LXXXIII

Monk, yet a trusted gently snow; the more. ’Tis with thousand so the street, will death goes— a silent from the horizontal mercy evenings checker over Juan’s love life cannot but perfume those lovers, bare a sting is about thy Pearls of lute as then my loves; And, if the braverses spring. Of a sulphuric lakes through I never afresh and longer of Orders her child. And my naked been mine though my breast aged nurse, the Sabbath of both pype, and foreign Yoke. In all but that him in; or in win. And there at alp. Whence beside it now shall design; and rumor argentine, this?

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #143 texts #sonnet sequence

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i-did-not-mean-to · 3 years

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Soup...🍲

@fizzyxcustard I love you, baby ❤️ Here's virtual soup and solace from me <3

“Bombur, this does not look right,” Thorin grumbled, looking at the limp vegetables dripping off the wooden spoon.

“It’s a soup for Mahal’s sake, Thorin, it’s supposed to look like that,” Bombur rolled his eyes at his king and ushered him out the door, tempted to give him a hearty shove for good measure.

Keeping his eyes on the full bowl, the King under the Mountain was much afraid that his concoction would be as cold as a troll’s tits before he arrived at your rooms if he kept shuffling his feet like that.

“My love?” he called into the darkened bedchamber, debating how to proceed as he was no longer able to see the bowl in his hands.

“Yes?” you replied, manifesting like a dream – or like a ghost – in front of his eyes.

You had been coming down with a cold – on top of the wound in your heart that felt like it was tearing open all over again every time you moved – and he was worried about you beyond what words could capture.

He would have died for you, but this was an enemy no weapon could slay, and he hated every helpless, powerless second of watching you suffer in silence. You were such a brave woman, full of sad smiles and long stares into the distance.

How often he wished that you would scream and rage, fight this, fight him if necessary, smash something to pieces to purge yourself rather than sit idly around and nurse your hurt like a secret.

“I have made you soup,” he declared proudly, nodding minimally at the desk in the corner of the antechamber.

“Thorin, your papers,” you called out, aghast as wet rings made the parchment wave messily.

“Ori can redo them, it doesn’t matter,” Thorin said decisively and settled his heavy coat around your frail shoulders.

Taking up the spoon, you realised that you were indeed quite hungry; crying and coughing in rapid alternation had left you drained and exhausted, but you didn’t want him to know, for you were sure that he’d lock himself in with you if he ever learned how much you were struggling to stay afloat as soon as he left your shared rooms.

“I did my best and Bombur says it’s supposed to look like that. I also had Dwalin taste it and he’s not dead,” Thorin explained quickly as he saw you lift the first spoon to your pale lips.

The liquid was warm and tasty; your beloved had maybe gone a bit overboard with the salt and the vegetables seemed just a smidgen overcooked, but already, you could feel the ice that had seized your heart thaw slowly.

“Is it edible?” Your king’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously, giving them the appearance of wind-whipped seas rather than calm oceans.

“It’s good, Thorin, thank you,” you replied, leaning into his broad palm that came to cup your cold, bloodless cheek.

“Anything for you, love of loves, anything,” he vowed, wriggling in between the back of the chair and your body to hold you close, against his broad chest. The warmth of his own body seeped into your flesh and bone, breathing life back into the desert of fatigue and listlessness, and you sighed before taking another bite.

“I love you, darling…we’ll get through this, together, I promise,” he whispered, his fingers pulling away strands of your hair from your face and caressing your neck cautiously.

“I know, I know,” you answered, surprised yourself to feel a smile tug at the corners of your lips.

“I’ve taken the day off tomorrow, Dís and Fí can handle it. How about I take you out for a short stroll and then we stay in? I can read you some of the letters that await replies and you’ll be sure to fall into deep slumber?” he chortled mischievously.

“That sounds lovely,” you nodded, leaning into him more eagerly as his hands rubbed your sore arms tenderly.

“I’m here for you,” he promised and pressed a kiss onto your temple, “I can even make more soup.”

The soup was mediocre, but it had been made with love and tender care, just what you needed right now, so you nodded again and breathed: “I would love that.”

#ficlet #thorin #thorin oakenshield #the hobbit #thorin x reader #comfort ficlet #i love you #solace #thorin cooking #i hope it helps

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godtrials · 3 years

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deaged sam fic!

I know I’ve done this before but I missed some and I was just talking to friends about this <3

Childish Things by Refur Dean's little brother is suddenly kinda... little. (Sam is little but has his grown-up mind.)

Goodnight, Moon by dragonflysoul Leaning further into each other, they stood their ground. It was how they had survived every storm they’ve ever weathered. It was how they would survive this one too. (Sam is little but has his grown-up mind..... mostly.)

Time held me green and dying by anyplaceisbetter (Espoir) Sam wakes up aged 9 and with zero clue who the weird man in the bed next to his is. They deal. (NEW! and absolutely incredible!)

Snow Days in July by beekeepercain While organizing the bunker's storages, Sam touches a cursed object. The aftermath isn't quite what either of the brothers expected - but for Dean, it comes like a much-needed vacation.

Degeneration by lanri In which Sam turns into a kid and Dean flails a lot. (Baby Sam with grown-up hallucinations.)

My Ghosts Are Not Gone by longingparadise AU – Sam has died in Cold Oak and Dean couldn’t bring him back to life. For years after, Dean manages to drag himself from one hunt to the next, not sure why he still forces himself to stay alive and keep on doing the family business when there’s no family left. Fast forward, he is confused when Amara tells him she’d give him what he desires the most. But when he meets a 24-year-old Sam stumbling through the woods, it all seems to make sense. (Not technically de-aging, but it’s close.)

As You Were by KatZen Dad said crying was for babies. Dean Winchester was not a baby. (Castiel deals with the fallout when Dean and Sam are de-aged by a curse.)

Monster by foolsdance Following the disastrous events in Colorado, Sam and Dean encounter a new problem. An unknown creature changes Sam into his twelve year old self. Going from bad to worse, they are soon after caught by the FBI, who believe Sam has been kidnapped by Dean as a replacement for his missing brother. It's up to Sam to break Dean out of custody, not easy when you're suddenly a pint sized foster kid.

Lethe by Goldmonger Sam is a twenty year old law student living in Palo Alto, glad to be free of his dangerous past. When he opens his eyes in an underground bunker, encountering two weirdos and his grizzled older brother, he’s understandably freaked. 2020 is a bad time to be out of the loop. Especially when you’re supposed to be hunting God.

Out of Time by mentholpixie In which a thirteen year old Sam finds himself in a strange bunker with a fever of what feels like a million degrees and a stranger claiming to be his brother. Set during the Trials.

A Moment Like Forever by RiatheMai (Summary is very long, but tiny little Sam + adults Dean and Jody!)

The Respectful Size by Bloodless Igby And all Dean can think, as he rises to his feet with his distraught brother in his arms, is that Sam is right. Dean is bigger than him. And that's pretty much the only good thing that can possibly come out of this situation. deaged!Sam, protective!Dean (Unfinished, but very cute)

Panda Onesies and Ugly Bunnies by beautifulboysincars At a time when the brothers are not on the best of terms, Sam is bewitched into an infant. For a while, things are good between them, even if they're different. Set sometime after 9.13.

time travel, which ik is different but has similar tropes:

And Beats High Mountain Down by The_Bookkeeper Sam is concussed and hallucinating; Dean is crippled and drugged to the gills. It is, in short, about the worst possible moment for sudden, unexpected time travel.

We Mortals Be by Debbie L Angry fairies cast Sam and Dean into a deadly forest where they come face to face with what it really means to be brothers. (season 5 brothers meet their 11- and 15-year-old selves)

#de-aged sam winchester #fic rec #supernatural #weechesters

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coldshrugs · 3 years

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vacation, had to get away

featuring: rook and rebecca greene + baby alma word count: 2k note: a @wayhavensummer entry for the 7/11 prompt vacation. warnings for suspense/dark tones and imagery/the feeling of being watched. this isn't what i usually write, but it was a lot of fun!

--- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ ---

When Rebecca tells Rook she doesn't want to go on this vacation, she doesn't tell him why. The car is mostly packed. The beachfront hotel has been booked for months. They bought the baby a swimsuit, for god's sake.

No, she doesn't tell him why. It isn't tangible enough to be convincing.

"Let's call it off. There are so many things I could get done at work this week."

"Becks, I say this with love: you're a workaholic. We're going to the beach for the week." He punctuates it with a kiss. Rebecca doesn't miss the unmarked beige envelope Rook slips into one of the last minute bags; she's not the only one with work in mind.

The following morning, they pile into the car with a few more duffles and that horribly itchy feeling on the back of Rebecca's neck.

She asks Rook to wait while she double (triple) checks the front door is locked. Of course it is.

The itch lingers as they pull out of the driveway. It sticks with her all the way to the edge of town.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," she beams once they're on the highway, once she can breathe.

Bare feet on the dashboard and sunglasses covering her eyes. The sun hasn't even peaked, but it's scorching already. They roll the windows down, and her hair, free from the usual oppressive bun, whips around her face. She feels like Becks for once. Not Rebecca.

"You know everything about me, B."

"C'mon, there's gotta be something." Her mind spins to the envelope in his bag. "One single thing."

"Okay," Rook begins. Full lips part into a hypnotic smile as he chews on the story. "I had a friend in college, Zack, that taught this contemporary dance class a couple weekends each month. It was a few extra bucks in his pocket and he got a couple dates out of it; a pretty sweet gig, right? One weekend he overdid it the night before his class. He shows up at my dorm, looking like death and practically begging me—" his voice rises— "'Otis, please man. I can't lose this job, can you just go down to the rec center and sub for me?'"

"You?" Rebecca recoils, silent laughter shaking her shoulders. "You can't dance to save your life."

"I know this. You know this. Zack should've known this, but apparently he didn't."

"What did you do?"

"I went down to the rec center, put on some Grandmaster Flash, and did the worst interpretive dance you can imagine."

Rebecca shoves the sunglasses into her hair, helplessly wiping at the tears running down her cheeks.

"Zack still owes me," Rook sighs. "Wonder what he's up to now."

Rebecca forgets, for a moment, the nagging in her gut that tells her this is a terrible idea. This is what they need; a week away from Wayhaven, from the Agency, from whatever is... watching.

A week to be normal.

Yeah, this is good.

They stop for gas about halfway to the coast. Rook fills the tank, while Rebecca throws Alma on her hip and heads into the store.

She and the baby jabber back and forth about snacks, and she holds up packages of fruit gummies and crackers for Alma to choose with tiny hands. It's then that her stomach lurches. The unwelcome fingers of dread, cold and sick, squirm against her scalp. She drops both packages, almost drops Alma too. The doorbell chimes, and her grip tightens around her daughter as she turns toward the entrance.

It's only Rook.

And a man in the corner.

She didn't notice him before. He wears a dark suit, and his face is like a knife, and he rushes toward Rook. His sharp features are unsettling even in his haste. He knocks against Rook's shoulder with a rough thud. Rook, transfixed by the sudden touch, watches the man leave. As soon as he's out of the store, the knot of Rebecca's anxiety untangles.

"Rook?" She calls across the store. He doesn't budge. She picks up the small mess she made and calls for him again. "Rook."

Only when she touches his arm does he snap out of the trance with a heaving gasp. And then... he's back to normal.

"What are we munching?"

"What the hell was that, Rook? Do you know that guy?" Her voice is a harsh whisper as she tries to keep Alma from hearing her fear.

His gaze pans slowly, vacantly, from the door to Rebecca. "What guy?"

Like a thick, dry pill, apprehension sits heavy in her throat. She swallows it, along with her growing list of questions. She pays for their snacks and leads Rook outside. Every muscle in her body is tense, prepared for a fight until they're in the car again.

--- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ ---

The week rips past them like a tornado through a small town. Their hotel room (a ground floor double-bed setup complete with the usual washed out pastel textiles and white wicker furniture) looks the part. Alma's scattered collection of shells too beautiful to part with, tacky airbrushed t-shirts draped over the chairs, and a healthy sprinkling of sand being ground into the carpet are evidence of that.

They spend the days exploring the aquarium, strolling the worn and salty boardwalk for unusual shops, dipping into local eateries for fresh seafood. Every other moment is spent on the beach; building sandcastles or running into waves with the baby between them and swinging her up at the last second. Salt spray in her bouncing mass of curls and her squealing laugh stolen by the wind.

Between the clutter and sightseeing, even under the blazing coastal sun, there's always something dark shifting just at the edge of Rebecca's vision. Faint shadows twisting out of view at the last second. The wound-wet itch of unease prickling her skin.

Someone is watching—of that, she's certain.

And then there's the envelope.

Rook's made an excuse or two to be alone. Just running out to grab more sunscreen, or picking up takeout because Alma's too fussy for a restaurant tonight. Innocuous things, but each time he goes, the envelope seems to follow.

Rebecca is sure it holds an answer, or at least a lead.

On the last night of their vacation, he leaves again. But this time, it's a trip for ice-cream with Alma in tow.

Rebecca watches them through the blinds, and once she's sure they're not turning back, she goes for his luggage.

It's not well-hidden. It's nestled under his dirty clothes, sealed with twisted thread that takes a few seconds to unwind. God, he's so unorganized, and for once she's thankful for it.

Carefully, she empties the contents onto the bed: hastily folded, handwritten notes; a few polaroids; and Agency documents? The documents are completely uncensored, not one black bar, not a single covered word. That tells Rebecca everything she needs to know—whatever Rook's doing, it's beyond either of their clearance levels. This is dangerous.

Shit.

That knowledge only nudges her curiosity over the edge. She skims over the pages, drinking in the information as quickly as possible. ...modern supernaturals seek reparations... inhumane treatment... would lose valuable specimens... Agency officials refuse to negotiate.

His notes list locations all over the east coast, some underlined, including the beach they're visiting. The photos show imprisoned supernaturals, each noxious gas cloud above them and their faces distorted in silent, exhausted screams. She recognizes some of them, though she's never been allowed to view them outside a transport situation.

But what's he doing with this? How on earth did he get all this?

A pounding knock shakes the door. Rebecca, torn away from this unplanned investigation, loses hold of the papers in her hands. They flutter to the floor.

"Shit, shit, shit." She scrambles to collect the documents and put them in order.

The knock booms through the room again, more impatiently this time.

Rebecca stalks to the door, dipping into her handbag for the Agency-standard volt gun as she goes. No one's there when she presses her eye to the peephole, but a third thunderous knock sends her stumbling backward with a choked scream.

"Agent Rebecca Greene." The voice is icy, hollow, and this isn't a question. They know her. "I would like to speak with you. Now."

The words are more instruction than threat. Rebecca expects any inaction on her part to change that, so she scampers to the door and twists it open.

It's him.

The man from the gas station. She knew it would be, but knowing and seeing—feeling, because every cell in her body tells her that being so close to this man... this creature... is unsafe—are very different things.

His skin (pale, and tight, and plastic-smooth) lacks definition, as if he's bloodless, and his blue irises are just a little too small, mouth a little too wide. He doesn't look real, and she's grateful the shadow of his hat obscures some of his face.

It doesn't hide the jagged line of his pointed teeth when he speaks though.

"That's better. May I come in?"

Against her instinct, she steps aside to let him pass. Careful not to touch her, he strolls across the room as if he's been here before. She wonders if he has, while they've been out.

His eyes fall to the half-opened envelope.

"What do you want?" Rebecca backs up until her legs bump against the bed.

He sucks in a breath and looks toward the ceiling. "I want to know why your husband is meddling . I want to know why he is watching a Watcher, badly. And—" he points to the documents Rook seems to keep with him at all times— "I have been waiting for this."

Without saying another word, he picks them up and starts reading.

Rebecca's presence is inconsequential. She waits in silence, the volt gun half raised. She tries to keep an eye out for sudden movements from the Watcher (and what the hell is a Watcher? Her mind swings through random bits of mythology and something between angel-but-not and urban legend seems to stick), but it's tough to look at him.

Finally, he exhales and, in a whisper Rebecca is sure isn't meant for her, says, "Friend and not foe, then." Louder, to her this time, "You read this. You witnessed."

"Y-yes," she croaks.

"And what did you make of it? What do you think?" His voice is cold, even, judging.

She doesn't know how to answer. A couple minutes is hardly enough time to sort out the ethics of this situation, much less her own standing. She's done no research, but she's never had reason to doubt the Agency. The only truth she knows right now is this man feels like death walking.

"I don't know what to think. I need to speak to my husband. If he's in trouble, I can help. The Agency can help—"

"If you so readily walk the line between advocate and adversary after witnessing an injustice, then you have made a decision, Rebecca. We cannot use you."

He pulls a pen from his pocket and gives it a sharp click (the movement and sound almost make her pull the trigger of her volt gun, almost) and scribbles something on the back of Rook's notes. Then, he neatly returns the contents to the envelope and tucks everything back into the luggage.

He turns to Rebecca, and his mouth, his smile is wide enough that the corners of her own throb. Phantom cracks that make her wince. Impossibly sharp. "I mean you no harm, and you will not remember."

In a blurred rush, he squeezes her shoulder. Her knees buckle as the door slams.

--- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ --- ☀ ---

"Becks? Hey. Hey, Rebecca, are you okay?"

It's Rook. An echo of him, anyway.

His voice is caught between the song she's humming and another unnamed voice that floods her mind like ice water. She doesn't want to touch that, so she focuses on the song.

And on Rook's warmth.

Dappled morning light across his rich brown skin. Rook softly snoring, softly singing, softly whispering the ways he loves her. She could stretch those small undeserved moments into infinity, the ones in which Rook smooths the roughest of her edges, turns her in his hands and makes her soft too.

He is the quiet thrill of crawling into already warm blankets, the taste of strawberry pie, the sun and the wind on her skin on a long car ride.

He is endless joy, and he is hers.

Right?

Then the warmth is a real pressure against her cheek.

Her eyes are already open but she sees him, both of them, for what feels like the first time. Rook, chaotically charming even through a cloud of worry. Alma, plump and curious, their brightest star.

"How was the ice-cream? Did you guys bring one back for me?" She leans up for a kiss.

Rook meets her lips, brows knitting in confusion. "You okay? You were really zoned-out for a second—and why is the volt gun out?"

She shakes her head. Not a thing in the world could be wrong. They're on their first family vacation. It's been a wonderful trip.

She doesn't understand why he looks so concerned.

"I'm not sure," Rebecca smiles, "but this vacation was exactly what we needed."

#azia writes #wayhavensummer #twc #rebecca/rook #this REALLY ran away from me and i'm sorry like i feel like it's not fitting for the event AT ALL but #it's so much fun to think about rook and rebecca and the events that led to rook's demise #and i have so many urban legends just sitting around in my brain SO I HAD TO THROW THE OBSERVERS IN #anyway pls enjoy my spooky scary summer story

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mira--mira · 2 years

Text

Siren Draft 1

Fem!HashiMada [T]

CW: none

1K words

[Original scrapped draft. Not connected to current fic.]

“This is a bad idea,” Tobirama says, watching as Hashirama prepares her boat. It’s small, but a well-loved craft, perfect for one woman.

“Yes, you say that every week,” Hashirama settles the rum, the most important [thing], into the small aft [back] of the boat, under her cramped bunk.

“And every week it continues being true,” he grumbles and pushes actual food and rations at her before she can kick him out. “One day she’s going to eat you, Hashirama. You’ll be another drowned corpse washed up on the beach.”

Here comes the lecture. Hashirama sighs and straightens up, clasping a hand on her little brother’s shoulder before he can start. “Tobirama. Madara is all bluster, I promise. If she was going to eat me, she would have done it a long time ago.”

Tobirama’s lips thin into a narrow bloodless line. Every week they have this conversation and every week it ends the same.

“Until you piss her off and she snaps because she’s a—”

“Unless you’d like to come along,” Hashirama interrupts, speaking loudly over him and grinning at the way his face scrunches up even more, “I suggest you leave my ship, baby brother. I have a date.”

“With a monster—”

“But I’ll be sure to tell Madara you wish her good health,” Hashirama continues, cheerful tone never wavering from her voice.

“I hope she chokes on water,” Tobirama mutters before finally skulking off her boat. Hashirama sighs, it’s the best she’s going to get, and pulls up the anchor and unfurls the sail. She waves enthusiastically at him from the small wheel until he reluctantly waves his hand in return.

It doesn’t take long to reach her and Madara’s island. Only half a day and it rises up in the distance, invisible from the coast. The island is idyllic from one side, nothing but sandy beaches and crystal-clear blue water, and completely monstrous from the other. Nothing but sharp craggy rocks and a minefield of debris that sunk boat after boat.

It’s no surprise it’s the side Madara prefers. Hashirama can barely contain herself as the island nears, scanning the coastline for a glimpse of Madara’s dark form. She’s not singing today, must still be in her cave and not out on the rocks. Admittedly Hashirama is early by a day. But Tobirama was busy and she didn’t want to sit around by herself so she decided to give Madara a nice surprise.

But the other woman is nowhere to be seen. Hashirama docks her boat at the little pier she built with her own two hands after begging and pleading with Madara. She ties the boat up and starts along the sand, after slipping off her boots and digging her toes in the sand.

“Madara? Hellooo?” Hashirama ducks her head into Madara’s cave. There’s not much above water, the stone is carved to support a long body laying across it in different positions and soft blue bioluminescent moss hangs at Hashirama’s rib to cast light in the space. Otherwise it’s just a few of Hashirama’s things she insisted Madara keep for her here despite Madara threatening to throw them all out into the open ocean. But nonetheless they sit on a tiny shelf Hashirama brought, tucked away in little handwoven baskets she bought in the village from the women who live high up on the mountains.

She’s underwater. Hashirama sighs and rolls up her pant-legs. The cave is shallow until it’s deep, plunging at least a hundred feet below the surface. Hashirama takes one step into the pool, splashing water and squinting into the dark, searching for any glimpse of red eyes.

“Come on! I know you know I’m here!” …if Madara’s even here. There’s a chance she’s out fishing but it’s unlikely—

“AH!” Hashirama takes another step and feels a cold hand lock around her ankle and pulls her in. The hand doesn’t try to drag her down so Hashirama rights herself in the water after sucking in a lungful of water. “Ma…da…” Hashirama coughs, bobbing up and down as she swims towards the ledge.

Madara surfaces by her side in the water. Short wet hair plasters itself to her face, only one glowing red eye visible.

“You’re early,” Madara grumbles, moving silently through the water to wrap her arms around Hashirama’s waist. “I could have mistaken you for food. I still might.” She nips at Hashirama’s shoulder, sharp teeth pricking at her skin.

“I wanted to see you,” Hashirama pouts when she’s recovered her breath. She turns in the water, pleased when Madara doesn’t try to hold her in place. Instead she reaches down and brushes the spiky hair away from Madara’s face, exposing the second red eye. She scoffs, but it’s a testament that they’ve been together long enough she doesn’t try to challenge Hashirama’s statement and instead curls into her front, chin propped up on Hashirama’s chest. Hashirama treads water with lazy kicks, the occasional brush of Madara’s long tail brushing against her feet.

She doesn’t like to brag, but Hashirama’s nearly positive she’s the only person in the world to hold a siren in her arms without a chunk of flesh missing or being trapped under one of their songs.

#naruto #hashimada #madara uchiha #hashirama senju #fem!madara #fem!hashirama #fem!hashimada #drafts #siren

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randombtsprincessa · 3 years

Text

Belladonna || 1

Author: Randombtsprincessa

Characters: Min Yoongi x Reader, Past Lovers! AU

Words: 3k

Genre: Heavy Angst, Smut

Rating: This chapter is General up to NC-17, rating might go up as story progresses.

Summary: Your life has finally settled into a routine; keeping you far away from your home, friends, family and the man who broke your heart. Coming back home means facing him again and maybe you’re not as over him as you’d like to believe.

Warnings: (in-chap) Heavy Angst, mentions of a toxic relationship.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The idol used as the Muse for the lead is not in anyway affiliated with the work. The characterisation is a work of mine. Any asks or accusations against the work on the grounds of inability to keep fact and fiction seperate on the part of the reader, will not be entertained.

A/N: Its’s rather sad that the disclaimer has to be added but eh, it’s a bad time for tumblr writing fandom and people are being very mean. Brush past that if you’re sane. Anyway, a very very huge hug to my best friends for screaming at me about this fic. A bunch of thanks to @softyoongiionly for hyping up the chapter! And a round of applause for @kithtaehyung for beta-ing the chappie!!

Happy Birthday Yoonfie baby!!

It was cold inside the cabin, the air conditioner turned extreme while the outer windows fogged with condensation. Your head leaned against the pane, the thudding and rolling of the train wheels under you jarring your brain in your skull as you watched the world outside flash speedily by.

Trees, small gravelly roads, sign boards, sparse traffic here and there…and then rolling grasslands before the pattern repeated itself…redundant, normal, and soothing.

You sighed, a puff of white exhale clouding around your mouth while your eyes drifted back to the interior of the cabin. This sight was a lot more different, with different people having different lives, problems, worries…

A woman tended to her sniffling child, holding a handkerchief up to the girl’s running nose…a man spoke into his phone; harried and rushed as he more likely than not slurred a few words together…

It was when your eyes caught a girl laying her head on the boy next to hers’ shoulder, smiling serenely when the boy ran a hand through her locks that you turned around again, eyes back to watching the redundant.

There was nothing soothing about people watching.

Or maybe there was and it required some form of inner peace to find the charm in it.

You didn’t have that sort of inner peace; neither did you have the patience for it.

People watching for people like you was anxiety inducing…and you really didn’t want that burden on your shoulders right now. There would be enough anxiety waiting for you when you set your foot home.

“____?”

You turned coffee worn, blue light sunken eyes towards your boss, standing over you with his files clutched to his chest nervously. The sight was enough to make you chuckle. For all his genius, Kim Namjoon was just a giant fumbling through life. It made him a stellar boss and manager, but it also made him a wonderful friend.

“Yes?”

“I just got your email for the leave application.”

You blinked up at your boss expectantly, face calm and relaxed. Of course, your brain had shot straight to overdrive, praying, wishing, and begging for a miracle that would allow your boss to refute the application.

A large red denied would do nothing to hamper your mood; at least it would stamp down the very intrusive tendril of panic that was already gripping around you.

You waited until Namjoon was done rustling inside of the folder in the crook of his arm. The white print out was placed in front of you, green letterings spelling ACCEPTED AND FORWARDED, scrawled on the top screaming obscenities at you.

You looked back at Namjoon.

“We don’t have a lot of work load right now plus you look dead on your feet. Some time away with your folks will be nice, won’t it?”

You very nearly grimaced at his words.

He was sincere, of course he was. Namjoon didn’t have a conniving bone in his body, but right now, you couldn’t help but resent his kindness, his mushy brain that railed against exploiting his workers. You hated the fact that he looked into your eyes and saw past the stubborn energy and caught onto the exhausted person underneath.

So you offered him a tiny smile, just in case the flicker of your crushing despair was made clear onto your traitor face.

“Thank you, Namjoon.”

He placed a heavy, tight hand on your shoulder as he passed by.

“Have a nice vacation, ____.”

Usually, someone who was away from home, working their ass off, making something of themselves away from their family should ideally jump at the chance to take a vacation, to go home and see the family and friends they had.

Ideally…one should be happy at the prospect of going home.

So many times, however, situations were rarely ideal. Sometimes there were complications, convolutions, obstacles…

Sometimes people had no love in their hearts; sometimes there was nothing at all.

Sometimes, there was dread.

Right then, in the rattling carriage that carried you to the small town which had spawned your existence, you could sense the dread carving a pit into your stomach, roiling and curling like a wretched cat kept too long from sunshine.

There was no relief for the upcoming long sleepy times, no joy at the prospect of home food…of warm embraces…

There was just that god awful dread.

You hoped you wouldn’t throw up; though there was nothing in your stomach to hurl but for the coffee you’d pumped in you from the station café. You couldn’t keep anything else down.

You had upped and left your home right after the end of your college life. Many things had come to an end with that particular period in your life. You had scampered and scrapped together enough courage to exit the hole that still robbed you of breath sometimes when you twisted and turned in your bed – sleepless.

You had left shattered pieces of your heart in your whirling escape of the town, the space that you had now the only light that shone at the end of the tunnel back then. Your family and friends, as supportive as they were, had never truly understood why you had nearly clawed away from that world.

To them, it had been the job opportunity.

And it was understandable…

The town, as well-knit and seemingly lovable as it was, was used to being self sufficient. The people there didn’t ever need to leave, they knew everything, helped everyone, and any problem one of them had was a problem for them all.

You couldn’t fit yourself in that mold anymore.

You had left – knowingly cut yourself away from that community.

Your friends had remained; some spreading out of course but they were still as much a part of that bunch as they had been when born.

You didn’t expect anything from them.

Not when he was also still a part of that community.

Your mind jerked away moments before conjuring his likeness behind your eyes, the ticket collector bearing down to save you from the torture of it.

Your fingers fumbled with the pockets of your bag, slipping the stub into his patient hands as he clipped and handed it back to you.

You accepted it meekly, folding into yourself again, eyes drifting back out the window and firmly tugging your thoughts away from your past. You had to prepare for what was going to come now.

Nobody expected you to come, you knew. It was a surprise to you yourself that you had found enough guts in you to pull this off.

Namjoon’s words came back to you.

Some time away with your folks will be nice, won’t it?

You weren’t going to hold out much hope for that.

You found a cab almost immediately out of the station, the many cruisers that stood to one side eager to free you of your luggage and take you off to your destination. You gave your address shakily, hoping this particular driver wasn’t one of the townspeople. Luckily, the man didn’t bat an eye, instead nodding and quietly switching on the radio for the drive over.

You leaned back into the seats, arms grasping the strap of your handbag tight as the moment to face your family and close ones drew closer.

Objectively, your little hometown was very pretty.

Trees lined the major roads, small clusters of buildings interjecting the greenery to spread business to the good people. And as tense as you were, your mind couldn’t help but pick out the differences.

Boutiques were newer and flashier, the diners you remembered now expanded to add cafes or banquets. The town hall was an imposing as ever, only a new marble fountain added to the square in front of it now.

By the time your cab entered the section of the suburbs where you had grown up; your back was straight, neatly aligned with the window. If you had been dreading the homecoming before, it was all gone; replaced with an odd form of resignation.

You lugged your bags out and paid the taxi driver with cold hands, winding bloodless fingers around the handles to pull them up the drive way towards your open door.

The house was full, open and bustling – a normal day for when your mother threw one of her success parties. She was one of the famous people in the town, her career as a landscaper and home decorator for big names making her in turn the man source of revenue and attraction for the town.

It had been both a source of pride and embarrassment to you in your teens. Mainly because your mother insisted on these parties each and every time one of her projects turned out well. But then, as you grew you realized that this is why your mother was important to the town.

She was more than half the money earned and the social events of the calendar.

Inside the house, small clusters of people gathered here and there, in the living room, the kitchen, the dining space. You stood at the door; feeling more exposed than you ever had here but moved in quickly, lest one of them notice you in the doorway and start blabbering about it.

Of course, the three big bags that you carried more than made up for it.

One of the groups of women nearest you turned their heads in synchrony, taking double looks as you passed by before the murmurs began.

How could you tell?

Well because, gossip usually lowers ones’ volume. And each group you passed stopped conversing before muttering arose in its place.

You cut across the living room to your father’s den. Here, there were all men, hands cupping your dad’s cut glasses of scotch but thankfully no one mentioned you dumping your bags right by the door and walking back out.

Your hands fiddled with your scarf, wondering where your family was in their own party but you were loathing asking one of the guests.

Even as you convinced yourself to walk over to one of the ladies by the window sofa, a figure walked past opposite you, a handful of trays of cocktail bites and glasses on them. You jumped, watching as the woman placed the trays on the coffee table, smiling at the people before she turned…and spotted you.

Your sister’s eyes widened, eyelashes fluttering before quick steps led her closer to you.

“____?” She asked, almost checking if it really was you.

You smiled wryly, hand still tangled with your scarf. “Hi Sana, yes it’s me.”

“Oh my god!” She threw herself at you, arms wrapping around your neck to draw you into a warm and nearly forgotten embrace. You stood in her hold for a few seconds, managing to pat her back before she was pulling away, eyes glistening at you.

“Oh god, don’t cry,” you whispered immediately.

“Shut up, these are happy tears; my little sister is home! Hang on; I’ll go get Mom and Dad.” She turned on her heel before you got another word out, mouth parted as she disappeared into the house.

You stood rooted to the spot, hoping against hope she brought your dad first. You just knew your mom would start bawling and then all the neighbors and her social circle would start hovering like the pack of vultures you had the low opinion of them as.

It was unfair and very rude of you, yes, but you couldn’t help but remember half the rumors and gossip that had come from none other than these same people when you had first left. Sympathy or well wishes from them now, would only make you more disgusted.

It had made you keep your own mother at a distance, seeing as she was probably the source of their information.

Thankfully, you knew you could always depend on your dad.

A no-nonsense and rational person, he was only guilty of being extremely in love with your mother. You knew he only bore these parties for her sake and of course your sister, Sana’s.

So when you saw Sana come back, with both your parents you still heaved a relived sigh.

“____, my god, you’re really here.” Your mother was the second to hug you, your father following.

“We didn’t think you would make it this year too.” Your dad said.

“Yeah, it’s been hectic…a lot…for the last couple years.” You repeated the same lies you’d been spouting for two years now. You had spoken the same lines into your phone, in your emails over months and it came much easier while speaking them to their faces.

“Very hectic for a well-established firm, ____, you could’ve asked for a leave, I’m sure office policy allows that.” Your dad said in that logical baritone that rendered most arguments moot.

“That is actually how I got away, Namjoon insisted.” You said; not completely untrue.

“Well, I for one am very happy my little girl is back to me. You’ll stay for a bit, won’t you?” Your mother stroked your hair back from your face.

You smiled tightly at her, thinking of the weeks Namjoon had generously piled on you out of respect for your relentless working for two years under him.

“Yes.”

You caught Sana try and push in, her eyes seeking yours even as your mother squealed in jubilation. “Perfect, we are going to have to throw you a coming home party.”

“Y/M/N,” Your father said lightly. “We are at a party now.”

“Yes, but ____ deserves her own night.” Sana put in before grabbing your hand. “Come on,” she dragged you away from your debating parents.

“Not a lot has changed I guess.” You spoke drily.

“Yeah, maybe, listen I think we need to –”

Sana was cut off by a gasp of your name, your head swiveling to see Park Jimin, one of your old friends gaping at you.

It was a whirlwind of reunions and emotions as people gathered around you, astonished that you’d come back without any mention of it.

“Yeah, I – I guess, it’s a surprise.” You scratched the back of your neck awkwardly, going over the faces of your childhood to college friends.

Many things had changed while you were gone, true – to the town, to the people and even to your friends but one thing you were glad to see…they hadn’t cut you away completely. Yes, your interaction with them had been reduced to the odd Facebook and Twitter chats and the occasional emails and texts here and there but they still looked…happy to see you.

Park Jimin and his twin, Jihyo had been the first ones to come to you, Jihyo hugging you tightly enough to make you wince. She had been your roommate in college; she probably knew you as well as Sana did – maybe even better. She had introduced you to Jimin and the three of you had been inseparable throughout your college life.

Jimin had apparently been friends with one of your childhood friends, Kim Taehyung.

You were not so shocked to know he was now married, living next door to you with his wife, Nayeon. Sweet and charming, she hugged you like her husband.

“It’s almost like I already know you,” she explained to your unsure smile, “they talk about you so much.”

“Ugh, I’m already worried.” You cringed.

“They were all nice things don’t worry. We had to put down a couple old gossips down here and there, though.” Jimin came to defend his friend.

You glanced at them curiously.

“Oh yeah, it was just old gossipy hags around the town, don’t worry about it. People moved on from you pretty soon to a Miss Mina. She’s a spinster, which apparently is a sin.” Taehyung rolled his eyes. “She lives a few houses from us.”

“Also, I think your mom told that friend of hers, Dahyun to stop people gossiping about you. They were task-forcing the town. It was fun to watch.” Jimin added.

A sudden wave of affection for your mother rose up in you, before being quelled by the reminder that she must have done it to protect her own image.

You shrugged then, picking up a glass from one of the trays to take a sip of your mother’s homemade cocktail – fruity and simple on your tongue.

“Enough about me, what about you all?” you pointed at Tae and Nayeon, “Married with a house,” your finger moved to Jimin, “Sports coach,” then Jihyo, “Choreographer,” you stopped.

“What about the others, any news?”

“Not really, we are the ones who still live here you know. Plus, no offense to your mom, but I doubt folks would leave their city jobs to come to her parties.” Jihyo muttered; exchanging a glance of solidarity with you before her eyes widened suddenly.

“What?” you asked.

Her eyes quickly went to her brother, Jimin’s eyes a little more slow on the uptake but they widened too…before repeating the process – albeit comically – with Taehyung.

“What is wrong with you all?” You asked again.

“Um, ____, did Sana tell you -?”

Jimin paused nervously, refusing to look at you as he fiddled with the rim of his glass.

“Tell me what?”

He looked helplessly at his sister. Jihyo hesitated before placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “Listen, ____, while you were gone” -

She broke off, her eyes darting over your shoulder and stuttering to a stop.

In that moment of her silence, the conversation behind you was clearer.

Or rather, one particular voice was…

Low and deep – soft morning grumbles came back to you – muffled conversations from behind you made you turn around.

It was a voice you would know anywhere. It was one that haunted your dreams, one that crested the ache in your heart on particularly bad days…

It was one you would know beyond a void.

Min Yoongi stood directly across from you, in your home, undoing his coat and removing his scarf, conversing lowly with your sister.

Something she quickly muttered to him had him freezing, long nimble fingers stopping in the unknotting of his scarf.

And then as if he could feel your gaze, could feel your presence, the reason why you left everything behind looked straight up at you, eyes locking across a room…just like the day you had first seen him.

#ficswithluv #bangtansorciere #thebtswritersclub #btswritingcafe #yoongi fanfic #yoongi smut #yoongi angst #bts fanfic #bts smut #bts angst #yoongi #bts #bts suga #suga #min yoongi #yoongi x reader #bangtan

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heresathreebee · 3 years

Text

Brackish And Briny Waters (three)

[Ralph Lamont X Female Reader]

Summary: Spend the weekend painting the house with your husband. Previous Masterlist Next

Tags: 17+ | 1.6k words | Painting a house together, aka domestic stuff, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected sex, pulling out, vague mention of rats.

AN: part 4 is gonna get angsty I just finished it

Anything involving greens was a heavy battle between you two, as Ralph seemed to have some kind of vendetta against them. The more blue you got, the less you fought and you eventually settled on a cool tone to use for the laundry room with a compromise to paint floral accents in a forest green tone along the edges of the back wall. You did find an exact replica of one of the original wallpapers in your second bedroom which you wanted to move to the living room.

Colors selected and purchased, you went home starving and managed to scrape together some left overs with a side of rice to fuel you to start on the real work. You also bought brown paper to cover the solar room window holes until you can finish that room as its own project.

Ralph rolls up his sleeves and puts on his bleach stained lounge pants to help. You lay down tarp and use up 3 rolls of tape to cover the kitchen and the dining room. Every window and door is wide open as you set your record player to play some 'whistle while you work' type of albums. And whistle he does that husband of yours, enjoying your company and shaking his hips dramatically to make you laugh. You two haven't had this much fun in so long it feels like.

The summer citrus color you chose for the kitchen was really working for you. Ralph intended to put the wallpaper up in the other room to get 'double the work done' but still you find him working the same wall just to be close to you. You talk about missing that classic NYC pizza and dinner tomorrow and Ralph promises to ask his colleagues about any music shops in the area.

You take a nap on the porch swing to get away from the paint fumes, an iced tea almost slipping from your hand. When dinner time comes, you cook while he details the removal of the old wallpaper from the dining room to work tomorrow. He's rambling about using a third coat on the living room paint and you don't think it's necessary but you know he'll agree with you come morning.

"Come eat Ralph Vincent," you scold him for getting paint on the door frame but all is forgiven when he sweeps you into a hungry kiss.

"I'd rather eat you right now."

Ralph's flirtations are interrupted by his own ractious growling stomach and you laugh at him as you shove a plate into his hand. You eat together by the window in the living room. While it hasn't been painted yet, you have moved the furniture to the middle of the room and the fumes from the kitchen and dining room are still very strong. You hope it doesn't affect your sleep tonight (or hope it puts you down like a dose of melatonin).

"Floyd's got a boat," Ralph tells you. "Says he takes it out on the water almost every day. Asked if I wanted to join him."

"And are you?" You spin another forkful of angel hair spaghetti on your plate.

Ralph slurps his like a child. "Am I what."

"Are you going to join him on his boat?" You speak slowly and patronizingly. Ralph pinches your breast and almost makes you drop your plate. "No. I hate boats. I hate water. I don't want to be trapped for hours out there listening to him talk about paintings and philosophers, at least at work I can walk away."

You chuckle. "I think Floyd sounds very interesting. What do you have against him?"

"Nothing," he protests, "he talks too much. He's loquacious– that's what Justine calls him, and she's one to talk. If you must know, he's actually my favorite– he knows when to keep his nose out of my business."

Dishes are made slightly more difficult with Ralph hanging off your shoulders. He peppers kisses up and down your neck, even finds a hickey from the morning that's started to fade and he remarks you. You dig your dripping fingers into his hair when he finds that spot on your neck and gives it some much needed attention.

"Ralphie, baby, please," you whisper, "I could use your help with these."

Dishes are done in record time and suddenly you're being whisked away to your bedroom (not that you were complaining). This room has the wallpaper that you had no intention to change aside from a fresh upgrade. Ralph takes your hand to spin you around and back you into your shared room all the way to the edge of the bed. Along the way he plants kisses from your hairline to your collarbone before he lets you fall atop the thick quilted bedspread.

He gazes at you with a warm expression. The soft "my girl" he whisperes makes your heart swell.

You expect him to pick up your legs and pull you by your knees to the outside of his hips (want him to even), but Ralph has other ideas it seems. It's not until his head is between your legs that you realize what he's up to (or rather down to). You gasp a lung full of air and grab him by the hair of his head.

"Jesus," you sigh.

Your husband's rumbling laughter causes your thighs to twitch. "Say my name, I'm the one doing all the work."

"Yeah but you love– aha!" His beard brushes your inner thighs and leaves a delightful burning sensation in the deepest part of your soul. "Fuck…"

You pull his hair harder and feel the soft locks stretch in your bloodless grasp. You can feel that immortal coil wind tighter and tighter inside you as Ralph devours you. You start chanting his name, the pitch of your voice beginning to crescendo the closer you get to that fire cracker ending. Ralph doubles his efforts, eager to have you fall apart on his tongue and fingers.

He's more than making it up to you tonight.

When you come, your body curls in on itself and your thighs lock around his head, effectively deafening him. You have no idea if he can hear the scream that rips from your body but you can't either as your eyes rolls back in ecstasy.

You relax onto the bed and feel it dip with an additional weight to your side. You slide into Ralph's easy embrace, his dry hand coming up to hold you to him and just rest for a bit.

"Fuck," you say huskily, "you're really good at that…"

Ralph kisses you in answer, trying to deepen the connection but you have to twist away to catch your breath. Instead he plants lingering, sweet kisses on your neck, your cheek, your hair. His hand caresses your back in circles until you're nearly asleep from the motion.

You flinch when you feel his nose brush against yours. "Baby… don't fall asleep." He sounds so sweet until his voice darkens and he says, "I'm not done with you yet."

You lose track of time and all you can feel is Ralph Lamont. You're both covered in a sheen of sweat and his hips rock leisurely into yours. You don't know who grabbed who but your hands are tangled together and refuse to let go. Ralph's breath dusts over your neck, cool in contrast to the fire of his physical form pressed against you. You want to come again but you let him draw it out, let him love you tonight.

"Ralph." You whisper in his ear, begging with no pressure to change pace. You're happy if he's happy and he is very content to keep thrusting into you to his peak and slow down, never stopping but always making you want more. Your man kisses you flush on the mouth and adjusts his position. His thrusts change. They grow from hypotonic and shallow to a little hard and more purposeful. You moan at the feeling, your legs locking around his hips to draw him deeper despite your exhaustion.

Your orgasm washes over you nice and gentle, nothing like the force of the first time. You're conscious enough to lock your ankles around Ralph's hips, but it still doesn't prevent him from slipping his flushed and reddened cock out and finishing on your stomach as he always intended. You feel a strange tickle of disappointment as you come down from your high but push it to the back of your mind for later.

Some way, somehow, Ralph still has enough strength to clean you both up and tuck you into bed. He curls around your body despite the near unbearable heat and falls fast asleep, his soft snores right behind your ear lulling you under the tide of sleep.

DAY FOUR

"Morning."

Your Saturday is awash of more painting and moving furniture with Ralph. He made coffee and eggs and brought it to you in bed, then dragged you down to look at the frayed wires on the clothes dryer machine.

"Might be rodents," you muse. "I'll get some traps on Monday and find my soldering iron."

"We'll get traps tonight," your husband countered, scratching his chin, "the sooner the better."

You finish removing the old wallpaper in the living room and carefully put up the new one with little fuss. The kitchen still smells of paint but it's dry (it had better be, you left the windows open all night and it's freezing in here) so you put the kitchen utensils and appliances back and remove the protective tape and brown paper. Ralph is proud of the precision work done in the corners and edges, patting himself on the back and yours.

"We did good babe," he said, "by this time next week, we'll have the whole house done!"

You laugh at his optimism. There were still cobwebs to dust, cracks to spackle, floors to polish, windows to replace. This was the very reason he picked this place…

To keep you busy. To keep your mind from wandering to those dark places that linger in your past.

At least it was working.

Tagging people who might like to know: @werwulfy @hoodoo12 @escape-your-grape @go-commander-kim @fundamentally-lazy @mimiscappinisideblog do y'all wanna be here? If not lemme know please 😅 DM me

#three bees writing #ralph lamont #ralph lamont x reader #smut #things seen and heard au #vaguely ghost house au #black reader insert

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di-kut · 4 years

Text

Baar Bal Runi Chapter Thirteen

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: 5K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) The journey to Barab I through hyperspace gives Din and the child time to heal from the attack on Oseon, and time for you to talk.

Rating: T

A/N: We’re getting so close to the end now I can’t believe it. Thank you again to everyone who has been sending messages, or responding to any of the other chapters! I see you and I love you! And if I haven’t gotten around to responding to your lovely messages yet know I have seen them and I am getting there! I hope you are all happy and safe wherever you are in the world. 💕

At light speed Barab I is three weeks from the Oseon cluster. There is enough reward money for you to pay the woman who runs the dock on the small moon, and to restock with food and fuel and water. You leave quickly, and Din forces himself to rise and sit with you in the cockpit while you steer the Crest into the hyperlane. Sits pale faced and swaying in the co-pilot chair, bloodless knuckles gripping the console as you manoeuvre. You have to help him back the short distance to the captain’s quarters for him to rest next to the sleeping child. He moves more and more every day, but you feel the pulsing of his frustration in the air all around you – unable to stand without growing pale, unable to climb the ladder without growing breathless and weak. You change the bandages with him every day and the bacta helps the pinkness of the skin around the mangled scar to fade to a mottled white and purple, but it does not seem to help with much more.

You sit up in the cockpit at night with the child nestled in your lap, only the sound of his soft, sweet breathing against your stomach and his tiny weight. You flick through article after article on your holopad, away from Din so the light from the screen doesn’t disturb his sleep, looking for anything – any mention of green planets, of the child and his people, of souls. But there is nothing, nothing more solid than the Barabel and his stories. Beside you the ship computer shows the distance to Barab I and on the screen next to it the glowing light of the green planet, its coordinates getting further and further away. You watch the measure as it ticks over, eyes glassed and unseeing, until you reach out and snap the screen off. Turn back to your articles. But you can’t make yourself focus on that either, on anything. You are thinking about the endless blackness inside the barrel of Din’s blaster, pointed between your eyes. At the murky dust in the cave room on the green planet. Feel the panic begin to rise in your chest and fill your throat like bile, taste it on the back of your tongue.

And then it ends.

The lingering of the panic makes your hands shake, and the movement in your lap is so small you think it might be nerves. But the child coos and you feel the little hand which has slipped under your light undershirt curl against your warm skin. Two dark eyes blink up at you, reflect the rippling of hyperspace like molten silver. You almost miss the console when you push your holopad aside, nearly send it clattering to the floor. Bundle the child tightly in his blanket and lift him beneath your uncovered chin. Feel his hand find a grip in the scratching beard along your jaw. Feel the panic still there in that tiny touch, and the relief.

“Oh, my poor boy,” you murmur to his head. Close your eyes and breath in the familiar smell of him. Feel more things settle and begin to make sense. “It’s you. It’s you dreaming about that awful place.”

The child makes a little cry, and his feet kick against your arm. His hand tries to pull closer at your face and you lift him higher, so you can look at his eyes. So he can see you. The child’s chin is wobbling, his ears quivering. Even in the dim light you can see he’s pale, that his cheeks have none of their usual heat, and your heart breaks for him. His hands reach out, grabbing and imploring, and the emotion he shares with you is so needing and sore that you obey without thinking, lean your forehead against his and sigh when his little hands rest against either of your temples. Fill with bubbling, gentle warmth. You stay with him, hunched in your chair, feel the nubs of his forehead pressed against yours. Let everything finally fall into a place of contentment. Din is alive, and healing, and the child is awake. The thickness at the back of your throat now only from some overwhelming happiness, the press of the child against your forehead not lost on you. An acceptance which you had never thought to get.

The child coos quietly, eventually, and you lift your head from his. Know without him having to ask what he wants. You wrap him again in his warm blanket and let him curl against your chest and the crook of your elbow. Leave the cockpit and the rippling of hyperspace behind and slip quietly into the dark room where Din sleeps. Wait until the door is closed again and settle at the edge of the cot, stare at the faded shape of him beneath the covers, rolled onto his good side.

“Din,” you whisper.

The child begins to wriggle in your grasp, so you set him down on the cot. You rest a hand on Din’s leg and shake him very gently, mindful of his scar, mindful of how tired he is. Know he would not want to miss the child waking again. You say his name again when he doesn’t rouse, and this time he shifts, burrows himself deeper into the covers. Reaches for you – still half asleep. His hand grasping blindly at your fingers against his leg until he manages to tangle them together. Mutters your name and tugs at you. Tries to pull you with him into the bed as he begins to drift again. The child bounces himself along the mattress, slaps both of his hands down against your thigh impatiently when Din’s breathing becomes slow and heavy with sleep again.

“Din.” You tug at his hand, shuffle along the covers to sit closer. “The baby is awake.”

Din mumbles something into the pillow.

You smile, lift the child up from where he is climbing back into your lap to press a soft kiss to the top of his head and let his hands grip the collar of your shirt. Listen to the baby babble as the child squirms in your grip. And then you set him down again on the bed next to Din. He rolls and kicks and clambers to his feet. Waddles the distance to Din’s shoulder and sinks against it, catching the blanket in his fingers and tugging, kicking, trying to climb higher and only succeeding in slipping along his belly.

It’s the child’s giggling which finally wakes him. Din moves, his head turning and then slowly his shoulders, so he doesn’t roll onto the child. Chuckles weakly when the child finally hauls himself up and squirms up higher onto Din’s chest. You lift him a little from below his feet to help him, and to keep him away from the scar at Din’s side. But the child only giggles again and squeals as he slips down towards Din’s face, reaches for his hair and his jaw. Cooing louder when Din laughs with him and babbling more, turning back to look at you as well. Bounces in excitement when you tweak the end of his ear playfully and pat his back.

“Ad’ika,” Din sighs. Brushes his finger down the child’s round little cheek.

The child bounces again when Din speaks. You tighten your hold at his back. “Careful, little guy.”

“He’s okay.” Din lets out a watery laugh and lifts the child up, lifts his head from the pillow to press his forehead to the child’s as you had. He rests one hand heavy on the child’s back and the other seeks yours. Din holds your hand so tightly that your knuckles crack in his grip. “He’s not hurting me.”

You settle down against the bed with them when Din pulls your hand again, and you stretch yourself against his side. Tuck your head to his shoulder and listen to the babble of the child speaking. Feel Din unwind his fingers from yours only to brush them through your hair, along your scalp. Soothing and absent. Din murmurs back to the child sometimes when he pauses, sometimes in basic and sometimes in Mando’a, sometimes asking you what you think as well, laughing when you mumble against his shoulder.

“He let me do it, Din.” You fiddle with the edge of his shirt, yours eyes closed as his finger’s work gently at the crown of your head. “Kov’nynir.”

“Of course he did.”

You sigh. “He never used to.”

Din hums quietly and his hand stills behind your ear, resting against the nape of your neck. Wraps the hair there around his fingers and makes your skin rise in goosebumps over your back. “You’re his family,” he says quietly.

You say nothing, can’t think of anything. Only nod slowly and burrow closer against them both. Fist your hand into Din’s shirt as he starts to move his fingers against your scalp again. The thrum of the engine and the warmth of Din makes it easy to drift, listening to the nonsensical conversation between father and son. Heart full and warm and easy in your chest.

There is a peace in hyperspace. Everything moves a little strangely, a little sideways, but Din begins to heal. You roll away the ruined bedcovers and mattress in the hull, stained black with Din’s poisoned blood, and shove them into the bottom of an empty crate. But you do not try to find replacements, at the end of each day crawl in beside Din to sleep. In the darkness of the captain’s quarters there is an easiness that happens between you, in each other’s arms. An almost which hovers in the air and presses into the space around you, outside of you. Rises in the feeling which sinks from his skin into yours in the quiet moments before sleep, before properly waking, while his fingers trail the skin of your arm, from your wrist to your elbow. You ask him as his fingertips catch against the old scars, what they are, when they are from. And he tells you the ones he can remember, although there are many he can’t. And it begins to bleed through the walls into the rest of the ship. Easier to laugh, easier to talk. Even in Din’s body you start to feel more comfortable, find yourself lounging. Notice him lean against you, shove at your leg playfully if you stretch it too close to him, his eyes shining with laughter.

And Din begins to heal. Every day which passes he moves around the Crest with more ease and soon you stop bandaging his side. The scar is still pink and puckered but the bacta doesn’t seem to have much effect. He climbs the ladder without having to sit down as well, keeps out of his tiny quarters as much as he can, sick of the four walls caging him in. And the child shadows him everywhere, toddling behind his feet, and sitting in your lap when he tires, making games of clambering up your chest and tugging at your shirt. Barab I getting closer every day, a dark murky planet in the distance.

The planet is under constant rain, covering the surface in black clouds, and the surface of the planet crawling with a species deadly enough to snatch the Barabels and force them into underground caves, tunnelled beneath the surface. Din is well enough to walk, to stand and to fly when you are ready to drop out of hyperspace. He steers the ship through the space around Barab I and despite the spaceport hidden in a large cave system beneath the ground it is almost empty. Cavernous and echoing it must once have looked spectacular, shining and new. But the technology has long since been outdated, and there is no Barabel waiting to greet you, no droid scuttling the floors. The corners are filled with dark, murky water, creating a reflection of the decaying ceiling above. Din glances back at you as he lets the ship down to land. The thud of it echoes around and back like the sound of an Empire Freighter landing on Coruscant, impossibly loud.

“Where is everyone?” You lean forward over the console, peer out into the empty spaceport. Somewhere in the shadowed distance, a light flickers.

“I don’t know,” Din mutters. Flicks switches in the ship and the lights around you go out. There’s a moment of darkness and he switches on the ship’s external lights, flooding the port around you with bright, white light. “I can see lifeforms on the radar. Not far. They must be hiding in the tunnels.”

You stare up at the blackened ceiling, eroded with mould and dripping water. The floor, a grim reflection. Great pillars, easily ten times the Crest in height, seem to shift in the thickness of the air. Your stomach rolls, clenches. Something in the air, tight and familiar about the place. Din flicks the lights off again before you can place it and the sudden brightness inside the cockpit makes you squint. Flinch away from it.

“We should stay here tonight. We’ll have to trek through the tunnels.” He begins to lock the ship down, moves sharp and efficient. You notice he favours his left arm, sometimes pressing his right arm against the scar at his side. “We should rest tonight.”

“You need more rest before we go anywhere.”

He finishes, sits back low and deep in his chair and turns it to look at you. “It’s healed, Gotabor’ika.” You must look sceptical, untrusting, because his face softens, and he pushes out of the chair. Crosses the tiny space between you and crouches at your feet. Rests his hands against your knees, right before the dozing child in your lap. “I’m going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I promise, ner kar’ta.” You feel his thumbs dig in against the insides of your thighs.

You scratch at the hair along your jaw in irritation, and again the feeling. Something unsettling and familiar. But it slides before you can catch it, slips and tilts and scrambles when Din taps against you knee. His eyes burning when you focus on them again, and his thumb lifts, pinches lightly against your jaw. Laughs when you make a light grunt.

“You were meant to remind me.”

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

Din wipes the razor off, rinses it in the sink. His hand stays on your jaw steadying you. He looks back to the task of grooming your facial hair. He is crouched in the narrow space of the ‘fresher of the Crest and you sit on the closed lid of the toilet, waiting as he readies himself.

“Everything about this is weird,” he says.

“Yeah, but this is…”

He breaks and you finally meet his eyes. You’re getting used to looking back at yourself in moments like these, almost able to separate yourself from your own body. You can almost see Din behind them. You can certainly feel him in there, you think. More now than ever. Every day a little clearer.

“Weird,” you say together, neither of you barely above a whisper.

He sighs and his hold on your jaw tightens ever so slightly. A slight warning. “Don’t move,” he mutters. “No talking.”

“I think the real reason you suggested this was to get me to shut up.” That almost coaxes a smile out of him. You start to laugh, and he squeezes you. “Okay, okay! Being quiet now.”

He holds the razor up but you can see the glint in his eye which tells you it’s all play. You’re tempted to tease him again but he’s already resting the razor against the hollow of your cheek and scrape down the length of it. The feeling is alien and strange, one of many to adjust to. The coolness of the blade almost makes you jump. Din finishes his stroke, wipes, rinses, lifts the razor back to the spot next to it and repeats. You find yourself watching him as he works. His face contorts with each stroke, lifting his eyebrows, scrunching his nose as he follows his work. Sometimes pulling his top lip back slightly as he curves around a tighter spot on your jaw. You must make a face back at him because –

“What?” He looks up into your eyes.

You smile. “Nothing.”

“Then stop smiling.”

“Okay.”

He waits. “You’re still smiling.”

You try wrangling your expression into something neutral and the effort only makes you giggle. Din makes a face in response which just sets you off further until you are letting out full, hearty laughs straight from your belly. The deep sound of it shocks you into silence. You stare at him, crouched in front of you in the cramped room of the ‘fresher, almost accusingly because it was his deep full laugh which had just erupted from you. His laugh which you realise you’d never heard. He stares at you blankly and then his lip twitches. And he’s laughing too. And then you’re both laughing together. You have to lean a hand on his shoulder you’re laughing so hard. He’s barely making any noise he’s laughing so hard and drops his head down into your lap to hide the redness colouring his cheeks. You can feel tears pooling in your eyes, can feel the puffs of his laughter hitting your hand. You have to lay forward, press your forehead into the space between his shoulder blades, because you feel as if you can barely hold yourself up.

“I’m never going to finish shaving your stupid face.” Din’s voice is muffled against your thigh.

Your stomach hurts. Your cheeks hurt. “It’s your stupid face.”

“Shut up.” He chuckles again.

You untangle yourselves slowly. He nudges at you until your lift your head off his back and you have to extract your hand which is caught under his shoulder. You both giggle every time you catch eyes. He shoves at you gently with an elbow, but he’s still trying to fight off a smile. You wipe a track left from tears off your face.

“You better hurry up or the kid is gonna’ start crying.” It’s almost breathless. “And you’ll end up with half a beard.”

He mutters something under his breath in Mando’a.

“What was that?”

“Just let me work.”

He has to spread more shaving cream over the side of your face he hasn’t done. It takes some time, and his face stays just as expressive. You don’t have the heart to tell him, worried if you bring it to his attention, he’ll make some effort to stop. You think under the helmet he must make faces all the time. He seems so stoic and his tone is so even you always assumed he must look the same underneath it. Something subtle about the way you understand him shifts slightly, infinitesimally small and indescribably huge all at once. You feel a pulse in your chest, and you try to catch his eye. Calmness. Peace. His gentleness seeps through the air around you and fills you up until your fingers tingle.

“Din,” you whisper.

He finishes his final stroke and drops the razor onto the rag he’d been using to wipe it. Looks up and you can see it there in his eyes too. It shifts into curiosity, and you feel it in your chest too. You almost tell him, but at the last second drop your eyes to your hands folded in your lap.

“What?” He grabs your hand lightly. Squeezes once.

You look up at his eyes, look at the razor, at his hand on yours. Lick your lip. Feel the tickle of facial hair there, and you lose your nerve. “You have a moustache?”

He laughs softly and shakes his head. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

You go to touch it with your free hand but stop halfway there. “Oh, I – “

“It’s okay,” he’s whispering too now. “I… I-If you… want. Wanted to.”

Your eyes widen. “Really?”

He can’t look at you. His head drops to his chest but you can see the movement of a nod. You aren’t sure if you should, at first. Whether he really wants you to, whether he’s just let you because he feels obliged. You wait for him to change his mind. But he just keeps holding your hand in your lap and staring at a spot on the ground in front of his feet. So slowly you lift your hand, still suspended in the air until you reach your face. Din’s face.

It tingles slightly when your fingers meet your cheek, the skin sensitive from the shaving. You let your hand flatten out against his cheek, feeling the cheekbones and the firmness into the jaw. You drift back until you reach his hairline, and then forward, first over his cheekbones and nose and over his other cheekbone. Your breath catches. You trace his jaw, his browbone, the shape of his eyebrows. His moustache makes your grin and your fingertip slips against his tooth. You close your eyes and try to add the shape of them to the hazy map of his face you create of him in your mind. You find yourself trying to translate the pieces of him you’ve known outside of his body into this. The expressions you’d learned are his. How his face would move when he’s concentrating; following a razor; cleaning his Beskar; comforting his son. Laughing. Smiling. Sleeping. You must have wrapped your hand around his too. He’s holding it so tightly they’re shaking, clasped between your bodies. You squeeze him back.

“Din.” You aren’t embarrassed by the way your voice breaks. “It’s okay, Din. It’s okay.”

He nods, but he doesn’t lift his head to look at you, just continues to stare at the same spot on the ground, somewhere between your feet. “When we – If we… change back,” he starts. Haltingly, abruptly. The unfinished thought hangs between you, makes your heart thump hard against your chest.

“When we change back?” You ask. Soft. Squeeze his hand in yours again.

His swallow is so grating you hear it. “When we change back would you – ”

There’s a light thump from the hull, echoes into the ‘fresher through the open door. You both turn to look and see the child, woken from his nap and somehow made it from inside Din’s quarters upstairs to the hull. He has a wrench in his hand and it bangs against the grating of the floor as he walks, the rhythmic thunk thunk thunk breaking the rising feeling between you in the ‘fresher. And before Din sighs you feel for a brief moment some bright, shining thing from him, an emotion you have felt a few times before – on the dead desert planet, in your hotel room on Garel. Aches in your chest and lingers, but then he begins to pull his hands from yours and it starts to fade.

“Ad’ika, put the wrench down.” He pushes himself up and goes to the child, takes the heavy tool from his little hands and scoops him up. Sets the wrench back in the open tool box only a few feet away. “Gar ganar jate ca’nara.”

You stare at them both, feel the almost in the question Din hadn’t asked, feel it settle along the back of your shoulders and you sigh. Begin to pack away the razor and the cannister of shaving cream. Din bounces the child in his arms to distract him from his demanding cooing and reaching for the wrench again, and you feel the wave of impatience from the child, sense the temper tantrum starting and you call to Din to warn him. The Mandalorian only rolls his eyes and turns away from the tool box, ignoring the petulant cries of his son. You chuckle as you move things to clear the ‘fresher before you sleep. The next day you will travel into the settlement on Barab to search for the Old Ones. To ask them stories of the Jedi and of the Sith, and the child. But it seems far away from you now, wrapped in something soft and warm with Din in the Crest.

You clamber the ladder after Din, follow him to the bed you share. The child takes time to settle, clambering around and around in the room. Over your legs and between you both, restless and playful, but eventually he tires and crawls beneath the blankets under your arm, nestles against your chest. It’s easy to pretend there is nothing waiting for you when you wake, almost a month of empty space with Din and the child and no looming threat has made you easy against the covers, against the feeling of the rise and fall of Din’s chest near to yours. The occasional mumbled sounds from the child as he rolls in his sleep between you. But the morning does come, the same cold and dark and damp as it had been the night before. You dress in silence, don the armour grimly. Din settles the child into his crib, fills your packs with enough for three days, unsure of what waits outside. You hand him your warmest jacket as you stand with him in the hull and he slips it on, nods his thanks. And then there is no more reason to delay. Din lowers the ramp and you set out. Not as cold as you expect, but you see the way Din flinches back into his hood and you think outside of the amour the air must have a bite. At the bottom your feet splash through puddles, disturb a coating of dark matter resting on the surface of the puddle.

It’s not until you step into the tunnel, swing your torch around to check the ship behind you that you recognise the feeling. The pillars, and the dripping water. The thick smog of moisture hanging and clinging to the back of your throat.

It reminds you of the green planet.

Kov’nynir: A Keldabe kiss, the action of pressing foreheads together in a headbutt action.

Gotabor’ika: lit: little engineer (’ika is used as a term of affection or endearment, and this is used as an intimate nickname)

Ad’ika: daughter, son, child. Used by parents to their children.

Gar ganar jate ca’nara: You have good timing

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#Baar Bal Runi #the mandalorian #din djarin #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian fanfic #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #din djarin x you #my writing #force sensitive reader #pedro pascal

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