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#just looking at fanfiction for example
divinemackerel · 2 years
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Being a cFundy fan was the worst thing to ever happen to me
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aceoflights · 1 year
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Absolutely love when fanfic writers adapt the naming conventions of the media they're writing for
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semantic error (the drama, haven’t read the comic yet) is rlly so good,,
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pa-pa-plasma · 2 years
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I just really want to say, the reason good & accurate grammar is important in writing isn’t because it makes you look smart, it’s to make your writing as easy to read as possible. I (& many other people with certain disabilities) can’t read your writing when the paragraphs are longer than my phone screen & several people are talking at once with no commas or apostrophes.
#i'm not saying this to put people off writing i'm saying this because i'd like to read some people's thing but physically cannot#because of the above example#i've seen people complain about how ''good'' grammar doesn't exist & whatnot & like. true ya#but also no. 100% completely false#grammar is made up but that doesn't mean it isn't important#like. the point of good grammar is to get your idea across to the reader. it is to help them understand what's going on#they can't be expected to understand what's going on if you never use apostrophes to indicate possession or whatever#plus not using commas & apostrophes can lead to. interesting results.#best example would be that ''lets eat grandma'' one. you're either a cannibal or you're inviting your grandma to eat#& yes the reader can figure out which one you mean regardless of whether you use the proper grammar but like.#you don't put all that onto the reader. it pulls them out of things & now they're thinking ''wow okay we're eating grandma lol''#they're no longer in universe. they're now just reading words. you pulled them out with that#i'm begging for people to read books. any books. don't just write & read fanfiction please just go to the book store & pick a book#that looks good & bring it home & read it. analyze the writing style. incorporate the parts you like. repeat#please im begging you people to get past a 1st grade level English class. you're a 20yo native speaker#you've gotta know how to use punctuation at this point. or you gotta know you need to learn at least#okay sorry the more the think about it the more frustrated i get. writing is a hyperfixation
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cult-of-husbandos · 9 months
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yami ai [yandere] - Hot Yandere Singles Near You
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synopsis: you click on a random pop-up ad and are visited by weird smiling man in suit.
genre: pure crack (like fr), fluff, tbh there's not really a plot
word count: 4.4k
warnings: implied stalking
Isn’t insomnia just the worst? Like, seriously? What’s the point of being a human being with antiquated thoughts and impressive cognitive and motor skills when your brain fights you on the most basic stuff. For example, like sleeping!!
You must’ve refreshed YouTube and Twitter over a thousand times. Over 8 billion people in the world and there’s no new content anywhere? You groaned and jumped back over onto Twitter, silently praying and pleading for something new to show up on your feed. Maybe a wacky billionaire got eaten by a mob of homeless people or maybe a news article about a Floridian doing something gross and outrageous and virtually impossible.
But nope. Nothing.
Not a single thing piqued your interest. You groaned again and looked at the time on your dimly lit phone. It was past 2 a.m. and you were bored out of your mind. You then lazily clicked on Google and sighed.
‘Maybe someone posted a new fanfic over something…’ you hoped. And even if there wasn’t a new fic uploaded you’ll just read the old ones you favorited. Perhaps reading something might put you to sleep.
As you were scrolling through your favorite ship tags, you were startled by a pop up ad covering up 90% of the screen and flashing emojis.
“Ugh… seriously?” you groaned. “They should make ad-blockers on phones for this shit.” You squinted at the bright lettering emanating from your phone even though it was at the lowest brightness setting.
⚠️(99+) Hot Yandere Singles NEAR YOU⚠️
Yandere’s…? Singles? Near me?
The pop-up ad had flashing peach, cherry, and eggplant emojis with a water splash emoji at the end to signify… well, you’re not sure what it was trying to signify. On the sides of the ad, it showed pictures of very gorgeous men and women, all striking suggestive poses. Underneath the title was a small summary that read. ‘These lonely desperate yanderes wanna meet you! They’ll most likely find you anyway, but wouldn’t you rather be the honey to a bee instead of a fly? Try it NOW for FREE!! No hookups! No catfishes! No sign ups!’ Then below that were a few empty boxes to fill out requiring your personal information.
"..."
Was this a porn ad?!
No way at 2:45 in the freaking morning did you just get a porn pop-up ad while googling mafia au fanfiction. This has to be some kind of joke. Maybe it was prank and someone was just fucking with you. And how and why would there be 99+ yanderes in your area?! You couldn’t be surrounded by that many psychos. Could you? Whatever the case may be, it was now past 2 a.m. and as the rule of life states ‘Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.’. You don’t know if it was the lack of sleep or just reckless curiosity, but you gave your shoulders a shrug and mumbled a ‘fuck it’ as you put in your information. Your name, number, gender, age, preferred sex, email, and mailing address. As you clicked submit and continued scrolling, you gave very little thought about how this would go down.
On one hand, the ad turns out to be real and you get a partner out of this. Or
You get quartered, stalked, doxxed, and murdered like the dumbass you are for putting your personal info into a sketchy porno-like pop-up on Google.
Or, it turns out to be a prank and some asshole sitting in a basement has a good laugh at you.
Meh. You’ll deal with it in the morning.
*****
You were jolted awake with the sound of rapid knocking coming from your front door. You groaned into your pillow as you tried to ignore the person desperately wanting your attention from outside your apartment. You finally got some sleep only for it to get interrupted. Only minutes and minutes of continued knocking without any signs of letting up, you decide to get up and shoo away whoever it was. You wearily grabbed your phone to check the time.
8:02 a.m.
You huffed as you stormed towards the front door.
“If this a fucking Jehova’s Witness, I swear to god…” you grumbled. You swung open the door and threw the person a harsh glare, only to be met with popping sounds as confetti flew in your face.
“Good morning, my dear darling~!! Are you ready to begin on the road to happiness and love?” the stranger shouted a far too happy tone for 8 in the morning.
You took a step back in shock, fully awake as you waved and dusted the confetti from your face and hair. You looked the strange man up and down. He was smiling ear to ear and wore an expensive looking suit to warm for the summer weather. A briefcase stood right beside him along with dozens of other party poppers and a white plastic bag filled with brown bottles with oddly enough no labels on them. You looked at the man’s face. He was surprisingly attractive and without a single flaw anywhere. His hair was jet black and shined a very prominent gloss. You were honestly kind of embarrassed to be seen by him when you looked like such a mess. The man let out a chuckle.
“Oh my.” he said, gently putting his hand over his mouth with vague concern. “I hope I didn’t startle you too much. I probably should’ve sent you an email notifying you of the time I was coming. I’m sorry that must’ve been a troubling awakening.”
You quirked your eyebrow and took another step back, grabbing onto the doorknob so that you could slam it right in his face if things got too weird.
“And… you are?”
“Oh my, oh my. Where are my manners? How careless of me to assume.” The man bowed with a curtsy. “I am the ‘Matchmaker’. My job is to pair two people with their fated soulmate and give each of my clients their happily ever after. It’s very nice to meet you, (Y/N) (L/N).”
You felt a chill crawl down your spine. How’d this weirdo know your name?! You tried to close the door as fast as you could, but the ‘Matchmaker’ was even faster. He clicked his tongue at you, his smile unchanging, but his eyes seemed to harden his gentle tone.
“My, how rude. Is that any way to treat a guest?” He let out another chuckle. “You’ll never find love that way.”
“H-How did you know my name?” you stuttered.
Again, another chuckle. What was so funny? “My dear~. You gave it to me.”
What the hell was he talking about? How could you have given this creep your name? Was he a stalker? A junkie? Noticing the confusion on your face, the man spoke up again.
“Oh my dear. Do you really not remember?” he asked, tilting his head in feign innocence. “You filled out an ad to meet singles in your area. And here I am, coming to fulfill that ad.”
You eased up on the tension you had on the door and tilted your head in surprised confusion. “That was a real ad?”
The man stood up tall and smiled earnestly again. “Of course. However, you are the first person to actually fill out that ad. Really, this is more of a celebration to both of us.”
Huh, so the pop-up ad was real.
Not a prank.
And now there’s a psycho standing at your front door promising you a partner from an actual yandere.
“I honestly thought it was a prank. I mean… yanderes? Isn’t that just an anime thing?”
“Oh, I assure you my darling.” he said with a snide smirk. “Yanderes are real. And when they heard about signing up, it was like tossing chicken in a sea of alligators. All clamoring to be the first person to take a bite.”
Okay, gross but kind of sweet.
“May I come in?”
“Huh?”
“Well, my dear. It would be easier to come in and talk through the process of how this goes instead of standing here.”
“Oh, um… Suuuree-”
“Great! My my darling~. What a lovely home. Very well decorated.” The man quickly strided into your house and made himself comfortable in your living room, looking as if he was analyzing every detail about your house.
Richard Chase would’ve loved your dumbass.
You shut the door and followed him into your own apartment and offered him a seat on your couch. Might as well, right? You’ve gone this far and you're still alive.
“Umm…” you hesitantly shifted from one foot to another. “Do you… um… want some coffee maybe? Or tea? Maybe a glass of water? If you haven;t eaten breakfast yet, I whip you up something.”
Yeah, sure. Feed the man with only a title for a name and waltzed right into your house after showing up after you put in your personal information into a random pop-up ad at 3 a.m. promising you a happy life with hot single yanderes in your area. You are the pinnacle of human genius. The apex of natural selection. The creme de la creme of common sense. Charles Darwin would be so impressed.
“How thoughtful. Just coffee would be fine. Thank you.”
After brewing a quick pot, you sat across from the man facing him heads on and gently slid him his steaming cup. After a while of taking little sips in weird silence, he spoke up again.
“Before we continue, I’d just like to say: Thank you so much for applying for this wonderful opportunity!! Not many people would click on an ad requiring doxxing information to meet their soulmates! Again, congrats on being our number one willing client!”
“Willing client?” you asked.
“Well, of course! For some reason, humans seem to really love the idea of a yandere until there’s one standing on their front porch!” he laughed.
“Humans? I’m sorry. Are you not human, Mr…?”
“Ah ah! No need for formalities! Just ‘The Matchmaker’ or simply ‘Matchmaker’.
“Oh, so… you don’t have a true name? Or is that just a title?”
“Oh darling~.” he sang sweetly. “That’s none of anyone’s fucking business, is it?”
Your eyes widened and let out a nervous chuckle. “Okay, got it! Just Matchmaker. Lovely name. Adore it. In fact, I love when strange mysterious men only give a title for a name.” What the hell does that even mean? You had no idea what you were saying anymore.
“Heh, smart cookie.” He winked. “Shall we begin?”
“Um, yeah, so… how does this work exactly?” you finally asked.
“Simple, my dear darling. Think of this as an ordinary matchmaking appointment. I have a stack of potential soulmates all ready to meet you. I have the same information about them that I also have of you. Each potential soulmate also has a picture so if you don’t really feel up to meeting face-to-face just yet you can look over the picture and see who captures your heart.”
“Face-to-face? So these guys have my picture too?” “Of course! And might I say, those pictures don’t do you justice. In all my years in this business, I’ve never seen such an obsession and overload of potential soulmates for just one person.”
You lightly blushed. “I-I don’t know about that… I barely got any sleep last night so I probably look like a zombie right now…”
“Au contraire, Darling. You look absolutely stunning. If I weren’t such a professional I would burn all these forms and claim you as my one and only~.”
You felt your entire face flush red as the Matchmaker pierced your soul with his longing gaze. It felt like he was staring into your very essence – like he could read you like a book. You nervously cleared your throat and shifted your eyes away, hoping to bring down your blush.
“S-So! Um… should we get started?” you stuttered, internally kicking yourself for being so easily flustered by a couple of smooth words. Ted Bundy would’ve had a field day with your dumbass.
“Ready whenever you are, my dear.” The Matchmaker set his briefcase on your coffee table and pulled out a single form and slid it over towards you. “Let’s start off with an easy one.”
You looked at the form along with the picture of a very attractive man paperclipped to the paper. According to the form, his name is Hamazawa Akita. He was in his early 20’s, had a varying array of hobbies from hiking to scuba diving, and was very much in love with you.
“Well, what do you think?”
“Hm, well, he’s very cute. And very active.”
“Would you like to meet him?”
“Um, sure… is there a number I could call or…?”
“No need! We can bring him in right now.” The Matchmaker snapped his fingers and you whipped your head towards the front door where Akita strolled in, all smiles. You looked back over the Matchmaker. “Did I not lock my door? Wait. More importantly, how’d he get here?!”
The Matchmaker smiled. “My dear, when you’re in this business you pick up a few tricks.” He then turned his attention towards Akita who now stood in the middle of the living room. “No. 1 would you like to introduce yourself?”
Akita stood tall and his eyes seemed to beam directly at you. “My name is Hamazawa Akita. Ever since I saw your picture I’ve dreamed about sweeping you off your feet and claiming you all to myself!”
“So, like 8 hours ago?”
“Yes!! But those hours feel like years when being away from you.”
“Hmm.”
“So, what do you think? Are you feeling the butterflies?”
You looked up Akita up and down and your face twisted as if you’re deciding on whether or not to buy a car or a piece of clothing.
“Um, to be honest my guy. I’m not feeling it.”
“Huh?”
“Excuse me, my darling?”
“Weeeelllll…. I mean, don’t get me wrong! You’re very attractive and your words are sweet, but I don’t think I believe any of it. Like, you just admitted to wanting me all to yourself only 8 hours ago, but I don’t really feel anything. Not even a shiver.”
The Matchmaker and Akita both looked at each other like they weren’t really expecting that. With a quick wave of his hand, Akita slumped his shoulders and headed towards your front door. You shouted out an apology as the dejected suitor walked out.
“Well, I didn’t expect that. I don’t normally get such competent clients. At least those that get past kicking and screaming.” The Matchmaker grinned. You shrugged.
“I guess I just know what I like. All the anime I’ve watched kind of gives you that high standard of what makes a yandere a real yandere, y’know?”
He nodded. “I cannot agree more. Well, we have plenty more where that came from. Shall we continue?”
*****
Papers were strewn across your coffee table in an unorganized fashion as both you and your estranged guest were tired beyond belief. You had no idea how many hours had passed nor how many guests were in and out of your apartment. You’re honestly surprised none of your neighbors complained or called the police. Your apartment would’ve looked like a clown car if anyone had been watching from the outside. You honestly lost count after No. 256. You let out another yawn and laid on your side trying your best to keep your eyes open. Maybe 2 hours of sleep wasn’t enough for the multiple interviews you had to conduct today. Maybe your 9th grade biology teacher was right. Maybe you are going to die alone. A weary sigh brought you from your thoughts.
“My, my. You are definitely the most high standard client I’ve ever had. I didn’t think we’d get to the triple digits in just one day.”
You also sighed and sat up in your seat. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… All these guys are cute and all, but they’re all lacking something. They’re either too forceful or not forceful enough. Too wimpy or too strong. Or too obsessed or just incredibly so lovesick that I feel like they’d fall in love with just about anyone who’d be willing. Ugh, why can’t this be simpler like adopting an animal?” You groaned. You also hadn’t thought this would take this long. You didn’t really think of yourself as having high standards until today. Until today, you’d be happy with anyone close to you in age and with a heartbeat. Who knew picking out a yandere soulmate would be so challenging. And who knew that there’d be so many willing participants! The Matchmaker reached into his briefcase and pulled another stack of forms and slid them over to you. There must be at least over a hundred papers in front of you. How did he have so many?!
“How about we switch things up, hm? You’ll look over the papers and when you see someone that catches your eye, I’ll bring him in.” He made it sound like you were adopting a dog or a cat. But if this made it go any faster, you were willing to try.
After about 3 more stacks of papers, you were starting to lose hope and patience. When you got to the last few papers, you stopped dead in your tracks. Woah baby!
“Woah baby!” you exclaimed.
“Did you find someone you like?” The Matchmaker asked hopefully.
“Oh yeah. This guy.” You showed him the paper. He furrowed his brows a little.
“Are you sure? I don’t think I remember this man. His name and face don’t seem familiar.”
“Really? Maybe he’s a late entry or something?”
Matchmaker stroked his chin in thought. “I’ll go check it out. Be right back, dear. I’m very sorry for this inconvenience.”
You waved off his apology with a smile and he left your apartment. You then leaned back with a groan. You just wanted to find your ‘soulmate’ or whatever and move on with this day. You closed your eyes for a second and waited patiently for Matchmaker to come back.
Tap tap tap
Just like deja vu, you were awoken by rapid knocking. Except this time it wasn’t coming from your front door.
Tap tap tap tap
It sounds like it’s coming from… your window?
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
You quickly got up and walked towards your window and opened it.
“Woah!” You jumped back a little as you were met face to face with the man that you had picked out and that the Matchmaker went to go find.
‘Wow… he’s even cuter in person!!’
He let out a delicious chuckle and gave you a charming smile.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, darling~. Hehe, though I think that fear in your eyes was worth it. So adorable~.” For the second time today, a complete weirdo stranger has made you blush. Wait…
“Wait! I don’t have a balcony and I’m on the third floor. How’d you-?” You peeked over the window to see if he was pulling a Criss Angel.
“I have incredible grip strength~.” he winked.
“Oooh I’m sure~.” you swooned. For a weirdo, he was a smooth talking weirdo.
“Oh, I got these for you, sweetheart~.” He pulled himself up and sat on your windowsill and pulled out a bouquet of roughly cut flowers from behind him. You gasped and grabbed them, giving them a smell.
“These are my favorite!! How did you know? I don’t think that was one of the pieces of info required for the Matchmaker.” you asked.
The stranger chuckled. “Easy. I never filled out that stupid application.”
You looked up from your flowers and titled your head like a confused puppy.
“I already know everything about you. I don’t need a stupid piece of paper to tell me what I already know about you. Like, how I know that you have secret sweets hidden all throughout your room. Or that whenever you have a good day you love to sing Stray Kids.”
He inched closer to you as you backed up further into the room.
“You won’t eat frozen pizza, but every so often you eat a lobster roll from a food truck from Gary on Main St.. You have life destroying evidence of your boss that you’re planning on using on your last day. You’ve seen the Barbie movie 5 times. And…”
You felt your legs hit the couch and tried to keep yourself from falling onto your back like a defenseless turtle.
“Your favorite anime is… Dar-” You quickly covered the stranger’s mouth with a furious blush.
“I only watch it ironically!! I don’t love it! It’s not my favorite!” you quickly clarified. The gravity of the situation was made perfectly clear after that. This man really knew all about you. Honestly, you’re so loud that you’re pretty sure that people on the ground outside could hear you singing. And you don’t really pay attention to your surroundings so it's easy for someone to know that you eat from a food truck every other week at specific times. But, knowing your favorite secretly watched anime?
“W-Who… are you?” you stuttered. You’re pretty sure you already knew the answer.
He laughed and you felt his lips brush against your fingers. You blushed and tried to pull back, only to be stopped by his hands.
“Sweetie~. You already know who I am.” He grabbed the paper from the stack and put it next to his face. “See? I’m Yami Ai. Your soulmate.”
Before you could even process what was happening, you were gently pushed onto the couch with Yami hovering over you holding your hands beside your head. You couldn’t stop the blush erupting from your neck to your face. Your heart was beating way too fast and your stomach felt jumpy and queasy. Butterflies.
You cleared your throat. “Um… so, if you didn’t fill out a form then how come The Matchmaker had your profile and picture? And why didn’t you use the front door?”
Yami smirked and leaned in closer. “It’s pretty simple to pull off when your apartment does security checks on new guests entering the building.”
“But, my apartment doesn’t–” you stopped. “Ooooh… So you impersonated a security guard, slipped your profile and info into his briefcase, and were planning on showing up as one of the potential singles? That’s… convoluted. But, smart.” You shrugged. “And since you obviously knew which floor I was on and which window was mine, I assume you’ve been watching me for a while and were watching me last night when I couldn’t sleep?”
Yami laughed again. “You are so smart~. You really catch on quickly, don’t you?”
You shrugged again with a nervous smile. “W-Well, obviously not smart enough to not put in my personal info and have strange men come in and out of my apartment.”
Yami was quick to turn his gentle smile into a hard, harsh frown. His grip on your wrists grew tighter and you winced under the force he placed in you.
“You know, my darling. It’s partially my fault. If I hadn’t backed out and taken you that night, you’d never be in this situation. With those men eyeing you up and down like you were theirs. Having that smiling freak calling you ‘dear’ and ‘darling’ when only I can call you that. I was planning on getting rid of the competition, but you did that for me.”
Yami loosened his grip and lifted you up, staring into your eyes. You blushed again.
“Rejection after rejection. Some guys didn’t even get 2 words out before you turned away. Of course my darling would only want the most perfect man. Isn’t that right, darling~?”
“Hehehe~” you leaned in with a giggle. “You’re so sweet~.”
You are such a baby for flattery.
*****
“My dear darling, I’m so very sorry for the inconvenience. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long, but I could not find this person you–” Matchmaker explained, rushing in and stopping dead in his tracks when he saw both you and Yami, the man who left 30 minutes ago to go find, eating breakfast in the living room.
Sitting in his lap.
And feeding each other.
“Oh! Matchmaker!” you exclaimed, quickly swallowing your food. You didn’t notice Yami tightening his grip on your waist nor did you notice the cold glare and tense atmosphere enveloping the room. “Look who I found~.”
“I see…” he said hesitantly.
“He climbed up the building and came in through the window.”
“My~. How romantic~.” he sang. “So, I take it that you are satisfied with your soulmate? Or… do you wish to continue searching?” he asked teasingly. Before Yami could say anything, you quickly spoke again.
“Yep! I’m sure.” You ruffled Yami’s hair and nuzzled up against him. “I wouldn’t trade him for anyone else.” Yami hugged you closer to his chest as you giggled. “Plus, he makes the most amazing breakfast in the world, so extra points!” you cheered. You reached out towards the Matchmaker’s briefcase.
“Here you go! I put all the papers back in for you.”
Matchmaker quickly walked over and grabbed his briefcase along with your hand. “Well, my dear. It’s been an honor. You are truly the most remarkable and memorable client I have ever had.” he said with a bow and made his way towards the door. However, before leaving he chuckled and looked back at the both of you. “Although, it’s a shame,” he sighed. “Maybe if I had stayed, I would’ve snatched you up myself.”
And with a final loud laugh, The Matchmaker disappeared, but not before Yami stood up to lounge and attack the fleeting man like a guard dog. You snorted and caressed his face to calm him down. “Relax, Yami. He’s just joking.”
“Well, I hated his joke. Fuckin’ freak…” he grumbled. “And it’s Ai. You’re mine now. You should get used to calling each other by our first names.”
You smiled and leaned against him. “Okay, Ai. Whatever you say.”
“And if a man comes to the door, never EVER answer it, got it!”
“Mhm.”
“I’m serious, darling. I’ll gouge their eyes out right in front of you.”
“Yes sir.”
The rest of your life was going to be very interesting. Suck it, Ms. Braxton. I guess you’re the one dying alone. Because you have a yandere boyfriend! And she has gonorrhea. Bitch.
---
a/n: this is so shit. i'm so sorry that i've been MIA for a while. work has been pretty crazy and i haven't really felt much motivated to write. however, i'm trying to get back into it now. with this goofy shit. kind of a joke piece, but i needed to write something silly and not serious at all to relax. (also i've been writing since 4 a.m., so...) anyways, i'm going to try and update regulary or at least post something.
Here's my YouTube. I make anime playlists.
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3hks · 3 months
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How to Get Better at Writing Without Actually Writing
Are you looking to improve your writing without needing to write? I'll admit, I am definitely that kind of person--I have the hardest time even finding something interesting to write--despite that, I have noticed that my writing has vastly improved over the past year or two when it was hardly a hobby, and here's how I did it!
ANALYZE DIFFERENT WORKS
Yes yes, everyone tells you to READ, READ, and READ, even I will agree. However, unlike what some people tell you, you don't actually have to read all those classics like Heart of Darkness or The Hobbit. Of course, those books are very beneficial, but if you find no interest in those types of books (like me), then don't read them!
If you prefer reading casual stories posted by online authors, whether it be a fanfiction or their own, original story, it still qualifies as reading! As long as you are able to find a work that you particularly enjoy, that's all you need!
When reading, the key to improving at writing is to always study the story. Take a moment to look at certain words or phrases that stick out to you. How does the author use them? What do they mean? Keep track of the characters' development and how it affects them. Additionally, note things like powerful scenes, dialogue, and more to have an idea of how you can create something just as impactful. For example, if a text made you cry, think about how and why you reacted like that. This can actually help you re-create events that hold the same effectiveness, if not more!
To add on, if you really dislike reading just that much, then you can always analyze things like shows, movies, etc. However, this will prove to be less efficient because you often don't get access to the text behind the shows. Still, it's a good way to study the plot, characters, character developments, dialogue, and relationships!
2. PROOFREADING
No, I'm not saying that you should be an editor; this actually ties back to my first tip. Remember how I said that if you don't want to read classics, then don't? Well, this is because forcing yourself to read them is completely unnecessary (unless you like them or want to write like the author, of course). As a matter of fact, reading poorly written stories can be very helpful for improvement!
When we read books or novels that have obvious grammar errors, repetitive words, and choppy sentences, we will realize these mistakes and point them out to ourselves. Being able to scout out faults means that we are able to learn from them and grow! Noticing these things will also help prevent you from making the same or similar mistakes!
3. STUDY TIPS ONLINE
I used to go search up websites on Google whenever I wanted help with a certain topic. Of course, not all of the sites are reliable and/or helpful, but some point out good ideas that a couple of us just need! This can be especially useful regarding the things that we are unfamiliar with when writing. They can offer a base foundation and tips on how to start and finish!
They can also serve as a great inspiration for fresh ideas and new perspectives!
Yes, these three tips are pretty simple; however, I have found that they work very well for me! People vary from person-to-person, so it can't be guaranteed the same effect, but this is the best I got! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! <3
Happy writing~
3hks :)
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twilightangel83 · 1 month
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Hello and good day to all my fellow Legend of Zelda fans!
As you may or may not be aware we in the Legend of Zelda fandom have been having some troubles when it comes to tagging on A03. Mostly that the only tags that seem to be available to tag various Links with was the Linked Universe specific tags. Which led to writers either trying to make their own tags (which no one knew how to find) or inaccurately using Linked Universe Tags. Neither of which were fair to creators writing outside of Linked Universe, or fair to the Linked Universe community (let alone JoJo herself!).
People trying to tag their non-Linked Universe fics were either scrambling to be found or blending their words in with Linked Universe works. And Linked Universe fans who were searching for Linked Universe fics ended up stumbling across fics they weren’t looking for.
So, with that in mind, I reached out to the A03 team in search of a solution. And they have gotten back to me! I am going to post a picture of their reply under the cut, but I will summarize it first.
There (now? I’m not clear if they’ve all existed before) are tags we can use for most of our various Links that aren't Linked Universe. They’re just not tags that go in the “Character” box. Instead, you put Link (Legend of Zelda) in the character box and then one (or more) of these tags into the “Additional Tags” box. The tags are ‘Link from X game’. So, for example: Link from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (Legend of Zelda) or Link from Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda). If you try to put a specific Link in and they don’t exist already you’ll just have to fill it in unfortunately. And the more people use that tag the sooner it will be made into one that’s canonized.
Mind you! These tags should NOT be used for Linked Universe fanfictions. JoJo has explicitly asked that Linked Universe fanworks NOT be tagged with general Legend of Zelda tags. And that is what these are. So please leave these tags for those of us writing outside of Linked Universe.
I did a little experimenting and there seems to be a tag for every game EXCEPT;
“Link from Four Swords Adventures (Legend of Zelda)”,
"Link from Triforce Heroes (Legend of Zelda)",
“Link from The Legend of Zelda (Legend of Zelda)”,
“Link from The Adventures of Link (Legend of Zelda)”, and
“Link from Age of Calamity (Legend of Zelda)”.
There is also no tag for:
“The Hero of Men (Legend of Zelda)” (or whatever title could be used for the hero before Link from The Minish Cap)
But there are Character tags for “Ancient Hero (Legend of Zelda)” and “Hylia’s Chosen Hero (Legend of Zelda)” (who I believe is the First Hero).
The more we, as a fandom, use these tags (especially the ones that aren’t currently searchable) the more readily usable they will be.
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atozfic · 9 months
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splish splash.
pairing. san x seonghwa x wooyoung x yunho x fem!reader synopsis. they’re out to prove who’s the best at the breast-stroke- gets dragged off stage as the people boo over such a terrible pun. warnings. no use of y/n, swim team au, lifeguard!reader, pro-swimmers!sanhwawooho, they’re all wearing speedos :), smut ( porn with unnecesary plot, degradation, m+f oral sex, piv sex, anal sex, double penetration, triple penetration bc u got 3 holes for a reason sweetcheeks, mxm interactions, dom/sub dynamics, spanking, hair pulling, way more warnings that there’s honestly no point listing, just know this is pure filth that covers most bases of stereotypical fanfiction smut, mother in christ what have i written? ) no verbal consent is given throughout this but all parties are willing participants !! word count. 20k+ ( of literal porn. i need to leave this physical terrain bc i am not worthy of existing after writing this i fear. ) hyde’s input. hey girlie pops, long time no see.
it’s crazy, what some people will do for money.
take, for example, your roommate. she’s a smart girl. a beautiful one, too. with a promising future in criminal law, once she gets herself that pesky little degree. and, yet, she’s funding her tuition with money she earns distributing high-end drugs on campus. rather counter-productive, most would agree. or, in a far less extreme version, there’s that overly-hyper frat boy, who can always be found doing the dumbest dares at a party, all for a few bucks and a keg of beer.
and then there is you.
you would have arrived home twenty minutes ago at this point, had things gone to plan, a backlog of neglected assignments and a baby bonsai tree in need of watering desperately awaiting your return. yet here you are, stuck in your ugly flip-flops and uncomfortably stale shorts, whistle around your neck and a look of exhaustion on your face.
the swimming pool had closed, technically, an hour and a half ago. the sports centre seems to believe, however, that certain members of the college swim team reserve the right to use the pool for however long they require and desire, even if it is at your expense. if you were being paid overtime, perhaps you’d have a more positive outlook on things and less of a frown creasing on your forehead.
if the swimmers weren’t so irritating, maybe you’d enjoy the view.
“all that height, and for what?” the sophomore boy’s voice- jung wooyoung? you aren’t overly familiar with him, seeing him only in sporadic flashes when you pass each other on campus or at some uncivilised frat party- echos through the large room, his hair a wet mess. if you were gaining anything from being here, you’d perhaps muster up the energy to remind the boy of how a swim cap is necessary at all times in the water. “can’t even out-swim me with those long legs!”
“wanna know what my long legs are for?” jeong yunho, a junior with the face of an angel and the body proportions of a sinner, pipes up from across the olympic length pool. unlike the other boy, a crimson cap keeps his own locks out of sight. “climbing up the stairs to go fuck your mom!”
it’s impossible to stifle your laughter, no matter how hard you try to just play it off as a tickle at the back of your throat, a cough forcing its way out. when your eyes meet those of the glaring senior, however, you’re wishing you hadn’t made a sound.
“even the lifeguard can’t take you seriously, yunho,” park seonghwa speaks, eyes not leaving yours as his muscled arms work to pull himself out of the water, before letting his well-rounded behind sit down on the edge. a breath hitches in your throat as his gloriously muscled thighs come into view, drops of water cascading down them in a pattern set to hypnotise you, keep you staring a little longer than is good for your health. “bet she’s heard all about you and the boner incident of 2019.”
truthfully, you have no clue what the dark haired male is on about. that doesn’t stop you from laughing again though, this time a little out of malice and a lot because it’s quite endearing to see a loudmouth like jeong yunho be silenced so easily, head bowed and ears a little rosier with embarrassment.
this small moment of peace is soon shattered by the reality that these boys can’t spend more than ten minutes in a room- particularly one that includes a pool- without arguing. while one boasts about his speed, the other begins to jab at his lack of endurance, and the remaining of the three reminds them all of the fact he holds the most medals amongst them.
“are they always like this?” you jump, surprised by the cold drop of water that lands on your exposed thigh, all courtesy of the boy who’s invited himself to sit down next to you on the bench.
“not always,” you bite at the inside of your cheek, willing yourself to not look at san in all his wet glory. you’re afraid that, once you start looking at him, you won’t be able to stop. it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve fallen victim to the crime that is his enchanting smile. “guess they’re feeling a little feistier than usual, with the district championship just around the corner. rumour has it one of you guys is risking his scholarship if he’s not in the top three.”
are you and san close?
that’s a good question. see, by social standards, you’re not strangers. you share several classes, you attend the same parties, you’ve even texted a few times- mostly on the days one of you miss class (read as: san misses class thanks to his swim-meets) and you need a copy of any notes taken that lesson.
but, you aren’t exactly friends either. you don’t go out of your ways to spend time together, you don’t know more than the surface level about one another, you don’t check-in with each other.
so, is acquaintances the best word to describe you two?
that depends on how common it is for an acquaintance to suck another acquaintance’s cock. granted, there had been a lot of alcohol in the mix, on both ends, with you drinking to forget a botched assignment and san drinking to forget how badly his voice had apparently cracked in front of his crush.
a few weeks have passed since the incident and things haven’t exactly been the same. you’ve missed class twice and ended up contacting heather- a sweet girl who sits down by the front and seems to live with her hand raised in the air- for any notes. likewise, san has found himself declining party invitations, the knowledge that you would be there all too prevalent in the front of his mind.
the irony is that neither of you quite know the reason why you’re avoiding each other, you just are.
or, were, until san had walked in with his swim team buddies- if they could even be considered that- and spotted you in your lifeguard attire. he hadn’t been as slick as he thought he was, sneaking glances at you between laps and even gaining an undeniable smile each time he watched you blow that stupid whistle at some misbehaving kids.
he was slicker with the fact he didn’t need to be here, at this hour. but, he figured staying gave him the chance to stare at you a little longer and, maybe, think up an excuse to talk to you.
“i should-”
“i missed-”
you both speak at the same time, minutes after watching the three musketeers disappear into the locker rooms, with the smallest of them continuing to dig at them for not being able to out-swim him despite their ample amount of height. san’s quick to signal you to go first, a dimple making itself known on his face and reminding you of the deadliest part of him: the false innocence that drips off him like warm candy.
sweet, sticky, making a mess all over the place.
“i should probably start cleaning up.” it turns out san also isn’t discreet when it comes to hiding the disappointment in his face, because no sooner than those words leave your mouth, the dimple is gone and he’s sat a little straighter, a little more ridged, like when the professor points him out in the middle of the class and the golden boy can’t stomach all the attention being on him. “but, what were you gonna say?”
“oh,” and it’s like he’s just remembered that yes, there is something he wants to say. “i missed you in class yesterday.”
it catches you off guard, leaving you to almost drop the whistle you’ve been fiddling between your fingers for the past few minutes. something about sitting so close to him while both of you are dressed so scantily has you feeling unnerved, like you need to run away as fast as possible, yet also wanting to plant yourself right in his lap.
“i didn’t think,” you’re cut off by your own throat, dry and desperate for a drink under his intense gaze. san is a walking contradiction, you think, with his sharp cheekbones and soft heart, his intense eyes and his easy-going smile. his presence gives you never-ending whiplash, never sure if he’s more angel than devil. “i didn’t think you noticed.”
“how could i not? there was no one to laugh with me at professor nam and his weird toe-shoes!” his laugh is infectious, willing your own to make an appearance. 
the sound of distant muffled yelling fills the air of the swimming pool and it isn’t hard to recognise wooyoung’s high-pitched laughter amongst it. clearly, their childish arguing has carried on into the changing rooms. it surprises you in no way, already more than used to their antics.
their rivalry is one for the ages, all of them constantly bumping heads for the spot of the top swimmer on campus, their sports scholarships becoming their pride and joy.
you suppose it doesn’t help that all four boys run in different circles, only really crossing paths when faced with swim-meets and days of practice. the senior, park seonghwa, runs with the richer kids of the college, all sharing their trust-funds and god complexes as a common interest. you’re not overly familiar with them, though you’re certain he and a particular blue-haired boy are rarely seen apart. jeong yunho, the tallest, is in with the jocks, which is mostly just because his taller friend is the captain of the basketball team. and jung wooyoung tends to surround himself with the stoners from the school, something you’d learned from kang yeosang, a dealer you shared a couple classes with back in your first semester.
san, ever the golden boy, drifts between a couple different groups but he can usually be found alone and enjoying his own company, if not being followed by a flock of his own little fan-club, men and women alike begging for just an ounce of his time.
your name echos around the room. your head snaps to the side and you find that san is now closer, staring at you in a way that’s making your insides knot up. you’ve seen that look only once before, and it done nothing but leave your knees and your ego bruised. “were you listening to me?”
“what? uh, yeah, i was,” you’re quick to lie, knowing it’s about to backfire when he breaks out in a challenging grin.
“really? what did i say?” he only allows you to stumble over words for a minute before cutting off your incomprehensible speaking when he grabs at your chin and tilts your head up, staring straight into your eyes. “that’s what i thought. you were too busy getting lost in that pretty little head of yours to pay attention to me.”
you stutter over a noise and settle for that as your response, though entirely incomprehensible and nonsensical. the way he continues to stare at you feels cruel, demons dancing around in those pretty eyes of his. demons that are telling him to tease, torture, torment the fragile eyes staring back at him, the same ones he’d delighted in watching fill up with tears a few weeks back, the pressure of his crown slamming against the back of your tight throat entirely overwhelming you to the point of crying, tears dripping down your cheeks and mixing with your own drool pooling over the swell of his balls.
“need me to repeat myself?” you’re slow to catch up to the fact he’s speaking again, and even slower to notice the hand resting on your knee. at first, you think you’re imagining things, the feather light tracing of nails over your soft skin a mere figment of your imagination. but, no, your eyes flash down to glimpse and his hand is there, fingers dancing over your naked skin like it’s their own personal stage and he’s intending to put on the show of a lifetime. he speaks your name. “questions are meant to be answered.”
“i-” san picks the perfect time to apply pressure on you, hand gripping the flesh on the lower end of your thigh. goosebumps spring to life at the feeling of his cold ring on your damp skin. it takes a shaky breath to try compose yourself but you do eventually manage to get a reply out. “sorry... please say it again.”
“huh,” he pauses to contemplate, slowly leaning his face closer to your own, giving you all the time to pull back if you want to. you stay still and his minty breath infects your senses while the hand on your leg replaces your thigh with your face, the grip he has on it forcing blunt nails to nip at your skin. normally, you’d worry about the marks it’s going to leave behind. right now, you want him to grip tighter, dig deeper into your flesh till he’s drawing blood and licking it off your cheeks. “how the fuck do you still sound so cute begging?”
“is that,” his other hand curls around the back of you, finding a resting place on your hip. the window of opportunity you once had to pull back or run away is slammed shut the moment he tugs you a little closer, the side of your body crashing into his naked chest. “what you said earlier?”
“oh, no.” san almost sounds like he’s cooing, a mocking tone in his voice that has your thighs clenching in a way you’re sure he notices. his eye flickering down to glance at them confirms your suspicions, the smirk taking over his features the metaphorical cherry on top. “i was just talking about how i’ve still not returned the favour.”
mind blanking out on you, you stare back at him in what you can only imagine to be a dumb-founded look, mouth slightly agape and teasing your answer.
what follows, however, is a resounding silence on your end.
“c’mon, princess, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what happened the last time i got you alone.”
forget? it’s all you’ve been able to think of every time you’ve seen him since, whether he was a figure in the corner of your eye during class or making his way down the campus car-park in search of his beaten up mustang.
each time, like an old record player, your mind plays on loop the way he looked staring down at you, long legs spread enough to fit you between them, closing in on you to trap you in place each time you swallowed him a little deeper; replaying the symphony of whiny moans and airy breaths you’d pulled from him, lips swollen and red from trying too hard to hold back his cries of pleasure; reviving the memory of his vice grip on your hair, tugging at the roots to tilt you back into the perfect angle for his hips to piston into your warm mouth, meeting his own crescendo in one final pathetic whimper of your name.
a whimper that’s pushed you over the edge several times since, fingers soaked in your own sins and mouth biting down on your pillow to keep your poor sleeping roommate oblivious to your actions.
“no,” an answer escapes you alongside a shaky breath, something about the way he’s slowly trailing his fingers down your neck and the intensity he’s staring at you with hypnotising you into forgetting all about the boisterous boys and their changing-rooms chanting. “haven’t forgot.”
it’s his turn to stay quiet and you begin to wonder if he’s recalling it too, if he’s reminding himself of how easily your bodies melted together, like candle-wax meeting a flame. the question of if he’s thought about the exact scene, hands stuffed down his pants while a dull ache builds in his wrist, burns the tip of your tongue.
but his eyes burn you more.
they’re usually wide, bright, full of that bubbly nature san is known all over for. but, if what people say is true and the eyes are the mirror to one’s soul, then san’s soul must be a dark pit made up of lustful glares and hooded eyelids, resting so low his eyes almost appear shut.
“then, don’t you agree that it’s my turn to have a taste?”
it’s the question to end all questions, no time to even think of forming an answer when his fingertips are dancing over your skin so rhythmically, like a practiced choreography when they curl and wrap themselves around your neck. they rest there for a heartbeat, and then another, before you feel it begin.
the pressure is dull, at first, and you think you’re imagining it. but it grows, like a seed under the sun, blossoms into thorns squeezing around your airways, a deformed rose made from the red marks his fingers will be sure to leave behind.
you try to breath in, only for it to get caught somewhere between your lips and his tightening hold.
“you’re too fucking pretty, you know?” the hand on your hip has found a new home on your cheek, palm warm and thumb rough as he swipes it over your bottom lip. “all i can ever think about around you, even when you were drooling all over my balls.”
you want to answer, you really do. but between the hand around your throat and the heat shooting straight for your core, burning up in a puddle of arousal, you can’t. all you can do is watch the man before you, raven hair a beautiful mess just begging for some fingers to be ran through it and stare promising to ruin you in the best way possible.
the silence pleases him.
“y’know, it’s so hard to get you alone. always got someone wanting to talk to you, stealing your attention. do you even know how many stupid parties i had to attend to finally get the chance to talk to you?” san pauses, like he’s waiting for you to relay an answer, guess a number. he loosens up the grip on your neck, teasing your skin with a few soothing strokes of his slender fingers, lulling you into a state bordering insanity. “no answer, angel? or are you lost in that pretty little head again?”
“i’m,” your voice is but a whisper, raspy with your new found thirst. “trying to figure out what you want from me.”
if it’s the wrong or right thing to say, you’re soon to find out, the sharp faced boy releasing a dangerously low chuckle as he takes a hold of your chin. like a pretty doll, you move any time and any way his fingers command you to, finding yourself staring right up into his eyes, a swirl of melting caramel that reminds you of how sweet yet sultry every inch of him is. lips near touching, he refuses to break eye contact as he speaks up once more, sealing both your fates when his breath hits your face.
“then let me show you what i want.”
his mouth comes down on yours like it’s the answers to all your prayers and, yet, all your nightmares.
it excites you how easily he works his lips over your own, captivating every inch of you when he tilts his head to the right and deepens the kiss. the rhythm to his kiss is a mismatch of beats, where one moment your lips are moving in a sensual waltz, grazing tongues and dipping heads to get rid of that inch of a space remaining between your bodies, and the next moment your tongues are tangled in a tango, the kind where his teeth send blood rushing to your lips with every bite he drags over them and his hand drags shivers down your spine as it makes its way down your body.
yet it terrifies you how willingly you succumb to san’s touch, intoxicated by whatever witchcraft he currently holds over you. there’s a deadliness to the way his lips part from your own only to begin a seamless descent down your jaw and the expanse of your neck, a poisonous element to the way his hand once again finds itself clutching the meat of your thigh.
the moment his fingertips meet the bottom of your shorts, you’re wishing you’d never slipped them on in the first place, every fibre of your being growing angsty under the weight of his suddenly halted hand. it stays still for an immeasurable amount of time, grazing over the bottom of your shorts occasionally while he continues to mouth at your neck.
like mosses and the great sea, san parts your legs with little to no effort, creating a pathway for his fingers to travel further up your thigh. blunt fingernails drag up your skin, a trail of goosebumps being left behind, a visible marking of where he’s touching you.
his movements halt too soon for your liking, too much distance between his lithe fingers and your body’s very core.
“have you figured out what i want yet, pretty?” his voice is a stark difference to the usual light-hearted, almost squeak-like tone you’ve grown used to hearing from the smiley boy. right now, there’s no trace of humour in the thick rasp and there’s no time for smiling while he’s glaring down at you through hooded eyes.
something compels you to nod your head, even though you’re a little too lost in the thoughts concerning what you want, rather than what the devil incarnate by your side wants.
“you have?” the words come out in a layer of amazement, and you have to wonder if it’s because of the lie you’ve just told or the way your legs have closed in around his hand, trapping it between them. “i want to know what you want, though.”
you want his thumb to stop stroking over the flesh of your inner thigh.
you want his eyes to stop gazing down at you like you’re the perfect prey.
you want him to stop teetering your impending pleasure on a string.
you want-
“you.” is all you manage to breath out.
it seems to do the trick, however, your point getting very much across to him. a softness flickers over his features, brows unfurling and smirk curling up into a full smile for what feels like an eternity, but is actually no more than a couple of seconds before his devilish aura is back.
lips meet lips again, the desperation and force behind each stroke of his tongue against yours the same as before. san, much to your delight, seems to grow just as impatient as you’ve been since the moment he welcomed himself into the empty space next to you on the bench.
one hand still resting between your thighs, his other seizes the opportunity to drag your body closer, so close that you have no choice but to swing one leg over him and slot yourself in his lap.
there was one time, in the middle of what you’ve deemed to be the most boring lecture ever, that you had thought about what it would feel like to sit in choi san’s lap. unintentionally, of course, for how could anyone look over at him in those grey sweatpants, legs manspreading like it was nobody’s business and pen tapping away at the table in front of him, and not daydream about being perched in his lap, head resting somewhere between his shoulder and his soft hair?
you’d imagined him to be the embodiment of soft and comfortable, warm and reassuring the way he’d lazily lay an arm over your hip to make sure there’s no risk of you slipping out of your new seat. you never, for the life of you, imagined you’d feel the outline of his dick resting against your ass the first time you finally claimed your throne.
choosing to not dwell on the heavy feeling of him pressed against you, you choose instead to focus on the way his lips trail away from yours and make their descent towards the top of your chest.
his hand abandons post between your thighs and rises to the surface, where long fingers begin to pull at the straps of your red swimsuit, successfully manoeuvring the nylon material till it’s bunched around your midriff and your breasts are exposed to the damp air of the swimming hall. 
with no want left to play around, he dives right in to dragging his lips down the upper swell of your left breast. you imagine he can feel the beating of your racing heart beneath the goosebump littered skin. it doesn’t take long for his tongue to enter the scene, skilfully flicking over your hardened nipple a couple times before enveloping his mouth around the bud.
one, two, three sucks and he’s moving on to your right breast. there’s no lead up, this time, simply his mouth finding delight in toying with your body while he busies his hand with your left side, thumb and pointer finger rolling and tugging and spreading the remnants of his saliva over your heated skin.
the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and has you arching your own, is the faintest pressure of his teeth biting down on you. it dances on a thin line between pleasurable and painful, exhilarating enough to make you throw your head back as a moan slips past your lips. it echoes in the empty room, replaying your own sound for both of you to hear again and again before the chain is broken by a giggle.
his giggle.
“why are,” he picks the right time to trail his fingers down your body, dragging your swimsuit with them till it sits uncomfortably tight around the top of your hipbones, skintight fabric digging into the damp skin. “you laughing?”
“has anyone ever told you how pretty your tits are?” it’s crude and heartwarming all at once, quite like the man who says it and the little smile he shoots up in your direction as he rolls his tongue over your nipple once again.
“no, i can’t say they have.” the hands that have been resting on his shoulder, grasping them in a vice grip in fear of slipping off of him and and directly onto the concrete floor, gain enough confidence for you let one slide around to the back of his neck and thread your fingertips in the back of his locks, hair as soft as you’ve always imagined it to be. “you’re the first.”
“i’ll wear that title with honour,” he seems to delight in the way you’re carding through his hair, eyes closing while he tilts his head back further into your touch. a delighted sigh follows. “has anyone ever asked you to sit on their face?”
“again, no.”
“another honourable title for me, i guess.” san’s giving you whiplash, with all this switching between being his usual goofy self and the man that minutes before was speaking profanities on how you’d looked choking on his dick. he peaks his eyes open again, slowly, adjusting to the bright lights he stares up at each time he’s doing the backstroke. when he has the nerves to smile at you, all dreamy eyed and relaxed sitting beneath your body on the bench. “now, can you please stand up and get naked so you can fuck yourself on my tongue?”
this time, it’s your laugh that echoes in the air.
“stop, i’m being serious!” he seems to whine his way through his words, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly in a way you’re certain is going to drive you insane. “i can’t go another second like this, you literally sitting on my dick, without blowing my load. and i really don’t feel like having to explain to coach kwon why my team speedos are stained in cum.”
“you’re so-” you give up on trying to find a single word to describe him, knowing there’s no word that can quite capture choi san’s essence. “okay, okay, fine, but you kind of need to let go of me for me to, y’know, stand up.”
“oh, sorry bout that.” san’s sheepish smile shouldn’t be this cute, not when it’s followed by him removing his hands from your half-naked body.
reluctant, your feet meet the ground and you stand up from his lap. he seems to move quicker than you, no hesitation to be seen as he twists his body around and lays along the bench on his back, eyes all the while watching you expectantly.
your fingers are far from as nimble as his, and there’s a shake to them, meaning you’re a lot less slick with how you pull the swimsuit off yourself. you opt for killing two birds with one stone, dragging your shorts down alongside the red suit, till both are pooled around your feet and you’re begging with every cell in your body that you look more graceful than you feel, stepping out of the leg holes.
in all honesty, you’re more embarrassed with the fact he’d watched you remove your clothes than with how you’re now stood naked, legs a little shaky and the wetness gathering between your folds you’re suddenly so much more aware of, the cool air fighting against your pulsating heat.
“well?” san speaks with expectation, legs bent at the knee while the balls of his feet rest on the edge of the bench. “are you gonna just stand there or you gonna sit on my face?”
“are you... sure you want me to?” even you feel the idiocy behind asking such a thing, when he’s laying right there with eyes full of glee and a raging boner pressed against his hip, nothing but the familiar colours of your college to stop you from seeing him all his naked glory. still, you can’t help elaborating. “i mean, the bench isn’t exactly sturdy and, i mean, what if i slip off of you?”
“y/n, are you joking? you have to be joking!” his offence is playful enough to ease a little of the hesitation inside of you. “do you see these puppies, baby? these are my mad gains from flailing my silly little arms around in a pool six days a week!”
you think this can’t be real as you watch the golden boy of the school put on a show, flexing his arms in an effort to display his muscles and voicing the most ridiculous words that not even he seems to be taking seriously, a bubble of laughter popping in every sentence.
“i’m not gonna let you slip, now hurry up!” again with the whining.
“god, you’re so desperate!”
“for you? always.”
the following minute is made up of wobbled steps and a poor attempt at amping yourself up, repeating mantra after mantra in your head that you are the sex goddess and no man is going to make you feel nervous. not even if that man has a jaw one could slice diamonds with.
he’s got a firm grasp of your thighs before you’ve even got the chance to get comfortable, legs a little shaky as you hover over his naked chest and will your knees to find grip on the bench beneath them.
“come closer, my tongue’s not that long!” san’s pulling you up, closer, all the way to where his wanton mouth awaits you. as if to give you a preview of what awaits you, the kisses from before reduced to nothing, his tongue pops out to run over the smooth of his bottom lip. you repeat the process of trying to find balance, a position in which you don’t need to worry about toppling overboard. though, with the way his finger squeeze into your thigh, you doubt you’ll have to worry about that truly happening. “comfortable?”
“as i’ll ever be.”
“all the people that would die to be in your position, and you say that?” he tsks, tongue hitting off the roof of his mouth before a blow of air hits against your folds and, though it’s faint from the distance still between his mouth and where he wants it to be, it sends a jolt of excitement up your spine. “i’ll just have to make sure i over-perform, make you more eager for next time.”
neither of you choose to dwell on the words next time.
him, too occupied with getting his first taste, tongue licking a strip up your core and coming to a stop as the tip of it bumps against your clit.
you, too busy having the air knocked out of your lungs, hand unconsciously finding safety in gripping his hair as you lurch forward momentarily, mouth falling open in a quiet gasp that echoes around and around.
“hmm, make sure you hold on tight.” you know he’s teasing you, with his words, and with his eyes, and with his mouth that seems to find enjoyment in trailing itself over your clitoral hood and up your pubic bone. “you smell mouthwatering, you know? enough to make a man go feral.”
the chance to reply never comes, not when san makes his way back down to your clit and greets it with the stroke of his flattened tongue. every tiny nerve sparks to life under his touch and you feel yourself grow wetter, a wave of warm arousal leaking out of your hole. his tongue dives down to welcome it, not allowing more than a single drop- landing on his chin- to go to waste.
you don’t even notice the lack of his grip around your left leg until you feel it: the first few seconds of his fingertips probing around your soaked cunt, coating themselves in your liquid pleasure until it’s dripping down the back of his hand.
the first finger to enter your hole is gentle, tentative to the way your body receives him, his pointer and ring finger keeping your folds spread and allowing him the full view of the middle one slowly disappearing from sight, burying itself in the warmth of your pussy. distracted, his mouth pulls back and his head meets the bench again while his eyes soak in the sight above him, flickering up to catch your reaction when another finger enters you, this time with a lot less care as it forces you open around it.
“so pretty,” he mutters the words, more to himself than to you, delighting as he witnesses you struggling to bite back a pathetic moan when his digits curl within you. he repeats the action a couple times, flicking his wrist back and forth, fingers brushing over your tight walls each time and culminating in a curl that has him pressing against the spongy-like flesh inside. “so, so pretty.”
your hips begin to rut against his hand, meeting every one of his thrusts with perfect timing that has him reaching deeper, further, better places inside of you. all the while he’s just watching and admiring the furrow in your brow and the way the swells of your breast bounce in sync with you.
your pussy clenches tighter and his fingers fight to reach deeper before spreading themselves wider in an attempt to scissor you open. he’s giving it his all, a third finger slipping in despite the dull ache setting in his wrist while he coaxes you closer and closer to the tipping point.
san takes just as easy as he gives, and it’s that fact alone that drives him to pull his hand back, fingers withdrawing from you and the pleasure you’re pursuing.
“why’d you-” you heave through heavy breaths, brain fuzzy from the unvoiced orgasm you were so close to having, every nerve ready to tingle, every muscle ready to tremble, every toe ready to curl. “stop?”
“because,” the wet smack of his fingers hitting against your clit is louder than the whimper that drops from your mouth. san hears both, however, and grins, quickly landing another smack against your engorged clit. “the goal is to make you cum on my face, not my fingers. consider them the appetiser, something to awaken your senses.”
his tongue licks in an upward motion, starting from the tip of your taint and ending at your clit, and you get deja-vu to just minutes before, when you’d first felt his tongue on your melting skin, the saliva it leaves in a trail behind it serving to cool you down. a shiver runs up your spine as he blows air onto your cunt, the pressure of it doing wonders to stimulate your clit.
“would you stop?”
“look who’s whining now.” san, despite what he says, does as you ask and puts an end what feels like unending teasing- really, it’s hardly been a minute but the pulsing of your heat and the loss of a climax leave you no room to think about something as abstract as time.
his lips make a victorious return, wrapping themselves around your clit and sucking against the pulsing nub. every so often, he delivers a couple kitten licks- ups and downs, sides to sides, figure eights- before swiftly returning to kissing your most intimate parts.
in an attempt to make your toes curl, he dips lower and teases the tips of his tongue over your entrance, wet muscle moving over wet skin and tastebuds covering themselves in your essence, till the moans echoing off the walls are indistinguishable between san’s and your own.
“you can move,” he grunts into you after a few minutes of repeated alternating between kissing your clit and tonguing at your hole. it’s muffled with the way he’s holding you down against his face and you feel his lips brush against your lower ones as he speaks. “need you to move. wanna see you use me, pretty.”
and, who are you to deny the man?
you’re hesitant at first, just like you were all those weeks ago as you sank to your knees for him. you test the waters and give a single roll of your hips. it feels good, great, especially when paired with his own efforts at dragging his tongue over you.
it takes a few more attempts, and san’s patience wearing thin to the point he resorts to grabbing a firm hold of your arse cheeks and planting you flat on his mouth, tongue flat and eyes staring up at you in a demand to move, goddamn it. 
move you most certainly do, grinding down on his tongue like you’ve done many a time with different men’s cocks. it’s messy, sloppy in the way that his spit mingles with your wetness, a cocktail of fluids sliding down his throat, and painting his lips, and dribbling down his chin as he eats you like a man starved that’s alas getting a taste of the sweetest fruit.
the rhythm of your hips is thrown off when the man beneath you switches from having you grinding down onto his flattened tongue to slipping the muscle inside of your hole, thrusting it as far as up as the length of it allows him to. with every time your body comes crashing down on his mouth, the tip of his nose bumps against your clit, forcing you to angle yourself upwards to gain more of the friction.
hands find hair, lips part in unabashed moans, thighs shake with the oncoming of an orgasmic state of mind.
the moment builds too quickly, too unexpectedly, like the ghost of your stolen climax is back with a vengeance and set on ensuring there will be no denying it this time.
“s-shit,” your eyes squeeze shut, too scared to look down at his ecstasy filled eyes in fear of it being what finally tips you over the edge. “i’m gonna- ah- gonna cum.”
san pays no mind to your warning. if anything, he takes it as a challenge, an invisible timer beginning in his head and forcing him to see how quickly he can get you to unravel all over his face. he’s getting everything he asked for, your naked body a mess above him as you fuck yourself on his tongue and your hands, with minds of their own, sliding up to grab and squeeze at your tits.
he watches how the pastel blue nail polish clashes with the darkened colour of your abused nipples, fingers working to pinch, and twist, and pull at them as you lose yourself in the moment.
when you cum, it’s with rolled-back eyes and shaky thighs, his hands gripping at you tighter to steady you as you sway above him, his tongue working at coaxing you through your high.
he licks up every drop of cum he can manage, until you’re cringing in overstimulation and reaching down to push him away. he let’s you move him, mouth moving to trail a couple kisses over your inner thigh, something akin to lipstick stains- yet so much dirtier in nature- being left behind on your soft flesh.
“told you i wouldn’t let you fall,” he’s the first to speak, partly because he correctly thinks you’re incapable of forming anything coherent in the afterglow of your orgasm, but mostly because he wants- no, needs to hear you praise him.
needs to hear you praise him like he’d done for you that night, eyes still hooded and chest visibly heaving as he finished processing watching you swallow every spurt of hot cum he’d shot down your throat. the praise never comes.
well, at least not from you.
at first he thinks he’s imagining the sound of clapping. it’s slow, and booming, and tinted with the slightest hint of sarcasm. it grows louder though, far too loud for it to just be in his imagination. the stilling of your body, going rigid as you fall back onto his chest, the sticky remnants of your orgasm cold against his heated skin, confirms that you hear the clapping too.
“bravo, choi. always thought your reputation with the ladies was a little overhyped, but i stand corrected.”
never has he hated the sight of park seonghwa so much, not even in the times they’ve been head-to-head in the final lap and the older male’s offensively bright swim-cap is all san can see every time he twists his head to catch a breath of air.
the three swimmers stand on the opposite end of the swimming pool, all in various stages of undress.
there’s wooyoung, who looks like he’s not so much as dried himself with a towel, still dressed in his team swimwear. and yunho, who’s got a towel wrapped around his waist messily, hair damp against his forehead and likely smelling of the cheap shampoo provided in the locker-room showers. lastly, seonghwa, who’s seemingly fully dressed spar for one of those irritating long coats san always sees him trailing around campus in.
one look into your panicked eyes is enough for san to spring into action, fumbling to sit himself up and pull your body flush against his, facing your naked back in the direction of his rivals.
he bites back a groan as you shift in his lap, unknowingly- or maybe you do know- pressing your soaked centre against his erection, which already strains inside the confines of the nylon material, leaving very little to the imagination.
“do you mind?” he’s glad the words come out clearly, booming across the pool at them and their unwavering staring.
“not at all.”
san holds you tighter against him, eyeing at your discarded swimsuit on the floor as he listens to a shuffle of footsteps. assuming the three men have made their way back into the locker-room, he’s speechless when he looks up to find them approaching the bench, seonghwa leading the trio with a secure grip on the back of wooyoung’s neck, whose eyes can’t seem to leave the floor, while yunho trails a little behind them, one hand grasping onto the towel around him.
“get your hands off her!” he leans back, pulling you with him, in an attempt to stray out of seonghwa’s reach as he extends his hand out. he fails, however, and the tips of seonghwa’s elongated fingers brush over your shoulder.
a shiver runs down you, one that san feels, the unexpected touch tickling your nerves.
“she’s a grown up,” the eldest of the men muses as he builds a rhythm out of how his fingers soother over your sweat slicked skin. “who i’m sure can speak for herself if she wants my hands off her.”
out of all the men, seonghwa has always been the one san despised most. between the constant boasting of wealth- money he acquired through labor, though not the working kind- and the disrespect he’s never had a problem showing towards others, he never fails to strike a nerve, awakening a dark part of san’s brain that activates his fight or flight response. by far, however, his arrogance is the worst, that sense of entitlement that drives him to think everything and everyone is a piece of clay for him to mold and manipulate till they fit his ideal shape.
the rich boy’s hand smoothes over your naked shoulder and san can’t resist glaring up at him.
“c’mon san, now’s hardly the time to be modest,” behind the oldest swimmer, yunho and wooyoung seem to be battling an inner conflict, yunho fighting to keep his towel in place and wooyoung fighting to keep the shame off his face while his dick visibly strains against the confines of his chlorine-covered swimwear. “not after the show you two just put on.”
“we didn’t,” it’s the first time you manage to speak since covering san’s tongue in your cum, breathing at last steady and face hidden from everyone’s view, much to san’s despair. “know you were watching.”
“and, if you had known, would you have stopped?” yunho is the one asking the question and, suddenly, san’s so much more aware of what exactly he’s hiding underneath his towel.
you give no answer.
“of course she wouldn’t,” seonghwa answers for you, hand moving to grasp the back of your neck. with no warning, he grips a little too tight for comfort and and yanks you backwards, till you’re staring right into san’s eyes and the only thing keeping you perched in his lap is seonghwa’s body pressed flat against yours. “there’s nothing a whore loves more than an audience, right?”
if put on trial in a court of law and sworn to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, over whether or not you’d just clenched around nothing at park seonghwa’s degrading name, you’d plead that you never did such a thing.
you’d be found guilty.
“poor woo nearly came untouched just watching you two. isn’t that right?” the eldest turns to stare back at where you imagine wooyoung to be. “pretty boy nearly whined just at the thought of being in san’s position, a mouth full of cunt and someone using him like the fuck-toy he is.”
the air grows thick, between you, and san, and every other living being in the room. it feels like the walls are closing in on themselves with every second that passes, the sweat dripping down your back and coming to a rest between your arse cheeks evidence that the space is heating up. or maybe it’s just your body, hardly processing the high it’s just come down from and there’s already another source for a new-found arousal, a source in the shape of three muscular men stood behind you and one beneath you, eyes wary as he gazes into your own, like he wants to ask if you’re okay but all the blood is too busy circulating in his crotch for his brain to be productive.
“now, i hardly think it’s very nice of you to get our wooyoung all riled up and not even offer to help him out.” you decide you’re being lulled into a false sense of safety the second you feel the pressure of seonghwa’s hand leave your skin. behind you, there’s a shuffling of footsteps that call you to crane your neck and catch a glimpse of what exactly is going on but san’s eyes beg you to keep staring into his, to count the galaxies that dance within them while he grips at your waist. “so the chance to offer is off the table and you’re simply going to do as told. doesn’t that sound easier, hmm? no having to make pesky decisions, just spread those legs and follow orders.”
at last, you get your first glimpse at jung wooyoung.
he sits down on the bench, no more than a breath of space between where you and san are perched. he’s a vision in himself, shoulders hunched and embarrassed face the same shade of red as the tip of his cock, an angry looking bulbous head poking out the top of far-too-tight speedos.
san’s grip tightens the longer you stare at the other boy, gaze dancing over the shape of his body and mouth-watering as, for the first time, you see the appeal of jung wooyoung. never before have you understood why eyes follow him in the hallways, like he’s more than just another pretty boy on campus- something that’s in abundance. but you see it now, understand the appeal of his stand-out nose; and the veins that run down his arms; and floppy style to his hair, that seems to be calling out to have your fingers running through it. 
with no prior warning, the grip on your hips tightens even more, till san is digging crescents into the soft skin and he’s lifting you, off of his lap and right into wooyoung’s.
the usually boisterous boy’s eyes meet yours, no longer filled with that spark of defiance and, instead, glazed over in tears, a quiet pleading being exchanged between you.
only, you’re unsure what he’s begging of you.
“are you going to just sit there,” seonghwa speaks up, boredom in his tone that has you picturing him rolling his eyes and picking at his manicured nails. “or are you going to help the poor pup cum?”
“what?!” that certainly helps you find your voice, and the guts to turn around and look at the man.
you find him stood closer than you imagined, with tailored trousers hugging his thighs and a perfectly ironed shirt tucked into them, the last few messy buttons the only indication he’d rushed to dress himself. eyes looking past him, you find more of a friendly aura in yunho, who, despite fighting a battle against the towel wrapped around his figure, manages to shoot a smile at you.
and then there’s san, who stands with muscled arms crossed over his chest and a painfully obvious boner resting in the confines of his swimwear, though he’s done a better job at keeping himself concealed than the boy beneath you. his face appears indifferent, yet the twitch in his eye speaks of a tamed anger, a frustration he’s yet to unleash on the men who’d interrupted him amidst his feast.
“are you now deaf along with being dumb or something?” the eldest pulls your attention back to him with little effort, a smirk meeting the glare you shoot his way. “you made that brat hard, now do your job and fix the mess you’ve made.”
words of protest get lost in a surprised gasp as the boy in question takes your hand in his, veiny hand guiding you down to a veiny shaft. wooyoung wraps both of your fingers over his leaking cock, his holding yours in place around him while he ruts his hips up once, twice into your hold, the action sending his swimwear even further down the his length and exposing nearly the full sight of it to the swimming hall.
you don’t mean to compare, yet you’re incapable of ignoring the fact that while wooyoung may be on the slightly shorter side compared to san, he’s certainly leading in the thickness department, with a mushroomed head and the prettiest trail of trimmed hairs leading down his pelvis.
he guides you over his shaft a number of times, a little less shy now as he outwardly whines when your thumb runs over his tip, wiping away the fat bead of precum resting upon it. at some point, he moves his hand away, needing both of his free to lean back on the bench, yet yours keeps moving at it’s own volition, stroking him in a pattern of threes, interrupting every trio with a swipe over his tip or a fondle of his still-concealed balls.
“please,” the whine in his voice is so unlike the jung wooyoung you’ve watched week after week, hurling abuse and echoing boasts of his own talents while keeping himself afloat in the swimming pool.
“he asked nicely.” you’d just about forgotten about everyone else in the room, until seonghwa’s irritatingly unbothered voice serves to remind you of his presence. “rule number one: good behaviour is rewarded.”
“what do i,” you interrupt your own question to glance over wooyoung once more. “do?” you pinch your thigh, skin stinging as nails bite it, and confirm with yourself that this is not a dream but, in fact, very much real.
jung wooyoung is hard and begging you to do something.
“i don’t care how you do it, just put one of your holes to good use for once and make him cum.”
there’s still an echo of seonghwa’s voice by the time you successfully manage to rid wooyoung of his swimwear, the damp fabric clinging to the warm skin and the taut muscles of his thighs. the boy isn’t much help either, seemingly reduced to nothing but a writhing, panting mess instead of someone competent enough to raise himself off the bench just enough for you to undress him.
the sight is mesmerising, one you’re certain will remain ingrained in your memory till the day you die: wooyoung, disheveled and untouched, with his achingly hard cock pressed flat against his lower stomach, his swimmer-thighs spread with a set of balls between them that you find yourself near salivating over as a trickle of his own precum runs down them.
“your cock’s...” you begin to speak, yet trail off as your digits wrap themselves around his shaft, just to delight in the way his breath jumps when you drag your hand upwards and give a soft squeeze as you reach the head. “so pretty, woo.”
“youngie.” seonghwa cuts in from behind you. “he prefers to be called youngie when he’s getting his cock teased.”
“yeah, youngie?” you try it out.
instantly, he nods and something akin to a whimper flies out of him.
fascinated by his shaky breaths and his pretty chest, where warm, tanned skin appears to be near glowing under the swimming halls bright lights as his cheeks flush a palette full of reds and pinks, your eyes are completely fixed on him. there’s something vulnerable and breakable about the way he’s looking at your with the widest of eyes, his eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip receiving countless abuse from his teeth.
never have you been so desperate to push someone past their own limits.
officially running on nothing but pure instincts, you close your mind off to thoughts, like how the boy you’d spent weeks avoiding and missing is stood only metres away, witnessing the way the tip of your finger teases over the slit of his sport rival’s cock. or like how park seonghwa, perhaps the campus’ most infamous trust-fund baby, seems to have complete control of the situation at hand, yourself and jung wooyoung nothing but idolised dolls he’s moving into whatever obscene position he wants you in.
instead, you focus on how wooyoung’s eyes roll back and he lets out a gasp when you gather up fluids from within your salivating mouth and part your own lips, watching how your own spit drips onto his lower stomach, and your hand, and his painfully hard cock.
the saliva serves not only as a visual pleasure, something that’s awakening inside of you at the sight of it leaving you with whole new kind of excitement bubbling along your body, but as a physical pleasure for wooyoung, who seems to have no protest to how much easier it is to slide your hand up his length with the added lubrication of your own spit. 
“fuck...” he curses under his breath and his hands find purchase on your body, one gripping your hip while the other grabs at your forehand, like he’s scared you’ll release the grip you have on him and strip away the sweet release of friction. “don’t just focus on the tip- shit, ah- play with my balls too.”
“wooyoung!” ready to oblige, ready to give the pretty faced boy anything he demanded of you, you’ve no time to think of a reply before the ringmaster of this circus reminds you of his overlooking presence behind your back. “stop speaking like an ungrateful brat and take what you’re given. or else... well, i’m sure you don’t need reminding of what happens to pups that misbehave.”
the way jung wooyoung’s whole body grows rigid beneath you, paired with the countless times park seonghwa has butted in to speak on the boy’s sexual preferences, leaves you with the sense that the two are not only acquainted with how each other’s bodies move underwater..
“s-sorry,” this is not the voice of boastful jung wooyoung, who near bounces down the college halls and airdrops nudes in class because he’s bored. this is a voice that’s soft and meek. like a beady-eyed puppy, so quick to submit to it’s owner. “just feels too good. i’m sorry”
“yeah, you will be sorry.” seonghwa’s hand is cold against your back and it lulls a shiver out of you as fingers trickle down your spine like water off a duck’s wings. part of you hates him for stealing wooyoung’s attention off of you just as you were beginning to revel in it, a larger part of you wants to know why the sternness in his voice is enough to have your clit aching to be touched. “spitfire, be a good cocksleave and sit on his dick.”
“ok, stop!” a sense of shame comes over you when it takes hearing san’s outburst to remember the fact he’s watching the scene unfold. “don’t you think you’re taking this too far now, park seonghwa? i know you and wooyoung have your... agreement on how you treat each other, but don’t drag someone else into it. not when she never even asked for this.”
“you had your tongue tasting the eighth wonder of the world on that bench twenty minutes ago, both of you knowing there was a chance you’d be caught, and you want to tell me no one was asking for this?”
“that was private! you guys are the ones who-”
“there’s no such thing as privacy in a public area. besides, it’s hardly like she’s not enjoying this. if anything, i think spitfire doesn’t like the way you’re getting in the way of her teaching youngie a lesson in obedience.” you’re naive to think no one would notice the way you’ve began to grind down on wooyoung’s cock, stealing whimpers out of him as the soaked lips of your pussy rubbed up against him and holding back your own moans each time his tip meets the bundle of nerves that make up your clit. “choi, if you’re that much of a pissy pants that can’t enjoy himself even just this once in life, then feel free to leave. i’m sure the four of us will be too occupied to notice your absence.”
you’re not paying close enough attention to figure out if san’s newfound silence is due to his departure, or if he’s simply too stunned to speak, your eyes focused on nothing and no one but the boy at your mercy.
the initial burn of wooyoung breaching your entry reminds you of how long it’s been since you’d been stretched open by something other than someone’s cold fingers or wagging tongue. it’s been more or less three long months of juggling test after test, assignments piling up on your desktop and a relationship with your now ex-boyfriend being tossed completely into the gutter.
not once had you thought your return to the world of sexual bliss would be in front of an audience, much less at the very place you work.
doubting that it’s been as long for him as it has for you, wooyoung still spares nothing when it comes to reacting to your touch. with eyes squeezing shut, head rolling back, abdomen muscles flexing along side every shaken intake of breath, the boy puts on a show so pornographic it puts the professionals to shame. a whine exits his lips, lips that carry marks of his own teeth and look like they’re in need of a healthy dose of chapstick, and look so disgustingly kissable that your own tingle at the thought.
all those rumours of jung wooyoung being a camboy rush to the forefront of your mind, feeling truer than ever when your eyes take in the bob of his adam’s apple, and the perfectly timed run of his tongue over his lower lip, and the pretty way in which the prominent veins in his hands looks as he clamps his grip down on your hips.
he’s a sight worth paying for. 
“are you okay?” not the first thing you’d imagined saying after sinking all the way down on his cock, the need to check up on him taking over before you’d even noticed it’s existence.
“yeah...” he sighs his way through the word, eyes still closed and grip still very much tight on your skin, blunt fingertips likely leaving crescent moons you’ll find yourself staring at for days to come, memories of this moment replaying in a rose-tinted haze. “just need a second, you- you feel good, fuck me.”
“i’m kinda already doing that, youngie.” you giggle, like a lovesick adolescent speaking to their crush of the week, but the boy’s instant smile upon hearing it puts out the fire of shame building in the pit of your stomach.
“hmm,” he hums back, acknowledging your words without giving you the satisfaction of hearing him tell you how you’re correct. “are you okay?”
wooyoung flips the question on you and it parallels with the way he pulls the rains in physically, lithe hips thrusting upwards in search of feeling more, reaching deeper inside of you. in the back of your mind you already picture a look of displeasure on park seonghwa’s face, scowling lips loading up to berate you and demand you take repossession of jung wooyoung’s sanity.
“yeah, i’m-” with the eldest man in mind, you stop and compose yourself, as well as you can while wooyoung’s mouthing at your neck, your collarbones, the tops of your breasts. “i’m wondering who told you you were allowed to touch me?”
control is easily regained, all it takes is your hand squeezing around jung wooyoung’s throat and your soaked walls clenching around his aching cock and he’s melting like ice cream on a warm summer’s day, leaving behind a sticky mess.
satisfaction and pleasure come crashing in tandem, wave after wave moving in motion with each lethargic roll of your body against the swimmer’s, who seems to be a quicker learner than you’d believed him to be, hands flying off your body like it was made up of hot stones and, instead, now holding a firm and grounding grip of the bench beneath you both.
“harder.” you feel a hint of emotion within park seonghwa’s voice this time he speaks. it’s fleeting, and hard to make out quite what feeling it is he’s experiencing, but it’s there and it’s certainly a step up from the usual shameless, egotistical, megalomaniac tone he takes on. “squeeze his throat tighter.”
under the possession of his commanding tone, you find yourself caving into his command, fingers pressing a little harder into wooyoung’s warm skin. the boy gulps down whatever pride he has and delivers a pleasured whine. you grind down harder and an evil, twisted part of you you’ve never met before longs to laugh at the way he so desperately is struggling to keep his composure, fighting back the urge to meet your hips with his own upward thrusts.
so, you do. 
“hear that, youngie?” seonghwa’s voice becomes less grating each time you hear it, once an unwelcome and intrusive thought but now a second voice and a valued player in a game of wreck the wooyoung. “you’re being laughed at. isn’t that just pathetic?”
“y-yes, fuck-” he falls victim to your walls clenching around him, gripping his cock in a vice grip. the image of confidence withers away so easily to reveal a teary-eyed, pretty-faced, cum-desperate man. “i’m pathetic.”
“yeah, you are.” seonghwa circles his way around the rocking bench, no longer out of view hidden behind your back but, instead, staring you down with piercing eyes that cut through you like a knife to hot butter. “he’s getting close. never lasts long, really, even seen him cum untouched just from giving me head. but that’s okay, isn’t it youngie? you’re a slut for having your sack drained, huh?”
the swimmer beneath you has never looked redder than he does right now, secrets of his sexual nature getting exposed to the people he likely considers his biggest athletic competition. though you probably should, you don’t push him away when his face finds safety in the crook of your neck, parted lips covering your burning skin in sticky drool.
“don’t let him fool you guys, he’s into the degrading nature of it all. trust me.” you wonder if it should concern you the way seonghwa speaks about jung wooyoung as though he’s nothing but a pet, a possession of which he just so happens to have complete control over. you’re more concerned with the fact it excites you. “call him a good boy, i dare you.”
the words haven’t even formed in your throat and the boy between your thighs is gripping onto your waist a little tighter, lips near pouting and eyes screwed shut in uncontrollable pleasure, burning down his spine and threatening to push him over the edge of sexual bliss.
you consider having mercy, the inexperienced side of you thinking the boy looks like he’s full of shame and embarrassment. the throbbing of his rock hard cock repeatedly stuffing your aching cunt reminds you he’s getting off on the humiliation.
“is he a good boy, though?” you stare up at park seonghwa, not even sparing a whimpering wooyoung any attention as he begins a rambled protest to defend his good behaviour. “i mean, i don’t remember telling him he could touch me. do you, hwa?”
the hands that grip you tightly let go quick, like your skin were an unexpectedly warm stove, scorching his skin right off him.
“i don’t remember either,” the eldest’s agreement has you reeling in a way you never expected, filling you with a new found sense of control.
a control that is ripped away far too quickly, like park seonghwa sensed you growing falsely confident over the situation at hand.
like a shark circling it’s prey, the tall man makes his way back around the bench, each fall of his shoe-covered feet echoing in the quiet swim hall. click, click, click, and he’s right at your back, not a word uttered as the soft of his palm lands on the nape of your neck. achingly slow does it travel down the expanse of your back, not a single noise filling the space other than the rise and fall of your body on top of wooyoung’s and the same boy’s poorly contained moans and mewls of pleasure.
the silence is interrupted by your own shocked gasp, mouth falling agape in shock as your movements come to a complete halt. his hands, no longer soft and delicate, grip you in an iron-tight hold, fingers greedy as they dig into your meaty flesh with no mercy or regard for the pain it may inflict on you.
“no, get up,” like a switch was flipped in as little as a minute, park seonghwa’s voice has lost all sense of the excitement it had whilst he spoke on jung wooyoung’s dirty endeavours and has returned back to the cold, callous, commanding tone it had originally.
he sounds angry, feels angry in the way the fingers of his free hand tangle themselves in the hair at the back of your head and give a harsh tug, forcing your head back till you’re met with his scowling face and perfectly groomed hair, even in it’s dampened state it seems to frame his face perfectly.
“what?” you babble out, dumbstruck, much like the desperate boy beneath you who’s began to mutter apology after apology between pleadings of please no don’t do this and i promise i’ll behave, i’ll keep my hands to myself.
none of it works.
“you heard me. get. up.” the fingers on your waist tug, pull, drag you away from the quivering mess that has become of jung wooyoung, who near sobs as the cool air hits his now painfully hard cock, tip redder than the bottom of your favourite heels and a vein more prominent under his sensitive skin than the ones on his muscular arms. you’re not given much of a chance to process what’s happening before seonghwa speaks again. “wooyoung, up, now. you’re not getting to cum, so get off the bench and make room for someone else.”
the boy makes no further attempt to protest, cheeks painted pink in shame and chest shining with sweat as he shakily rises to his feet, head hung low when you watch him walk out of your line of sight.
then, your knees meet the floor.
park seonghwa chuckles as you go down, hands finding grip in your hair and forcing you to sit up right. heart beating faster, your mind begins to race with questions of what comes next, who comes next.
what dirty desires are about to be unveiled within you, forced into the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the swimming hall?
“jeong, you’re up,” seonghwa’s knee digs into your back and his fingers tug until your scalp begins to sting a little. you don’t want to like it but, in life, you don’t always get what you want.
there’s a series of shuffles behind you, followed by heavy footsteps. there’s no rush, yet no hesitation, just calm and collected footsteps of someone making their way over to do god knows what with you.
when jeong yunho, with his towel that’s looking a lot tighter around his crotch still around his waist, steps into frame, an inexplicable sense of comfort washes over you.
maybe it’s the way he smiles down at you, or the fact his hands brush seonghwa’s off of you, or the way his fingers take a hold of your chin once he’s seated in front of you.
maybe it’s just the fact he’s jeong yunho, campus himbo with a reputation for walking girls home at night just to make sure they’re safe and for singing britney spears with no shame each time the karaoke mic gets passed around.
whatever it is, it’s turning you on.
your knees are burning with fresh pain as park seonghwa shoves you closer to the mammoth of a man and you can’t help but swallow down the ball of anxiety growing in your throat.
everything about jeong yunho’s demeanour has always seemed large, with powerful arms that drag his body through the weight of water and large hands that effortlessly carry countless textbooks through the university halls; a tall frame that helps him stand out in any crowd and a personality loud enough to set off alarms; his thighs a muscular stairway leading up to a well rounded, remarkably defined posterior. it’s safe to say he’s carried a reputation for some time, one that consists of whispers between girls on campus who recount just how well endowed he really is. 7 inches, 9 inches, 12 inches, you’ve heard it all, each girl claiming it to be bigger than the last.
unfortunately, there’s no ruler at your disposal to uncover the truth of the rumours, but you confirm he’s certainly large as you watch him undo the towel. larger than you’ve ever seen before, with a thickness to match, and two heavy looking balls decorating the base.
he wraps a hand around it and you watch how he gives a light squeeze at the head, slowly sliding down the length of it till he reaches the tuft of groomed hairs on his pelvic bone. one of his hands alone holds half of his cock, leaving you almost certain you’d need to use both hands on him.
“d’you want it, sweetheart?” his words are teasing but his voice is soft, a complete one-eighty to the verbal berating you’ve been receiving- and enjoying- from park seonghwa.
you’re sure he notices the way you clench your thighs as he slaps his cock once, then twice against his stomach, the precum leaking out on to his tanned skinned.
there’s an itch inside your throat, one you imagine only he can scratch.
“you wanna taste it?” he’s still speaking to you through the arousal that fogs over your brain, commanding your tongue to swipe over your bottom lip as you burn your gaze at the glistening liquid on his warm skin, tastebuds aching to have him paint them in white.
you nod your head.
his own throws itself back, a chuckle rupturing out of his chest as he continues to tease himself with his hand.
“fuck, yeah, bet you can’t wait to taste my cock, feel it stab the back of your tight throat.” a smile should never look so sweet while it’s part of the same mouth spewing out such filth. somehow, jeong yunho makes it work. “gonna get it nice and wet for me, yeah? make it sloppy, i love it when a pretty thing like you gets all messy over my cock.”
the knee that’s suddenly digging it’s way into your back has no mercy. you wince, pull in a sharp breath and inch just that little bit closer to the bench. like a glove fits a hand, you slip right in between the muscled tree trunks that make up jeong yunho’s thighs. 
you wonder, if only momentarily, what sweet a death it would be to be crushed between them, taut muscles constricting the flow of air to your lungs like a boa with its prey.
but there’s a far more preferable way to be choked by the man before you, body carved out in such definition you fear michael angelo himself stands in admiration of it.
his hand snakes its way around your body, warm and heavy and imposing with the grip it settles for at the base of your neck. in spite of the sharp stab coming from behind- where you have no doubt one park seonghwa stands with disgruntled impatience written all over his irritatingly perfect face- there is no doubt in your mind that the man in front of you holds the reigns. with eyes of honey and lips of velvet, he peers down at you with a tendered expression, saying nothing yet everything with the gentle, repeated sooth of his thumb over your skin.
you need no verbal instructions this time around.
a hand grips the base of him as the other squeezes the flesh of your own thigh, piercing your skin with just enough pressure to assure you this is the reality you find yourself in, rather than some twisted, substance influenced dream.
the first taste is the sweetest, tongue a missionary sent into the foreign land of his body to discover the way he reacts as you drag it over the tip. he gives nothing but a squeeze to the back of your neck; and that crumbles you under his control.
with a few more kitten licks- for good luck, if anything,- the show begins with the parting of your lips, the widening of your mouth, the burning of your skin as you struggle with your ability to swallow him whole. you make it no further than a third of his length before he’s tugging gently on your roots and bringing you back to the surface of existence.
“breathe, okay,” his voice is gentle, calming your nerves yet sending your heart into a fit of patternless beats. “inhale, exhale, got it? through the nose, that’s gonna help you relax.”
doing as he says, you swallow three whole breaths. shaky, ragged, each feeling hollow in your chest in comparison to the weight of his cock on your tongue.
“pretty girl,” he practically coos, hand cupping your chin as his thumb smoothes over the swell of your bottom lip. it’s tender, sweet, and almost enough to make you forget the sight of his engorged cock that sits angrily between his tree-trunk shaped thighs, crying out for the return of your mouth’s affection. “someone’s gotta teach you to not be greedy, hmm? small little mouth of yours is no fit for me, don’t go choking on it.”
heat flashes between your thighs, your heartbeat dropping right down to your clit and leaving you with a burning ache, the kind only a gentleman like this could soothe. your fingers may have to do, however, if the stubborn arsehole behind you would be so kind as to let you enjoy yourself.
the way park seonghwa curls his hand round the front of your neck and flexes his nimble fingers- that goddamn family heirloom ring a punishing cold to your warm skin, near brandishing you as touched by some nepotism child- when you do so little as clench your thighs together to relieve the pressure, or lack-there-of, between your thighs tells you he’ll grant you no such fun.
“you’d need to have something big enough for her to choke on,” san, precious san. still here, still somewhere beneath this god-forsaken tin-can roof swimming pool, watching you bruise your knees and your ego for another man, another one of his team-mates. what must he think of you? has he lost whatever respect he may have had? does he think he’d been just another body to exchange fluids with, that night at the party? if you could just see his face, you’d not need to wonder all these things. his eyes, they always give him away, too earnest and pure for his own good.
“shut it, choi,” yunho’s bark isn’t half as loud as seonghwa’s booming commands have been, and are nowhere near as malignant. if anything, the gentle giant is humoured by his team-mate’s words, as if he knows they’re a preposterous thing to say about him. then again, you can’t imagine any man remaining humble about themselves if they were so well-endowed. “or do you wanna crack out the measuring tape again and remind yourself of just how much of me there is to choke on?”
silence.
it takes a few moments for the spotlight to return to you, a gradual shift from playful to lust driven energy encapsulating the broad frame of the man before. he cups your cheek, feather-light touch smoothing over your skin while his eyes burrow daggers into your soul.
why must his shoulders be so wide? it almost angers you as much as it sends a wave of heat between your legs.
almost, but not quite.
“‘s cute,” he half mumbles, distracted by the sight you paint below him on your knees, bruises already forming and thighs clenching for some relief of pressure. “your little pussy’s all wet just from having my cock in your mouth.”
“i think you’re forgetting she was bouncing on woo’s dick a few minutes ago, yunho,” the devil on your shoulder won’t let you rest, hand snaking through the threads of your hair and tugging on your roots. not enough to hurt, just enough to sting. “have some modesty.”
“sure, let’s act like i’m not the one who had her cumming all over my face a while ago.” san mumbles a string of words you wish you could unhear, face heating up as the shame burns through your bloodstream.
how had you gotten here?
you’re allowed no such freedom to ponder over previous actions as jeong yunho’s all encompassing frame works to remind you of where you find yourself: on your knees dressed in nothing but your own shame- shame which seems to slip off of you, piece by piece, baring you shamelessly to this pack of wolf-eyed boys’ for their eyes to feast upon.
strong, veiny hands reach out and drag you forwards, just an inch yet it’s all you need to feel the weight of park seonghwa’s domineering figure float off of you, rendering you under the control of this much larger, far smilier looking man. “eyes on me, okay? don’t wanna miss the way i’m about to make them roll back.”
there begins a game of push and pull, where jeong yunho pushes you closer and closer to his evident arousal, all the while teasing you as he pulls his hips back, keeping your waiting mouth open and empty, and oh-so frustrated at the feeling of being so close yet so far away from his dripping tip.
the first real taste you get of him does, in fact, nearly have your eyes rolling back. a kitten lick, barely there yet fully felt, running over the underside of his cock, a taste of salted skin, and musky sweat, and stale chlorine mixing in with the warmth of him flooding your senses. his reaction is no more composed than yours, blatantly parting his lips in a gasp and bucking his hips up, forwards, any direction they need follow to chase after your mouth.
happy to comply, you take pride in tasting him a second time, this time right over the growing drop of pre-cum pebbling on his tip. white flashes behind your closing eyes as his grip in your hair tightens, a pulse of heat firing straight down your spine as your mind floods with images of what it must be like to watch this man, this gentleman, this figure that so wholly encompasses what it means to be a himbo in this day and age lose his cool and revolt into his most carnal, basal instincts to take whatever pleasure he needs from you with a reckless abandon, burrow his throbbing cock down your throat till the beat of his heart takes over your own.
instead, you settle for wrapping your lips around him, at last, and letting him guide you just that little bit down his length. the weight of him feels nice, a strange sense of comfort birthing in your bones as you grow used to feel of him taking up your palate. his breaths seem to run in tandem with the inches he sinks deep between your parted lips.
a deep breath, he lowers you further, till your left cheek begins to bulge out.
tongue pinned to the floor of your mouth, you make use of it as best you can, rolling it over the bottom of his shaft and earning yourself a plethora of gratifying sounds, each deep and desperate and crooning straight out of jeong yunho’s broad chest. 
another deep breath, another inch.
for all the false dominance you wield over the situation, with the heat of your mouth and spill of your own saliva slickening his cock, his real and visceral dominance doubles it by tenfold, with a hand on the back of your neck, guiding your every move, and a knowing, gentle look cast downwards at you from where he sits propped on the bench, thighs a heavy mass to case your body between. a silly little voice in your head whispers a seductive tale of how easily this man could get you in a headlock and suffocate your fragile windpipes. a wave of heat, this one going right down to your core and forcing you to pay attention to it, shifting awkwardly and clenching the muscles in your own legs in hopes of getting some pitiful amount of pressure.
all breathing stops as he hits the back of your throat.
hands pulling tight, a biting pain ripping through your hair and a tired gag creeping out of your constricting throat, yunho holds you still and strong, as unmoving as the mountains that fill the horizon from your bedroom window.
he’s not even fully in, an arguably obscene amount of him still awaiting some form of attention beyond the spill of the spit filling up your mouth. but there’s nowhere for it to go, not within your mouth at least, and so you manoeuvre your hand up and grip the neglected inches, the tip of your pinkie teasingly brushing over the swell of his balls.
he lurches forward, gasping in a breath of air at last. “fucking christ- shit,” he grits his teeth. “her mouth’s warm.”
“well, obviously. this your first time getting a blowjob or something, jeong?” god, the reminder of seonghwa being here, somewhere behind you, fox eyes judging your every move and keeping his cool, no matter how hard you’d seen his cock straining in those ridiculous pant-suit trousers he sports. it’s sickening.
“yeah, yunho, watch out before you have a repeat of 2019.”
if the taller jeong wants to snap at the other, you never find out, instead dedicating yourself to the glory of worshipping him between your parted lips and tight throat, jaw ready to lock itself in place so long as it keeps him inside.
you treat him differently than you’d treated san that night. you’d been tipsy then, buzzing off the colourful shots of who-knows-what you’d been conned into downing a half hours before, mind hazy as you kneeled between him and teased your tongue over every crevice of him it could reach, dripping him in drool and working an ache into your overused tongue by the time you got watched him spill over the edge of ecstasy. that wasn’t even about san’s pleasure, no real care put into getting him off, your own selfish need to indulge in the pleasure of feeling, tasting, worshipping him taking precedence.
but, right now, you’re overwhelmingly sober, mind hazed only by a cloud of inexplicable lust that rolled in the moment san shot you his stupid smile, and you care about making jeong yunho cum. in fact, it’s the only thing on your mind as you bob your head up and down, letting his own hand guide your pace.  
“shh, shh,” he’s hushing your own struggles for breath and carding his fingers through the tresses of your hair, his legs clamping down on either side of you, pinning you in your rightful place. “taking it so good, baby. so fucking good.”
good’s not good enough.
you want to leave him mind-blown, exhausted, unhinged. you want him clenching his jaw, and baring his teeth, and stuttering over any praise he tries to give you. in fact, you need it, need that thrill-driven lust of collapsing the sanity of a man as broad and strong and capable as him.
so you pick up the pace, fight against the steady up-and-down of his grip and try to take just that little bit more of him in your mouth and down your throat, till you’ve no doubt there’s a visible bulge of where he sits down your windpipe. you think back on what he said- i love it when a pretty thing like you gets all messy over my cock- and work towards doing just that, mouth a fountain of over-flowing spit that paints lines down your chin and over his heavy balls. the hand at his base lightly drags the tips of its nails over his burning skin and you physically feel the way his cock jumps in your mouth, head twitching as his hips involuntarily jolt forwards.
eyes as wide as a deer in headlights, you glance up to stare into his own, only to find they’re rolling back in his head, too caught up in the headiness of having your mouth on him to visually focus. it’s erotic, tracing your eyes over the protruding vein in his neck and the unrhythmic heaving of his chest- like every breath he pulls is a rare gift and a miracle- and the straining of his muscled thighs that hold back his urge to buck freely into your mouth, use you as nothing but a hole to get himself off with.
your free hand stakes claim over your own sexual frustration, nimble fingers rubbing tight, slow circles over your clit in an attempt to just ease that heat burning you from the inside out.
“she’s touching herself, jeong,” not even the irritating, grating voice of park seonghwa’s unwanted commentary can take away the kick you’re getting out of working this man into a frenzy. “are you just going to let her, without your permiss-”
“shut up, park,” yunho is wrecked, voice divulging so far from that loud, boyish charm into a dark, broken sort of gruffed out thing, echoing straight out of his chest. but, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t listen to the other man, doesn’t force his eyes open to glance down in a hazed daze to witness your pathetic attempts to work your fingers over yourself.
only, he doesn’t tell you to stop.
he just... watches. and then smiles, squeezes out what can only be described as a broken whine, and tilts his head back once more, relinquishing all control of his body over to you. the scene divulging into a chorus of mumbled words, fuck and please and yes becoming the only word yunho knows, the only three you hear. 
only as he cums does jeong yunho regain that bit of self-control he’s lost, ripping your mouth off him- a stuttered mumble of i wanna paint that pretty face- and erupting in a mess of grunted moans, cock twitching in his palm as rope after rope of white, hot fluid shoots out of it. it’s messy, and disgusting, and sticky, marking the skin on your cheeks, nestling in your hair, dripping over your shut eyelashes.
the last drops land in your parted mouth as his grasp shakes and you regain the right to wrap your lips around his mushroomed tip.
lips stained in pearly white, cheeks and neck matching too. the throb of your neglected cunt, clenching itself around nothing but the mere thought of having jeong yunho stuff you full, break you in two and leave you spent.
the man in question is in a no better state, head thrown back and chest a heaving mess glistening with the shine of his own sweat. his mouth hangs open, near heaving in breaths of air and his hands, adopting a mind of their own, grip harder in your hair and hold you firmly in place, tongue laving over his sensitive tip, pushing him closer and closer to the ledge of overstimulation.
“fuck- uh, fucking look at you,” sweet voice, foul words. two fingers drag over your cheek, coating themselves in the sticky substance he’s painted you in. “drooling all over me.”
he’s right, you are drooling. down your chin, an uncomfortable damp coat covers your overheating skin as you continue to stretch your lips around his length, ready to rip another thigh-shuddering orgasm out of the man.
yunho grants you no such pleasure.
instead, a grip tugs back on your hair and, before you can feebly attempt to catch your fleeing breath, he’s pulling you up into his lap, straddling you across the well-defined muscles of his thigh. those big, capable hands he pushes himself through pools, and rivers, and all other bodies of water manipulate your limbs however he likes, a rag-doll free for him to toy with for as long as he sees fit.
“yun-” you don’t even manage to say his name properly, not when he grinds you down into his lap, smothering his tanned skin in your juices. the friction runs straight for your pulsing clit and you’re rendered to sinking into his welcoming arms, head collapsing into the crook of his neck, parted lips panting up a storm against his sweated skin.
“that nice for you, angel?” the soft words, the rough hands, the perfect roll of your hips. you feel like you could sob, break apart completely. yunho tracing a hand up the curve of your spine and soothing his long fingers over a knot in you back doesn’t help your case. “bet it is. little bit of release to all that tension you’ve been feeling, yeah?”
you think you nod.
it’s hard to tell.
sparks fly within your loins, heating you from the inside out. yunho, at some point, has wound his fist into the tresses of your hair, nails scrapping along your scalp. it’s pleasurable, all over, soothing you into a state of utter relaxation, a being with no purpose other than to take whatever this mass of warmth and muscles and width offers you.
his hand makes a fist and gently tugs, forcing a whine out of you as you’re faced with the bright lights once more. traces of his own cum stain the very place your face had lay. it’s erotic to see, drying up your tongue with a need to lick it clean.
“no, no, focus, right here,” a single finger taps at your cheek, followed by the tilting of your chin that forces you to stare back at the hungry eyes of jeong yunho. “eyes on me. want a front row seat to watching your eyes roll back.”
god, he’s filthy, and delicate, and that just makes him all that more filthy.
swiping his digits through the remnants of his sticky cum, he makes sure you’re staring right back at him as those same fingers snake their way down between your grinding bodies and burrow themselves deep in your soaked heat. shallow pumps of his hand fuck his cum-coated fingers deeper, long and lithe enough he barely needs to move to have you feeling him all over, everywhere.
by the time he curls them, pressing against that spongy wall, you’re just about ready to cry.
“think she’s gonna cum,” oh god, no, why must he remind you of your audience? why does it no longer frighten you to have eyes watching you be defiled but, rather, have you clenching around him tighter, chasing that fever-like ecstasy the man means to deliver? “she’s gripping my fingers so tight- shit, almost makes me wanna bust my load just thinking how warm her pussy would feel round my cock.”
“don’t let her cum,” you vow, some day, to wring the neck of park seonghwa. “just cause she’s gone all cockdrunk doesn’t mean she’s earnt-”
“shut up, hwa,” the boy’s thumb pokes up and you can’t help the way you grind down into it, smothering your clit in whatever pressure you can get. “pretty baby’s more than earned it. stop being bitter that i’m the one who’s gonna give her it.”
give you it, he does.
three fingers deep, the cocktail of your wetness mixing with his cum-cated digits aiding the ebb and flow of his rhythm, jeong yunho has your toes curling, eyes rolling, thighs shaking. you blackout, for only a moment, lost in the wilderness of pleasure.
the aftershocks are barely kicking in when you’re suddenly ripped away from yunho’s hold. the sounds of your beating heart and heaving chest muffle the disgruntled exchange of words between the swim-team, inhibiting your ability to stay clued-in on the events that surround you. all you know is that when your body meets the bench once more, on all wobbly fours, jeong yunho no longer sits tall and proud.
a sharp sting hits your rear- a smack, that echoes in the empty space of the swimming hall. the only appropriate response is the shriek you let out, twisted in your own conflicting emotions of pain, and pleasure, and painful pleasure. a second smack meets the other cheek. this time, there’s no doubt a wanton whine escapes you.
“since the rest of them can’t take orders,” you’d already known it was seonghwa whose hands were suddenly all over you, pinning you in a position of submission. the sound of his grandiose voice sends a shiver of anticipation down your spine, top to tail. “i’ll have to do it myself.”
with no word of warning, he smooths his hands down the globes of your ass, teases the crease of skin where your inner thigh meets your dripping heat, and fucks two whole fingers into your sensitive core. knuckles deep, they sit still upon initial intrusion, basking in the warmth of you and coating themselves in the essence from an orgasm you’ve yet to even fully recover from and the cum yunho’d scooped off your own face.
then, at last, when your nails dig marks into the wood below, he curls them a come-hither motion.
with shame painted on your skin, you toss your head back and release an inhumane cry, eyes hazily gazing up at the horrendous white lights above. “oh god!”
“not quite. i do appreciate the flattery though,” there’s no need to glance over your shoulder to know that pompous, trust-fund baby is wearing the most earth-shattering smirk, some stupid strand of his perfectly groomed hair dangling over one of his eyes, like some 90s heartthrob boy-band member. you do it anyway.
park seonghwa is an unfairly attractive man, sporting a beauty so ethereal it almost makes you angry.
that anger seems to dampen the wetter he gets you.
his touch is slow, but by no means is it gentle. calculated and malevolent, he plays with your insides like they’re nothing but the strings to your puppet. a curl of his fingers and one of your hands shoots forward. the torturously slow pace that he pumps his digits in and out, and your jaw falls slack. his thumb bumps and grinds against your throbbing clit, and your elbows give out, sending you crashing face-first down onto the bench.
his free hand presses down on your lower back, bending you deeper, hiking your ass up higher in the air. and, at first, you think you’re imagining it, that trickle of warmth against your other entrance, believing it nothing but a trick of your melting brain.
you’re who-knows how many hours deep in a whirlwind of pleasure and penetrative stares, people have been driven to the brink of insanity over far less in the past.
but then seonghwa’s fingers leave your cunt, warm and wet trails following their journey over your skin. there’s no imaginative mind great enough in this universe to conjure up that initial shock to feeling how he prods and pokes at your puckered hole, lubricating it with the dirty mixture of both you and yunho’s cum and his very own spit.
the tip of his pointer finger ventures onward first, breaking through the surface of your tight muscles in a shallow intrusion.
the feeling has you frozen, frightened, intrigued. eyes widening, moans dying, pussy pulsating in an empty need.
“don’t go getting shy on us now, spitfire,” the collective language he uses brings back the weight of all the boys’ eyes on you. hesitantly, you angle your face off the bench, and regret it the instant you meet the brown comfort of his eyes. “fun’s just starting. ain’t that right, san?”
a tense energy takes over the large room, with san’s shoulders tensing, and yunho’s feet fidgeting, and wooyoung’s cheeks blushing. seonghwa seems impervious to the shift, whether voluntarily or not, and instead invites himself to further exploring the limits of your body.
he’s kind enough to spare a bit of care into the way his finger sinks deeper into your unexplored hole. another dribble of his hot saliva lands messily onto you, aiding the slip and slide of his hand. two, or three, or four strokes of his finger and you’re submitting to the intrusion, hips rutting higher and presenting yourself more to the man.
“come here,” the command calls over your body and, at first, you think its aimed at you. so you try scooting further back, only to be halted by seonghwa speaking once again. “yeah you, choi. come get under her.”
for the first time since this all began, you’re on the precipice of saying no.
they’d listen, all of them. wouldn’t push you, pressure you or force you to keep going, not if you truly voiced your negation. even park seonghwa, as big an arsehole as he may be, would have no qualms ending his fun and agreeing to never speak of this again.
and it’s not that you don’t want choi san under you. far from it, as you’ve already made pretty clear earlier, thighs his personal ear-warmers while his tongue delved deep for your honey-suckle glory. you’re hardly uncomfortable at the thought of him under you, chest rising repeatedly in frantic breaths and legs bent at the knee to give him just the right leverage to fuck up into your messy cunt-
it’s not till he’s three feet away from you, hands fidgeting by his side, eyes looking anywhere but you and your compromising position, and the world’s most obnoxiously boner-strained tent in his swimming gear that realisation washes over you. you’re hesitating because of him, because of his possible discomfort.
what if he wants to say no? what if he doesn’t want to get under you? what if his eyes will never look into your own again, too shocked and disgusted by all the things you’ve let be done to you? by his own team-mates/rivals, too?
hell, you’ve shocked yourself even, never in a million years had you pictured a day you’d be at the mercy of some rich prick, overdressed for every occasion and looking like a vogue-cover-model reject. but when he’s edging another finger into the already-tight squeeze of your ass, and pushing your buttons just enough to nudge you towards an edge that never seems to arrive, how could you ever dream of being anywhere else?
a hand touches your cheek.
soft. tender. it takes the extra time to soothe the pads of its fingers against your burning cheek.
“you feeling okay?” san’s quiet tone, meant only for you, is enough to move you to near-tears. you crave his hug. the position you find yourself in only allows you to reach out and grasp at where his knee bends as he crouches down to your level. it’s all the same, san knows. san understands. his own hand lands on top of yours, messily threading digits.
“she’s literally stuffed with another man’s cum and you’re worried about her? well aren’t you just the sweetest.” a cheap remark from seonghwa.
san purposefully ignores it, and everything about the man, instead choosing to keep his focus on what matters.
you.
“think you could make some room for me down there?” your nose wrinkles at his choice of words.
his giggle echoes.
“no, no, not... like that,” he guides you as he talks, grip moving to your shoulders and coaxing you up into a seating position. somewhere along the way, seonghwa’s hands leave you. he doesn’t stray too far, however, and your back soon collides against his chest. “here, pretty. want you to make space for me down here.”
within seconds, choi san’s back in his rightful place: splayed out beneath you, body fit snug between your parted legs and hair an unruly, sweated mess against his forehead.
no clothing sits between you both, blessing you with the mouthwatering drag of his cock through your folds. hard, and red, and leaking at the tip, a slight curve to the right, dribbling precum against his well-toned stomach. you’re biting your lip before you fully register your own thoughts, body a mind of its own as you grind down onto him.
control is limited and fleeting, that of which seonghwa reminds you without uttering so much as a word. instead, he clamps a harsh grip down on either side of your hips, rucks you up to where he needs you and guides you down onto san’s cock.
it’s thick, imposing and something that seonghwa blesses you no time to ease into things. instead, you’re slammed down, san buried to the hilt inside of you.
“hey there,” delicate fingers skim up the tense muscles in your thigh and find pleasure in delivering a teasing tickle to your sides. “come here often?”
the cheeky grin, the double entendre, the way san looks so goddamn proud of himself for saying it. you can’t help it, you wind up giggling uncontrollably.
wrong choice. bad idea. danger zone.
san contorts in pain, and lust, and something else you’ve never seen behind his eyes before, hissing through his teeth like some feral cat. his eyes match that of a feline too. “you trying to squeeze my dick off or something?”
you compose yourself upon the reminder of that san can feel you tensing around him, pull in a deep breath and find your voice again, at last. “or... something.”
maybe you’re a little out of breath. maybe you’re a little hoarse. it doesn’t seem to matter to the boy below, his only response being to cant his hips up and lick at the fire burning in your insides.
“you two are disgusting,” once again, park seonghwa wins gold in the nobody-asked-for-you-bum-ass-opinion olympics. let’s see if he’ll continue his winning streak and go for gold in the hypocrite-athon too!
the hands on your sides begin you guide you, with seonghwa squeezing his perfectly manicured nails into your plush skin and bouncing you down onto san. up, down, up and down, repeated strokes like the ones their hands deliver each time they breach the surface.
it’s easy, this pleasure. it’s a gift, hand-delivered by two god-like men that sandwich you between them- one a mass that fills you, the other a weight that controls you. liberating in every sense, you can’t help the way your head rolls back to find purchase on one of seonghwa’s shoulders, completely melting into the ways he winds you over san.
“shit, yes, you feel,” san’s no better than you, mouth agape and hands unsteady as they trace every inch of skin they can reach: the dimples of your back, the swell of your breasts, the hood of your clit. his hips are the only steady thing about him, not a falter in the way they grind up to kiss your dripping pussy with his cock. “so good. so warm, tight. love it.”
a hand curls round your front, travels up between your breast and over your sternum. it settled for a grip a round your throat, no pressure applied, it simply exists against your windpipe, a silent threat.
“look what you do to him, hmm,” a squeeze around your neck. seonghwa’s warm breath fans against your ear, taunting you. “look what you’re doing to them.”
through your glossed-over gaze, you trail your way past the sight of san and all his captivating beauty, settling instead on the equally erotic, not-at-all surprising image that stands just past where his head rests at the edge of the wooden bench.
a sweaty wooyoung, bent at the waist and whining up a storm, while a far more composed yunho pounds his hips into the boy’s arse.
your walls clench and san whimpers, a string of curses and pleads leaving him.
“think you’re finally ready for me?” the devil on your shoulder- at your back, more truly,- smirks into your skin, careless enough to not even feign it being anything but a rhetoric question. ready or not, park seonghwa is going to finally get his own fill of the thrill, his own satisfaction, beyond mere observation and controlling.
the spill of your own wetness slips down your thighs as san continues to fuck himself deep. it doesn’t travel far as seonghwa coats himself in you, wetting his fingers before they slip back inside your ass. a few generous, tempting pumps into your ring of muscles, fingers spreading a little further apart each time, till he decides that’s enough, he’s ready, you’re ready.
the unbuckling of a belt.
an unzipping of trousers.
trousers bunched down muscled thighs.
the first cut may be the deepest, but you highly doubt it’s as deep as seonghwa feels feeding his cock into your arse, stretching you apart to make way for him. a part of you feels like it can’t breathe, impaled on both these men who sit so deep inside you, you fear you’ll feel the ghost of their touch for weeks to come.
but what does it matter, really, when seonghwa pulls you back against him and whispers filth against your ear? 
this is all you’re good for. cock-drunk whore. gonna let us cum inside?
and san’s coaxing you down to trail his mouth over your chest, the tongue flicking over your nipple a terrible juxtapose to his crooning words?
taking it so well, baby. so tight, and perfect, and god. ‘s that what baby needs, huh, for me to touch her little clit?
the two men find a rhythm, a synchronised routine to how they pull and push you around. their thrusts ebb and flow, no moment existing where you sit empty. they treat your body like they treat the pool, swimming through your waves of pleasure and effortlessly advancing to the finishing line, the winning stroke. then, san’s hand meets your cheek and your thoughts are dragged underwater, muffling the sounds of everyone else- the shlickt sound that echoes with each inch of cock fucked into you, the high-pitched whimpers of a fucked out wooyoung, the slapping of skin against skin- as he pulls you in for a kiss.
it’s a hungry one, all teeth and tongue and swollen lips. you pull away more breathless than before and fighting back a big dopey grin, toes curling as the swell of one of their cocks hits a nice spot inside you, body too on fire to know just exactly where the new wave of heat is coming from.
“h-how d’you do it, hm?” it’s almost a whisper, something meant only for your ears, yet you hear him loud and clear, voice stuttering off in a mess of whines and moans. “still got that pretty-girl smile, even while getting fucked silly.”
it almost makes you shy, till you remember what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. you settle for a quick, short answer. mostly because you fear you’re losing the ability to think in full-sentences, much less speak one out loud. “can multitask.”
like your own words are the key to pandora’s box, your eyes widen, and your mouth dries, and your heart reels as a new desire burrows itself somewhere between the parts of you owned by san and the parts owned by seonghwa. the desire makes room for more, for someone more, and, without much chance for second-thoughts or hesitation, you find what little stability you can manage with one hand pressing down onto san’s toned chest and reach forward with your free hand.
fingers, light as a feather, curl around wooyoung’s solid shaft. the man’s hips stutter at the unexpected contact, eyes flying open to glance down in time to watch you reach out your tongue, licking up the droplets of precum that threaten to spill from his mushroomed tip.
“please, god, please!” he’s beyond the point of sense, poor baby, struggling to keep up with yunho’s hips’ repeated slamming into his tight ass. so, you can’t really blame him or shame him for the way he hastily rips his hand through your hair, tugging your mouth as far down his cock as the angle allows.
a few hairs rip from your skull in his grip. you reward him with a pleasant hum, moans muffled with the mouth-full he’s providing you. 
“shit- look at that,” seonghwa pipes up from behind you, the motion of his hips never faulting or failing as he continues to take part in the filthiest three-way tango known to man, hands bouncing you down to meet each raise of san’s hips, plundering the other man’s cock deep, deep, deep, till he’s kissing your cervix and you’re seeing stars before your eyes. “should cup youngie’s- fucking christ- his balls, san, cup ‘em.”
you’re vaguely aware of his compliance, hand lifting off whatever part of you it was touching- your nipple, your hip, your jaw, it’s hard to tell when you feel like san’s everywhere, all over you, part of you- to graze the set of well-groomed spheres that threaten to slap your chin each time wooyoung thrusts forward.
barely two seconds, hardly any pressure against them, and the youngest of the four is nearly in tears, wailing and begging over broken whines that it’s too much, can’t take it, don’t stop.
there’s a ringing in your ear. because everything is becoming too much: wooyoung in your mouth, san rutting up into you and seonghwa’s hands clawing and pulling your body back into each of his overpowered thrusts. the boy in front of you is the first to fall apart, twitching in your mouth and, without a warning, choking you on the cum he shoots down your throat. a hand pulls you back, just enough to paint your face in the final drops released from wooyoung.
one of the other men is next, a string of curses and grunts filling the air. there’s a new stickiness between your legs, gooey white staining your skin. it’s all building up, and up, and up, until you topple over and are sent reeling into wave after wave of blinding pressure, toes cramping up and muscles spasming as you shoot off into another astral field, creaming around san and chocking seonghwa’s cock.
you don’t register the release of your hips nor the crash-down of your body. one moment, you’re pressed back against seonghwa, mouth dropped open in a silent scream for merciless pleasure, and the next you’re cradled in san’s warm embrace, a crooning tone to the way he hushes and calms you, unheard i got yous, and did so good for us, babys, and just let me hold yous falling on deaf ears.
for a moment in your own history, time ceases to exist.
there’s no ticking of the large clock on the wall, reminding you of how long ago your shift had ended. there’s no thoughts of your plant friend drying out in the staleness of your room, desperately awaiting you to revive it with some h2o. there’s no consequences awaiting your actions, no shame to be feared and leaving you unable to look any of the four swimmers in the eye ever again.
instead of being crashed against choi san’s body, a mixture of his, yours, and several other people’s bodily fluids serving as the adhesive that keeps you stuck together in your mess, you’re floating in space, not quite alive but not quite dead, just there. 
nerves tingling, body aching, mind switched off.
four, or five, or ten, maybe even fifteen minutes pass by the time you regain focus on your surroundings.
your name, whispered. it’s his voice that pulls you back, sweet and soft and oh so like the san you’re used to, the one that sends teasing winks your way when your eyes happen to meet his in class, and the one who has the prettiest notes you’ve ever seen, a colour-scheme for his every highlight and the cutest of doodles to go along with the topic on the paper.
the one who’s hand is currently brushing through your hair, fingers careful as they catch on the tangles near the split ends.
“hmm,” you swear you want to say his name, say more than that, but there’s an ache in your jaw that hinders you from even attempting, your voice-box likely having taken a beaten in the throws of your pleasured moans.
“you okay there?” he giggles over the end of the sentence, and you feel your slowing heartbeat stutter at the sound.
he feels you nod into the crook of his neck and lets his free hand find perch against your hip, moments before giving it a light squeeze. 
he’s warm, and pleasant, and soft.
and moving you both into an up-right position, hands splaying flat against your back and keeping you secure against him, your legs wrapping around his slender waist. you drift off again, between time and space, and come to at the first drop of water that lands on your back.
one drop, two drops, and then a downpour of heat crashing onto both of you.
you can tell from the colour of the pinkish tiles along the communal shower floor that you’re in the women’s changing room, and mentally note to thank him, even if he’s not aware, for bringing you somewhere you won’t have to shamefully stumble out of in the nude, your change of clothes safely tucked away within one of the lockers.
“i’m gonna put you down now, okay?” he speaks so gently that it overwhelms you, answering him only with an affirmative nod of your head.
neither of you speak while he lathers shampoo into your hair, nor when he’s dragging his soap covered hands over the cum that stains your skin, wiping it away and leaving nothing but suds where the liquid once was. he doesn’t speak while covering your eyes with his hands, blocking the sting of the shampoo. you don’t speak when you inch closer, head falling forward to rest against his chest.
when he does eventually speak again, both of your fingertips are wrinkled and bodies are clean, the water of the shower serving as nothing but a way to keep warm.
“you’re, uh, not” the echo of his voice in the empty lockers feels so much more intimate than how his cries sounded by the pool. “doing anything on wednesday, right?”
too lazy to move, you angle your face to stare up at him from his chest and take a moment to just stare, look at the way his hair is sticking to his forehead, at the way his eyes are back to being wide, at the way the marks you’d littered along his neck are becoming more prominent.
“how’d you know?” your question confirms his own, and a tenseness you’d not noticed melts off of his shoulders.
“wednesday is race day. you never work race days.”
it’s such an odd detail to have noticed, and it’s making you question everything you thought you knew about your relationship with san. do acquaintances remember each other’s schedules? do acquaintances bring each other soothing teas when they notice the other developing flu symptoms? do acquaintances waste time pulling faces at each other in lectures they should probably be paying attention to.
“i’m not taking part in the race this time, by choice. my grades are good enough, don’t need to worry about winning some championship to keep my education.” san is speaking unpromptly at this point, rambling in a way you’ve only seen him do when he’s nervous, or excited, or both. “it’s okay if you don’t want to, or you have better things to do or places to be! but, i was just thinking, maybe you’d wanna spend some time with me? there’s this medieval market down on main-street, it’s meant to be really cool, and i just think it would be even cooler to go with you? but, again, you don’t have to. forget it, actually, i’m being stupid and assuming you’re not doing something with your friends or your-”
the kiss you interrupt him with is far more innocent than the one you shared earlier, no hands rushing to touch and tongues desperate to taste, just two sets of lips moving as one.
you pull back and he chases after you, lips landing another peck before you’re grasping his cheek in your hold and forcing him back.
“i think you could have asked me to come help clean your apartment for you and i’d still say yes, just to spend my day with you,” you say, and he smiles as if on instinct, unable to stop it even if he tried.
“really?”
“really.”
“good, cause i already bought us two tickets and i really didn’t wanna have to go alone.” there’s drops of water dancing on his eyelashes, and laziness in his every movement, and you’re both still very much naked, but none of that seems to matter when he gives you another peck, like he’s awakened an addiction and your lips are now his favourite vice. “but, now that you mention it, my apartment could do with some cleaning. and i bet you’d look amazing in a maid outfit.”
a slap echoes in the showers.
“hey! don’t worry, i’ll be wearing a matching one!”
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solisaureus · 1 year
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look this is gonna be a hard to swallow pill for the pjo fandom,
but the sun and the star is coming out at a really important time in the USA -- homophobia is on the rise, books like this are being restricted, and policies are being debated and passed to exterminate queer and trans people from the public sphere. having a positive example of a queer relationship in fiction, especially as part of a mega-popular middle grade series, is going to be important to a lot of the queer 10-14 year olds that make up this book's main demographic.
i have never, ever seen a percy jackson book have such a negative reception online. and it's just a coincidence that this is the first queer-focused installment of the series?
people are seeing the extent of the hate and thinking they shouldn't bother reading tsats at all, that they have already heard enough from people who hate the book. I have had people reblog my positive posts and say "maybe i'll give this book a chance, this is the first nice post i've seen about it." that's really fucking sad yall.
maybe tsats wasn't what you expected, maybe it contradicted your headcanons, maybe you prefer ships other than solangelo. you don't have to like tsats. but the amount of vocal hate for it is ridiculous. other pjo books do not get this kind of hate -- picking apart and complaining about every tiny little detail, ridiculing the writing style of both authors, mocking the attempts at sincerity, even sometimes mocking people who did like the book.
i have never seen this harsh of a response before (and i'm old -- I've been a percy jackson reader since the lightning thief came out in 2005) and especially not from such large portions of the fandom to the point where people who haven't read it are feeling discouraged from doing so.
Please look at the big picture. your opinions don't exist in a vacuum. maybe this is a hot take, but at some point the hate is indistinguishable from how homophobes talk about queer fiction. i'm just saying there are better things to turn your anger towards, and if you hated this book so much just do what the rest of us do and write fucking fanfiction to make yourself feel better. fucks sake
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blkgirlsreadfanfic2 · 1 month
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for fanfic writers and readers
as a black girl who loves a lot of different movies and shows, fanfic allows me to read stories that put me in the middle of my favorite things. however, fanfic often (unintentionally) excludes girls who look like me.
i am so sick and tired of reading a fanfiction and having to rewrite it in my brain because a character description immediately implies that the reader is white. if you don't know what i mean, here are some examples.
"your skin turned pink" or "you blushed": black girls and women with darker skin tones CANNOT blush. our skin does not just turn pink
"pulled your hair into a messy bun": my 4a hair cannot be pulled into a messy bun at random. i may be able to do a ponytail if i have braids in, and i might be able to tie it up if I have an old twist-out, but a "messy bun" is often not possible.
"he ran his hands through your hair": yeah...unless my hair is in a silk press (and an OLD silk press), that's not happening
there are a plethora of other examples that would make this post insanely long, so let me get to the point. there are very easy ways to make fanfic a bit more inclusive; all you have to do is tweak a few character descriptions. OR, put in your pairing or warnings that the reader is implied to be white.
and finally: please, please stop tagging your DARK fanfictions "xblack!reader." i am tired of searching for fluff under the black reader tag and finding non-con, dark themes, etc., ESPECIALLY when the fic ends up being for a white reader💀.
the goal of my page is to create a safe space for black girls who love reading fanfiction. i am only one person, so if you'd like to help, here are some ways to do that!
send me fics (preferably marvel and stranger things to start) that are with a black reader
comment some other things in fanfics that imply that the reader is white or that make the fic a little less accessible
REBLOG FICS BY BLACK WRITERS
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mother-athena · 3 months
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🌼 Caregiving Tips 🌼
For my first time caregivers who are completely lost on how to start caring for their little one 💛
🌼 Research! Read as much as you can about age regression whenever you can. The more you can understand how regression works and what it is, the better you can support your kiddo.
🌼 Read Safe for Work fanfiction on regression. It can give you lots of ideas on how to care for and talk to your kiddo when they're regressed. Ask them if they read works on any specific fandom and try looking it up yourself to get an idea of what they like.
🌼 Read blogs on Tumblr and stories on Wattpad for regression advice too. Lots of information is written by regressors and caregivers themselves.
🌼 Ask lots of questions. Your little one's probably already established how their regression works for them so asking what that looks like can be super helpful to you. (Examples: How small do you feel when you regress? Or What do you like to do when your regressed?)
🌼 Your kiddo may feel a little apprehensive at first so patience and lots of reassurance will do wonders. Remind them that you want to be there and don't rush the process of including this new dynamic in your relationship. It will take time.
🌼 Encourage their regression! As often as you can, do things that encourage their headspace. For instance, asking if they want to color with you or watch a cartoon. The more you encourage their little habits, the more comfortable they'll feel around you.
🌼 Don't talk down to them. There's a balance when it comes to talking to regressors. You want to baby them (unless they ask otherwise), but not in a way that's patronizing.
🌼 Be curious. Ask them simple questions and be interested in what their doing/telling you. Most kiddos love to explain things and feel like they're showing you something cool, so it'll make them very happy to know that you're paying attention to them.
🌼 Try not to be harsh. Most feel like harsh discipline and a firm hand is the best way to handle a regressor, but most kiddos listen better to a gentle reminder than a harsh reprimand. So be patient with them, treat them as though their learning everything for the first time.
🌼 Learn their little habits. Lots of times, kiddos don't want to ask to be babied because they can feel embarrassed or like a burden, so they'll give little hints in hopes you'll notice them that way. And it can be something as small as being a little more clingy, to pouting and whining over something that seems minor.
🌼 Become their guardian. Check in with them often, ask if they ate, help them put their seat belt on and remind them to pick up after themselves, little things like that. Some regressors even love to have a certain set of rules laid out for them to follow (or break).
🌼 Avoid ignoring or verbally wounding your regressor. Sometimes emotions can become much more difficult to process when regressed, so a passing comment or action done in frustration can cause deep wounds to reopen, so try to think twice before acting.
🌼 Don't cross boundaries! Just because you're the caregiver, don't abuse your authority and force them to do anything their uncomfortable with.
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asahicore · 1 year
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all i see is gold - pjs (m)
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this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. jay x fem!reader
synopsis. Pretending to be your number one's rival girlfriend to please his parents isn't how you would usually spend a Thursday night, but you really owe Jay a big one this time. You'd sworn this was just a one-time thing - and yet when his parents ask you to come again, the word 'yes' is out before you can stop it. Before you know it and much to your dismay, your feelings for Jay start to change, and you're in too deep to backtrack.
genre. college au, academic rivals to lovers, fake dating au, rich rich millionaire ceo's son jay x poor ass scholarship part-time job reader
warnings. heeseung is a mega asshole sorry to this man, slight violence like the girls are fighting, these two are pathetically in love w each other it's laughable actually, rich people being annoying slightly and also y/n's friends having way too much knowledge about fanfiction tropes... i like my fourth walls broken
word count. 27.1k
a/n. hi sisters user asahicore is back with another repost because she can't be asked to come up with anything original... sorry! i did add a new scene to this fic for.. character development. hope you guys enjoy it, as always let me know your thoughts otherwise i will find you and hold you at gunpoint, have fun love you stay healthy keep slaying bye bye!
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“Actually, I think what you just said is complete bull.”
Jay rolled his eyes for the thousandth time in an hour and a few sniggers were heard around the room.
Your tutor sighed and, in an exhausted tone, asked you to “keep it polite, please. This is still a classroom setting.”
“Right, sorry.” You cleared your throat and sat up straighter. “I completely disagree with your statement, Jongseong. Just because a movie has young teenage girls as its target audience doesn’t mean it is completely insipid and has no value, like you’re insinuating. If you look at Mean Girls, for example-”
Jay scoffed. “Oh please, you’re not actually going to use Mean Gir-”
“Ah, would you look at the time? Class is over,” your tutor interrupted. “You can all go home and ponder the riveting discussion Jay and Y/N led today.” 
You were pretty sure you heard a general sigh of relief from your classmates. After all, you couldn’t really blame them: it was only the first tutorial of the semester for that course and Jay and you were already at each other’s throats, having something to say about every idea the other put forward, no matter how small.
“Oh, and Jay, I do have to side with Y/N here. There’s a surprising amount of things that can be said about that film,” your tutor admitted with an apologetic smile. You, however, were harboring a triumphant expression. Nothing better than having the tutor agree with you against Jay. 
As you packed your stuff away, mentally patting yourself on the back, Jay approached you, looking visibly annoyed. “Seriously, Y/N? Symbolism in Modern Cinema? Since where do you even care about movies?”
You gasped dramatically and put your hand over your heart, feigning shock. “Why, I’m offended that you think you’re the only one who’s allowed to love cinema, Jongseong.”
“Yeah, it’s my thing!” he whined like a child, and you gave him a look that hopefully made him reflect on what he’d just said.
You started walking out of the room and he followed, a step behind you. “I mean, there’s no way you didn’t know I was taking this class. Are you like, obsessed with me or something?”
“Yes, Jongseong, that’s exactly the case. I’m sooooo obsessed with you, I took this class just to see you.”
You were obviously joking, but he looked at you with a smirk and said, “I wouldn’t put it past you. I wouldn’t put it past anyone, to be honest; I mean I am the most good-looking, smartest, richest guy on camp- Ouch! That hurts!”
You had just punched him in the shoulder, not wanting to listen to his self-indulgent ramblings. “Get your head out of your ass, Park. I just thought it would be an interesting class. Why are you even taking it, anyway? I don’t think a cinema course is gonna teach you much on how to run daddy’s company,” you asked him, a smirk teasing your lips.
He rolled his eyes (you thought they might stay stuck at the back of his head, with how often he did that) and took a tone one might use to speak to a child. “You see, Y/N, I also major in Visual Studies. I’m not a single honors Econ major like you. Loser.”
He’d added the last word with a playful smile on his face, purposefully trying to rile you up. You were about to reply with an equally petty remark when you heard your name being called out. 
“Y/N! Wait up!”
You could recognize that voice anywhere. Your heart started beating a thousand times a minute and you felt your hands get clammy. As you turned around, you forced a relaxed smile and told yourself to stay calm, but as soon as you made eye contact with the boy, all rational thought left your brain.
“H-hi, Heeseung.” You heard Jay snort behind you but were too entranced by Heeseung’s presence to tell him off.
Clearly enjoying your nervousness, Heeseung smiled at you and bent down so that he came directly face to face with you. “It was nice seeing you last Friday. You should come to our parties more often, not many people can set fire to the dance floor like you did.”
Your cheeks had already turned bright red when he’d called your name, but now you probably looked as crimson as a fire extinguisher. Over the weekend, you’d tried so hard to forget about that party where you had gotten black-out drunk and made a fool of yourself on the dance floor. Sure, you’d had a lot of fun, but when you remembered that Heeseung literally lived in the frat house that had hosted the pre-start of term gathering, you’d felt so embarrassed and wanted to never have to face him ever again. Yet here he was, and he had obviously seen you.
“O-oh, right, haha. Um, I was pretty drunk, but, yeah, um, it was f-fun.” You cringed at yourself. Where was the Y/N that had torn down Jay’s every argument just moments prior? You were usually self-assured and confident, but whenever you were around Heeseung, you didn’t know how to act.
Heeseung stood up straighter and patted your head. You thanked yourself for having washed your hair that morning. He chuckled and said, “That’s good to hear. Guess I’ll see you around, then?”
“Yeah!” you replied with a tad too much enthusiasm. 
“Great.” As he walked past you, you didn’t need to turn around to see the nasty looks exchanged between Heeseung and Jay. 
“Jongseong.”
“Heeseung.”
The venom with which they had spat the other’s name would’ve sent a chill down your spine any other time, but right now, you were too busy mooning over what had just happened. Like many girls on campus, you’d had a crush on him since freshman year; but unlike most, you’d never actually tried to do anything about it. Realistically, you could probably bag him - Heeseung could be seen with a different girl at every party and didn’t seem to be too picky about who he finished the night with. But you also couldn’t stand the idea of being just another drunk fuck to him. So, you’d never revealed your feelings to him, although he could most definitely see the effect he had on you.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Jay burst into laughter. You turned around and looked at him, arms crossed, waiting for him to be done with an impatient look on your face. When he finally caught his breath, he had tears pooling at his eyes and was holding onto his belly.
“H-hi, Heeseung,” he breathed, trying to imitate you by making his voice higher in pitch but laughing too hard for it to come out properly.
“There’s nothing funny about this, Jongseong.”
“Oh, but there is, Y/N. And you know what the worst part is? You could do so, so much better than that guy. I mean, he’s a Business major, for fuck’s sake.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” you asked hotly, starting to get defensive.
“You’re studying Econ, Y/N. Dating a Business major, that’s like, the highest betrayal possible.”
You rolled your eyes at his stupid values and started walking towards the exit of the building, bumping into his shoulder on the way. He started following you again and added, “It’s not even just about that, Y/N. You know his reputation, he’s clearly bad news. There’s no point in liking a guy like that.”
Because you knew how much he hated it, you always made sure to call him Jongseong instead of Jay. But right now, you didn’t feel like joking around. You turned around abruptly, Jay almost bumping into you, and looked at him pointedly. “Look, Jay, I know you and Heeseung have this weird competition between the two of you of whose dad can make more money. But that doesn’t give you the right to tell me I shouldn’t like him.” And with a mumble, you added, “I can’t help liking him, okay?”
You went on your way again and Jay caught up with you so that the two of you were now walking side by side. Sighing, he said, “Whatever. When he inevitably hurts you, though, I’ll say I told you so.”
After flipping off Jay as your way of saying goodbye, you joined your friends in the cafeteria. You told them about your encounter with Heeseung, and as much as they wanted to support you, they couldn’t help but think your behavior at the party on Friday was hilarious. 
“I wasn’t gonna show this to anyone, but I can’t hold it in anymore…” Sunoo said, pulling out his phone.
It wasn’t hard to guess what he might be hiding in there, so you quickly protested, “It’s been three days, Sunoo. I’m sure you can hold in whatever it is longer than that.”
He looked at you with a sheepish smile and said, as if he didn’t have a choice but to show everyone, “It’s so funny though.”
Sieun and Keeho were urging him to show them, so you just hung your head as Sunoo pressed play. You didn’t even need to look at the video to know what it was: even in his drunken state, Sunoo had had the foresight to film you as you danced like there was no tomorrow, knowing this was a special occasion. Your friends tried to reassure you that you didn’t look that bad and you just seemed to be having fun, but the sniggers they tried to hold back in vain told you otherwise.
Keeho seemed to take pity on you when seeing your defeated expression. “Y/N, I promise you it’s not that bad. You were very obviously drunk, and so was everyone else. If anybody remembers this, they’re probably thinking that you were fucking awesome. Can’t you see how everyone is cheering you on in the video?”
With an exasperated sigh, you replied, “I don’t care that everybody saw me. I care that Heeseung did. I only started drinking that much because I thought it’d help me relax and talk to him. I didn’t think I’d go wild on the dance floor.”
Your friends exchanged a look and immediately burst into laughter. You wanted to get mad at them, but even you had to admit the whole situation was pretty funny. You let them make as much fun of you as their hearts desired, then, to change the subject, told them about the tutorial you had in the morning with Jay and how much fun it had been arguing with him.
Sieun was looking at you thoughtfully, until she said, “You know, I think it’s…” she paused for a second, trying to find the right word, “interesting, how much effort you put into getting into the same class as Jay when you could’ve directed that energy towards getting into one of Heeseung’s class.”
The sudden statement took you aback. “Well, I wouldn’t say I put that much effort into it…” you stammered in an attempt to defend yourself.
“Y/N,” Keeho started, an accusatory tone to his words, “you literally asked Jake to tell you what courses he was taking this semester and when his tutorials were, and when you somehow managed to be enrolled in a class that’s supposed to be reserved for Visual Studies students, you emailed the tutor to make sure you’d be in the same group as Jay. I’d say that requires some effort.”
You huffed, mildly offended. “I- Well- I just thought it’d be fun to argue with him about something else than economics, you know. There’s only so much to say about that.” Your friends didn’t look very convinced. “Plus, there are no classes that Heeseung’s taking that seemed interesting, and even if they were and I managed to get into them, I just would’ve stuttered trying to answer easy questions. At least if I’m in a class with Jay, I know it’ll be fun.”
After that last sentence, Sieun looked at you like you had proven her point. What a smartass, you thought. What was she even trying to prove? 
“Is no one gonna say it?” Sunoo asked, bewildered, looking around at your friends. “It sounds like you like him, Y/N.”
Oh.
Your automatic response was to go, “Pfffft,” but when Sieun and Keeho didn’t disagree with Sunoo, you looked at them, wide-eyed. “Are you guys serious? I don’t like Park Jongseong, that’s ridiculous.”
Sure, you liked arguing with Jay, that wasn’t a secret. That didn’t mean you liked him, or anything like that. Just the thought made you shiver. Dating Jay had never even occurred to you; as soon as you’d met, you had taken on a rival-like relationship, arguing about everything and anything. Sure, he was smart, and not too bad-looking, and he was really rich, and when he wanted he could actually be quite nice - but that was not the point! Most of the time, he was just annoying and argued with you for no reason other than to rile you up, and had the most unreasonable opinions you’d ever heard. He took his wealth for granted and sometimes came across as so privileged it made you want to puke.
Sieun took your hands in hers and tried to convince you with her eyes, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. “But think about it, Y/N. It’s the enemies to lovers trope!”
You snatched your hands out from her grip and gave her a pointed look. “This isn’t Wattpad, Sieun, this is real life. And Jay and I aren’t enemies, we’re merely rivals.”
“Even better!” she exclaimed.
“I completely agree with Sieun,” Sunoo said. “Y/N, you’re such a rivals to lovers type of gal.” You rolled your eyes, but Keeho was fervently nodding his head in agreement.
“By the way, did you guys hear about his parents’ company throwing a fundraiser?” Keeho said. This piqued your interest, but after your friends’ accusations, you couldn’t look too excited about anything Jay-related, so you nonchalantly asked him to go on. “It’s for some charity, they’ve invited all the big names, and apparently it’s gonna be huge so they need some people to waiter. I’m thinking of applying. It pays really well and it’s gonna be so fancy. It’s not like I’ve got much else to do that night anyway.”
“When is it?” you asked, still trying not to sound too interested.
“Friday in two weeks.”
“Well, if it’s a Friday, I’ll be getting wasted, so count me out,” Sunoo replied.
“I’d come, but the idea of serving rich people as they give out ten thousand dollars when they could give a million and it wouldn’t even affect them in the slightest, not to mention having to do it with a smile on my face, makes my skin crawl, so no thanks,” Sieun said. She wasn’t wrong, but this was also Jay’s parents you were talking about. Not only would Jay be there, and your presence would surely piss him off, but his dad’s company was one of the top of the country and being introduced to their world, maybe even getting to know some people there, even just as a waitress, could really benefit you in the long-term. You’d never admit it to him, but you’d been dreaming of working there ever since you’d first heard of it. Nothing might come out of this, but it was worth trying.
“What about you, Y/N? You in?”
You looked at Keeho and said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
The next time you saw Jay was for your Economics of Cities and Regions lecture a couple days later. As appropriate of the top students, you two always sat at the very front row along with only a few other brave students. Keeho was always bugging you to sit with him at the back, but you liked being able to look the professor in the eye so they could see how much attention you were paying to them. You listened carefully to the whole lecture, and when it ended, you turned to Jay and called his name in a sickly sweet voice, smiling as warmly as you could. He turned to you with a horrified look on his face.
“Please never do that again.”
Your smile instantly dropped. You should’ve known there was no point trying to be nice to him. “So, I’ve heard about your dad’s firm’s fundraiser…”
Before you could even finish your sentence, he interrupted you. “No. No way. You’re not working there. Nope. Not happening.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because this is an important night for me to make myself known as the CEO in line and I can’t have you distracting me.”
You didn’t question why he considered you a distraction and just pressed further. “C’mon! I promise I won’t be in your way.” He looked at you as if to say I don’t believe you. “I need the money.”
“Then get a part-time job.”
“I already have one! And it doesn’t pay very well.”
He looked at you and crossed his arms over his chest. No, you didn’t notice how his shirt tightened around his biceps. Shut up. Exasperated, he asked, “Do you even know what this fundraiser is for?”
That hadn’t even crossed your mind. Why did you need to know what it was for? All you needed was to work there and make some money. You just shrugged “No.”
He rolled his eyes at you. “You’re unbelievable. It’s to help students in need of scholarships. You know how my parents sometimes pay for students’ tuition fees? Well,” he sighed, and started to pack up his stuff. “This is to encourage CEOs of other companies to do the same. They’ve invited a few students to talk about why scholarships are important for them.”
Interesting, you thought. It’d have been nice to be one of those students, but being a waitress was already good enough. You’d have to be quicker to get the role next time. “I’ll be part of the waitering team, so I won’t embarrass you, don’t worry.”
After a beat, Jay asked, “Why are you even telling me this? I can say no all I want, I’m not the one deciding on the staff. I’d just really, really appreciate it if you didn’t come.”
You eyed him for a second until realization hit you. Right. It wasn’t like Jay had any say in this, so why were you trying to get him to agree? It had just seemed natural to you that you’d talk to him about this.
You shook your head and said, “Well, I’m gonna go anyway. I just thought I should let you know. That way you know you’re gonna need to bring your best game to impress me.”
You noticed Keeho waving his arm impatiently at you, waiting for you to leave the lecture theater. Jay watched you walk away, and he couldn’t stop the smile spreading on his face. 
“So… Y/N will probably be working at the fundraiser,” Jay said, looking down at his notes. As on most days, Jake and Sunghoon were over at his place, half-studying, half-messing around.
The two boys in front of him groaned in unison. He raised his head and added defensively, “What? I’ve barely said anything yet.”
“Yeah, but you’re talking about Y/N. Again,” Jake said, as if stating the obvious.
“You know, I’m actually surprised he’s managed to not mention her for that long. It’s been what, fifteen minutes since we got here?” Sunghoon half-joked.
Used to his friends’ teasing, Jay ignored them and continued. “On any other occasion, I’d be more than happy to have her around” - cue another groan from Jake and Sunghoon - “but I really have to impress my parents and all the guests that evening. If I don’t, I’m gonna have to work twice as hard.”
Indulging his friend’s rant, Jake asked, “What’s wrong with her being there? She’s not gonna go around and tell everyone you’re a little shit as she hands them champagne glasses.”
Jay rolled his eyes. “No, of course not, but I’m gonna be hyper-aware of her presence and I don’t want it to distract me.” A third groan. “Plus, I don’t like the idea of her being there as a waitress. She should be with the students who talk to the guests, she deserves it more than anybody I know.”
After a beat, Sunghoon, with gracious subtlety and tact as always, added, “You know, if you had just manned up and asked her out in freshman year when you still had the chance, maybe you could’ve taken her to the fundraiser as your girlfriend and not have her go there as a waitress. Just saying.”
“It’s 2022, Sunghoon, nobody says things like ‘man up’ anymore.”
“You dumbass, is that all you’re hearing from what I just said-”
“What I think Sunghoon is trying to say,” Jake cut in, “is that this could have been avoided had you had the guts to tell her how you feel. But rest assured, my friend, it can still happen. No such thing as too late.”
“You always say that, but how the fuck am I supposed to ask her out when she’s only ever seen me as her rival? Plus, she’s head over heels for that prick.”
Sensing that Sunghoon was getting ready to deliver another one of his punchlines, Jake quickly replied. “Who cares about Heeseung? It wouldn’t be hard to make her see what an asshole he is. And once that’s done, you can just give her the Park charm,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Sunghoon fake gagged at the thought of his friend trying to flirt, and even Jay had to admit he hated how Jake had formulated his sentence. “That’s all I do though. As soon as we met, we got into arguing, and that’s just how we communicate now. She wants competition, so I give her competition. I don’t know what else to do.”
His friends sighed, unsure what to tell him after having had the same conversation hundreds of times. “Did you ask her why she took that cinema course? I thought it was weird she asked me for all that info. She wanted me to keep hush-hush about it, too,” Jake asked.
Jay thought for a second, then answered, “I did ask her if she was obsessed with me.” A fourth, deserved, groan. “She just said she thought the class seemed interesting. She didn’t even know I was a double major, by the way.”
Jake and Sunghoon chuckled, both thinking but not daring to say that, indeed, no one knew Jay also majored in Visual Studies. The three boys continued chatting for a while until they fell into silence and finally started getting some work done.
Jay managed to get you out of his head for a couple hours, but when his friends left and he was alone, his thoughts immediately drifted back to you. When the two of you first met in freshman year, you had become instant rivals, both top of your class, and always disagreeing on everything. He hadn’t minded the dynamic at first: he thought your ideas and the conversations that stemmed from them were always interesting, and he had a lot of respect for you. He wanted to know why you thought that way or what made you say certain things, and soon enough he wanted to know everything about you. He’d noticed things like how you chewed on your pen when you were in deep reflection, or how you’d look intently at anyone who was talking, as if you were making mental bullet points of their arguments only to break them down afterwards. When he finally realized his feelings for you (not without help from Jake and Sunghoon, who thought he couldn’t get any more obvious), he felt like your rivalry-almost-turned-friendship had gone too far, and you’d think he was stupid for liking you. It didn’t help that your confident attitude always broke down in front of his arch nemesis Lee Heeseung, making it painfully clear that you had a crush on him.
That night, he kept tossing and turning in his bed, trying to fall asleep. He hated the idea of you having to be there as a waitress, handing out drinks and mini toasts to entitled guests who probably wouldn’t even look at you. There had to be a few strings he could pull, right?
In all twenty years of your life, you had never been to a place like this. As soon as you’d entered the lobby of the building in which the fundraiser took place, you’d been overwhelmed by the sheer extravagance of the room. Every surface was shiny marble, the ceilings were at least fifteen meters high and the whole place was lit up by tiny wall lamps. You were almost scared to see what the actual ballroom would look like.
The fundraiser started at 8:00 p.m. but the staff had been advised to come earlier to prepare everything. You went further in, and now that you had somehow acclimated to your surroundings, you noticed how busy everyone was. People were running around, going from the kitchen to the back room to the main hall in quick strides. You tried getting one woman’s attention, hoping she could direct you to where you were supposed to go.
“Sorry, hi, where do the wai-”
She stopped dead in her tracks and barely looked at you as she whipped out a sheet of paper from her blouse pocket and asked for your name.
“Um, Y/N-”
She checked something off and looked up at you and smiled. “Great, follow me.” You had no time to ask anything else before she swiveled on her heels again and marched towards another room, you in tow behind her. “We’ve got a script ready for you. You just need to learn it in time for tonight and then use your charm on the guests. Oh, and don’t worry about your outfit and all that, we’ve got it covered. Good luck!” And with that, she was off. 
Script? Outfit? What was all this about? You panic-texted Keeho, telling him some lady had dragged you somewhere and told you to learn a whole script. When he didn’t answer after five minutes, you assumed he must be busy helping out, but it made you panic even more. You looked around the room and noticed a girl you thought you recognized from one of your classes. You walked up to her, and after saying hi, asked her what the hell was going on here.
She looked at you a bit oddly, as if it didn’t make sense you didn’t know where you were, but clarified things nonetheless. “Basically, the six of us are going to be wearing these tags so that the guests know who we are, and we’re gonna give them a pity story about how we’re so poor but also so smart and able to change the world if only they give us money. That’s what the script is for, it just makes it a bit nicer.” Right, that’s what Jay had told you. But why were you here when you had signed up to be a waitress? It was what you had wished for, but it made no sense whatsoever.
Registering your still confused expression, the girl went on, “They’re also gonna give us nice outfits and make us look more presentable. But not too much, you know, cause a thousand dollar gown wouldn’t really fit with the scholarship kid aesthetic.” You laughed with her. You had to admit the whole situation was a bit ridiculous, but if it could help you out, you would take it. You had needed to take out a loan when you started studying, and the enormous debt you would be in as soon as you stepped out of college already stressed you out.
You learned your script, which was actually just more like detailed examples of the things you should say and what direction your conversations with the guests should take, until somebody called out your name, telling you it was time to get you ready. You were led to another room which was full of clothing racks holding fancy dresses and suits. Your immediate thought was that the clothes in this one room were probably worth more than your entire house. 
You could only admire the room for a few moments before a stylist threw a dress in your arms and practically pushed you into a dressing room. You took a good look at black dress before putting it on. It wasn’t overly fancy; the girl you had talked to was right, it wouldn’t make sense for you to look like you were the richest person there. With its modest cleavage and mid-thigh length, it was what you assumed to be formal enough for this type of event, and surprisingly fit you like a glove. It made you look put-together and accentuated your features in the subtlest way. 
When you walked out of the dressing room, the stylist eyed you up and down, adjusting the dress here and there, then stepped back and mumbled absent-mindedly, as if thinking out loud, “Wow, he does have good taste.”
You didn’t have the time to ask her what she meant as she had already turned away, looking for jewelry to finish off your outfit. The earrings, necklace and ring she gave you weren’t huge 20 carat diamonds, but you’d never worn such delicate jewelry before, you were almost too scared to move with them on you in fear of breaking them. The stylist, however, didn’t seem too fussed, and as soon as she was done, said, “Well, that’s all for me. Off you go to hair and makeup now!”
Hair and makeup? You were going to get your hair and makeup done by professionals? You felt like a celebrity. Your whole life, your mom had cut your hair, and you bought your makeup at the drugstore. 
While they didn’t make you look like a Hunger Games Capitol citizen, when they were done with you, the reflection that looked back at you in the mirror was uncanny. You were still you, there was no doubt about that, but you looked like a perfect version of yourself, which only makeup expertly applied could create. Although they’d never seen you before, the makeup artist had managed to accentuate or make disappear lines you had never noticed on your face before, and the hair stylist had done your hair in a simple but very flattering manner, letting it cascade naturally down your shoulders.
The stylists let you admire yourself for a few moments, knowing you probably weren’t used to such pampering, but soon ushered you out to the ballroom; the fundraiser was just about to start, and you needed to be there for the beginning of it. You were made to sit at a table with the other students at the front, close to the stage. An organizer came to see you and explained how the evening was going to go down. Most of the evening would be spent standing, chatting to the guests and persuading them to donate, except when the main course was served. There was no fixed seating chart, so you could go with whomever invited you to sit with them. All in all, your goal was to be as likable as possible, and get guests to understand why scholarships were important without sounding desperate, just like the script indicated.
Tapping your foot nervously, you watched as more people trickled in, each looking richer than the previous. Soon enough, the whole room was seated, and a man you recognized as Jay’s dad arrived on the stage, welcomed by polite applause. You listened intently to his welcome speech, and you could see Jay’s presence and charisma in him; every word of his seemed to be thought out and to have purpose. He did a spectacular job at kicking off the fundraiser, and you were clapping enthusiastically when he was done, not expecting what he was about to do. 
With an extended hand, he pointed at you and the five students you were sitting with. “Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without these six brilliant students whom we have the honor of welcoming tonight. Would you all come up on stage with me?” he asked warmly, although you knew it wasn’t really a question. You all looked at each other bemusedly, but you didn’t have much of a choice, so you all got up and walked up the stairs to the stage.
You hadn’t realized how many people were attending until you were standing right in front of them. The bright spots lighting the stage made it hard to distinguish anyone’s face in the crowd, which only made your position more intimidating to you. Thankfully, you didn’t have to introduce yourself; Jay’s dad did it for you, and after a few minutes, you were free to walk off the stage and start mingling with the guests. Whew.
As soon as the six of you stepped off the stage, guests started approaching you, engaging you in conversation right away. You were a bit taken aback, but remembering you needed to be perfect tonight, you put on the most genuine smile you could muster. Them coming to you was better than having to chase after them. 
An hour and a half passed, and you had been engrossed in so many conversations that you hadn’t noticed so much time had already gone. The only time your attention had been pulled out was when Keeho came to your group, offering you toasts of caviar and bubbly champagne, and discreetly (or at least as discreetly as Keeho could be, which wasn’t very) gave you a wide-eyed look, which you returned. You had no idea why you weren’t working like him either. 
When somebody announced the main course would soon be served, a lot of guests went to sit down, so you were now stuck with the most pretentious man you had ever talked to. All the other guests, no matter how rich or famous or successful they were, had managed to stay somewhat humble and not flaunt how much higher they were in society than you, but it seemed that it was all this man knew how to do. You knew you needed to stay polite even in front of scum like him, but it was hard giving him your undivided attention when he was going on and on about basic economic principles you had learned in your first year of college. Your eyes started drifting around the room, until they fell on a certain someone.
Lee Heeseung was here. Of course he was; his parents, although they were rivals to the Park family, were still huge names in your country’s economy, and they couldn’t not be here tonight. Heeseung’s presence wasn’t required, but you imagined it couldn’t hurt his image to be seen by many adults at a gathering like this one. He was standing by the bar, talking to a girl who was clearly trying to flirt with him, but he didn’t seem to be into her. You hadn’t meant to stare, but his eyes soon met yours. You immediately felt heat rise to your cheeks. He didn’t break eye contact, even when he replied to whatever the girl was saying. His eyes started drifting down from your face to your body, as if he was undressing you with his gaze. You opened your mouth and let out a small gasp at the sheer indecency of the way he was looking at you. The sound you made made you snap out of your daze, and you turned your attention back to the man in front of you, who hadn’t even noticed you weren’t listening to him anymore, so enthralled he was by his own conversation.
You excused yourself, not wanting to be in Heeseung’s sight anymore. You weren’t sure what to make of the interaction - you loved the idea of Heeseung paying so much attention to you, but there was something about the setting and the fact that he was talking with another girl the whole time which made you a bit uncomfortable. Disheveled, you sat down at the nearest table, not paying much attention to who was there.
“Everything alright, miss Y/N?”
That voice was too familiar. Of course, you just had to sit next to Jay’s dad, a.k.a. one of the richest CEOs in the country, a.k.a. the man behind this fundraiser. You changed your expression from distressed to spirited, not wanting him to think you weren’t handling tonight well. Before you could say anything to reassure him, he added, “Not easy, is it, entertaining so many people? I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”
Relief immediately washed over you. You looked down and said, “It hasn’t been too bad, just depends on the person you’re talking to.”
He chuckled. “I thought I saw you talking to CEO Jung. Or rather, CEO Jung talking at you. Sorry about him, he’s just the kind of person you have to learn to deal with.”
You continued talking to Mr Park, and he even invited you to stay at his table when the main course was served. He was surprisingly easy to converse with; he intently listened to you, even though he probably met infinitely more interesting people than you every day, and bounced off of your words naturally. You wondered how such an easy-going man could give birth to an argumentative boy like Jay.
You suddenly wondered where Jay was. You hadn’t seen him all evening, and he wasn’t sitting at his dad’s table either. You assumed he’d be busy with other people, but you couldn’t help being curious about his whereabouts. Not wanting to look around the room searching for him and appear disinterested in his dad, you just asked him directly if he knew where his son was.
Mr Park quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Oh, you know my son?”
“Yes, we’ve had a lot of classes together since freshman year,” you explained.
He seemed deep in thought for a second, until he started slowly nodding his head as if he’d just figured something out. “Of course, you’re Y/N. I knew that name was familiar.”
Why would your name be familiar to Jay’s dad? “Oh, did Jay mention me or some-”
Before you could finish your sentence, Mr Park said, “Ah, there he is,” gaze directed behind your shoulder. And indeed, as you turned around, you saw Jay coming towards your table.
 “Dad, mind if I steal Y/N for a second?”
“She’s all yours,” he replied, sending a wink his son’s way. You looked at Jay and he seemed just as confused about his dad’s words as you. But then his eyes found yours and he motioned for you to get up and follow him with a tilt of his head.
“It was really nice talking to you, Mr Park, thank you so much for your time.”
“Of course. It was lovely meeting you, Y/N. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon enough,” he said with a knowing smile. 
You didn’t even try figuring out what he meant, and just walked with Jay as he took you to a quieter area of the ballroom. Most people had finished eating and had stood up again, so you’d needed to weave through them, and Jay put a hand on your lower back to guide you better. You ignored the warmth that spread on your skin where he touched you, blaming it on the glasses of champagne you’d had. 
When you’d reached a spot where you could talk easily, he turned towards you with a smirk. “I can’t believe you’re already charming your way up to my dad. You’re definitely ambitious, Y/N.”
You rolled your eyes but then remembered where you were and thought it might be best to not give in to Jay’s taunts here, so you kept your voice low when you replied. “I didn’t even do it on purpose. I just sat there, and he happened to already be at the table.”
His smirk only grew wider. “Right.” Then he stepped back a bit, and took a good look at you. Unlike Heeseung’s gaze earlier, the way Jay looked at you in that moment, like you were the only thing worth looking at in this beautiful ballroom, made butterflies erupt in your stomach. God, you really had had too much champagne. “I knew that dress would look good on you.”
You should’ve been flustered by the compliment, but you were too confused by Jay’s words: how could he have known about this? Why did he make it sound like he had chosen the dress? The stylist’s words from earlier suddenly pop up in your mind: “he does have good taste.” There was also the fact that you had applied to work as a waitress tonight but ended up as one of the scholarship students. Slowly, things started piecing together in your mind, and you looked up at the well-dressed, smirking boy in front of you in disbelief.
“Jay. Did you do this?”
“Do what?” he said, an innocent tone to his voice, but a mischievous look in his eyes.
Your eyes widened and you lightly slapped his arm. “You did! I- You- Ugh. Thanks, I guess,” you muttered, looking down at your shoes. You were beyond grateful, but your ego stopped you from being too showy about it.
He smiled at you, and you ignored how much you loved it. “It was no big deal. Just had to change your name from the waitering group to the student reps. Took me two seconds,” he said, following your gaze down, bashfully admitting to helping you out.
“Why’d you do it?”
Because you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and the world should know about it, was his immediate thought. But of course, he’d never say that out loud, so he opted for, “I just felt bad for you, really. I know you like to think of us as rivals, so I thought the least I could do was to put us on equal footing tonight.”
Although you had a feeling he wasn’t telling you everything, you weren’t going to press any further. You chatted for a bit longer, the both of you enjoying a relaxed conversation after hours on being on your best behavior, and your ability of talking normally to Jay and not wanting to claw his eyes out surprised you, not to mention the fact that you were… enjoying yourself.
“Anyway, I’m doing the closing speech soon. I’m gonna be awesome, so look closely, yeah?” You knew he wanted to look cool, but you thought he sounded like an excited kid who was about to put on a show for his family. How cute, you thought, and immediately chased that thought away from your brain. That damn champagne must’ve been laced with something.
You both went back into the crowd, and quickly your name was called out by someone you had talked to earlier who wanted to introduce you to someone else. You quickly waved goodbye at Jay, a smile on your face. If anybody had seen him, they would’ve noticed how his cheeks fired up and how he waved excitedly back at you.
And indeed, he had been seen.
His dad had been talking with one of his business partners, but tried to keep some of his attention on you and Jay. He couldn’t help but be curious as to why his son, who had previously never expressed any romantic interest in anyone, was suddenly making sure you attended the fundraiser as a student rep and not a waitress, and why he’d even gone the extra mile and chosen your dress for you. He hadn’t missed the way his son’s face lit up when he was talking to you, and how his gaze lingered on you as you walked away. But he also hadn’t missed how you’d followed Jay without hesitation, and how relaxed you’d looked talking to him. He thought the both of you acted as if it was just you two in a room full to the brim with people. When his wife joined him at the table, he’d told her about their son’s unusual behavior, and she said that she had noticed him looking around as if searching for someone a few times during the evening. They exchanged a knowing smile.
Heeseung had also noticed Jay leading you away from the crowd, and had intently watched your interaction, not even trying to make the girl he was talking to think he was still paying attention to her. He knew you had a crush on him; you couldn’t make it any more obvious. But he also knew how comfortable, how yourself you were around Jay; he’d seen the two of you banter around campus, always arguing about something, whether it was the new law that was being put into place or whether pineapple belongs on pizza or not. Heeseung wasn’t stupid, he’d seen enough rom-coms to know that the girl always ended up with the friend she joked around with and not the hot popular guy that made her feel nervous.
Jay and him had been rivals since he could remember, and not rivals like you and Jay, but proper rivals, who actually had to fight for something. Well, technically, it was their fathers who were competing as CEOs of some of the top firms in the country, but since they were bound to take their place at some point, it had felt like their competition as well. Nothing was off-limits when it came to their rivalry, and you were most definitely not an exception, not to Heeseung. He couldn’t stand seeing Jay have something he didn’t. At that moment, he made up his mind.
Heeseung had to have you.
But before that, Jay needed to give his closing speech. As soon as he’d stepped on the stage, the chatter started to quiet down, and everyone turned their attention to him. Much like you earlier, he hadn’t realized how bright the lights were when standing onstage. He could only see over a hundred people staring right at him, and his confident demeanor from moments ago crumbled at his feet. He scanned the crowd for your face, desperately needing something, or rather someone, to anchor him. When his eyes finally found yours, he felt strength regaining his body. His mother followed his gaze and found you looking right at her son, sending a reassuring smile and thumbs-up his way.
Jay’s speech went very smoothly, and everybody congratulated him for it as they left the room.
Back home after a stressful but rewarding evening, all Jay wanted to do was take a shower and pass out in bed. But his parents had other plans.
“So…” started his mother, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“So?” Jay asked, already fearing whatever his mom was about to say.
“Y/N’s a nice girl,” she simply stated, hoping Jay’s reaction would give her more to go on.
And oh boy did it. He immediately started blushing and stuttering at the sudden mention of your name. He knew you’d spoken with his father at the fundraiser, but he hadn’t thought his mom would bring you up.
“Y-Y/N? Yeah, I guess. But what about her?” he said, looking away and trying to sound uninterested, but blatantly failing.
His parents exchanged a look. “C’mon, son,” his dad picked up, “you don’t need to hide something like that from us. We’re very happy that you’ve found a nice girlfriend like Y/N.”
A nice… girlfriend? Had Jay heard that correctly? His parents thought you two were… dating? 
As he stared at them wide-eyed and mouth agape, they just chuckled softly at him. “It’s okay, Jay, really. She made a dazzling impression on all of the guests tonight, and on us. She’s exactly the kind of person you should be dating, so don’t worry about us getting in your way of anything. We approve of your relationship.”
Jay started laughing in disbelief, and his parents just took it as a sign of his relief. If only they knew. “Right,” he said between chuckles, “thanks, guys.”
Why he didn’t deny what his parents were saying was beyond him. A part of him didn’t want to disappoint them by telling them the truth - his mother had always urged him to get a girlfriend, saying he wouldn’t have the time for dating later on in his career, that he should enjoy his college years as much as he could. Another part of him loved the idea of dating you, and it hurt him too much to shatter that thought.
So he just nodded along, saying he was glad they liked you.
“We really did,” said his father. “In fact, you should bring her over for dinner sometime this week. It’d be nice getting to know her in a less formal setting, don’t you think? Ask her what she likes, I’ll ask the chef to cook it specially for her.”
“S-sure,” Jay said, already panicking - he’d either have to come up with an excuse as to why you couldn’t come to dinner, or with ways to convince you to be his pretend-girlfriend for a night. If he actually did ask you, he’d have to be very careful about it, otherwise it’d end up with you trying to pull his hair out.
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
At 10:43 a.m. the next day, you were waiting for Jay in front of the library. Right when you were about to turn your bedside lamp off, you’d received a text from him, asking to meet. Apparently, there was something he needed to tell you, and whatever it was, you were absolutely dreading it. Jay always had a lot of things to say, but he’d never felt the need before to warn you in advance that he needed to tell you something. Those kinds of messages were never very pleasant, and even less so when they came from Park Jongseong. Rereading the messages, you really couldn’t figure out what was so important that required you to take a break from your weekly Saturday morning study sessions.
00:44 archnemesis: Hey Y/N
00:44 archnemesis: Are you still up?
00:44 you: do NOT fuckboy text me jongseong
00:44 archnemesis: Sorry
00:45 you: go away im trying to sleep
00:45 archnemesis: Not trying hard enough obviously
00:45 you: shut up
00:45 you: what do u want
00:45 archnemesis: I need to tell you something.
00:45 archnemesis: Can we meet up tomorrow morning?
00:46 you: wtf
00:46 you: what is it ???
00:47 you: cant u just tell me now??
00:49 you: jay ???
00:49 archnemesis: Um.
00:49 archnemesis: I’ll tell you tomorrow!
00:49 archnemesis: :D
0:49 archnemesis: library 10:45?
0:50 you: ughhhhh
00:50 you: yeah whatever
00:50 you: this better be worth it istg
00:51 archnemesis: Good night Y/N &lt;3
00:51 you: EWWWW
You’d stayed awake for a while after that, trying to figure out whatever it was he needed to tell you, but the only thing you were sure about was that it had something to do with the fundraiser, since he’d texted you after it. Had he finally realized how superior in every aspect you were to him and would finally bow down to you? That seemed pretty unlikely. Did one of the guests there really like you and had spontaneously decided to pay for your studies and offer you an internship at their company? Were they impressed by your intellect and wanted you to become their kids’ private tutor? Possible. Or even better, maybe it was Jay’s parents whose attention you had particularly caught, and they wanted to reward you in some way. Maybe they thought you were amazing and that you’d be a perfect girlfriend for their son, and Jay, ever the daddy’s boy, would now shower you with gifts and attention in order to capture your heart.
Ha, as if, you thought, laughing to yourself. It was a lot less funny when Jay told you about the little misunderstanding.
You were sitting at the library café with Jay, who’d wanted to postpone delivering the news as much as possible and had bribed you with the promise of free hot coffee. Well, free for you, at least. Not that a coffee would create much of a dent in his bank account. After five minutes of chit-chatting, you were getting annoyed with him and didn’t understand why he was being so uncharacteristically awkward and asked him to cut straight to the chase. When he told you his parents thought you were his girlfriend and wanted to have you over for dinner this week, it took all you had to not spit the coffee right in his face. Not only was it ridiculous, it was practically exactly what you had imagined.
“Are you kidding me, Jongseong? I can barely pretend to be your friend, how the hell am I gonna pretend to be your girlfriend?”
Your words were like bullets piercing right through his body, but he had to ignore the pain, telling himself you were just shocked by the sudden news. “I’m sorry, Y/N, I just- I panicked, and I didn’t know how to tell them the truth. They seemed so happy,” he said, head hung low. You knew he was genuinely sorry, because he’d almost never actually said those words to you, so he had to mean them. The only other time you could think of was when he’d dropped his water bottle all over your laptop. The next day, he’d offered you a brand new MacBook with all of his notes already downloaded on it.
You sighed, unsure what to make of the whole situation. At any other time, your first reaction would’ve been to flip Jay off and tell him to get out of his own mess, but you felt like you owed him after what he’d done for you at the fundraiser. Even though he made it seem like no big deal, it still meant a lot to you that you’d gotten to spend the evening making yourself known to the guests and not serving them smoked salmon toasts, and that was all thanks to him.
“I guess I do owe you one, Jongseong.” His head snapped up and he looked at you with the most hopeful eyes you’d ever seen. “But before you get carried away,” you warned, “this is a one-time thing. Find an excuse, say we broke up or whatever. Fake dating is like, the most predictable trope ever,” you said, remembering all the heated discussions you’d had on the topic with Sieun.
But Jay paid no attention to that last sentence - he leapt up from his chair and came over to your side, engulfing you in a surprisingly warm hug. He muttered thank you over and over into your hair before realizing hugging wasn’t something you guys did and he might have just made things way worse. To his relief, when he took a sudden step back, you didn’t look upset at all, but rather amused at his sudden burst of excitement. 
He returned to his seat and cleared his throat. “Right. Thanks a lot, Y/N. My dad likes to have family dinners on Thursdays, so it’ll probably be then. I’ll, uh, I’ll take you there, so don’t worry about that.”
You chuckled at him. “You know I’ll never let you live this down, right?”
He sighed and shook his head, saying, “I know. But I’d rather have that than disappoint my parents, to be honest.” He smiled at you as if to take away some of the gravity of what he’d just said. You thought it wasn’t something he wanted to delve into, so you took a sip of your coffee and brought up the topic of this week’s tutorial for your cinema class, knowing it was a surefire way to start an argument with him. 
On Monday at lunch, you were sitting at the cafeteria with your friends. Keeho was telling them how fancy you’d looked and how you’d managed to charm everyone.
“I feel like I should be jealous, but what you did looked a lot more tiring than what I did, to be honest. When you’re a waiter at that kind of event, those rich people don’t even register your presence, so they just say the wildest shit in front of you. Apparently, CEO Cha is having an affair with CEO Liu’s wife, whoever they are.”
You chuckled at your friend, feeling even more thankful towards Jay that you didn’t have to spend your evening like that. The four of you continued chatting, which mainly consisted of complaining about how you already had so much work only two weeks into the semester. You were intently listening to the niche topic Sieun was learning about in her Bio class when someone dropped a bag on the table right next to your tray. The letters ‘Gucci’ were written on it in the iconic but simple font.
Your gaze went from the bag to the person holding it, and of course, it was none other than Park Jongseong himself.
“Hey, Y/N. Hey, guys,” he said, giving your friends a simple nod. They all replied with a confused hi. You were just staring at Jay, wondering what he was doing here.
“I got you something for Thursday night,” he explained. “Gotta wow the parents, you know?” he added with a wink.
“Uh-huh” was your very clever reply. You could feel your friends’ gaze ping-ponging between you and Jay.
Jay looked around the table, an awkward silence spreading between everyone. He cleared his throat. “Well, let me know if it fits or not. See you around.” And with that, he was gone as quickly as he’d arrived. You turned back to your friends, and their confused faces echoed your own. 
“What are you waiting for?” Sunoo nudged your arm. “Take a look inside!”
You took the bag on your lap and pulled out a magnificent green satin dress that was a lot more elegant than the one you’d worn at the fundraiser. You guessed Jay really did want for you to make a good impression on his parents. It seemed to be quite long and to not show too much skin, which you appreciated. You could only hope it would look as good on you as it did seeing it like this.
As soon as you’d taken it out, you’d heard your friends gasp. 
“Oh.”
“My.”
“God,” they’d said in turn, obviously mesmerized by the gift. 
You handed the dress to Sieun, who clearly wanted to admire it up close, and looked into the bag in case there was anything else. You were maybe hoping for a pair of earrings or a necklace, but it was wishful thinking. Instead, you found a sticky note signed Jay, which read, Wear the accessories and shoes from last week. I can’t spoil you too much just yet.
You hadn’t even noticed Sunoo was reading the note over your shoulder until he put his hand over yours in what seemed to be a confidential manner and said, with all the seriousness in the world, “Y/N, be honest with us. Is Park Jay your sugar daddy?”
Sieun and Keeho’s head snapped up and they stared at you expectantly. “What the hell? Why is that the first place your mind goes to?” you said, almost laughing in disbelief.
Bewildered, Sunoo replied, “How can it not? The wink, the Gucci gift, the note? It screams sugar daddy!”
“Wait - didn’t he say something about his parents? I’m not an expert, but I don’t think meeting the folks is sugar daddy etiquette,” Keeho mused, taking this way too seriously.
You took a deep breath. There was no point in not telling your friends what had happened, so you explained the events of the past few days to them, from Jay changing your role at the fundraiser, to his parents thinking you were dating, to dinner with them on Thursday.
When you were done bringing them up to date, they all looked at you with incredulous looks. After a moment, Sieun broke the silence: “Y/N, you’ve become a real walking rom-com. I’m so proud of you.” 
Keeho was tearing his bread apart, throwing chunks into his mouth. “I don’t know. Fake dating is kinda boring, to be honest.” Sieun let out an offended gasp and Sunoo nodded in agreement. 
“We’re not gonna be fake dating. Just for this one evening, I’ll pretend to be his girlfriend, and it’ll be over as quickly as it started,” you said, hoping that’d be the end of this conversation, but your friends wouldn’t back down so easily. 
“Y/N, that’s literally the whole concept of fake dating. You’ll think it’s only that one time, and before you know it, you’ll be married with three children, and it won’t be fake anymore,” Sieun warned, but you just shook your head and laughed, stealing Keeho’s other piece of bread from his tray.
“You guys are blowing this way out of proportion.”
“And you’ll be blowing something else soon…” Sunoo muttered, just loud enough for your table to hear. You let out an offended gasp but Keeho and Sieun just burst into laughter.
“Sunoo!”
“What?!” he replied, imitating your outraged tone but sporting an amused smile. “Your whole rivalry thing is too cute, I can’t take it seriously. You won’t admit it to yourself, but you clearly like Jay a lot more than you do Heeseung,” he said with a shrug, as if it was all so obvious. You tried to find support in Keeho or Sieun’s eyes, but they avoided your gaze, guilty expressions on their faces.
“Guys, come on, you can’t be serious. Jongseong and I are just- we’re just-” Rivals? Friends? Soon-to-be fake boyfriend and girlfriend? Who knew anymore. You took a deep breath. “It’s not like that.”
“Whatever you say,” Sunoo sighed, but to your relief that was the end of the conversation. Your friends quickly moved on to another topic, but their words gnawed at the back of your mind like rabid bunnies. Either they were completely insane, or you had gravely misjudged Jay this whole time. 
When Jay rang your doorbell at 7:00 p.m. sharp on Thursday, you were just done applying a thin layer of gloss on your lips. That morning, he’d texted you to ask for your address and tell you to be ready at seven. You took a good look at yourself in the mirror and headed down the stairs to get the door, but your mother had beat you to it. 
Not used to keeping secrets from her, you’d told her everything. She’d looked at you curiously the whole time, a slight smirk on her face as if she knew something you didn’t. And sure enough, when you were finished talking, she’d said, “I knew there was something between you and that Jay boy. You talk way too much about him.”
Not her too, you thought, but you didn’t need to encourage her delusions by telling her your friends thought the same, so you’d tried to defend yourself. “Mom! I just told you, I’m only pretending, I’m not actually his girlfriend. If I did like him, you’d be the first to know.”
She looked at you with a knowing smile that moms loved to wear. “I do know. You’re the one who doesn’t.” You’d dismissed her with a roll of your eyes. Everybody around me’s going crazy, you thought.
When she opened the door, it revealed a very smartly-dressed Jay (but when was he not?), bouquet in hand. He immediately handed them to her and introduced himself.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs Kim. I’m-”
“Jay, I know. Y/N’s mentioned you.”
“Has she?” he asked, a genuine grin blooming on his lips. You ignored how the glint of surprise and - hopefulness? - in his eyes tug at your heartstrings.
“Just once or twice, and never positively,” you interrupted, appearing next to your mom. Taking your appearance in, she nodded at you approvingly, but Jay just stood there, mouth agape, seemingly transfixed by you. He only snapped out of his daze when you called out his name.
“You ready to go?” you asked, and hoped that the heat that had traveled to your face was hidden by your makeup.
“Uh, yeah, yeah. Let’s go. It was nice meeting you, Mrs Kim.”
“You too, Jay. Thanks for the flowers. I hope Y/N will be a good fake girlfriend to you tonight.”
“Oh, you told her?” Jay asked you, looking somewhat disappointed. 
“I wasn’t gonna lie to my mom about my boyfriend,” you said, nudging him out of the door. “Bye, mom!”
You ignored her reply (“Don’t have too much fun!”) and walked speedily towards Jay’s car, which looked far too expensive for this neighborhood. As you got closer, he took a few quick steps in front of you and opened the passenger door for you. You rolled your eyes, not wanting to let on how the gesture made your stomach flip. “No need to go that far, Jongseong. Don’t try to woo me.”
He hurried to the driver’s seat, looked at you with a grin and said, “Might as well get into character now.” His gaze lingered on you for a second too long, and you started feeling self-conscious when his eyes moved up and down over your body. When you coughed, he suddenly turned his attention back to the front and gulped, then started the car. He looked taken aback himself, as if he hadn’t even noticed he was staring at you. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “I really do have good fashion taste.” 
Although he was technically complimenting himself, you caught yourself hoping he also meant you looked good in the dress he’d chosen for you. “You could have included shoes and jewelry, you know. I wouldn’t have taken it the wrong way,” you said with a playful tone. 
“Sounds like you’re already getting used to a lavish lifestyle,” he retorted, making you smile sheepishly. 
“I’m just not used to dressing up nicely like this. It’s nice,” you said truthfully. You weren’t sure where the honesty was coming from, but something about being in a car with Jay made you feel like you could say anything - it felt safe, like whatever you could tell him would stay between the two of you. What happens in Jay’s car, stays in Jay’s car, or something along those lines. 
Jay wanted to tell you that if you gave him a chance, you could do this anytime you wanted. He’d buy you all the dresses you could dream of, and give you a taste of his world, which he so often found bland and shallow, but that he was sure you could light up in the blink of an eye. But he couldn’t say that, so instead, he said, “Yeah, I noticed. I don’t think anything you’ve ever done or said offended me more than that one time you showed up to class wearing a ‘where the hell have you been, loca?’ t-shirt.”
“Shut up, that shirt is amazing!”
“Maybe, but the movie it’s quoting is an absolute trashfire of a film, if you can even call it that,” he claimed, knowing it’d get a reaction out of you.
“Don’t talk shit about Twilight, Jongseong, or I’ll mess tonight up and your parents will think you’re dating a psycho.”
He turned to you with a smirk. “I’d like to see you try.”
You’d always known Jay was a confident man. It’s obvious in the way he holds his head high whenever he enters a room, or how he manages to stay calm and collected during an argument with someone who’s practically shouting at him (you, usually). And while he was always self-assured during your debates, seeing him act like this to practically flirt - could you describe it like that? - with you rendered you speechless. And you hated being speechless.
So you crossed your arms with a hmph and looked out the window, turning away so he couldn’t catch your fluttered state. 
You finally arrived at his parents’ house after a half-an-hour drive (“You live so far away, do you seriously drive to campus and back everyday?” “Yes, Jay, not all of us can live in a three-bedroom flat in the middle of the city”). As soon as you walked in, his mother greeted you with a warm hug, telling you how pretty you looked, and his father clasped your hand tightly, the lines around his eyes showing as he smiled at you. By the looks of it, you wouldn’t need to do much for them to like you.
You could tell Mr Park was a businessman by the way he didn’t beat around the bush when talking to you. As soon as you’d sat down in the (or at least one of the) living rooms for drinks and small appetizers, he asked, “So, Y/N, tell us about yourself.”
Having anticipated such a question, you started, “Well, I’m an Econ major-”
“Yes, but I know there’s more to you than just academics,” Jay’s dad interrupted with a well-intentioned smile.
You looked at Jay, hoping he could help you out. He just looked back at you as if he was waiting for your answer as much as his dad was. “Right. Um. Where should I begin?” you said with an awkward chuckle. You felt a bit put on the spot, but there was only genuine curiosity in all three pairs of eyes looking at you, so you felt comfortable enough to go on.
“I’ve always lived here. Or, technically, in the suburbs. Since I spend most of my time either studying, working at my part-time job or commuting back and forth between school and home, I don’t have much time for hobbies. I just use my free time to spend time with my friends or my family.” You looked at the three people in front of you, wondering if you’d said enough. After a beat, you added, “Sorry, was that too depressing?”
Mr and Mrs Park chuckled at you, and he instantly reassured you, saying, “No, no, not at all. Tell us about your family.”
You were expecting that one too. “Well, it’s just my mother, my little sister and me. But she’s at boarding school right now, so I only see her during the holidays.”
“Boarding school - that’s pretty impressive,” commented Jay’s mom.
You smiled fondly at the thought of your little sister. “Yeah, she’s a smart cookie. Got there on a scholarship and everything. She likes it most of the time but she does complain about how the people there are all-”
You stopped yourself before your tongue could slip up and potentially offend Jay’s parents. But to your surprise, they smiled and, in turn, said, “Rich and self-centered?” 
“Little kids who think they run the place when they’re only fourteen?”
A chuckle escaped you, not expecting them to share that kind of opinion with you and your sister. An amused tone in your voice, you nodded your head and said, “Yeah, exactly.”
“Yeah, I know all about those. Your boyfriend here might have been born into wealth,” he started, and you tried not to choke on your drink at Jay being referred to as your boyfriend, “but my father’s company, the one I’m in charge of now, only started being successful when I was in high school. My dad worked his way up from the ground, so he and I both know what it’s like to not be well-off. I’ve tried to not turn Jay into one of those rich kids who think they’ll rule the world just cause they have money, and… well, I hope I did a good job.”
You looked at Jay with a grin. He looked right back at you as if to say, I dare you to tell my dad he’s wrong. If this was anyone else in any other situation, you definitely would’ve told them Jay is one of the most privileged people you’ve ever met. You thought for another second - yes, Jay was definitely privileged, but there was a sort of innocence about him. He’d never used his wealth to make you feel inferior to him or anything of the sort. When he’d bought you that MacBook, it was to apologize, not to show off. It was as normal for him to have his meals cooked and laundry washed as it was for you to sigh in defeat every time the price of milk went up, even by just a cent or two.
So, still looking at him, you replied, “Yeah, I’d say you did a pretty good job.”
The way Jay’s eyes looked in that moment, fond and soft, made you want to never look away. But you didn’t want to make it awkward, so you turned back to his parents, who were watching the two of you with affection. Maybe Jay and you were a little bit too good at this whole fake-dating thing.
A maid came into the room to announce dinner was ready, and you all headed to the dining room. When plates of your favorite food arrived, you looked at Jay, astonishment written all over your face.
“How did you know?”
“You might’ve mentioned it here and there…” he sheepishly answered, knowing fully well that he’d gotten the information from a tweet you’d made eight months ago.
As conversation picked up again and you exchanged with his parents over a bunch of different topics, from childhood memories to that weird new Netflix show that’s strangely addicting, you tried to ignore Jay’s stare that was burning into the side of your face. 
“What about your dad?” he suddenly asked, catching everybody in the room off guard. Noticing your confused look, he continued, “Earlier. You said it was just you, your sister and your mom. What about your dad?”
His mom furrowed her eyebrows at him and said, “Jongseong, leave her be. If she hasn’t told you, she probably doesn’t want to talk about it.”
You took a deep breath. “No, it’s alright. I don’t mind talking about it, I just don’t usually bring it up cause it makes people think of me differently? Like they start to pity me just because my dad’s out of the picture, when, really, it hasn’t affected me that much. I’ve never known him, my mom has always raised the two of us on her own.” You looked down at your hands. You hadn’t even realized you’d been fiddling your fingers. “It just seems too cliché, the poor girl who lives in the suburbs and is on a scholarship and doesn’t have a dad and redeems herself by having good grades. Which is why I like to usually keep it to myself.”
You looked back up at them and were relieved when you found understanding and not pity in their eyes. If there was one thing you didn’t want to happen, was for them to think you were leeching off of Jay or trying to get his money. Even though you weren’t actually dating, it would’ve still damaged your ego if they had seen you that way.
A few hours later, dessert was finished, and you could tell everyone was starting to tire (or had had too many glasses of wine) by the way the conversation was starting to make less and less sense. Jay was looking at the three of you in amusement, stone cold sober, as he knew he’d have to drive you home later.
“Well, Y/N, son, we’re not going to hold you hostage here any longer. You still have classes tomorrow,” Jay’s dad said.
His parents led the two of you to the door as you gathered your coat and bag. “It was so lovely getting to know you more, Y/N. You truly are a sweet girl, and we can tell you’re making our Jay very happy,” his mother said, pulling you into a hug.
“You better treat her well, son,” said Mr Park. Jay looked over at you, and there was something in his eyes you couldn’t quite explain; all you knew was that it sent shivers straight down your spine. “I will,” he simply said, but with so much honesty, it made you wonder if he actually did mean it.
“Oh, and Y/N, there’s an event this Saturday. It won’t be as fun as ours last week, but I’m sure you could find a way to enjoy it. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt for people to see what a nice, hardworking girlfriend Jay has,” his father said, beaming down at you.
Jay and you exchanged a look, and the panic at the sudden invitation made you say, “Yes, I’d love to attend!” instead of finding a palatable excuse.
You exchanged final goodbyes with his parents, and as soon as you were in the car, you let out a hearty groan.
“My God, what’s wrong with me? Why did I have to say yes to that?”
Jay started the car. “I’m surprised too. If you had given me three seconds, I could’ve come up with an excuse for you. But I mean, I’m not gonna complain.”
You turned your head towards him, a pout on your face. “What do you mean?”
Jay kept his eyes straight on the road as he answered. “Well, like he said, it won’t be a bad look for me to have you on my arm. As much as it pains me to admit, you’re charming and intelligent, and,” he glanced quickly towards you, “I have good fashion taste, so you don’t look like an absolute fool in that department either.”
You snorted at his coyness. “Just say I’m pretty and move on, Jongseong.”
“Is that what I said, though?” he asked, a devilish grin on his face. 
You gasped dramatically, trying to appear as offended as possible. “Your dad literally just told you to treat me well, I’ll have you know.”
“They really fell for it, didn’t they?,” he said with a sigh. “I have to say, you did a pretty good job tonight. Almost got me wondering if you’re not used to being people’s fake date for the night.”
“Yeah, it’s my side job actually.” You smiled at each other, and when the eye contact lasted a second too long, you both quickly turned your head to the road. “So, what’s Saturday night about?” you asked, wanting to break the silence.
“Oh, it’s probably just another boring event where the grown-ups go to socialize and flaunt their wealth or their children’s prowess.”
“Wow, look at you being all critical. I thought you lived and breathed that kind of stuff.”
“I like it when it has a purpose. Like a fundraiser, or a company opening, or whatever. But this is just another excuse for people to show themselves off. You don’t have to come, you know. I can probably find a way out for you.”
Once again, without thinking, you immediately answered, “I’ll come.”
Jay glanced at you quickly, an eyebrow raised. “Wh- Really?”
You shrugged, trying to stay casual. “I mean, I don’t have anything on Saturdays. Might as well keep you company. Turns out you’re not always insufferable.” You’d lowered your voice for that last sentence, only half-heartedly admitting it. But of course, Jay wasn’t going to let you go with it.
“Huh? What was that? I don’t think I heard you,” he teased, leaning slightly towards you.
You gently nudged his shoulder, saying, “Shut up, you heard me. Just because I tolerate you slightly more doesn’t mean you’ve stopped being my number one rival.”
You’d never seen Jay smile that much. You sometimes caught glimpses of it when he was with his friends, but with you, he usually had an arrogant smirk, so seeing his genuine grin made your heart swell with joy you couldn’t explain. 
“Of course not. I wouldn’t assume anything else.”
He dropped you off at your house and made sure you were inside before driving away. When you told your mom about your night, she watched you with a smile, that knowing glint in her eyes still there. When she tried hinting at you having feelings for the boy, you’d gotten off your chair and shouted good night! before heading to bed. 
Saturday quickly rolled around the corner, and you were in your room with Sieun, trying on the two dresses Jay had given you to pick from. “They’re both good, I just wanted to see if you’d choose the best one,” he’d said. This time, he’d also included a new pair of shoes and a set of matching jewelry. Your friends kept teasing you about him being your sugar daddy (“you can’t deny it anymore, Y/N”), and you had to admit you were starting to feel a bit like that, even though you weren’t really giving him any sugar. He was just spoiling you like it was his day job.
He was right; both dresses were gorgeous. They were both black, but one of them was body-fitting with an open back, while the other cinched in at the waist and had puffy sleeves. You couldn’t deny that you looked good in the first one; Sieun had let out the loudest gap when she’d seen you in it. But you both agreed that it was on the riskier side, and it was probably more appropriate to wear the second dress.
You were laying on your bed, talking about this and that. It’d been a while since it was just the two of you, and it was nice catching up with her.
“So…” she’d started, an impish tone to her voice. You knew immediately what she wanted to talk about and let out a loud groan, but that didn’t deter her. “Wanna tell me about Jay?”
It was obvious what she was trying to get at, but you weren’t going to give her what she wanted. “Well, he’s rich and has a huge house. Not surprising. He drives well. He’s not half as annoying when he’s in front of his parents. Probably not trying to be as much of a smartass. He seems to think he’s all that. He-”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” she said, laughing. “What I mean is, has anything changed between you two? Have you finally come to your senses about the boy?”
You thought about it for a second. Something had definitely shifted in your perception of Jay. You felt it in the pit of your stomach every time he smiled at you. But it was scary: this wasn’t you and Jay. You and Jay argued, and riled each other up, and got on each other’s nerves. You didn’t crack jokes so you’d hear the other laugh, or agree without thinking when they asked you for a favor. It was confusing, so instead of voicing out those concerns, you lied. “No. Not really.”
But your friend wasn’t buying it. “C’mon. The guy buys you dresses, gets your mom flowers, drives you to his parents’ for dinner. I know it’s not for realsies, and you’ve got integrity or whatever, but you can’t completely be indifferent to it, Y/N. Even you’ve got to admit Jay’s hot.”
You laughed at your friend’s reasoning. “Fine. Maybe he’s not just someone to beat anymore. I guess that’s what fake dating will do to you. But that doesn’t mean I have to say he’s hot.”
She turned to fully face you. “Not even when he’s all dressed up? Or when he hands you a bag that has contents worth thousands?”
Her eyes were telling you that you had to agree with her. You tried to suppress a smile, still not wanting to admit anything. Just because you and Jay had been rivals since you’d met didn’t mean you went blind every time you saw him. Of course, you knew how attractive he was. But you had conditioned yourself to never see him that way, so letting on that you didn’t think he was completely repulsive felt like betraying yourself. 
Sieun laughed at your reaction. “C’mon! Say it!”
You pursed your lips together, suppressing a smile, and shook your head. The tilt to Sieun’s head and the devilish glint in her eyes told you your friend was up to no good - and indeed, a second later, she was on you, tickling your sides and asking you to “say it! Say it!”
“Fine, fine!” you said between breathless giggles. She finally relented. “I think Jay’s hot.”
“Do you, now?”
The sudden male voice made you and Sieun shriek. You sat up in your bed and found its owner - sure enough, Jay was standing in your doorway, leaning against the wall and clearly liking what he’d just heard. Your mother soon appeared behind him, explaining that he’d knocked and she let him in, telling him to go up to your room. She mouthed sorry and quickly scurried down the hall.
“I’m not sure why it took you so long, but I’m glad you’ve finally opened your eyes, Y/N.”
Sieun’s eyes were going back and forth between the two of you, until she stood up and said, “Well, I guess that’s my cue to go. Have fun you two, and tell me all about it on Monday, Y/N!”
Before you could protest, she had already left your room, sending Jay a wink as she passed by him. It was silent for a few seconds as you sat there in embarrassment, cursing the Gods for your awful timing. He walked in and sat down at the edge of your bed, comfortable and keeping his distance at once. The sentence there’s something perfect about him flashed in your mind but you were quick to brush it away. “So, which dress did you choose?”
“The one with the puffy sleeves,” you replied, unable to look him in the eye.
He tutted, shaking his head disapprovingly. “Wrong choice.” You rolled your eyes. “Show me?”
This made you look at him. His smile was taunting, but his eyes were soft. With the way he looked right now, you thought he could ask you anything and you’d say yes. You hadn’t imagined that him sitting on your bed would make you stammer like a schoolgirl in front of her teacher crush, but here you were, almost rendered speechless by the mere sight of him. The fact that he was manspreading and leaning back on his hands, the top buttons of his shirt undone and his trousers stretching against his thighs, wasn’t particularly helping. More shyly than you intended, you told him to turn around and close his eyes, then quickly put the dress on. You were thankful for its lack of zipper - you don’t know if you could have handled Jay zipping your dress up for you.
“Okay. You can turn around now.”
This was already the third time Jay was seeing you all dressed up, but his gaze managed to make the heat rise to your cheeks every time. The corners of his lips rose slightly. “Wrong choice,” he repeated, “but you still look really good, Y/N.”
You couldn’t stop the smile spreading on your face as you coyly replied, tugging at the hem of your dress, “Why thank you, Jay.”
“You gonna be ready to go soon?” he asked, checking the time on his phone.
“Yeah, just need to put on jewelry and shoes, and I’m good. Sieun did my makeup for me earlier.” You put on the thin silver earrings and ring Jay had gotten for you and checked your reflection in the mirror. You put a hand to your collarbone, thinking the area looked a bit empty without a necklace.
“Should I wear the necklace from last time? It looks a bit weird without anything right now,” you asked Jay, keeping your gaze on the mirror. 
“Um, I’ve got something, actually. I forgot to give it to you with the rest of the things.” He fished a small box out of his bag and got up to stand behind you. He took out the necklace and put it around your neck, asking you to hold your hair up. You complied, looking at his reflection in the mirror. His hands slightly brushed the back of your neck as he locked the necklace, and you had to keep yourself from visibly shivering at his touch. This was infinitely worse (or better) than him zipping up your dress.
He absent-mindedly let his hands slide along your shoulders until they came to a halt on the sides of your arms. His eyes met yours in the mirror, and with a smile, he said, “All done.”
Nothing, not even the fundraiser of the previous week, could’ve prepared you for how lavish this party was. Whereas the fundraiser has been in an 18th century ballroom, in the old part of your city where most of the architecture was traditional, this event was taking place in the newer, richer part of the city where skyscrapers constituted most of the area. You were at the top of one of those skyscrapers, and from the huge windows that made up two of the four walls of the spacious room, you could see the whole city laid out right in front of you, as if it was yours to take. If having money meant seeing this everyday, you thought you could understand why rich people got addicted to it. 
As Jay and his dad had warned, the atmosphere that evening was very different from that of the fundraiser. Instead of gathering for a cause, this just felt like an excuse to get drunk and eat tiny, tiny appetizers that probably cost a hundred dollars each, all while looking rich and fashionable. The room was quite dark, only the moon outside and the small LED lamps on every table bringing light in. You’d never seen such an impressive collection of alcohol (to be fair, you’d only ever been to frat parties where most of the alcohol was cheap beer and dodgy brands of vodka), and you were really going to have to restrain yourself from trying out every cocktail the barman offered. Although most of the people there were in their forties to sixties, and the younger people were only there thanks to their parents, the dress code wasn’t as formal as you’d have imagined it to be, and Jay’s assessment of your dress as the “wrong choice” now made more sense. The women wore dresses that showed quite some skin, or didn’t leave much to the imagination, and the men had left their suit blazer behind and hadn’t buttoned their shirt all the way up.
It was all a bit mind-boggling at first, but you soon got used to it, and Jay’s warm hand on your lower back reassured you. At first, the two of you walked around together, talking to different people, and hoping you were making your “relationship” clear to them. You were glad Heeseung or anyone that would’ve recognized you wasn’t there: you could handle pretending to be Jay’s girlfriend in front of his parents and other random people, but in front of the whole school, that would’ve been a whole other level of fake dating.
Watching people slowly slip into a drunk state as the hours passed was just about the only source of entertainment you got that night. The two cocktails you’d tried out were way too strong to your liking, so you didn’t feel like drinking anymore, and Jay couldn’t because he was driving you home later on. When most guests were beyond the point of being able to hold a coherent conversation, you and Jay took it as your cue to leave. You found his parents among the crowd to tell them goodbye, and you could tell they weren’t completely sober by the way they kept telling you you were amazing and made you promise three times you’d attend more of these events. Guess you couldn’t back out now.
And indeed, as weeks passed, it became a normal thing for you to accompany Jay every time he had an event to attend. Your wardrobe was going to burst from all the outfits he kept buying you, but you weren’t going to complain. Jake and Sunghoon, as sons of CEOs of smaller but still important companies, were sometimes present. They usually ditched these types of events, and you couldn’t blame them, but they still made the effort from time to time. You were already friends with Jake before; the two of you had lived in the same dorm building and kept finding each other in the study room late at night, then started to bond over insolvable questions and watered-down instant coffee. Sunghoon, on the other hand, you hadn’t had many chances to talk to, and you couldn’t lie, judging by his appearance alone, you had first thought he was even more self-centered than Jay. But after talking to him for just a minute, you found that that cold facade quickly broke down and he was easy to talk to and very funny - in his own way, but funny nonetheless.
Heeseung wasn’t always at these events, but whenever he was, you couldn’t miss him. He always garnered attention, especially from the female guests, but he always kept his eyes trained on you. In all your three years of liking him, he’d barely spoken a word to you, so why the sudden interest? Usually, you’d have craved his attention; but for some reason, at those parties, you felt indifferent towards it. You hated how he was always with a different girl and never approached you, yet wasn’t trying to keep his glances towards you discreet at all. Jay noticed it too, and a couple times you’d even had to stop him from going up to Heeseung and asking him what the hell he wanted. 
Since you didn’t have money to bedazzle people with, you always tried to make a good impression with your conversation and intellect, but some nights you just weren’t up to it and spent most of the time laughing with Jake and Sunghoon, as Jay was often too busy talking to someone else. Tonight was one of those nights; half an hour into the party, an important businessman approached Jay and started talking to him, completely ignoring you. He always ended up apologizing later on, but you didn’t reproach him for it - you knew he had a reputation to uphold and that these events were important for him. Plus, it wasn’t like he owed you anything - you weren’t his girlfriend after all, even if the line between real and fake had started to blur more and more often as of late. 
Feeling out of place, you looked around the room and found Jake and Sunghoon at the bar, six shots lined up in front of them. You had never gotten drunk at any of these events, not wanting to risk embarrassing Jay or his parents, but tonight seemed like it was gonna be the most boring one as of yet. So you gestured to Jay that you were leaving and joined the two boys.
“Room for one more?” you asked when you reached them. They turned around and smiled at you; this was clearly not their first drink of the night. 
“Of course!” replied Jake excitedly, beaming at you. You could tell he already had a few drinks in his system. Without further ado, you each took a shot glass in your hand, clinked them and brought them to your lips, dipping your heads back. The burning of the alcohol as it glided down your throat was both repulsive and intoxicating, and you were soon reaching for the second one. The boys cheered you on and quickly mirrored you. 
Although you’d promised Jay you’d always be on your best behavior, as the evening went on, you never refused a drink that the servers approached you with or the boys offered you. Without Jay to make snide remarks about the snouty guests with, the evening was a lot less fun, so you couldn’t help but down every glass of alcohol that came near you; since Jake and Sunghoon were doing the exact same thing, none of you were realizing exactly how drunk you three were getting. At least, you weren’t going around the room, mumbling drunkenly to everyone; you were staying at a table in the corner, mumbling drunkenly to each other.
Jay was observing you from afar, trying not to worry and stay focus on the conversation (no matter how mind-numbing) he was having; but when he saw you almost fall out of your chair and burst into laughter right away instead of regaining your senses, he thought it was time to come check on you. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for having left you alone for most of the night, and he knew Jake and Sunghoon never stayed sober through these events, but in his defense, he didn’t think any of you would go that far.
He took a seat in the chair next to you, leaning close to you so you could hear him over the music and chatter of the guests. He asked you how you felt, and you gave him a lopsided smile in response. “Me? I feel great. This place is awesome once you’ve had-” you hiccuped, “a few drinks.”
Jay sighed but had an affectionate look on his face. “Right. I think it’s time to get you home.” He saw you open your mouth in what was probably going to be protest, so before you could say anything, he added, “And don’t even argue with me. I’m taking you home, let me just go let my parents know first. You two figure it out on your own,” he told Jake and Sunghoon, who had already started to doze off on their chairs.
He got up and headed towards his parents, and you watched him walk away with a pout on your face. Your vision was blurry from the alcohol and you could barely make out any faces, but you waved in what you hoped was the general direction of his parents. 
“She just keeps getting better, doesn’t she? Even when she’s drunk, she doesn’t embarrass herself,” said Mr Park when Jay announced your departure. “I’m glad you have her, son.” Jay was glad for the dimness of the room, which meant his dad wouldn’t notice how hard he was blushing. Even if it was all an act, thanks to his parents, he had gotten closer to you than he thought he ever would.
He bid goodbye to his parents and a few other guests, including Jake’s and Sunghoon’s parents, making them aware of their kids’ state, then went back to get you. The trek to the car wasn’t the easiest as tiredness had started to hit you and your body grew heavier against your will. You fell asleep as soon as your head hit the back of the passenger seat and Jay couldn’t help but think you were the cutest thing in the world. He then realized how far gone he must be to think you still looked precious in your current state.
The car ride was silent, your quiet snores and the soft chatter of the radio the only sounds filling up the space. Jay thought you were dead asleep as you didn’t wake up when he fished your keys out of your bag and carried you bridal style out of the car and to the door, but really, you just didn’t wanna have to walk. When he got to the door, though, you thought it would’ve been unfair to make him struggle that much, so you opened your eyes and quietly told him to let you on the ground. He walked you to your room, tucked you in bed and even got a wet wipe to take your makeup off for you. 
As he gently swiped it over your eyes, trying not to hurt you, your drunken state got the best of you and you asked, voice barely over a whisper, “Why are you doing all this?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and you thought he might not have heard you, until he replied, “Because I want to.” You were too tired to press the matter any further, although you desperately wanted to. You’d have to wait until you were sober - if you’d have the courage to bring the subject up then.
When he was done and got up from your bed, the sudden absence of his presence around you made you panic, so you called out, “Jay?”
“Yeah?” he said, and you hoped you weren’t imagining how expectant he’d sounded.
“Will you stay?”
Your eyes were too heavy to even open, so you couldn’t see his reaction. After a second that felt like an eternity, he answered, “Of course.”
You heard him steal a pillow and lay down on the carpeted floor next to your bed. Maybe it was the remnants of alcohol in your system, or the fact that spending so much time together, especially as his girlfriend - fake girlfriend - had made you see him in a new light, or the fact that you felt like your whole world would collapse if you didn’t have him next to you at that moment, or all three of those things. All you knew was that something beyond your control made you whisper “come here” in the quiet of your room, and, when he got under the covers with you but kept his distance, made you wrap your arms around him and cling onto his shirt as if he would disappear.
You slept like a baby that night, but Jay barely got a wink of sleep, the sound of his own heart beating uncontrollably keeping him awake.
You woke up that Sunday morning with a ringing headache, an upset stomach and a thirst you knew you wouldn’t be able to quench no matter how much water you drank. Your bed was empty, and the only thing that reminded you Jay sleeping overnight wasn’t a fever dream was his scent lingering on your pillow. The pang in your heart at his absence was hard to ignore - you were definitely curious about what it’d be like to wake up in Jay’s arms. 
The busy chatter coming from the kitchen forced you out of your bed, although you would’ve rather stayed there all day. As soon as you opened your bedroom door, the smell of pancakes and sizzling bacon attacked your nose, and you hurried downstairs.
The sight of Jay cooking breakfast for you and your mother alone was enough to cure your hangover. You sneakily watched from the staircase as he expertly flipped pancakes and cooked eggs at the same time, all while holding a conversation with your mom. You walked into the kitchen and poured yourself a cup of coffee before taking a seat next to your mom, trying to but failing to suppress a smile. “I didn’t know you were also a housewife, Jongseong,” you said, voice still groggy with sleep.
“I thought it was the least I could do after making you attend such an awful event,” he answered, and you had the suspicion he was only being nice because your mom was there, even though she knew you two weren’t actually dating. 
He kept that energy all throughout breakfast, making your mom laugh, and you watched him play his charm on her, glad you didn’t need to participate in the conversation. Any mom would be lucky to have him as a step-son, you caught yourself thinking.
Your mother hugged him when he left, and turned to you with a smile as soon as she’d closed the door. “Y/N, there’s no way in hell you don’t wanna date that boy. Hell, if he wasn’t half my age, I probably would.”
You took a cold water bottle from the fridge and said, “We’re not talking about this,” then headed up the stairs to your room. You ignored her calling after you and laid down in bed. Last night had given you a lot to think about.
You never got as drunk as that night again, not wanting to repeat that situation. Your relationship with Jay had already changed so much in so little time, but now, there was a lingering tension that always kept you on edge, and it wasn’t due to the constant arguing. It was due to the way you couldn’t get his scent on your sheets out of your head and the way he couldn’t forget how you had held onto him that night. You two had always said whatever was on your mind to each other, especially if it was something that would annoy the other, but now unspoken words constantly lingered between the two of you.
Your friends saw right through you; even though you tried to play it cool, it was painfully obvious that Jay was much more than just competition to you now. You hadn’t told them about the time he’d slept over and made you breakfast, knowing you’d never hear the end of it; but they didn’t need to know about that to see something had changed. It was clear in the way you talked about him, which had gone from irritated to excited, or how you never mentioned Heeseung anymore. One time, you’d even said “dating Jay” instead of “fake-dating,” and Sunoo had immediately picked up on it.
“That-that’s what I meant!” you’d exclaimed defensively, but they’d all looked at you with teasing smiles.
Jay hadn’t been very discreet when he’d given you bags of designer clothes all over campus, like in the cafeteria, in a random hallway, or in a lecture hall, and given his immense popularity (you know, being handsome and rich and all that), a few rumors about you two dating were being spread around. But they hadn’t really blown up, since the both of you always denied them whenever someone asked you if they were true, because you didn’t need to keep the pretense at uni. 
The pretense - because that’s all it was, of course. Play pretend. Fake dating, keyword fake. But everything with Jay felt too real - the laughter in his car on the way to and fro the events, the smiles you exchanged from across the room, his hand brushing against yours when you sit next to each other during lectures. It wasn’t enough to have his arm around your waist once or twice a week, and it drove you crazy that you had him in bed right next to you but that you’d let him go. You needed to have him close, and for it to be real.
It was a sunny March afternoon when you realized this. Your week was surprisingly unbusy - along with the preparation for your lectures and tutorials, you only had two small online quizzes to complete, and all your bigger deadlines were so far away that even you didn’t see the point in starting on them already. So, armed with your favorite book and plenty of snacks, you’d decided to head to the park next to campus and spend a relaxing afternoon in the sun. It went as planned for about an hour, when an all too familiar voice called out your name - a voice that used to make you sigh in annoyance and roll your eyes automatically, but that now made your heart skip a beat in nervousness, you realized with some alarm.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” He sat down next to you on your picnic blanket, beaming at you like you were his good old friend he’d just run into. He had a professional-looking camera with him, something you’d never seen him carry around. You were so taken aback by his excitement at seeing you that no words formed in your mind, and you just raised your book and waved it stupidly.
Jay chuckled when he saw what you were reading. “Twilight, of course. And that’s the last one, isn’t it?” He shook his head in mock-disappointment at you. “I can’t believe you would put yourself through the torture of reading four of those books, Y/N.”
You just mumbled something about them being fun to read, turning your gaze back to the cover of the book you were holding. What the hell was wrong with you?! Usually, you’d be quick to shoot an answer back at Jay, either defending yourself or attacking him on one of his own weird preferences (you’ll never forget the day they had corn at the cafeteria and Jay had scarfed down at least five cobs in one sitting). But right now, Jay’s presence next to you turned your insides to liquid and rendered you unable to think properly. You hated it.
But then you noticed something on the book cover - “Jay, how do you know this is the last one?” From the corner of your eye, you saw Jay’s head snap up while you turned the book in your hands. “There’s no number on it.”
“O-oh,” he started, and judging from the growing blush on his face, you knew you’d caught him. This brought some of your usual confidence back to you. “Isn’t it common knowledge that Breaking Dawn is the last book in the series?”
You giggled at that. “Absolutely not.” His guilty expression only made you want to press further, and you added, “That’s something you’d only know if you’d watched all the movies and made the effort to remember the separate titles.”
He looked away, letting out a small hum as he found sudden interest in his camera. You were still smiling at him in disbelief. “Jongseong, have you seen all five Twilight movies?”
He furrowed his eyebrows and kept avoiding your gaze. “Pffft. No.”
“Jongseong.”
At the sound of his name, he abruptly turned his head in your direction, and his glare only made you smile even more. “You’ve actually seen all five movies, I can’t believe this,” you said, almost laughing. Jay’s eyes softened slightly, just enough for you to notice. He turned his attention back to his camera, but he was smiling down at it as he spoke this time.
“It’s just that you’ve mentioned them so often, I thought I should check at least the first one out. Turns out they’re pretty addictive,” he admitted sheepishly.
“So you watched them for me?” you asked, and your voice was more admirative than you’d had intended it to be - you wanted to tease him, not let him know that what he’d just said actually touched you.
“I watched them for… research purposes,” he conceded. Your eyes met. Your cheeks were starting to hurt from all the intense smiling this conversation was bringing you, but you couldn’t help it. This time, you were the one to look away.
“Research purposes, of course.” A short silence ensued, the sort of silence you should’ve been used to with Jay by now but that always made you feel giddy - the sort that’s awkward in a lighthearted way, the sort where you’re repeating all the words that have just been said in your head and committing them to memory. The sort where you hope the other is feeling all the things you’re feeling.
You broke it first. “What about you, what are you doing here?”
Jay raised his head, looking like he’d just remembered he had come here for another purpose than just talking to you. “Right. I have a project for this elective I’m taking, so I need to film some stuff and I thought it’d be nice to do it here,” he explained, shrugging.
“Sounds cool,” you said, and you hoped he knew you actually meant it. He looked at you again, and he seemed surprised. “Tell me more,” you added, and from the way his features lit up, you could tell you had said the right thing. You positioned yourself more comfortably on the blanket as you listened to him.
“Oh, well, our professor’s a bit of a romantic so the project is all about finding beauty in the small things, the happiness around us, love…” 
Your gazes locked the moment he said that word, but it only lasted a second. Jay was quick to clear his throat and go back to his explanation, but it took you a few more seconds until you could focus on his words again. When you snapped out of it, he was showing you some films he’d already taken. They were all very short, just three or four seconds long, but a peacefulness emitted from each of them. An encouraging message scribbled into a lecture hall table, a cat laying on a windowsill, enjoying the sun, an old couple walking slowly hand-in-hand, teenage girls celebrating a birthday at an ice cream parlor, the metro passing quickly through the frame as the sunset paints the sky orange in the background. All beautiful moments that make up life, but that you never take the time to fully appreciate.
“This… this is beautiful, Jay,” you breathe, mesmerized by what he’d manage to capture.
“Yeah? Not too cheesy?” he asked, a small smile on his lips.
“Not at all. I think your professor will love this, you completely grasped the subject.”
He let out a shaky breath of relief, his smile getting wider. “Nice,” he said under his breath. Then he suddenly turned his head to look at you, an intensity in his gaze you hadn’t expected. “Would you mind if I took a video of you? Add you to the film?”
“W-what, like here? Right now?”
“Yeah,” Jay said, and when he smiled at you like that, who were you to say no?
“Okay, sure.” You tried to shrug, play it cool, but something about Jay looking at you through his lens and adding a video of you to all those beautiful ones he’d just shown you made your heartbeat speed dangerously.
“Great,” he beamed. “Just read your book. Pretend I’m not here,” he instructed. As if you could be anything less than hyper-aware of his presence, you thought.
Thankfully, the video was shot in just a few minutes as Jay searched for the best angle to take it from. Before you knew it, he was already back next to you, mirroring your position on the blanket as he laid on his stomach. You tried to ignore how his shoulder brushed against yours as he leaned on his forearms, showing you the video. You had to admit, it looked really nice - from this angle, the sun shone down on you perfectly, and you could see the wind blowing through the tree leaves in the background. It fit perfectly with the other videos.
“Beautiful,” Jay whispered, looking at the film with nothing but fondness in his eyes.
You didn’t linger on his words too long, just took the chance to tease him: “Are you complimenting me or your videography skills?”
The look in his eyes didn’t change as he turned his head and gazed down at you. “You, of course.”
A smirk tugged the corners of his lips up as he took in your flustered expression, your incoherent mumbles. “Whatever,” you mumbled when you regained the ability to speak. 
Another comfortable silence settled between the two of you as Jay busied himself with his camera while you read the same paragraph over and over, unable to concentrate on the words. You desperately wanted to say something, but had no idea what, so you were grateful when Jay broke the silence.
“Just need to edit this all together on my laptop, and then I’m all done. Thanks for your help, Y/N.”
“I didn’t do anything, though,” you said with a small smile. His compliment from earlier was still ringing in your ears.
“But you did. I think that shot of you will end the film perfectly.” 
Sure, Jay had gotten nicer and nicer to you as time passed - but today, he was really laying it on thick. He was making it hard to breathe properly. All you could do to save yourself was change the subject.
“So, this is for the Visual Studies part of your degree, right?”
For the second time today, Jay’s expression went from surprise to delight - you remembered, he thought. “It is, yeah,” he replied, with a wide grin he couldn’t control. He seemed to hesitate for a bit, as if deliberating whether he should say whatever it was he wanted to say or not. You were happy to see he opted for telling you. “If it was up to me, it’s the only thing I’d have done.”
You studied him for a bit. With just this simple sentence, you realized Jay’s life wasn’t as simple as you’d always imagined it to be. “But it’s not up to you, I’m guessing.��
He smiled sadly, and you had to resist the urge to take him in your arms. All these things you had been feeling for him, they weren’t supposed to be there, and you were getting really tired of fighting them back.
“It isn’t, no.” He turned over to lay on his back, and you imitated him, so that you were now both staring up at the sky. He sighed before speaking again. “My father isn’t a particularly conservative man, but he does like tradition. He wants to keep the company in the family, and as his only child, I’m the one the responsibility falls upon. He’s never even asked me if this was what I wanted to do, just assumed I’d be happy with it.”
In your three years of knowing Jay, you’d thought how unfair it was that he wouldn’t have to go through the hoops of job applications and job interviews. He already had a top position waiting for him as soon as he got out of college. But now you realized that he was completely trapped in the position - all of the decisions you’d taken academics- and career-wise had been your own, while Jay’s had been chosen for him in advance.
“I picked up photography as a hobby to get away from it all and ended up really falling in love with it. I have control over my camera even if I have zero control over anything else in my life,” he explained with a defeated chuckle.
You let your head fall to the side and looked at him. “I had no idea about any of this.”
Jay met your eyes and smiled. The sun was right behind you, so he had to shield his eyes from it to look at you. “Of course not. I never mentioned it.”
“I feel like I should’ve known, for some reason.”
His smile got wider. You looked away. “Why?”
“Just ‘cause. Maybe I would’ve gone easier on you if I knew you were also struggling.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.” He bumped your shoulder with his, making you let out a chuckle.
A beat passed before you spoke again. “Guess we both have a lot of pressure on our shoulders, huh? Even if they’re different kinds.”
“Guess we do.”
“Then we’re more similar than I’d thought,” you said, and looked at him again.
“Guess we are.”
A smile bloomed on your lips, and Jay’s eyes drifted down to it. That simple action made you panic, and you suddenly sat up. He didn’t have time to ask if everything’s alright, you were already throwing your stuff back in your bag and mumbling something about the time and having to go. You stood, and turned to Jay before scurrying off. “I’ll see you around.”
Jay chuckled, slightly confused, but let you go. It wasn’t until he left himself that he’d realized you’d left without your picnic blanket.
— 
After that afternoon, you tried to pretend nothing happened, and that you hadn’t run away just because of Jay glancing down at your lips. You were already getting worked up over things you shouldn’t even be thinking about when it came to him - you didn’t need to have Jay kissing you on your mind.
Thankfully, Jay didn’t bother you about it, and you got back into your routine of arguing by class and pretending to be a couple by night. Everything was fine.
That is, until Mr Park happened.
You had waited all week, hell, all month for this: Jay’s dad was about to give a special talk for the School of Business on how to get a company started and efficiently run it, but most importantly, he would announce how to apply for a summer internship at his firm. You’d made sure to get there early so you could get a good seat. He noticed you when you walked in the amphitheater, and motioned to you to come see him.
“Y/N! Lovely to see you, thanks for coming,” he greeted, beaming down at you. It always surprised you just how similar his smile was to his son’s.
“Of course, Mr Park! I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Come and see me after the talk, yeah? There’s something I want to tell you.”
God, what was it with Park father and son to announce things like that? Why not just say it straight away? You kept those thoughts to yourself and nodded, then sat down at a seat in the front.
You listened intently the whole time and took down rigorous notes. When it was over, you had to wait another twenty minutes as people asked him questions, until he finally announced that was all he had time for today. You headed down towards the stage, and complimented him on his talk. Most people in the room had started trickling out, but there were still a few students waiting at the doors, hoping to catch him before he left.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” he said with a chuckle, before taking a deep breath. “I realize now what I said earlier might have made you nervous, but don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.” 
You released a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Good. “I just wanted to thank you for being such a good girlfriend to Jay. I’ve always been proud of him, but I know he has a lot on his shoulders, so it’s nice to see that he has someone like you to rely on.”
You smiled at Mr Park, saying it was nothing, but you felt guilty. He truly believed in you and Jay, when the two of you were only pretending. Even though it didn’t always feel that way anymore. 
“Oh, and for the internship, I’m sure you’ll understand that it wouldn’t look too good if I gave it to you. But don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word for you wherever you decide to apply.”
A second passed. Then another, and another, until your lack of answer was becoming weird, and you had to say something. “Oh. Right. Of course, I understand,” you replied, hoping the disappointment in your voice wasn’t too obvious. You exchanged a few more words until you said you needed to get back to studying.
As you turned around to exit the room, you noticed everybody who had been waiting for Mr Park was staring right at you, wide-eyed. You tried to ignore them and get to the doors, but a girl stopped you. “So the rumors are true, you really are dating Jay?”
You’d never seen her in your life and were a bit shocked that a stranger could demand information about your love life, but you nonetheless shook your head and started to say, “What? No.”
“Why are you lying? We just heard everything,” said another voice.
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter anyway, just don’t lie.”
You turned your gaze away from the students to look behind you at Mr Park. Or more precisely, at the lecturer mic wrapped around his waist. From where you were, you could make out a tiny red light on the mic, signaling it was still on.
Crap.
As soon as you were outside, you called Jay. He picked up after a few rings, groaning, “What? I’m at the library.” Ah, there was the Jay you knew.
“I’ll be here in two, come outside.”
“But-”
“Right now,” you said sharply and hung up. 
Jay had wanted to scold you for disturbing him like that, but as soon as he saw you, eyebrows furrowed and biting your lip nervously, worry overcame him. “Hey. You okay?” he asked gently, placing his hands on your forearms.
“Yeah. I’m fine, but, um, everybody knows. »
He looked at you questioningly, and when you wouldn’t explain further, he asked, “Knows what?”
“You. Me. That we’re dating. Well, they think we’re dating.”
“What? How do they know?”
“Your dad. We talked after his presentation, and he thanked me for being a good girlfriend, except his mic was on. So everybody heard. And you know how gossip travels here, so everybody’ll know by tonight,” you said, sighing in exasperation.
Jay thought for a while. “Well, who cares if they know? We don’t have to change the way we act with each other. That’d be more suspicious, if anything. We’ll just have to not deny it when people ask if we’re dating.” 
Your frustration got the best of you and you scoffed, giving Jay a harsher look than you wanted to. His hands left your forearms. “How far is this gonna go, Jay?! How much longer do we have to-” You realized how loud your voice was, and switched to whisper-shouting instead of just shouting. “To pretend? I can let you parade me around those CEOs and whatnot, but I don’t wanna have to keep the charade up on campus, too.”
Jay’s law locked. He looked like you’d just punched him. But he didn’t say anything, so you dropped it. “Anyway, that’s not even the bad part. Your dad told me I wouldn’t get the internship.  And it’s fine, I guess I can get one somewhere else. But I wasn’t expecting it, and I was really looking forward to working at your dad’s firm.”
Again, he was silent for a small while, until he muttered, “Right.”
You looked up at him, and he was avoiding your gaze. Why wasn’t he surprised, or angry? Why wasn’t he reacting?
“Did… did you know?” you asked, unable to keep your voice from shaking.
Nothing.
“Jay. Did you know?” you repeated, tone harsher, more impatient.
“Um. Yeah, I knew,” he mumbled. He still wouldn’t look you in the eye. 
You shut your eyes for a few seconds, trying to grasp the situation. “Wh- you knew? And you didn’t say anything?” 
“Sorry,” he said, eyes trained on his shoes.
“Sorry? That’s it?” You shook your head in disbelief. You almost wanted to laugh. “How long have you known?”
“Since the beginning, really. My dad’s not the type to do favors, and he wants to keep up that image. So if you’re my girlfriend, he wouldn’t give you the internship.”
You couldn’t say anything. Not getting the internship was one thing. You could get over it. But Jay knowing from the start and keeping it from you, that was what really hurt you. You could feel tears forming in your eyes, but you walked away before Jay could see just how much he’d upset you.
“Y/N!” he called after you. He grabbed your wrist, making you stop in your tracks and turn around. The sight of you, teary eyes and staring at him with fury in your eyes, and knowing he was the reason behind it, made him indescribably angry at himself.
“Whatever it is you have to say, I don’t wanna hear it, Jongseong.” He tightened his grip on your wrist before you could snatch it away from him.
“I’m so sorry, Y/N. I didn’t know you wanted that internship. If I did-”
“If you did? Then what? You wouldn’t have asked me to be your pretend girlfriend? You would’ve let me have a chance at the internship?” You shook your head. “Of course not. So save it.”
You managed to get out of his grip and continued walking away, ignoring him as he called out your name again. When you were a few meters away, you turned around and said, venom only in your voice, “I hope you realize how selfish you are, Jay.”
That’s when his heart broke.
Jay had been right when he said people wouldn’t care about the two of you ‘dating.’ However, the people who did care, your friends, were more confused than anything: you had gone from bickering non stop, to denying couple rumors, to not talking to each other. It’d been a week since your argument with Jay, and you still didn’t want to hear him out. You didn’t want to have anything to do with him: you straight-up ignored him every time he tried to get you to talk to him, had blocked his number and shut down your friends and mom whenever they mentioned him.
You missed him; you missed his stupid arguments, and his stupid jokes, and his stupid face, and how it had started to feel like he genuinely cared for you. Or at least, that’s what he’d made you think. And he’d made you think it so well, that you thought you might have been starting to genuinely care for him as well. Which only made his betrayal a hundred times worse.
You’d decided to drown your sorrows in textbooks, and spent most of your time at the library. On Thursday, you were searching for the week’s essential reading in the Econ section, and as you took out the book in question, you saw a pair of eyes staring right at you. You tried not to shriek but you felt like your soul had left your body. You’d barely had time to gather your spirits when the culprit had come round to your side of the bookshelf, and of course, it was none other than Lee Heeseung. God, you thought, could that boy get any weirder?
“Trouble in paradise, or so I’ve heard?” he asked in lieu of a normal greeting. Whatever happened to hello?
“That’s none of your business, Heeseung,” you replied curtly, opening the book.
He tried not to be taken too aback by your attitude. He was used to stammering and blushing Y/N, not you-better-not-give-me-any-shit Y/N. He wouldn’t say he disliked the change.
“I’m not sure why you thought dating a guy like Jay was a good idea in the first place, anyway. You could do a lot better, you know,” he said, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all. When you didn’t answer, he went on. “You know, we’ve missed you at the frat parties. I know you’ve been going to all those boring company events, but don’t you think it’d be more fun to let loose with us? Tomorrow night?”
This made you look up at him. He had that gaze again, the one you’d seen all those times, and you remembered why you’d liked him for so long. Something about his eyes, about the way he was waiting for you to say yes, made you reply, “I’ll think about it.” You returned his smile and headed back to your seat. You did think going to his party would be fun, and you definitely needed some of that right now.
Plus, you had the perfect dress for the occasion.
So here you were, standing in front of the frat house’s door, Sieun, Sunoo and Keeho at your sides, in the tight black dress Jay had given you but you hadn’t chosen for that one event. They were all used to this kind of party, but you’d only been a few times, and although they’d all hyped you up for it, you suddenly felt yourself deflate. 
“Guys, what if I just embarrass myself like last time? I don’t think I could live with that-”
“Nope! We’re not having this conversation again!” Sieun exclaimed, already pushing you inside. “You look hot as fuck, and tonight you’re gonna have so much fun and forget all about Jay.”
Keeho and Sunoo gave her a stern look. “Sorry,” she quickly apologized, but you barely heard her over the bass of the booming music. It was 11 p.m. and the party was well into motion. People were drunkenly dancing on the designated dance floor, and you tried to not conjure up memories of that last party. There were people everywhere you looked: on the staircase, in the backyard, in the kitchen. 
Your friends and you headed first to the mini-bar and shot down some vodka for liquid courage. As you started chatting, trying to see who was there, Heeseung approached you.
“Y/N! You came! And you look really good,” he said, taking in your figure. He pulled you into a hug which you returned warmly. The vodka was already having its effects on you, apparently.
“Can I get you guys a drink?” he asked you and Sieun. Keeho and Sunoo had already disappeared to the dance floor. 
“Sure,” you said, smiling up at Heeseung.
Sieun looked between the two of you, and said, “Actually, I’ll join the others. Come dance with us soon, Y/N!” And like that, she was gone, giving you no time to protest. She thought she was being slick, that one.
You and Heeseung chuckled. He got you a red cup and you watched him as he expertly poured different juices and liquors in it. “So, what made you decide to come?” he asked, handing you your drink. You took a sip of it and nodded approvingly.
“I just needed a good party. To let loose, like you said. Plus, who am I to deny an invitation from the great Lee Heeseung?”
Neither of you was sure where all the confidence was coming from. As soon as you’d said that, you looked down at your cup and smiled shyly. Heeseung looked at you curiously, but he couldn’t help but grin as well. You chatted a bit more, drinking one, two, three cups of the heavenly concoction Heeseung made for you. 
“Wanna dance?” he suddenly offered, extending his hand. Right at that moment, you saw Jay enter the house with Jake and Sunghoon. You saw him look around the room until his eyes zeroed in on you and the boy in front of you. Perfect, you thought. You smiled at Heeseung and took his hand, letting him lead you to the dance floor.
Somebody had dimmed down the lights and Lost in the Fire by The Weeknd was playing loudly, creating a sensual atmosphere in the whole room. Your body started swaying to the music, and you were thankful for the alcohol in your system, ridding your mind of any negative or self-conscious thought; you were just enjoying yourself, exactly like you’d wanted to do tonight.
You were getting lost in the music, when a pair of hands on the sides of your waist brought you back to reality. Heeseung got so close to you, you could feel his lips on your ear as they moved to whisper, “Having fun, princess?” 
You nodded fervently, leaning your head back on his shoulder, closing whatever gap there was between your two bodies. His hands traveled from your waist to your hips and you could feel his broad chest against your back as you two moved to the rhythm of the music. From where you were, you had a view of the living room. Jay was sitting there, a girl sitting so close she might as well have been on his lap, but he was staring right at you. You knew never hooked up with random girls at parties, so he had to be doing this to get a reaction out of you. You hated that it worked, that it only made the fire in you burn harder - so as a response, you started grinding your ass against Heeseung.
When the girl actually sat on Jay’s lap, you couldn’t look anymore, so you turned around and put your arms around Heeseung’s neck and faced him. His eyes had glossed over and he was looking at you with a hunger you’d never seen before. Well, that wasn’t true - you’d seen him look at other girls that way, and you always knew what happened after that, but you chased the thought out of your mind, forgetting all about that promise you’d made to yourself of never becoming another one of his drunk fucks. Now that his attention was on you and you only, you felt yourself wanting more. His hands traveled further down your body as he grabbed at your ass, bringing your hips closer to his. He bent down to press wet kisses up your neck until he reached your ear. 
“Wanna take this upstairs?” he asked. It sent shivers down your spine, but you couldn’t tell whether they were good shivers or not. You willed away your hesitation, smiling at him as he took your hand once again, this time leading you to what you assumed was his bedroom. As you walked up the stairs, you scanned the room and sure enough, found Jay sitting on a couch, staring right at you. You thought the beer can in his hand might explode, he was holding it so tight. Feeling you slow down, Heeseung tugged at your hand, and you detached your gaze from Jay’s, trying to drown out the feeling of guilt that was creeping up inside you.
As soon as he’d closed the door behind you, Heeseung wasted no time in pressing you up against the wall and kissing you hungrily. You hadn’t been kissed many times before, and surely not with such energy, but you were sure it was supposed to feel better. Heeseung was in no measure a bad kisser, he seemed to have the technique down to a T and kept a perfect rhythm. But you felt no fireworks, no butterflies, no light-headedness you’d always hoped would come with a good kiss. There was just no passion to it.
After a few minutes of making out, when you were starting to hope he’d get on with it, he said, breath irregular, “What would Jay say if he saw this, huh? Probably hates the idea of me kissing his precious girlfriend, don’t you think?”
The mention of Jay hit you like a ton of bricks. “Wh-what?” you stammered, not letting Heeseung kiss you when he leaned in again.
“Jay? Your boyfriend?” he repeated, looking at you bemusedly.
You chuckled once. Then twice. Then you just started laughing. “Oh, Jay? We’re not actually dating,” you revealed, your filter completely gone because of all the alcohol.
“What?” Heeseung took a sudden step back from you. His confused gaze had turned cold.
“We’re not dating, I said. It’s all fake, it was to make his parents happy,” you explained, yourself confused by Heeseung’s sudden attitude change. 
It was his turn to laugh. “Wow. That’s impressive. You managed to fool me.” His smile dropped. “Now get the fuck out.”
“Excuse me?” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. Who the hell did this guy think he was?
“You heard me. Get the fuck out. There’s no point in fucking you if you’re not Jay’s girlfriend. You’re just a random loser.”
You stared at him for a few seconds, until you started laughing. It only seemed to make him angry. “What the fuck are you laughing about? I told you to get out.”
You sighed amusedly as if Heeseung was just joking around. “I just think it’s funny that you won’t fuck me because I’m not actually Jay’s girlfriend, when that’s not stopped you from getting with a different girl every single weekend. Whore,” you said, adding that last part in a whisper. You didn’t actually care that Heeseung slept around, not anymore, at least, but you wanted to get a reaction from him after the way he’d treated you.
But perhaps you went too far, because Heeseung’s eyes turned even angrier, and he pushed one of your shoulders harshly, making you almost hit the wall. “I’ll tell you one last time. Get out, you pathetic little bitch.” 
Just at that moment, the door burst open, revealing a very angry Jay. 
“What the fuck did you just call her?” he growled, heading straight for Heeseung and grabbing him by the collar. The other boy didn’t seem fazed, a smile back on his face, as if this whole situation was funny.
“Aw, Jongseong is mad I’m not being nice to his little fake girlfriend?” You guessed Jay must’ve looked confused, because Heeseung continued, “Yeah, she told me. To be fair, I should’ve known even you wouldn’t date a fucking beggar like her.”
You weren’t quick enough to stop Jay from bringing his fist up to Heeseung’s nose. You swore you heard something crack. But as soon as you saw him get ready for another punch, you ran to him and held his arm, shouting, “He’s not worth it, Jay!” and God, you almost wanted him to punch you because of how cliché that had sounded, but you truly thought Heeseung wasn’t worth losing any energy over.
Your voice seemed to make Jay snap out of his fury, and he looked at you, worry written all over his face. However, that only lasted a second, as his expression then shifted to something you’d never seen on his face before, and he grabbed your wrist, leading you out of the room. The commotion had gathered some attention, and you left the house under a bunch of people’s curious looks and chatter.
What was it with men grabbing you and leading you wherever tonight? You were tired of it, so as soon as you’d reached the front yard, you got your wrist out of his grasp, and demanded to know where he thought he was taking you. He grabbed your wrist again, and said, “To my place. We need to talk.” 
The tone in his voice told you it was better not to test him, so you got in his car. Jay was always a safe driver, but this time, he sped through the whole city, even burning some red lights, reaching his apartment on the other side of town in a matter of minutes. You quickly texted your friends your whereabouts so they wouldn’t have to worry. The whole car ride had been silent but you could feel him fuming next to you, and you had no idea what to expect when you entered his apartment.
His place was exactly like you’d imagined it: modern, spacious, and way more organized that any other university student’s flat would be, but also had a lot of personal touches. It was very Jay, and if it hadn’t been for the tension between the two of you, you’d have immediately felt at ease there.
Jay walked through the dark apartment to the kitchen, where he turned on a single light. You followed him, unsure what else to do. He leaned against his hands on the island counter, head hung low, and you went to stand on the other side of the counter, waiting for his next move. When his head snapped up and he peered straight at you, you could barely decipher the look in his eyes, but thought it contained a mixture of jealousy, anger, and… hunger. He’d never looked at you that way before, and his gaze itself created a ball in the pit of your stomach. You told yourself it really wasn’t the moment, but you couldn’t help but feel desperately attracted to him.
“What the fuck were you doing with Heeseung?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.
You scoffed. “What the fuck were you doing with that random girl?” 
“I wanted to make you jealous.” He hadn’t hesitated a second before answering, and his confidence destabilized you. You’d guessed that had been his plan, but hearing him say it made you feel weirdly shy. “Now answer me. What the fuck were you doing with Heeseung?” 
You couldn’t hold eye contact anymore, so you looked down at the counter, and replied, “I um, I was drunk, and I… I wanted to make you jealous too, I guess.” You looked back up at him, wanting to gauge his reaction. He was now wearing a smug look, like he’d won something over you. He slowly walked over to your side of the counter, and when he reached you, he put his hands on the counter on each side of you, making you lean back against it. You gulped at the way he towered over you
“And why did you want to make me jealous?” He was so close to you now that when he uttered those words, voice barely over a whisper, you felt his breath fan over your face. As much as you tried to keep eye contact, your gaze fell down to his lips, and you saw him smirk. He caught your chin between his index finger and thumb, nudging your head up. “Eyes up here, doll.”
Your eyes met his again. He was looking at you so intently, you thought your knees might buckle under you. He cocked an eyebrow, patiently waiting for your reply. “Because I…” 
It was so obvious, but you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to say it, or even let yourself think it, before. But it needed to be put out there, once and for all. There was no point in fighting it anymore. “Because I like you, Jongseong.”
To your surprise, his smirk turned into a cheeky grin. It made some of the tension dissipate, but not enough for you to breathe properly again. “I like you too, Y/N.” You sighed out of relief at his words and mirrored his smile. 
“Can I kiss you?” he said, the thumb that had been holding your chin caressing your bottom lip.
“I thought you’d never ask,” you breathed, and he leaned in, your lips meeting delicately. It stayed that way for a few minutes, until the pent-up feelings that had been threatening to come out finally did, and hunger and passion took over the kiss. Jay was kissing you like a man starved, and all you could do was return everything he was giving you. This was nothing like you’d imagined it; it was infinitely better. Talk about fireworks, or butterflies, or light-headedness, you felt like you were on another plane of existence, like a kiss that felt this good and was this freeing wasn’t humanly possible. 
Your hands slipped under his shirt and the sudden contact of your cold hands against his warm skin made him shiver. You were glad to see you had as much effect on him as he had on you. Never breaking the kiss, he led you to his bedroom and sat down on his bed, gesturing for you to straddle his lap. Your dress rode up your calves a little bit, and he used this opportunity to pull it further up until it bundled up around your hips, leaving your lower half almost naked. You could feel how hard he was getting underneath your clothed core, and as the kiss grew needier, you started grinding against him, getting the both of you off. When you heard him groan against your lips, something snapped in you, and you wanted to hear that sound over and over, so you doubled down on your actions. 
His hands, which had been resting on your ass, came up to the nape of your neck, and he grabbed you by the hair, exposing your neck to him. He started pressing down eager kisses along your jawline, throat, and collarbones. When he found a spot in the crook of your neck you particularly liked, he started attacking it like crazy, sucking at the skin and turning you into a moaning mess. One of his hands came to cup your breast and he was very glad to find you were not wearing a bra. Your nipple had hardened through the fabric, and he started playing with it. That, as well the feeling of him in your neck and against your core, was overwhelming, and you felt like you were about to pass out because of how good it all felt. You didn’t know what to do with your hands so you alternated between running them over his arms and tugging at his hair.
As your lips met again, teeth almost clashing because of the intensity, you started unbuttoning his shirt. When it was off, you couldn’t not stare at him. You’d had an idea already, but you still couldn’t believe how toned his arms, chest and abs were. You thought to yourself, God, he’s so hot, and hadn’t realized you’d actually said it out loud until he jokingly said, “Yeah?”, looking up at you with the biggest smile. His hands ran over your calves, your thighs and your ass, sending shivers along the way, and he said, “You’re not too bad yourself, doll.” He kissed you with much more gentleness than before. “In fact, you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
You kissed him so he wouldn’t see the blush spreading on your face. He put his hand on your lower back, and guided you down on the bed until you were laying on your back, him hovering over you. He pulled your dress all the way up, helping you get rid of it. You were now left in only panties in front of him, and you would’ve imagined that to be intimidating, but his gaze was truly making you feel like a goddess. Nonetheless, you didn’t want to be the only one naked, so you tucked your fingers under his trousers’ waistband, gesturing for him to take them off. He chuckled but immediately obliged, getting rid of them in a matter of seconds. You had an even better view of his now fully-hard cock, and its size made you gulp. Your mind was quickly off of that, though, as he started trailing kisses all the way down to your breasts, taking one of your nipples in his mouth as his hand came up to the other. Your back arched at the sensation, and you only wanted more, more, more. Your fingers tugged at his hair and you breathed out his name between moans. 
After a few minutes, he traveled further down your body, until he was face to face with your dripping core. He hooked his fingers under your panties, looking up at you and asking you if this was okay. You nodded impatiently and he chuckled at your reaction. How could you be so cute even in this moment? He took your panties off excruciatingly slowly. You wanted to take your time, but you also wanted him where you needed him the most.
You did feel a bit shy when he stared at your sex with the utmost wonder, musing to himself, “So pretty.” He slid a finger between your folds, making you moan in relief and pleasure, and added, “So wet, too.”
You had lifted your body onto your forearms so you could take a good look at him. He peered up at you and, with a small smile, asked gently, “Tell me if it feels good, okay?”
“Okay,” you replied, nodding fervently.
Without wasting another second, he licked a stripe up your core, making you moan again, louder this time. He took that as confirmation to go on and continued exploring your pussy with his tongue. You practically screamed out in pleasure when he found your clit, and by the time he started sucking on it, your thighs were shaking like crazy. You didn’t have any strength left in your body and your forearms gave out under you, so you just lied down on your back, fingers still tangled in and pulling his hair. You hadn’t been able to actually tell him it felt good, but you were sure he understood that much.
One of his fingers, and then a second, entered you, filling you up. “Shit, doll, you’re so tight. How are you gonna handle my cock?”
He curled his fingers inside you and they hit a certain spot that made you see stars, and you were coming all over his fingers and tongue in a matter of seconds, screaming out his name and a string of blasphemies. You had to physically lift his head from your core, telling him it was too much, otherwise he would’ve kept going. He gave you a sheepish smile and you couldn’t believe the boy grinning at you was the same one who’d just said and done all those lewd things to you. He pressed a small kiss on your inner thigh, then lay down next to you on the bed, taking in your flushed cheeks and blown-over eyes. He couldn’t believe he got to have you like this, in your most vulnerable state, all to himself. 
When you’d calmed down from your high, you managed to say, “That was amazing, Jay.”
He let out a soft chuckle and kissed your forehead, then trapped your lips with his own. You could taste yourself on his tongue, but you didn’t mind. After a few minutes of lazily making out, you threw your leg over his to position yourself over his hips, and started pressing feather-like kisses down his neck. He’d made you feel so good, and you intended to return the favor.
You felt him sigh at your touch, but before you could go too far down, he stopped you by bringing his hands to both sides of your face, making you look up at him.
“Did I do something wrong?” you immediately asked, worry laced in your voice.
“No, no. God, no, you’re perfect.” he replied. “I just… I still feel so guilty for what I did, and I feel like I don’t deserve you right now.”
“Jay…”
He hid his face in the crook of your neck and held your waist tightly. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. You’re right, I was being selfish. I should’ve known you wanted that internship, and I knew you wouldn’t get it if my dad thought we were dating, but… I’ve wanted to be with you for such a long time, and when I had the chance to have you, even if it was just pretend, even if it meant lying to you, I couldn’t bring myself to not take that chance. I’m so sorry.”
You had completely forgotten the events of that week, and of that night. Your argument with Jay and Heeseung’s words seemed light-years away. “How long have you liked me?” you couldn’t help but ask. You should’ve been surprised by Jay’s confession, but for some reason, it made sense - what didn’t make sense was how you hadn’t noticed it, or how you’d thought it wasn’t possible that you might like him, too.
“Since we met,” he admitted shyly. “I would’ve told you, but you seemed to enjoy arguing with me so much, I was scared you’d just make fun of me.”
Since you’d met… so, three years? And he’d never said anything? “To be honest, I probably would’ve made fun of you at first,” you agreed light-heartedly. “But I also think it would’ve made me realize what an amazing person you are earlier. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“That’s okay. I would’ve waited my whole life if it meant I could have you at the end.” Butterflies erupted all over your stomach at his words. You kissed him like you’d stop breathing if you didn’t.
Now that Jay had gotten what he wanted to say off his chest, you’d hoped you could continue your previous actions, and started pressing kisses down his neck, but he soon stopped you again.
“I’m getting the feeling you don’t want me to go down on you,” you said, half-joking.
He grinned and closed his eyes, as if fighting himself back. “I do, I promise you, I do.” When he opened his eyes again, they were full of affection. “But we’ve got so much time for that later. I just want to feel you around me right now. Would that be okay?” he asked, voice soft.
Your core pulsed at the thought of Jay inside you, and you nodded, breath growing erratic again. Jay gently lay you on your back, and took off his black boxers so that the two of you were finally completely naked, revealing his throbbing cock. He was right, how were you going to handle it? He rummaged around in his bedside drawer for a condom, and put it on with nervous hands. 
He lined his tip at your entrance, pressing soft kisses all over your face and neck before pushing in as if to get you to relax. He kissed you gently on the lips. “Tell me if it hurts, and I’ll stop right away.”
He waited for you to nod again, and finally entered you. It immediately stretched you out like never before. The sound of you taking a sharp breath in made Jay stop in his tracks. You wrapped your hands around his biceps for support, then, letting out a deep sigh, told him to go on. He pushed in inch by inch until he finally bottomed out. You both let out a hearty moan at the feeling. It was so perfect.
He didn’t move for a few minutes, letting you adjust to his size. You had your eyes closed and were focused on relaxing, until all at once the pain of the stretch turned into pleasure, and you breathed out, “Please, move.” He obeyed and started rocking in and out of you, making you feel each inch of his length inside you. The sensation was intoxicating. You couldn’t stop any of the moans escaping your throat, and Jay took that as a green light to go gradually faster. Your bodies were moving at the exact same pace and you thought the two of you molded together perfectly, as if this was what you had been meant to do your whole life. His fingers were tightly gripping your hips as he thrusted into you harder and harder, making you moan so loud you were practically screaming in pleasure.
“You feel so fucking good, Y/N,” he said, throwing his head back and letting out a deep moan himself. Your hands roamed all over his body, unable to stay in one place at a time. He suddenly changed the angle of his hips and started hitting that spot inside you he had found earlier with his fingers, making your mind go hay-wire. 
“Fuck, right there, Jay!” you screamed out, as he brought your hips down to his faster than you thought was humanly possible. Soon, you were coming again, and the feeling of you clenching down around him made him shoot his release into the condom. He fell on top of you, unable to carry his weight on his arms anymore. He only had enough strength to pull out and discard the condom, before nestling his head between your breasts. Tiredness seeped through your bones, and you both fell asleep in seconds, completely naked and arms around each other.
Jay woke up a few hours later, a cramp in his arm because of how you were laying down on it - the two of you had apparently switched positions at some point during the night. He softly pulled his arm away, trying not to wake you up. He checked his phone; it was 4:29 a.m. He looked down at you, admiring how soft you looked when you were sleeping. He still couldn’t believe his luck, it all felt like a dream to him. But then you shifted slightly, letting out a small whimper, probably because of a dream, and Jay knew this was happening for sure. He hugged you tightly, breathing in the scent of your hair, and, knowing you were fast asleep, murmured, “I love you.”
The sunlight peeking through the curtains and hitting your face softly was what woke you up the next morning. You were relieved to feel Jay’s arms around your waist as he hugged you from behind. You gently turned around, curious about what he looked like in the morning.
As expected, he was perfect.
You observed him for a while until his eyes fluttered open. “Good morning, handsome,” you whispered, pushing away the hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.
“Good morning,” he replied, smiling sleepily. “Creep.”
Quietly, you gasped dramatically and said, “Is a girl a creep for looking at her boyfriend as he sleeps in the morning?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Boyfriend, huh?” he teased.
You grinned at him. “Yeah.”
“Well,” he said, returning your grin and tightening his grip around your waist, “my girlfriend can look at me all she wants.”
You’d technically been dating Jay for over three months now, but knowing it was finally real and not just pretend made you giddy. You buried your face in the crook of his neck and kissed him there, trying to hide your shy smile. 
He took your head and lifted it to place a delicate kiss on your lips, which you returned like it was second nature. When you pulled away, you jokingly said, “Mh. Morning breath,” but Jay’s eyes opened wide and he immediately put his hand over his mouth, asking, “Seriously?”
You laughed at him and pulled his hands down, going back in for a kiss. It soon escalated, and you were reminded of the fact that neither of you had clothes on when you could feel Jay’s hardness pressing against your thigh. He apologized shyly, but you told him it was fine, and that you’d take care of it. 
This time, when you two made love, it was much slower and light-hearted than the previous night, as if the two of you had finally realized that you had all the time in the world and could enjoy every single second. It was the perfect thing to wake up to.
You two lazied in bed, alternating between slowly making out and daydreaming together, until his stomach rumbled loudly and you really needed to pee. When you joined him in the kitchen, he was heating up waffles on the stove. You hooked your arms around his waist, pressing your chest to his back, and he hummed softly.
“Jay?” you whispered, lips just millimeters away from his ear.
“Yes, doll?”
“I love you too.”
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sassydefendorflower · 6 months
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I want to talk about something. I want to talk about ableism in fandom. And sexism in fandom. Oh, and racism in fandom.
Mostly though, I wanna talk about how the discussion about these things often gets derailed because people don't understand what trends and typical behaviors actually are.
Whenever a Person of Color, a woman, someone disabled, someone queer (or an intersection of any of these groups) points out that certain fandom trends are bigoted in some shape or form, half the replies seem to be "but they are my comfort character! Maybe people just like them better because they are more interesting!" or even "people are allowed to have headcanons!" - the very daft even go for a "don't bring politics into fandom" which is a personal favorite because nothing exists in a vacuum and nothing is truly apolitical. But alas~
What most of these replies seemingly fail to understand is something very, very simple: it's not about you.
You, as an individual, are just one datapoint in a fandom. You are not the trend. You do not necessarily depict the typical behavior.
When someone points out that there is racism in fandom, that doesn't mean every fan is racist or perpetuating racist ideas*. By constantly mentioning your own lack of racism, quite often, you are actively derailing the conversation away from the problems at hand.
When someone names and describes a trend, they don't mean your headcanon specifically - they mean the accumulated number of headcanons perpetuating a harmful or outdated idea.
I am not saying this to forbid anyone from writing fics about their favorite characters or to keep anyone from having fun headcanons and sharing their theories and thoughts - quite the opposite actually. A critique of a general trend is not a critique of you as an individual - and you're going to have a much better, and more productive, time online if you can internalize that. If you stop growing defensive and instead allow yourself to actually digest the message of what was pointed out.
I am saying this to encourage some critical thinking.
Allow me to offer up some examples:
Case 1: A DC blogger made the daring statement that maybe Tim and Jason were such a popular fanfic focus because they are the only two undeniably white batboys. Immediately someone replied saying "no, it's all the fun traumatic situations we can put them in!". Which is an insane statement to make, considering the same can be said for literally ANY OTHER DC Batman and Batfam character.
The original post wasn't anything groundbreaking, they didn't accuse anyone, didn't name any names... but immediately there was a justification, immediately there was a reason why people might like these characters more. No one stopped to take a second and reflect on the current trends in fanfiction, no one considered that maybe this wasn't a declaration against people who like these characters but a thesis depicting the OVERALL trend of fandom once again focusing on undeniably white (and male) characters.
(don't get me started on the racebending of white characters in media that has a big Cast of Color and the implications of that)
Case 2: A meta posted on Ao3 about ableism in the Criminal Minds fandom caught my attention. A wonderful piece, very thoughtful, analyzing certain characterization choices within the fandom through the lens of an actually autistic person. The conclusion they reached: the writing of Spencer Reid as an autistic character, while often charming and comforting, tended to be incredibly infantilizing and at worst downright ableist. They came to that conclusion while CLEARLY stating that the individual fanfic wasn't the problem, but the general fandom trend in depicting this character.
Once again, looking at the replies seemed to be a mistake: while many comments furthered the discussion, there were quite a few which completely missed the point. Some were downright hostile. Because how dare this author imply that THEY are ableist when they write their favorite character using that specific characterization.
It didn't matter that the author allowed room for personal interpretation. It didn't matter that they noted something concerning about the entire fandom - people still thought they were attacking singular people.
Case 3: I wrote a fic about abortion in the FMA(b) fandom (actually I've written a weird amount of fics about abortion in a lot of fandoms, but alas) and I got hate comments for it. Because of that I addressed the bias in fandom against pro-choice depictions of pregnancies. I pointed out that the utter lack of abortion in many omegaverse stories or even mpreg or het romances, painted the picture of an unconscious bias that hurt people for whom abortion was the only option, the best possible ending. The response on the post itself was mostly positive, but I got anon hate.
(which I can unfortunately not show you since I deleted it in the months since)
And I'm not overly broken up about it, but it also underlines my point: by pointing at a general problem, a typical behavior, a larger trend... people feel personally attacked.
This inability to discuss sexism, ableism, racism, transphobia, etc in fandom without people turning defensive and hurt... well, it damages our ability to have these conversations at all.
Earlier I said YOU are not the problem - well, i think part of this discussion is acknowledging that: sometimes YOU are in fact part of the problem. And that's not the end of the world. But you can only recognize yourself as a cog in the machine, if you can examine your own actions, your own biases, your own preferences critically and without becoming defensive.
And, again, this is not to keep you from finding comfort in your favorite characters and headcanons. This is also not to say that I am free of biases and internalized bigotries - I am also very much a part of the system. A part of the problem.
This is so you can comfortably ask yourself "but why is there no abortion in this universe?" or "why are my favorite black characters always the top in my slash ships?" or "why do I write this disabled character as childish and in need of help?" - and sometimes the answer is "because I am disabled and I want comfort", and that's fine too.
There is no one shoe fits all in fiction. There is not a single trope that captures all members of a group. There is no single stereotype that isn't also someone's comfort. No group is a monolith, no experienced all-encompasing (or entirely unique).
There is never a simple answer.
But that doesn't mean you should stop questioning your own biases, your own ideals.
Especially, if you grow defensive if someone points out that a certain trend you engage in might be racist. Or sexist. Or queerphobic. Or fucking ableist.
*this does not mean negate the general anti-blackness perpetuated by most cultures as a result of colonialism and slavery
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tossawary · 17 days
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I think one of the keys to non-canon and rarepair relationships for me in fanfiction is that you have to respect the relationships that are already there. Not like in a "you have to do the canon relationships and then break them up first" way, because you can definitely make it so that the canon relationship in question never happened OR was never romantic or sexual if you want. But in a basic characterization issue kind of way.
For example, when I wrote a Shang Qinghua / Yue Qingyuan fic, I was looking at the ways to make that work given the Qijiu and Moshang situations. And I ended up making it so that Qijiu either never had or never fully developed any romantic or sexual feelings in this AU, but they're still inseparable as friends / brothers / platonic soulmates of a kind. You CAN'T write a Yue Qingyuan who doesn't care about Shen Jiu. It's just not on the table in terms of characterization.
(I mean, you could, I suppose, but then it's a case of, "Who the fuck even is this guy anymore? You undid his whole backstory and now he's a completely different person." I do think you can write interesting AU stories focused on character development in which Yue Qingyuan learns to move on after post-canon or in which perhaps Shen Jiu's treatment of Luo Binghe becomes an actual breaking point for their relationship, but even if things somehow get REAL BAD between him and Shen Jiu, I don't really think Yue Qingyuan will ever be able to stop caring completely.)
Likewise, I made it so that Moshang never fell into the master-servant situationship, and ended up as cooperative enemies / distant allies of sorts. But Shang Qinghua still thinks Mobei-Jun is sexy. That's his ideal guy! Airplane Bro still being a little weird about his favorite character is not really negotiable to me, even if he's in love with someone else. He has eyes! He can still look at other men disrespectfully! He just doesn't act on his attraction.
Like, you can totally just sidestep any romantic / sexual feelings and make it so they never existed, in order to pursue your pairing of choice. But you cannot easily deny, in my opinion, the basic fact of a character caring on a basic level about someone important to them. I think it gives weird "you're only allowed to care about your romantic partner / no friends allowed" vibes to just completely cut off all other relationships. There's not a hard line between "love-triangle-fixing polyamory" and "completely isolated from even friendships because maintaining friendships with exes is cheating somehow monogamy" as options here.
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tojivu · 3 months
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Hey love, can i request the jjk men (or just Gojo tbh) taking care of their SO after giving birth? That would be suuuper sweet and thank you💙💙
father and husband ⋆ gojo satoru
gojo takes care of you after giving birth + other hcs
an. i'm not done with the long ass gojo fic so i'm finishing this draft first. sorry i do not know much about birth i am a teenager writing fanfiction after all...... my google search history might make my parents think i'm pregnant
cw. sfw, f!reader, not proofread, mentions of female anatomy, suggestive jokes at the end
playing. 17 by pink sweat$, ft. joshua and dk of seventeen.
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"this is so unfair, 'toru."
the thick sheets the private hospital provided you with restrained you from sitting up. sunlight pours into the room through the spaces in the blinds — the ward is awfully quiet, much unlike your expectations.
"huh?"
you turn your head towards the leather chair situated next to your bed. it's a pale beige, clashing with the various blues this hospital decorates itself with — and with the white hair of the man you call your husband.
his hair falls messily onto the material. you furrow your eyebrows and wonder what has gotten into him; he's been much quieter than usual. this was not typical satoru behaviour.
your newborn baby was getting examined and you were told it would take a bit. your family wouldn't be coming down till tomorrow morning — something you didn't mind because you were so sure satoru, your loving husband, was just as prepared as you are for the birth.
"he's got your eyes," you mutter. the anxiety was really starting to kick in now; satoru was never this quiet. ever. your attempts at making conversation echo, and it's eerie how you could forget satoru was even here if you just closed your eyes. "satoru?"
you swear you see a thick bead of sweat roll down his temple. he sits cautiously, as if he is ready to spring up into action any moment now.
"i'm so scared, [name]." gojo's voice trembles and it bounces off the walls; you feel your heart skip a beat, only to pound harder the next.
SATORU starts bawling when he gets to hold his baby after the discharge. tears run down his face like two waterfalls, staining his sweatshirt. your baby looks at him with the most curious eyes, before shutting them and returning to a deep sleep.
he holds your son as if he's fragile glass, grip firm and careful not to slip — your fingers wipe the tears pooling at his waterline and gojo can't help but look at you with absolute adoration.
"please stop crying, 'toru," you smile up at the crybaby you call your husband. "you can't drive with tears in your eyes."
he tries to speak but nothing comes out. gojo's voice cracks before saying anything and he only manages to nod, handing the baby back to you.
SATORU who makes sure to help you with whatever you need, you just need to order him around. he's just as new to this parenting thing as you are, given you are the only woman he's ever loved — patience is needed with him as much as it's needed with you.
for example: satoru would never complain about waking up early in the morning to feed your son. he'd spring out of bed, nervous yet oddly confident. he was afraid of not being fatherly enough — so, this was a wonderful start. he was extremely elated when you asked him to do such a duty the night prior.
he slips out of the sheets and sees your peaceful face, lips parted and letting out small snores; gojo knew you needed the rest after all the sleepless nights.
"good morning," satoru's softly cooing at your son, careful arms scooping him up into his chest and out of the baby blue crib (that coincidentally matches both their eyes). your son only cries in response, much to satoru's displeasure.
your husband can't help but smile down at his child, before glancing over at you a few feet away; comfortably wrapped in your shared blanket.
"mama's asleep, so you're stuck with me." he mimics a pout, but words could not describe how happy he was. your son could only stare blankly at him, giggling when he presses a gentle kiss on his forehead. "sorry, not sorry."
although the baby doesn't bond with your husband that well (yet), his determination is unwavering. he makes sure to be nearby the bedroom — but not too far away, in case something goes wrong — so his cries don't wake you.
all goes well until gojo changes your son's diaper an hour later and gets pee all over his hands, that he rushes into your bedroom for help.
"[name], baby," he bites his lip out of worry, opening the door with his dry hand and calling for you. "he peed on me—"
you give him a thank you kiss for trying anyway.
SATORU who rubs your shoulders for you, or really any other body part ever — he's a weirdly good masseuse. you often find yourself falling asleep on the couch as he kneads your pains away.
"baby," he whispers.
you three were on the couch, watching a movie in the late evening. your groans don't go unnoticed, and he knows you've been holding your baby for quite some time in hopes of calming him down.
"psst, baby." satoru repeats, the arm around your shoulder tapping the flesh of yours. "aren't you tired?"
"a little," you sigh. "he might wake up if i put him down."
"nah," satoru caresses your shoulder gently. "put him down for a minute. i'll help."
"help?"
"did you know i give really good massages?" satoru smirks, "your husband's crazy talented, i know."
you raise an eyebrow. you've never heard of gojo satoru massaging people — you're a little skeptical, but put down your son in the bassinet next to the couch nonetheless.
the ache in your shoulder and back were a little too intense to bear, now. satoru could tell with the way you were shifting around in your position every 5 minutes.
well, all your doubt washes away almost as fast as it came — you find yourself knocked out on the couch for the next hour, your head against satoru's shoulder.
SATORU who makes sure to give you extra kisses and extra hugs during this period of change.
he understands how difficult it must be for you — although maybe not to the full extent, considering he doesn't have a uterus — but he wants to try, and try he does.
whenever you have baby blues, he's always there. he kisses the tears off your cheeks, wiping them away with his thumb and whispering soft praises in your ears.
satoru couldn't express how grateful he is to you for giving him a son to love, to raise with you. he can only attempt to say it in words and through kisses, although he feels that may never be enough.
"i-i'm sorry for waking you, 'toru," you sniffle, even if your body language screams the opposite — your head is buried in satoru's chest and he has his hands running through your hair.
"shh, it's okay baby — don't be sorry," he holds your body close to him with his other hand, tracing circles onto the thin fabric of your clothes. "i'm here."
other times, you break down while trying to take care of your son — sometimes the cries get too loud and overwhelming, and everything you do just seems to make it worse.
satoru hears your crying and he immediately rushes over (if he wasn't already in the room with you), taking your son from your hands and trying to calm him down himself. he'll press a kiss onto your forehead, using his free hand to wipe your tears away — and he'll tell you to let him take over.
"shit," he swears under his breath, rushing into the room and seeing your tear-stained face; satoru instinctively reaches for the baby and you hand him over. "let me do it, okay?"
you nod, desperately wiping your face with the sleeves of your hoodie — before satoru uses his right hand to wipe them for you, his lips planted on your forehead.
"i'm s-sorry," you mutter, feeling a little better when you feel the skin of your husband on yours. "i don't know what to do—"
"it's okay, baby," he smiles, tucking stray hairs behind your ears as you continue to calm yourself down; your baby is still crying, and satoru looks oddly calm as opposed to you. "let me take over for a bit."
sure, he gets overwhelmed sometimes; but he needs to be your glue in case you can't pull yourself together. even if he's clueless too, he has to be strong for you — he can imagine the chaos that would ensue if he wasn't.
when he puts the baby to sleep half an hour later, he returns to the bedroom to find you in bed: wrapped in a blanket with tissues in your hands.
satoru feels his heart break at the sight.
he climbs into bed with you and his arms find purchase on your waist, pulling you closer to him; his warmth feels like the medicine you've been needing this entire time, and it's almost as if all your anxiety dissipates.
"you did good today," his cold breath tickles the back of your neck, and you feel his nose bump at your nape. "i'm proud of you."
"it was all you this time," you reply in a hushed voice, throat hurting at the tears you were trying to keep in. "i don't know what i'd do—"
"no," satoru interrupts you. "i couldn't feed the baby this morning, and you did it instead — remember?"
"i remember. you knocked over the formula."
"mhm," satoru hums, his fingers intertwining with yours. "and you did it in only 2 minutes. you're too good at this baby thing, [name]."
"you don't seem so scared anymore, satoru."
you hear a laugh escape from your husband's lips. "thanks to you," and he's pressing kisses along the outline of your shoulder and neck. "i'm the strongest, after all — what can i not do?"
"you're the cockiest, too," you snicker, and you only earn a dramatic gasp from the man behind you.
"don't talk about cock with me right now."
your jaw drops slightly, before you flip your body over to face satoru's direction: he has an annoying smirk painted on his face. "you are so disgusting, satoru."
"you know you love me—" and just as satoru's leaning in for a kiss on the lips, cries from the nursery room erupt.
"man."
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writers block is real i think
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tigressaofkanjis · 4 months
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My biggest pet peeve in Transformers media and fanfiction sometimes is that Transformers aren't treated as aliens. They are referred to as aliens, they obviously are aliens, but they never feel like they are aliens because they are always written or seen as having all human mannerisms or features usually. Human posture, human noses, human mannerisms, humanoids...
What about TFA's cat noses or TFP's helm noses? One of the reasons I think those two shows have peak designs is because they have this lack of uncanniness to humans design wise. I'm not looking at a human being as a robot, I'm looking at an alien robot, ones that have claws, ones that have different body types that blend with their vehicle modes, ones with horrific mutilations and designs impossible by human standards. I love seeing that type of stuff in Transformers because to me, it makes them feel alien without completely changing the premises of similarities to where we can't compare their culture or likeness to humans. The films (mostly 1 and 2) showed off this as well.
Another thing I really would like to see in Transformers media is non-human interactive qualities. What do I mean by that? One thing I've noticed is aside from techno-organic species, regular Cybertronians do have a few qualities found in animals. Engine humming I believe was once used as a form of purring in the films and in some of the cartoons. Humans can't purr; cats can, and that small detail is always interesting to come across because it's like "wow, they have this feature that shows off a trait found in Cybertronians. That is so cool." You have them with multiple voice boxes for mechanical, natural, and human-like tones which is also an animal trait. Bumblebee is self-explanatory in most universes being able to still make sounds yet not talk. They have sensors across their body that don't act like the basic human receptors. Most animals can do more than just feel through certain points of their bodies. They can taste, smell, or even hear a hundred times better than a human being throughout various body parts, and Transformers have been hinted to have this ability too, especially through their servos. It's stuff like this that expands upon their existence as aliens.
They have extreme durability, their body morphs to extremes and can also double as a moving weapon (most obvious of course), some of them can make ungodly roars and creature-like noises to warn or show their threatening demeanor (Megatron's dinosaur-like growling), some can have two rows of teeth (a flat base in front and fangs hidden behind), and some of them have mimicking animal-like features (Starscream's bird-shaped feet with visible expansion the same as organic foot padding with similar distributive weight physics in a few universes) despite having no beast mode. There's probably more I can't think of on the top of my head in canon, but all those things are not heavily used as they should be to make them feel alien. They can still hold some relation to the humans they interact with, but I think a lot of Transformers are more than just metal "humans", you know?
Depending on the universe in fanfiction and who you encounter who writes it or not, you have several things that are always cool to see. They have to sparkbond (merging of hearts) above everything else to create a sparkling's life force with interface as just the extra for physical coding features. I've seen people use the non-canon heat cycles which are, of course, our fandom way of making a type of breeding euphemism akin to an animal's cycle. You have the common phrasing of nuzzling, heightened senses, armor and certain parts of the helm acting like fur or ears where it raises and flattens per their mood, and some Transformers have limb dissonance where if necessary, they can convert between bipedal and quadrupedal stances (best example is Bulkhead and Lugnut from TFA who have long arms but short legs and they have the bulky structure where they could possibly run like an animal briefly and the physics of it would work).
So, you have all these different things a common Cybertron most likely would be able to do or have but a human couldn't, and it's never utilized to their full potential. I would like to see people address the nature of Cybertronians as alien and not be afraid to make them alien. I think that's the biggest flaw in our franchise is that everyone is scared of making the Transformers not the humanoid "norm" and getting ridiculed for it. Like, they're aliens, you can make them act however animal-like or completely batshit insane as you want them. You can give them powers, animal-based senses, and behaviors hidden among a human thought process. And technically, you wouldn't be wrong to what they could be as a living creature in the universe by doing so. They aren't humans; they look humanoid, but they aren't us. Why should they have to be in every regard?
Thank you for reading my TED Talk.
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