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#like im talking to a childhood crush or something

zreamy · 5 months

Text

i'll love you forever

pairing: park sunghoon x fem!reader

summary: you were sunghoon's first everything; first friend, first love, and first heartbreak. after years of quietly crushing on you, he was finally ready to confess. so ready to confess, that he told his parents the two of you were already dating! it was an easy enough lie to keep up and he kept it up for months, what could possibly go wrong? he thought. little did he know, you would have a falling out and stop talking for months.. and then, you'd both get invited to spend a week at home with his parents, who still believe you're his girlfriend.

genre: smut, fluff, angst, college au, childhood best friends to lovers, fake dating

warnings: minors dni, fake dating is pretty mild (sorry), she kinda doesn’t rate him at the start, these two kind of exist in a vacuum a little bit idk i had a self-enforced word count to stick to and broke it.. (im within the 10% allowance !), sunghoon in a vest, sunghoon arms, sunghoon

word count: 21,858

playlist: click here.. (for my non-spotify babes, the main song is light by wave to earth (which for some reason i put last.. whatever))

author's note: for silly @asahicore. happy birthday pooks i hope it's amazing and that u enjoy reading this when u have the time !!! LOL (lots of love) also im never writing without telling you things again this was so absurd.

to everyone else.. ok happy reading also emma did not beta read this so im sure it's missing its charm .. anyway it's for emma not you 😭 anyway i hope u enjoy regardless and lmk ur thoughts! omg this is the first fic im nervous about posting.......... please enjoy or else.

In the three years since Park Sunghoon moved away for university, he’d been doing a pretty good job of going home to see his parents. They’d welcome their baby back to the nest with open arms and wide grins. With a rehearsed level of indifference, his younger sister, Yeji, would say, “Oh, I didn’t know you were coming home this weekend.” when she saw him at the dinner table. Sunghoon pretended to only be marginally hurt by this.

In the last three months, he hasn’t so much as sent a text to his parents.

Or to you.

Ignoring texts from his mother is devastating. Between classes, he watches as, “Hi, sweetie, I love you 😍,” turns into, “Missing you, honey, know you must be busy but spare some time for your old mummy, no?” which turns into, “Getting really worried now, are you doing okay? Has something happened with YN? Talk to me, I love you, my baby boy!”

Ignoring texts from you is easy because texts from you never come.

Sitting at the end of his bed, Sunghoon rereads a text his mother sent a few minutes ago: Please talk to me, son. Really worried and YN isn’t answering calls either. What’s going on with you two?

When he leaves his room, he finds Jake lying on the couch, and with his keys in hand, Sunghoon says, “I’m going home.”

And the drive is great! At least, he tells his mum it is. In truth, the drive home without you was nearly impossible. Your ever-expanding home time playlist buzzed through the speakers in his car, but without you there to screech along to the songs, it wasn’t the same. He felt your absence the most when he stopped to get petrol and you weren’t there behind him struggling to carry enough snacks to feed a small family without offering to pay.

The look of worry on his mum’s face stirs a pit in his stomach. “Why are you so quiet these days? God, you look so tired,” she says, frowning. “Is it school? Or something with YN? It’s not like her not to text back.” Her brows crease as she whispers the word unless. She pulls him into a hug, her chin resting perfectly on his shoulder, and her comforting hand strokes the hair on the back of his head. “Breakups are never easy, honey. I’m so sorry, I know how much you love her.”

Breakups are never easy. The sentence hangs heavy over his head.

Whether she knows it or not, she’s handed him a get-out-of-jail-free card, the opportunity to set things straight, to end this mess once and for all. No further questions, and most importantly, no more lies.

For the first time since he left your flat three months ago, Sunghoon lets himself cry. He’d imagined this moment countless times, his first cry since you ended things. In his mind, it was always intense. Today, as it happens, only a few salty tears leak from his eyes, spilling onto the cuff of his sleeve, darkening the blue cotton in tiny indigo splotches.

“We didn’t break up,” he says in a small voice—for some reason. “I’m just having a hard time.” Neither statement is technically untrue, but the words taste rotten in his mouth.

The tightening grip of his mum’s arms around his body is what brings on the harsh, shoulder-racking sobs he’d been anticipating. For a while, they stand like this, Sunghoon weeping into his mum’s cardigan until she sends him upstairs to lie down, promising a cup of tea that never comes.

His childhood bedroom is chilly, so he changes into clothes he left behind and climbs into bed, pulling his duvet up to his chin. He turns his head to look at the walls and the room around him, everything is exactly where he left it in the summer. It should be comforting, but it’s weird to be home without you.

There are photos of you and him everywhere, growing up and around each other through different stages of life. The two of you together during the summer your family moved in next door, you wore glasses back then and were the first friend he’d made in his life. Sunbathing and sharing earphones at the beach, listening to music together on your iPod classic. Sunghoon in thick glasses with a stiff smile and your arm around him on the first day of high school. Wide grins at the start of this summer, the last time things were okay between you.

Overwhelmed, he stares up at the ceiling, only realising he’s crying when a hot tear slips from his eyes to tickle his ear. Because Sunghoon likes to upset himself, he screws his eyes shut and thinks about the night before you stopped talking.

Though he didn’t know it at the time, you’d left Yeonjun’s place to sit with him in a tiny restaurant on campus, the one you’d only visit to toast to each other’s heartbreaks. It had become a ritual — ever since your first year boyfriend dumped you after two weeks — to cry as much as you wanted and drink as much soju as your bodies could handle before stumbling back to your apartments.

Having spent years suffering from an unrequited crush on his best friend, Sunghoon was always the one to comfort you. But that night was different; you were there to comfort him. It was easy enough to play the part of ‘boy whose crush likes someone else’ because he spent your entire friendship in that role. He’d had no problem accepting his fate, but his composure started to slip when you met Yeonjun. It was the first time you’d dated someone who Sunghoon had reason to be jealous of. In every way, Yeonjun was better than him—taller, funnier, hotter. Sunghoon knew he didn’t stand a chance. He took it personally, you liking Yeonjun instead of him, and let his jealousy consume him from the inside out.

This jealousy led him to start telling you about Minjeong—lying to you about Minjeong, and his feelings for her. She was a girl from a college out of town that he saw on his Instagram Explore page. He followed her by accident, and by some stroke of luck, she followed back. Sunghoon didn’t really have feelings for her — he didn’t even know her — but she was a girl that you didn’t know, so you wouldn’t be able to meddle.

It only took a few weeks for Sunghoon to become so upset about your relationship that he couldn’t hide his emotions anymore. So, in a fit of tears, he told you over the phone that things ended badly with Minjeong, and he was in urgent need of a soju ceremony.

But the night was missing its usual comforts.

It was strange to be the one crying, to see you looking put together and ordering the food. To see you pouring the drinks and raising your glass to propose a toast to ‘Hoonie’s first heartbreak’. You were driving that night, so you only had a tiny sip of soju and let him drink as much as he needed, the way he always did for you, at the same table, in the same restaurant for years.

Hours later, in your car, you entertained his drunken rambles, though he remembers how your lips were set into a frown that he wanted to kiss away while you gripped the steering wheel like you thought it would run from you. Sunghoon was more drunk than he’d been in a while, drunk enough to let you sling his arm over your shoulders and keep him upright until you reached his flat.

The voices coming from Yeji’s room disrupt the memory. He’s thankful.

“Your brother’s going through something, so be nice to him this weekend.” His mother’s voice is her version of hushed—a loud whisper.

Yeji’s response is harder to make out, but he doesn’t miss the way their mum says, “I mean it, missy.”

A dramatic sigh rumbles through Yeji as she barges into his room without knocking. Sunghoon sits up, feeling an ache in his back and crossing his legs.

“Mum told me to lay off you today, which is fine, but before I do, I need to tell you something.”

Yeji pushes the door shut behind her, and the open window makes it slam, both of them flinching from the sudden noise. She pulls her hair out of a silk scrunchie and throws herself on the floor. A pang of irritation forms in his chest, knowing that he could immediately find the empty hanger in his wardrobe where the shirt she’s wearing used to live.

“I hate you and your perfect golden boy image, Hoon. Would it kill you to fail a class for once? I don’t know how I’m supposed to carry on your legacy.” She’s looking up at him, her chin in her hands and irritation written in the crease between her thick brows.

It’s impossible to know if it’s because of Yeji’s complete lack of boundaries or the fact that her ‘perfect, golden boy’ big brother is on track to fail three out of three classes and get cut from the hockey team, but Sunghoon immediately bursts into tears.

“Oh, uh.. I’m sorry?” Yeji offers. “I was kidding if that helps.”

“I’m alright, it’s okay.” The tears don’t stop stinging his eyes. “Why do you want me to change everything about myself?”

With a frown, Yeji pours out her frustration and mild resentment. She doesn’t understand how Sunghoon effortlessly conquers every aspect of life while she struggles. Neither do their parents, who had been baffled by her plummeting grades since she moved to boarding school, especially when Sunghoon’s academic performance has only soared since he left for university. The weight of this perceived injustice pulls Sunghoon’s shoulders down with guilt as she talks about the expectations he has inadvertently set for her.

“But other than that, I’m good.” She shrugs, sitting with her legs out, and leaning back on her palms. “How’s YN?” she asks. It’s clear from the brightness in her voice that she thinks she’s helping.

Sunghoon cries again.

Back on campus, he’s trying to scrape together what’s left of his academic career with the help of two of the smartest guys he knows, and their friend Jay. Though the word ‘friend’ feels a little strong at the moment given the way Jay’s goading him.

Sunghoon rolls his eyes, sitting back in his seat. “There’s nothing you can do that I can’t,” he says, meaning every word.

Jay scoffs, shrugging and raising his brow in a way that, over the years, Sunghoon knows to interpret as his ‘about to say something ridiculous’ look. “Pretty sure I could call YN right now, and she’d answer.”

There’s a pit in Sunghoon’s stomach as Heeseung turns his head in the other direction like he’s been slapped, trembling with stifled laughter. At least Jake doesn’t hide his amusement, throwing his head back in a fit of giggles that draw nasty looks from the other students in the library. Sunghoon doesn’t waste his energy trying to argue because Jay’s right.

Now composed, Heeseung turns back to the table, flipping through some of Sunghoon’s course materials to find whatever his class was doing in class that week. The English Literature class he’s taking — The Modernist Movement: Joyce, Woolf, and Hemingway — is the same class he had to send a million emails over the summer to get enrolled in, but it’s the same one Heeseung aced two years ago. Lucky for him none of the boys seem to be in the mood to make fun of him for trying so hard to have a class in common with you, and then practically failing out of it before the term had started properly.

“This class is, like, beyond easy, dude.” Heeseung pauses to sniffle and twist the stud in his ear. “Everyone in my class aced it. How are you doing so badly already?”

“I only took it because YN thought it’d be fun if we had a class together, but.. I kind of haven’t been going since we stopped talking.” Sunghoon shrugs, pretending to be unaffected.

As if the mere mention of your name has some sort of summoning power, like saying Biggie Smalls in the mirror three times, you appear in his eye line, rounding the corner with a furious stride. Your demeanour crumbles when Jay waves at you, and you grin, waving back, but as soon as you look Sunghoon in the eye again, the rage comes back, and you smack a hand on the table when you reach it, leaning over to him.

“Sunghoon, a word?” you ask.

He thinks you’re asking, but it’s hard to tell with the way you set your jaw afterwards, and the way the warmth of your signature vanilla scent hits him hard. Dazed, Sunghoon lifts a hand, pointing at himself. “Me?”

“Does anyone else at the table answer to Sunghoon?”

“Okay,” he says, somewhat pathetically, nudging Jay for laughing at him.

As slowly as possible, Sunghoon pushes his chair from the table and stands up, following you to the corner of the references section where only anthropology students in scratchy thrift store knits, and Jay, come to check out encyclopaedias by volume. You look good, save for the rage written all over your face—which, honestly, Sunghoon thinks he likes.

Sunghoon isn’t sure what to expect, so he says, “Hey.” He’s being cautious, waiting a moment to gauge your reaction. “What’s gooooood?” His cheeks burn as soon as he closes his mouth around the vowel, but you laugh. You laugh, and it’s beautiful and happy, and you’re laughing because of him—or at him, but he’s glad either way.

Annoyance quickly clears all traces of amusement on your face. “Were you ever going to tell me we’re spending next week at Mum and Dad’s?” you ask.

Sunghoon gasps dramatically, clicking his fingers. “I knew there was something I’ve been meaning to do.”

His attempt at lightening the mood falls flat, and you only nudge his shoulder gently, sighing. “Can you be serious? For once in your life, even for a second, can you please think about how the things you say affect me?” You’re frowning, crossing your arms over your chest and looking at your feet. “It’s not fair, Sunghoon. For you to keep saying things—making plans involving me and then acting like I’m the bad guy when I turn you down.”

“I don’t think you’re the bad guy at all,” Sunghoon admits. “If anyone is in the wrong, it’s me, I guess.”

You scoff, looking at him like you hate him. “You guess? Are you serious?” You look furious, but you sound hurt and Sunghoon hates it. Hates himself. “I can’t have this conversation with you right now. Tell mum I’m sick, and it’s contagious.” You roll your eyes and walk away, leaving Sunghoon alone with his thoughts and judgemental stares from students in crochet scarves so long they graze the floor.

He sighs, slumping against the wall. How does he keep getting it wrong with you?

Back at the table, Sunghoon manages to act like he’s not falling apart and makes some serious headway on his missing assignments with Heeseung’s help before they call it a day as the sun starts to set.

When he gets home, he lies down on his bedroom floor, spending hours poring over the conversation you had. Over the minute changes in your facial expression, the tone of your voice, and the endless list of things he should have done, rather than watch you walk away.

The moment feels familiar, both identical to and worlds apart from what happened after you left three months ago. When he managed to scrape the last shreds of his dignity from the kitchen table, he dragged his feet to his room and lay down like he is now, face to the rug. That day, he left his door open and lay so still that Jake thought he was dead. Sunghoon remembers wishing he had been.

For once in your life, even for a second, can you please think about how the things you say affect me? The words run on a loop in his mind, over and over, until he can’t remember the order of the sentence or where you put emphasis. They’re cutting all the same.

Sunghoon sighs into the itchy fibres of his black rug before rolling onto his back. In the diminishing purple light of the setting sun. he looks at the walls of his room. At the Fleetwood Mac poster, he stole from Jay when they moved out of their first year dorm, that curls away from the wall towards the ceiling—a diagonal strip of shiny tape being the only indication of the otherwise invisible tear through the face of Stevie Nicks.

He’s glad when his phone rings, cutting through the quiet, though the sight of your name and the anatomical heart emoji next to it only dampens his spirit. Reluctantly, Sunghoon answers the phone, holding it to his ear.

“I just got off the phone with Dad..” You trail off. Tangible silence follows, so thick it weighs on his chest. “I’ll go home with you.”

“You will?”

“Yes. Goodbye.”

Sunghoon reaches your flat at five in the evening. You don’t smile when you open the door for him, nor do you invite him in. Instead, you dump your bag at your feet and he cringes, looking from the floor to you. You’re aggressively beautiful and cosy-looking as you pull a jacket over the sweater you wore that night. Sunghoon’s heart aches in his chest and he wonders if you even realise. Suddenly, the memory of the last thing you said the morning after hits him like a truck: Then let’s not be friends at all.

A familiar weight lands on his shoulder—your hand. Concern lines your eyes as you ask if he’s okay.

With a lump in his throat, Sunghoon nods.

In the discomfort of his car, the two of you sit in silence while he starts the drive home.

“How’s Yeonjun,” he asks, eyes flicking towards you but regretting it immediately when he sees how you clench your jaw.

“No,” you say simply, shaking your head. “You don’t get to ask me about him.”

These are the only words you exchange until Sunghoon stops for petrol. He has enough fuel for the rest of the journey, but he feels like dying and thinks the fresh air might quell his thoughts of running his car off the road. Like always, the two of you get out and head into the kiosk, where he follows you wordlessly through the aisles, watching you debate on snack choices before settling on the same things you always get. Sunghoon pays for your snacks and you roll your eyes but don’t protest, mumbling thanks as you take them into your arms, leading the way back outside.

He knows he needs to tell you before you reach the house, but he’s not entirely sure how to say it—so he just does. “My, uh.. my parents think we’re dating.”

You stop so suddenly in front of him that he almost bumps into you. Stepping around you, Sunghoon keeps walking.

Over the top of his car, he watches your face cycle through all five stages of grief until anger comes back around in the loop as you scoff. “Why do they think that?” Your face is devoid of expression now, the blankness over your features dragging a sharp chill over his spine.

He stares blankly at you, processing. “Because I told them we’re dating,” he mumbles.

“Why did you.. do that?” You tilt your head, eyes pressing shut in a long blink. “What are you even talking about? Why did you.. What?”

A thin layer of sweat coats his palms despite the cold. Why did he do that? “We can stage a breakup during the trip or say we broke up right now,” Sunghoon offers. “Just one night, YN, please.”

The wind whistles by, ruffling your hair and jacket that you hug tightly to your chest. Behind you, Sunghoon takes note of the group of girls standing by the pumps, all five of them jerking their heads abruptly when they notice him watching, suddenly finding interest in the scattered litter and flickering halogen bulbs in the steel canopy over their heads.

You’re staring when he looks back at you, nostrils twitching with a sniffle before you sigh. “Or we could say that you’re a liar and end things there,” you say. “Or better yet, you go down there on your own and tell them the truth.”

Sunghoon’s gaze drops, his thoughts racing in his mind. He knows you’re right. At some point, his parents will have to find out, and it’d be better for them to find out now. Sunghoon sighs, nodding. “Alright,” he concedes. “I’ll take you back.”

An angry laugh comes out of you as you shake your head. “No need, I’ll walk.”

The station you’re at is neatly nestled in the middle of nowhere, on a road so narrow he’s not even sure it has a pavement. You’re halfway through the three-hour drive, so there’s no telling how long the walk would be, never mind the fact that the sun is already setting and it’s deep enough into October for the wind to sting.

“From here?” he asks, incredulous.

“Yes, open the boot so I can get my bag.”

Sunghoon can only bring himself to say your name, a desperate whisper.

“Open the boot.”

He repeats your name as if it’ll make a difference, he’s pleading with you, begging—though he doesn’t know for what.

You go to the back of his car where Sunghoon joins you, a pit in his stomach when you step away. With misty eyes, you look up at him and his heart breaks. “Please.”

Sunghoon knows you well enough to know that you’re not actually going to attempt the walk home but also knows that you won’t back down if he keeps challenging you. He nods, opening the boot for you and getting into the driver’s seat—your move.

You stand there, unmoving, and long enough passes that he thinks you’ll actually leave. The boot closes softly and you join him in the passenger seat. You sigh, buckling your seatbelt. “Let’s just get this over with.”

For the rest of the journey, you sit in silence as Sunghoon briefs you on the relationship, fighting a smile as he thinks about being your boyfriend—even if only for a night. You scoff when he ‘reminds’ you that you’ve been together for four months now and the only reason you haven’t been able to come home recently is that your schedules don’t match up very well anymore—which couldn’t be further from the truth as, before term started, you went out to celebrate the fact that your class schedules couldn’t be more suited for seeing each other.

Finally, at Sunghoon’s childhood home, the two of you smile and laugh for his parents before going to bed. Your relationship has only made his mother more averse to the idea of you sharing a room under her roof than she had been when you were younger. He’s relieved about this, and in the solitude of his bedroom, he lies on the duvet of his twin bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about the last few hours.

With his parents, you’d sat up in the living room watching TV. They sat on the couch together, his mum nestled in his dad’s side, while you two sat on the couch opposite, mirroring their position. If your complete stiffness was anything to go by, you were less than comfortable with his arm around you and Sunghoon felt terrible for begging you to go along with this. It was after midnight when you all went upstairs and you let him kiss your forehead before all but slamming the door to the guest room in his face. His heart twirled and his mum beamed at him before saying goodnight again.

Now, at 3 a.m. he can’t sleep. Flinching at the knock on his door, he furrows his brows and goes to open it. It’s you. Standing there with your hair scraped away from your face in one of his t-shirts. Your eyes are red, brimmed with tears as you step into his room and sit on his bed.

He closes the door softly, heart aching at the sight of you so upset, and when he sits next to you, his heart tears apart because you move over, putting a distance between you. It falls out of his chest onto the floor when he realises you’re not wearing your necklace.

Sunghoon suspected you might have stopped wearing it, it only made sense that if you didn’t want him, you wouldn’t want the necklace he bought for you either, but at least earlier, your sweatshirt sat so high he couldn’t see if you had it on or not.

It was a gift for your sixteenth birthday, after your first heartbreak. He was so upset and angry that you let some loser hurt you that way, upset and angry that someone could be loved by you and fuck it up. Sunghoon was inspired by Jay, who’d gotten a pretty necklace for his girlfriend, and talked about her cute reaction for weeks, how happy she was to have a piece of him with her all the time. It was a locket, with a picture of Jay in one side and a picture of her in the other so the pictures would kiss when she wore it.

While at the jewellers with Jake, Sunghoon thought something like that might be a bit much for the two of you and eventually picked out an equally pretty piece with his first initial on it. He wrote a corny note to put in the box, something about how ‘boys come and go but Sunghoon is forever’ and gave it to you with trembling hands a few nights later—it was the first time he ever made you cry. Immediately, he thought he’d done something wrong and was ready to snatch the box and run back to the jewellers (even though he trashed the receipt). You hugged him and told him you loved him. Sunghoon’s been riding that high ever since.

Until tonight at least.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

“I’ll do it, Hoon.” Your eyes lift from the floor to meet his gaze. “For as long as you need me to, I’ll pretend.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, Sunghoon feels lighter, an unbearable weight slipping from his shoulders. You haven’t called him ‘Hoon’ in ages, and he can’t tell if you’ve said it out of vulnerability, or even noticed that you’ve said it at all, but it warms his heart nonetheless. However, he’s not fully at ease, still curious about your sudden change of heart and why you’re crying.

“What happened?”

You pull him into a hug, and his eyes bulge out of his head. “It doesn’t matter,” you say, the words muffled by the skin at the base of his neck.

For as long as he’s known you, you’ve smelled like vanilla, a sweet warmth that grounds him. Yet it’s only after these months apart that he’s able to put a name to the sensation: home. The realisation of how much he’s missed this feeling, missed you, floods him with a rush of emotion so overwhelming he can’t find the words to press the issue. A moment passes before he remembers to hug you back, his arms finally wrapping around you, pulling you close, and you sink into his hold. Months ago, he would have kissed the top of your head and mumbled reassurance into your hair, but tonight, Sunghoon settles for stroking the back of your head and hopes it’s enough.

“You can talk to me, you know? You can always talk to me.”

A heavy silence follows, sharp as a dagger—scraping his skin, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge and lodging itself between his shoulder blades. Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat when you cling onto him even tighter, shifting so close you’ve had to settle in his lap. His heart races in his chest, pounding a rhythm so loud it fills the room.

Finally, you speak, assuring him that you know and that you’re okay. At this, Sunghoon holds you as tight as he can, and neither of you speaks for the rest of the night. You fall asleep like this, in his arms, so deeply that you don’t even stir when he lies down.

Rubbing your back, he watches the clock on his nightstand, the piercing green LED digits cycling through two whole hours right before his stinging eyes until you wake up. Sunghoon presses his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep when you kiss his cheek and leave his room.

For the entire morning, you stay in your room, and although Sunghoon is concerned, he decides not to bother you. In the afternoon, he sits at the dining table with his mum, listening as she talks about work. When she asks him, he gets up to make a cup of tea for her. It’s at that moment when you finally come downstairs, looking so effortlessly pretty. Your hair is still damp from the shower, and you’re bundled up in one of his old sweatshirts. There’s a bright grin on your face that leaves his heart thudding.

“Baby!” you squeal when you see him, charging towards him and wrapping your arms around him from behind. “Good morning.” Your words are muffled against the back of his t-shirt, and the four-letter word, and the sugar coating it, make his cheeks burn.

“It’s great to see you too, YN,” his mum says with a smile. “My night was amazing; I slept very well and had no dreams.”

You let go of Sunghoon and walk over to the table, kissing his mum on the cheek and wishing her a good morning as well. “Sorry, mum, how are you?”

His mother doesn’t seem to have the heart to correct you either, allowing your 3 p.m. ‘good morning’ to go unnoticed.

Sunghoon carefully fills both mugs to the brim and, with extra caution, carries them to the table. He places a steaming cup of peppermint tea in front of his mum and a milky coffee in front of you. A warm smile spreads across your face as you mouth a ‘thank you’, and his knees turn to jelly.

The next day, after eating an early dinner with his parents at the table, the four of you go out on a walk along the bike path you used to take for school. His parents have gone ahead, not intentionally, but because Sunghoon can’t stop you from dragging your feet.

As with most things in the town where you grew up, nothing about the trail has changed. The leaves are yellowing in standard form for the season, and crunching under his feet with each step he takes. The only foreign experience is the silence that you’re determined to uphold. Everything Sunghoon says to you is met with either a hum, a nod, or no acknowledgement at all. At this point, he feels like he could drop dead at your side and the most you’d do is step over his body like a fallen branch.

After letting you go ahead, the weathered slats of the wooden footbridge sag in the middle under his tread. It’s been like this for as long as he can remember and he wonders how nothing has been done about it. The stream rushes under it, loud and unruly, the smell of wet grass both comforting and suffocating as you look over the railing. It’s like something from a postcard, the low-hanging branches sweeping back and forth under the breeze, the grass lush and green around the path, murky water thrashing against the mud and rocks underneath with you in the middle of the frame, peering over the edge.

You keep walking when Sunghoon approaches, leaving him alone on the creaky bridge with nothing but the ache in his chest. He looks up, staring at the grey clouds in the sky through the gaps in the leaves, and sighs.

Eventually, he catches up with you, grabbing your hand and locking his fingers with yours when his parents slow down. You stiffen, looking up at him with cut eyes and a creased brow. “What are you doing?”

Sunghoon matches your clipped tone. “Holding my girlfriend’s hand.”

“No one’s looking, boyfriend.”

“You think my parents aren’t going to wonder why we’re lagging behind?”

A scoff—your fingers remain defiantly stiff. “Do you think your parents are going to care whether or not we’re holding hands?”

“My mum might after the show you put on yesterday afternoon, baby.” Bitterness covers the word like a blanket, a stark departure from how you said it.

A long sigh rumbles its way out of you before you fix your lips into a strained grin. “Sorry, sweetheart, this is my first time pretending to be in love.”

As your words hang in the air, Sunghoon’s emotions brew like a storm within him. Frustration gnaws at his patience. All hopes for a smooth week are dashed, though determination simmers in his chest with a strong resolve to make this work, to fix your relationship. It doesn’t stop the sharp pang of hurt piercing his stomach—he knows you don’t feel the same way, he knows you’re faking, but the word ‘pretending’ hits him like a truck anyway.

“We held hands all the time when we were friends,” he points out.

Your smile drops immediately, hurt flashing behind your eyes. “Yeah, and now we’re not.”

If there was a competition for who could hurt Sunghoon’s feelings the most, you’d be a shoo-in for first place. With distinction.

“Exactly!” he says, feeling the sting of his own words. “Because now we’re dating.”

At the sight of his mum turning around, you switch up in an instant. Lock your fingers with his, wrapping an arm around his bicep, leaning into him, giggling. It’s forced but his parents are far enough away that all that matters is the curve of your lips.

“You two okay back there?” she asks.

“Perfect! I feel like a kid again!” you call back, beaming up at Sunghoon in a way that makes his stomach flutter even though it doesn’t meet your eyes.

The two of you don’t talk at all when you get home, with you hugging his parents goodnight and running up the stairs.

“She’s not feeling too well,” he explains, nodding when his dad tells him to make you some tea.

His parents spend the whole day at work, and you spend the whole day following him around like a shadow until the evening when they return. He doesn’t pretend not to like it.

Sunghoon helps you make dinner, turning leftover rice into fried rice with the help of some eggs and vegetables. It’s nice moving around the kitchen with you, watching you scramble eggs in his t-shirt and bump his hip with a playful frown when he eats some of the peppers you’re chopping.

His parents watch from the table, cooing over the two of you and he does his best to fight the blush forming on his cheeks and neck. Embarrassed, he hugs you from behind, hiding his face in your neck—the scent of your coconut conditioner mixing with your vanilla perfume doesn’t do anything to stop the flush.

Over a bottle of wine, the four of you eat together at the table, swapping stories about your days. Sunghoon tries to hide his surprise as you lie about the time you spent at the play park by your primary school, competing for height on the swings and spinning on the roundabout until you couldn’t stand up. You grin at him, and it meets your eyes as you hold his hand under the table, and kiss his cheek.

After eating, his parents head upstairs, leaving to clean up together. You hum a song he’s never heard as you load the dishwasher, carefully placing the plates and cutlery in the rack, shaking your head when he hands you the glasses you’d used.

“Leave ours,” you say. “If you want.”

Sunghoon nods, putting them back on the table, where you sit in the seat across from the one he was sitting in. He sits too, staying quiet rather than saying the wrong thing. You don’t speak either. It’s reminiscent of the past—the hours you’d spend in the same room, only speaking to share a funny post you’d come across or to ask if you were hungry.

His eyes track your movements—reaching for the half-empty bottle on the table to pour yourself another glass, filling it to the brim. Before putting it down, you offer him some, filling his glass too when he nods. The three glasses of wine he’s already had must be the reason he wants to reach across the table and hold your hand, run his thumb over the soft skin on the back of it.

Sunghoon doesn’t know why you’ve been so nice to him all day or why it makes his chest hurt.

“You know you don’t have to be nice to me when we’re alone, right?” The words come out before he can stop them.

Over the top of your glass, your brows knit together. A sound of confusion, a low hum, comes from your throat as you try to finish your sip. “What?” you ask finally.

“I only asked you to do this because of my parents, you know? You don’t have to sit or talk with me when they’re not around.”

Sunghoon’s known you long enough to recognise the look that flashes across your face. The way your eyes narrow and your brows tug together, the little pout that sets on your lips before you speak; you’re hurt.

“Why can’t I just be nice to you because it’s the right thing to do?”

Because it hurts, is what he wants to say. He wants to cry, to beg you to forget everything he said that day. “Because I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than I already have.” Is what he settles for.

Your face softens. “I don’t feel uncomfortable around you, Hoon. We were best friends for ages, I don’t think you could ever make me uncomfortable.” You pause to take a gulp of wine. “Why can’t I just want to be nice to you?”

Sunghoon has to chew on his cheek to distract himself from how much your word choice stings. The implications of were and all of your past tense. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“What for?”

“Everything.”

There’s a sadness in the way you run your fingers on the base of your glass. The way you chew on your lip, how your hair falls when you tilt your head and how it moves when you shake it. “It’s not your fault,” you say. “I don’t know anyone who would choose to have unrequited feelings for their best friend.”

Wow, he thinks. You’re on a roll. Sunghoon wonders if you’re meticulously choosing your phrasing to upset him. Wonders why you feel the need to remind him that his feelings aren’t reciprocated as if he didn’t live through and spend hours reliving the day he confessed.

“But I didn’t have to tell you about it. It was unfair of me to spring that on you when I knew about Yeonjun.”

“Did you.. did you think I was going to leave him for you?”

“Maybe?” Sunghoon chews on his lip—he has no idea what he thought would happen. “I think I thought I loved you enough for both of us, that you might play the part for fun or out of curiosity, and.. I don’t know, just learn to love me.”

“Hoon,” you whisper, frowning. “How could you even think about settling for something like that?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “It’s not settling if it’s you.”

Silence takes a seat at the table after he speaks, interrupted only by the ticking clock on the wall—a glittery mess of scrapbooking paper and washi tape layered over each other that Yeji had decorated at summer camp years ago. You’re picking at your fingernails, letting flecks of black polish fall to the table, stark against the varnished oak.

“I know it’s not my place to ask,” Sunghoon starts after a while, hesitant and only continuing when you nod. “But what did Yeonjun say when you told him? About.. everything?”

You take a long sip from your glass and sit quietly for so long that he thinks you’re not going to answer him—he doesn’t blame you.

“I didn’t.”

He waits for you to elaborate. You don’t.

Sunghoon nods slowly, deciding not to ask any follow-up questions. Instead, he takes another drink, scrunching his nose at the bitter taste. “He didn’t ask why we stopped hanging out?” he blurts out.

“I told him we fell out but I didn’t say why.” You shrug, but your posture is stiff.

“Where did you tell him you were going to be this week?” He knows it’s not his business at all, that he’s pushing your boundaries, but he can’t help his curiosity.

“Nowhere.”

“You told him you were staying on campus?”

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Your gaze shifts, avoiding his as you toy with the stem of your glass. You drum your nails against it, letting the dull clink ring out.

“So you just left?”

“Does it make a difference to you?”

Sunghoon nods.

For a while, you tug at the drawstrings on your hoodie, pursing your lips to the side, considering this. “Yeonjun and I aren’t together anymore.” Your admission is so shocking that Sunghoon’s jaw drops. He tries to cover his surprise by coughing, his tongue sticking out like a small child. “I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want you to think it was because of you.”

Sunghoon’s thoughts move at lightspeed, too fast for him to catch onto any of them and process this information. His emotions compete with each other—disbelief, guilt, and a painful glimmer of hope he hadn’t dared to acknowledge until now all at the forefront.

“Was it?” he asks. “Because of me?”

You scoff—an incredulous sound that doesn’t match the sad look on your face. “I don’t know, Sunghoon. Do you think my boyfriend used me to make his ex jealous because of you?”

He’s not sure what he expected you to say, but this is.. Complete disbelief eclipses him as his heart sinks in his chest, shock, and guilt bubbling in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he says after too long. “That I wasn’t there. That I haven’t been there.”

“You didn’t know,” you say, gaze softening as you look up at him.

“But I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about it.”

You shake your head. “I made me feel like I couldn’t talk to you about it. All you did was change the friendship, I’m the one who ended it.”

“I still should’ve been there.”

“You’re here now, right?”

Sunghoon nods, earnestly. “Always.”

Only one thing comes to mind when you repeat the word ‘always’ before taking a sip from your glass, downing its contents. Sunghoon gets up and crosses the room with wobbly steps to open the fridge, where he pulls out as many bottles of soju as he can hold in his hands and puts them down on the table. He goes back to collect some glasses from the cabinet, puts some of the leftover fried rice from dinner into the microwave, and brings it all over when it’s done, with bowls and utensils. You watch him with a fond smile as he opens a bottle and he hopes you think the flush on his cheeks is from all the drinking you’ve been doing.

“Is it bad that I’ve missed doing this?” You’re grinning now.

Sunghoon shakes his head, raising his glass. “To YN’s fifteenth heartbreak.”

You grin, clinking the rim of your glass against his. “To YN’s fifteenth heartbreak,” you repeat.

Both of you down the glasses, and Sunghoon refills them, pouring the soju with an oddly steady hand. As you eat spoonfuls of rice and sip your drinks, silence settles over the room. The soft glow of the kitchen lights forms a warm ambience, a cosy familiarity that brings up simple memories—doing homework together at the table while gossiping about your classmates, the first New Year after you were both eighteen and had your first drink with his parents.

For at least an hour, the only sounds are the occasional clinks of forks against bowls, glasses hitting the table, the faint hum of the refrigerator and the steady tick of Yeji’s clock. Sunghoon’s eyes meet yours, and he can’t help but notice the slight change in your expression when they do.

You clear your throat, running a hand through your hair. “This is my sixteenth, actually.”

“What?”

You take a small sip of soju, staring down at the table. “My fifteenth heartbreak was losing you. Yeonjun is my sixteenth.”

In the two days since your soju ceremony, Sunghoon finds himself sinking into the role of your boyfriend like a hot bath. But there’s no use pretending it doesn’t hurt. Pretending it doesn’t hurt when you kiss his cheek before bed, or when you reach out to push the hair out of his face or snuggle into his side on the couch; because it does hurt—a lot. It hurts to think that in three days when you put your bags in the boot of his car, you’ll sit in silence all the way home. When he drops you off at your flat, you’ll close the door in his face and stop talking to him again. These realisations are harder to confront when he’s alone in his room, like now.

About an hour ago, you asked if you could borrow his car, saying there was something you needed to do on your own. It seemed important, so he handed over his keys with no question. Sighing, Sunghoon gets up from his bed and heads to the shower, where he jerks off to clear his mind. On his way back to his room, he notices the light leaking from the open kitchen door that illuminates the landing.

He hears the lock on the front door clicking, and stands at the top of the stairs, dripping water onto the carpet while listening attentively. His ears perk up when he hears a gasp—his mother.

“What’s this for?” she asks.

“I just..” You trail off. “I know it’s not much, but I wanted to thank you both for always looking after me.” You pause, and Sunghoon holds his breath, waiting. Your voice trembles as you continue. “It’s been hard since my parents went back home, and I guess it was still hard when they were here, but you both supported me. I don’t think I could’ve managed without you guys. I want to make you guys proud, you know? And I’m trying, really, so this is me saying thank you. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

He grips the railing by the landing, digging his nails into the wood until they start hurting—an ache in his fingertips that makes him wince.

An odd feeling settles in his stomach, a bittersweetness tinged in his fondness for you, and the gentle shock of realising how much his parents have done for you. Growing up, you became an honorary member of Sunghoon’s family. His parents showered you with gifts during holidays and birthdays, which you often celebrated with them rather than your own family.

The memory of your parents’ sudden decision to move across the country still lingers, and Sunghoon vividly recalls the tearful conversation he overheard at the top of the stairs. Your parents understood the enormity of their request but had earnestly asked if Sunghoon’s parents could continue looking after you.

His chest tightens when you start crying.

“You don’t have to thank us for anything, sweetie. Just you being here and taking care of our boy is more than enough thanks. You never forget our birthdays, and you always come and visit when you can. You’re doing a great job, and you should give yourself some credit,” his dad says, a little choked up. “We’ve always been proud of you.”

Sunghoon’s eyes sting with tears and his skin gets dry in the spots where the water from the shower is evaporating. He presses his fingers to his closed eyes, forcing a few tears to fall and walks the rest of the way to his room with his eyes shut. He can’t hear anything through his closed bedroom door, which he decides is a good thing as he coats himself in moisturiser and swipes deodorant under his arms with intention to spend the whole night alone. Once he’s dressed, he gets into bed and pretends not to be bothered by the way his wet hair dampens his pillow. Under the duvet, he tosses and turns before sighing and heading to Yeji’s room.

In her absence, the room’s subtle transformation is stark. The sage green-painted walls, once a backdrop to the A3 faces of Wave to Earth and Beabadoobee, now bear the faint imprints of those missing posters. Tiny, shadowy rectangles are the only remnants of the 6x4-sized pictures of her and her friends, of her and Sunghoon, that she took away with her to school.

Her hairdryer is still on her desk where she’d left it for him to use and he sits in her stiff wooden chair, plugging it in. The airflow starts immediately, hot and loud, humming throughout the space as he runs his fingers through his wet hair, feeling cosy under the heat. His shampoo is fresh and soapy scented under his nose, and his reflection watches him in Yeji’s mirror, eyes red and concerned while his hair blows around his head. Sunghoon closes his eyes and finishes his hair, sighing as he lets his worries slip under the whir of the fan.

Finished, he shuts off the dryer and opens his eyes, flinching at your reflection in the doorway behind him with a soft smile on your face. “Mum and Dad are going to open a bottle of wine if you want to join,” you say, meeting his eyes in the mirror.

Sunghoon can’t find it in himself to speak, only nodding in response. You smile wider but don’t move. He unplugs the hairdryer and leaves it on the desk where he found it before crossing the room. Without giving himself a chance to think about it, he pulls you into a hug and kisses the top of your head, smiling into your hair when you wrap your arms around his waist, holding him closer.

You’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub, mumbling sleepily that you’re never going to drink again, and Sunghoon leans over the sink brushing his teeth, he’s glad you have the decency to cover your mouth as you speak.

“Brush your teeth and go back to sleep then,” he mumbles around his toothbrush.

You don’t respond.

Sunghoon sighs through his nose, spitting foamy toothpaste into the sink, leaving bubbly, blue splatters on the porcelain. “And quit staring at me, I can feel your beady little eyes on the back of my neck and it’s freaking me out.”

“But you’re so pretty,” you coo.

There’s a flutter in his stomach and he rinses off the sink and his mouth, buying himself some time. With a hand on the Listerine, he lifts his gaze to meet yours in the mirror and stops short. You’re still staring at him, features soft and glowing under the afternoon light. You look like an angel; a gentle smile spreading over your lips, and a sleepy glint sparkling in your eyes, wide and gorgeous as you watch him. Sunghoon gulps, mumbling his thanks and looking back at himself. He hopes you can’t see the flush on his cheeks.

“Go back to sleep,” he says.

“Will you come and lie down with me if I do?” Your voice is a sleepy drawl, coming out in a slow, high-pitched slur, and your eyes are closing on themselves.

Lying down doesn’t sound like a terrible idea, especially not if it’s with you, so he nods. “If you brush your teeth, then yeah, baby, I’ll lie down with you.”

You chuckle softly at Sunghoon’s agreement, the sound carrying a mix of exhaustion and genuine amusement, showing no repulsion to him calling you the B-word. He didn’t mean to, it’s been a confusing few days. You nod, saluting to him and getting up to join him by the sink, using your hip to bump him out of the way, but he feels like he’s glued to the spot.

“Move, baby,” you mumble sleepily, reaching for your toothbrush. “We can cuddle in my bed,” you suggest, to which Sunghoon only nods, taking your words as a cue to unstick his feet from the floor and go to your room, playing the word ‘baby’ on a loop in his head.

He stands in the doorway staring at your bed, the duvet is all crumpled in the middle, and the pillows are in an L shape at the top corner. He sighs, he can’t go on like this, can’t stand around hoping even a tiny part of you called him ‘baby’ and it meant something for you as it did for him. It’s not fair for him to project his feelings on you like this, but he can’t help it. You’re already pretending for his parents, so would it be so bad to pretend for his sake as well? Even if only until the day after tomorrow when you leave?

The sound of the bathroom door shutting behind you snaps him out of his thoughts, your bright smile making his heart race when you tug him by the sleeve to your bed where the mattress dips underneath you as you curl into his form, resting your head on his chest and falling asleep. You’ve shared the bed before, countless times, but he knows you’ve only asked him because you’re tired. Because your brain is foggy with drowsiness that clouds your judgement, not because you want him there, not because you miss him when he’s two doors down the hall, tossing and turning at night thinking about you. He wonders absently if you can feel his aching heart beating through his chest, a painful, yet all too familiar rhythm that pulls his own eyes shut, plunging him into a deep sleep too.

It’s dark in the room when he wakes up, the sun already down behind the curtains and the soft yellow of the bedside lamp casting a glow around the space. You’re staring up at him, smiling and you don’t look away when he catches you. “What is it?” he asks, voice thick with sleep.

“Nothing,” you mumble. “I just missed you.” Sunghoon has no time to respond or even register what you said before you clear your throat, speaking again. “Come on, dad’s cooking tonight, he’ll need help.”

Helping Sunghoon’s dad with dinner always looks an awful lot like Sunghoon eating snacks on the kitchen counter and staring at you as you help his dad cook. Tonight is no exception, he’s sitting on the island, and his snack of choice is a family pack of Chilli Heatwave Doritos his mum bought for Yeji. He’ll have to remember to replace them before leaving seeing as he’s reaching the halfway point.

You go back and forth with his dad about measurements, with you rummaging through the drawers for measuring cups while his dad says it’s best to trust your gut. Reluctantly, you nod, chewing the inside of your cheek as you watch him eyeball the seasoning.

The gas stove turns the kitchen into an oven, and you complain about it while opening a window, pulling your hoodie over your head and leaving it in Sunghoon’s lap. Time stops when you grin at him, the light from the stove hood illuminating the necklace you’re wearing, his initial resting on your chest and glowing under the light. He chokes around a crisp when he sees it, catching your attention with his coughing.

“You’ll spoil your dinner, snacking like that, baby,” you scold, using a hand to push his knee. “We’re almost done, I swear.”

All he can do is nod, cheeks burning as he folds the crisp packet over before putting it back in the bread bin where he found it.

“Wow,” his dad says, resting his hands on his hips and shaking his head in amusement. “Being in love looks good on him, he’d never have listened if I said that.”

It’s already your last day when Sunghoon picks up Yeji from school. She grumbles for the entire half-hour drive and all the way to the front door about why the two of you couldn’t have started the trip today instead of ending it, but all of her irritation dissolves when she sees you in the hallway, leaving the front door wide open to fling her arms around you. You and Yeji exchange compliments for a while — You look so pretty. No, you look so pretty. I love your hair. I love your hair. — as Sunghoon locks the door and watches with a smile.

“God.” Yeji sighs, holding you by the waist and craning her neck up to look at you, as you push some of her hair from her face, pinning back her wispy bangs with the palm of your hand. Yeji giggles. “I’m so happy you two are together, even though I have no idea what a girl like you sees in my loser brother.”

Sunghoon rolls his eyes, leaning back against the wall. Despite his mild irritation at Yeji’s words, he finds the sight of you with her so adorable his stomach flutters. Over the top of Yeji’s head, you look at him with a fond smile. “He’s not so bad.”

It doesn’t sound like a compliment, but Sunghoon takes it to heart.

Like always, Yeji manages to capture your undivided attention and the two of you giggle and whisper with each other all afternoon while Sunghoon watches, too enamoured by the sight to care about being left out. An hour or so passes like this, until his parents get home from work, excited to see Yeji after a few weeks, and you leave her side, coming to cuddle with Sunghoon instead.

It’s nice being home with everyone, laughing and sharing a meal before his family walks the two of you to his car with at least a month’s worth of cooked food for you to share at university. Yeji makes you pinky promise that she can visit you and waves with a pout on her face until the car is out of view.

Contrary to what he’d been expecting, the drive back is nice. Your playlist is on, and you’re telling him about all the new songs you added, catching him up on things with Chaewon and Yunjin, and all the things you got up to in the time you spent apart. You tell him about a new café that opened up near your place and how you’ll have to go together when he has the time, and Sunghoon bites his tongue before telling you that he always has time for you. The first half of the trip goes on like this but you start dozing off around the halfway mark, your sentences becoming few and far between, eventually turning into half-mumbled thoughts that end prematurely.

You’re still asleep when he reaches your flat, head propped up against the window with your soft lips parted, looking too pretty and cosy to wake up. Instead, he drives in circles around your block, deciding to wait for you to wake up on your own. It only takes a half-hour but you blink your eyes open, stretching your neck before looking around and out the car window, recognising the street. You don’t say anything, only smiling when you look at him, a small curve of your lips that makes his heart race.

He gets out of the car with you, opening the boot to get your bag before pulling you into his chest for a hug, liking the way your arms settle around his waist. “Thank you,” he mumbles into your hair.

Sunghoon doesn’t follow you when you take your bag from him, only watching from the back of his car. You don’t notice until you reach the main door, looking over your shoulder and frowning at him. “Aren’t you going to walk me up?”

The two of you walk in silence up four flights of stairs as the lift in your building is out of order. Your bag feels much heavier in his hand now than it did outside. At your door, he watches you dig around for your keys, sighing with relief when you find them.

“Do you want to come in?” you ask from your open doorway.

“I—uh—I have training in the morning and I’m already pretty tired, so..” He trails off.

Unfazed, you nod. “Right, of course. I had fun this week.”

“Yeah, me too.”

You smile at him, sweet and sincere. “Text me when you get home, yeah?”

Sunghoon nods, saying goodbye. Out of habit, he doesn’t leave your doorstep until he hears the lock click shut, and walks back to his car with his head down.

True to his word, he sends you a text to let you know he got back to his place safely and you read it immediately but don’t reply. It’s empty in the apartment, Jake is out with his football team and the space is larger than usual in his absence. Far too tired to even consider going out and joining him, Sunghoon goes through his night routine, putting his phone on the charger and stepping into the shower where he spends entirely too long wishing he could live in this week forever as he scrubs his body. With brushed teeth and damp hair, he goes back into his room where his phone lights up with a notification; a text, from you.

YN🫀: i’m glad you got home okay, i just got into bed :) i don’t want to make you uncomfortable or overstep or anything and you can say no (obviously).. i’ve been missing you so much and didn’t know how to reach out or if you wanted me to but i had soooo much fun this week and spending time with you again made me happy, so i’d like it if we could keep hanging out, like before yk? ik it’s a long shot ahahaha but just say you’ll think about it?

hoonie: You’re not overstepping at all, I’ve missed you too, so bad. I had soooo much fun this week as well and I’d like it a lot if we kept hanging out, thank you for agreeing and coming along 😚 If you’re free after Lit tmrw you could come over? Or we could go out and do something, whatever you prefer

hoonie: I missed you so much..

hoonie: 🤍

The texts greet you as the first rays of Monday morning light filter into your room, instantly lifting your mood. Your bright smile doesn’t escape Chaewon’s notice as you find her in the kitchen, bathed in the soft light seeping through the sheer curtains. The kettle is boiling with a loud rumble that fills the whole room and leaves her yelling as she speaks to you.

“Good trip?” she asks, coming over and hugging you. “Never leave me for that long again,” she mumbles into your shirt.

“It was a week, Wonie,” you say, rolling your eyes even though you missed her too.

She leans away, looking at you with knitted brows. “It was nine days.”

“The longest of my life.”

Chaewon pulls air through her teeth, tilting her head and releasing you. “That bad, huh?” she asks, walking back to her seat at your tiny square table and shooting you a look that tells you to join her.

During your trip, you gave her nightly updates over text, so you know she knows how much you enjoyed yourself, but you elaborate anyway, sitting across from her.

“No, not at all,” you say, shaking your head and trying to fight a smile. “I had fun.” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you have to bite your bottom lip to stop the grin curving them; it doesn’t work.

Chaewon raises a suggestive brow, crossing her arms over her chest. “How much fun?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” she defends, holding her hands up. “I made an implication. It was only a matter of time, you two have that whole.. lifelong best friends to lifelong lovers thing going on, and it’s hot.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re telling me, you spent nine days playing lovers with Sunghoon and you still don’t want him? You’re a lost cause, people would kill for that chance,” she says, tilting her head. “I think I would kill for that chance.”

“Don’t touch him.”

“Oh?”

“Jesus, Chaewon, it’s not like that. Hoon’s too sensitive for your roster.”

“I never said it was like anything, you’re the one who’s dangling me over the ledge for saying I want to fuck your hot best friend.”

“Sunghoon isn’t hot; he’s..” You find yourself at a loss for words, unsure how to continue your lie. Of course, Sunghoon is hot, you’ve known since you were seventeen and spent the summer at your grandparents’ house, only to come back to find your previously scrawny best friend having ditched his LEGOs for dumbbells. You sigh. “Just leave him alone.”

Chaewon grins, eyes sparkling as she leaves the table. “Okay,” she says in a singsong voice, leaving you and the irritation in your stomach alone in the kitchen.

You sigh, pressing your eyes shut and trying to will away your discomfort. It’s not like Chaewon would actually try anything with Sunghoon. Right? Even if she did, it wouldn’t bother you, nor would it be any of your business. They’re grownups and reserve the right to explore their options. Still, there’s a nagging feeling you can’t shake, an uninvited guest in the back of your mind.

When you check your phone, you realise you have half an hour before you need to head to campus, so you leave to get ready and text Sunghoon back on the way to your room.

you: sounds good, see u later 🤍

After showering, you stand in front of your wardrobe, towel hanging from your body as you pick an outfit. For some reason, you feel under pressure, picking a pair of jeans that do the most for your ass and a low-cut top that Sunghoon once — drunkenly — said he loved on you.

You have the residual sting of mouthwash on your tongue, and one foot out the door when your phone vibrates in your hand.

hoonie: Do you want to head to class together?

you: sure! i’m omw out, where should i get you?

hoonie: .. I’m outside your building :D

Breathing a laugh through your nose, you don’t fight the giddy smile on your face as you make your way downstairs to meet Sunghoon. Through the glass in the main door, he’s standing at the edge of the pavement and kicking a stone between his feet. The top of his puffer jacket covers the bottom half of his face, and the draught nips your skin when the door opens. Two girls you vaguely recognise stumble in with smudged makeup and heels in their hands, smiling at you while holding the door to let you out.

“Hey!” you call out, jogging over to him.

Sunghoon turns around, his head poking out of his jacket to grin at you, holding a travel cup and an abundance of tinfoil in your direction.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d have eaten anything yet, you don’t normally in the morning,” he says, a sheepish smile spreading over his lips when you take it. “Matcha. Ham and cheese toastie.”

“Did you make these?” you ask, inspecting the familiar cup and appreciating the warmth it provides.

He hums, nodding his head.

You ignore the heat spreading over your cheeks and thank him with a hug, grinning when he offers to hold your drink while you eat on the walk. The toastie is still hot, the cheese coming close to burning your tongue as you chew, but you appreciate it wholeheartedly, humming contently with each bite. When you’re done, you shove the foil into your pocket, taking your drink from him and smiling around the sweet taste of a matcha latte as he tells you about his schedule for the day.

“I’m meeting with Coach after class to talk about my grades, but I’m all yours after that.”

“Talk about your grades? What’s wrong with your grades?”

Sunghoon groans, head falling back and highlighting the bump of his Adam’s apple. “My grades are.. I failed my coursework this month, so I have resubmissions during finals, and I think he’ll bench me if I fail again.”

He sounds like he’s being serious, and if the look on his face is anything to go by, he is. The news creases your brows because for as long as you remember, Sunghoon’s grades were your parents’ favourite point of comparison.

“Really?” you ask. He nods. “What’s up? Is something the matter?”

A humourless laugh slips out of him before he pulls air through his teeth. “Yeah, my best friend didn’t talk to me for three months.”

“Oh..” Guilt stirs your stomach as you look up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you, it’s not like I was trying to talk and you ignored me.” He nudges your arm with his elbow, giving you a warm smile. “But if you feel as guilty about it as you look, you can tutor me for Lit.”

“Deal.”

Sunghoon grins, wrapping his arm over your shoulders and holding you close; the action itself isn’t unusual, but the increased heart rate it brings about is. “You’re too good to me,” he says, holding onto you for the rest of the walk to class.

At his request, you sit with Sunghoon in the back row, watching as the lecture hall gradually fills up in front of you. He seems well-prepared, with his laptop and a small notepad and pen neatly arranged on the desk in front of him.

Throughout the class, your eyes inadvertently track his every move. He diligently types up colour-coded notes, occasionally pausing to write things in his notepad before continuing to type or stopping entirely to listen. There’s something melodic about his actions and the way his fingers run over the keyboard.

During a five-minute break, you glance at his screen. What you find is more than just lecture content; it’s a document adorned with Sunghoon’s own musings about Hemingway’s style and carefully analysed quotations that go beyond the class discussion.

“How are your notes so good?”

“I picked up the book over the summer when you mentioned it,” Sunghoon replies with a shrug, a shy smile playing on his lips as he leans back in his seat. “I liked it.”

A slow nod is your response, though your thoughts swirl like autumn leaves in a breeze. The last time Sunghoon read for leisure, you were in primary school, buddy reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But this—this is different. You can’t help but stare at him, awestruck as you take him in. His eyes are wide, shining amber in the sunlight as he pushes some of his hair from his face, frowning when it falls back where it was.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbles.

Sunghoon takes a new line in his document and points at the screen where you watch the cursor move through the words he’s typing: I would’ve read and annotated the Bible if you wanted me to..

There’s no time to digest what he wrote or the funny feeling in your chest as you reread it before he deletes the whole sentence, pressing his lips together and looking out the window. Speechless, you stare at his side profile, willing your heart rate to slip back to normal. Steep-sloping nose, plump lips flattened into a line, two points of the triangular mole constellation on his face. Analysis worsens your condition, breath hitching in your throat before stopping entirely. Warmth and trepidation blend within you, fuzzy enough at the edges to seem like one thing—a single force that makes your palm itch with desire, desperation, to reach out and run a finger over his features, feel the bump of the mole on his nose — the most prominent — against your skin.

You remain this way — silent, watching — even when your lecturer resumes the lesson, and Sunghoon starts typing, writing, and listening again. Polite enough to pretend he doesn’t notice your gaze searing into his face.

After class, and his meeting with Coach, you let Sunghoon lead the conversation and the way to your flat, where you find Chaewon and Yunjin sitting on the couch, whispering to themselves while the two of you study at the coffee table. It’s uncomfortable, an awkward height, too high for the way you’re sitting but you feel calm under the supervision of Chaewon and Yunjin—you won’t do anything to merit teasing in front of them, no matter how badly you want to feel Sunghoon’s face in your hands or stroke his cheekbones with your thumbs.

To the best of your ability, you answer the questions he has for you—he’d written a ton in his tiny notepad during class, his own concerns clear with each neatly-penned iteration of: How to see actions/dialogue for what they are and not what I want them to be? written in the margins and you try not to feel heartbroken for him.

Three hours have passed by when you walk him to the door, the two of you wrapped up in a bubble so secure you’re surprised to find Chaewon and Yunjin still sitting on the couch. They don’t say anything about Sunghoon in his absence, or the fact he’d given you his sweater when he noticed you were cold. You’re not sure why their silence disappoints you.

Instead, Yunjin asks you about trivial things like dinner while Chaewon sits in silence.

“What flavour for ice cream?” Yunjin asks, rolling her eyes when you tug on the blanket but not complaining. “And don’t say something ridiculous like mint chocolate, YN.”

“That happened once! And it was three years ago.. How was I supposed to know you hate fun?”

Chaewon leans into you, letting you curl your limbs around her from behind as you rest your chin on her shoulder, liking the way her clean scent tickles your nose.

“Mint-cho isn’t that bad,” she starts. “It’s a little jarring, sure, but it’s kind of sweet. Like watching people come to terms with their feelings for each other.”

You nod your head, humming in understanding and furrowing your brows when Yunjin scoffs, staring straight at you. Her tone is equal parts cutting and loving, so you know she’s not trying to insult you, but don’t know what she means when she says, “It must be so nice to be as oblivious as you.”

Yunjin never elaborates, and you never ask, actually feeling the statement’s journey in through one of your ears and out the other when dinner arrives. The three of you share pizza, ice cream, and secrets — the three pillars of 20-something-teenage-girlhood — at the kitchen table, with Chaewon sitting in your lap and picking pepperoni from your slices.

It’s only hours after Yunijn’s gone home, that her words circle back to you, the statement and all of its weight perching on your chest with all the debilitation and persistence of a sleep paralysis demon.

“I think I’m getting sick,” you say as soon as she opens her door. “It’s been coming on for a while now, at least a week, maybe more.”

Unimpressed and exhausted, Yunjin looks down at you through half-closed eyes. “Do you..” She pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing. “Do you have any idea what time it is right now?”

“Yes. It’s three a.m.”

“Exactly. See a doctor if you’re sick, I’m going back to sleep.”

“This is an emergen—” Yunjin cuts you off by pinching your lips together. “It’s three in the morning,” she reminds you. “You can’t yell like that in my hallway, come in.”

You nod, crossing the threshold and taking off your shoes next to hers. “Sorry,” you whisper when the door is closed.

Using her hand, Yunjin lifts your chin, squinting as her eyes adjust to the light when she flips the switch to inspect your face. “You don’t look or sound sick,” she mutters, flicking the light back off and going to her room. “What are your symptoms? And why did you come here?”

You don’t have an answer for her last question so you ignore it, following her and tripping over a pair of her shoes in the process. “My cheeks start burning like crazy and my heart races, sometimes it gets hard to breathe.”

“You seem fine to me.”

A shoulder-slumping sigh slips from your lips. “That’s the thing. I’ll be fine and then Sunghoon shows up with his pretty smile and perfect hair and I feel like I’ve run a marathon.” You know how it sounds, choosing your wording meticulously to let Yunjin be the one to say the words out loud instead of you—it’ll be easier to confront that way.

From the doorway, you watch as she arches a brow, her interest piqued. “Oh?”

“I know.” You nod, head bobbing rapidly in furious agreement. “It’s only a matter of time before I cough up a lung and die in his bedroom.”

At your words, Yunjin doesn't reply, only lifting her duvet and getting cosy underneath. You feel like you’re glued to the spot, waiting for her to say something, anything, but nothing comes. All she does is pat the empty spot in her bed.

“What are you smirking for?” you ask, entering the room properly and closing the door.

Her response only comes after you’ve taken your jacket and hoodie off, sitting next to her under the covers. “It’s nothing,” she says, laughing.

“Tell me.”

Yunjin sighs, resting a hand gently on your shoulder. You think it’s meant to be comforting but it’s the opposite. “You’ll be fine, I promise. Lovesickness isn’t deadly.”

Feeling the weight of her reassurance, you settle down properly and sigh when your head hits the pillow. Lovesickness. Hmm.

Closing your eyes, you try to sleep but can’t help tossing and turning as Yunjin snores behind you. You pat blindly around the end table for your phone, grabbing it and wincing at the brightness of your screen. Chewing on your lip, you open Google, looking up ‘lovesickness’ and frowning immediately at the results. Endless negativity fills the screen, terrifying words like ‘unrequited love’ forming a pit in your stomach. There’s nothing negative about what you feel for Sunghoon, nothing unrequited—you think.

It was obvious during the trip, painfully so. In the way he’d tuck your hair behind your ear when his parents weren’t there to see, or how he slipped up and called you ‘baby’ in the bathroom, blushing when you said it back. You can’t fake something like that.. Can you?

Yeonjun did.

Shaking your head, you open Instagram to distract yourself. Jake’s story comes up first; he’s at a party where Jay is losing a game of beer pong, and at the other end of the table is Sunghoon grinning with a bright red lipstick kiss on his cheek. You lock your phone, using your hands to press on your belly to stop the stirring.

Oh, you think. Lovesickness.

When you wake up, the first thing you do is check Jake’s story again. The video is still there and that terrible stir in your stomach churns on, burrowing deeply into a pit of canyon-like proportion—so vast there’s a safety railing lining its edges.

You eat breakfast in silence with Yunjin, zoning out mid-chew to figure out the origin of these feelings and how to handle them. Suddenly, the moment hits you clear as day, vivid like you’re watching it on a screen—it was your third night at his parents’ house, after your walk.

You felt bad about how you acted, and what you said, so went straight up to your room. With nothing but the bedside lamp turned on, it was dimly lit, shadows cast on the walls as you sulked, replaying everything in your head. Guilt wrapped its long arms around your body, making you feel sick as you thought about it all. About the hurt etched over his face with every word you said, and the frown that stuck around for the rest of the walk as his hand clung limply to yours.

There was a knock at the door, so gentle you almost missed it, and Sunghoon was standing there when you pulled it open, chewing on his lip with a mug in his hand. Steam skated over the opening, a rich chocolatey smell hitting your nose but the real kicker was the mug itself. In its place on Jake and Sunghoon’s mug tree, it was unassuming, a regular white mug, but upon meeting hot water, the face of young Sunghoon appeared, grinning with his tiny glasses on. It was a gift from one of his old coaches and though he never used it, it was your absolute favourite cup in the world.

You felt soft around the edges when you looked up at him, his eyes wide and unsure as you met his gaze—he brought that mug three hours across the country so you could use it again. The thought shifted your heart into a comfortable position, settling in your chest with overwhelming warmth and an increased rate.

“Hi,” you said, clearing your throat.

“Hi,” he repeated, holding the mug out for you to take. “It’s still hot so be careful.”

Nodding, you covered your hands with your sleeves, taking the cup from him and asking if he wanted to come in. Sunghoon nodded, shutting the door behind him and standing by the bed, watching you set the hot chocolate on the bedside table as you sat down. The two of you stayed like that for a while, with him only moving when you patted the spot next to you on the duvet. Your train of thought escaped you as soon as he sat down, the warmth of his familiar fresh, citrusy scent taking over and becoming the only thing you could register. The smell of summers with him, long days at the beach and short nights spent on the couch at random parties, cuddled into his side with his arm over your shoulders. The smell you’d come to associate with comfort and home—with Sunghoon.

“It’s not fair for me to treat you like shit just because I’m annoyed, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that earlier. I’m sorry.”

A crease ran over Sunghoon’s thick brows as they tugged together, he shook his head. “You don’t have to apologise. I roped you into this whole thing and didn’t even try to think about how you would feel. I’m sorry.” His eyes carried a mix of regret and sincerity, mirroring the weight of his words.

“Anyway, I only came to bring you that,” he said, pointing at the cup. “And to check up on you, I’ll get out of your hair for tonight.” Sunghoon wiped his palms on his pants before standing up, reaching behind him to pick up the cloth he brought. For a moment, he stood there, staring down at it in his hand while you thought about telling him to stay, telling him that you wanted him in your hair—whatever that meant. But he spoke before you had the chance. “You left this, at mine, after.. well, you know. I’m sure you left it intentionally, I mean it was folded up perfectly on the end of my bed, so I know you did, but it didn’t feel right keeping it, you always wore it more than me.”

Sunghoon extended his hand, holding it out to you and you knew exactly what it was as soon as the fabric touched your skin after so long. It was the shirt Jay bought him for Christmas in first year—they were roommates still trying to get a feel for each other. For a few weeks, Sunghoon had been pestering you about what he should get for Jay, saying it didn’t feel right not to get him anything, and you suggested a targeted t-shirt, one you’d been laughing at all day after seeing an ad for it on your timeline. Sunghoon was sceptical, but bought the red shirt anyway, hoping Jay would find BEING DAD IS AN HONOUR, BEING PAPA IS PRICELESS funny. He did. And Jay bought Sunghoon a targeted shirt too, your favourite. It was black and two sizes too big, with I NEVER DREAMED I’D BE A SEXY FIGURE SKATER BUT HERE I AM KILLING IT written over the chest.

“Goodnight, YN,” Sunghoon said, crossing the room to leave but hesitating before closing the door. He poked his head through the opening and sighed. “I really am sorry.”

That night, you fell asleep in the shirt, the thinning, yet cosy, fabric wrapped around you like a hug as your heart started to beat a new rhythm, one that eerily echoed the five-foot-eleven figure skater who you let break it.

This morning, Yunjin claps her hands in your face, seeming irritated when you look over at her. “You have class in an hour, what are you doing?” Before you have the chance to speak, realisation covers her face. “Oh, the feelings.”

You nod solemnly, too caught up in the butterflies raiding your stomach to come up with something to say.

At lightspeed, you scarf down the rest of your food, apologising for showing up so late as you head out the door. When you get home, you take the fastest shower of your life and feel grateful Chaewon isn’t around to tease you about the smile you can’t wipe from your face thinking about Sunghoon—you’ll text her later.

You run to campus, feeling the brisk autumn wind beating against your face while the rest of your body overheats under your jacket, hoodie and long sleeve. Despite the discomfort and ache in your lungs, you don’t stop until you reach the door of your lecture hall, huffing and puffing into the faces of classmates who don’t take any notice. Of course, in a stroke of pure luck, your lecturer is late, and you realise bitterly, that all of your huffing and puffing was in vain—you would have gotten to class with time to spare even if you walked.

It’s not a total waste though; you use the time to update Chaewon.

you: i have news wonie.. i like sunghoon

wonie: …………….. fork in the kitchen yn what’s the news?

wonie: OHHHH news to YOU.. can i call?

She calls you immediately. You answer without thinking because your lecturer still hasn’t arrived, and there’s no one sitting close enough to hear or notice you taking a call.

“Are you going to tell him?!” Chaewon’s voice is so loud you wince, pulling the phone away from your ear.

“I don’t know.” You shrug even though she can’t see you, still holding the device at a distance just in case. “I don’t have any confirmation that he still.. likes me. It’s been a while, and I was pretty mean that day.

Chaewon groans and you can picture her throwing herself onto her bed, exasperated. The rustling that comes through the receiver only frames the image, hanging it up. “Did you have to tell him to get a grip?”

“You know..” You trail off, chewing on your bottom lip. “In hindsight, probably not.”

A beat passes, she’s thinking. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll help you.”

“I.. have never been so worried in my life.” You sigh, picking at your freshly painted nails. “But I know you’ll do something no matter what I say, so do what you want, Wonie, but please be subtle about it.”

Chaewon squeals down the phone. “I love youuuuu!” And it’s the last thing she says before kissing the mic a few times and hanging up.

Slumping in your seat, you don’t have any time to stress about Chaewon’s plans because your lecturer walks in, with a travel cup in her hand and a paperback tucked under her arm.

She apologises for being late, running a hand through her hair as she announces that you’ll be watching a film, an adaptation of a book you read at the start of term—Ian McEwan’s Atonement. You spend the first hour of the movie falling in and out of sleep until a text comes through from Sunghoon, and sheer excitement keeps you up.

hoonie: Wanna study together after class?

you: of course!!!!!!

hoonie: 🤍

The rest of the movie goes by in a drag, and you come away from it with a mild irritation towards Saoirse Ronan.

you: class just finished, heading to lib rn

hoonie: Shit, still in the locker room, sorry !!! Omw, can you get a table?

you: i’ll try..

It takes a while but you find an empty booth on the second floor, and set your bag on the plush green seat to take pictures of your surroundings to send to Sunghoon. You sit on the side facing the stairs so he can see you when he arrives. The thought of seeing him makes your heart race and you try out a few natural-seeming poses for when he’s here, cycling between resting your palm under your chin and sitting with your arms crossed a few times until the top of his head comes into view.

Seeing him knocks the wind out of you as he approaches the staircase, taking them two at a time with his damp hair clinging to his forehead and neck. It doesn’t help that he’s wearing a tight black vest, and his sweats are hanging low on his hips. A breath you didn’t realise you were holding slips out when he lifts his head, spotting you immediately as a grin spreads over his lips and he raises his arm to wave, the veins in his forearm peeking out to say hi too. You can’t tell if it’s his lack of winter wardrobe or your newfound appreciation for him that’s making his biceps look so huge but it’s hard to look away, even when he reaches the table.

“Are you hot?” you blurt out.

Sunghoon laughs, raising a brow and something about the way he’s looking down at you makes your cheeks burn. “Depends who’s asking.” He takes his backpack off, leaving it on the table as he sits down, dumping his jacket and hoodie in a pile beside him.

“I’m asking,” you mumble.

“Then, yeah, I’d hope so.”

Is he flirting? It sounds like he’s flirting. Flirt back! “Nice arms.”

He looks down at his biceps for a beat before looking at you warily. “Are you flirting with me?” He can’t fight the smile twitching at the corners of his lips but he tries his best, pressing them into a straight line.

“A little. They are nice though,” you admit.

Sunghoon grins. “Thanks, I’ve had them for a while now.”

You can’t come up with anything to say, too distracted by the way his smile reaches his eyes, lighting up his whole face and forcing a flustered heat to spread over your cheeks and neck. It’s only when you look away from him that you remember what you’re here for. It’s a study date, not a study date—there’s a difference.

You hand Sunghoon the material you’d printed for him over the weekend, excerpts from texts you’d studied in class, so he can practise close reading and proper citation. As he makes his way through them, you can’t help stealing glances, smiling at the way his tongue sticks out a little while he focuses, or how he twirls his pen in his fingers while he’s thinking. You aren’t making the best use of your time together, copying out the slides from class yesterday, but you can’t help noticing the way he watches you when he thinks you can’t see. The small smile on his face while he does so only flusters you, an odd weakness settling in your knees as your cheeks heat up.

After a while, Sunghoon sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Could you stop watching me?”

“If you noticed me watching, that means you’re watching me.”

He shrugs, chewing on his lip. “Well, yeah. I’m always watching you,” he says like it’s a given. “But you don’t normally watch back, it’s distracting.”

“You’re distracting.”

A playful smile curves his lips as he arches a brow, smugness painting his face. “Am I?”

Too scared to verbalise your response, you nod slowly, hoping you don’t look as wound up as you feel.

Sunghoon’s eyes flick over your face, flashing with something you don’t recognise. At least not from him. He sits back in his seat, assessing you and eventually shaking his head.

“You know,” he says, eyes glowing with something you do recognise: cockiness. “If my sexy arms are getting to you that much, I can always put my hoodie back on. Wouldn’t want my little tutor getting distracted, would I?”

Oh.

Your stomach turns with want, mind reeling from his tone and the way his gaze lands on your lips. Sighing, you roll your eyes and try to seem unaffected. “Sunghoon, I never said your arms were sexy.”

His phone starts to go off, buzzing against the table and he turns it over immediately, screen down on the surface as he shifts his focus back to his work. He chews on his lip while he does, eyes flicking back and forth between his phone and the words on the page. Curious, you lean over the table, elbows propped up as you rest your chin in your hands. He doesn’t spare you or his phone, which vibrates another four times, a glance.

“Are you going to get that?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

You hum, letting just enough curiosity seep into the sound that he’ll elaborate without being asked to. It doesn’t take long for him to deliver.

“It’s just Chaewon,” he says, running his hand through his hair and lifting his head. Sunghoon smiles. “We’ve been texting a lot these days.”

“Cool.” You nod a few times, aiming for nonchalance but hitting bobblehead as you wait for him to continue. He doesn’t, only humming in response, nodding too.

After a beat, he picks up his phone, angling it just high enough that you can’t see the screen. He reads the messages, an exhaled laugh coming from his nose as the tips of his ears redden—Fuck. This is worse than you thought.

Chaewon’s commitment to girl code runs deep—she’s been rebuffing Jake since first year when she overheard a girl she’d never seen before telling her friends she thought he was cute. So you know without having to read the texts that nothing she’s saying is even remotely flirty, you can smell the auto-caps and use of the word ‘buddy’ from across the table.

What you hadn’t counted on, however, was the potential for Sunghoon’s feelings to shift. If they really have been texting more, can you rule out the possibility that he might like.. her? Chaewon is a catch, beyond a catch, and you’d already turned Sunghoon down. Brutally. Of course, he’d move on, he has moved on.

The rest of the study session is spent manifesting, writing Park Sunghoon over and over in the back of your notebook. You fill three pages while brainstorming ways to snatch a lock of his hair until he suggests that the two of you call it a day. He walks you home, telling you about how Jake’s been bribing him with food to get a ride to the LEGO store across town for the new Marvel set.

“With or without the meals, I would’ve taken him, but his ramen is my favourite, so..” Sunghoon says, climbing the last step of your building and holding the door open for you. “He even brought a slice of tiramisu to the rink for me after practice.”

“You’re terrible,” you say, frowning up at him as you search for your keys. “Do you want to come in?”

Sunghoon chuckles, shaking his head. “I have a meeting with one of my lecturers soon, I’d have to leave in—” He pauses, rolling up the sleeve of his jacket to check the time. “—eight minutes.”

“I’m cool with that if you are,” you mumble, suddenly shy.

A bright smile spreads over his lips and he nods, following you in.

Chilled by the harsh wind, the only thing on your mind is a hot drink as you lead Sunghoon to the kitchen. He shakes his head when you offer him one, sitting on the countertop and exhaling into his palms before rubbing them together. You can’t help but frown at the sight, feeling guilty that you can’t change the weather to suit him. At your thought process, your brows raise. Wow, you think. Is this who you are?

You busy yourself with the selection of hot drinks you and Chaewon have accumulated, eyeing each container from top to bottom. A purple tub of Cadbury’s hot chocolate that you’re sure is on the brink of expiration, coffee—sachets of the instant stuff you’ve grown to like since leaving home, Earl grey from one of many brands, or the fancy silk tea bags Chaewon’s mum brought home from a trip—rooibos or plum-apple-cinnamon.

Craving something sweet, you settle for hot chocolate, pulling the heavy container from the cupboard next to Sunghoon’s head and setting it beside your cup. He’s on his phone, scrolling too fast to take in anything he’s seeing and he shakes his head when you ask if he wants something to drink.

On the dish rack, Chaewon’s mug catches your eye, so you pick it up to dry it off and put it down next to yours. “I’m going to check if Wonie wants any,” you say, wiping imaginary crumbs from the counter onto the floor.

Sunghoon only clears his throat, shaking his head. “She’s not home, one of her acrylics popped off so she’s at the shop waiting for a cancellation.”

The information itself isn’t jarring but hearing it from Sunghoon is. You put on what you hope is a neutral smile and nod, taking milk from the fridge and assembling your drink on autopilot while thinking of ways to redirect the conversation.

“If you knew you’d have to go back to campus so soon, why’d you walk me home?” you ask, watching your cup spin in the microwave. “I could’ve walked on my own.”

Sunghoon is already looking at you when you turn your head, his cheeks puffed out with air as he blinks slowly. Because I love you, is what you hope he’ll say. You think you need him to say it.

“Because you don’t have to do anything on your own when you have me,” he says instead, and it’s infinitely better.

The words seep through your every fibre, his intonation and lucid affection making a home for themselves in your heart, spreading warmth from head to toe. Your smile becomes a radiant grin, only brightening when he shakes his head, smiling down at his feet.

Sunghoon hugs you in the kitchen when it’s time for him to leave, his arms holding you tight to his chest as he rocks you back and forth. You inhale his scent, all warm citrus under freshly washed cotton and something exclusive to him.

Wiping the smile from your face feels impossible. You don’t let go when he does, and a sweet laugh — a giggle, you think — tumbles out of him as he mumbles that he really has to go. Still, you cling onto him, taking clumsy steps backwards, with your arms locked around his waist, to your front door, smiling as you watch him put his shoes on.

“You don’t have to walk me downstairs, honestly,” he says, looking down at you in the doorway.

“I want to.”

His lips quirk up at the corners, a full smile breaking through and causing your stomach to flutter with so much force you’re sure it’s visible through your shirt. His eyes fall to your lips, lingering, before he clears his throat, looking away.

“I’ll text you when I get to the door, promise.”

You lock your pinky with his. “Send a selfie, just so I know it’s you and not someone else using your phone.”

Sunghoon’s head falls back in a laugh. “Should I just call you? That way you can make sure I get back to uni in one piece.”

You nod.

“That wasn’t anything with Chaewon earlier, I just needed advice on some girl stuff..” He trails off, searching your eyes. It’s obvious that he’s telling the truth, that he wants you to believe him. You do. “I wasn’t sure if that was something I could talk about with you.”

Girl stuff. Hmm. You try not to read too much into it and look at the bigger picture instead—your best friend is going through something and doesn’t feel like he can come to you about it.. You squeeze his pinky reassuringly, a flutter in your stomach when he smiles.

“You can talk to me about anything,” you say, meaning it.

Sunghoon presses his lips together, humming and unlinking your fingers. “Next time,” he says after a beat, waving at you.

You shut the door, locking it while watching through the peephole, he leaves as soon as the lock clicks shut. In the kitchen, your hot chocolate is cooling down, and your phone rings in your back pocket. Sunghoon’s calling.

Hanging out with Sunghoon. Making sure he sticks to the time-blocked schedule you made for him. Quizzing him on biology terms until he gets restless. If the last two weeks were an episode of Family Feud, those would be the top three answers to the question: Name something YN is doing right now.

Thankfully tonight, it’s the first one.

You’ve been sitting on the couch for so long, Jake has both left for football practice and arrived from football practice. Conversation ebbs and flows—an hour or so of nonstop talking, followed by another hour or so of comfortable near silence.

It’s during a quiet hour that Sunghoon sits up straight, clearing his throat before saying, “Let me ask you something. He retreats to the other side of the couch, turning to face you with his whole body. “I don’t want things to be weird after I ask, so no matter what your answer is, I won’t bring it up or ask again.”

Arching a curious brow, you nod. “You can ask me anything,” you say, meaning it.

Sunghoon’s face is impressively blank—minus the motion of sharp teeth worrying plush lip, there’s absolutely nothing behind his eyes that seem to stare right through you.

Eventually, he asks, “Can I kiss you?” He says more. Big, scary words like for closure and moving on, but they don’t register. They don’t matter.

Your heart pounds at the base of your throat as you find interest in your hands that sit in your lap. Even without looking at him, you can’t get over the slight crease he had in his brow and the slight tremor in his hands.

“For closure,” you repeat, though your voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming from you, muffled under the thump of your heart.

Sunghoon nods. “For closure.”

A humourless laugh sneaks past your throat as you look at him. You shouldn’t have. In the lamplight, Sunghoon is golden and glorious. Warm light casts one side of his face, diffusing gently over the steep slope of his nose, highlighting his moles and the look in his eyes, gentle and curious all at once. Unwillingly, your gaze falls to his lips, parted, tempting.

One firm nod of your head brings Sunghoon’s hand to your face, his palm cupping your cheek with soft skin as his thumb traces your cheekbone. You grow anxious under his stare, under the drag of his eyes over your features, taking them one at a time like he’s committing them to memory.

Leaning in, your eyes flutter shut as your lips meet his and he freezes, mouth completely still on yours. Delicately, your tongue traces the seam of his lips, soft and plump, until they part for you, moving with yours. Sunghoon’s kiss is unpolished when it reaches you. It’s hesitant but tender, clumsy but sweet, he’s trying and he’s perfect; your favourite.

The kiss is.. it’s everything. It’s the racing of your heart, the thudding, the vibrant buzz you can hear, feel humming against your ears. It’s a rush of blood to the head, a lightness all over that pulls you out of your body. It’s Sunghoon’s soft lips curving into a smile against yours, his gentle hold on your face never letting up as he holds you as close as he can manage, and it’s every bit as lovely as the rest of him.

Palpable is the heartbeat of your friendship, beating to a lull under the surface of the kiss, fizzling out into nothing, a steady silence, flatlining to give way to something more, something bigger.

Every brush of your lips against his is a revelation, a confession. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, you tell him with your kiss. You’re everything I need. His free hand finds yours, locking your fingers and squeezing, the action timed well enough to make you think he hears you, to make you think he’s saying, we’ll be okay, I still love you.

With that, he pulls away, a delicate tension piercing the air. Blown eyes and laboured breathing—he’s beautiful, fuzzy around the edges with warm orange and all of the love in your heart. Breathless, you chew on your lip, cognisant of Sunghoon’s hand in yours and the sparkle in his eyes as he looks at you.

Belatedly, you squeeze his hand back, smiling. “Was it everything you ever dreamed of?” you whisper, part teasing, all curious.

Abruptly, Sunghoon stands up, letting go of you in the process. “I have to go.”

You want to stop him, you think you’re supposed to. To grab him by the arm and kiss him again, to yell in his face that you love him until he understands. But you don’t. Instead, you stay seated, staring at Sunghoon’s back and following him with your eyes out of the room and down the hall until he’s out of sight.

It’s your first time being so upset after a kiss, and you can’t tell if it’s his leaving or the mention of him moving on that’s tripping you up so much. That’s causing melancholy to crawl from the shadows, sinking its jagged nails into your skin to pull you under.

You love him. He’s gone.

Eyes stuck on the doorway, time stretches over the room around you, thick and malleable, wet and cloying—clay stuck under your nails for days as the fire in the kiln rages on.

Sighing, you get up and wait at his door. You ball your hand into a limp fist, knocking weakly. Sunghoon doesn’t reply. You try again, harder. Still nothing.

Barging into the room, you find him sitting on the end of his bed with his face in his hands.

“Don’t move on.” The words come out before you realise and Sunghoon lifts his head, squinting at you.

“Huh?” He tilts his head, watching closely as you approach him, tipping it back enough to meet your eyes when you stand over him.

You take a breath, holding it until your head starts to spin. “I don’t want you to love someone else, Sunghoon. Please don’t move on.”

The stillness that follows is disconcerting, a long quiet you can feel on your skin, amplifying the blank stare on his face as he looks up at you. His eyes flash, a spark of hope behind them so bright it stings to look at.

“Do you..” He trails off, his lips moving to form the next word though stopping short.

“I do,” you whisper, nodding. “I’m sorry for taking so long.”

An exhaled laugh comes from his nose as he grins, shaking his head. “You like me?” he asks, excitement and disbelief fighting for authority over his voice, his hands holding your waist and pulling you down into his lap.

“I love you,” you admit, settling on his thighs.

“You do?” His eyes are wide and gleaming, searching every feature on your face before settling on your own.

You nod. “So much.”

Sunghoon’s chin tips up, his lips pressing against yours, excited pecks that can’t turn into much more for the smiles on your faces. You rest your arms on his shoulders, hands clasping behind his head, nervous fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“So.. will you be my boyfriend? For real?”

Tilting his head, he tries and fails to fight a smile. “I will. I’m a little bummed though.”

“Why?” You raise a brow, and the word tips up at the end with it.

“I wanted to be the one to ask you.” Sunghoon’s honesty warms the room, endearing you completely.

You grin, loving the heat spreading over your cheeks. “Ask me anyway.”

“Please can I be your boyfriend?”

In the weeks that followed, it became immediately clear that boyfriend Sunghoon operated on a pendulum swinging between sexual ferality and terror. He’d get distracted during study sessions at home, finding more interest in biting at your neck than stream-of-consciousness prose, but closed his eyes if a sex scene came on TV. He’d buck his hips against yours while making out but flinch at the sight of condoms in the store.

He wasn’t ready to have sex and didn’t know how to tell you, so you took matters into your own hands, asking if you could wait until after his results for resubmission came in, saying you didn’t want the distraction for either of you. Sunghoon agreed, pecking your cheek and holding you tight to his chest.

The only thing was that your lecturer hadn’t given him an exact date, so every morning, you held your phone in a vice grip waiting for Sunghoon to update you, and every morning, you got the same text: Nothing today, baby ☹️

This morning, you’re brushing your teeth when he texts you, in all caps: NO FUCKING WAY I GOT A 98 !!! LOOK !!!

When the picture comes through, it’s of him in the mirror and you choke on mouthwash at the sight. He’s smiling, bright and beautiful, in a black vest that he’s holding up a little to show his stomach, though his palm is in the way of his toned abs, and it cuts off right at the top of his grey sweatpants.

Your mouth goes dry as you click on it, fixating on every little detail you can find: the thickness of his fingers against his phone, the dip in his collarbones, the breadth of his shoulders and the cinch of his waist. In a fit of desperation, you try swiping at the bottom of your screen, willing the picture to magically extend. It doesn’t.

hoonie: Finger slipped.. You like?

you: mm..

you: 98??? HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT YOU!!!

hoonie: All you.. do you like the picture?

you: i love it………….

hoonie: My girl 🤍

Another picture comes in, and sure enough, through the glare of his laptop screen, you see: Course name: The Modernist Movement: Joyce, Woolf, and Hemingway. Marks Awarded: 98.0.

you: well done baby !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hoonie: Thx 😁

hoonie: Can I have my prize now ha ha .. haha 😈

you: just for that emoji, no you absolutely cannot.

Your resolve isn’t strong enough when it comes to Sunghoon, because purple devil emoji and all, you show up at his door with condoms in your bag and a bouquet of lilies behind your back.

The door creaks open and Sunghoon greets you with a grin. “Hey, gorgeous. You proud of me?”

You beam at him, holding out the flowers. “I’m very proud, Hoon, well done.”

“I don’t want to ruin the moment,” he starts, taking the bouquet from your hands and sniffing the flowers with an approving smile. “But hearing you say you’re proud of me is awakening something I didn’t know existed.”

“A good something?”

“Mm,” he hums, arms finding your waist before he pecks your lips. “A very good something.”

Sunghoon’s words hit your lips and your core, a desperate heat flooding your stomach as he kisses you deeply, his body pressed tightly against yours while he pulls you into his apartment. He kicks the door shut with his foot, slipping his hand under your jacket to settle in your back pocket, not quite squeezing but holding your ass as gently as he can manage.

He breaks away from you, love in his eyes as he stares down into yours, catching his breath. “I don’t think we own a vase.”

In his kitchen, you rifle through cupboards to find something to hold the flowers, eventually finding a whiskey decanter in the cupboard under the sink, and holding it up for Sunghoon to see.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “It’s Jay’s. It’ll work right?”

You nod, taking it to the sink to rinse it. Sunghoon wraps his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder watching you fill the decanter with water and flower food before grabbing the bouquet. He presses open-mouthed kisses to your neck and you struggle to stay focused as you cut down the stems on the flowers, arranging them neatly.

“Can I take a photo?” he asks when you’re done.

He’s smiling when you turn around to look at him, a soft curve of his lips that makes your heart race, a deep tenderness in his eyes when you meet them. You smile too.

“They’re yours, baby, do whatever you want.”

“A photo of you with the flowers,” he clarifies.

Warmth settles in your chest, a grin spreading over your lips from ear to ear. You nod, taking the decanter in your hands when he lets go of you, holding the flowers up beside your face and smiling for his camera. As his phone shutter clicks away, you steal glances at his face behind it. He’s watching the screen with a smile, telling you how beautiful you are.

“I want pictures of you too,” you say, handing the flowers over.

“I’m yours, baby, do whatever you want.”

Sunghoon poses for your photos, smiling sweetly in some and sniffing the bouquet appreciatively with closed eyes for others. He’s glowing and he’s beautiful and your heart triples in size while taking picture after picture until your phone tells you it has ten percent.

“Thank you, YN,” he says. “I’ve never gotten flowers before, I love them.” His arms settle around your waist, lips pressing against yours before you have the chance to respond.

You try anyway, mumbling against his lips that you love him. In response, Sunghoon grins, but the feeling of his cock growing hard against you is distracting, a lust-coated thorn in the side of the butterflies fluttering in your stomach. With locked lips and uncertain steps, the two of you bump into corners and trip over your own feet, stumbling to his room and parting only to tear his hoodie over his head.

Breathless, you pull away, eyes trailing over him and picking up on everything, from the tremble in his hands to the lust-addled worry in his eyes. He’s nervous, you think—though it escapes you, the last word coming out like a question.

Sunghoon scoffs, his hands resting on your waist under your shirt, skin clammy against yours. “Of course, I’m nervous.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“I just want to be good for you.”

“Don’t worry about that, let me take care of you, Hoon.” Your palms drag up his torso — firm abs through soft cotton, defined chest over racing heart — to rest on his shoulders. “Sit,” you say when he nods.

He gulps, taking a seat on the end of his bed under your gentle push, eyes widening when you sink to your knees between his legs and reach for his drawstring, pulling the ends to untie the knot.

“Wait,” Sunghoon says, breathless, scrunching up his face and dropping his head. “Let me calm down, baby. At this rate, I’ll come just seeing your hand on it.”

You giggle, resting your head on his thigh and wrapping the drawstring around your finger.

“I’m serious, YN,” he mumbles, laughing as he takes his vest off. “I need a minute.”

Sunghoon’s eyes are pressed shut as he tries to collect himself, lips pouty and kiss-bitten, slightly parted with ragged breaths slipping out. You wait patiently for him. He’s so pretty like this, with the crease in his brow and the pretty pink flush dusting his cheeks as his chest rises and falls. You can’t help but smile, leaning into his touch when his hand rests on top of your head, his blunt nails grazing your scalp. After a while, he seems more at ease, his eyes finding yours and he smiles shyly, telling you he’s ready now and lifting his hips from the bed to let you pull his sweats and underwear down.

Free from the constraints of fabric, his cock slaps his stomach with a wet sound as the tip meets his skin, leaving a pearlescent streak over his abs. The sight makes your mouth water and you can’t look away. “Pretty,” you whisper.

Wrapping a hand under his tip, you swipe it with your thumb, taking time to memorise the flutter of his eyelids, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, and the soft sigh he lets out. You stroke him slowly, liking the way his breath picks up as his brows knit together before you take him in your mouth. It’s a tight fit but you do your best, spurred on by the way he tugs at your hair and stutters through a holy fuck as you take as much of him as you can.

Sunghoon goes silent, only squirming when you use your hand to stroke him near his base. Self-conscious about his lack of vocal affirmation, you look up at him through your lashes, and the pure bliss on his face is unbearably attractive. His eyes are rolled back under furrowed brows, his mouth hanging open as he throws his head back.

“Am I doing okay?” you ask, using the moment to catch your breath.

He nods, inhaling shakily and screwing his eyes shut while his hips buck up into your fist. “I’m.. You’re doing such a good job, baby, so good.”

Satisfaction courses through you from the praise, a high that dulls the ache in your jaw. Still watching him, you massage his balls in your palm, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his tip when he whines. You tongue at his slit until he thrusts back into your mouth, tip hitting your throat, and he gasps when you gag, his arm coming up to cover his eyes. A belated apology slips from his lips, mumbled as he strokes your hair with a shaking hand and goes quiet again. When you speed up, his breath stutters, the muscles in his thighs contracting around your head as you suck and lick and drool on his cock.

A moan of your name, and his hand holding your hand down, are the only warnings you get before Sunghoon comes, spilling his load right down your throat. Whining, his hips buck up against your face, pushing further and further until he falls back onto the mattress.

Your throat is hoarse and aches while you use the back of your hand to wipe at your lips, enjoying what’s left of his taste on your tongue. Deep red tints his neck and chest, a pretty flush gleaming under the sheen of sweat on his skin. He’s mesmerising, as he tries for air through swollen lips and looks up at you through squinted eyes. He reaches for you, cute grabby hands tugging your shirt and pulling you down so you’re lying next to him with your head on his chest.

“You’re amazing, baby, so good for me,” Sunghoon whispers, eyes fluttering shut as you drag your nails over his torso, feeling the subtle heave of the slick, sculpted muscle over his stomach and chest.

Pride heats your chest, satisfaction rolling over you like a wave. “Really?”

He hums in affirmation, nodding his head.

“You were so quiet, I couldn’t really tell,” you add, hungry for more praise.

“The walls are so thin in here, I just got used to being quiet,” Sunghoon says, frowning. Hand meeting your chin, he tips your head up towards him, pressing a soft kiss to your lips and mumbling, “I’m sorry. You were perfect, I swear.”

It’s a sweet kiss. Until lips move harder and hands get lower, desperate as he thumbs the top of your leggings, palm unmoving but a dangerous heat blooms in your stomach anyway.

“Can I..” Sunghoon pinches you softly through the material, unsure eyes boring deep into yours.

You nod. “You can.”

Slipping under your waistband, his fingers skate across your skin dipping between your thighs. He grazes your slit, satisfaction clear in the groan he lets out as he feels the wetness there, pulling it over the length of your slit to cover your clit. Your breath hitches, a strangled gasp, pleasure and surprise meeting in your throat under the pressure of his thumb on your clit, the gentle sting of his finger pushing into you.

What Sunghoon lacks in experience, he makes up for with the sheer length and thickness of his fingers. It’s almost jarring, it’s enough to force your eyes closed and bring a sigh rumbling out of you, ache and relief settling between your legs, where he curls a finger against your walls and drags slow circles over your clit.

“Can you take these off, baby?” he asks, hand away to touch your leggings.

You don’t waste a second, sitting up to pull them off, throwing them and your underwear across the room. Sunghoon licks his lips, tugging at the hem of your shirt.

“And this? If you want..”

You nod, pulling it off immediately to let it join the rest of your clothes in a heap on the floor. The way he gulps is a confidence boost, his dilated pupils taking in every inch of your body, though his gaze always pulls back to your bra—white and lacy, thin enough for your nipples to push through the fabric and Sunghoon can’t seem to get enough, though he waits until you’re lying down again to touch you.

Sunghoon props himself up on his elbow, leaning over you. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers, dragging a finger over the lace at the top of your bra, toying with the material and the little bow sitting between your breasts. His eyes flick up to meet yours. “So beautiful,” he repeats.

Hiding your face in his chest, you mumble, “Thank you,” into his skin while trying to ignore the heat spreading over your body wherever he touches you. His hand trails from your arm to your waist, resting on your hips to slip over your ass for a beat, where he grabs and squeezes the flesh there before coming back around to slot between your legs—you lift one of them, resting it over his body, and he’s smiling sweetly when you look up at him.

Sunghoon’s movements are unchanging, though the sensation is heightened by the unbridled desire in his lidded eyes that urges white heat to lick over every inch of your skin—this time he pushes two fingers into you.

It doesn’t get better than this, you think. But it does, quickly.

Leaning over you, his eyes flick across your face, one feature at a time as he chews on his lip. Reaching up, you push some of his hair from his face, holding it back and saying, “Relax, baby.”

“Don’t want to hurt you.”

Moving your hand, you blink when his hair flops back over his forehead, tickling your eyelashes. His eyes are focused now, staring straight down into yours, want and worry flashing behind them.

“You won’t, I promise,” you say, locking your pinky with his, feeling relieved when he smiles.

Sunghoon pushes in slowly, his name slipping from your lips when he exhales shakily, head falling forward. The sting, the pleasure, make it hard to breathe, molten desire taking hold of your lungs as he carves out a place for himself as far as you’ll take him, all the way to the hilt as slow as he can manage.

A moan tears out of him, lewd and whiny as his hair tickles your collarbone, head falling into the crook of your neck. His skin is hot and damp against yours, his breath burning your shoulder as he tries to calm down. It’s difficult to register much else, tethered only by the sound of his voice when he asks, “Am I hurting you?”

“Hoon,” you whisper.

“Can you look at me, baby?” He lifts his head, resting a hand on your cheek. You blink your eyes open, gaze locking with his, where concern pushes through his desire. “Am I hurting you?” he asks again. “Are you okay?”

You nod. “I’m okay, just..” You sigh. “Full. Need a minute.”

Sunghoon kisses you, lips moving gently with yours, passing breathy whines between your mouths until you feel yourself relaxing. Pulling his plush bottom lip between yours, you suck on it, nodding. “Want you to move, baby,” you mumble.

He scans your face, eyes meeting yours as he pulls his hips back. He’s slow, so slow with his thrusts that your belly turns with want, your fingernails sink into the taut skin of his back, and jagged sobs fall out of you with each drag of his cock along your walls.

Everywhere his skin touches yours is set ablaze with scorching heat, goosebumps pushing past the surface as his breath fans your neck and his sharp teeth graze your skin. He bites hard enough to sting, and you wince as his tongue flicks over your bitten flesh to soothe you.

You were so worked up earlier, writhing against the sheets and coming undone in his palm, so bliss quickly pushes through the ache between your legs. “Good, Hoon, feels so good,” you manage, struggling to convey how perfect it is.

“Just want to make you feel good.” His words melt into each other, vowels soft and elongated as they curl around each other. He’s working up a steady rhythm, his tip consistently nudging you where you need it—the spot that makes the room blur around you. “That’s all I want.”

Before long, the knot in your stomach pulls you up from the mattress, arching your back towards the ceiling. Mouth to mouth, chest to chest—it’s the closest you’ve ever felt to someone else, the closest you’ve ever been. The thought alone knocks the wind out of you, and his persistent whining does nothing to help.

Your want and adoration for Sunghoon run bone-deep, inching up your spine and creeping over your shoulders, intertwined with an all-consuming pleasure that turns the heat in your stomach molten as a shudder zips through you. Even though you can’t find the words to let him know, he lifts your hips from the bed to fuck you deeper, harder, into the mattress until shaky orgasms pull both of you under.

You let him fall into you, fingers curling around his hair, whispering I love you into the skin of his neck as he comes, most of his weight on top of you while you catch your breath, relishing in the fullness you feel as the last waves of your high pull back. You stay like this for as long as he needs, his head coming up from the crook of your neck to smile at you before pressing his lips to yours. A sleepy haze fills the room around you, tongue swiping tongue as you giggle happily into his mouth.

After a while, he gets up, tying the condom to throw it away and comes back with his shirt. He uses it to clean up—gentle between your legs, pressing kisses to your calves while he does. Sunghoon’s tenderness wraps around your heart, and love clouds your vision, forming a blurry trail that follows all of his movements, glowing like something from a dream, ethereal, an apparition.

The bed dips beside you, his arms around you, pulling you in so his chin rests on your head. You push your cheek into his chest, hoping the two of you will meld into one—the thought makes you warm all over, a fuzziness that reaches every part of your body while he presses kisses into your hair, rubbing your back.

“I love you,” he says, voice as soft as the rest of him. “I’m glad I exist.”

mama park: Hi lovely 😍 missing you lots, wondering when you’ll be home for Xmas………..love ma

Sunghoon stirs, nose scrunching as he snores softly into the quiet of a winter morning. His chest rises and falls steadily under your head and he doesn’t move when you sit up. The lamp on his desk is still on — neither of you could be bothered getting up to turn it off last night — and under its dim glow, you admire him. Perfect lips gently curved—long lashes kissing the skin under his eyes.

Love hits you from all angles, warmth all over from head to toe despite the chill in Sunghoon’s room. You can’t help but grin, leaning up to nose along the underside of his chin, his natural scent so soft yet dizzying as you nuzzle into him. He stirs again, turning his head this way and that before resting, you feel a bit bad, deciding to leave him be and text his mum back.

you: hi mum !!! missing you sooooooo much :((( will be home asap

mama park: BTW Sunghoon told me everything. I raised such good actors LOL make sure he looks after you and keeps you happy!

you: i’m so sorry we lied to you..

you: but i’m really happy with him and he loves me a lot

you: i love him so much .. never been so sure of anyone in my life

permanent taglist: @asahicore

#sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #enha smut #enhypen scenarios #sunghoon scenarios #sunghoon x reader #park sunghoon smut #park sunghoon x reader #enhypen imagines #enhypen oneshots #sunghoon oneshots #sunghoon imagines #enhypen hard hours #fic.sunghoon

4K notes · View notes

ptolemaeacles · 8 months

Note

pls write more for hazel omg i loved the cheerleader hcs maybe like a childhood best friends to lovers so lots of pining and smut maybe

♡ you belong with me

pairing: hazel callahan x fem!reader

synopsis: hazel has had a crush on her best friend since they met in the 1st grade. they were freshman in college now and hazel realizes she can’t keep her feelings to herself anymore.

warnings: 18+ minors dni (both reader and hazel are 18), smut, childhood best friends to lovers, switch!hazel, switch!reader, top!reader, bottom!hazel (no pun intended), let me know if i missed anything!!

notes: aw thank you !!! im glad you liked the hcs. also small disclaimer, i'm a horrid smut writer and i rushed the ending because i didn't want to keep you waiting. hope you like !!!

word count: 2.5k

“god, i’m so excited. i mean this is the first time a girl has asked me out. usually it’s guys who approach me and then i get weird comments when i tell them i like women…” you rambled on but hazel could barely focus. she could only feel the empty pit in her stomach.

you were so happy to be going on a date and all she could think about is if you would ever be this excited to go on a date with her. she tried to convince you to not go but there was only so much she could do without giving her feelings away.

hazel thinks she’s loved you since the day she met you. before she knew what ‘love’ meant or what it looked like, she loved you. to her, you were the very definition of that word.

hazel’s hopeless crush started in the 1st grade. it wasn’t some cute interaction where one of you saved the other from a bully or something. it was simple with the both of you. it always has been.

you came up to her during lunch and told her you would give her half of your sandwich if she agreed to be your friend.

“what kind of sandwich is it?” hazel asked, from her seat on the lunch table.

“peanut butter and strawberry jelly.”

“i’m allergic to strawberries.”.

“then don’t eat it and just be my friend.” you sat next to her without another word and the both of you left it like that. simple.

since then, she knew she would never escape you. and she never wanted to. but right now, she felt like if you didn’t stop talking to her about this date, her head would explode.

hazel watched you walk around your room, shuffling through your closet for an outfit to the movies with the girl who asked you out. she never bothered remembering the girl’s name because she thinks it would the whole situation worse for her. she didn’t want to know anything about that girl.

“...and she said we’ll get ice cream later which i hope-” hazel interrupted you.

“hey, i think i should get home. my mom’s probably wondering where i am and shit, so… i’ll see you later.” hazel wanted to get away as soon as possible. not from you but from the giddiness she could practically feel radiating off your body at the thought of your date.

“oh.. i thought you told your mom that you were going to study at my place after classes?” you questioned. hazel’s quiet behavior didn’t go unnoticed by you. she was always quiet but after more than 10 years of friendship, you could tell which silences were good and which weren’t. this definitely wasn’t a good one.

“yeah well, we aren’t studying so. i’d better get going, bye.” she spoke in a flat tone, with her head down, as she grabbed her backpack and made her way out of your room.

you stood still, staring at the open door of your room and wondering if you had done something.

hazel walked into her house, red in the face and a vicious grip on the doorknob. she ran up to her room, and threw her backpack in a random corner, probably knocking her guitar down. but her guitar was the last thing on her mind.

she was pissed at you. mostly herself but you as well. she knew she had no right to be angry at you but how could you never see that hazel was right there. she was right in front of you, waiting for you to even glance in her direction. it’s all she wanted. to be the one who makes you laugh, the one who you’d think of when you saw romantic tiktok slideshows, the one who took you out on rollerblading dates, the one who got to kiss you before dropping you off back to your house, the one who got to slide her hand up your skirt, the one who got to be in between your legs-

she groaned and loudly, flopping onto her bed and stuffing her face in her pillow. she needed to apologize before her stupid feelings ruined your friendship.

hazel had a plan. she was going to go to your house after your date and apologize. apologize for being a dick, apologize for falling in love with you, apologize for every and anything she could apologize for so that you wouldn't hate her. she expected you to yell at her or ask her what was wrong with her. what she didn't expect was you to be calling her phone, right now.

she pressed the green 'accept' button and put the phone up to her ear.

"haze.." she could hear you sniffling through the phone, "i-, uh, can i come over, please? my date- it just- it went horribly and i really want to see you. please." hazel felt her heart drop 10 stories.

"yeah, yeah, i'll come pick you up, angel, where are you?" she questioned.

"outside your house."

hazel ran down the stairs and opened her front door, to be met with your red eyes and puffy face.

you immediately wrapped your arms around hazel, burying your face in her chest. her hands went landed themselves in your hair, stroking it gently in an attempt to comfort.

hazel helped you into her room, setting you down on her bed.

"do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly.

"she- she, um, she stood me up." you could barely get a sentence out without hiccuping. hazel reached over to her nightstand and pulled out an unopened water bottle, unscrewing the cap and handed it to you.

you whispered a thank you and took a few sips. it was hazel's turn to speak now.

"fuck her," you give her a confused look, "oh no, not fuck her, don't do that, i meant that you should just forget about her. she obviously isn't the one for you if she stood you up, and there are so many other people in the world-"

"hazel."

"yes?"

you didn't waste anymore time. you grabbed hazel's face in your hands and crashed your lips into hers.

hazel was sure this was a dream. there was no way you were kissing her right now. she definitely fell asleep and she's imagining this whole thing.

while hazel was having her loser lesbian crisis, you noticed that the kiss wasn't being reciprocated.

'fuck.' you thought. you just ruined your closest and longest friendship. you pulled away from her.

"shit, haze, i didn't mean to do that, i'm not sure what i was thinking-" you started but were quickly shut up when hazel pulled you back in for another kiss.

relief flooded your body. she wanted this. both of you wanted this.

hazel felt you smile into the kiss and took that as her 'go ahead'. she tilted her head, deepening the kiss. shyly, she moved her hand from her lap to your waist. you moved one of your hands to the side of her neck and the other in her hair. you could practically feel her pulse beating rapidly under your palm.

hazel gained a newfound confidence and pushed you back onto her bed, slotting herself between your legs. her lips hovered over your neck before attacking your neck with sloppy kisses. her lips trailed down your neck, making sure to savor the taste of you. her lips met the fabric of your blouse.

"can i take this off, please?" she asked in a breathy manner, as if she had just ran a marathon. you nodded, at a loss for words.

“need to hear you say it, baby. need to know you want it just as bad as i do.” hazel wasn’t aware how raspy her voice was, as if she hadn’t drank water in days.

“take it off, haze, please. take it all off.” you whispered and caught her lips with yours while she lifted your top off your body. once she had your top thrown in a random corner in her room, she went straight for your pants, not even bothering to take her own clothes off.

“fuck, hazel,” you were breathless, “i want to see you, too.” you swallowed, gripping the beige button up she was wearing, hoping she knew what you meant.

“you will, princess, don’t worry. i just want to focus on you right now, okay?” you nodded, not fully sure what ‘focusing on you’ meant.

hazel had you in just your bra and underwear, her eyes scanned your body hungrily. if this was a dream, she prayed she remembered every single moment when she woke up. you were better than any fantasy she could conjure up on those lonely nights, when she couldn't think of anything but you.

you felt her strong gaze settle on your body and you felt self conscious thoughts take the forefront of your mind. you raised your hands over your body, starting to think hazel didn’t want you like you wanted her.

“hey,” hazel grabbed your hands and gently pushed them to your sides, “you have no idea how long i’ve wanted you like this. how many nights i’ve stayed up thinking about you.” hazel started kissing down your neck, making her way to your chest.

she pulled your bra down, not even bothering to fully unhook it before latching her tongue down onto your right nipple.

the wet feeling of her mouth made you cry aloud, completely forgetting her mom (and jeff, too, probably) were a few feet down the hall.

hazel lifted her mouth of your tit with a pop, moving her hand to squeeze it instead.

“i’d love to hear you, angel, but i need you to be quiet,” she feverishly pecked your lips, “just tonight, hm?” you murmured a response, more concerned with the ache between your thighs than anything else.

you guessed hazel read your mind or something, as she started moving down the bed towards the place on your body that needed the most attention. she looked up to you, as if asking once more, if this was what you really wanted.

“haze, please.” you whined. that was all the confirmation she needed. she slid your panties down slowly, watching a string of wetness connect your pussy and your underwear. hazel felt herself growing wet at the fact that she did this to you. it filled her with a new sense of confidence. she didn’t even wait for your panties to completely slip off your legs before diving in between your thighs.

your back arched off the bed the moment you felt hazel’s tongue make contact with your swollen bud. she slipped her wet muscle throughout your folds, desperate to catch every single drop of wetness she could.

“fuck, haze, feels really fucking good.” you moaned and brought your hand to the back of her head, gripping her hair between your fingers in ecstasy.

she hummed in response to the praise you were giving her, sending vibrations throughout your core that nearly made you choke. hazel continued to suck on your clit, holding your thighs apart with her hands hooked under your knees. she slid her face side to side with her tongue flat against your pussy, moving your clit with just the right amount of pressure.

you felt a pressure building in your lower belly and tried to move hazel’s face closer to your mound to chase your release.

and she stopped.

you lifted your head from the pillow and stared at her kissing your thighs, before going to unbuckle her own pants.

“wait hazel,” you put your hands on top of her jean button, “can i?” you spoke so quietly, hazel barely caught what you were saying. she nodded her head, unsure of what else to do.

you gently unbuttoned her jeans before sliding them and her boxers down and allowing hazel to step out of them. you lifted her button up over her head and unclasped her bra, letting them fall onto the space on the floor next to her. she was in awe of you. you were so gentle to her and she would never believe she deserved it, even if you reminded her of it everyday for the rest of her life.

once she stood completely naked in front of you, you led her to lay down on bed, stomach facing up, before separating her legs and hooking one of your own over hers.

you looked at her face for any sign of discomfort, only to be met with the rapid rise and fall of hazel’s chest and her eyes shut in euphoria.

“hazel,” you caught her attention, she stared right at you, “keep your eyes on me.” you lowered yourself gently, placing your clit right on top of hers. both of you let out a sigh of relief at the feeling of your juices mixing with the others.

placing your hands on her stomach, you moved slowly, rocking your hips back and forth against hers. hazel struggled to keep her eyes open, getting lost in the pleasure you were giving her. she always thought of moments exactly like this and imagined it being a lot different. she imagined that she would be the one on top of you, taking charge and pulling orgasm after orgasm from you. but after feeling the movement of your hips against hers and the way your breasts bounced slightly when you would pick up your pace. hazel fought her hardest to keep her eyelids from drooping. she didn’t want to miss a single move you made.

you quickly found a steady rhythm and went faster, prompting hazel to cry out. you leaned down and caught her moans in a rough kiss.

the familiar coil in your belly seemed to get tighter and tighter. hazel must’ve noticed the way your hips started to rock faster and knew you were about to cum.

“c’mon, cum for me, baby. give it to me, i’m almost there too,” she started rambling as she felt her orgasm approach her as well, “keep going, just a bit faster, angel.” both of you fought to keep your moans from being heard from anyone else in the house.

“fuck hazel, i’m cumming, i-” you were cut off as your orgasm hit you in waves. warmth spread throughout your body, making your limbs weak and causing your legs to nearly give out.

you kept going, over stimulating yourself, trying to get hazel to reach her orgasm. by the looks of it, she was on the edge. her baby hairs stuck to her sweaty forehead, her face scrunched up in pleasure as her back arched into the air.

“fuck fuck fuck fuck-” she rambled as her orgasm washed over her, quickly quieted by your mouth capturing hers.

the both of you gently rode out your releases, breathless and sweaty. you carefully lifted yourself off of hazel and laid next to her on the bed.

“we should talk about this, you know.” hazel started.

“we will. in the morning, i promise. for now, i just want to be with you.” that seemed to be enough for hazel.

you draped your arm over her waist, pulling her closer to you. she tucked her head in the crook of your neck and the both of you drifted off to sleep.

#hazel callahan x reader #hazel callahan #hazel callahan imagine #hazel bottoms #hazel callahan fanfiction #hazel callahan smut #♡ ang’s anons

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writingoddess1125 · 8 months

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Luffy Finally realizes he Loves you!

Pure teeth rotting fluff

Buy me a Ko-Fi

• Was sitting with his crew and talking all about thinks in their past that they enjoyed and brings you up.

• "Oh yeah! Then my best friend (Y/N)! They are back at the village I grew up in and they always supported me! Even gave me the food and boat I uses to leave to start this amazing adventure!"

• He talks about your cooking, how you'd always pack him a lunch. How you smile so much and make sure he was okay, especially when him and his grandfather argued.

• Sanji and the rest of the crew raise an eyebrow at hearing Luffy babble on and on about you

• "Wow, They sound amazing. Gotta meet then one day" Sanji jokes, taking another drag of his cigarette. "They sound like a real beauty"

• Luffy couldn't help but get a very odd feeling st hearing Sanji call then a beauty. Like he got punched but on the inside this time-

• "Yeah, They are pretty I guess. But I like how nice they are, They and Shanks showed me what good people are truly like!"

• Nami giggled at this. She knew attraction like the back of her hand and the way Luffy described you, this was the closest she had ever heard of him even understanding attraction to anyone.

"Luffy, It sounds like you're in love with them?" Nami teased.

• "What! No no they are just.. Wonderful-" He pauses, Thinking over Nami's words. He had always cared about you- a lot! And always having a picture of you being by his side when he became pirate king anyway. You were just always ment to be there, and if it hadn't been for you taking care of your mother he was sure you would have come Sailing with him.

• Usopp laughing also at this as he could practically see the gears starting to turn in his head. "This is golden!" He hollered. Earning Nami smacking the back of his head. "....Am I in love with (Y/N)?..." Luffy pondered- Zoro who had been 'sleeping' against the wall but heard the whole conversation opened a single eye

• "From the sounds of it.. Yes-" Zoro deadpanned, Deciding to return to his nap. Luffy face turning a red color before he gave a loud laugh. Practically bouncing in his seat "If that's the case! Set sail for Foodha Village! I gotta go get (Y/N)!"

• You would be working at your mother's little supply shop, Assisting in restocking some important supplies when you hear a ruckus outside as everyone starts shouting in glee. Stepping out you see a massive ship either a rams head on the front-

• Marveking at it for only a moment before hearing a loud voice that was all to familiar "(YYYY/NNNNN)!!!!"

• Looking to see Luffy, brightly smiling on the ship with a small crew next to him. You couldn't help but smile widely at seeing your childhood friend and crush. Waving at him proudly

• "(Y/N)!! I gotta tell you something!!" Luffy yelled, Not even waiting for the ship to fully dock before he stretched his way to the docks and ran towards you. Much to your horror as he could have fallen into the water

• "L-Luffy you should have waited to do-" However where cut off as Luffy lofted you up with ease and laughed proudly

• "IM IN LOVE WITH YOU (Y/N)!! BECOME A PART OF MY CREW!!"

#x reader #monkey d. luffy #one piece luffy #straw hat luffy #luffy x reader #luffy x you #monkey d. luffy x reader #one piece imagine #one peice x reader #one piece live action

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azulpitlane · 5 months

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new years day I ln4

pairing: lando norris x reader summary: in which lando reunites with his childhood crush and only has a few days after christmas to confess his feelings, slightly inspired by new years day by miss swift notes: pt 2 of just pr is still in the works! im also working on a few requests🤸‍♀️enjoy this for now and happy holidays!! masterlist

christmas eve

Lando's hands were shaking as he impatiently waited for you to greet him. It was his family's annual christmas eve party and he watched as his sisters and mother surrounded you the moment you walked through the doors. They hadn't seen you in so long so of course they insisted for you to attend the party this year. You had known Lando and his family since you were a kid seeing as you were childhood neighbors and grew up playing with him and his sisters. As you grew older, you attended his a few of his races and supported him every step of the way, but of course time and other responsibilities got in the way of your friendship. You began to grow apart over the last few years and it was starting to break Lando.

He hadn't even realized it was happening until you stopped attending the christmas parties 2 years ago, something about being too busy on work trips to come home. He had been so busy at the time with racing and having his own girlfriend that he did not even notice he had not seen his best friend in so long. After that he tried to reach out but again, time wasn't on your side because you were now too busy with your own work to keep up with the friendship for too long. Lando watched your life through your pictures on social media and felt his heart ache every time you posted, a reminder that you were growing and living a life without him.

But you were back now. And you looked even more beautiful than you did last time he saw you. You adorned a long dark red dress with black heels and Lando couldn't help but keep his gaze on solely you. You looked up as you felt his stare on you and smiled softly at him. Lando could feel like heart start to race as you excused yourself from the girls and start your way towards him.

"Lan, it's so great to see you. It's been so long!" You extended your arms as you hugged him, missing the feeling of his arms.

Lando's brain was too scattered to even respond so he just squeezed you and nuzzled his head in your neck. He couldn't believe you were back and in his arms. He wanted to stay there for the rest of the night and he couldn't help but wonder if you were feeling the same homey feeling he was. He felt you pull away and he almost pouted, thinking the hug was not long enough for his liking.

You looked at him softly and asked, "How's everything? I watched the races as much as I could and you did amazing this season! Congratulations."

You were always pretty but now? You were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He felt like he was ten years old all over again, following you around like a puppy as he started developing his first real crush on a girl. He couldn't help it, you were always just so-

"Lando? Are you alright?'

He snapped out of his daze and realized how much of an idiot he must've looked. There you were talking to him and he did nothing but watch you in silence. He heard snickering and peaked over your shoulder and saw his sister watching the whole interaction with a teasing smile.

"Oh-yeah yeah. I was just zoned out there for a second haha um it's good to see you! Sorry, um what did you say before?" He could feel his face slightly heat up and he wanted to slam his head on the wall.

You giggled finding this situation amusing. You weren't used to seeing Lando like this and were a little confused on why he seemed nervous, but you quickly brushed it off and assumed he was just shocked to see you.

"I was congratulating you on your season, you did great!"

"You still watch my races?"

"Of course I do! I promised I would watch every race, remember?"

How could he forget? It was his first season in formula one and unfortunately you were too busy with school to travel with him, but before he left you pinky promised you would watch every race from that moment on. He never told you but he felt at ease knowing you were somewhere watching over him.

"Yeah, I remember."

You both spent the next hour catching up before your mothers interrupted you both saying it was time for dinner. They placed your seats together, wanting to see you both reunited after so long. They knew Lando was hopelessly in love with you, they were just waiting for you both to realize it.

The dinner felt nostalgic as you were all finally in the same room together. It was filled with laughs, catching up and stories from your childhoods. You and Lando shared stolen glances and flushed faces when someone caught the longing stares.

christmas

"She leaves right after new years day by the way." Lando's mother told him as she handed him a plate of breakfast.

"Who?"

She gave him a knowing glance and he looked down pretending like he hadn't been asking himself how much time he had before you left again and lose contact with you. Last night was amazing and he felt himself falling for you all over again. He always knew he liked you but the less he saw of you over the years, he thought those feelings dwindled. Last night proved that wrong. He tried to date other girls to forget you and it worked for a while until he started thinking of you and wondering how different things would be if he just confessed his feelings.

"Y/n. She's been so caught up in work she wants to go back to her job right away in Spain even though it's not mandatory. That girl needs a break."

"Maybe she's eager to get back because she's met a handsome spanish man." Lando's sister spoke up from beside him. He turned to her with a questioning gaze and she smirked at him.

"No. She didn't mention a guy at all last night. I doubt she's met anyone, right?" Lando's sister and mother watched as he slowly started to panic, his sister with a teasing grin and his mother with slight concern. "I mean if she's so busy with work she couldn't have time for any guy, yeah. Yeah no she can't be with anyone. Right?"

Silence.

"Flo what do you know? Did she say anything about a boyfriend?"

She burst out laughing as she watched her brother panic, she knew there was no other guy in the picture but she liked teasing her brother. Everybody knew about his love for you and though she found it amusing, she just wanted you two to be together already.

"I was just teasing! There is no guy calm down. But if don't confess about your pathetic little crush on her soon then there will be another guy whisking her away."

"What? Crush-no I don-"

"Save it. We all already know, except for her. And we're all getting a little tired of your obliviousness. Just confess before she leaves or you'll lose your chance to. She probably won't be back for another year and a lot can happen in that time span Lan."

2 days later

Lando had thought a lot about what his sister said and later that night decided to ask you to hang out over the phone. You agreed and he felt so relieved, planning on finally confessing his feelings. He psyched himself up and even got some advice from his sisters. Be a gentleman. Don't buy her flowers, you prefer chocolate. Dress nice but not like you're trying to hard. Go somewhere lowkey for dinner. Then take her on a walk and give her your jacket. Be honest. Tell her how you've always felt. If she feels the same, ask for a kiss. Take her home and walk her to the door.

The night had been going exactly as planned and there was never a moment of silence between you two as you made your way over to have dinner, always laughing and sharing stories with each other. That was until you said,

"The waitress totally has the hots for you."

"What! I don't think so." Truthfully Lando was so focused on you, that he could've easily missed her hitting on him. He quickly tried to deter the conversation and not talk about other women when he only wanted to talk about you.

"So what are you thinking of ordering?"

"Hm, I was thinking-wait the waitress is on her way here!"

"Are you guys ready to order?" She focused her gaze on Lando and gave him a sweet smile. He squirmed a bit as he could see you watching the interaction, holding in your laughter.

"Uh yeah, I'll have the pasta carbonara, please."

"Great choice. That's my favorite!"

"Oh how lovely, then i'll have the same thing."

"Perfect, are you two celebrating anything special tonight? An anniversary?"

You could barely contain your laughter, the girl seemed very sweet but you had no idea how Lando hadn't noticed she was clearly interested. She began throwing hints the moment she got their drinks and he was so oblivious to them, you found it funny.

"Um no, we're just two friends catching up."

Two friends? Catching up? Had he not made it clear this was a date?He thought back on the phone call and realized he had said 'hang out' and not explicitly date. Shit, how was he going to make it clear now?

"Lucky me then." She mumbled but you both heard it very clearly. You raised your eyebrows at Lando, wordlessly saying 'told you so'.

The rest of the dinner consisted of the waitress constantly interrupting and focusing her attention on Lando. He was beginning to get irritated but chose not to say anything, he did not want to come off as rude. Before you guys left, you got up to use the restroom and Lando used this time to check his phone. With him distracted, the waitress slipped her phone number in the pocket of his jacket that was hanging over his chair.

You both eventually walked out into the England cold and Lando suggested a walk, happy to get some time alone with you without getting interrupted. You told him you left your jacket in the car and Lando discreetly smiled. Perfect.

"No problem! Here, just take mine."

Before you could even protest, he was draping his jacket over your shoulders and you couldn't help but blush a little. So with flushed cheeks and brushing hands, you both walked and talked about everything and anything. As the winds started picking up, you slipped your arms in the jacket sleeves and put them in the pockets to warm your hands. You felt something in there and curiously took it out thinking it was just garbage.

Lovely to meet you tonight :) Call me xxx xxx-xxx-xxxx

You felt your heart drop. He actually took her phone number. You had found the whole flirting waitress thing funny because it was clear he didn't feel the same way but with him being too nice, he didn't say anything. You guess you were wrong. He was interested. Did he wait for you to leave to the bathroom to ask?

You quickly slipped the piece of paper back in the pocket and looked at him as he rambled about some story of his friend falling for his best friend. You couldn't listen anymore, you didn't even want to be there anymore. You thought maybe after tonight that he liked you back, but maybe that just wasn't the case.

"But yeah, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Like they had been friends for so long it was a matter of time before they, you know, got together." Lando knew he was trying a little too hard but he had no idea how to transition a normal conversation to a love confession. You had stopped responding and he looked down at you and saw you completely spaced out.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh yeah. Just cold. Maybe we should get going, you don't have a coat and it's getting colder."

Lando started panicking, he had completed all the other steps his sisters told him to do but he was about to miss the most important part.

"Oh don't worry about me. I'm fine, I promi-" Achoo!

"You're already getting sick! Come on let's go." You grabbed his arm and pulled him towards his car. He admitted defeat and let himself be dragged.

There was an odd silence on the car ride home and he felt confused on your sudden change of mood. How was he going to confess now? You were clearly tired and a love confession in his car is not exactly the romance he was looking for. As he pulled up to your homes you weakly smiled at him and took off his coat.

"Let me walk you up to your door."

"No it's fine, I can walk a few steps by myself." You didn't mean for it to come out so snarky but you couldn't help it. It stunned Lando and he suddenly felt like he had done something wrong.

"Oh um okay. I'll watch you just in case. But um I had a great time tonight. We should do this again before you leave."

"Yeah, of course."

"How about new years? I'm throwing a small gathering with Max at my old apartment. Do you um want to come with me?"

You should ask a girl you actually like instead of me. Is what you were thinking but instead you said,

"Yeah, sure."

"Great! I'll pick you up at around nine?"

"Sounds good."

One more chance to admit his feelings.

new years eve

"I dont know, she's been acting strange these past few days. Her texts are so dry and I even offered to take her shopping for an outfit tonight and she denied." Lando was starting to doubt himself, he thought about every moment during your little hangout and he couldn't think of anything he did wrong. Should he have rejected the waitress? Maybe he could've been more clear on it being a date?

"Stop overthinking mate, maybe she really just is busy. She's never home, im sure shes taking the time to catch up with friends and family." Max listened to his complaints all afternoon and was getting sick of it.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Stop doubting yourself bro and snap out of it. You have to pick her up soon and tonight's a great day to confess. Just have a drink or two for a little confidence, find somewhere quiet to do it and you'll have your midnights kiss on lock."

"Okay, okay. Tonight's the night."

"Exactly! Now go bring her here!"

Tonight was not the night.

You were wearing a small, tight black dress that made Lando's head spin, and apparently a lot of other men's too because you were constantly turning heads. It was beginning to bother him as he felt like he was competing for your attention all night which led to one too many drinks. He wasn't a fan of alcohol but he definitely needed the confidence boost and his jealousy from seeing you talk to other guys led to him staying at the bar for far too long.

He didn't realize how drunk he was until he got up from the couch to talk to you and the whole room began to spin. He stumbled slightly and Max quickly stood up to catch him.

"Woah, I said one or two drinks, how many have you had?!"

"Uhh I don't know like eight or nine or ten or maybe more, i don't know." His voice was slurred and Max winced knowing there was no way he could talk to you like this.

"Okay let's get you some water and maybe some bread? To soak all the alcohol up and then you can talk to y/n."

"Nah nah, I'm fine. Let me talk to her now."

"No bro listen-"

Lando pushed Max off of him and quickly made his way to you, eager to be in your presence. He interrupted your conversation with one of his friends that he couldn't quite name due to his blurred vision. He put his arm around your shoulder and put his weight on you causing you to stumble slightly.

"Y/N! Just the girl I was looking for, hey let's go somewhere quiet. I wanna talk."

"Okay? Are you alright, Lan? Maybe we should get you some water."

"No, no. Let's go outside for a bit." He interlocked your hands and stumbled out of the room, dragging you along. He leaned against one of the trees and faced you.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"You're so pretty."

You blushed and thanked god for the cold weather, so you had an excuse for your flushed cheeks. He pulled you closer and played with the hem of your dress.

"Thank you Lando. That's what you wanted to talk about?"

"No, well kinda." He paused as he felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He took a quick deep breath and tried to swallow the feeling down.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look a little pale."

"Yes, I am-" There was that nausea again, except this time he couldn't swallow the feeling down and before he knew it he was throwing up.

"OH MY GOD! LAN."

Max heard the commotion and immediately made his way towards you. His eyes widen as he looked at you with Lando's throw up on the lower half of your dress and looking like you wanted to hurl yourself. He ran back in and got you napkins before going back out.

"Oh god, here you y/n take these and go into Lando's old room upstairs, first door on the right. There's a bathroom in there and spare clothes you can use."

"Thank you Max, do you need me to bring him water?"

"No no I got it from here, just go clean yourself up."

Lando continued to empty his stomach as Max winced but continued to rub his back. After he finished he grabbed a water bottle and took him upstairs to his old bed.

"There you guys are! How are you doing Lan, do you need anything?" You said as you walked out of the bathroom in a new change of clothing.

Even in his drunken state, he couldn't help but to feel embarrassment. He had just fucked up his chance, and it wasn't even midnight yet.

"I'm so so sorry y/n. I'm so embarrassed, I had too much to drink and I didn't mean to, I swear!" He slurred out.

"It's okay Lando, I promise. Here, lie down for a little bit and drink some water, it will make you feel better."

Max smiled as he watched you take care of his idiotic friend and walked out to give you some privacy.

"Im so stupid. Im sorry, y/n."

"Stop apologizing Lan! I promise you, I am fine. Now close your eyes you look tired."

"But it's not midnight yet."

"That's okay, it will be a new year when you wake up."

You had no idea that the real reason he wanted to stay up was to be your new years kiss. Another plan down the drain. He pouted as he looked at you, you're leaving soon and who knows when he'll see you again.

"Come on, stop pouting. I'll watch over you as you sleep."

"Really?" He looked at you with childlike excitement as his green eyes widened at you.

"Of course, now scooch over."

You both missed the fireworks and celebrations of the new year but that was okay, you were safe in each others arms sleeping.

Lando woke up quite early considering how early he fell asleep the night before. He looked down on your sleeping figure on his chest. He thought hard about what happened last night for you to end up in his arms. The memories came quickly, the dress, the drinks, then the puke. He scrunched his face up and fought the urge to groan in embarrassment. He couldn't believe he managed to fuck up again. He sighed then carefully got up to get some painkillers for his throbbing headache.

He went down to the kitchen and looked around at the mess from the party. Glitter on floor, bottles everywhere, polaroids laying around on the floor. He couldn't stop thinking about last night and started to pick some garbage up to get his mind off of it. He almost wanted to cry, though you were nice about it, it was still a hard blow to his ego. He looked like some idiot who couldn't hold his alcohol in front of you and he wondered if you changed your perception of him after last night. He was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn't hear you come down. He was startled by the sudden movement in the corner of his eye causing him to drop the bottle in his hands. Shit. He quickly tried to pick up some of the big pieces up which was a big mistake since he accidentally cut his hand in the process.

"Im so sorry Lan, I didn't mean to scare you. You're bleeding now, let me see."

Of course it was you. Another embarrassing moment to add to the list.

"It's okay, I'm the idiot who grabbed the glass."

You gently grabbed his hand then led him to the bathroom where you had seen a first aid kit. You were so soft and gentle with him as you cleaned the cut in his hand. The mix of you nursing his bleeding hand with last night's disaster and his hangover had his mind foggy and emotional. Lando's eyes began to tear up and he couldn't even pinpoint why. Was he still drunk? Is it because you're leaving tomorrow and he didn't confess? Or was it the embarrassment from last night?

"There you go, good as new." You looked up and you were faced with his pained expression and immediately began to panic. You knew Lando wasn't emotional, over the years you had known him you had only seen him cry a few times.

"Lan, what's going on? What's wrong?"

Your worry was his breaking point and the tears began to fall. You quickly pulled him into your embrace and rubbed his back in hopes of comforting him.

"I'm sorry, this is so stupid. God why the fuck am I crying right now?"

"No, no if it's bothering you it's not stupid and whatever it is, you can tell me, I won't judge."

You pulled away and even though you were confused with his behavior the last few days, you wiped off the tears from his face and were willing to do anything to make him feel better.

"Talk to me Lan."

"I love you."

"What?"

His eyes widened as the words accidentally slipped out his mouth. He didn't mean to say them but you were being so sweet and gentle with him even after everything. There goes the romantic confession.

"No! Um I didn't mean that, I don't even like you."

"Oh."

"NO! Ughh, fuck it."

He grabbed your face and pulled your lips together. You quickly kissed him back and felt butterflies erupt in your stomach. Neither of you could believe this was happening right now, but you were both so content with the moment. Once you pulled away, he kept his hand on your face and smiled at you softly.

"Please don't go tomorrow."

"I won't."

notes: this was not proofread at all so if there were mistakes...my bad

#lando norris #f1 x reader #lando norris fanfic #lando norris imagine #lando norris smau #lando norris x reader #lando norris x you #lando norris x y/n #ln4 #f1 fanfic

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nouvellevqgue · 7 months

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SPARKS FLY ★ ﹙ oscar piastri x reader﹚

SUMMARY: you are his childhood sweetheart, and also his best friend. he never told you he's in love with you, but has the spark changed after a long time beng separated?

₊˚⊹౨ৎ ⋆｡✦˚‎

you and oscar used to be friends in school. he had a huge crush on you since you were a little kid, seeing each other coincidentally at the playground. and it's true when they said ‘love at the first sight lasts forever’.

the story begin when he was seven and you were five, in the playground near his house. and there he was; playing in the park and waiting for the queue to finally play on the swing. but there's you, beside him. swinging in the swing and looking as beautiful as ever.

hair flying in the air as you swung yourself on the swing. the twin pigtails and your pink chequered dress that he remembers.

he doesn't even know how he ended up looking at you like that, but he cannot take his eyes off you after that. it's like a sparks just fly to him everytime he's looking at you.

he finally he found his sparks. you.

and now he's a successful driver and you're a successful actress, your paths have diverged couple years ago, but when he sees you in a sidewalk café in italy, he decided to approach you.

when your friends were busy talking to other guests or their partner, someone pat you on your shoulder.

« may i get your autograph, miss? » oscar grinned as he came to approach you.

as you turned into the voice, a smile rose in your face. there he is, your best friend. and all of the sudden, a sparks that had lost a time long ago, just appear in a form of him.

and by that you realized, your lost sparks is him.

« oscar! i can't believe i have finally meet you. look at you champion! » he just laugh at your comment and hug you.

you hugged him back, ecstatic by seeing him after so long of seeing him only on tv.

« what are you doing here? » you smiled widely. and you're sure that you've never smiled this wide before, and oh the feeling of being with him is undescribable.

« seeing you, obviously! » oscar kissed you on your cheek and stepped back to look at you.

standing closer with him. too close for you to almost touched, and close enough for you to know what is on his mind.

« and who says i'm a champion already? »

« oh shut up you killjoy! » you chuckled.

« well, can i at least get your autograph? » oscar pulled a pen out of his pockets and handed you a paper.

« please write that im a champion, okay? »

you hummed as you pretend to think as you rubbed your chin to think, « oh, should i say to your mum to change your name from oscar piastri to oscar champion? » you grinned.

« oh cmon, i still like the oscar piastri name. »

« i thought you want your name to be champion, if i recall correctly. » you laugh, uncapping the pen and start to write down your autograph on his piece of white paper before giving it down to him.

he took the white paper and shove it down onto his jean's pocket. as he looked at you, he laughed and took your hand, and made you lean closer.

« you're funny, i still remember why i'm so attracted to you.. »

‹ he's a bad idea › your mind screams. he was your own past with your own fantasy about him, but you decided to ignore that.

« oh yeah? do tell. » you replied, already excited with his story.

he kissed the back of your hand and put it on his chest, smiling and nodding.

« you remember how much i loved you back then? »

you nodded, « yes, i do. i do remember your eyes when you looked at me. »

« it's different. your eyes, they're sparkling. » you describe.

oscar looked at you smiling, « maybe it's time that i tell you something. » he put his face close to yours, enough for you to know what's on his mind.

« those eyes you're looking at, they're always for you, i never really stopped loving you. »

you feel your heart just skipped a beat or two by his words. it makes you weak in the knees just by it. it felt surreal how the sparks could be flying all over when you're with him.

« and the words that i've said to the camera when i won all of the nominations and awards is for you. i've never really stopped thinking of you. » you breathed. and it feels like air just knocked out your lungs by now.

oscar looked at you deeply with a grin on his face, then he put his lips on yours and pulled you closer, kissing you deeply for some seconds.

« you know what's funny? » he looked at your lips as he still held you

« what? »

« i have the perfect life, im rich, im successful, i'm a champion, i race in the top tier series in the world, but... »

« but still, you're the most important thing to me. »

oscar put his arm around your waist and put on the biggest grin on his face.

you smiled at his word, fully ear to ear. you are just so lucky to have him by your side. and by this, you're probably going to embarrass yourself in front of the camera by being as red as a beet fruit.

oscar chuckled by seeing how you became red in front of him

« you look beautiful when you're blushing like this you know? » he asked.

« i look like a fruit! » you exclaimed, hands creeping to cover your blushing face.

« no you're not. you look cute! the cutest. » he said, while lowering your hands from covering your face as he put his hand on your chin and gave you another kiss on your lips.

people around you started to whisper and gossip about oscar piastri kissing a random woman in a public café.

« the headlines are going to be crazy about this. we shouldn't do this in public. » you shakes your head.

oscar laughed, and whispered in your ear,

« the only headline is me kissing my most important person in public, i hope you don't mind that. »

« oh pleeeasee... » you giggled at him.

oscar looked at you and smiled again, « besides... who cares about those journalists? »

« mmm... probably i care. » you grinned, and reached out to peck his lips.

oscar chuckled as you pulled out. as he put his hands around you and pulled you by your waist to kiss you again.

you both kissed passionately as cameras all took picture of you together. journalists were writing articles about oscar and his new girlfriend.

ˑ⭒ʚ ִinstagram ݁.٭

enews

liked by maxverstappen1, username and 158,441 more

enews formula 1 driver oscar piastri is seen shared a romantic kiss with actress y/n l/n at a sidewalk café in italy. fans and journalists who had seen them together said that they're reuniting after a long time of being separated.

click link in our bio for more details!

view comments...

username look how invested max with their relationship, he even liked this post.

username THEY'RE SO CUTE🥹🥹

username please respect their privacy.

landonorris finally

username oh they're sooooo

username it's giving taylor song

username i love mama and papa

username waiting for her paddock debut rn

username look at them kissing in public looking so in love with each other

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username omw sleeping on the train rail

username WHY AM I SO LONELYYYY

ˑ⭒ʚ ִtwitter ݁.٭

#oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri x y/n #oscar piastri x female reader #f1 imagines #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #oscar piastri imagine #✶!

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rafedaddy01 · 6 months

Note

Hate sex with like enemy Rafe and him saying “I’ll make it fit” 😩😩😩😩

“Look who it is!” My mother beams at my father as I snap my head in the direction she indicates.

Ugh. Him.

Rafe Cameron. Kook King. My sworn enemy. And also my childhood crush.

I roll my eyes as Rose and Ward walk up to greet my parents with Rafe hot on their trail.

Shit. He looks fine.

He’s wearing a black button up with the top button exposed. His shirt is tucked into his black dress pants and his hands hang in his pockets like he could care less about being here.

He probably does, he hated being seen in public with his family, im surprised he’s here.

“Y/n” he greets coldly as I stare at his outstretched hand.

I look him dead in the eyes before reaching out and shaking it.

“Sit down, sit down!” My mother says to rose.

“Oh no. We have reservations! Ward is meeting with some business partners to discuss Rafe taking over the business.”

So that’s why he’s here.

He stands silently still, his eyes raking down my body and up to my eyes where he smirks once he’s noticed he’s been caught.

“Who knew trolls could clean up so well” he laughs at his own pathetic comment.

“Funny.” I say bluntly as our parents continue small talk for a few minutes.

“Here I thought I caught your attention. With the way your eyes were roaming my body I’d say you want me Cameron” I say as I lean my elbows on the table, giving him a show of my cleavage which he gladly takes.

“Ha! Not a chance sweetheart. Not even if hell froze over” he leans closer before bopping my nose.

I scrunch it as I prop myself up and turn my head away, refusing to stare at his smug face.

“Well, that’s our cue” ward announces as some important looking men walk through the front entrance.

“We should catch up soon!” My mother shouts as they walk away, rose turns around to give a brief thumbs up.

We continue our family dinner and after a few moments I get tired of my parents flirting. “Excuse me, restroom” I mutter, which they barely hear, and head head towards the hallway where the bathrooms are.

As I round the corner I bump into a broad chest.

“Oh! Excu-“

“Watch-“

I look up and am met with beautiful blue eyes, the same eyes that I’m dreamed about since grade school. The same eyes that look at me with disgust when they realize who I am.

“Move out of the way Cameron” I gruff and I try to push past him.

“Bitch” he mumbles.

“What did you say?” I snap my head back so fast I think I get whip lash.

“I said your a bitch” he repeats, trying to hold back his smirk.

“You know..” I start, walking towards him and catch him off guard, he steps back and his back hits the ladies room door.

“I don’t get what your issue with me is! Ever since we were little you always have to pick on me. Why? Huh? Is it cause I’m smaller than you? Or is it cause your so jeal-“ I can’t even finish my sentence before I’m pulled into the bathroom.

“What the hell-“

My back is now against the door and Rafes face is inches away from mine.

“Do you ever shut up” his breath is hot and smells of whiskey and cigars, oddly comforting.

“What?” I ask.

“You never shut up, always yapping about something. Maybe I need to teach you how to be quiet”

I’m perplexed as my breath catches in my throat and I gulp, pushing my thighs together.

Rafe cocks an eyebrow at me and looks down, “you like that? The idea of me shutting you up?” He runs his nose down the column of my neck and I let out a shaky breath.

“I think you do” he whispers in my ear before nibbling my neck.

“Fuck, y/n” he groans in my ear and it’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

In this moment I don’t even care to remember how much I hate him.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since you gave me attitude in gym class back in 9th grade” he confesses as he sucks a sweet spot on my neck.

I swallow hard and my eyes screw shut as my hands grasp the back of his neck, “take what you want” I whisper.

He stops and looks at me before reaching over and locking the door.

We lock eyes and Rafe smiles as he leans forward and captures my lips with his. I moan against them and he picks me up and leads me towards the sink.

He pulls away and turns me around so my ass rubs against his straining zipper.

He runs a hand down my back and I jerk up at his touch, “shit your fucking sexy” he whispers as his hands travels down and under my dress.

He locks his eyes with mine in the mirror and his hand meets the wet patch on my panties, which he quickly tugs down and spreads my legs open.

“Watch me fuck you” he says as he unzips his pants and they fall to the ground with his boxers.

My eyes widen in fear as I peer over my shoulders.

“Rafe! Will- will it fit?” I bite my lip anxiously as he grins and slaps my ass, causing me to yelp.

“I’ll make it fit” he shoots my a wink and sinks into my soaking heat.

My mouth shoots open as he slowly pulls out and pushes back in.

He picks up the pace and I can no longer hold my head up, it falls down and Rafes quick to grip my hair causing me to hiss as he pulls it back.

“I said watch”

I grip the counter as his thrusts pick up and he groans.

“Fucking perfect” he mutters “wanted this for so long baby” he hits a particular spot deep inside me and I squeeze his cock.

“Rafe!” His hand comes around and presses against my mouth.

“Shh. I’m teaching you to be quiet”

He stares at me through the mirror as his thrusts become relentless and my eyes roll to the back of my head.

I’m squeezing him so hard and he moans in my ear which sends me over the edge.

“Fuck fuck fuck” Rafe hisses out as he delivers a few sloppy thrusts and cums inside me.

He leans over my sweaty body and catches his breath before pulling out and getting himself together.

I turn around and he smiles at me.

He looks like he didn’t just fuck me into oblivion. Me on the other hand? I have red cheeks, messy hair, and hickies on my neck.

“I want you to walk back out there with my cum dripping down your thighs, let everyone see the marks left on your body and know that your taken”

He leans down and presses a soft kiss to my lips before smacking my ass.

“I hate you” I scowl. Which causes him to laugh.

“But your pussy doesn’t”

He winks and walks out of the bathroom, leaving me a heated mess as I try to find my underwear.

I give up and try to make myself look as presentable as possible and head back to our table.

My parents barely noticed I was gone.

When I sit down my phone dings. It’s a message from Rafe.

*see attachment

“Looking for these?”

It’s a picture of Rafe holding onto my panties and winking.

I blush as I shift uncomfortably and watch him stride out of the bathroom hallway before shooting me a wink.

Fuck me. What have I gotten myself into.

@f4ll-for-you @v21sstuff @rafeysworldim19 @baby19sthings @eventualoptimism @drewstarkeysbae @sevenwivesofrafecameron @rxfecameronsslut @findapenny @r1vrsefx @spencerreidsrealgf

#outer banks #rafe cameron #drew starkey #smut #dark rafe cameron #drewstarkey smut #outerbanks #drewstarkey #rafecameron #fanfic #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron blurb

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adoregojo · 1 month

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↬ two paths 一 ⦁ nagi.s, reo.m

▶︎ sooooooooooooo... this is some rotting dabble i abandoned, and since Im kind of desperate for any glimpse of motivation, i finished it. and surprise, surprise! its a reo and nagi fic lmaolmao.

▶︎ summary: reo have had a crush on you for a good long two years, and when it's the time to word his love to you, but a obstruct of your part says otherwise. ▶︎ context: nagi is your childhood friend, jealousy, idk if this counts as a love triangle? it's more like your a brick head, some angst (ofc) kind of a plottwist !!gn reader!!

"i like you, I've liked you ever since you stepped into my world, i like everything about you, your smile, your eyes, your gentle hands, your laugh, and most of all your soul that kept me hostage. and i-"

the hang up sound cut him off.

silence fell upon the other side of the phone, only the stillness of the disconnected tone nudging him back to reality. his hold on the phone was a robust one, so stout to the point of a crack to echo. the compound of bitterness, remorse, frustration, all were hefty on the little pinning heart of his.

and with that, you rejected reo, without even saying a word.

and the next days were nothing but a grievous duration, to him the most. as much as reo didn't want to see you for a while, there was no escaping you when you were in the same school, classroom, 一hell, even club. you were in every corner and every ditch, and he'll be a dead lier if he said that your appearance alone wouldn't tiptoe on his heartstrings. reo can stay still ever so firmly and yet you'd still be able to prod him out of his ground as convenient.

reo wanted to be mad at you, to hate you even, but he couldn't, he sincerely couldn't. even when the strain was tense, unbearable, but somehow it also felt pitifully suffocated, graciously. it was you after all, where he felt like a fragile creature under your spell, gosh一 you had reo warped around your finger with cement.

nevertheless, what drove him to the edge was how you operated it. while reo handled it by immersing himself in two blankets and eat ice cream to pacified him to crying himself to sleep. however, you on the other hand was having the time of your life. greeting him good morning to saying goodbyes, even asking him how his day went, did his confession meant that little to you?

reo wondered if you bat an eye, you just denied him after all, but some acknowledgment would've been great. or at least have a talk about it. but instead you acted like it never even happened. the idea of you skipping over his feelings made him sick to his core, it sounded so ill-suited, you above all if not the most considerate, thoughtful person he'd ever met. that's how reo fell for you in the first place.

he wasn't gonna apologies for being selfish, he wanted you to himself. reo kept all his feelings for you bottled up for a good old two years, and he just cannot bare with the fear of someone else stealing you anymore 一something that kept him on trails of restless nights一

maybe that's what herd him away from you, the decedent between the two grew by each day. yet reo loved you too much to live with the consequences of his actions, he can't even look at you without screaming 'why don't you care as much as i do', your sudden unfamiliarity stings him slowly and most of all painfully.

for you to blow him away like a dust that burdens your clothes felt it was caused by a clone, or did he just never knew you like he thought he did?

it ached to see you asking him if he's okay, if you did something wrong to drive him away. and goddamn it hurts seeing you like this, he would rather bang his head to the wall repeatedly than see that anguished expression ever again, and worst of all, reo was the reason for it.

you were heavy on his mind 一as if you weren't already一 the recollection of you standing with your sweaty palms rubbing against each other, a bad habit you do when you get uneasy, he really fucked up to the point where you have became a nervous wreck in his presence. your utter was light, questioning if he even wanted to be your 'friend' anymore.

you weren't the one to blame, reo was the one who stopped talking to you, stopped sitting with you for lunch, he even withdrew the club you two shared 一he didn't even have a liking for it, just joined because you were there一 all that and you still tugged on the last tie of faith reo would walk back into your life with open arms.

but reo didn't want to be your 'friend', not anymore. he wanted to be the one to protect you, to understand you, he wanted to be your man, your other half more anything, for him to be your everything just like you are his. you can't just make heaven a living place on earth then walk away when he was on knees for you.

he left you at halt, saying that he needed some time. you never knew time for what because he walked away before letting you word anything out. so now, his hands buried deep in his pockets, he felt heavy, mind and heart on a race track. he felt awful, the image of you standing in confusion, lost on what to do will hunt him to his grave. he tried running his fingers throughout his violet lockes, he was petty, selfish, and reo knew he could've worded it better instead of this.

from the corner of his eye, he could spot a bunch of flowers fluttering under the rush of air, hit by the sunlight to outshine any other plants besides. he could've think of how beautiful they looked, but no, the first thing that popped out his mind was the image of how bliss you'll be seeing them flourish just the way you liked it.

reo contemplating his actions, the pure, straightforward out of his heart gates confession and how far it had driven him. how beyond it had tossed what you two had. something blended with bittersweetness squeezed within his chest, envisioning of your smile made it a challenge to breathe.

so he keeps on strolling, trying to straighten himself until a familiar tall white headed form comes to his view. ranking ahead of a vending machine, nagi was too busy searching for what it appears to be a coin to even notice reo.

nagi was your friend, the one who watched the two of you downfall in silence. he didn't say a thing about it, didn't get involved and much rather concentrate on his phone-games. but there was something else, nagi have been your friend for what reo have been told since childhood. it was something anyone can figure out in the first glance, nagi doesn't leave your side for what it seems like eternally, he remained as your sidekick for decades. he witnessed all your phases, your growth. and he wasn't planning on departure his spot. it was a rare sight to see nagi not glued to your side, did the sky spare him? did his desperation reaches the empyrean?

"hey," reo announced his presence, nagi's bored eyes soaring over him. so the purple head flipped a coin to his direction, nagi tamed it halfway, staring at the single coin then back at his friend. "need another one." he uttered flatly as ever, so reo push out a sigh as he tossed him another one. the snowy head mummers a low thanks.

"listen, i need to tell you something." reo enunciates after a moment of hesitation, caressing the back of his neck as his lilac hues kept on swirling around. his friend just humming in acknowledgment, supporting his chin with his hand while still examining over the endless optionals of drinks.

"it's about yn."

nagi rattled momentarily, your name was like a cold water on his senses.

well, that was easy. reo thought. "i did something a few weeks ago, and i think i fucked up everything." he says, undertone. as if he was admitting an unforgivable crime.

"what did you do?" there was something off about nagi's tone, his grip on the coins was merciless. but his face still seemed boarded, nonchalantly but oddly firmed for some reason.

"i kind of admitted my feelings to them..."

nagi's daze expression shattered in an instant, not anything crazy, but his eyes grew obscure, casing over reo like a giant blacked cloud.

for nagi to carry that kind of aura was eccentric, that face would only arise every time an unnamed got a little too close to you. at that time, reo convinced himself that he was imagining that, because nagi out of all people stood his ground when it comes to dating, he'd always say the same thing 'dating sounds like a hassle'. and sometimes something wild like 'don't need someone else around, I already have yn.' reo wasn't a backstabber, he only confessed to you because he lived under the roof that his friend wasn't even able to handle anything intrigued with romance.

"i just, been liking them for ages. and i found the strength to finally say it to them, they-"

"hung up on you." the snowy head finished his line, which made reo eyes widen a bit.

he shifted awkwardly, "haha, did they tell you? how embarrassing.." he tried laughing it off, trying to avoid nagi's gaze for his sake.

"they didn't." nagi spoke quickly, voice strained than usual.

"oh? so how did you?.."

"because i did it. i was the one who hanged up."

there was a moment of lull, where not even the waves of wind could sooth over the tension. reo stood still, waiting for nagi to stick out his tongue playfully and shout 'gotcha!', praying for whoever might've fell upon to this to be a sick prank.

"you what?" he doesn't even realize he spoke before the words had already slipped.

nagi sigh tiredly, his fingers still at halt to press the numbers of his wanted drink, he didn't like focusing on two thing at the same time. "i thought you'd figure it out already. man, do i have to explain myself now? what a hassle." he let out softly.

"nagi, you-"

reo doesn't get get the chance to speak, to think, before nagi cut him off swiftly handling the conversation, like he knew this was coming. "listen, reo. i like being your friend, but i can't let you have yn." his words kept hurtling reo, it all poured down at his like a sucker punch.

"i don't understand."

"it's not that hard, i liked them first, i found them first. so they're basically mine."

oh, oh.

it all made sense now. reo felt like an idiot, why is he seeing this now? this is why you were clueless, because you didn't answer it in the first place. why, why was he so rushed to say it and not letting what he thought was you speak first.

every time when nagi would drink from the same bottle of yours, when he would twirl around a piece of your hair randomly, when his head would rest on your shoulder in every ride home, when he would shut down every time reo rambled about you, he just got it. why was he just connecting the puzzle? was his feelings for you so blinding that he couldn't see this?

reo wanted to say something, in fact things. but the lump in his throat clogs his attempts to protests. leaving his mouth agape.

and it was like nagi couldn't get a hold of concern about this, in fact he found waiting for his drinks to make it way down more interesting. yet he sensed a blazing breeze from his friend's direction, it was hard not to when they were on the same burden as an elephant. so the snowy head swiftly retorted, "plus, you already are the standard, right? I'm pretty sure you can find someone else, it'll be better if you found one quicker."

after that, nagi bent over to grab what was supposed to be his lemon tea alongside your favourite one. boredom eyes doubled-dyed at the cans, mostly at yours before blowing out a vague breath一did he just scoff?

"why you.."

"sorry, don't like sharing."

and with that, nagi walked away. head empty with the only maintenance thing was a picture of you as he handed you your favourite flavour with the money that wasn't even his. leaving reo dumbfounding at his back, he didn't get a say on this, like this wasn't even meant for him.

this wasn't a stage he can purchase to himself, not even to earn a role. he felt like a third-wheel in you and nagi's love tale.

it loathes him, brings him to edge even. but most of all, reo now wanted you more than anything.

#bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #nagi x reader #reo x reader #reo mikage x reader #nagi seishiro x reader

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somewhereincairparavel · 20 days

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If Jason had been written to have atleast somewhat of a jealousy streak of Percy, then it would have made him more human tbh. Ironically I feel like the fandom would've been much more empathetic to his character, if he acknowledged that he envied Percy a little and then came to terms with it. We know that Jason's fear of being 2nd best is a very integral part of his character, I mean, Gaia taunting him with that in his nightmares was enough to reduce him into tears. and that's the ONLY time we've even remotely seen him cry. Percy had so many things Jason didn't have, a loving mom, a loving girlfriend who took a knife for him and never broke his heart, a loving camp that looked for him endlessly after he went missing, people ACTUALLY wanting him to survive because they care about him not because they need him for glory, etc. and if im being honest Poseidon wasn't even that bad of a father (for a big three god, atleast) tbh he still came to percy's 15th birthday, invited him to fishing, genuinely loved sally, she was probably the only mortal he fell in love with and it stayed that way, he was never rude to percy and stuck up for him etc. not tryna say percy had it easy or anything ofc he didnt, but there is no point in denying that he had a MUCH better support system than jason ever had.

The fact that Jason despite having none of these things was not even remotely envious of Percy made him appear like a bland robot with no emotional baggage

Compare this to Nico, who was rightfully a little jealous/idolizing Percy while simultaneously having a crush on him, also a little jealous of Jason because he was "the golden boy" who everyone respected, it made him have SO much depth and the fandom loves him (rightfully so)

also, leo. He was resentful of Percy up until blood of Olympus because of how everyone loved him, how Calypso fell for him almost immediately, etc. it's very realistic.Jason feeling a little resentful of Percy and then later talking it out would've made his character much less of a shallow stereotypical nice guy that ppl dislike.

maybe Rick could've expanded on Jason's jealousy of how quickly camp Jupiter accepted Percy and how quickly Reyna made him praetor, when jason himself had dedicated his whole life to it and was only made praetor in the last couple months, how camp Jupiter and his supposed friends never held a memorial for him even after they thought he was dead, etc. Also how Percy spent more time with thalia than jason ever did, we know he did feel a little envious since he mentioned how much he wished thalia looked for him the way she was looking for percy

I would've loved to see Jason being a little cold to Reyna too because of this and then they later talk it out, since it's VERY realistic, I was surprised with how quickly jason shrugged the whole Percy- being- a -praetor thing off, I thought he'd have felt a little betrayed by Reyna considering that they were childhood friends, and reyna never really sent a search party or something after him like annabeth did, gods, the amount of angst potential this man had i love him ugh

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chouettecrivaine · 9 months

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Ah, Young Love! [Our Life: Now & Forever]

Fandom: Our Life: Now & Forever

Characters: Qiu Lin, Tamarack Baumann

Notes: takes place during Step 1, so he/him is used for Qiu as that is how he identifies at this point in the story!

So anyway I'm obsessed with how everybody wants Qiu but Qiu only has eyes for MC once they meet so I'm thinking about his silly little boyhood crush. And then I couldn't leave best girl Tamarack out of the love fest so here's just a few little things I was thinking about with them having childhood crushes on u <3

Note that only the demo is publicly available and I am not currently a patron so anything here that is proven true is coincidence and anything proven false is just me having a little fun

Qiu Lin

So like. I've seen Qiu call you pretty twice in the demo. Once when you meet him if you choose to call him pretty first, and again towards the end of what's available in the demo when he's listing off reasons why you should be allowed to join the club..

I just think that whenever he talks about you he always has to let it slip that he thinks you're cute. "They had on a really nice hair clip today!" "Their hair looked so cute when they took off their hat at school." "When I picked them up to walk to school, I was so surprised at how pretty they looked!"

When he told his parents about you he probably said "this really pretty kid surprised me in our yard and we went on a miniature adventure!"

Also (and note that my MC uses she/her so im gonna quote him using gendered terms but only for this one instance) When he's introducing you to one of his friends, he starts off with your name and says "she's a girl!" (Or whatever terms you have set)

So I just think he says the most basic facts about you with so much awe and wonder 🥺 like you wore overalls to school? He talks like you invented denim. You had a funny comment or joke? It's like he's never heard one before in his life when he retells it.

I feel like…the first thing that makes him interested in you is that you're new. Not only does this make you fun to mess with, but it makes you far more interesting than the people he's known his whole life. Plus you, unlike Tamarack, don't immediately brush off the cool things he wants to show you or do with you if it isn't immediately your cup of tea.

Darren and Baxter are sick and tired of hearing your name !! If you're not around Qiu wonders aloud at least once if he should or should've invite(d) you. If he did invite you and you had to decline, then he wonders what you're doing.

The type of kid to skip out on his weekend chores at home and go to your house to help you unpack instead

Ok so MC says they used to live in an apartment, right? Probably in the city? And MC was only allowed to play on their own because Golden Grove is "a safe neighborhood?" What if MC doesn't know how to ride a bike. What if Qiu teaches them…

Whether you get a hang of it or not, he daydreams about doing that thing where he rides the bike and you sit backwards on the seat or on the handlebars or something

When he finds out you can't ride a bike, he definitely shows off by riding around without his hands on the handlebars.

Will teach you how to jump off the swing set too, then will have competitions over who can swing the highest and leap the farthest

I feel like Golden Grove has a cute little main street with a bunch of locally owned shops. If you're interested, he'll show you every. single. business. Even if most of them are "granny shops" he isn't interested in. He'll let you poke around for a bit :)

He has a special page in his notebook for all the little notes and doodles about you

If you look closely at the note he gives you after class, you can see the remnants of a few tiny little hearts that he erased!!

Going back to him offering you to ride on his bike: he probably got you in trouble once because you were on your front lawn and he rode up asking you to go on an adventure with him on his bike. You're expecting a fun little 20 min ride through the walkable path in the woods that'll have you back home by dinner. Instead he takes you to town and buys you ice cream and the two of you have to struggle your way back up the hill on foot and it takes like an hour and a half to get back and your mom was worried SICK

Buys a pack of pens with one/some of your favorite color(s) and writes you notes exclusively in that/those ink(s)

If you and your mom go somewhere and he knocks on your door while you're out, you will come home to see him sitting on the steps to your front porch and waiting for you

Before class starts, he always gives you a funny face or a wave. If you come in late because of a doctor's appointment or something, naturally a lot of the kids turn to look at your entrance, and he immediately waves at you. Maybe even says hi to you out loud if he knows Mrs. Murray is in a good mood / he can get away with it.

If he finishes his work early or something, he'll turn around in his seat and just watch you from across the room with major heart eyes. He smiles wider and waves when you notice.

Anything you compliment him on, he immediately draws attention to around others. Say his hair looks good today? He'll hit you with a "oh but not every other day?" but then tell his seatmates about what you said.

Buys extra portions of his little snack bags of chips and candy or whatever he likes when he can so that he can give them to you during lunch.

Gets on a kick and will pester you about having a secret handshake until you let him come up with one. He likes having special things just you and him 🥺

Probably invites you to his hideout at a specific time and day every week and he gets soooooo excited for that time to roll around.

Tries extra hard in your favorite subject, even if it's one he hates. He's not trying to be top of the class, but he doesn't want you to think he doesn't care about something you care about!

If you like a class he's terrible at, he'll ask for your help! Or, if you struggle in a class he's good at, he'll volunteer to help you out even though he HATES the concept of doing extra schoolwork. That's how much he likes u

He'll do this with any windows but especially if one of your bedroom windows faces his: he will definitely pull a Taylor Swift in "You Belong With Me" and write notes for you guys to read to each other

Since he can't sit with you, he'll write you notes or make you doodles and then pretend he has to get up to sharpen his pencil so he can pass your desk and slip it to you

Tamarack Baumann

Tamarack will straight up just stare at you 👁👁

She follows you around like a lost puppy and visibly brightens up when you're around

Looks forward to school because she gets to sit next to you all day! Like she'll skip happily along the path with you and Qiu and you'll ask her if she's looking forward to all these things and she'll just go "No!" and when you finally give up and ask why she says "because I get to spend the whole day next to you!"

When she goes to play in the woods, sometimes she'll spend a while in the shallower end of the tree line waiting to see if you'll come outside and play with her

Has definitely thrown sticks and pebbles at your back door to lure you out before she gets bored

Likes to go around and pick up the coolest rock, the prettiest flower, the biggest piece of tree bark, a leaf the size of her head…then before she goes home for the night, she stops by your house and gives what she picked up to you!!

If you're not home then she leaves it on your porch with a note, usually held down by a rock if it's not something heavy

She'll be over the moon if you give her cool rocks and stuff you found. Even if you're literally giving her trash, like if you ONLY give her bottle caps or pop tabs you find on the sidewalk, she cherishes them. Would make jewelry out of them tbh

Ok so quick tangent but there's a book I read in about 4th grade called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, and in it the love interest girl is the quirky type. One thing she has is a little decorative cart on her dresser which she puts rocks in every time she's happy and takes rocks out when she's sad. When the protag goes to her house and finds out, she explains how she has put the most rocks in it since meeting him. They kiss sometime after that and she puts another rock in and tells him about it. I think Tamarack would have a jar or a doll house bathtub and she would do the same thing, putting rocks in it when she's happy! So what I'm saying is give her plenty of rocks so she can exclusively use MC rocks for that

Also will make matching jewelry for the two of you without even stopping to think if you even wear what she's making. She'll buy kits to make special rings and headbands, braid a million friendship bracelets out of multicolored string, use acorns she found to make earrings…anything! She is just as happy if you wear it then she is if you buy a jewelry display stand and show them off in your room. Eventually she adds keychains into the mix for some variety

Doesn't mean to spend a lot of her time waiting on you but she does. On weekends, instead of going directly into the woods, she'll just lie on her back in her yard and stare up at the clouds, completely still, daydreaming (about you) until she hears your door opening. Then she runs to you.

If any of your windows are open, particularly your bedroom window, she'll send a bunch of paper airplanes your way. Most of them make it! However, you've learned that if you find even one paper airplane inside, you're going to have to check that side of the house for more scattered on the ground

Grips onto your arms or your clothes whenever she can. You two are connected.

Makes a BIG effort to like anything that you like as much as you do! And when she follows you around, it doesn't really matter if you're doing something she doesn't care about. She just wants to spend time with you! It does make her whole week if you follow her into the woods, though.

She doesn't take notes in class, but you leave a writing implement out for her and sometimes she'll reach over and doodle a cute bear or something on your paper :)

If you say you're cold, she'll give you her scarf, no questions asked. Is also down to share but don't let her do that while you're walking because it WILL end badly

Has wrapped the scarf around the two of you and tied you guys together before and yes it was the best recess of her life

When walking, she tends to lean into you which sometimes almost turns into pushing you and Qiu into the road if you're not careful

Likes to drag you around places and pretty quickly invites you to her house. She doesn't tell her grandparents that she's inviting you over, so they're surprised by you almost every time, but they don't mind! She's dragging you up the stairs to her room too quickly for them to say anything anyway

#our life now and forever #our life now & forever #our life #qiu lin x reader #tamarack baumann x reader #qiu lin #tamarack baumann #☆ qiu lin #☆ our life #☆ olnf #☆ tamarack baumann #🐚 capricorn ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+{hcs}#🌠 pisces ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+{all writing}

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loose-angel · 1 year

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My Princess | Neteyam

pairing: Neteyam x na'vi! reader summary: What happens when you suddenly realize your feelings for your childhood best friend, Neteyam Sully? tags: fluff, miscommunication (a tiny bit), just cute stuff :3, childhood friends to lovers w/c: 1.8k notes: aaaaaa i hope u guys like this T T took me sooooo long to write,, i still have crazyyyyy writers block but im doing my best to make the best shit for this community <333 anw enjoy the read!!

You had grown up incredibly close to Neteyam. Watching as his youthful features had turned sharp, watching as he filled out his body, shoulders broadening, voice deepening, and muscles forming. Truth be told, you had not entirely noticed the change. You saw him everyday, it was almost a routine to be around one another, whether you’re dining with the Sullys, or Neteyam (and his siblings) dining at yours, you two were attached by the hip. Inseparable. So it came as a surprise to you when one day, you suddenly noticed just how much your best friend had changed.

He greeted you in the morning, just like every morning, both him and Lo’ak offering you flowers they picked out on the way to your house. It was more of a brotherly-love action than anything else. Though you noticed something different.

“Good morning princess,” Neteyam smirked as Lo’ak bowed, offering his flower obnoxiously.

Was Neteyam’s voice always this low? Did his smile always make you feel fluttering in your stomach? Since when did his arms get so big?

“Morning losers,” You cleared your throat, bashful, you looked away, letting your braids cover your eyes. “Thanks for the flowers.” you grab the flowers out of their hands and place them in a vase along with the rest of the flowers they had gifted you this week.

“So what’s the plan today?” You ask.

Lo’ak throws an arm around you, pulling your body into his, “No idea, why don’t you play dolls with Kiri or something.” You rolled your eyes.

“Yeah, you know what? I’d rather spend time with Kiri than your sorry asses.” With that, you began sprinting towards the Sully home. As you ran, you hear similar steps behind you. You turn around and are met with the sight of the two Sully brothers chasing after you. You squeal. You picked up the pace, light on your toes.

Your fear dissipates as you approach the entrance to the Sully household, you were a few feet away when you felt a heavy impact on your body. You fall to the ground with a grunt.

You look up at your attacker, hissing.

“So sorry princess,” Neteyam fusses, pushing himself up to make it so that he is hovering over you, instead of putting his entire body mass on your small frame. This was usual between the two of you. You guys always wrestled and more often than not, Neteyam wins those sessions. So why is it now that you flush under his gaze? Before you approach your conclusion, Neteyam waves a hand in front of your face.

“Get up lazy skxawng!” Lo’ak snickers as he passes the both of you. You push yourself up and dust your loin cloth, clearing your throat.

You hated how you were so affected over his little nickname for you. Neteyam (and Lo’ak) have been calling you princess ever since you three learned how to talk. Again, it was more of a brotherly-love kind of thing, especially because you grew up with no other siblings after you. So they decided to become your brothers, yet now, you can’t seem to feel anything less than a crush on your mock ‘older brother’.

Kiri steals you away from her brothers the moment you step foot in their home, dragging you into a rather isolated corner.

“Y/N! I feel there’s something you’re not telling me,” She grinned, peering up at you cheekily. There was nothing to hide from Kiri, you told her every single thing that has ever happened to you, and she does the same.

“I’m not hiding anything.” You muttered. You hid nothing except your raging crush on her older brother, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Are you sure?” Kiri leans in, “Are you sure you’re not gonna tell me about your crush on my older brother?” You gasped, hands flying to cover her mouth. How did she find out? You could’ve sworn that you didn’t tell anyone, at all!

Kiri licks your palm, forcing you to let go. “So my suspicions were right,”

“Kiri rutxe, don’t tell anyone, especially him,” You nod in Neteyam’s direction, the both of you look over. The eldest Sully has Tuk on his hip, bouncing around and whispering jokes into their youngest’s ear, it’s an endearing sight. One that has your heart clenching and mind racing. One that lets your mind wander into the life of a family with Neteyam.

“I won't, but your ogling heart eyes won’t help hide it.” Kiri interrupted your thoughts, rolling her eyes, falling onto her side. Your eyes shift from the siblings to the na’vi girl. You bit your lip.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I’ll try to hide it better.”

A few days had passed, and in this time span, you decided to completely hide yourself from Neteyam, which was a pretty difficult job. He had gone to your house for the first two days, and you had kindly asked your parents to turn him away with the lame excuse that you were sick.

On the third day, Lo’ak comes knocking at your door.

“Lo’ak, why are you here, I told mama to not let Neteyam in.” You sighed, eyeing down the na’vi boy who now leans against the entrance to your ‘room’.

“Yeah tsmukan, not me, skxawng.” Lo’ak plops himself into your hammock, pushing against your limbs rather roughly. You scooch over and he lays next to you, throwing an arm over your waist.

“So why are you avoiding us?” He hummed, leaning to look over at you. You turn your head to avoid his gaze.

Over the course of your isolation, you pondered over your feelings. Coming to accept that you simply couldn’t live a life without Neteyam. You tried imagining a life with the other clan members but nothing felt the same. Hell, you even tried imagining Neteyam with another mate, and your mind simply couldn’t conjure up an image. You didn’t want to tell anyone. If news spread that you, a simple Omaticaya girl, had great feelings for Neteyam, the future olo’eyktan, the whole clan would laugh at you. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to lie to Lo’ak.

“I needed time to think,” You mumbled, hoping your answer would stave off his curiosity for the time being. Lo’ak only hummed, waiting for you to continue. “I needed to figure out my feelings.”

“For tsmukan right?” You audibly gasped, did Kiri tell him?

“Don’t go crazy, I figured it out on my own, it’s not like it wasn’t blaringly obvious anyway.” You groan and tuck your face away from the world. How many more people have noticed?

“You better tell him soon, or some other girl might snatch him.” Lo’ak sing-songed, placing a foot on the ground to rock the hammock from side to side.

“Fine, fine, you convinced me,” You rolled your eyes, “I just want to get it over with anyway.” Just as you said, you hoped that you can get these feelings behind you as fast as possible and return back to normal. Truthfully, the past few days were absolutely miserable without Neteyam’s presence, but you simply couldn’t bring yourself to hang out with him. It was difficult to just look over your new found feelings for your best friend and you actually felt like it was unfair to him for you to do such a thing, taking advantage of him not knowing about your feelings for him for some kind of gratitude.

Though, today was different. Today you were going to meet up with Neteyam, tell him how you feel, you’ll laugh at it for a minute or two, and resume your normal lives, nothing could go wrong.

After a few hefty minutes of searching, you finally find Neteyam in a calmer, less dense area of the forest. You make no effort to conceal your presence as you approach him. He’s turned away from you, yet his ears tell you that he’s well aware that it’s you who is nearing him.

“Ma’Neteyam,” You greet softly, reaching out your hand, you run the tips of your fingers on the side of his arm, the muscle tensing underneath your touch.

“Ma’Y/N,” He turns to you, gaze hardened, “My princess, where have you been?”

Your ears flatten against your head underneath the boy’s gaze. You knew it was wrong to basically cut contact for a few days but you had to! There was nothing else you wanted to do at that time but to get to the bottom of your feelings, and now, you know. You know that you’re so deeply in love with your best friend that it pains you to imagine him with someone else, though there is not much you could do about it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –” Before you could continue, Neteyam wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his chest, nuzzling his nose onto the top of your head. The both of you sink into the hug, muscles gradually relaxing. Although you would love to stay like this, in his arms, until the end of eternity, you still needed to come clean to Neteyam.

After a while, you pull your head away from his chest.

“Neteyam,” You called out, peering up at him through your eyelashes. “I must tell you something.”

He hums and says nothing more, opening his eyes, his soft gaze meeting yours.

“I promise you’re gonna laugh your ass off after hearing this, but here I go,” You take a breath, “I like you, Neteyam. Hell, I love you even! I spent the last few days away from you because I needed to figure it all out, I just suddenly felt. . . everything for you.” You shift your eyes away from his own towards the end of your confession. You wait a beat or two, waiting for a chuckle, a laugh, anything.

“I don’t want anything from you ma’Neteyam, I just wanted to get this off my chest and we can go back to normal.” You look back up at the boy, now nervous over his lack of reaction. He’s just looking at you. You try to decipher what he’s thinking, yet his eyes tell you nothing. His ears are flat against his head, and his tail is swinging wildly behind him, but he has yet to say a word.

“Are you serious?” He muttered. You gulped nervously.

You had prepared yourself for a scenario that Neteyam wouldn’t find any of this funny and your relationship with him would fade away as you know it, yet all the preparation in the world won’t save you from the intense heartache that you feel rising.

Before you could say anything else, Neteyam picks you up into his arms.

“Princess this is great!” He grins, spinning you around, you squeal in shock, hands tight on his wrists as he continues to spin you.

“I thought you had begun to hate me, I’m so glad you like me too Y/N, you have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to feel the same about me!” Neteyam is rambling at this point, his hands still holding onto your waist even after he sets you back on the ground.

“You like me too?” You trailed off, you could barely process what was reality at this point. Though the warmth that bubbled in your chest suggested otherwise.

“I always did Yawne.”

#neteyam x y/n #neteyam x you #neteyam sully #neteyam x reader #avatar #avatar way of water #avatar fics #loak sully #kiri sully #tukitrey #neteyam #fluff #neteyam fluff #neteyam fanfiction #neteyam fic

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odiesdayoff · 7 months

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Trust Your Instincts

pair: Jaime Reyes x fem!reader

summary: Post-graduation, your childhood friend seems to be ignoring you. Once he shows up, secrets are revealed, voluntarily or not.

warnings: SMUT (18+++ MINORS DNI); begins as like pretty dubious, but turns into both parties consenting. Really thin line here, they do have a mutual attraction and explicitly say that they want it.

im gonna be so real i saw an ad for this and started writing...lol. Haven't seen BB at the time of writing this a while ago! Characters are prob inconsistent. i just have like a severe mask kink.

honestly this is unfinished, but i know in my heart I will never get back to it no matter how many times I say it lol. Imagine what happens next teehee.

“He’s not coming?” You brought the towel from over your shoulder and continued to dry the plates as Jaime’s mother handed them to you. Lunch was over and you were excited to see your best friend, but he was awol.

She gave you a sympathetic look as she handed you another clean plate. “I’m sorry, mija. He’s been acting strange ever since he got back. I know he misses you.”

You nodded and placed the towel on the counter. There’s no way he could possibly just up and abandon you after all this time. The two of you had been best friends since the first grade and even though he went all the way to Gotham City for college and you stayed in Texas, you were still close as ever. At least you think so.

“Well, I’ve gotta go. Thank you for the lunch, you know how much I adore your cooking.” You brought her into a hug and she kissed your cheek. She was like a second mom to you. All of Jaime’s family was basically your own. It took this long for them to stop the teasing about you getting together.

It had been months since Jaime allegedly returned to Texas and yet, he hasn’t reached out to you. Not by phone or in person, no matter how much you tried to talk to him. It felt worse than any breakup you’d gone through. Usually, he was the shoulder for you to cry on.

A loud crash woke you up. It was around two in the morning. In your flannel pajama pants and a black tank top, you ran into your living room to see what happened. There was a large hole where your door should have been and laying on the floor was Jaime.

Your hand flew to your mouth and knelt down to him. His curls stuck to his forehead from sweat and his chest rapidly rose and fell. “Get away! Please, get away!” He pushed you away, yelling and borderline whimpering.

There was something wrong with him and you weren’t just going to do what he told you. “Jaime, please just tell me what’s going on. You’re not okay.” You pushed his hair from his face only to see the fear in his eyes as he looked at you.

He flipped to his back and crawled until he hit the wall, his body colliding into it. Another dent appeared. Chips of drywall fell on him. “I’m…gonna call an ambulance, okay?”

You pulled out your phone, but before you could even unlock it, it was no longer in your hand. Jaime, now fully covered in a blue suit of armor, crushed it in his hand. “Oh my god.”

He dropped the phone and shook his head. “I don’t control it. It controls me. I promise you.” His voice was slightly distorted due to the helmet he had on.

“Okay, so can’t you call, like, Batman or something?” If this were a normal situation, you know that he would’ve laughed.

He held your shoulders. “I need you to get away. Right now.”

You shook your head. “I’m not gonna leave you like this.”

A robotic voice came from the suit, saying your full name and society security number. Jaime started to shake his head frantically and tried to step away from you. The suit disagreed.

The suit trapped you against the counter. “Please stop!” Jaime yelled. His helmet popped open to reveal his face, still scared. “I’m so sor-” The suit didn’t let him finish, instead it pushed him towards you. His lips crashed into yours.

You felt guilty kissing back. It wasn't either of your volition, but the teenage version of yourself was screaming and frolicking in a field of flowers just to be kissing him.

The robotic voice returned, louder now. “It is my duty to keep you healthy. Sexual health is one of those aspects.” The suit retracted more, pulling his shirt and jeans from his body. He was left in his boxers, staring at you. It continued. “I know you have a crush on her. Don’t be a pussy.”

His eyes widened and his cheeks grew red. “Is that true?” He sheepishly nodded.

You bit your lip. “It’s true for me, too.”

#jaime reyes x reader #blue beetle x reader #blue beetle #odiesdayoff

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